“I’m a walking dead man,” he said. “Cancer. I’m done. Best-case scenario gives me eighteen months.”

Grigor’s eyes glittered like rubies.

“Nobody knows. Not the Kings, not my mother. Not the Scriptor. Nobody.”

“Why come to me? Do you want a quicker death?”

“No … I want to live. You see, the other thing that I know about is what the scientists discovered while they were engineering the new generation of Upierczi. They cracked your DNA. They found out why you never get sick, why you lucky pricks live for so damn long. They know what makes you as close to immortal as living flesh and bone is ever going to get.”

Vox took a last step closer to Grigor, well within reach.

“I know about the treatment. I know about Upier 531,” he said fiercely. “And I fucking want it.”

“It isn’t for your kind. It would kill you.”

“It might kill me,” corrected Vox. “Or it might make me live forever.”

Grigor laughed. Low and soft. If a wolf could laugh, Vox thought, it would sound like that.

“Why should I give it to you? What could you possibly give me in return?”

“I can give you the whole fucking world, Grigor. I can make sure that no one and nothing can put you in chains again. I can guarantee it.”

“Prove it,” demanded Grigor.

He and Vox stared at each other for a long minute, their faces less than a yard apart.

Vox raised the detonator between them. He turned it over and slid back a small panel on the bottom, revealing a nine-digit touch pad. Vox showed this to Grigor and then slowly and deliberately punched in a complex code. The LED light glowing under his thumb faded to black. Hugo Vox raised his hand, palm out, offering the inert detonator to Grigor.

“All hail the King of Thorns,” he said.

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-Two

Golden Oasis Hotel

Tehran, Iran

June 15, 9:01 a.m.

Knowing that Church was working on finding the nukes was a tremendous relief. Even I don’t have a sense of all the forces he can bring to bear at need. His connections and his political clout are considerable, and he doesn’t allow red tape to slow him down. With Vox in the mix? Well, let’s just say that I pity anyone who got in his way today.

Having handed off the ball, I switched my focus to the second part of Rasouli’s message. The Book of Shadows and the Saladin Codex. I had no idea what they were and I did not believe for a moment that they were entirely tangential to the nuclear issue. Rasouli had been a little too casual about mentioning them.