The Memorist

by M. J. Rose

  “No one thought to stop the guy from walking in with his instruments? That is a basic error, Vine. Who’s down there? Change whoever is in charge. Right now.” Paxton wasn’t screaming, but it might be better if he was. The low, angry words were more alarming to the people who worked for him. “How do we know that those instrument cases aren’t a part of some plot? We’re still missing a Semtex buy. Get them inspected.”

  “All the instrument cases are being inspected. And Otto is being checked out as we speak. I’m watching it on the screen. No problem. Intact and clean.”

  There was a collective sigh of relief in the war room.

  But Paxton’s concern level remained as intense as it had been minutes ago. “This orchestra’s given us problems from the beginning.”

  “But every one of them has checked out,” Vine responded. “This wasn’t serious, just stupid.”

  “At this point I don’t care which it was. Let’s go, I want to have a conversation with the illustrious conductor.” About to exit the makeshift office, Paxton stopped and looked back at Kerri. “Are you coming with us?”

  “Not yet, too much to do here. Twenty-two VIPs were added to the guest list in the last hour plus the Vice President confirmed and I have an entire team working on getting them all cards.”

  “Can you find someone else to do that?” It wasn’t really a question.

  Kerri asked her assistant to take over for a few minutes and followed her boss out of the room and down the hall.

  The concert hall spread out before them, the deep crimson seats filling the auditorium. Dozens of musicians milled around while others sat in their seats playing for the conductor, who sat on a stool, listening with his eyes shut. For several minutes the rich sound continued, multiple instruments melding into one concordance. Then the group held back as the Principal oboist hurried onto the stage and launched into his evocative solo, not stopping even as Paxton’s group approached. Sebastian Otto’s playing didn’t falter for a second and in no way did he acknowledge the new audience. But the conductor did. Leopold Twitchel pushed his thick, black-framed glasses up on his bald head and spun around with a deep scowl on his face. “This is not an open rehearsal, Mr. Paxton.”

  “I don’t care if it is or isn’t an open rehearsal. We can’t secure the building if we don’t have your cooperation. And clearly, we still don’t have it. Walking in with instrument cases…refusing to follow instructions…this isn’t working.”

  “I’ve explained to you already. These men and women are artists. There are no strangers in our midst. You don’t need to treat us as if there are.”

  “Not strangers to you, perhaps, but as far as security risks go, you’re all strangers to me. Whenever you get a body of diplomats of this magnitude together there are security measures that have to be observed, and to do that effectively we must have your help. Get your team to follow the rules. All the rules.”

  “You’re interrupting a rehearsal.” Slipping his glasses back down onto the bridge of his nose, the conductor returned his attention to his oboist. “We can start at the beginning of your solo if that’s all right with you, Herr Otto.”

  Suddenly, Paxton’s words exploded out of him, eclipsing the sound of Otto’s instrument. “If you won’t comply, we won’t fucking have a concert! That’s a call I can make, and one I’ll make if I have to.”

  The oboe’s flourish added an unexpected and coincidental punctuation to the outburst as Paxton strode out of the hall.

  Chapter 82

  The Memorist Society

  Thursday, May 1st—3:46 p.m.

  Meer was having trouble breathing. The gas was making her sleepy, dizzy and nauseated. Her father was in worse shape, his breathing even more shallow and labored. They’d been down in the catacombs for hours.

  “When you were walking toward me, when Sebastian brought you down here, I could hear your voices.” His speech was so weak.

  “Yes?”

  “You said something about this place. That Margaux knew there was an exit down here. Do you remember?”

  Meer nodded.

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “No. It was just a sense I had, like all the other goddamned half thoughts.”

  “There’s not much down here but this vault, Meer. If there’s an exit somewhere…” He started to cough, and its intensity frightened Meer.

  “Didn’t you tell me the other day that…that Margaux had seen all the plans for this building?” Jeremy asked when he could catch his breath.

  “She did. I didn’t.”

  “The last time I saw you…in New York…you told me that you’re building a suite of rooms in the Memory Dome based on Cicero’s memory game… How does it work?”

  She was confused. “Why are you asking about this now?”

  “Indulge me.” He smiled.

  “Let’s say you wanted to memorize a speech. You’d start by choosing a building that’s familiar to you…”

  “For instance, this building.”

  She nodded. “You’d walk it a few times in your mind, studying specific rooms or areas so they were very clear to you and then, breaking the speech into separate parts, you’d connect each to an object in a room. When you want to remember the speech, you walk through the building in your mind’s eye and, seeing each object, you’ll be reminded of that part of the speech.”

  “Try it,” he whispered urgently. “Picture yourself walking through the front door and into the lobby. Go slowly, look around. Do you see anything?”

  “No.”

  “All right. Keep going then. Go into the clubroom. Look around…”

  Meer kept at it, trying to virtually tour the building and connect to a memory.

  “Go into the library.”

  Her voice lifted a little in astonishment. “Yes. Caspar showed Margaux the hidden door in the plans and told her the building had twelve doors. That two were hidden doors and part of an escape route…the door in the closet was the first one…the other is down here.”

  “Where?” His voice was barely a whisper.

  Meer tried to open her eyes but the gas was making her so tired it was a huge effort. Beside her now, her father had slumped down against the wall, half lying—half sitting. Taking his hand, she was shocked at how cold it was.

  “Daddy?”

  No answer.

  “Daddy, please…”

  But he didn’t respond.

  Margaux preceded Toller into the underground tunnel beneath the Memorist Society and when she came to the vault where she assumed her husband’s treasures were kept, found the iron bars locked. Using the keys around his neck, Caspar’s keys, Toller opened the lock and then stooped to enter the crypt. Once inside he walked to the right corner, counted up eleven stones and pressed on the twelfth. With a scrape, the stone released. Toller removed it, revealing a hollow where in the shadows she could see an iron key and a metal strongbox.

  “This is all we have, Margaux,” he explained, opening the box and pointing down to a booklet of copper sheets, verdigris green with age. “This document, written in some kind of ancient Sanskrit we can’t read, supposedly lists a dozen memory tools, explaining what each one is and how it works. Other than the flute I gave to Herr Beethoven, this is all your husband and I found and all I brought back from India. Meager treasures, indeed. Beethoven has had no luck with the flute and implied that it is as inscrutable as this booklet. All in all I’m beginning to believe the entire expedition was a failure.”

  As Toller replaced the box his torchlight flickered over the key, and she asked him what it was for.

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Our back door. You never know when the government will come knocking and we’ll have to leave without them seeing us go.”

  Yes, Caspar had told her he’d required the architects to build a second exit out of the building and that there had been a natural one through the catacombs. Margaux looked in the direction that Toller had indicated and saw a keyhole partially hidden in a crev
ice between two stones on the west wall.

  The gas was so heavy it was hard for her to move, hard for her to stay awake but she had to. She forced herself to stand up, to put one foot in front of the other.

  Counting up from the floor, she found the twelfth stone, pressed on it with all of the strength she had left and felt it give. Drawing it out, she peered inside the crevice and found a metal box and an iron key.

  She was having such a hard time making her limbs move. Every second that passed, she felt more ill. Shaking from the lack of oxygen, she had trouble fitting the key into the lock on the west wall. It took three tries. Once she managed to insert it, she struggled to turn it. Nothing happened. She couldn’t make it move. Why was she making all this effort? She was so tired, all she wanted to do was sleep. Holding the key with both hands to keep it steady she tried it again, and this time heard the mechanism release and the hinges scrape as a portion of the wall opened like a door.

  Air, stale but clean air, waited for her. Gasping in huge gulps of it, she peered into the darkness. Illuminated by the cell’s ambient light she could see a twisting set of stairs heading upward. Where it led didn’t matter as much as the air mattered. She gulped twice more and felt some strength returning. Going to her father, she gripped him under his arms and struggled to drag his inert body closer to the opening. “Breathe in,” she whispered. Then louder. “Breathe in.” Then shouting, “Please, breathe in.”

  His eyes were still closed; he wasn’t responsive.

  She took a huge gulp of air into her lungs and started CPR on him.

  Nothing.

  Again.

  Nothing still.

  Once more. This time he took a breath. It was shallow and not enough but it was a start. Watching him take in the air and expel it, she tried to figure out what to do next. Perhaps if she pulled him into the tunnel there would be enough clean air for him to be all right long enough for her to take the exit and find him help on the other side.

  What should she do? Leave? Stay with him? Was the gas affecting him more than her because of his condition? Had he hurt himself when he’d fallen against the stone wall? Had he suffered another heart attack from all the stress?

  Maybe she didn’t have to leave him. Maybe if she yelled loud enough someone out there would hear her.

  “Hello?” she screamed.

  “Hello?” came the reply.

  Chapter 83

  Thursday, May 1st—4:16 p.m.

  Thank God, Meer thought. Someone had heard her, someone who would bring help—but then the single word repeated again. Hello. And again more softly. Hello. And then she knew it was only a pitiless echo.

  “Dad?” she whispered, this time not waiting for the answer. “I need to get help… I’m only leaving you for a little while…it’s the only way… I promise I’ll be back as soon as I can…”

  She didn’t realize it at first but she was using the same words her father had used when she’d had her accident in Central Park, twenty-two years ago. After the impact with the speeding cyclist sent her flying into the air, her father was there when she came to, leaning over her, telling her not to move, that he needed to get help. Meer could still remember how warm his tears were as they fell on her cheeks. “I need to get help,” he’d said. “I’m only leaving you for a little while…it’s the only way… I promise I’ll be back as soon as I can…sweetheart…I promise.”

  “I need to get help,” she said once more. Even though his eyes were closed, he nodded and the corners of his mouth almost lifted into a smile. And then he sighed, and in that one exhalation of breath she felt a vibration that engulfed her and calmed her and gave her courage.

  Stepping into the cool void that stank of dampness, mold and rot Meer started climbing. In the paltry light that filtered down from cracks in the ceiling, she slipped on the stone steps and broke through spiderwebs that brushed her face. Reaching the top she found herself in a small chamber with no discernible exit.

  The grate in the ceiling was a cruel tease. It was not only too high for her to reach, it was too high for anyone to reach. It couldn’t be the exit she’d come this far to find. Except there didn’t seem to be any other egress. What reason would the Memorists have had to protect the exit to this passageway if it didn’t lead somewhere?

  Inspecting each of the surrounding stone walls, she brushed away years of dirt and broke her nails digging in the crevices, looking for something like the keyhole down below in the Society’s vault room.

  It wasn’t until she worked her way to the third wall that her efforts proved productive. Under the filth were crude markings: circles with squares in them and squares cut on a diagonal to imply triangles. Staring at the runes, trying to make sense out of them, Meer noticed one that wasn’t a symbol drawn on the stone but an actual rusted iron ring: a handle protruding from the rock.

  The metal’s rough edges ripped at her skin and cut her flesh as she tried to turn it but it remained frozen in place. How many years had it been since anyone had used it? She tried again but her hands were bleeding so much her skin slipped on the metal and she couldn’t get a good enough grip. Taking off her jacket she wrapped it around the ring and made another effort, twisting her whole body this time, feeling something in her back protesting but ignoring it, and this time she managed to turn the handle slightly. Gripping it more tightly, she made another effort and managed to turn it a full 180 degrees. The tired hinge gave and the door opened into yet one more crypt and Meer was overwhelmed by frustration. Like the nesting Russian dolls that her father had once brought home from a trip to find a Torah, this mystery seemed to have led to nowhere but a smaller crypt.

  Narrow bands of leaded windows at eye level let in what looked like daylight. Looking around in disgust all she saw was the detritus of another catacomb: more bones and skulls, tumbled together like refuse, filling the space, leftovers of lives long past. And then she noticed a shadow on the opposite wall. Something had to be casting it. Stepping forward, she tripped and fell. Her stomach churned as she felt bones crunch beneath her.

  The shadow led her to a false wall with a staircase behind it. It was an easy climb; dry and less steep. Only a dozen steps and she reached a door that swung out…easily this time. Warm air, imbued with the scent of resin, enveloped her. Stunned, Meer looked around.

  The cathedral’s tall ceiling soared above her. Colored light streaming down from the elaborate stained glass windows fell at her feet. Hearing the murmur of voices, Meer spun around and found two priests talking quietly beside a confessional booth.

  Running toward them, the words spilled out of her in a rush. “I need help.”

  Chapter 84

  Musikverein Concert Hall

  Thursday, May 1st—4:22 p.m.

  In the operations room at the back of the concert hall Tom Paxton scanned the bank of monitors showing the hall’s strategic exits and entrances, as well as all the areas Global’s team had designated as “at risk.” Other than the false alarm, nothing had happened to suggest any suspicious activity. Four and a half hours from now, this would be over and Global would be swimming in contracts and on the upside of financial stress.

  A few feet away from him, Kerri talked on the phone and checked names on a list of the attending press corps. Clicking off one call, she made another, listened to it ring, waited till it went to voice mail and then clicked off again.

  Paxton read the look on her face and asked: “What’s wrong?”

  “The press are all checked in except for David Yalom, and he’s still not picking up his cell.”

  “I don’t care how good his answers were on Tuesday about protecting his sources. On Monday he meets with someone carrying enough Semtex to blow up an airplane and now he’s MIA? Tonight’s concert isn’t something he’d miss, unless he was following a bigger lead.”

  Kerri frowned. “Let me find out if he picked up his press pass.”

  “You also might want to call some of the other reporters and check around,” Paxton ord
ered. “When was the last time anyone saw him? He’s infiltrated too many damn terrorist cells for his own good. His entire family was blown up because of his reporting, for God’s sake. Where is Ahmed Abdul?”

  “Which is why I don’t think this is connected to us,” said Vine, who’d been listening to the exchange. “From what I’ve heard he’s still a target, and it’s likely he was followed to Vienna and is being set up.”

  “Killing his family wasn’t enough revenge?” Kerri asked.

  “And why now?” Paxton asked.

  “He went underground for a long time and has been very careful about not being seen,” Vine answered. “This is the first time he’s surfaced for any length of time.”

  “Almost as if he was using himself like a target.” There was so much sympathy in Kerri’s voice that Paxton shot her a questioning glance.

  “I want to assume it is connected. I know explosives move in and out of Eastern bloc countries on a daily basis but this buy moved into this city, this week, and showed up in the vicinity of this particular reporter, and now he’s missing. I don’t like the coincidences. We all know a journalist like Yalom makes for a great hostage. When it’s one of their own, the media go crazy. Damn it, Vine, if Yalom is really missing…” Paxton’s jaw muscles clenched. “Has there been any chatter intercepted from Interpol or any other major government agency in the last two hours?”

  “You’d be the first to know it,” Vine said.

  “Let’s make double sure. Then triple sure.”

  Activity resumed at an accelerated pace, exacerbated by the increased tension in the room. Paxton stared at the monitor showing the empty stage as if he’d find the answers they were looking for there. He had the power to shut down the concert but he had to be one hundred percent sure before he took such drastic steps. Vine was right. Explosives did move all the time. And just because Yalom was here to cover ISTA didn’t mean that was all he was doing here. He glanced at Kerri, who, sensing his eyes on her, looked over at him. Pencil poised, phone in hand she was ready for whatever request he was going to make. Paxton motioned toward the monitor. For the first time he wondered about the concert he’d been paid to protect. “You’re the music lover, you’ve heard the rehearsals? How good is this going to be?”