by James Ponti
There was a photo of three people standing in front of a massive computer. Rose was in the middle, and in this picture her hair was pink.
“Dr. Rose Brock of the Folger Library led the team that developed the Shakespeare cipher,” read the caption. “Here she is with specialists from the NSA in front of the agency’s quantum decryption computer.”
“She didn’t mention that she was the one who came up with the theory,” I said.
Margaret gave me a look. “She also didn’t mention that she did work with the NSA.”
12.
Mr. Jefferson’s Library
“I DON’T WANT IT TO be her,” Margaret said as we walked from the Folger to the Library of Congress. “I like her too much.”
“I like her too,” said Marcus. “Unfortunately that doesn’t make her innocent. Did you guys pick up on anything?”
“I don’t think she’s from the United States,” I said.
“Really? I always thought she grew up in Baltimore.”
“Not according to the vaccine scar on her shoulder,” I said. “It’s not American.”
“You’re sure about that?” he asked.
“Positive. You can tell by the raised center. They used to give a similar vaccine in the US, but the center from that one goes down.”
“The things you know,” he said.
“And according to the exhibit, she worked with code breakers from the NSA to develop the Shakespeare cipher,” said Margaret. “So that gives her a connection to the intelligence community.”
“Both of those fit with the idea of being a deep-cover spy,” he said. “Ideally, you’d come to this country as a teenager, so you could establish a long history that looks traditionally American. Then, over time, you’d develop seemingly innocent relationships with people who might have access to top-secret information.”
“What’d you learn when you guys were talking after the tour?” I asked.
“It turns out I was right about her being forced out of the library,” he answered. “She had to leave about six months after my investigation.”
“Does she blame you?” asked Margaret.
“Luckily, no. In her mind the villain of it all was Alistair Toombs.”
“The guy we’re checking out next?” said Margaret.
“Right. He was second in charge of the Rare Book Division, and the two of them butted heads all the time. They had totally different philosophies about how the department should be run.”
“In what way?” I asked.
“Alistair’s great with books but not so much with people. He’d prefer it if the collection were only accessible to a select few. But Rose thought the books were meant to be shared, so she was always looking for ways to get them into the hands of the public.”
“And when some of those books disappeared . . . ,” I said.
“He was able to convince the powers that be that his way was right, and she was out the door.”
“Sounds like a jerk,” said Margaret.
“To be fair, I don’t think ‘jerk’ is a word I’d use to describe him,” said Marcus. “He’s more . . . single-minded. He sees the collection and nothing else.”
Even though the library was across the street, we had to walk all the way around the building to reach the entrance. A large fountain with sculptures of Neptune and other mythological creatures was in the front, and as we walked up the stairway that wrapped around it, Marcus acted as our tour guide.
“This is the largest library in the world with three buildings here on Capitol Hill and a few more on a campus in Northern Virginia. Its main purpose is to provide research and information for members of Congress so they’re properly informed as they debate issues of government.”
We passed through security and entered a massive room with giant staircases, arches, and columns. The marble floors had intricate designs, and there were countless artistic details and elements like murals and mosaics. There were also statues and busts of famous leaders and literary figures.
“Here’s the main man himself,” he said as we walked past a bust of Thomas Jefferson.
“Why do you call him that?” I asked.
“Oh, I know,” Margaret said gleefully. “Because all this started as his personal book collection.”
“Very good. The original library was destroyed during the War of 1812 when the British burned Washington. Luckily, Jefferson had nearly seven thousand books of his own that he’d collected from around the world. Congress bought them and started over.”
We had to snake our way through a pair of large school groups as we followed Marcus up a staircase to the second floor. When we reached the door to room 239, he stopped and turned to us.
“This is the Rare Book Reading Room,” he said. “It’s only supposed to be used by people who are doing research, so there’s no telling how much time we’re going to get in there.”
“In other words, look around quickly and make lots of mental notes,” said Margaret.
“Exactly,” he said.
The room was pretty but not ornate. A handful of readers were sitting at long wooden tables, and a chandelier hung in the middle of the room. Two librarians worked silently behind a reference desk, and a third was organizing books on a small wooden cart. It was so quiet, my first instinct was to hold my breath to keep from making any noise.
“The room was designed to look like the one in Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence was signed,” Marcus whispered.
Alistair Toombs was the librarian sitting to our right. He wore a crisp short-sleeved white shirt with a blue-and-red-striped tie. Wire-framed glasses sat low on his nose and wispy blond hair had been combed over in a failed attempt to cover a bald spot at the top of his head. Nothing about him seemed remarkable except his right arm.
It was sunburned.
His left arm and face were pasty white, but his right arm looked like the center of a medium-rare steak. It was beyond strange.
He was meticulously sketching a diagram when Marcus cleared his throat to get his attention. He seemed perturbed as he looked up and said, “Yes?”
“Hi, Alistair,” Marcus said warmly. “Long time no see.”
The librarian studied him for a moment, but his eyes registered no recognition. “Do I know you?”
“You’re breaking my heart,” Marcus said jokingly. “I’m Marcus Rivers. I spent about a year here researching my PhD dissertation on illustrations in nineteenth-century books. We must’ve seen each other at least three or four times a week.”
“We get many researchers,” he said coolly.
“True, but I bet most of them don’t go on to work for the FBI and catch someone who’d been stealing books from the Russian Imperial Collection.”
He adjusted his glasses and looked at Marcus again. “Oh,” he said with a tart face. “That I remember.”
I noticed Marcus had blurred the facts of the story by saying he’d caught the person who’d been stealing books as opposed to only catching the one who’d been selling them. No doubt he wanted Toombs to think that case was long ago solved and closed.
“How can I help you?” asked the librarian with no hint of helpfulness in his voice.
“This is my niece Margaret and her best friend, Florian. I was just giving them a tour of the library and wanted to show them around the area where I toiled for a year of my life. I don’t suppose we can get a peek behind the scenes.”
Toombs pursed his lips for a moment and said, “This is a research library not a tourist attraction.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“No buts,” said Alistair. He went to say something else that I assumed would end with us being asked to leave, so I decided to interrupt their conversation.
“I like your idea for the new design.”
“I beg your pardon,” Toombs replied.
“Your new design for the reading room. That’s what you were sketching out, isn’t it? Changing the orientation of furniture will really open things up.”<
br />
He looked down at the diagram and then at me, uncertain how I’d made the connection.
“You know, I think we can help you,” I said, pressing forward.
“Help me with what?” he asked.
“Well, obviously you have big plans.”
“I do? And how is that obvious?”
“There are indentations in the carpet from when you moved the tables to try different configurations, like the one you’re drawing right there. Also, the chairs at five of the tables are identical, but all of the chairs around this table are different.”
I pointed to the table closest to the reference desk.
“The four chairs that are supposed to go there are lined up against a wall in the hallway,” I continued. “These are the ones you’re considering, and you want to try them out. And those fabric swatches behind your desk are probably what you want to use to cover the armchairs right where you walk in. All very nice.”
His eyes traced through my observations starting with the indentations in the rug, then the mismatched chairs, and finally the fabric swatches. When he was done, he looked back at me.
“And in what way do you think I need help?” he asked imperiously.
“Well, none of those things are possible if the library’s budget gets slashed. And according to what I read online last week, that’s exactly what’s being proposed in the congressional budget. Someone needs to convince the president to tell Congress not to do it.”
“And who’s that someone?” he asked. “You?”
“No,” I said. “Thomas Jefferson.”
He gave me a blank stare.
“You need to come up with a creative way to remind President Mays that this library is first and foremost Thomas Jefferson’s personal book collection,” I continued. “Maybe you can invite him to stop by after hours and look at the books that actually belonged to Jefferson. He’s obsessed with Jefferson.”
“Let me guess. You read that online too.”
I ignored the statement and pulled up a picture on my phone. When I found what I was looking for, I handed it to him.
“This is him with a peace medal that belonged to Jefferson. You can tell how much he loves it just by his expression.”
The picture had been taken the first time I went to the White House. The president had me use TOAST to find the medal, which had been lost for more than seventy-five years. Of course, I didn’t actually say any of this to Toombs. I just let him connect the dots himself.
At first he barely glanced at the picture. But then his eyes opened wide, and I knew I had him. “Wait a second,” he said, suddenly flustered. “Is that you with President Mays?”
I looked at the picture and said, “You know, I think that is me with the president. How about that?”
“Florian’s a close friend of the first family’s,” said Margaret, vastly overstating my relationship. “Lucy Mays even came to see him perform in our school talent show.”
“Actually, she came to see both of us,” I corrected.
“She’s really thoughtful that way,” Margaret said as if the three of us were BFFs.
Toombs was flabbergasted and didn’t know how to react. He looked at me and then at Marcus. Finally he did some mental calculations and said, “Would you like a tour of the Rare Book collection? I can take you into the stacks.”
“The stacks?” asked Margaret.
“Where we keep all the books,” he explained.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “After all, it’s a research library, not a tourist attraction.”
“Yes, yes, about that,” he said. “I clearly misspoke. It is in fact a research library, but it’s also a national treasure owned by the American people.”
Marcus gave me a nod, and Alistair Toombs tried to smile like it had all been his idea. We were going into the Rare Book collection. This is where the books had been stolen from the Russian Imperial Collection. We were finally headed to the scene of the crime.
13.
Our National DNA
ALISTAIR TOOMBS PRESSED A BUTTON under his desktop, and the door behind him clicked open. We followed him into a vestibule that had a wall of lockers on one side and the door to his office on the other.
“There are over eight hundred thousand items in this department, and most of them are one of a kind, which makes them impossible to replace,” he said as he waved his ID badge in front of a magnetic card reader to unlock the door marked RARE BOOK AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS STACKS.
He opened the door, and we entered a darkened room that extended farther than we could see. Lights above us flickered to life, revealing a seemingly endless maze of bookshelves.
“Those are new,” Marcus said, referring to the lights.
“I had them installed a couple years ago,” he said. “Now all lighting in the stacks is motion activated. If there’s no movement in an area for three and a half minutes, the lights in that zone turn off. It protects the collection from unnecessary exposure to ultraviolet rays.”
“Is the darkness what makes it colder?” Margaret asked as she crossed her arms in a shiver.
“No, that’s the climate control,” he said. “Temperature and humidity are kept at optimal preservation levels, which is seven degrees cooler than the reading room.”
“That’s got to be expensive,” said Marcus.
“It is,” said Toombs. “But I’ll do whatever it takes to protect the collection.”
The shelves were filled with books and containers that looked like cereal boxes lined up with the narrow sides out. I pointed to one and asked, “What are these?”
“We make custom boxes to provide an extra layer of protection for items that are particularly vulnerable,” he said. “Like this one.”
He scanned the shelf for a moment and pulled out a tan box with the number 158 written on the top corner. He placed it on the empty portion of the shelf and opened it like a clamshell to reveal a small brown book tattered with age.
Margaret and I shared a look of anticipation, and he pulled it out for us to see.
“This is Thomas Jefferson’s personal copy of The Federalist Papers.”
“What are The Federalist Papers?” I asked.
“Essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay in support of the Constitution.”
“Hamilton?” said Margaret. “Like the musical?”
“Exactly. In fact, Alexander Hamilton’s wife, Eliza, gave this copy to her sister Angelica, who then gave it to Jefferson. You can see the note she wrote.”
He opened the book to show us a note from Eliza to Angelica on the title page.
“That’s pretty cool,” said Margaret.
“And this is even cooler.” He turned to the inside cover, where there was a series of notations. “These were written by Jefferson himself. It’s very rare. He almost never made notations in any of his books.”
“That’s Thomas Jefferson’s actual writing?” I asked, stunned.
“Yes, it is,” he said.
“That’s exactly the kind of thing that will impress President Mays,” I said.
The three of us stared at it in awe.
“You see, these aren’t just books in here,” he said. “They’re the genetic code of who we are and where we’re from. They make up our national DNA.”
I began to understand what Marcus meant about Alistair’s single-mindedness. He may not have been friendly, but he wasn’t really a jerk. He was just completely devoted to the books in his collection. And if that made him socially awkward, it also made him a little noble.
“Marcus, which books were part of your investigation?” I asked, trying to get us to the crime scene.
“The Russian Imperial Collection,” he answered.
“That’s right over here,” said Toombs.
I was impressed by how rapidly he navigated the stacks, making quick turns as the lights above us turned on and illuminated our path. It was obvious he knew every inch of it. The books of the Russian Imperial Collecti
on filled an entire aisle of shelving on both sides. Most of them were protected in boxes like the one that held Jefferson’s copy of The Federalist Papers.
“These items all belonged to Czar Nicholas II,” he said. “There are documents from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, biographies, military histories, and works of great literature. The Romanovs, the Russian royal family, kept them at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg.”
“Then how did they end up here?” asked Margaret.
“When the Russian Revolution overthrew the Romanovs in 1917, the books were taken out of the country,” he answered. “Twenty years later they were sold to the library by a book dealer in New York.”
“Aren’t they part of Russia’s DNA?” Margaret asked. “Shouldn’t they be in a library over there?”
“That’s a great question,” he said. “They’d certainly love to get their hands on the entire collection. They’ve even told me so. I think they have a fair argument to make, but it’s not my place to decide which books should be . . .”
He stopped midsentence when something caught his eye. He looked toward the opposite corner of the stacks.
“Why are those lights on?” he wondered aloud. “No one should be over there.”
He seemed torn, unsure if he should check on it and, if so, unsure what he should do with us.
“We’ll wait right here,” Marcus volunteered.
“Thank you,” he said. He started to walk away, but then he hesitated and looked at Margaret and me.
Marcus, sensing his unease, said, “I’m a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’ll keep an eye on everything.”
“Of course,” he said as he walked away. “I’ll be right back.”
We could follow his progress through the stacks by watching the lights turn on automatically as he walked. Once he was far enough away, Margaret whispered, “He has trust issues.”
“He has reason to,” said Marcus. “All of these valuable objects are his responsibility.”
I took some quick pictures of the shelves and the aisle.
“Just don’t touch anything,” said Marcus.
“I won’t,” I replied. “I just want to get some shots of the crime scene.”
