Library of Gold (48 page)

“An accurate assessment of our condition,” Yitzhak said from where he sat close beside Roberto. “Still, it’s not the end of the world.”

“Yet.” Roberto sighed.

Yitzhak put heartiness into his voice. “For a man who worries about leaving our time zone, look how well you’re doing, Roberto.”

“I am heroic.” He gave a small smile and shook his head. Still, there had been a flash in his eyes that told Eva he had not given up completely.

“We’ll figure it out, Roberto,” she encouraged. “Do you think we need to go over the list one more time, Yitzhak?” On it were sixteen illuminated manuscripts, twice the number they would need to name. If the circumstances were different, they would have marveled at the many lost books, but their existence only added to their frustration, and the large number to their fears.

“I think not.” Yitzhak looked up, his bald head pasty in the overbright fluorescent light. “Together we know nearly half, and we’ll just have to make educated guesses about the rest.”

“I wish they would take me to the library with you,” Roberto said. “But it is obvious they will not.”

He was right—she and Yitzhak wore tuxedos Preston had given them, while Roberto was still in the rumpled shirt and pants he’d had on when captured.

“But there’s hope, Roberto,” she told him. “We’re still breathing.”

“It is a small hope, and I will treasure it.” He sighed.

There was the noise of dead bolts being slid opened, and the guard they had heard called Harold Kardasian appeared, pointing his assault rifle. He was sturdy, with thick brown hair streaked with gray.

“Time to go,” he announced.

Eva looked for some sign of help in his eyes, but saw only neutrality.

Both Roberto and Yitzhak stood up.

“Not you,” Kardasian ordered. “Only the professor and Dr. Blake.”

As Roberto slid back down the wall, they said good-bye to him.

Preston was waiting in the corridor, dressed in his black leather jacket and jeans, tall and looming, his features stony. He carried two thick bath towels.

“What are those for?” Eva asked instantly.

“That’s none of your concern. Move.”

They marched Eva and Yitzhak to the stairs beside the elevators and took them down one floor into an anteroom. For a moment Eva felt a frisson of excitement—they were going to see the Library of Gold. She sensed an electric current from Yitzhak and knew he was thinking the same thing.

One guard opened a massive carved door, and golden light appeared. Yitzhak took Eva’s arm, and they walked inside and stopped. For a few moments, her fear vanished. It was as if they were in a cocoon of timeless knowledge dressed in the earth’s most dazzling elements.

“Bewitching,” Yitzhak whispered.

They drank in the four walls of gold-covered books. The embedded gems sparkled in the pure air. For an instant it seemed to Eva that nothing else on the planet mattered.

“Don’t give me the cold tomb of a museum but the fire-breathing world of words and ideas,” Yitzhak said. “Give me a library.
This
library.”

The tall man who had ordered Preston to hit Roberto walked toward them. “Who said that, Professor?”

Yitzhak looked at him sharply. “I did.”

The man chuckled. “My name is Martin Chapman. Come with me. It’s time you met everyone.”

He motioned to the guards to leave. Preston closed the door and stood in front of it. They followed Chapman to a large oval table around which seven men sat, drinking from brandy glasses.

With a shock, Eva recognized Brian Collum—her attorney, her friend. Watching her, he had laughter on his long, handsome face. She glanced away, smoothed her features, and turned back.

“You look wonderful in a tux,” he told her.

“You bastard.”

“It’s good to see you, too. And in such an appropriate setting.”

She said nothing, fighting the fury that surged through her as she realized he must have been the one who entangled Charles with the Library of Gold. And he had sent her to prison, knowing she was innocent. As Chapman made formal introductions, she forced herself to be calm. Then she assessed the situation: Besides the eight members of the book club, only the sommelier and Preston were in the room. The bath towels still dangled from his hand. Puzzled, she tried to figure out what they meant.

“Does everyone understand the rules?” Chapman asked. When a chorus of yeses answered, he said, “Then the tournament begins. Petr, you’re first this year.”

“Socrates, 469 or 470 to 399
B.C.
,” said a bearded man with stylishly clipped hair. “Of course he is credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy. What most people do not know is his utopian republic ruled by philosopher-kings also included glorification of the benefits of a caste system and a powerful argument for the right of armies to conquer and colonize. Hitler must have loved that. Your challenge is to find the illuminated manuscript in which Socrates is shown as a clown teaching his students to hoodwink their way out of debt.”

Eva cleared her throat. “There’s no such thing as a real history from Socrates’ time that dealt with him or Greece.” Hiding her nervousness, she looked at Yitzhak, but he shook his head. He did not know the answer. She had an idea, but it was a long time ago, not since college, that she had read it. “However, we do have plays and other writings. What I remember is ‘The Clouds,’ an old comedy by Aristophanes.”

She gazed at the questioner, hoping to see in his face whether she was correct. His expression showed nothing.

Yitzhak found the location of the manuscript on the list, and they walked quickly down one of the long walls, looking for it. With both hands he lifted out a gold volume embedded with sapphires and handed it to Petr Klok.

There was a long pause as they waited for his answer.

With a flourish Klok took the book and stood it up on the table to admire. “The world has only eleven complete plays by Aristophanes, although he wrote forty. The Library of Gold has the entire collection.”

There was a round of jaunty applause.

Eva and Yitzhak exchanged a look of relief.

Chapman ended it: “Thom, you’re next. Try to beat them, will you?”

Judd opened the rear door to the main house and slid inside, Tucker following. Their M4s ready, they listened for sounds and checked a wall of glass displaying the reflecting pool and spotlighted palms they had seen in NSA photos. When they heard nothing, they padded past closed doors and entered an enormous living room that stretched across the front of the house, glass windows showcasing the ocean view. The wall of glass stretched around the corner on the west side, with heavy glass double doors showing a marble path that led out toward the tennis courts, pool, and distant helipad.

Two sentries were in sight patrolling, their gazes cast outward—not toward the house.

“So far so good,” Judd murmured. He pulled out his reader.

But just as they hurried toward the stairwell beside the elevators, their radios crackled. They snapped them from their belts and looked outdoors. Both of the sentries were grabbing their radios, too. And now a third sentry was in sight, doing the same.

Tucker swore, and they punched their Receive buttons.

“Three down,” the disembodied voice snapped. “Rendezvous behind the pool shed.
Now
.”

“It’s just a matter of time until they guess we’re inside,” Tucker said as he ran past packing crates to the stairwell door and yanked it open.

M4s ready, they raced down one flight of steps, peered through the window on the door and saw a busy kitchen, then ran down another flight. The door window showed an empty hallway of closed doors.

As they tore down a third flight, Judd whispered, “She’s on this floor.”

At the door, they looked into a sitting area of comfortable sofas and chairs. No one was in sight.

Judd inhaled, exhaled, and slid around the door, crouching, M4 in both hands. In an instant Tucker was beside him. No one was around.

Heart pounding, Judd dashed down the hall, watching the reader, and then stopped.
Eva
. With one hand he slammed open the door’s dead bolts and turned the knob.

“Judd, is that you?” Roberto Cavaletti stared up, his battered face breaking into a smile. “You are blond.” He scrambled to his feet.

“Where’s Eva?”

“In the Library of Gold.” He hurried toward them. “She gave me her ankle bracelet so you would find me and I could warn you. We overheard the guards talking—all of them at the big banquet have pistols. Eva and Yitzhak were taken there to be part of some mortal game. If they guess wrong, we will die. But if they guess right, I think they plan to murder us anyway.”

“Where’s the library?” Judd asked grimly.

71

Khost Province, Afghanistan

Syed Ullah met the Pakistani reporter and cameraman at the mosque and drove them out to the edge of the sleeping town. Parking near the remains of mud-brick huts, the three got out, bundled in long down coats against the night’s cold. Ullah sniffed, smelling the strong scent of animal manure.

“Please turn around, General,” the reporter said.

The cameraman motioned him into position. The two were from the respected Pakistan Television Corporation, the country’s national TV broadcaster, whose news was regularly picked up by wire services and media around the globe.

“This is Asif Badri.” The reporter held a mike and looked solemnly into the camera. “Tonight I am in Khost province, Afghanistan. With me is the esteemed general Syed Ullah, a legendary mujahideen hero of the war against the Soviets. Tell us what is in the distance, General.”

The camera focused on Ullah. Putting on his gravest expression, he spoke into the reporter’s mike and pointed with his AK-47. “That is a secret American military base. About five hundred soldiers.” He paused, considering. He did not want to completely insult American listeners, especially since he planned to make a lot of money from Chapman. Phrasing his words carefully, he continued, “They are here to clear out illegal activity and are generally well behaved. Unfortunately, there is a serious problem.”

The camera panned over to the military base with its massive lights glowing in and around it, captured beneath the special netting that stretched in a great canopy far beyond the walls. Above the netting was black night; below it, bright daylight. It was a dramatic picture, showing the infidels’ technical ingenuity and their awful ability to fool the world.

“Does your national government know about the base?” the reporter asked.

“Kabul is completely ignorant,” the warlord lied.

“You mentioned a serious problem. Tell us about it.”

“It is a sad story,” Ullah intoned, embracing his rifle. “The Americans complain about our tribal differences while they have their own. Sports, politics, religion—and business. Remember, their murder rate is among the highest in the world. One of my people overheard an American soldier talking to another in a town governed by another general. They, too, have a secret base in the mountains. Those soldiers are very angry at our soldiers. I am sorry to tell you all of them are smuggling drugs and exporting heroin. As you know, it is very lucrative.” He shook his head sadly. “The other soldiers are planning to murder the soldiers here tonight because they have been poaching their business.”

“Have you informed Kabul?”

“What can they do? I am in charge, and another general is in charge of the other town. We are helpless against the Americans’ far superior weapons. I am left only with being able to tell the world in hopes this will never happen again.” He sighed. “It is a tragedy.”

The reporter turned off his microphone. “Did you get it all, Ali?”

The cameraman nodded. “When do we go to the base?”

Ullah looked into the hills and pointed with his AK-47 at two sets of headlights. His son Jasim was in the lead vehicle with Hamid Qadeer, who spoke perfect Americanized English.

“They are coming out of the mountains now,” he told them. “Those are two American Humvees. My informant said there would be a total of about two hundred soldiers. The arrival of the Humvees means the rest are now in place nearby. Once the Humvees get inside the base, their plan is to silently kill the soldiers in the guard tower and open the gates. The rest is inevitable. Get into my car. I will drive you closer. We must go slow and without headlights. You will be able to film the action outside, and after it is over, you will be the first to record the results of the horrible massacre.”

72

The Isle of Pericles

Everyone in the Library of Gold was focused on Preston, who was standing inside the door with his M4 and thick bath towels and listening to a message on his radio. As Eva watched, he strode to Chapman and spoke quietly into his ear.

“Gentlemen, we may have visitors,” Chapman announced with relish. “Take out your pistols.”

Swiftly the men laid their weapons on the table beside the illuminated manuscripts. Although they had obviously been drinking, their hands and gazes were steady, and they moved with authority. There was an undercurrent of enthusiasm, too, Eva thought. They were looking forward to shooting their guns.

She exchanged a worried look with Yitzhak.

The sommelier advanced with bottles of brandy. He poured into Chapman’s glass first, emptying the bottle, then poured from a fresh one into the glasses of the other men.

As the sommelier returned to his bureau, everyone looked at Chapman.

Eva and Yitzhak had answered correctly seven of the eight tournament questions. The competitive excitement among the men around the banquet table was almost tactile as they waited for the final challenge—from the director, Martin Chapman.

“Jesus of Nazareth, known as the Rabbi and later as Jesus Christ, 7 to 2
B.C.
to sometime between
A.D.
26 and 36,” Chapman said. “Jesus was the leader of an apocalyptic movement, a faith healer, a rabble-rouser, and with John the Baptist, the founder of Christianity. The consensus of scholars is the four canonical gospels about his life—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—weren’t recorded by any of the original disciples or first-person witnesses, although they were probably written within the first century of his death. Your challenge is to find in the library where Jesus tells one of his disciples he ‘will exceed’ the others and learn ‘the mysteries of the kingdom.’”