by Jeff Gunhus
Where were all the books?
The docent of the tour gave her a high five and pulled a lollipop from her pocket, saying she always rewarded the first person to ask that question. Lucy glared at her as she stuck the lollipop in her mouth. The docent explained that while tens of thousands of books were on display, over 3.5 million additional items were stored away from the public, accessible on request. These were stored in the seven floors under them in a massive steel bookcase that, if laid out end-to-end, would stretch over eighty miles long. Then she walked them to a window and pointed outside. They crowded around and looked out to an enormous rectangle of open grass, lined on each side by towering trees.
Bryant Park.
“And another million books are out there, only six feet under the grass.” the docent said. “In the eighties, the area under Bryant Park was excavated and massive new bookstacks were installed. Completely climate controlled, moisture controlled, and connected to the main library through a one-hundred-twenty-foot-long tunnel with a conveyor belt system that sends a book from the stacks to any of the distribution points in the library.”
Mara remembered the sense of awe she felt on that tour, at the idea of there being so many books in the world. That awe was given an electric boost when they came to the Rose Main Reading Room, a space that had become one of Mara’s favorite places in the world. After passing through a marble archway, they faced a dark wood structure that served to divide visitors either left or right into the enormous space. The wood structure continued, bisecting the hall, creating a workspace for librarians and giving both sides of the hall a bank of stations where patrons could request books.
This room once again filled Mara with the same reverence as any church she’d been in. Perhaps even more so. She didn’t believe in a God, not the one described by man anyway, but even at the age of thirteen, she did believe in the power of knowledge and books. This space, nearly three hundred feet long with fifty-foot-high ceilings, totally unencumbered by any support pillars, was a marvel just with its size. Add to that gorgeous arched windows allowing natural light into the space, the grand, tiered chandeliers, rows of wooden work desks filled with writers and readers and poets and researchers, and Mara found it hard to breathe as she took it all in.
When she looked to her mom, she saw she was watching her, not looking at the room at all. She slid an arm around her and pointed up. The ceiling was ornately carved wood with enormous central panels painted to look like blue sky with soft billowing clouds, giving everything an ethereal feel.
As Mara stood in the Rose Reading Room as an adult, she felt the echoes of the awe felt by her thirteen-year-old self. A recent renovation had transformed the room into its former glory after years of deferred maintenance. But she couldn’t separate her feelings from the memory of her mother. A clear and pure love from that moment with her mother’s loving hand sliding around her back to hold her as they looked at the beauty in front of them. It created complicated emotions that she didn’t have time for.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” a young Secret Service agent said. “We’re about to open the room.”
Mara shook herself from her memory and nodded to the agent. She took another look around. The Reading Room had been transformed into a dining space, the long worktables covered with white linens, fine china, and silver befitting a formal state dinner at the White House. Staff scurried among the settings, pouring waters and lighting candles. She’d wanted to review the layout before everything started. It all looked in order, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was missing something.
“Just getting the lay of the land,” she said.
“Yes, of course. If you could step this way, please.”
She left the Rose Reading Room and displayed her credentials to get a look at the room where the world leaders would gather just prior to the event. She was wearing a black dress that was tighter than she would have chosen for herself, and shoes with heels that frustrated her with their damn awkwardness. She carried a small purse with her ID, but no gun. She was eyes and ears tonight. The ears part included a sophisticated earpiece connected to Jordi Pines.
“What do you think, Jordi?” she asked. The agent looked confused, so she pointed to her ear to indicate she was talking to someone else.
“I think he’s a bit young for you,” Jordi said, enjoying being able to speak without the agent hearing him.
The agent stepped closer. “I think we have things buttoned down,” he said. “Unless you think we forgot anything.” The tone was playful but with an edge to it. Clearly, he didn’t think the Secret Service needed a second look, regardless of who the person was in front of him.
“Saucy,” Jordi chirped in her ear.
“Just two minutes,” she said, turning away from him. “The room, Jordi,” she said. She assumed Jordi had tapped into every surveillance camera in the library and was watching her. “Talking about the room.”
“Your beautiful Boy Scout there is right about protection,” Jordi said. “Looks buttoned up. Would have preferred to install the same RF blockers we had set up at the UN. Just in case. But that’s just me.”
“But then I wouldn’t be able to hear your beautiful voice,” Mara said. The agent pointed to his watch and literally tapped it. Subtle. She held up a finger. One minute.
“Needn’t have worried, selected a specific band for this radio that wouldn’t have been impacted. I’m smart that way,” Jordi said. “Do you at least have one of the portable RF blockers with you?”
“No, I don’t.” She looked for a camera, found one, and walked up to it so she was looking right at Jordi. “Spit it out,” she said. “You have a bad feeling about this place?”
“I don’t know. It’s just put all these big-shot a-holes in the same place twice in one day, feels like tempting things, don’t you think?”
“Ma’am, I have to insist,” the young agent said.
Mara nodded and walked to the exit. “Everyone at Alpha watching this place?”
“The whole team is on it,” Jordi said.
She put a hand over her mouth. “Do you have eyes on Rick Hallsey?”
“Are you using government resources for you own personal benefit, Agent Roberts?”
“Only if you get off your ass and tell me where he is,” Mara replied.
As she exited the Rose Reading Room into the antechamber that once held the card catalog, she spotted the heads of state with their dates waiting for admission into the room. These were from smaller nations. While protocol suggested all states were treated equally, there was certainly a recognized pecking order. Just as at the UN building, the members of the Security Council would be the last to arrive to the room.
“Ohhh,” Jordi said. “He must really be in the doghouse with his boss.”
“Why?”
“He’s holding down the fort in the bookstacks under Bryant Park,” he said. “If there was a Siberia for this event, that’d be it. Even bathroom duty in the main building would be closer to the action. Looks like you’ve done wonders for his career.”
“Shut up. Can you patch me into his coms?”
A long pause. “You know when you’re out with a friend and that friend is going to text their deepest feelings to their boyfriend at one in the morning? The responsible thing to do is take the phone away.”
“This is different,” she said.
“This is for national security,” Jordi deadpanned.
“No, you’re right,” she said, making her way down the long, marble hallway to the staircase. “Forget it. I’ll talk to him after.”
“Trouble in paradise?” Jordi said. “Want to talk to Uncle Jordi about it?”
“Maybe another time,” she said. One of the attendees caught her eye across the room. A man in a tailored suit surrounded by a small crowd over which he was holding court.
Jordi must have used his camera angles to determine where she was looking, because he said, “Is that our new friend?”
“It is,” Mara sa
id. “I didn’t expect to see him here. I think I’ll go and say hi.”
“Can I listen in?”
“If I said no, would you still listen?”
“Probably.”
“Thought so. Come on, this might be fun.”
Mara walked across the room toward the small crowd and prepared for round two of her conversation with Marcus Ryker.
CHAPTER 59
Asset appreciated the temperature-controlled environment in the stacks. In his career, he’d had to burrow into places with horrendous conditions to lay in wait for his time to act. Caves filled with insects. Barns with rodents mistaking his fingers or cheeks for an easy meal in the middle of the night. Drainage culverts with leeches and snakes.
Compared to those missions, hiding for the past forty-eight hours in the lower level of stacks in an obscure section holding research materials on eighteenth-century public works projects had been a vacation.
Still, that long in the dark, holding as still as possible, forced the mind to wander. The magnitude of what he had been tasked to do hadn’t been lost on him. The long hours in the dark had given him time, maybe too much time, to imagine what the consequences of his actions would be.
He held no affection for the world leaders that were about to die. They were all corrupt, vile manipulators. The self-described elite who played gods with the billions of human lives on the planet. And with the planet itself.
If anything, he held more in common with the massive protest expected to fill Bryant Park thirty feet over his head. The transformation of the open lawn into a sanctioned protest site had not been in the original plan. He’d expected the park to be empty, part of the cordoned security zone that would extend two blocks in each direction around the library. But the decision to allow the protest had proven to be great politics. The American press was giving high marks to President Patterson for allowing dissent to be heard by the attendees. He imagined the park was already at capacity, protestors shoulder to shoulder to speak out against the oppressors. Little did they realize that they were about to have a front-row seat to the destruction of the world order.
Asset knew his role. There was a vast plan that extended far beyond what he’d been allowed to see. He was to execute his part of it and trust that Omega understood how to manage the chaos that was sure to follow.
And chaos was exactly what it would be.
The people gathered in the library were just that, people. No special powers. No divine rights. Just politicians who’d survived their cutthroat occupation long enough to rise to the top of the dung heap. Each of them had competitors waiting in the wings who would like nothing more than the chance to take their place.
In some countries, the transfer of power would be orderly.
In others, there would be brutal, bloody contests. The military in many places would assume control. Perhaps using the confusion to launch strikes, acquire territory, destroy their rivals.
The economic impact alone would spin the world off its axis. Markets would crumble. Shock waves through the banking system would be akin to what happened after 9/11. But then the world’s governments at least had leaders to help govern through the quagmire.
No, if the goal was to dissolve the glue holding the world together, this was a masterful place to start.
The genius of Jacobslav Scarvan.
Omega had only attached itself to his plan. Added support where needed. Obviously, the most important function was acquiring not one, but two tactical nuclear devices.
But once the plan changed to make the UN a red herring, Omega had ordered Asset to perform the final stroke of Scarvan’s plan. The old master had known that allowing his own capture was required to sell the ruse and lull the security apparatus into a false sense of confidence.
Brilliant.
The meeting with Mara Roberts and Rick Hallsey had all been orchestrated by Scarvan. By helping Alpha Team stop his attack at the UN, Scarvan had managed to make it seem like Omega wanted no part in destroying a gathering of the world’s leaders.
It was just the opposite.
But with Scarvan’s capture, supposedly with Omega’s help, the threat would appear to be diminished. Security would still be tight, there was an endless list of bad actors in the world, but the president would still attend the event.
There had never been a way to get the bomb into the General Assembly. But the Secret Service didn’t need to know that. The goal had always been to get just as far as it did before he was caught.
Scott and Mara had played along beautifully. Manipulated like puppets on strings. Strings that had been attached to Scarvan’s fingers.
The bomb was here with him.
The delivery system into the Rose Reading Room was as simple as it was perfect.
Only minutes left before it was go time.
Just then, the lights flickered on. Someone entering the stacks area.
He didn’t worry at first, his hiding spot was good enough. But then he heard a new sound. Heavy breathing. Soft scraping on the linoleum floor.
A dog.
If they came close, that was a problem.
Asset pulled his suppressed Glock from his side and readied himself. He loved dogs and would shoot the owner first to see if he needed to shoot the dog as well. He wanted to avoid it, but a well-trained dog would rip him to shreds if given the chance.
He craned his neck to get a look down the row of bookshelves.
Two men passed the opening with a German shepherd on leash. One in uniform, the other in a suit. They passed his row, but he was certain they would pass back by his direction.
Even as he readied himself, he wondered about the cosmic forces in the universe and whether coincidence or fate played a hand.
One of the men was Rick Hallsey.
CHAPTER 60
“You have nothing I want to see,” Scarvan said, looking away.
But Scott reached out and grabbed the man by the chin. He stuck his phone in front of his face. “Don’t be rude,” he said.
There was a shot of him arriving at the port on Mt. Athos. A photo that included the newspaper from that day. It was old-fashioned, but it worked as a time stamp.
Scarvan didn’t struggle. He watched the screen as Scott flipped through the images. A shot of the countryside from his trip. A photo of the sketes built up against the rock face.
“Man, this looks like a tough place to spend a few decades,” Scott said. “Can’t say I blame you for going a little soft in the head. All of this I’m an instrument of God. Where’d that even come from?”
Scarvan stared at the screen and then at Scott. The muscles in the man’s jawline twitched and bulged even as he otherwise held his composure.
“Father Spiros,” Scott said, as if just remembering. “That’s right. He took you under his wing. He found you with a few holes in your body, but the real hole was where your country used to be. When Belchik ripped that out, you were lost. Until Father Spiros gave you something new to worship, right? You were a little old to find a new father figure, weren’t you? But it must have been nice. Having someone who believed in you. Gave you a higher purpose? Someone you could trust completely. It had to devastate you when he died.”
“It was his time,” Scarvan said. “God called him home.”
“That chestnut is right up there with Everything happens for a reason.”
“It does,” Scarvan said. “You will come to believe that one day. Maybe today.”
“Still, I understand you wouldn’t start your crusade while he was still alive,” Scott said. “That must have been hard. On both of you.”
Scott flipped to the next photo. Father Spiros in bed. Scarvan pulled in a sharp breath.
He tapped the screen to start a short video of the old man, arm feebly raised in front of him. “I’m sorry, Apostoli,” he mumbled. His eyes were closed, his voice drifting. “I should not have lied to you. I’m sorry. Do what they say. Help me. Please.”
The lab techs in Alpha Team had done an
amazing job changing the old man’s words just enough to make them an appeal for help. Scott was counting on Scarvan’s emotional reaction to rattle the man. Get him to make a mistake.
The next part of the video was where Father Spiros was shot and killed. The clip ended before that happened.
Scarvan lifted his face back to the light above the table and closed his eyes.
“That has to hurt. Have someone you trust fake his death, just to get you off your ass and do what he told you to do. Ouch.”
Scarvan said nothing. Scott had hoped for a bigger reaction. “We have Father Spiros in custody,” Scott said, pushing the gambit.
“I don’t believe you,” Scarvan said, without looking down.
“Really, I can let you see him. Would you like that? Have one more conversation with your mentor? What’s that worth to you?”
Scarvan shook his head slowly. “How did you expect this to go? You offer me to see Father Spiros and I—what? Give you the names of my accomplices?” Scarvan’s voice grew louder, the emotion finally showing up. “Tell you how I was able to get a gun and a massive bomb into the United Nations building? Did you really think it would be that easy? Did you really think any of this would be easy at all?”
“Tell me who helped you and I can set up a video line to Father Spiros. You could be talking to him ten minutes from now. I know you want that.”
Scarvan’s expression changed. The emotion on display only seconds earlier was gone. Replaced by a smugness that came from knowing something no one else knew.
“Perhaps you’re not the adversary I thought you’d be,” Scarvan said. “Pity.”
Scott shifted his position in his chair. He clicked through everything that had happened in the last minute, trying to pinpoint why Scarvan’s attitude had suddenly changed. He went over the words. The man’s actions. Staring at the light. Meeting Scott eye to eye.
But just before that.
Right before the change in behavior.
Scarvan had glanced down at the table.
No, not the table. Scott’s hands.
