by Gayle Lynds
“There’s a ladder,” he told her, nodding.
They sprinted. The beacons had illuminated a fire escape ladder down the side of a building, almost unnoticeable because its black iron blended into the black granite of the wall. It was a good ten feet above them. He leaped. Wrapping both hands around the bottom rung, he hauled himself up and did a quick inspection. There was no way to lower the ladder.
Grasping the side rail, he leaned down and extended his hand. “Jump.”
As the grille of the police car came into view, Eva ran ten feet back and then dashed toward him, propelling herself high. He grabbed her hand. Straining, he held tight to the railing and pulled. Sweat beaded his forehead as he dragged her up to the first rung.
They climbed quickly. By the time the police car rolled into the alley, they were far above, with Ryder leading the way. At the top, he crawled over a low wall. The gigantic London Eye was a silver wheel of light on the horizon. Quickly he surveyed the flat roof—utility boxes, vent hoods, and a small shed that should contain a stairwell down into the building.
Eva’s face emerged above the rooftop’s rim, looking grim. She clambered over, turned, dropped to her knees, and leaned forward, staring down. He joined her. The police car had stopped about forty feet inside the alley, almost beneath them. Flashlights in hands, two bobbies were patrolling, kicking cardboard boxes, examining trash cans.
“They’ll find Charles,” she said in a low voice. “What will they do when they see what’s written on his head?”
“God knows. But he’s got no identification, so they’re going to have a nifty time trying to figure it out.” He paused. “I have a proposition. It’s likely The Book of Spies is headed back to the Library of Gold. You know a hell of a lot more about the library and Charles, the head librarian, than we do. I’d like to stash you someplace safe in London, and then I’ll phone or e-mail when I need to consult.”
There was a steely expression on her face. “I’m not the kind of woman who gets stashed someplace. I’m going with you.”
“No way. It’s too dangerous.”
Just then there was a shout below.
They peered over the side of the building and to their right. One of the bobbies was staring down behind the garbage bins where they had left Charles’s body. His flashlight moved slowly, indicating he was taking in the full length of the corpse. The second policeman rushed to join him, his free hand pressed against the gear dangling from his belt to keep it from flopping.
As the bobbies crouched, Ryder nodded at the alley’s mouth. “We have another visitor.”
A car had stopped on the street, blocking the alley. It was a Renault. The driver got out. Dressed in jeans and an open black leather jacket, he was tall and moved gracefully as he walked toward the police.
Ryder studied him, noting the loose joints, the open hands that appeared relaxed but were far from it, the head that moved fractionally from side to side, showing he was doing a far more thorough scan of the area than most people would realize. Everything about him announced a well-trained professional in tradecraft.
Eva looked at Ryder. “Preston?”
He kept his focus on the stranger, memorizing his features. “Yeah, I think so.”
20
THE TWO bobbies turned and closed ranks, blocking the garbage bins as Preston approached. Preston said something to them, but his words were lost over the distance. After listening, the policemen relaxed a bit. One nodded and gestured.
Preston walked over and leaned low to peer at Charles Sherback’s corpse. Ryder noted a slight tensing in his shoulders.
And then it happened. In concise, swift movements, he was suddenly upright, a sound-suppressed pistol in his hand as he turned back toward the bobbies. His face showed no emotion.
Ryder yanked out his gun. Too late. Preston fired under his arm point-blank into the heart of the nearest bobby, then immediately into the heart of the second. He had shot them without completely facing them, so certain was he of their positions and his ability to kill.
Eva stiffened. Ryder put a hand on her arm.
The two policemen stood motionless, stunned into bleeding statues. When they went down, one sat cross-legged, and the other knelt on one knee. Then they toppled, the first landing on his belly, the second on his side. As blood oozed out, their limbs made jerky movements.
Preston holstered his weapon and dragged Charles’s body out from behind the bins. The scuffing noise of Charles’s heels on the pavement drifted upward. Preston hefted the body over his shoulder and loped off. Ryder noted he still showed no emotion.
“He doesn’t want anyone to see the tattoo,” Eva decided.
Ryder studied the moving killer. Charles’s body was draped over one side. Part of Preston’s torso was covered by it, but Preston’s head and legs were even more chancy targets at this distance. Soon he would pass beneath them, heading out toward the Renault. Ryder had to act quickly. The torso was his best target.
“Call 999 and describe where the alley is,” he told her. “Go over to the shed to do it. Your voice shouldn’t reach the alley from there. Don’t tell them about us.”
Without a word she grabbed Charles’s cell and ran.
Balancing himself, he aimed carefully, inhaled, exhaled, and fired twice in quick succession, targeting Preston’s right side to avoid his heart. The explosions were loud. Preston suddenly staggered.
But as Charles’s body fell to the alley floor, Preston recovered, dropped beside it, and rolled. His weapon appeared in both hands, pointing upward, looking for the shooter. The man was damn good.
Ryder aimed and fired twice again.
Preston jerked back, and then Ryder got lucky—Preston’s head thudded against the pavement. The additional blow did it. Preston froze a moment. His eyes closed. One hand released his pistol, and the other flopped to the ground.
Smiling grimly to himself, Ryder hurried to the stairwell shed.
Eva was standing near the door. “I called them. Two dead bobbies got their attention. They’re on their way. Did you kill Preston?”
“I hope not. I want him to face some intense questioning. Move away from the door.”
It was padlocked. Using the handle of his Beretta, he broke the lock and swung open the door. A dank odor blew out. Lit only by thin starlight, concrete steps descended into a black abyss. He turned on his miniature flashlight, and they walked down quickly side by side.
He kept his voice even. “Are you up to talking about Charles’s tattoo?” Although she seemed to be coping well, he had no idea how much of what had happened had affected her.
“Are you kidding? You bet I am.”
“It seems to me since Charles wanted the library to be found, he intended the tattoo to be decipherable. My guess is he told us about Aristagoras and Herodotus because he thought you’d not only figure out he’d left a tattoo but you’d understand the message. So let’s go back to the beginning. What does LAW 031308 mean?”
She said nothing. They descended two more flights. The doors were numbered, indicating they had reached the sixth floor.
Finally she decided, “I suppose LAW might have nothing to do with the law or something legal. Or the letters could be initials, an acronym. But it’s not an acronym I recognize. ‘Loyal Association of the West.’ ‘Legislative Agency for War,’ ” she free-associated. “None of that makes a darn bit of sense. The number’s too short to be a telephone number. It might not be just a string of individual numbers either, but a whole number—if one skips the zero, then it’s 31,308. Or it could have a decimal. But where does the decimal point go?”
“Okay, let’s think in terms of codes. Bar codes. Postal codes. Some kind of shipping code.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
Silently they continued downward.
“Maybe it does involve the law,” he said. “Were you ever in a lawsuit?”
“That bullet I’ve dodged.”
When they arrived at the ground floor, he cracked
open the heavy metal fire door and gazed out. He closed the door gently.
“We’ve got company,” he said. “There’s a guard behind a reception desk, and he looks disgustingly alert. I’m not in the mood to take any more chances. We’ll go to the basement.”
Again they descended.
He had an idea. “Maybe the code is something personal. You know, personal to you and Charles.”
At the bottom, the stairway door opened onto an empty parking garage lit by a scattering of overhead fluorescent lights. A hundred feet away a driveway rose toward the entrance. It was sealed at the end by a heavy garage door, but there was a side door next to it. They rushed toward it. It was locked, but this time there was no padlock for Ryder to knock open. Surveying around, he screwed the sound suppressor onto his Beretta.
“Step back,” he ordered.
She did, and he directed the muzzle downward so the bullet would go into the ground on the other side. He fired. Pop. Metal dust spewed.
Putting the weapon away, he turned the knob and peered out. They were on a busy street, but he did not know which one.
“Looks safe,” he told her.
They stepped outside into the stink of exhaust. There were plenty of people on the sidewalk, entering and leaving watering holes. A pub door opened, and loud techno music blared out. But above that was the screaming noise of more police sirens. Two, he guessed.
He glanced at her, saw the alarm in her face. “With luck, they’re on their way to the alley,” he told her. “They’ll find Preston, and the rounds in the policemen’s bodies will match his pistol.”
“Yes, but they could have a description of us from the call that brought the two bobbies to the alley in the first place. The caller might’ve seen us.”
He was worried about it, too. There had been enough unpredictable events tonight that he was taking nothing for granted.
As they walked, she continued: “I’ve been thinking about what you said, Judd—that the code could be personal to Charles and me.”
It was the first time she had called him by his first name. “Go on.”
“The numbers could be a date. Charles and I were married on March the thirteenth in 2000. So ‘03’ could be March, ‘13’ could mean the thirteenth day, and ‘08’ is 2008.”
“That was just a month before he disappeared. So what happened on your anniversary in 2008?”
Suddenly two police cars were racing down the street toward them. Their rotating blue and red lights lashed through the night like sabers.
He smoothed his features. “We need to slow down and blend in. Hold my arm.”
Instead, she slipped her hand inside his, and he felt a strange sensation so pleasant he forced it from his mind before it could turn to grief. They continued on through the lamplight—and the police cars rushed past.
Dropping her hand, he busied himself by taking out his palm mirror and checking it. “They’ve turned the corner.”
He felt her relax. When she spoke again, her voice was businesslike. “If I tell you what I’ve figured out, you’ve got to promise to take me with you. I’ll bet everything that’s happened tonight will only make the people with the Library of Gold want to get rid of me more. I want to see them captured. I want to be there.”
“You’re blackmailing me.”
She gave a wry smile. “It appears I’ve learned something from you.”
He found himself smiling, too. “All right, it’s a deal.” Then he stared at her sternly. “But if I do, you’ve got to do exactly what I say—when I say it. I’m serious about this, Eva.”
“You’re the pro. Whatever you say, as long as you’re reasonable.”
“No. This isn’t negotiable. Look at it this way—if you come along, you’ll be putting me in danger, too. There may not be time to ask questions or argue.”
She sighed. “All right. So this is what I think . . . In 2008, Charles and I celebrated our anniversary by flying to Rome. We visited an old friend of his, Yitzhak Law. He’s a professor, well-known in the field. He and Charles often talked late into the night. They had a shared passion: finding the Library of Gold. Maybe the reason Charles left the tattoo was to say Yitzhak knows where the library is.”
He inhaled deeply. “Then we go to Rome.”
PART
TWO
THE
RACE
Hannibal’s troops were closing in on Rome when one of his spies reported the city was filled with rumors its dictator, Fabius, was in his pay. With that news, the great military chief went on a rampage across the countryside, destroying and burning everything in his path—except Fabius’s properties. As soon as the news reached Rome, Fabius issued proclamations he was no traitor. But his people did not believe him, and Hannibal gained valuable time and psychological advantage.
—translated from The Book of Spies
Spying is a pursuit as old as civilization and a craft long practiced by the most skilled and treacherous of strategists.
—U.S. News & World Report
January 19, 2003
21
IN PAIN, Doug Preston jerked awake. The alley. He was still in the alley, lying on the pavement near Charles Sherback’s corpse. With effort he turned his head and saw the two policemen’s bodies. Then he looked on the other side of him, past the police car and to his Renault. The alley was still deserted.
He stared at Charles’s bald skull, gray as an old bone in the light. What in hell did the tattoo mean?
Suddenly the loud noise of police sirens penetrated his brain. That was what had awakened him. He struggled to his feet. His head throbbed. He rubbed the bump on the back of it—the size of an eagle’s egg. The right side of his chest hurt like boiling fire. He was badly bruised but not wounded, because he was wearing one of the new Kevlar tactical body-armor vests, thin and light, under his jacket and shirt, and the rounds had not penetrated.
Feeling weak, he bent over and propped his hands on his thighs, willing the pain away. At last he picked up Sherback’s corpse and maneuvered it over his shoulder and staggered toward his car. When he reached the mouth of the alley, he checked the narrow street, then opened the Renault’s rear door and heaved Charles inside.
As he got behind the steering wheel and turned on the ignition, he knew from the noise of the sirens he was within seconds of being discovered. Gunning the motor, he laid rubber, fishtailed around the corner, then cut back on his speed. He entered the traffic smoothly.
With a shaky hand he wiped sweat from his forehead and swore loudly. Who in hell had the shooter been? Probably whoever had killed Charles.
He thought about the man he had spotted peering down over the top of the building, gun in hand. But by then he was already injured, and the man had shot twice more before he could return fire. At no time had the man been more than a black silhouette. If a shooter that good was helping Eva Blake, she was going to be more difficult to catch.
Another unpleasant thought occurred to him. He had convinced the bobbies to let him see the corpse not just because he had described Charles and told them his old friend was drunk and lost, but because the bobbies had found nothing in Charles’s pockets and had no way to identify him. That meant the shooter probably had Charles’s things, including his cell phone. It would contain Robin’s and his numbers, and if the shooter were connected, he could track the numbers through the location chips embedded in their phones.
Preston grabbed his cell, rolled down the window, and tossed it into the next lane of traffic. Watching his side-view mirror, he saw the tires of a pickup truck roll over it. Satisfied, he took a new disposable cell from his glove compartment and dialed Robin Miller.
“Are you in the jet?” he asked
“Yes. We’re waiting for you and Charles.” She sounded sleepy.
“Listen carefully, and follow my directions exactly. As soon as I hang up, open up your cell and take out the battery. Under no circumstances put the battery back in. I don’t care where you are or what you think you need
it for, do not make your cell operable again. Do you understand?”
“Of course. When will you get here?” She sounded testy, insulted he had asked whether she understood. She did not like her intelligence questioned.
“Soon,” he said. “Tell me what the jet’s satellite phone number is.”
There were the sounds of the phone being removed from its plastic case. She read him the number. Then he gave her his new cell number.
“When you saw Charles last, was his head shaved?” he asked.
“No. Why would he do that?”
“I thought you’d know.”
Her voice was suspicious. “Is Charles with you?”
“Yes, but he’s dead,” he said bluntly.
He heard a loud gasp.
Before she could erupt into tears, he added, “He was shot, and probably Eva Blake was involved. The last time I talked with him, he’d caught her. I’m sending his body back with you to the library. Take out that cell phone battery. Tell the pilot to warm up the jet.” He hung up.
By telling Robin now about Charles’s death he hoped he would find her under control when he arrived. The director encouraged romances among the small Library of Gold staff, since the members were more easily managed if they had some sort of home life. It caused occasional problems when affairs erupted or couples broke apart, but even that kept the staff involved in the community.
As he laid his new cell on the seat beside him, a river of pain swept through him. His eyelids felt heavy. After the first adrenaline rush of making arrangements with Robin, his mind was turning to mush. He could go three days without sleep and still remain alert, but now he was injured, which was dumping his stamina into the toilet.
Opening the glove compartment, he grabbed a large bottle of water and a small bottle of aspirin. He poured a half-dozen tablets into his mouth and gulped water. Blinking, he turned the car west toward Heathrow and continued to drink.
At last he sighed. He was feeling stronger. As he drove, he laid the water bottle beside him and pictured the place to which he went at times when he needed to heal and find himself again. He saw the golden light, the rows of gleaming books, the polished antique tables and chairs. He could hear the soft rhythmic sounds of the air-purification system.
