Library of Gold

by Gayle Lynds

  Charles focused on her. “Does Preston strike you as an abnormis sapiens crassaque Minerva?” An unorthodox sage of rough genius.

  “He does. But then he’s also a helluo librorum.” A bookworm, a devourer of books. “Do you think we can trust him?”

  “We don’t have a choice.”

  They straightened like Roman tribunes, alert for Preston’s Renault. Horns honked. Vehicles rumbled along the boulevard. A few people strode on the sidewalk, swinging closed umbrellas under the cloudy night sky.

  For a few moments the sidewalk was empty. When a taxi stopped down the block, Robin only glanced at the red-haired woman who stepped out and leaned over to pay the driver.

  “Merda.” Charles tensed as the woman turned toward them.

  “What is it? What’s happened?”

  “That’s Eva. Take care of The Book of Spies.” He slung off the backpack and laid it at her feet. He slid out his Glock.

  “Are you insane? You already tried to kill her once and failed. Someone could see your gun.” As she spoke, she watched Eva stare at Charles. “She sees you.”

  Charles’s face was flushed. He nodded and hid the weapon again. “I’ll follow her and call Preston. Hail a taxi and take The Book of Spies to the jet.”

  As Charles finished talking, his wife turned on her heel and rushed away, toward Piccadilly Circus. He hurried after her.

  As Charles moved past other pedestrians, he put on his headset and called Preston, telling him about Eva.

  “I’ll be there in twenty-five minutes,” the security chief said. “How did she know to be at the hotel?”

  “I have no idea. Unless . . . but it doesn’t seem possible. Our scanner found a tracking bug on the cover of the book.”

  “Jesus Christ. What did you do with the bug?”

  “I flushed it. But it makes no sense that Eva would’ve planted it.”

  “Don’t lose her, dammit. Keep the line open.”

  He saw Eva had joined a crowd at the corner with Piccadilly Circus, waiting for the light to change. But before he could reach her, she crossed with them to the plaza and merged with the crowd there.

  He craned and ran. Where was she?

  17

  The noise and chaos of Piccadilly Circus reverberated inside Eva’s head as she sped onward, her cell phone dug into her ear, talking to Judd Ryder.

  “It’s Charles. He’s following me. I’m in Piccadilly Circus, heading toward the Criterion. Are you close? He’s got a gun.”

  “I’m already moving. Leave your cell on.”

  Five streets flowed into the speeding roundabout encircling the busy plaza. Gaudy neon and LED lights advertising Coca-Cola, Sanyo, and McDonald’s cast the area in manic red and yellow light. She watched for a bobby. Now that Charles was near, she wanted a policeman.

  “I’m passing Lillywhites,” she reported to Ryder. When she saw her reflected face in the glass of the sporting goods store, the strain on it, she looked away. Six of the tourists with whom she had crossed the street peeled off toward the Shaftesbury Fountain and statue. She went with them, peering around their shoulders. “Charles is still behind me. He’s wearing a phone headset, and he’s talking to someone on it.”

  “So now we know he’s got a friend. Is there anyone with him?”

  She checked. “Not that I can see. My group is climbing the steps to the fountain, and I’m going with them. I’ll move to the other side. The fountain will be good cover to block me from him.”

  “I’m at the crosswalk with Piccadilly Street. Can you circle back to meet me?”

  “He’ll spot me.”

  “Okay. Go to the Trocadero Center. I’ll be there.”

  The bronze Shaftesbury Fountain shone nickle gray in the night’s lights. A scattering of people sat on the steps. At the top, Eva rushed around to the far side and looked down on the plaza, congested and rimmed by a waist-high iron fence interrupted by the crosswalk she needed. There was no sign of Charles or a policeman. But across the teeming traffic stood the London Trocadero Center, a huge building where people thronged for food, alcohol, theater, and video games. That was where she would meet Ryder.

  She joined a young couple as they sauntered down the fountain’s steps, holding hands. At the base, they headed right, and she moved straight ahead.

  Suddenly something hard and sharp pressed into her left side. “That’s a gun you feel, Eva.” Charles’s voice. “You’re caught, old darling. It was logical you’d come this way. Sic eunt fata hominum.” Thus goes the destiny of man.

  “Bad grammar, Charles. Homina. The feminine in my case, you bastard.” As they continued along the street, she looked down and saw his trench coat pocket bulged with his hand aiming his weapon.

  In her ear, Ryder ordered, “Hide your cell. Leave it on.”

  But as she slid the cell phone inside her jacket, the gun’s muzzle jammed her side again.

  “No,” Charles snapped. “Give it to me.”

  She froze, then looked back at him, saw the frosty expression, the hard black eyes. The anger and frustration that had been building in her burst out in a torrent. “I loved you. I thought you loved me. I want to be glad you’re alive, but you’re making it really hard. What in hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Keep walking, and lower your voice. Hand over the phone. Now.” A few people were glancing at them. “If you think I won’t shoot, you’re going to find yourself dead on the pavement.”

  Her heart was pounding, and a cold sweat bathed her. She handed him the cell. “Don’t call me old darling again. I never liked that, you son of a bitch.”

  He turned off her cell and spoke triumphantly into his headset. “I’ve got her, Preston. I’ll hold her so you can take care of her. Where do you want to pick us up?”

  18

  As Charles walked beside her, the gun held against her side, Eva repressed a shiver. She tried to mute the outrage and hurt in her voice: “Why did you fake your death and disappear? I thought we were happy. But because of you I spent two years in prison—and now you want to kill me. After all those years together, don’t I mean anything to you?”

  “You meant a lot . . . once,” he said impatiently. “You’ll never understand. You were always too much in the world.”

  “And you weren’t enough in it. Is this about the Library of Gold?”

  “Of course it’s about the library. I was invited to become the chief librarian,” he said reverently. Then he announced into his headset, “It doesn’t matter, Preston. She’s not going to tell anyone now.”

  “I don’t recognize you. What have you become?”

  He waved his free hand, dismissing her. “Some things are worth any cost.”

  “The Library of Gold was more important than the friends and colleagues you left behind to grieve? More important than me?” She ached for the love she had lost.

  “You’ve got a petty mind, Eva. Thank God a few people over the centuries were bigger. They kept the library alive, and not just physically but completely in spirit.”

  She was silent, working hard to control her emotions. She needed to find out as much as she could while she looked for a way to escape.

  “Where is the library?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You must be kidding.”

  He shook his head. “You’ll never understand,” he said again.

  Charles had always enjoyed the sound of his own voice, the brilliance of his logic, the forceful power of his personality.

  “Who kept the library alive?” she asked, hoping to trigger his passion for holding forth.

  His face broke into a smile. “When Ivan the Terrible lost the last war with Poland, he gave the library secretly to King Stephen Báthory as war tribute. The next ruler passed it on to Cardinal Mazarin of France, who had a famous library of his own. Eventually it went to Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg, the Great Elector. Peter the Great had it, too, and so did George II of England. Later it was in the care of Napoléon B
onaparte, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Carnegie—all selflessly devoted to the library. That sort of commitment has never wavered through the years, and the secret of the Library of Gold’s existence has always been sacrosanct.”

  Nervously aware of his gun, Eva glanced over her shoulder, hoping to see Judd Ryder—but he had been heading toward the Trocadero, a completely different direction. To make matters worse, Charles now took her around the corner and onto Haymarket Street. Was this where the man named Preston was going to meet them—and “take care of her”?

  She looked back. Still no police. A man in a ragged gray raincoat buttoned up to his chin and a black watch cap pulled low over his forehead and ears was shambling along, head bent down.

  Charles pushed her around onto another street. Now it would be harder for Ryder to find her. Maybe impossible.

  She rallied. “So what you’re saying is you’ve finally gotten half your wish. You’re in charge of the library, but you’re still screwed, because you don’t have the other half—international acclaim for discovering it. You ached for that, but you’re never going to have it, because you can’t or won’t tell anyone where the library is.”

  Charles gave a smug smile. He reached a hand up to his headset. He hesitated, then turned it off. Preston could no longer hear what he said to her.

  “There’s a chance someone someday will figure out where it is,” he told her.

  “You do know. Why wait?” She put sincerity into her voice. “You could be famous now. Tell me. I’ll help you.”

  “ To get the job, I had to agree to stay with the library until I died. All of us are lifers.”

  “You mean captives. Tell me now. If we expose the library, you’ll be free.”

  “No, Eva. It’s not safe. You don’t know Preston. Besides, I don’t want to leave the library.” Staying close to her, he changed the subject. “Remember the old board games we used to play? The simplest ones in all countries are based on three ancient pursuits—the hunt, the race, and the battle. Their equivalents today are fox and geese, backgammon, and chess.”

  “Of course I remember. The Greeks and Romans had them, and so did the early Egyptians. Scripta and Latrunculi come to mind.”

  “Very good. You haven’t forgotten everything I taught you.”

  “You taught me a lot, but some of it I never wanted to learn, especially from someone I loved—like lying and betrayal. I still don’t understand why you let me go to prison.”

  “Because you are Diana, the relentless huntress. I had to vanish completely. Assuming you believed I died accidentally in a car crash while you were asleep at home, you still would’ve been in our little world. If there was ever a hint about me and the library, you would’ve jumped on it. That was a threat far too dangerous.”

  “You drugged me! Someone else is in your grave!”

  His face torqued with outrage, as if she were the disloyal one. “I had to work like hell to convince the director not to let you burn up in the car. Sending you to prison was my idea. I saved your life.”

  “And you think that makes what you did right? My God, Charles, you have the morality of a stick of wood. Stat fortuna domus virtute. Without virtue nothing can be truly successful. You may be the chief librarian—but you’re a failure.”

  As Charles bristled, at his side appeared an outstretched hand, palm up and open. “Can you spare a few quid, mate?”

  Eva peered around. It was the man in the ragged trench coat and watch cap. The corners of his mouth were pulled down in a permanent grimace, and he radiated self-pity. Then she caught a flicker in his gray eyes and noted his square face. Stunned, she gazed off. He was Judd Ryder.

  “Get the hell away.” Charles hurried her onward.

  Ryder was instantly back at Charles’s side, matching their pace. “Come on, be a good bloke. Help a feller out. See, me hand’s empty. Fill it with a nice coin, and I’ll be gone quick as a stink in the wind.”

  From bad grammar to imagery, she knew it would be too much for Charles.

  Furious, he turned on Ryder. “Fuck off.”

  And Eva acted. Watching Charles’s hand still in his pocket but now pointed away, she took one quick step back, kicked the inside of his knee, and slammed the side of her hand in a shuto-uchi strike into his neck. He grunted and staggered.

  Ryder’s gun appeared in his hand. “Pony up your weapon, Sherback.” He ripped the headset off Charles’s head.

  His equilibrium regained, Charles’s heavy jaw jutted with anger.

  “Do it now,” Ryder snapped. “I won’t be nice and ask again.”

  Fear in his eyes, Charles silently passed the pistol to him.

  Eva took a deep breath. “How did you find us, Ryder?”

  There was a small smile on his lips. “The ankle bracelet Tucker gave you.”

  He hustled Charles down the quiet sidewalk, and she moved to Ryder’s other side, away from Charles. Pointing both guns at him, Ryder directed him around the corner to one of the silent single-block avenues in this part of London. Lined with tall buildings, it was so narrow there was no sidewalk and no place to park. No cars cruised past.

  “Where are we going?” Charles demanded.

  “In here.”

  Ryder directed him into a dead-end alley where trash bins and cardboard boxes stood along the sides. It was deserted. The few doors were closed. The place reeked of garlic and old food. The buildings surrounding them were steep monoliths, showing only a slice of the night sky.

  “Let’s call the police,” Eva said. “I want Charles arrested so I can clear my name. I want my life back.”

  Ryder shook his head. “First we need to find out about the Library of Gold.”

  Saying nothing, his posture ramrod straight, Charles kept walking. Ryder was still between them, holding both his and Charles’s guns.

  “Charles is the head of the Library of Gold,” she tried. “From what he told me, it’s been in private hands and secret since near the end of Ivan the Terrible’s life.”

  “But where is it? Who controls it?”

  “He wouldn’t say. The police will question him. That’s their job. Then we can turn over all the information to Tucker.”

  Ryder gave a firm shake of his head. “This is CIA business.”

  “I’m going to call the bobbies.” She leaned around Ryder. “I want my cell phone, Charles.”

  Charles gave a strange smile and slid a hand toward the pocket where he had put it.

  “Stop,” Ryder ordered.

  “Better the police than you.” Charles said, but his words and gesture were a feint. Abruptly his weight shifted, and with lightning speed he threw himself at Ryder, reaching to get back his gun.

  Ryder slammed a fist into Charles’s midsection just as Charles’s hand closed on the muzzle of the weapon. As he yanked the gun, Charles’s momentum carried the pair backward. Elbows shot out from their sides, and their torsos twisted. Before Eva could move, there was a loud explosion, and the stench of cordite ballooned into the alley’s dark air.

  Charles dropped to his knees.

  “Oh, my God.” Eva covered her mouth with her hands. Bile rushed up her throat.

  Blood bubbled on Charles’s lips as he knelt motionless on the alley floor. A pool of blood on his black trench coat turned the fabric glossy.

  Charles raised his gaze to look at her. “Herodotus and Aristagoras,” he said. Then he pitched forward, landing hard, his arms straight along his sides, his cheek pressed into the pavement.

  19

  Ryder dropped to his heels beside the downed man and felt the carotid artery. No pulse. He swore. He had just lost his best chance of finding the library and answers to who was behind his father’s death.

  “I’m sorry, Ryder,” Eva said. “Is he dead?”

  He nodded. Getting to his feet, he peered at the doors lining the narrow alleyway and then down the length to where it opened onto the street. There was no sign the gunshots had attracted attention. He seized Sherback’s armpits and
dragged him behind a row of trash bins, where they would be out of sight and the dim light was adequate for what he needed to do.

  Crouching beside the slack body, he rifled through the trench coat pockets.

  Eva joined him, sitting on her heels.“What are you doing?”

  “Interrogating him.” He took Sherback’s phone. “It’s a disposable cell.” Then he found her cell phone.

  She grabbed it.

  He stared at her. “Go ahead and call the cops—if you want to end up arrested as an accessory to your husband’s murder.”

  She stiffened. Her shoulders slumped. She turned off the cell and pocketed it.

  Ryder checked Sherback’s jacket, discovering a billfold and a small leather-bound notebook. He continued to search.

  Eva opened the billfold and stood up to get better light. “He’s got a Brit driver’s license with his picture on it. The name says Christopher Heath, but that shouldn’t matter. His body can still be identified by his DNA.”

  “Maybe not right away, not if the DNA of the man who was in the car crash was identified against what was supposed to be your husband’s DNA. That’ll take the cops a long time to sort out—if they even bother to check into such a long shot. Is there anything else in there? Notes to himself?”

  She crouched again. “Nothing. No credit cards or anything. Just cash.”

  The last item Ryder found was in Sherback’s pants pocket—a Swiss Army Champion Plus pocketknife, loaded with miniature tools. He stood up, took off the old gray trench coat he was wearing, and put it in a trash bin. Then he shoved everything, including Sherback’s Glock, into his peacoat pockets. He would go through Sherback’s notebook when he had time.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” he said to Eva. “You coming?” He watched emotions play across her face. The skin was tight, and the eyes bruised. God help him, working with an amateur was tough, but he needed her. She was his last living link to Sherback and the library.