Hot Ice

24

Another ugly building on the National Mall. At least this one housed not an anthill of bureaucrats but a division of a private foundation, the Smithsonian Institution.

Jason entered under the suspended re-creation of a mammoth blue whale, the world’s largest animal, and went to the information desk. Following directions, he took another elevator. The corridor was lined with offices. Judging by the space between doors, closets had been subdivided. He stopped in front of the one that bore the nameplate that matched the name on the piece of paper he held, Dr. Sewell Sutter, professor of anthropology, University of Maryland.

The good professor also worked at the Smithsonian part-time.

“Come in!” Sewell responded to Jason’s knock.

A smallish man sat behind a desk that must have seen generations of government employees come and go. Surprising for an academic’s office, its top was cleared, other than the stack of papers the man behind it had been reading.

“Dr. Sutter?”

The man stood, revealing rumpled seersucker pants matching the jacket hanging on the nearby coatrack. He had a short beard, more gray than dark, and peered at Jason through owlish glasses with eyes that twinkled as though with a joke he was about to share. “Mr. Peters?”

The hand that gripped Jason’s across the desk was calloused. Dr. Sutter engaged in some form of manual labor, something more strenuous than peering at artifacts.

He came around the desk and moved a stack of papers from the room’s only guest chair to the floor. “Last term’s exams,” he explained. “My grad student has graded them but I still look them over.”

Jason took the vacated seat. “I’m sure your students appreciate that.”

Sutter retreated back behind his desk, smiling. “I doubt it. You know how it is with students: It’s ‘I made an A’ but ‘Professor Sutter gave me a C.’ But you’re not here to hear of the hardships of academia.” He reached into a desk drawer, produced an envelope, and shook out the sliver of metal. “You want to know about this.”

Jason said nothing.

The professor picked it up, holding it between thumb and forefinger as if exhibiting it to one of his classes. “We don’t have much metallurgical equipment here, but a few simple tests told me this is iron alloyed with a touch of tin. It has traces of carbon less than a tenth of a percent.”

Jason raised his eyebrows, a question.

“That small a percentage of carbon tells me the iron was not tempered, fired over charcoal. Doing so realigns the iron molecules, forming steel. But you can look at the thing and see it was forged, beaten out. In fact, a microscopic investigation revealed traces of the hammer. That is about all I can tell you for certain.”

“That’s it?”

The professor put the bit of metal back in the envelope and carefully placed it in the center of the desktop. “I can give you some well-reasoned speculation, if you like.”

Jason leaned forward in the chair. “Please.”

Sutter ran a hand across his chin, his beard making a scraping sound. “First, this is part of something old. Some of the marks would suggest it was whetted with stone, plus the fact that iron tools, as opposed to steel, haven’t been made in centuries. The concept of age is reinforced by the fact it was formed by an early process, water-powered bellows and blast furnace. That procedure came into use shortly before the 1300s.”

He paused and Jason asked, “Any idea what it was?”

“Based on the fact that it at one time had a cutting edge, I’d say it was some sort of tool, an agricultural implement. Again guessing, I’d say a late Middle Age billhook.”

“A what?”

“Billhook. A knifelike tool shaped somewhat like the letter J lying on its side. That also is speculation, based on the fact that the iron is, as I said, not tempered and therefore not weapon-grade like, say, a sword or even a hunting knife. That leaves tools, and the suggestion of curvature suggests a billhook, a common agricultural tool used for cutting, pruning, et cetera.”

“As in pruning grapevines, perhaps?”

Sutter looked surprised. “Why, yes, I’d think it could be used for that purpose. Why?”

“Just curious. Can you date it with any sort of precision?”

The professor picked up the envelope, holding it up to the light as if studying the outline of its contents. “I can’t get any closer than what I’ve already said: late thirteenth century at the earliest. When was the hand-forging of iron replaced by machines? I have no idea. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.”

Standing, Jason took the envelope and slipped it into a jacket pocket. “But you have been, Professor.”

They shook hands again and Jason was on his way, this time taking the stairs, his mind groping for answers: grapevines in Iceland centuries ago? A pruning tool that could well be seven, eight hundred years old? Interesting, perhaps, but … There must be something else. A key to some secret yet to be known. Whatever that secret might be, it had already caused the death of Boris.

He stopped halfway down the stairs.

Boris.

What was it he had tried to say just before Jason and the police commissioner had traveled out to the glacier? What were, in effect, his last words?

Something about meanies or beanies? A British institute and someone named … named? Cravat, that was it. Like the precursor of the necktie. No, Cravas.

The meanies or weenies or whoever made no sense at all but were the only clue Jason had at the moment. That and whoever Nigel Cravas might be — clues that might save his life if he could interpret them.

He had seen a small, windowless room with a number of computers on his way in. At that moment, no one was there. Taking a seat in front of the one most distant from the door, it took only seconds to get onto the Internet and Google.

Nigel Cravas, British Institute at Collingwood College, Durham University. He paused. Durham…. Cathedral town in … northern England.

As Jason read on, he knew he would soon be taking a trip.