by James Ponti
Fletcher sighed comically and said, “I wish you’d been there to tell my editor that. She was unimpressed.” He opened the folder and pulled out a small stack of typewritten pages, the corners of which were yellow with age, and started leafing through them.
“Let’s see, here’s a good one,” he said, running his finger down the page as he read. “Oh wait, no. For this to work, there needs to be a large New Year’s Eve celebration on the lawn outside the library.” He looked up from the paper. “I don’t suppose you can wait until late December?”
“No,” said Monty, “we can’t.”
This process continued through the other scenarios. For each, he’d study the paper, point out a disqualifying element, and turn the page over as he moved to the next one.
“We’d need a Russian spy.”
“Doesn’t work without a full moon.”
“The temperature has to be below freezing.”
“We’d never be able to arrange for a flock of sheep this late in the day.”
Paris turned to Sydney and mouthed, “Sheep?” All she could do was shrug.
Six ideas quickly winnowed down to one as he reached the last scenario. He looked hopeful as he scanned it, until he reached the bottom and said, “Oh dear, I’m afraid this one won’t work either.”
“Why’s that?” asked Monty, deflated.
“The break-in’s fine,” he answered, “but the escape requires rappelling on ropes from the roof of the library.”
Monty looked to Sydney and Paris, and all three of them smiled.
She turned back to Fletcher and said, “Go on.”
20. Great Tom
FOR MONTY, IT WAS AS if she was a student back in one of Fletcher’s tutorials again. She sat on the couch next to Sydney and Paris and took notes while her favorite professor explained the intricacies of a complicated process. Only instead of discussing probability and outcome, this time the subject was breaking and entering.
“This is going to be a four-step enterprise,” he said, counting steps off with his fingers as he listed them:
STEP ONE—Enter the library through the Rad Cam and the Gladstone Link
STEP TWO—Access the upper reading room via the north staircase
STEP THREE—Extract the bird books
STEP FOUR—Exit by way of rappelling from the roof
“For this to succeed, it will take a total of five of us,” he continued.
“Five?” asked Sydney, confused.
“Yes,” Fletcher answered. “You three are the burglars. I will be the diversion. And then there’s Great Tom. He’s our ringer.” He smiled and said, “Quite literally.”
Monty laughed. “I love it.”
“Love what?” asked Sydney. “Who’s Great Tom?”
“London has Big Ben; Oxford has Great Tom,” he answered. “He’s the massive bell atop the clock tower in Christ Church. Every night he rings one hundred one times to signal what was once the university’s curfew. It’s during this period that the Bodleian has a ‘vulnerability in its medieval armor,’ as Monty put it.”
He walked them through the steps of the break-in until they had it all memorized. Then they had to run two errands to, as Fletcher put it, “acquire the proper tools necessary for the burgling.”
The first stop was at the Oxford University Mountaineering Club. Fortunately, Fletcher was a long-time member and was able to borrow the equipment they’d need to rappel off the building. It was used and somewhat smelly, but more than good enough to do the trick.
Next they headed over to the library.
“What are we getting here?” asked Sydney. “A book about how to burgle?”
“She’s a cheeky one,” Fletcher said to Monty.
“Tell me about it.”
“Actually, my dear, we’re getting library cards,” Fletcher said to Sydney.
Paris gave him a curious look. “We’re getting library cards so that we can steal something from the library? Isn’t that the one thing we don’t need?”
“It seems counterintuitive, but it’s quite necessary,” said Fletcher. “What was step one?”
“Enter the library through the Rad Cam and the Gladstone Link,” Paris and Sydney repeated in well-practiced unison.
“Exactly,” said Fletcher. “And you cannot enter the Rad Cam without a reader card. So that’s what we’re going to get.”
Once they were inside the library, Paris and Sydney did what they’d been trained to do. They began creating a mental map of the building, studying the flow of people, memorizing exit points, looking for any potential trouble spots in the plan. Monty, however, didn’t need to do any of this. She’d spent so much time here that she could draw it with her eyes closed.
Fletcher led them into an office and up to a desk marked BODLEIAN LIBRARIES ADMISSIONS.
“Good afternoon,” Fletcher said to the young library aide who was working at the desk. “I am Dr. Duncan Fletcher, Fitzhugh Senior Fellow of applied mathematics, director for the Oxford Centre for Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations, and executive liaison between the university and the Alan Turing Institute. And you are…?”
The aide looked up at him, more than a little intimidated, and meekly answered, “Shawna.”
“Ah, yes, Shawna, pleased to meet you,” Fletcher replied. “We’re here today because my three associates need to get reader cards so they can access the Bodleian for research.”
Shawna went from intimidated to confused as she eyed Paris and Sydney suspiciously. “But they’re… kids.”
“Very astute, Shawna,” Fletcher replied. “Good eye on you. They are indeed young. But they’re quite accomplished, I assure you. They are assisting me on a project for the Turing Institute, and have extraordinary intellect.” He turned to Sydney and said, “Go ahead, dear, demonstrate your intellect.”
“What?” Sydney asked, totally confused.
“Say something smart.”
Sydney was on the spot and had no time to prepare, so she just blurted out the smartest-sounding thing she could think of. “To manufacture trinitrotoluene, you must first produce mononitrotoluene by nitrating toluene with a mixture of sulfuric and nitric acids. This must be renitrated to dinitrotoluene and then nitrated to trinitrotoluene by using an anhydrous mixture of nitric acid and oleum.”
The library aide looked up, stunned.
“See what I mean,” said Fletcher. “Brilliant.” He gave a side look to Monty and added, “And a wee bit scary.”
“Okay,” Shawna said as she nodded. “Let me get the paperwork.”
She walked over to a filing cabinet to get some forms, and when she was out of earshot, Paris leaned over and whispered to Sydney, “Was that an explanation of how to make a bomb?”
Sydney gave him a sly smile and answered, “Maybe.”
The three of them filled out forms and had their pictures taken, but before they could be given their library cards, they had to recite the Bodleian oath.
“Is this for real?” Sydney asked Fletcher as she looked at the paper she was handed.
“Oh yes,” he replied. “This oath dates back centuries to Thomas Bodley himself. It’s been translated into more than one hundred languages, and you can take it in whichever one you please.”
“I think I’ll just go with English,” she said.
She looked down at the paper and recited, “I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, or to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document, or other object belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the Library or kindle therein any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I promise to obey all rules of the Library.”
“And you’re good,” Shawna said as she handed Sydney a reader card.
Paris was next, and when he stepped up, he asked, “The oath has been translated into a hundred languages?”
“More than,” said Shawna.
“Is one of them Swahili?”
“Of course,” said Shawna.
“I wou
ld like to take the oath in Swahili,” Paris replied with a delighted smile. He turned to the others and explained. “It was my grandfather’s language, and he was a great lover of books. I think this would make him proud.”
“I’m certain it would,” Monty said sweetly.
After Paris took the oath in Swahili, Monty decided to make a similar gesture to her grandfather and took it in Scottish Gaelic. Once they were done and had their cards, they made the short walk back to Exeter and Fletcher’s apartment for some final preparations. There they packed the rappelling gear into three backpacks, ate a few more custard cream cookies, and Monty called Mother and gave him a rundown of the plan and told him not to expect them back until late.
They waited in the apartment until it was one hour and fifteen minutes before closing time at the library.
“All right, everyone,” Fletcher said. “From this point on, we are on the clock. Every minute matters. Right place, right time, or we’re dashed.”
“Don’t worry, Fletch,” Monty said. “Newton Isaacs’s plans always work. They’re foolproof.”
STEP ONE—ENTER THE LIBRARY THROUGH THE RAD CAM AND THE GLADSTONE LINK
The Radcliffe Camera had nothing to do with photography. The domed circular building was a stunning example of neoclassical architecture and was the iconic image of Oxford. Its name referred to the Latin word “camera,” which means “room,” and among students it was fondly called the Rad Cam, Radders, or simply the Camera.
Although it was a separate building, it was technically a reading room of the Bodleian and was closed to the general public. Ironically, this is why Fletcher wanted the team to use it as the point of entry. Once they’d scanned their reader cards and made it past the first wave of librarians, they’d already breached the library’s security. They were inside. Had they entered through the Old Bodleian building, which was open for public tours, they would’ve needed to navigate additional layers of librarians and security officers.
“Remember we are on the clock,” Monty reminded them as she led them past the computer bay toward the right rear stairwell. Paris and Sydney both had to resist the urge to stop and gawk at the library’s beautiful interior.
They took the stairs down to the Gladstone Link, an underground library that connected the Rad Cam to the Bod. It was modern looking with bright fluorescent lights and orange architectural accents that stretched along the ceiling.
Monty checked her watch and stopped. “Three minutes and twenty-seven seconds until our diversion kicks into gear. Let’s wait here.”
“Got it,” said Paris.
The Gladstone Link closed forty-five minutes before the rest of the library to allow security a chance to make a thorough sweep. It was almost that time, so the students in the area were packing up to go.
“You know, this part of the library is named after Prime Minister William Gladstone,” Monty said, reverting to her tour guide mode.
“Why’s that?” said Paris. “Was he the one that approved the money to build it?”
“No,” she said with a chuckle. “Believe it or not, he’s the one who came up with the idea for shelves with wheels so that libraries could store more books.”
Sydney laughed. “The things you know, Monty.”
“All right, everyone,” said a security guard standing at the help desk. “It’s closing time. Up and at ’em.”
Monty, Paris, and Sydney were on the move again, trying their best to blend in among the students leaving the Gladstone, although they left the opposite way from where they came and exited through a black-and-white tunnel that looked more like it belonged in a Star Wars movie than a four-hundred-year-old library. It led them to the base of the north stairway in the Old Bodleian building, where they waited until they heard a commotion.
“There’s my boy,” Monty said. “And I guarantee he’s loving every second of it.”
On the ground floor, Fletcher was playing the perfect model of the dotty, absentminded professor when something in his briefcase “accidentally” set off the alarm system at the reading room’s entrance. This drew the attention of the librarians who staffed the reader services desk right next to the stairwell, and as a result none of them noticed the three people who quickly came up the stairs and entered the nearby toilets.
This was not the first time the members of the City Spies had used a bathroom as a hiding place. Paris was in the men’s room, sitting atop the toilet tank in the rear stall with his feet pulled up on the commode so no one could see them under the door, which he’d securely locked. The ladies’ room had a supply closet that was big enough for both Monty and Sydney to hide inside. They had to wait silently for nearly an hour until it was time for step two.
STEP TWO—ACCESS THE UPPER READING ROOM VIA THE NORTH STAIRCASE
This was how Duncan Fletcher explained the flaw in the library’s state-of-the-art security system:
“Security is extremely important at the Bodleian, but so is history,” he’d said during their tutorial. “Put another way, you have to protect the treasures inside the library, but you also have to protect the actual library, because it too is a treasure. And, as Monty pointed out, it’s a treasure that was constructed hundreds of years ago when security was a much more simplistic endeavor.”
“So how did they solve it?” asked Sydney. “How did they upgrade the library without hurting it?”
“The university hired a preeminent museum and library security company to design a system tailor-made for the Bod. It’s a company out of Tokyo, and they did an amazing job. They wanted to preserve the architecture in the main reading rooms, so they focused their attention on entry points and stairwells, each of which now has a state-of-the-art motion-activated alarm system. There are lights, cameras, lasers—the whole deal. To illustrate how sensitive it is, one time a small rat got into the south stairwell and triggered every single alarm within twenty seconds.”
“Okay,” Paris said skeptically. “Considering we’re much bigger than a rat, how are we going to make it up the stairs?”
“That’s where Great Tom comes in,” said Fletcher. “Every night Great Tom tolls one hundred one times to signal what was once the university’s nine o’clock curfew. Because Tom is very loud and because the bell tower is very close to the Bod, the security firm knew that the bell would set off the alarm. So they built that into the system. Every night at nine o’clock, an algorithm inside the programming cancels the sound of the tolling.”
“Which helps us how?” asked Sydney. “If it only cancels the sound of the bell, wouldn’t it still detect us?”
Monty started to laugh as she realized the problem.
“Why don’t you explain it to them, Alexandra?”
“Because Great Tom is at Christ Church and the college has long been run by some very stubborn men.” She laughed heartily. “That’s bloody brilliant, Fletch.”
Paris and Sydney were utterly confused.
“You see, what the security company did not know—and to be honest, I can’t blame them because it’s ridiculous,” Fletcher said, “is that in 1880, when all time in the United Kingdom was standardized, the lone holdout was the swath of one hundred seventy-five acres that make up Christ Church, Oxford. The college steadfastly refused to adapt and was determined to remain on what was known as Oxford Time, five minutes and two seconds behind the rest of the country.”
“So their bell tolls five minutes later than the security system was programmed for,” Paris said, getting it.
“Exactly,” said Fletcher. “When the system was booted up, the bell set off the alarm every single night. It was maddening for the staff, and they had to make a decision. They could either pay a fortune to have the software completely rewritten and reinstalled, or…”
“They could turn it off,” said Monty.
“Which is exactly what the cost-conscious decision-makers opted for,” he said. “It turns off every night for the duration of Great Tom’s big number. And during that time, the stairwells are com
pletely blind and vulnerable. All you’ve got to do is take the stairs to the third floor and make it to the main reading room before it’s done.” Then with dramatic flair he recited a famous line of poetry: “ ‘Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.’ ”
“How do you know all this?” asked Sydney.
“Well, they try to keep it a secret,” he said. “But luckily, one of the people in this room is also on the faculty oversight committee.”
Paris smiled as he ran through the conversation in his mind. He’d been hiding in the rear stall for nearly an hour, and it was almost time to make the mad dash to the third floor. He checked his watch and saw that it was three past nine. He put his feet down on the floor and was about to unlock the latch when he heard the door open and someone walk into the bathroom.
Paris quickly pulled his feet back up and leaned over to peek through the space that separated the stall door and its frame. In one of the mirrors he saw a reflection of a custodian heading over to the urinals. Paris checked his watch. It was time.
Bong. Bong. Bong.
Great Tom started tolling, and all Paris could do was keep hiding in the stall.
Bong. Bong. Bong.
He counted each ring as the custodian finished at the urinal and headed over to the sink.
Bong. Bong. Bong.
After washing his hands, the man primped in the mirror, trying to fix the part in his hair, and it took everything Paris had not to let out a scream.
Bong. Bong. Bong.
By the time the custodian left the restroom, Great Tom had already rung sixty-eight times by Paris’s count. That left thirty-three more for him to make it up to the top level and into the upper reading room. Originally, he’d planned to go up the stairs slowly and carefully, but there would be no time for that now.
He peeked out the door into the hall to make sure the custodian was gone, and then he hit the stairs at a full sprint.
Bong. Bong. Bong.
He tried to keep track of the number in his head, but it was hard in all the rush and he was no longer sure.
Bong. Bong. Bong.
