Library of Gold

by Gayle Lynds

  Tucker slammed an arm around Chapman’s throat and yanked him back.

  A loud burst from the grenade in the anteroom shook the library. The smoke was heavy and bitter. They coughed into the sudden silence. Moans sounded from the other side of the doorway.

  Judd nodded at Domino. Crouching, weapons raised, they rolled around and stared at the bodies of a half-dozen men who lay in a tumble across the anteroom floor. Blood splattered the walls. Body parts of perhaps four men had been ripped off and tossed, lying on other men and against the elevators and in front of the stairwell.

  “Let’s go,” Judd stood upright and called back into the library. “Fast!”

  Domino was quickly at the stairs, his Walther tucked away, an M4 in his arms. Judd raced around the packed bodies and entered the stairwell as Tucker propelled Chapman into the anteroom. Behind him he heard Eva gasp. Then their quick steps were following him upward.

  “Looks to me as if we got rid of ten on the way in,” Judd said to Domino’s back. “Another six in the anteroom. That leaves about thirty-four.”

  “Right.”

  “You figured out the layout?”

  “There’s a garage on the first underground level. It’s past the kitchen, at the end of the hall. They won’t realize you’ll know about it.”

  “Safer than going through the house,” Judd agreed.

  Suddenly heavy footsteps sounded, running down toward them. Judd looked up and saw a large number one painted on the stone wall, announcing they were just below ground level. Side by side, they accelerated to the landing as two security men appeared.

  Dropping flat on the steps, Judd ripped off a grenade, pulled the pin, and heaved it. Domino fell beside him, and they covered their heads with their arms. Captured in the stairwell, the blast was deafening. Stone chips pelted down. And they jumped up, stepped through the smoke, and pushed the door open onto a high-tech kitchen. At first it appeared deserted, then Judd saw chefs and waiters cringing against a back wall.

  “Get down!” he barked and aimed the M4.

  As the men and women scrambled to the floor, Domino ran to a side door and propped it open. Through it a long corridor showed. His head swiveling, he hurried along, studying closed doors as he passed.

  Judd opened the kitchen door, listening. More security guards were running down the flight of stairs.

  “You in one piece?” Tucker demanded as he shoved Chapman past him.

  Chapman’s expression was steely, his eyes glinting with outrage. “When my men catch you, I’ll kill you myself.”

  Judd ignored him. “We’re fine,” he told Tucker. “Give me one of your grenades. Follow Domino.”

  As they moved off, Eva arrived with Yitzhak and Roberto. The pair were breathing hard and said nothing. Judd did not like the way Yitzhak looked. The professor’s round face was gray, and the sweat on his bald head was thick.

  Eva gave Judd a too-bright smile and urged Yitzhak and Roberto toward the corridor.

  Alone, Judd crouched, his M4 trained on the kitchen staff as he listened to the footsteps descending. As soon as he saw the first pair of feet, he pulled the last grenade’s pin, rolled it onto the landing, closed the door, and sprinted. The noise of the explosion followed him across the kitchen. In his mind he added up the number of the remaining guards in the stair-well—a total of two or three, he decided. That was not a large number. He would have thought the entire force would have been sent after them when they heard the initial explosions.

  Slamming shut the door to the corridor, he tore down its length toward the garage. At least thirty minutes had passed, he decided. Roberto had been right. Even if the helicopters had arrived, it would be longer. Ten minutes, maybe twenty, for the teams to fight through the remaining guards to find them. He shook off the worry they would not be able to hold out.

  He pushed through the door. And froze. Stared. Domino knelt on the floor, clutching his upper chest where a fresh bullet wound showed. His tuxedo jacket was drenched in blood, and his face was battered. Tucker was helping him up, while Eva kept her M4 aimed at Martin Chapman. At the same time Yitzhak sat cross-legged on the floor, collapsed over his stout stomach, panting, while Roberto worriedly rubbed his back. Six security men lay sprawled on the concrete floor, either dead or unconscious. That was a partial explanation of where Chapman’s extra men were.

  Instantly Judd checked the door. There was no way to lock it.

  “They were expecting us,” Domino said calmly as he pulled himself up, his M4 dangling from one hand. “Must have some tracking system I didn’t know about. Tucker arrived just in time.”

  “Good work, both of you.”

  Domino nodded. Rifle ready, Tucker ran across the vast garage space emptied of patrolling Jeeps toward the maw left open by the sliding garage door. Domino limped after him.

  Now Judd had one wounded shooter, the professor, who looked so ill he could not walk, and Chapman, who had to be guarded at all times. Inwardly he swore. Suddenly he was exhausted, and he realized the wound on his side was throbbing painfully. He grabbed a loading cart.

  “Let’s go, professor. You get to ride.” He handed his rifle to Roberto and gently picked up the older man and set him on the cart’s bed. “Climb aboard, Roberto.”

  Roberto sat beside Yitzhak. “You are good, yes?”

  The professor said nothing, simply dipped his head once. His eyes were dull with pain.

  “You first, Eva.” Judd looked at her strained face.

  “Delighted. Move, Chapman.” Then she warned, “I’ll be right behind you, and it’d be such a pleasure to shoot you.”

  “Let me go,” Chapman said, his cool gaze assessing their weakened position. “I’ll call off my men and get you out of here.”

  “My ass,” Eva retorted. “You’re alive. Don’t try for more. As Horace said, ‘Semper avarus eget.’ That means a greedy man’s always in need, you greedy bastard.”

  She hurried him off, and Judd ran past them, pushing the cart. Tucker was on one side of the big garage door, Domino on the other. Both were peering out carefully. Judd glanced over his shoulder at the door to the corridor to make certain it remained closed and Eva still controlled Chapman.

  But as he neared the garage door and felt the night air cool on his skin, he heard the shouts of men out on the hillsides. He parked the cart off to the side, against the wall. That explained the rest of Chapman’s men. More would be coming through the house after them.

  “Stay there,” he told Yitzhak and Roberto. Before they could respond, he joined Domino, who moved aside so he could take the lead. “See anything?”

  “They’re closing in,” Domino said through bruised lips. His jaw was swelling.

  Abruptly fusillades of gunfire raked through the garage’s opening, whining past and spitting into the concrete floor. Judd dropped, rolled, and came up on his elbows, sending bursts out toward the flashes of light. Instantly Domino was lying beside him, shooting, too. Dark shadows of men were moving down to join the shooters, far more than the number of Chapman’s men Judd had thought were left. Had Chapman put on more security than he realized?

  In his peripheral vision he saw Eva push Chapman to Tucker’s side of the door. Now that they had arrived, Tucker dropped to fire, too.

  As Judd squeezed off bursts, he glanced up in time to see Chapman take in the scene, his gaze calculating. Only Eva was left standing to guard him.

  “Eva!” Judd warned. “Chapman’s going to—”

  Too late. The tall man whirled and lashed out a foot, kicking away her M4. She lunged for it, and he fell on her. Fighting back, she kneed him in the groin, and they rolled, their legs and arms tangled. Judd could not get a clear shot.

  Enraged, he jumped up and ran toward her as gunfire continued to slash into the garage. Rounds crazed his back, burning.

  Suddenly he heard the door to the corridor behind them burst open. In the shelter of the wall, he turned, firing blindly, raking blasts toward it.

  “Stop, Judd!�
�� Tucker bellowed. “It’s our people!”

  A paramilitary team dressed in black with black combat gear was streaming around the door, crouching, M4s up.

  At the same time, Domino announced tiredly, “Your people are wiping out the security guards on the hills, too.”

  Judd said nothing, looking out quickly as he listened to the blistering gunfire. Fusillades no longer streamed into the garage. The gunshots came from all over the dark slopes, muzzle flashes bright and fast as the paratroopers fought the guards.

  Judd sprinted to Eva. “Get off her, you asshole!” But before Chapman could move, Judd kicked him in the head.

  The hills were quiet at last. Shadows moved as paratroopers rounded up the last of Chapman’s security men. Inside the garage, Eva waited beside Judd, his closeness comforting, as he and Tucker filled in the lieutenant in charge of the operation. At a distance, Chapman sat on the floor, hands cuffed behind him, head cocked as he tried to hear what they said. Blood matted his white hair from Judd’s blow. Refusing to speak, he was alert, his expression angry, his lips thin and tightly closed.

  A medic had examined Yitzhak and pronounced a profound case of exhaustion. Roberto and Yitzhak held hands in the cart as one of the soldiers pushed them across the floor toward the house.

  Domino took off his tuxedo jacket, and the medic ripped his shirt, gave him shots of antibiotics and painkillers, and cleaned his wound.

  “Looks as if the bullet missed your lungs, but you’ve got a broken rib, I think,” the medic decided. “I’ll bandage you until I can get you to a hospital. The painkiller should be kicking in now.”

  “Give that to me.”

  Domino grabbed packets of sterile bandages. Pushing the medic away, he stood, ripped open two, and slapped one bandage onto the entrance wound in back and the other in front.

  He looked at Judd. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Eva was about to say something, then thought better of it. She joined Domino, Judd, and Tucker as they walked across the garage. She felt their weariness and was suddenly aware of her own.

  “So you work for the Carnivore, Domino?” she asked.

  “I do occasional jobs for him. He felt I’d be appropriate for this particular task.” He had a calm, untroubled expression now.

  “Who is the Carnivore, really?”

  He chuckled and ran a finger along his red nose. “He told me you might ask. The answer is he’s a man without a face. He employs me only through e-mail.” He gazed at Judd a moment. “I owe you for killing Preston. Saved my hide.”

  “A pleasure, believe me.”

  “Nevertheless, I won’t forget.”

  They rode the elevator up one floor, to the ground level. The living room showed the effects of a gun battle. Furniture and vases were shattered, and bullet holes riddled paintings. They walked out through the double glass doors onto the marble pathway.

  Moonlight shone down, casting the grounds in a soft glow. A half-dozen corpses were laid out beside the tennis courts. Chefs and staff members were sitting on the ground, guarded by two members of the paramilitary teams. Ahead, three sleek Black Hawk helicopters were parked on and around the helipad. One’s rotors were turning. Yitzhak and Roberto were climbing on board.

  The four passed two cottages.

  “This one was your husband’s,” Domino told Eva. “In case you want to see it.”

  She stopped and gazed at the white walls, then at the carved wood door, much like the one into the Library of Gold. “Yes, you’re right. I’d like to go inside.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Judd offered.

  “We need to talk about the Carnivore and how you found out about Gloria Feit,” Tucker told Domino.

  “Of course. I’ll fill you in completely, but give me a few moments to rest. How about on the helicopter ride back?”

  Tucker gave an understanding nod. “Agreed.”

  As the pair waited outside, Judd and Eva entered the small foyer of Charles Sherback’s cottage and walked into a spacious living room. It had been searched. Books piled haphazardly on the floor, the shelves that lined the walls empty. The cushions on the sofas and easy chairs were upended, and the drawers on the writing desk left open. Eva clasped her throat.

  Judd followed her into the bedroom. The cover and sheets on the king-size bed were torn off. Clothes from the bureau and closet lay on the floor. Men’s clothes—and women’s clothes.

  Eva walked up to a framed needlepoint above the dresser. It was a quotation:

  I cannot live without books.

  —Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 1815

  “I gave that to Charles,” she said quietly, her back to Judd. “It was in his office at the Moreau Library. I’d forgotten about it.”

  Judd had seen no photos in the living room, but there were several hanging on the wall in the bedroom of Charles and Robin—working together in the library, walking on the beach, picking oranges in a grove. He watched Eva turn to gaze at them.

  “Maybe he took the Jefferson quotation to remember you,” he said kindly.

  “Or maybe he wanted it because he liked the quotation. Did I tell you I can needlepoint?”

  He put an arm around her shoulders. “I imagine there are a lot things you haven’t told me. I’d like to know all of them.”

  She smiled up at him but said nothing, full of emotions she could not name.

  He felt a moment of disappointment, then he led her to the door. They walked out into the night. Another helicopter’s rotors were turning, the motor sending waves of sound across the fresh sea air.

  “Where are Tucker and Domino?” Judd looked quickly around.

  They ran. Tucker was pushing himself up off the ground behind a bush.

  “Tucker, what happened?” she said.

  “The bastard got me while I wasn’t looking.” He grimaced and dusted off his trousers. “Obviously he didn’t want to answer my questions.”

  “There he is,” Judd said, peering far up the hill behind them.

  Domino was a solitary figure, climbing swiftly. He had peeled off his white shirt and was wearing a long-sleeve black T-shirt. With his black tuxedo trousers, he was difficult to see. Then he turned, and moonlight illuminated his face. Cradling his M4, he caught sight of them.

  “Come back, dammit!” Tucker shouted.

  Instead Domino lifted two fingers and deliberately touched his forehead in a brisk salute. Eva vaguely recalled the gesture . . . And then it was vivid: A moonlit night like this, the Thracian coast in Turkey. She and Judd were sitting inside the small plane, about to take off for Athens, and Judd had saluted back.

  The men cursed as Domino’s silhouetted form ran off lightly and vanished over the hill’s crest.

  But Eva felt a strange thrill. “My God, it was him all along. The assassin without a face. There is no Domino. That was the Carnivore.”

  EPILOGUE

  Georgetown, D.C.

  Even in the long shadows of twilight the June evening was sultry, typical for a District summer. The sidewalks and granite buildings radiated heat, while the scents of blooming flowers mixed with the stench of oily concrete as Eva Blake hurried along Wisconsin Avenue in downtown Georgetown.

  She was full of memories. It had been two months since the discovery of the Library of Gold on the Isle of Pericles, and at last she had a sense of what she wanted for her future. With her conviction for Charles’s murder scrubbed, she had collected his life insurance, leased a condo in Silver Spring, and moved to be near Washington.

  Headlines had echoed around the world with the revelation the Library of Gold had been found at last. Included in the news was the Greek government’s arrests of Martin Chapman and the other surviving members of the book club—all international businessmen—on charges of kidnapping Yitzhak Law and Roberto Cavaletti, the only charges they had a hope of making stick. The men were quickly out on bail, claiming Yitzhak and Roberto had simply been visiting. Since Yitzhak had told his Rome university he was going o
ut of town on business just before he and Roberto disappeared, there was some credence to the book club’s defense. In any case, the seven men had a world-class team of lawyers working around the clock for them, while the CIA needed to keep its role secret and was going to be of little help supporting any charges against them. At least Yitzhak and Roberto were back home and safe in their familiar routines.

  A footnote to worldwide news, but a headline-grabber in Los Angeles, was that Charles Sherback had been found on the island, dead. Full of curiosity, former friends and colleagues had called, giving Eva condolences. At the same time the media had swarmed, packing her voice mail with pleas for interviews and camping out outside her hotel. She could not go to the drugstore, pick up her dry cleaning, or eat in a café without being peppered with questions. Thankfully here in Washington she was out of the fish bowl.

  As was the way of politics in Afghanistan, Syed Ullah was no longer warlord. The Kabul government had sent its army to force him to give his region to an up-and-coming young rival, and now Ullah was running for the next parliamentary election. It appeared as if he would win, but Kabul gave no indication it was worried. Its ties to Pakistan remained tangled. The film of the two Pakistani newsmen had been confiscated, and the Islamabad government had ordered them to forget anything they saw, so the U.S. military base was safe. It was in Pakistan’s best interest to keep Afghanistan as stable as possible, at least for now.

  As she walked down the busy street, Eva watched the dusky shadows. She still felt the bone-weary exhaustion of being hunted, of the roller-coaster ride of terrifying failures and exhilarating successes. And she deeply missed her friend Peggy Doty. Several times she had talked on the phone with Peggy’s longtime beau, Zack Turner, who remained inconsolable.

  She fought back anger as she remembered Charles’s faked death, her incarceration, and the still unidentified corpse in Charles’s grave. Betrayal after betrayal. She wondered who she had been before prison and the Library of Gold operation. Clearly she had changed. It was time to find out who she was now.