Library of Gold

by Gayle Lynds

  She peered out the windows as the Metro sped past houses and apartment blocks built in modern Greece’s ubiquitous cement-box architecture. Ancient ruins occasionally showed, alight in the night. The juxtaposition of new and old was somehow reassuring, the past meeting today and making the future seem possible. She clung to her hopes for a future as she sat beside Judd, very aware of him. There was a lot about him she liked—but also something she feared.

  She looked down at his hands resting on his thighs, remembering Michelangelo’s statue of David, his great masterpiece, in Florence. Michelangelo had said when he cut into the marble it had revealed the hands of a killer. Judd’s hands looked like David’s, oversized and strong, with prominent veins. But when he had sculpted David’s face, Michelangelo had uncovered a subtle sweetness and innocence. She glanced at Judd’s weathered face, square and rugged beneath his bleached hair, the arched nose, the good jaw. There was no sweetness or innocence there, only determination.

  “How old are you, Judd?” she asked.

  His body appeared relaxed, despite his constant watchfulness. There was no way to be certain how long it would take Preston to figure out the Carnivore had not eliminated them. Preston might be chasing them now.

  “Thirty-two,” he said. “Why?”

  “So am I. I’ll bet you knew that already.”

  “It was in the dossier Tucker gave me. Is my age important?”

  “No. But I thought you might be older. You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?”

  He stared at her. “Why do you say that?”

  “In prison there were women who had a sense about them of . . . it’s hard to describe. I guess I’d call it a challenging past. You’re something like that.”

  What she did not mention was the women came from violent backgrounds, many sentenced on murder or manslaughter charges. They seemed to ache to fight, although, win or lose, the consequences for them would be serious. But she had never seen Judd start a fight or even look for one. Then with a chill she recalled his saying he wanted no more blood on his hands.

  “I was undercover in Iraq and later in Pakistan,” he explained. “Military intelligence. Of course both were ‘challenging.’ But there were good things, too. In Iraq, I was able to help rebuild several schools. The Iraqis were coming back from the brink, and education was high on their list. Dad put together shipments of books for their libraries.”

  “That doesn’t sound like military intelligence.”

  “I had some downtime. That’s what I did with it, particularly at the end.”

  She heard something else in his voice. “And before then?”

  Smiling, he said, “Do all eggheads ask so many questions?”

  “I’m an egghead?”

  “A Ph.D. qualifies you.”

  She scanned the other passengers. “Think what you know about me, including my shady past. I know almost nothing about you.”

  He chuckled. “At least I’m sure you’re not a perpetrator of vehicular manslaughter.” He stared at her expression. “Sorry. That was stupid of me.” He faced straight ahead again.

  Eva said nothing, sitting quietly.

  At last he continued: “I uncovered some intel on an ‘al-Qaeda in Iraq’ operative and finally was able to catch him and take him in for questioning. God knows how he managed to get rope, but he did. He hung himself in his cell. His brother was also al-Qaeda, and when he heard about it, he came after me. It went on for weeks. He was ruining my ability to do the rest of my job, and I wasn’t able to track him down. Then there was a shift. It seemed as if he’d lost interest. I couldn’t figure it out—until a message was passed to me he was going to punish me by liquidating my fiancée.”

  His fingers drained color as he knotted his hands. “She was MI, too. A damn good analyst. I got the intel just as she reached her usual security check. A Muslim woman stumbled and fell beside the checkpoint, and her suitcase slid under my fiancée’s Jeep. It looked like an accident, but the guards were instantly on it. The woman managed to shake free and run for it just as the suitcase exploded. It was an IED, of course. ‘She’ was wearing a burka, but one of the soldiers saw legs in jeans, and big feet in men’s combat boots.” He took a deep breath. “Four people were killed, including my fiancée. Later I got another message. In English it said, ‘Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’ The New Testament, of course. Apostle Paul. The son of a bitch was an Islamic jihadist quoting the Bible to me to justify murdering her.”

  “You haven’t told me her name,” she said gently. He cleared his throat. “Amanda. Amanda Waterman.”

  “I’m so sorry. How horrible. You felt responsible for her death.”

  “She’d still be alive. Her job wasn’t that dangerous.”

  “I’ll bet you wanted to kill him for what he did.”

  His body tensed. “I could never find him.”

  “Do you still want to kill him?”

  He looked at her sharply. “Would you blame me?”

  “When I believed there was a chance I’d been driving and had killed Charles, it took me a long time to come to terms with it.” She paused. “No one went to Iraq without knowing the risks. Both of you were very lucky to find love.” She heard the sadness in her voice and wiped it away. “A lot of people never have that.”

  He nodded, his expression granite.

  Still, she wondered whether that was the only story behind the chilling looks she had seen on his face. One of his hands moved toward hers, to hold it. She remembered how he had pulled her to him after she had almost pitched off the yacht, how he had wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, how he had kissed her hair . . . the wonderful sound of his pounding heart. His musky, wet smell. He had saved her at the risk of his own life. In that moment she had wanted nothing more than to burrow in and forget the hard times. Pretend his protectiveness was the beginning of love. But the truth was she did not know what she really thought of him, much less what she felt, or whether someone with deep heartache and a violent past could ever be stable enough for enduring love. Could she, even?

  She gave his hand a quick squeeze and released him. “Your mobile is chirping.”

  Judd took it from his pocket. “An e-mail from Tucker. Some good news—he thinks he may have found Robin Miller.” He handed the device to her. “What do you think?”

  She analyzed the photo of the woman displayed on the mobile’s screen—green eyes and thick ash-blond hair, but no bangs. The mouth was lush and round. Included were the woman’s age, height, and weight.

  “The statistics match Robin Miller,” she told him. “But if I didn’t know better, I’d still say it’s not her. On the other hand, Charles had plastic surgery when he joined the library, so she might’ve, too. If she did, then her nose could’ve been shortened and turned up at the end, and an implant inserted in her chin. The eyes, hair color, and the rest of the face are the same.”

  “With plastic surgery they’d be identical?”

  “Absolutely.” She was still thinking about his fiancée’s death. “It’s interesting about the al-Qaeda jihadist and his last message to you. A version is in the Old Testament, too. Job said, ‘They that plow iniquity and sow wickedness reap the same.’ Then, thousands of years later, Cicero wrote, ‘As you have sown, so shall you reap.’ Anyway, what strikes me is it’s also in the Koran, which came some seven centuries later, after Cicero: ‘Have you considered what you have sown?’ The jihadist must’ve been at least somewhat educated. Otherwise he would’ve fallen back on what he knew—the Koran.”

  “I thought about that, too. But I’m not going there, and God knows where he is or whether he’s even alive. Besides, you and I have a much more urgent problem—how to find Robin Miller and the Library of Gold.”

  And survive, she thought.

  48

  Eva and Judd disembarked at Platia Syntagma—Constitution Square—the center of modern Athens. A grand expanse of white marble, the plaza stretched below the parliament building, glo
wing serenely in lamplight. At the edges were elegant cafés sporting outdoor tables, where people were eating, drinking, gossiping.

  As they walked toward the taxi stand, Eva mulled whether she could stay with the mission. As she glanced around, the Athens traffic seemed unusually thick, the shadows too dark and dangerous. She was troubled, her mind in turmoil.

  They stopped as the ruins of the Parthenon temple came into view, towering majestically above the high Acropolis. The glowing white columns and pediments could be seen from all over the city, from between buildings and at the crosswalks of streets.

  “The Parthenon is really something,” Judd decided. “And before you ask—no, I’ve never been to Athens. This is my first time.”

  She forced a smile.

  They took a taxi into the Exarchia district near the Athens Polytechnic, a quirkily bohemian neighborhood she had visited before meeting Charles. At the bottom of Stournari Street they got out and climbed into the Platia Exarchia, the nerve center of the area, where Athenians satisfied their love of political debate, and intellectuals came to spout their latest theories. Serious nightlife started in Athens after midnight. Through windows she could see the bars were bustling.

  “Let’s get some food,” Judd said.

  They went into a taverna named Pan’s Revenge. A musician strummed a mandolin-like bouzouki and sang a Greek sea song of yearning for a far-off love. Stopping at the bar, Eva translated as Judd chose a bottle of Katogi Averoff estate red, 1999, 90 percent cabernet, 10 percent merlot. She ordered the house speciality—moussaka and zucchini stuffed with wild rice—to go.

  Purchases in hand, they walked around the corner. She felt Judd’s tension as he continued to watch for tails, and her own tension as she tried to decide what to do.

  “You’re being awfully quiet,” he said.

  “I know. Just thinking.”

  Soon she saw the small hotel she remembered—pink stone with white stone moldings and enameled white shutters—where she had stayed years before.

  “Hotel Hecate,” Judd read. “A Greek god or goddess?”

  “The goddess of magic.”

  “Maybe it’s a good omen.” He stared at her a moment, seeming to try to read her mind. “Are you going to be all right?”

  Quite a few people were entering and leaving the various establishments. The door to a bar opened, and waves of laughter rolled out. She saw no sign of threat.

  “Sure,” she said. “I’ll just hang out while you register.”

  “Don’t run out on me.”

  Her brows rose in surprise. Had he guessed she had been considering it? Before she could respond, he hurried into the hotel.

  Walking along the block, she studied the other pedestrians as she tried to sort through her thoughts. She had made a lot of mistakes, and now she feared staying with the operation was another. What kind of man was Judd really, to do such violent work? Could he turn off the violence? Would he ever use it against her?

  At the corner she paced back toward the hotel. She felt responsible for putting Yitzhak and Roberto in danger and for being the cause of Peggy’s murder. But once she had discovered Charles was alive and had left a message for her, she had blindly followed the trail to know more about what he might actually have felt for her. As she was thinking about that, an old man and woman passed, holding hands, talking to each other as if no one else in the world mattered. She felt a stab of heartache.

  Judd appeared in the driveway beside the hotel. He scrutinized the area, then gave a casual nod.

  “Everything okay?” he asked when she joined him.

  Her gaze went to a black shadow that ran along the drive, suddenly aware that in the dark it was hard to tell the difference between a dog and a wolf. She sighed. “Thanks for everything, Judd. I’ll translate Charles’s message for you tonight, but then I’m going to fly out tomorrow for home.”

  He did not try to change her mind. “I’m glad you’ve hung in as long as you have. You’ve been a great help, Eva.”

  They went in the hotel’s rear entrance and climbed the stairs. The room was larger than the one in Istanbul and again had two beds. This time it overlooked the next-door hotel and the driveway far below. In the distance, the Parthenon shone.

  As Judd bolted the door, she set their meal on a table beside the radiator and shrugged off her shoulder satchel to get the scytale and leather ribbon.

  Watching expectantly, he dropped the duffel bag onto the bed nearest the door and removed his Beretta and the S&W 9 mm pistol and suppressor he had picked up from Preston.

  She unlatched the snap that closed the side pocket of the satchel and reached inside. Instantly her hand felt an awful wetness. She pulled out the scytale and strip.

  “Oh, no,” she breathed. “No.”

  “What?”

  “The ink’s run.” She held up the long piece of leather, soggy, the letters bleeding into one another. “It must’ve happened in the yacht, when we got drenched.”

  “Is the message readable?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  She grabbed a box of tissues from the bureau and sat on the other bed, holding the strip beneath the bright light of the lamp. As she dried it, he sat across from her, leaning forward with his forearms on his thighs, watching tensely.

  “The letters are a blur,” she reported. “I may be able to get something, though.”

  Remembering how Andy Yakimovich had done it, she carefully wrapped the strip around the scytale, pressing and pushing it gently into place, watching to make certain the blurred letters fit in lines. She worked a long time in the silent room. Finally she grasped the scytale’s ends, holding the leather in place with her thumbs.

  “A few words make sense,” she said. “I can partly read where it says the secret is hidden in Spies, but I can’t read the following sentence.” She caught her breath at the next words, the signature at the end: “Te amo, Eva, 3-8-08.”

  “What is it?” Judd leaned forward.

  She translated: “‘I love you, Eva.’ ”

  He saw where she was looking. “It’s dated the month before Charles disappeared. That answers one of your questions. A critical one, I imagine.”

  She hesitated as she felt an onslaught of emotions. “I always thought of Charles as my strength, my anchor. When I’d have doubts or get sidetracked, he’d bring me back to center. Now I think that’s what he believed to be love. But the truth is it wasn’t concern or interest in me. He just couldn’t stand that I wasn’t as focused, as compulsive as he was.” She looked at him. “We still don’t know where the library’s location is written in The Book of Spies.”

  There was a long silence of deep disappointment.

  Judd sat up straight.“I’ll just have to find it in Spies myself.”

  But the book was enormous. Trying to uncover the message without a clue or expert help could be impossible. And there was an even larger problem—he did not even know where the book was.

  “Don’t worry, Eva. You should still go home tomorrow.” His gaze was steady. “I really meant it when I said you’d done a good job. In fact, you were invaluable. Without you I likely wouldn’t have been successful in Rome or Istanbul.”

  His mobile rang, and he snatched it up.

  She checked her watch. It was past four A.M.

  “Yes, Tucker.” His jaw clenched as he listened. He told Tucker about the Carnivore’s attempt to wipe them and his change of mind, then about their discovery the leather strip was damaged. “We’re at the Hotel Hecate. I understand. Be careful.”

  Eva watched as he punched the Off button.

  When he turned to her, his expression was grim. “Cathy Doyle—that’s Tucker’s boss—has died in a car accident, and the man who took her place appears to be the leak. Another hired gun just tried to erase Tucker.”

  “Oh, God. How’s Tucker?”

  “Angry. Worried. The usual. In other words, he’s fine. He’s at the Baltimore airport. He’s flying here to help.”

&nbs
p; “He didn’t have any new information about Spies or the Library of Gold?”

  “No, but he’s given NSA my mobile number, so if one of the numbers on Charles’s cell is activated, both he and I will get the news. There’s more. Preston hired the guy to take out Tucker after we left him hogtied in the Grand Bazaar.”

  “So Preston is back in action, just as the Carnivore said he’d be. Did Tucker know anything about the Carnivore?”

  “He said the Carnivore was one of the underworld’s dirty secrets. Too useful to too many sides to kill, and anyway too elusive to find. Apparently back in the cold war, Langley occasionally did business with him. Tucker said he’d heard the Carnivore had ironclad rules, but he’d never had any reason to hunt him.”

  “Doesn’t it seem to you Cathy Doyle’s death was more than an accident?”

  “Yes. The assholes.”

  She watched as he slapped his thighs, stood up, and paced the room.

  “Why don’t you ask me to stay?” she said. “You can use my expertise.”

  He turned, his muscular face severe. “People either love this work, or they put up with it because they have a sense of mission, of commitment to something larger, something for the common good. In religion it’s called faith. In a nation it’s patriotism. The risk of death is worth it to them. I can’t ask you to stay. You could die.”

  “Do you love the work?”

  “Never have. As soon as this is over, I really am going back to being a civilian. I figure I’ve contributed enough. It’s someone else’s turn.”

  “Will you be able to live peacefully?”

  “If you’re asking whether I have flashbacks or I’m a prime candidate to take a sniper rifle up into some tower and wipe anyone who’s in sight, the answer is no. Most of us aren’t affected that way. We don’t even get into fistfights in bars. We’re just normal people who’ve been doing a tough job and have some bad memories.”