Library of Gold

by Gayle Lynds

  “I like it, too.” But Judd had hardly touched his. He turned to Tucker. “What’s the situation in Washington?”

  Tucker put down his fork. “I talked to Gloria before I took off from Baltimore. The fellow who tried to wipe me is in Catapult’s basement. She managed to get him downstairs without anyone’s seeing. She’s the only one who knows what’s going on.”

  “Thank God for Gloria,” Judd said. “Eva, let’s talk about Charles, about what he told you in London. Maybe he gave you another clue to where the Library of Gold is, but you just didn’t recognize it at the time.”

  She repeated their conversation, and the two men listened closely. At last they sat back.

  Tucker shook his head. “Nothing.”

  Continuing to analyze, they finished dinner. Afterward, Eva sat on her bed, again going through The Book of Spies. NSA called Judd and gave him a list of four islands in the Ionian, Aegean, and Mediterranean seas that met or were close to Robin’s description. But which of the four?

  As they were puzzling over the list, Judd’s mobile rang. They watched as he snapped it up.

  “Hello, Bash. What’s happened?” Judd’s square face grew grim as he listened to the Catapult man in Rome. Then: “Stay on it. Let me know as soon as you learn anything.”

  Tucker and Eva were silent. It was obvious the news was bad.

  When he ended the connection, Judd told them, “Yitzhak and Roberto are missing. Bash called every morning in case they needed anything, but they didn’t answer today. He went over to their flat. It’d been torn apart, searched. At least there wasn’t any blood. He talked to the neighbors. One saw Yitzhak and Roberto walking away with two men who fit the description of two of the janitors who were outside Yitzhak’s house when the Charboniers attacked us. Then Bash checked with the university where Yitzhak is a professor. The department secretary told him he had phoned yesterday for her to find a teaching replacement because he was going out of town. She had a package for him from the Vatican Library, so she sent it with a student. Yitzhak met him outside a trattoria. That’s the last time anyone from the university saw him.”

  “No,” Eva said.

  “Jesus.” Tucker sat back in his chair. “The Library of Gold people have them.”

  59

  The evening was just beginning. It was only ten o’clock, but Alexander’s was already packed with patrons. The leather bar stools were filled, and people stood behind, drinking. Voted by Forbes magazine the best hotel bar in the world, Alexander’s boasted marble-topped tables, beach-umbrella palms, and an eighteenth-century tapestry of victorious Alexander the Great, hanging across the wall behind the long bar. Of course the clientele was the best in the city and from abroad. The aroma of rich liquors and designer perfumes scented the air.

  Martin Chapman was drinking Loch Dhu, the only black whiskey with a mellow charcoal aftertaste. He savored the rich flavor, felt the heat. After dinner in Churchill’s with his wife and Keith and Cecilia Dunbar—investors in shopping malls Chapman & Associates was building in Moscow—the four had moved to a central spot in the bar where they could be seen. Chapman estimated some $30 billion was sitting around their table alone.

  “Ah, no,” Keith was saying. “The Grand Caymans are perhaps fine for the untutored. But I far prefer Liechtenstein for my money.”

  “What about Britain’s Channel Islands?” Shelly asked with a glance at Chapman, showing him she knew a thing or two herself.

  But as Keith launched into an explanation, Chapman’s cell phone vibrated. He looked at the screen and saw Preston was calling. Excusing himself, he wound off through the crowd, feeling Shelly’s dark look on his back.

  “Yes?” he answered, hoping for good news.

  “I’m outside the hotel, sir. I’ll be waiting.”

  The connection went dead. Chapman’s lungs tightened, and he marched through the lobby. The massive front doors opened, and he hurried out and down the steps. The dark night air enveloped him. Preston was across the street, in the plaza.

  “How bad is it?” Chapman asked as he joined him.

  Preston showed no signs of a fight—his clothes neat, his hair combed, his face and hands clean—but he radiated disgust as he stood between pools of lamplight. They walked off together.

  “It’s not an entire disaster,” Preston said. “I terminated Robin Miller with the Rauwolfia spray. I thought you’d enjoy that.”

  The drug was a derivative of Rauwolfia serpentina, developed at Bucknell Technologies under Jonathan Ryder. It depressed the central nervous system and killed in seconds. Vanishing from the body in minutes, it was named for Leonhard Rauwolf, a sixteenth-century German botanist whose notes Jonathan had discovered in one of the Library of Gold’s illuminated manuscripts on trees, plants, and herbs. Preston was right. It was appropriate one of Jonathan’s creations had been the instrument of a successful step in a business deal he had tried to stop.

  “The problem is we didn’t get The Book of Spies.” Preston’s lips thinned as he described what had happened. “I managed to wound Judd Ryder.”

  “How did you identify Eva Blake?” Chapman asked.

  “At first I didn’t. Then when the Metro stopped, she passed me at the exit, and I thought I recognized her walk from when I studied her in L.A. I watched from the window as she went outside. She took a duffel bag big enough to hold The Book of Spies from the kid who’d been sitting next to her, and then a man met her—he was the right size and age to be Ryder.” He filled in more details.

  Chapman’s mind worked furiously. “In Istanbul you found out from Yakimovich that the old librarian wrote the library’s location in the book. As long as the book’s in circulation, we could have serious trouble. And God knows whether there are other clues out there somewhere. We can’t take the chance Ryder, Blake, or someone else will find the library. Phone Carolyn Magura to get ready. How long will it take to move the library?”

  Ten years ago the book club had decided that electronic monitoring and international communications were advancing so rapidly that discovery of the island could become a problem. It was time to find a backup home. A remote area in the Swiss Alps on a glacier-fed lake north of Gimmelwald had been perfect. The place had been ready for years, managed by a skeleton crew.

  “Yes, sir. I’ll get everything ready,” Preston said. “Figure a day and a half.”

  “Tomorrow night’s banquet will be our last on the island. A fitting end to a good long run. Plan to move out the next morning.” For a moment nostalgia swept through him. Then worry returned. “What about the Carnivore. Have you found him?”

  “Mr. Lindström’s computer chief hasn’t been able to track him.”

  “Christ. Has your man in Washington eliminated Tucker Andersen yet?”

  Preston paused. “Both have vanished. We’re looking for them.”

  Chapman controlled his temper. “You do that. I’m going to move against Catapult. We can’t afford to let the situation in Washington get any worse than it is.”

  60

  Washington, D.C.

  It had been a long day at Catapult, and Gloria Feit was clearing her desk to leave. The usual office chatter sounded from the corridors. As she folded her reading glasses, she noticed a soft sound as the door behind her opened. She turned.

  “I need to see you, Gloria.” Hudson Canon’s bulldog face vanished back inside his office.

  With a quiver of uneasiness, she walked after him.

  “Close the door and sit down.” He was already settled behind his desk, his big hands splayed on top.

  She thought for a moment about the man in the basement who had tried to erase Tucker, but she had taken the spare keys to the door from the lockbox and they were safely in her purse. There was no way Canon or anyone else knew the man was down there. He would not talk, but he was eating like an elephant.

  She settled herself into one of the chairs facing the desk, crossed her legs casually, and put a pleasant smile on her face.

  “What c
an I do for you, boss?”

  “Where’s Tucker?” The question was abrupt, the tone full of authority.

  She gave a little frown. “He hasn’t returned. That’s all I know.”

  “When he called in, what did he say?”

  That took her aback. How did Canon know Tucker had phoned from the grocery store to have her pick up his attacker, and later from the Baltimore airport? Then she realized he could have checked Catapult’s automated phone logs.

  “He asked whether I wanted a sandwich from Capitol City market,” she lied. “I told him no. He called a second time, but I don’t know from where. He asked if there were any important messages for him. There weren’t. That was the last I heard. Are you worried something’s happened to him? I don’t think you need to be. He would’ve told me if he was in trouble and needed backup.”

  He leaned forward. “What’s he up to?”

  “I haven’t a clue.”

  “Is it more of this nonsense about the Library of Gold?”

  “Well,” she said carefully, “it is the operation he’s focused on. But it’s not the only one he’s managing, of course.”

  “That operation is over. You and I both know that that’s what he’s working on. He’s disobeying a direct order.”

  The force of his intensity shook her. “I haven’t heard anything about any of that.”

  “So Tucker didn’t tell you he had a deadline. Now you’re informed. It’s your duty to help find him. The Senate sub -committee on intelligence is investigating waste in the CIA. They’re meeting tomorrow. I had to tell Matt about Tucker. It’s minor in some ways, but it’s the sort of thing they’re looking into. It won’t be good for Tucker. He needs to report in.”

  Matt Kelley, head of the Clandestine Service, was an old friend of Tucker’s. It seemed impossible he would report or reprimand Tucker for something so small.

  “It’s less than minor,” Gloria insisted. “My God, if we held our breath over every incident like this with one of our officers, we’d all die of asphyxiation. We have to rely on their being self-starters, entrepreneurial.”

  Canon shook his big head. “One of the senators knows about it. She sits on the subcommittee. She’s got a bone between her teeth, and she’s not letting go. She wants Tucker.”

  “How did she hear?” she asked, shocked.

  “God knows,” he snapped back. “But that’s the situation. We don’t want Tucker to be burned. Where is he? What’s he doing?”

  She was silent, remembering her long history with the spymaster. She had always trusted him, and he had always trusted her. And all the evidence pointed to Hudson Canon’s being dirty. Still, he did not sound dirty.

  She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Hudson. If I knew where Tucker was, I’d say so.”

  He stared. “You’d damn well better tell me if you hear anything. Go home and think. Think hard. We’ve got to find Tucker.”

  Hudson Canon stood in front of the mirror in his office, adjusting his tie. His face seemed pale. He slapped both cheeks. When the color returned, he cracked open his door. Gloria was gone. Good. He marched down the corridor, stopping in offices, asking whether anyone had had contact with Tucker or knew where he was. All claimed ignorance. Finally he went into Tucker’s office and closed the door. He searched the desk and the file cabinets. In the bottom drawer, he found a bottle of whiskey. He opened it and drank deeply. At least he had uncovered something useful.

  Wiping his mouth, he went down the corridor again, repeating his questions and again getting nothing. Then he stepped inside the communications center and stopped at every desk until he reached Debi Watson.

  “Where’s Tucker?” he asked her.

  She peered up, her large eyes wide. “I don’t know, suh.”

  “When’s the last time you talked with him?”

  “Yesterday. It was just the usual instructions.”

  He fought impatience. “What were they?”

  “To track a cell phone number. I turned it over to NSA.”

  “Call NSA.”

  Quickly she picked up her phone and dialed.

  “I’ll take that.” He snapped the phone from her hands. “This is Hudson Canon. Tell me exactly what you’ve been doing for Tucker Andersen.”

  “Just a minute. Let me get into that file.” The man on the other end of the line paused. “All right, here it is. We traced a cell phone number for him. It was last turned on in the Acropolis Metro station in Athens. I reported the information to Judd Ryder. Then I got a call to locate an island for them. I found four.”

  An island? That was something Canon knew nothing about. Still, he felt a moment of relief. At least he had something to tell Reinhardt Gruen: Judd Ryder was in Athens and had received information directly from NSA. “You obviously have Tucker Andersen’s and Judd Ryder’s mobile numbers. I need to know exactly where both are.”

  “I’ll have to get back to you. I’ve got to go through NRO, you know, and if Ryder and Andersen are using secure mobiles, it’ll take some time.”

  Canon gave him his number. “As soon as you get the information, call me immediately. And I mean immediately.”

  61

  Athens, Greece

  Dazzling morning sunlight illuminated the quiet hotel room. As Judd slept, Eva lay back down on her bed, dressed again in her jeans and green shirt. Tense, she threw her arms above her head and stared out the window as a redtail hawk circled lazily against the blue sky. She’d had a restless night, awaking and drowsing, then awaking again, haunted by a sense she already knew where in The Book of Spies the librarian had likely written the Library of Gold’s location—if she could just figure it out.

  “How long have you been awake?”

  She turned her head. Judd was staring at her, gray eyes sleepy, bleached hair messy. She studied him for any signs of fever.

  “Not sure. An hour maybe. How are feeling?” She handed him aspirin, painkillers, and a glass of water.

  “Much better. You’ve been thinking.” He propped himself up on an elbow and took the medication.

  “Yes. About where in Spies the librarian would’ve left a message. I’ve been going over everything Charles told me again and again, and what I remembered from his notebook. I know I’m close to the answer.”

  He was silent. “Too bad Charles didn’t leave a different clue.”

  She frowned. “Say that again.”

  “Too bad Charles didn’t leave a—”

  “Different clue. That’s it.” She sat up excitedly. “I was looking for what we hadn’t used before. Big mistake.” She hurried to the big Book of Spies, which lay closed on the table.

  “What are you talking about?” In his T-shirt and shorts, Judd pulled up a chair and sat beside her.

  “The reason we shaved Charles’s head was the story about Histiaeus and the slave messenger. So maybe it wasn’t a clue just to check Charles’s scalp; maybe it’s where we’re supposed to look inside Spies, too. I know I saw the story here somewhere.”

  She turned pages quickly. Finally, in the middle of the big book, she found the tale on a single page as ornate as the others, decorated with Persian and Greek soldiers along the outside margin. Black Cyrillic letters filled the rest of the space, the text block recounting the ancient narrative.

  “I don’t see anything unusual.” Judd stared.

  “Me neither. I’m going to translate the story quickly to myself.” As she read, it was soon clear the recounting was much as Herodotus had chronicled it centuries before. Finished, she sat back.

  “Nothing?”

  She shook her head, then picked up the book. “I need light.”

  They sat on the side of her bed, where sunlight streamed through the window. Holding the book open on her lap, she leaned close. In her life as a curator she had learned an old adage was true—the devil was in the details. Now that she had an overview, she studied the spaces between the letters and words and the brushstrokes. When nothing struck her, she moved on to the painti
ngs of soldiers.

  She sat up straight. “I think I’ve found it. Look at these, Judd.” She pointed to tiny letters beneath some of the colors.

  He leaned close. “They’re almost invisible.”

  “They’re meant not to be noticed. They stand for the Latin words the artist who painted them was instructed to use to fill in the line drawings. This v means viridis, or green. So the robe on the slave is painted various shades of green. The r is for ruber, or red—the apples on that tree behind him. And of course the sky is a, azure, for blue.”

  He frowned, puzzled. “Then what do lat and long and the numbers with each mean?”

  She grinned. “That’s the same question I asked myself. In the first place, I’ve never known anything like three or four letters strung together to indicate a color on a manuscript page. In the second place, neither is a Latin word.”

  He grinned back. “Since we’re looking for the location of the island, I’m guessing they’re abbreviations. Add in the fact there are numbers—latitude and longitude.”

  “As Archimedes said, eureka!”

  He grabbed his mobile and activated it. “This is where being online gets really useful. Read what you have to me, and we’ll see whether we’re right.”

  He lowered the mobile so she could watch the screen. As he tapped the keyboard, Google’s world map appeared, shifted, then shifted again, shrinking to the south Aegean Sea.

  His forehead knitted. “Nothing. No island. No atoll. Not even a pile of rocks.”

  She felt a chill. “Try again.” She gave him the digits, one at a time.

  He entered each carefully. Again the map zeroed in on empty sea. Her shoulders slumped. He tried other public domain maps. The only sound in the room was the clicking of the keyboard. But each map showed the same disheartening results.