Library of Gold (12 page)

“So Eva sounded upset to you, too?” he prodded.

Her hands were folded in her lap, pale against her midnight blue coat. “She says her dead husband’s alive. That she actually saw him. Can you believe it? I’m hoping she’ll have recovered her brain by the time we get there.”

“I’m sure she will,” he said, and they drove on in silence.

At last he parked, tugged the brim of his cap low over his eyes, and walked with her into the hotel, carrying her suitcase. As she registered, he noted she was right-handed.

“Has Ms. Blake checked in?” she asked.

“Not yet, miss.”

Her face crumpled. They took the elevator up to her room. It was full of fussy chintz and the hideous line drawings of horses standing around on hills one saw in tourist hotels in London.

She peered at the emptiness. “She should’ve been here by now, Gary.”

He laid her suitcase on the valet stand. “Would she have stopped someplace first?”

“I’ll call her.” She tapped a number into her cell and listened, her expression growing grim. Finally she said, “Eva, this is Peggy. Where are you? Phone as soon as you get my message.” She hung up.

“Was she with anyone when you talked before? They might’ve gone someplace together.”

“All I heard was a noisy background.” She sighed heavily. “I hope she’s okay.”

The time had come. Fortunately because of what he had learned from her, he now had a way to liquidate Eva Blake.

“Peggy, I just want you to know you’re a nice woman.”

She looked at him, a surprised expression on her face. “Thanks.”

“And this is just what I do.” Swiftly he leaned down and removed the untraceable two-shot pistol from his ankle holster.

Staring at the gun, she took a step back. “What are you—?”

He advanced and grabbed her shoulders. She was light. “I’ll make it fast.”

“No!” She struggled, her fists pounding his coat.

He pressed the gun up under her chin and fired. Skull and brain matter exploded. He held her a moment, then let her fall to the floor, limp in her big coat.

Pulling on latex gloves, he cleaned his black jacket with the special tissues he always carried. As he wiped the gun, he listened at the door. There was no sound in the corridor. He ran back to her, pressed both her hands around the gun’s grip and muzzle, and then put the grip into her right hand and squeezed her fingers around it.

Snatching up her cell phone, he debated with himself, then finally decided the police investigators would be suspicious if the phone were missing. He memorized Blake’s cell phone number, turned off Peggy’s cell, and left it in her coat pocket. Then he wiped off the handle of her suitcase, used the wipes to take the suitcase to her, pressed one hand and then the other around the handle, and laid the suitcase back on the valet stand.

Outdoors, the night seemed warm and inviting. Striding down the busy street, Preston dialed out on his cell to his men in London. “Eva Blake is due to arrive shortly at this address.” He relayed the hotel’s information and room number. “Terminate her.”

The temperature in the room at the Méridien hotel seemed to have dropped ten degrees. As soon as Preston left, Charles had taken out his Glock and laid it on the coffee table next to
The Book of Spies
. He watched as Robin methodically packed their things. He was chilled, and his hands ached from knotting them. It seemed as if the world were shattering around him.

“You’re not angry with me, are you, Charles?” she asked finally.

“Of course not. You were right—Preston will find Eva and take care of the problem. You’ve forgotten to scan the manuscript.”

“I guess I’m a bit rattled.”

She unzipped the suitcase and found the key-chain–size detector. It had a telescopic antenna that sniffed out hidden wireless cameras, audio devices, and tracking bugs. As soon as she turned it on, a red light flashed in warning.

Charles swore and sat up.

Brows knitting, she moved across the room, looking for the origin. As she approached
The Book of Spies,
the light flashed faster.

“Oh, no.” Robin’s face was tense.

She moved the detector over the cover of the illuminated manuscript until the light held steady. It pointed to one of the emeralds rimming the book’s gold binding.

She read the digital screen. “It says there’s a tracking bug in this emerald.” Stricken, she peered at Charles.

“Maybe the museum or the Rosenwald Collection planted it as a security measure,” he said. “No, that’s insane. They’d never violate something as precious as
The Book of Spies
. It had to be someone else—but why?”

“What do we do? How can we tear off one of the jewels? We’ll destroy the integrity of the book. It’s sacrilege.”

They stared down at the manuscript.

At last Charles decided, “The integrity has already been destroyed because that ‘emerald’ can’t be real.” He took out his pocketknife and pried off the fake jewel, leaving a gaping hole in the perfect frame of green gems.

She groaned. “It looks awful.”

Sickened, he nodded, then jumped up and ran into the bathroom. He flushed the bug down the toilet.

15

Judd Ryder was puzzled. He walked west down the wide boulevard in front of the Méridien hotel and crossed Piccadilly Place, then Swallow Street, studying traffic. According to his electronic reader,
The Book of Spies
was in the middle of the boulevard, still moving, but more quickly than the vehicles. How could that be? He checked the altitude—and swore.

The bug was below ground. Sewer lines ran beneath the boulevard. Whoever had
The Book of Spies
had flushed the bug Tucker had planted on it.

He turned on his heel. It was possible the book was still in the hotel. As he hurried back, he took out his Secure Mobile Environment Portable Electronic Device—an SME-PED handheld computer. With it he could send classified e-mail, access classified networks, and make top-secret phone calls. Created under guidelines from the National Security Agency, it appeared ordinary, like a BlackBerry; and while either on or off secure mode, could be operated like any smart phone with Internet access.

Keeping it in secure mode, he speed-dialed Tucker Andersen’s direct line at Catapult headquarters.

“I’ve been waiting to hear from you, Judd,” Tucker said. “What have you learned?”

He crossed Piccadilly Street to where he could watch the hotel’s entrance. He settled back into the shadows. “I’ve got a shocker for you. Charles Sherback didn’t die in that car crash. He’s still very much alive.” He described what had happened in the museum, following Eva Blake from the police station, and witnessing Sherback’s attempt to run her down. “The bottom line is planting
The Book of Spies
worked—we got a bite. But what it means that Sherback is alive I sure as hell don’t know yet. There’s another big wrinkle—
The Book of Spies
has been stolen, and the thieves dumped the bug.”

Tucker’s voice rose. “You don’t know where the book is?”

“It may be in the Méridien hotel. The bug was there until a few minutes ago. Sherback was taking photos or making a video of the book in the museum, and the way things are going, it seems likely to me he and the book are together or he knows where it is. According to Blake, he’s had cosmetic surgery. As soon as I hang up, I’ll e-mail you the video I made at the Rosenwald show. I’ve keyed it on him. See if his new face is in any of our data banks. And find out who’s buried in his grave in L.A. That could lead us to whoever helped him disappear.”

“I’ll make both priorities.”

“You also need to know I had to tell Blake I’m working for you and the connection to Dad and the Library of Gold.”

There was a pause. “I understand. What do you think of her?”

“She seems as functional as you or me. She’s smart and tough.”

“She’s also beautiful and athletic. And vulnerable. Just your type. Don’t like her too much, Judd.”

Ryder said nothing. Tucker had researched him more than he realized.

When Ryder continued, his voice was brusque. “Blake is going to a hotel for the night. Whether I do anything more with her depends on what I find out next.”

“With luck you can send her home,” Tucker decided. “She did a good job, but I don’t like employing amateurs.”

Ryder wanted to see her again, but Tucker was right. It would be better for her if he did not. He had a lousy track record for keeping those he cared about alive. As he thought about it, he checked the other bug his reader was tracking—it was moving, too, but not toward Chelsea. It was headed north . . . toward him?

16

Dressed in their black trench coats, Robin and Charles took the elevator down to the hotel’s garage. From there they walked up a driveway and out into a shadowy cobblestone alley. Pulling their big roll-aboard suitcase, Robin glanced at Charles, who was looking handsome and intense. He wore the backpack in which
The Book of Spies
was secured, his hands gripping the pack’s straps possessively.

They emerged onto the boulevard, away from the vast hotel and its bright lights. Side by side they continued on, at last stopping where Preston had told them to wait.

“I’d hoped Preston would be here by now.” Charles stared at the traffic. “Maybe it’s taken him longer to find Peggy than he thought.”

“Are you all right?”

He took her hand and kissed it. “I’m fine. How are you?”

“Oddly, I’m fine, too.” And she meant it.

A sense of inevitability had settled inside her. It was not simply that Preston had taken on the job of getting rid of Eva, or that she had high hopes Preston would not tell the director, but that some old resource—courage, perhaps, touched with foolhardiness—had risen to return her confidence. Whatever happened, she would figure out a way to handle it.

Charles focused on her. “Does Preston strike you as an
abnormis sapiens crassaque Minerva
?” An unorthodox sage of rough genius.

“He does. But then he’s also a
helluo librorum
.” A bookworm, a devourer of books. “Do you think we can trust him?”

“We don’t have a choice.”

They straightened like Roman tribunes, alert for Preston’s Renault. Horns honked. Vehicles rumbled along the boulevard. A few people strode on the sidewalk, swinging closed umbrellas under the cloudy night sky.

For a few moments the sidewalk was empty. When a taxi stopped down the block, Robin only glanced at the red-haired woman who stepped out and leaned over to pay the driver.

“Merda
.” Charles tensed as the woman turned toward them.

“What is it? What’s happened?”

“That’s Eva. Take care of
The Book of Spies
.” He slung off the backpack and laid it at her feet. He slid out his Glock.

“Are you insane? You already tried to kill her once and failed. Someone could see your gun.” As she spoke, she watched Eva stare at Charles. “She sees you.”

Charles’s face was flushed. He nodded and hid the weapon again. “I’ll follow her and call Preston. Hail a taxi and take
The Book of Spies
to the jet.”

As Charles finished talking, his wife turned on her heel and rushed away, toward Piccadilly Circus. He hurried after her.

As Charles moved past other pedestrians, he put on his headset and called Preston, telling him about Eva.

“I’ll be there in twenty-five minutes,” the security chief said. “How did she know to be at the hotel?”

“I have no idea. Unless . . . but it doesn’t seem possible. Our scanner found a tracking bug on the cover of the book.”

“Jesus Christ. What did you do with the bug?”

“I flushed it. But it makes no sense that Eva would’ve planted it.”

“Don’t lose her, dammit. Keep the line open.”

He saw Eva had joined a crowd at the corner with Piccadilly Circus, waiting for the light to change. But before he could reach her, she crossed with them to the plaza and merged with the crowd there.

He craned and ran. Where was she?

17

The noise and chaos of Piccadilly Circus reverberated inside Eva’s head as she sped onward, her cell phone dug into her ear, talking to Judd Ryder.

“It’s Charles. He’s following me. I’m in Piccadilly Circus, heading toward the Criterion. Are you close? He’s got a gun.”

“I’m already moving. Leave your cell on.”

Five streets flowed into the speeding roundabout encircling the busy plaza. Gaudy neon and LED lights advertising Coca-Cola, Sanyo, and McDonald’s cast the area in manic red and yellow light. She watched for a bobby. Now that Charles was near, she wanted a policeman.

“I’m passing Lillywhites,” she reported to Ryder. When she saw her reflected face in the glass of the sporting goods store, the strain on it, she looked away. Six of the tourists with whom she had crossed the street peeled off toward the Shaftesbury Fountain and statue. She went with them, peering around their shoulders. “Charles is still behind me. He’s wearing a phone headset, and he’s talking to someone on it.”

“So now we know he’s got a friend. Is there anyone with him?”

She checked. “Not that I can see. My group is climbing the steps to the fountain, and I’m going with them. I’ll move to the other side. The fountain will be good cover to block me from him.”

“I’m at the crosswalk with Piccadilly Street. Can you circle back to meet me?”

“He’ll spot me.”

“Okay. Go to the Trocadero Center. I’ll be there.”

The bronze Shaftesbury Fountain shone nickle gray in the night’s lights. A scattering of people sat on the steps. At the top, Eva rushed around to the far side and looked down on the plaza, congested and rimmed by a waist-high iron fence interrupted by the crosswalk she needed. There was no sign of Charles or a policeman. But across the teeming traffic stood the London Trocadero Center, a huge building where people thronged for food, alcohol, theater, and video games. That was where she would meet Ryder.

She joined a young couple as they sauntered down the fountain’s steps, holding hands. At the base, they headed right, and she moved straight ahead.