The Book of Spies

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.

In his imagination he locked the door, chose an illuminated manuscript, and carried it to his favorite reading chair. He sat with the book on his lap and savored the hammered gold and glistening gems. Then he opened it and turned pages, absorbing the brilliantly colored drawings and exquisite lettering. He could read none of the foreign languages in the library, but he did not need to. Just seeing the books, being able to touch them, recalling the sacrifices and care throughout the library’s history helped to banish his ugly childhood, the hardscrabble life, the missing father, the angry mother. The sense of loss he felt as he had witnessed Langley spiraling downward in a wash of political bullshit.

The Library of Gold was proof the future could be as cherished and glorious as the past. That the work he did was crucial. That he was crucial.

After a while he could feel his heartbeat slow. The sweat dried on his skin. The pain eased. A sense of certainty infused him.

Girding himself, he picked up his cell and dialed again. When the director answered, he told him, “There have been some developments, sir. You need to know what’s going on. First, someone planted a bug on The Book of Spies. It was inside a fake jewel on the cover. It’s been flushed down a toilet.”

“Jesus Christ. Who would’ve had the connections to duplicate one of the gems and put a bug inside it?”

“I keep going back to the chief librarian before Charles. We thought he’d stolen the book and sold it to a collector so he’d have cash to try to leave. But if the collector were the anonymous donor to the Rosenwald collection and the one who planted the bug, then the National Library would’ve found it before it got to the British Museum.”

“Unless the donor had real clout. Someone with the money and resources to locate a person in the National Library who could be bought to cover for the bug.”

Preston nodded to himself. “I made some calls and found out Asa Baghurst, California’s governor, signed a special order releasing Eva Blake from prison-just three days ago. I successfully eliminated Peggy Doty, then Charles called to say he’d found Eva Blake. I was on my way to pick them up and scrub her, too, but they weren’t at the rendezvous.” He described spotting the police car that had led him to finding Charles shot dead in the alley.

“So we lost Charles in the end. It’s just as well. The way he was screwing up, we were going to have to erase him anyway.” The director sighed. “Did his wife kill him?”

“There was a man there. He could’ve done it. He took some shots at me, but I never saw his face. The accuracy of his aim and the way he positioned himself said a lot. He’s trained. It looks like a total setup-the bug, Eva Blake, and a shooter. Someone wanted to follow The Book of Spies.”

“Is there any way Blake could’ve found out Charles was our chief librarian before the opening at the British Museum?”

“I don’t see how. This was the first time Charles was away from the library. And of course after his predecessor smuggled out The Book of Spies, we doubled security, so Charles had no outside contact at all. Still, he was up to something. When I found his body, his head was shaved, and there was a tattoo on it-LAW 031308.”

“What in hell is that all about?”

“I don’t know, sir. You said yourself Charles was a romantic. But he was ambitious, too. He thought a lot of himself.”

“Did Charles shave his head, or did someone else?”

“I’d say someone else. Maybe Blake and the shooter. I’ll have my staff do a thorough search of Charles’s cottage and office. There could be something there that’ll tell us what the tattoo means.”

“What about the rest of the operation?”

“On track. Robin and The Book of Spies are on the jet. I’ll stow Charles’s corpse on board, then they’ll fly home, but without me. I’m going to stay in London to keep looking for Blake. I have a way to find her-I got her cell number off Peggy Doty’s phone. I have a NSA source I can use to track her through the cell’s location, assuming the phone’s turned on.”

“Good,” the director said with relief. “Do it.”

22

Brentwood, California

ATTORNEY BRIAN Collum was sound asleep in his large Tudor home when his telephone rang. His eyes snapped open. The master suite was cool and bathed in shadows. He checked the glowing digital numbers on his bedside clock-two A.M.-and snatched the phone.

His wife rolled over to gaze anxiously at him. The days of panicked clients calling at all hours were long past, so something must have happened to one of their children. They had three, all studying at various universities.

“Yes?” he said into the telephone.

“Hello, Brian.” The voice was familiar. “Sorry to disturb you. This is Steve Gandy. I’ve got an unusual situation here. It involves one of your clients, Eva Blake. I need a favor.”

Steve Gandy was the longtime coroner for the County of Los Angeles, a straight shooter who could be relied on for a no-holds-barred game of racquetball. Brian made it a practice to cultivate people in government, and since this concerned Eva, he was even more willing to listen.

“Hold on.” He turned to his wife. “This isn’t about the children. Go back to sleep. I’ll take it in my office.”

As she nodded, he carried the phone out of the bedroom. “Is Eva all right?”

“I assume so, but I don’t have any way to get in touch with her. She’s been released from prison. No one seems to know where she went. Do you still have authorization to sign documents for her?”

“I do.” He was shocked. Eva was out of prison? “Tell me what’s going on.” He sat behind his desk in a patch of pale moonlight. Not only had he represented Eva at her trial, he now handled her legal affairs.

Steve’s voice was tense. “I need signed permission to exhume her husband’s body.”

“Why?” Brian’s lungs tightened. “Who wants it exhumed?”

There was a sigh on the other end of the line. “The CIA. The term national security came up in the conversation several times. They’re telling us nothing except it’s critical we make damn sure we identify accurately who’s buried in Sherback’s grave and how he died, and we’re to contain who knows about the exhumation. But there’s hell to pay these days when anyone gets caught up in a CIA publicity disaster. Maybe this is legitimate, but I sure don’t have that kind of crystal ball. And I damn well don’t want my office to face repercussions. The problem is, they want us to exhume the body without a signed order. That’s why I’m bringing you in.”

“Jesus.”

“Precisely.”

“This is insane. You know Charles Sherback is in that grave. Your office matched the dental records.”

“That’s not conclusive enough for them. They want another autopsy-and for us to check the DNA.”

He swore silently. “Do you have a name at the CIA?”

“Gloria Feit made the call. She’s with the Clandestine Service.”

“Her bona fides are good?”

“Yes. I don’t want a duel with the CIA, but at the same time I’ve got to protect myself and my people,” Steve said. “I want you to sign the order, Brian. I’ll drive over there now. That way we can start digging at daylight, and I can get the CIA off my back with some answers.”

Brian thought quickly. “Here’s another idea. I’ve got a key to Eva’s storage locker. I’m sure she must still have some of Charles’s things. I’ll swing by there early in the morning and see what I can find to give you a head start on the DNA. Then I’ll drive to your office and sign the order.”

Steve sounded relieved. “That’s not perfect, but you’re right. A DNA sample will speed the process. Be here by eight A.M. And thanks.”

They hung up, but Brian stayed in his chair, staring at the shadows in his office. The room was full of books, the titles unseeable in the darkness. Still, he was comforted by them and their enduring counsel, handed down through the ages. Smiling wryly to himself, he remembered some earthy advice from Trajan, Rome’s long-ago warrior emperor: “Never stand between a dog and where he’s pissing.”

Fortunately, he did not have to risk interfering with Steve’s investigation. The man who was buried in Charles’s grave was a salesman from South Dakota, a loner whom Preston had chosen in an L.A. bar and eliminated later with a snap of the neck, which was consistent with an injury received in a car wreck. Then Preston had arranged a late-night break-in at the office of Charles Sherback’s dentist, so records of the dead man’s teeth could be substituted for Charles’s. Brian had kept the dead man’s gloves and a few other things locked away in his office safe.

Although the DNA match from inside the gloves and the clean autopsy would make the CIA’s curiosity evaporate, Brian was left with a much larger and potentially more dangerous question: Who or what had provoked the intelligence agency’s interest?

He picked up the phone and dialed the Library of Gold’s director. “Marty, this is Brian Collum. We’ve got a situation.” He described the coroner’s call. “The CIA order for exhumation came from someone named Gloria Feit in the Clandestine Service.”

Martin Chapman exploded a stream of oaths. “How did you leave it with the coroner?”

“I’m going to provide him with the corpse’s gloves for a DNA match. That should resolve things. Can you think of a reason they’d want the identity rechecked?”

“No reason, except now Charles Sherback really is dead.”

Brian felt a moment of shock. “That’s a blow to the library. He was damn good at the job. What happened?”

Brian had begun cultivating Charles a dozen years ago, admiring his knowledge about the Library of Gold and appreciating his obsession to find it. When they had needed a new chief librarian, he had recommended Charles, and the book club had authorized him to secretly offer him the position. Now the club would have to find a replacement.

“He died in London,” the director said. “Shot to death.”

“Did Preston retrieve The Book of Spies successfully?”

“Yes. It’s on its way home.”

“That’s a relief.” He remembered what Steve had said. “The coroner told me Eva’s out of prison. Does she have anything to do with this?”

“She’s just the beginning of the problem.”

Astonished, then increasingly concerned, Brian listened as Martin Chapman described Eva’s spotting Charles in the museum, his attempt to kill her, the bug on The Book of Spies, and Preston’s search for Eva, ending with the discovery of Charles’s corpse.

“Preston thinks a trained man is helping Eva,” the director said. “Obviously someone was intent on trying to track The Book of Spies-maybe back to the library. I’m concerned about who had the ability to plant the bug. Now that the CIA is involved, I’m wondering whether it’s them.”

“Shit.”

“Besides that, Charles had a tattoo on his head-LAW 031308. Does it mean anything to you?”

“Not a damn thing.”

“It could be a message,” the director said. “But to whom? And why?”

“Think about Charles’s predecessor. None of us ever guessed he had the balls not only to want to leave, but also to smuggle out The Book of Spies. One of the reasons we chose Charles was because the library was the most important thing in his life. But the downside was his ambition and arrogance. God knows what the message means. Whatever it is, it could be dangerous to us.”

“If Eva saw the tattoo-and we have no reason to think she didn’t-she may be able to understand it.”

“You’re right.”

“Preston has a way to track her through her cell phone. You take care of the coroner.” There was a thoughtful pause. When the director spoke again, his voice had its usual brisk, businesslike tone: “I have a way to handle the CIA.”

23

Washington, D.C.

THE MAN parked his car on a dark residential street in the gently rolling hills north of downtown Washington. In the distance, the tall dome of the Capitol shone like ivory. He opened the car door, and Frodo, his little terrier, leaped out, wagging his tail.

With the terrier leading, they walked down the sidewalk, all part of the man’s cover, and turned onto Ed Casey’s block. The man noted another early dog stroller heading toward him through the still shadows. As he always did, he assumed an indulgent dog-owner’s smile and nodded in greeting. Then he pulled Frodo off the curb to give the pair a wide berth.

As soon as the other walker was out of sight, the man stopped beside a Eugenia bush whose low branches brushed the ground. He slid Frodo’s leash underneath, and Frodo followed, crawling in and circling around. His little black eyes peered out.

“Stay.” He gave the hand command.

Frodo immediately settled back into the foliage, invisible to anyone who passed. They had done this many times. Frodo would not move nor make a sound.

After a careful look around, the man sprinted across the lawn to Ed Casey’s clapboard house and examined the doors and windows on the first floor. All were locked, including French doors overlooking a goldfish pond in the rear yard. He returned to the French doors. No dead bolt. Slide locks had been installed, but no one had bothered to engage them. He loved the way people were lulled into complacency by the passage of uneventful time. His profession depended on it.

With a small tool, he popped open the French doors and stepped into a shadowy family room. He liked to have house plans, but there had been no time to get them. When he hired him for the job, Doug Preston had been able to pass on only Ed Casey’s address.

Cautiously he padded across thick carpet into a central hall. A grandfather clock ticked rhythmically. There was no other noise. He listened at the foot of the stairs, then ducked his head into open doorways-a living room, a dining room, and a kitchen. All deserted. He opened the only closed door. Bingo-an office.

Keeping his ears tuned for movement upstairs, he headed straight to the desk, where a computer sat. He went to work, installing tiny wireless transmitting devices inside the hard drive and keyboard.

Finished, he listened to the house again. Silence. He slipped out of the office and let himself out the French doors. The early-morning sky was still black. Tomorrow night he would return and remove the bugs, lessening the chance anyone would ever know his business tonight.

Pausing near the street, he surveyed the area. At last he strolled to the Eugenia bush and gestured. Frodo scooted out, and the man gave him a dog biscuit. Whistling to himself, he walked his pet back to the car.

Johannesburg, South Africa

IT WAS half past noon in Johannesburg when Thomas Randklev received a call from the Library of Gold director. As soon as he hung up, Randklev phoned Donna Leggate, the junior U.S. senator from Colorado. It was only 5:30 A.M. in Washington, and it was quickly apparent she had been asleep.

As soon as he said his name, the tone of her voice modulated from gruff to welcoming. “This is an odd time to be calling, Thom, but it’s always good to hear from you.”

He knew it was a lie. “I appreciate that. I’d like a bit of information. Nothing unseemly, of course.”

“What can I help you with?”

“This is about a woman named Gloria Feit, who’s with your Clandestine Service. We’d like to know for whom she works and what she does.”

“Why are you interested?”

“I’m not at liberty to say, except it involves someone special like you, someone we like to give good service to-one of our investors. Certainly nothing about your national security. It’s just business.”

She hesitated. “I’d rather not-”

He interrupted. “I hope your shares in the Parsifal Group are making you smile.”

A widow, Leggate had been appointed to the Senate to succeed her husband when he died four years earlier. Her husband’s debts had left her in a precarious financial position, but because of Parsifal, she was earning far more than her husband had. She was also far more ambitious, but in Washington ambition unsupported by money was just another social affectation.

Her tone was guarded. “Yes, very much so.”

“And of course there are the dividends,” he reminded her.

“Even better,” she admitted. “But still…”

Although unsurprising, her reluctance was annoying. They needed her to move on this, and fast-but he was not ready to tell her that yet.

“You’re on the Senate intelligence committee,” he pointed out. “You’ve brought a CIA employee, Ed Casey, into Parsifal. Tell him to e-mail someone at Langley for the information. If you feel you can’t, you’ll have to drop out of our special club for investors, and I’ll transfer your shares to another of our groups. You can count on the returns being decent-but they won’t support you in your old age.” He let that sink in. “On the other hand, if you can do us this favor, you can stay in the club, continue to recruit selected others, and receive a sizeable contribution to your reelection campaign.”

“How sizeable?” she asked instantly.

“One hundred thousand dollars.”

“Five hundred thousand would make the sun shine a lot brighter.”

“That’s a great deal of money, Donna.”

“You’re asking a huge favor.”

He was silent. Then: “Oh, hell. All right, I agree-but only if you call Ed Casey immediately.”

“If I’m awake, he can damn well get his butt out of bed, too.”

“You always could charm me, Donna.” He smiled to himself. She had quit negotiating too soon. He had the director’s approval to go to $800,000.

“And you’re a delightful rogue, Thom,” she said. “Love that about you. Tell me, will you be needing any other favors?”

“Perhaps. And remember, you can ask occasionally, too. If it’s in my power, I’ll be delighted to help. After all, we’re friends. All part of the same club.”

24

Washington, D.C.

SENATOR LEGGATE put on her bathrobe, lit a cigarette, and waved smoke from her eyes. Washington was a town where favors were exchanged like poker chips. To survive, one learned to be helpful while being careful with whom one played. If you wanted to be a serious contender in the nation’s fast, treacherous political waters, you had to be an Olympian at the game.

While she had a sense of ominousness about Thom Randklev’s naked laying out of her options if she refused to help, she also felt a sense of exhilaration. He had agreed to her high number easily. That told her he had access to even more cash. What frightened her was whether she could handle him-or herself-if she ever had to refuse.

But that was the future. Maybe years from now. With luck, never. She marched into her office, turned on her desk lamp, spun open her Rolodex, and dialed.

“A good early morning to you, Ed. This is Donna Leggate.”

“Good Lord, Donna, do you know what time it is?” Ed Casey was a top gun in Langley’s Support to Mission team, which built and operated CIA facilities, created and maintained secure communications, managed the CIA phone company, and hired, trained, and assigned officers to every directorate. His department also handled payroll, which meant he had access to the records of everyone the CIA employed-as long as they were on the books.

“I’ve been up for hours reading classified reports,” she told him, fabricating a lie he would believe. “Sorry to bother you, but I’d like your help with something before I go into the office. One of the reports mentions an officer named Gloria Feit, in the Clandestine Service, but there’s nothing about to whom she reports. I’d like to know that as well as what she and her boss do.”

“You’ll need to go through the D/CIA’s office.”

“If I’m asking questions about this, others on the subcommittee will be, too. Going through the D/CIA opens up the possibility of a leak, and then the press dogs will drool for everything they can claw up. The reason I’m calling is because I know you and I are on the same page about protecting Langley whenever possible.”

“There’s a chain of command. I don’t buck it.”

“As I was dialing,” she continued thoughtfully, “I was remembering when you told me you needed a college nest egg for your kids. How old are they now?”

There was a change in Ed’s voice. Perhaps a hint of guilt. “I appreciate your paving the way so I could buy shares in the Parsifal Group.”

She rammed the point home: “Has it been a good investment for them?”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“I’m delighted. I think all of us like to help each other whenever we can. What I’m asking I can get anyway. The only difference is I want it now, while it’s fresh in my mind.”

“What’s the report about?”

“It’s M-classified. Sorry.” “M” indicated an extraordinarily sensitive covert operation. Among the highest the United States bestowed, single-letter security clearances meant the information was so secret it could be referred to only by initials, and there was no way Ed would be privy to it. “You can e-mail your office for the information about Gloria Feit.”

“Hold on,” he grumbled.

Senator Leggate smiled to herself. She had watched her husband cajole and threaten to get what he wanted, and now she was the one in the power seat.

Johannesburg, South Africa

THOM RANDKLEV stood before the floor-to-ceiling window in his office, hands clasped comfortably behind, and stared out at the rocks and shales of the Witwatersrand-“White Water’s Ridge” in Afrikaans. As clouds drifted past and the sun blazed through, pockets of quartz glittered, attracting his gaze. For a moment he felt a fierce sense of pride.

The Witwatersrand was the source of 40 percent of the gold ever mined on the planet, and it had provided his family’s first small fortune. Then his lazy father had lost everything in drink, divorces, and wild spending. But now Thom had all of it back and more, including homes in San Moritz, Paris, and New York City, which was where he had met Senator Leggate and begun cultivating her. As he had assured the director, she was the one who could handle the first step in resolving the problem of why the CIA wanted to exhume “Charles Sherback.”

As his mind roamed over his accomplishments, he turned to stare at the books stretching across two long walls of his office. He had been disturbed by the director’s information, but at the same time he had complete confidence the situation-whatever it was-could be resolved.

What mattered was the Library of Gold had remained secret for centuries because of careful attention to detail, and that secrecy was the hallmark of those who had inherited the library. In today’s world, the biggest wars were fought inside boardrooms behind closed doors, and the book club knew exactly how to train, fight, and win every skirmish. And that was what this was-a mere skirmish. As he ruminated about that, he remembered what Plato had written: “Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself.” How true, he decided as he poured himself a drink.

When the phone rang, he snapped it up.

As he had hoped, it was Donna Leggate. “Gloria Feit is chief of staff for Catherine Doyle. Doyle has some special assignment, but there’s no record of what it is. Since I know something about these matters, I believe Doyle has a team-and it’s deep black. And that means there may be no official record of employees or missions. Ed wouldn’t tell me more. Frankly, I doubt he knows more, because it’s above his security grade. Doyle appears to me to be a NOC.” Nonofficial cover officers, NOCs, were those highly talented and daring officers who operated without the official cover of their CIA identification. If arrested in a foreign country, they could be tried and executed as spies.

“Thank you, Donna. I appreciate it. I’ll put my people to work filtering in the money to your reelection campaign. We want good friends like you to stay in office.”

As soon as he got rid of her, he phoned the director and relayed the information.

Stockholm, Sweden

IT WAS noon in Stockholm, and Carl Lindström was sitting in the leather recliner chair in his office, reading financial reports, when the director called. Once he understood what the director wanted, Carl went to his desk, checked his e-mail, and found the note forwarded to him that contained the information the Washington break-in artist had uncovered from Ed Casey’s secure e-mail to Langley.

Now he had a record not only of the routing, the message, and the address to which it was sent, but also the clandestine codes used.

With that, he phoned his chief of computer security, Jan Mardis. A former black-hat hacker herself, Jan was in charge of uncovering and stopping attacks on their worldwide network. She also kept her staff’s expertise honed with regularly simulated assaults on their systems, designed hacking tools, and drafted network-infiltration tactics.

Upon occasion, she did special jobs for him. Through him, the Library of Gold’s director had used her several times over the past few months.

“I have a challenge for you, Jan,” Lindström told her. “And when you accomplish it, you can count on a generous bonus. I need you to crack into the CIA’s computer system. There’s a particular team I want you to find. It’s run by Catherine Doyle. One office employee is Gloria Feit. The unit is probably black, which means they’re going to appear to be unlisted, but we both know there’s a record somewhere. I’ve sent you an e-mail with the information you’ll need.”

“Interesting.” Jan Mardis’s voice was usually bored, but not now. “Okay, I’ve read your e-mail. Barring complications, this should be fun, a dip in Lake Mälaren on a hot summer day, as it were. I’ll route my signals through multiple countries-China and Russia, for sure. That’ll stop the digital cops cold. I’ll get back to you.”

Carl Lindström stood and stretched. Cyber crime was the fastest growing criminal enterprise of the twenty-first century, and his software corporation, Lindström Strategies, was one of the fastest rising in the world. It had been attacked time and again. But because of Jan Mardis, no one had ever breached the firewalls. He had complete confidence in her not only because of her skill, but also because of human factors: He had saved her from a jail term by pulling strings in the judicial system, which included his promise to hire her. The occasional side job he secretly gave her allowed her to exercise her love of taking on some of the most highly secure organizations on the planet. And he paid her excessively well. As Machiavelli wrote, to succeed, it was critical to understand what motivated an individual-and use it.

As he waited to hear back from her, he walked to his bookcase, which was filled with leather-bound and embossed volumes. He pulled out a collection by August Strindberg, one of his favorite modern authors. He opened the book, and his gaze fell upon a passage: “A writer is only a reporter for what he has lived.”

He thought about that, then he applied it to himself. His entire life’s work, rising from the slums of Stockholm to create and head Lindström Strategies, was a reflection of what he had learned about the need to go to any length to armor against the indignities of poverty. With pride, he decided his corporation was his book, the book he had written.

An hour later, he was reading financial reports in his recliner again when the phone rang. He reached for it.

“It’s me, boss,” Jan Mardis said. “I’ve got a bonus for you. I’ve got access to Catherine Doyle’s office computer. Is there anything you want me to look for?”

He sat up straight, and his pulse sped with excitement. “Send me a copy of all Doyle’s e-mails for the last twenty-four hours. Then get the hell out of there.”

25

Aloft over Europe

THE GULFSTREAM V turbojet soared through the night, its powerful Rolls-Royce engines humming quietly. Above the aircraft stretched an endless canopy of sparkling stars, while far below spread gray storm clouds punctuated by jagged bolts of lightning. From his window Judd Ryder studied the skyscape, feeling a sense of suspension between two worlds, uncertain and somehow dangerous. He wondered what his father had been involved in, and how much he was his father’s son.

Shaking off his emotions, he sat back and focused. The Gulfstream had been waiting at Gatwick Airport at a private hangar, one of the aircraft Langley regularly rented for transporting federal employees and high-value prisoners. He and Eva were the only passengers, sitting together near the middle of the cabin. Each armrest contained a laptop and hookups for electronic devices. On their tables stood steaming cups of coffee brewed in the galley. The rich aroma scented the air.

He peered at Eva’s tired face, the rounded chin, the light California tan. Her red hair lay in a wreath of long curls around her head where it rested back against the seat. The lids of her blue eyes were at half-mast. At the moment she showed none of the fire and combativeness that had aggravated him, instead looking soft and vulnerable. He was still unsure what he really thought of her. In any case, it was irrelevant. What mattered was he needed her for the operation. He hoped to be able to ship her back to California soon.

Her eyes opened. “I should try to reach Peggy.”

“You can’t turn on your cell while we’re flying, but you can borrow mine.” He plugged his mobile’s connecting cord into the armrest, tapping into the plane’s wireless communications system. He explained about its secure mode, then showed her how to make what would appear to others to be a normal call.

She dialed Peggy’s cell phone number. Listening to the voice on the other end, she looked at him and frowned. “May I speak to Peggy, please?” There was a pause. “I’m not going to tell you who I am until you tell me who you are.” Another pause. Abruptly she cut the connection.

“What happened?” he asked instantly.

“A man answered. He kept asking questions.” As she dialed again, she told him, “I’m calling information for the Chelsea Arms’s number.” Once she had it, she phoned out again. “Peggy Doty’s room, please.” She listened. “I know she has a room there. We were going to share it… What? She what?” Her face stricken, she hung up and stared at him. “Peggy’s dead. The clerk says the police think she shot herself, but there’s no way she’d take her own life. Someone had to have killed her.” She shook her head, stunned. “I can’t believe she’s dead.” Tears slid down her cheeks.

Watching her, he felt again the awful loss of his father, his conflicted emotions. He went to the galley and returned with a box of tissues and handed it to her. As she wiped her eyes and blew her nose, he said, “My guess is Charles told Preston that Peggy was your friend, and Preston went to her in hopes of finding you. He’s her killer. I’m sorry, Eva. This is horrible for you.”

He had a sudden vision of his father when he was about his age, towering over him as he rode the carousel at Glen Echo Park. The full head of blond hair, the strong nose and chin, the happy expression on his face as the music filled the air and he stood beside his son protectively. About five years old, Judd had been riding a palomino horse with a flowing silver mane. As the horse rose and fell and the carousel circled, he felt himself slipping. His mother waved, her face beaming with pride. As he raised a hand to wave back, he fell, his legs too short to reach the floor to steady himself. He dangled half off the horse.

“Hold on tight and pull yourself up,” his father had said calmly. “You can do it.”

He had grabbed the pole hard, his little arms aching as he slowly righted himself.

“You can do anything, Judd. Anything. Someday you won’t need me to stand beside you anymore.”

Suddenly he realized Eva was talking.

“Those people are unspeakably evil.” She was staring at him, her expression cold. “Those bastards. We’ve got to find them.”

“We will.” He grabbed his peacoat from the seat across from them. “Ready to do some work?”

“Absolutely.”

He removed the items he had taken from her husband-disposable cell, small leather-bound notebook, billfold, and Swiss Army knife. Leaving the Glock pistol in his pocket, he heaved the peacoat across the next seat. Then he took off his corduroy jacket and tossed it on top. He sat back and adjusted his shoulder holster.

She had the notebook in her hand, turning pages. He thought about it, then decided to let her have a go at the notebook first.

He checked Sherback’s cell, looking for phone numbers. “He’s coded his address book. What would he use for a password?”

“Probably something classical. A Greek or Roman name. Try Seneca, Sophocles, Pythagoras, Cicero, Augustus, Archimedes-”

“Okay, I get the idea.” He tapped in one after another.

“This is interesting,” she said at last. “I’ve looked at all the pages, but there aren’t any lists of names with or without phone numbers or addresses. There seem to be only his thoughts and various quotations. Each entry’s dated, going back six years. That means he had it while we were living together, but I never saw it.”

“He kept it hidden from you, so there was already a pattern of secrecy.”

She nodded. “Listen to this-it’s the first entry, and it’ll give you a taste: ‘In ancient times, worshiping a god occurred in some beautiful grove, holy place, or temple. It’s no accident almost all libraries were in pagan places of worship, just as in later Muslim, Jewish, and Christian times they were in mosques, tabernacles, and churches. The written word has always had a magical, divine power, unifying people. Naturally religion wanted to control that. But then books are another name for God.’ ”

“See whether he mentions the Library of Gold or Yitzhak Law somewhere.”

“I’ve been looking. Here’s another one: ‘There are books I will never be able to find, let alone read.’ ”

“Poignant.”

She nodded and resumed reading silently.

Judd was running out of names to break Charles’s cell phone code. He stopped, his fingers poised above the keypad.

She gazed up. “I’ve just found one of Charles’s favorite quotes. It’s from Aristotle. ‘All people by nature desire to know.’ That seems appropriate. Try ‘Aristotle.’ ”

He typed the letters of the Greek philosopher’s name, and the screen revealed the address book. “I’m in. The bad news is that it’s empty. He must’ve memorized the numbers he called. Okay, time to check the ingoing and outgoing calls.” The list was coded, but ‘Aristotle’ worked again. “There are only two. Both are London numbers. Do you recognize either?” He read them to her.

She shook her head. “Try them.”

He dialed. The first number rang four times, and an automated voice invited him to leave a message. He considered, then ended the connection. She was watching him.

“A machine answered,” he reported. He tried the next number and got the same response. “Nothing again.”

“When I spotted Charles on the street outside the hotel, he was with a blond woman. Those two cell numbers could belong to Preston and her. I didn’t recognize her, but Charles and she were obviously together.”

“Describe her.”

“Long blond hair and bangs. Pretty. Early to mid thirties, I’d say. Maybe five foot six. She had a large rolling suitcase. He was carrying a backpack and left it at her feet just before he started chasing me. The backpack was fat and solid-looking, so it could’ve contained The Book of Spies.”

“That’d account for the book’s being in the hotel.”

“Yes.” She turned back to the first page of Charles’s notebook.

Ryder examined the Swiss Army knife. There was nothing to indicate it was Charles’s or anyone else’s. Opening the billfold, he took out the driver’s license and cash and spread them onto the tray table.

“I may have found something.” Eva patted the notebook. “As I told you, everything’s dated in here. I’ve been looking for patterns. With one exception, Charles would write something occasionally, once a week at most. But then there’s a three-month period before we went to Rome in which he made a lot of entries, sometimes several a day. That’s when he was on sabbatical, supposedly visiting some of the world’s great libraries. I never got a real itinerary out of him, and he didn’t talk much about the trip when he returned.”

“Does he mention which libraries?”

“No, but what he wrote is almost entirely about libraries.”

“What do you think the change in pattern means?”

“First, he had enough time he could write his thoughts more frequently and the value of libraries was on his mind. But, second, he wouldn’t have wanted me or anyone at the library to know he’d tattooed something onto his scalp. So this is the sequence I see: He tattooed himself, spent three months hiding out, and came home to me with hair long and thick enough for it to look normal. Then we celebrated our anniversary with Yitzhak in Rome. Two weeks later we were back in L.A., and then two weeks after that was the car crash.”

“Makes sense.”

They drank their coffee and continued to work. He found nothing written on any of Charles’s cash. He put the driver’s license and money back into the billfold and returned everything to his peacoat’s pockets. Next he checked the clip to Charles’s Glock. The gun was clean and in pristine condition. No rounds were missing.

Eva handed him the notebook. “I can’t see anything else that’s useful in here. Your turn.”

He took it. “You look tired. Why don’t you get some sleep?”

“I think I will.” She set her coffee cup on his table and stored her table inside her armrest. Then she reached down and pulled up her pants leg. “I’m going to take off this ankle device.”

“No. If something happens to separate us again, I can always find you with my reader.”

She thought about it and nodded. Reclining her seat, she closed her eyes.

He e-mailed Tucker, asking him to trace the two phone numbers on Sherback’s cell and to investigate whether Sherback and perhaps a woman had stayed at the Méridien hotel, adding the false name on Sherback’s driver’s license, the woman’s description, and that The Book of Spies might have been in her backpack. When he had phoned Tucker to arrange the jet, he had filled him in on the events of the night and given him Professor Yitzhak Law’s address in Rome and asked him to check with the London police about Preston and Charles Sherback’s body.

He studied the notebook, finding nothing new. Then he looked at Eva a long time. Finally he rested his head back, hoping he would not dream about the past. At last he fell into an uneasy sleep.

26

London, England

DOUG PRESTON sat in his rental car in a public parking lot near the River Thames, arms crossed, head resting back, drifting in and out of sleep. He had delivered Charles’s body to the Library of Gold jet, and it was safely gone. He had also phoned his NSA contact, who had gotten back to him with the bad news that Eva Blake’s cell phone was turned off, which meant it could not be tracked yet. Then he had handled a new assignment for Martin Chapman, hiring a specialist in Washington to break into Ed Casey’s house.

Now he was waiting for a call from NSA that Blake’s cell phone was activated and her location pinpointed, or from the director that he had learned through Ed Casey’s intel where Blake was going. Either would do.

Restless, he adjusted his aching body behind the steering wheel. Springtime shadows dappled the parking lot. Somewhere on the river a boat’s horn sounded. He checked his watch. It was a little past one P.M. He closed his eyes, ignoring the pain in his ribs. He was starting to sink back into sleep when his cell finally rang.

Martin Chapman’s tone was full of outrage: “Tucker Andersen is CIA.”

“So State was his cover. Tell me everything.” Preston shook off the chilling news.

“Judd Ryder e-mailed Tucker Andersen. The reason we know is because Andersen sent a copy of the e-mail to Catherine Doyle, also CIA. They’re part of some kind of black program. Doyle is chief.” The director’s voice was tense. “Ryder is a private contractor for CIA now.”

“Jonathan Ryder’s son?”

“Yes. He’s the gunman, and he’s been helping Eva Blake. Everything in the British Museum was a setup. The CIA’s the one that planted the bug on the book and got Blake’s sentence commuted. They intend to find the Library of Gold. We’re going up against your old employer, Preston. You were loyal.” The voice had grown harder, the question unspoken.

“That was a long time ago. Another life. I was glad to walk away. Even gladder you wanted me.” Then he said the words he knew the director needed to hear, and he meant them: “My loyalty is only to you, the book club, and the Library of Gold.”

There was a pause. “The e-mail said Ryder and Blake were heading to Rome to see Yitzhak Law. You can’t get there in time. How do you suggest this be handled?”

Preston stared out the car’s window, considering. A plan formed in his mind, and he laid it out for the director.

“Good. I like it,” the director said. “Since we’re dealing with a black unit, it’s contained. That’s the only advantage we have. I have an idea to take care of Tucker Andersen and Catherine Doyle. I’ll get back to you when I need you.”

27

Rome, Italy

IT WAS three o’clock in the afternoon, the sun bright, almost overwhelming after the cold gray rain of London, when Eva walked through the centuries-old Monti section of Rome. Just south of Via Nazionale, Monti was an oasis of artists, writers, and the monied, and was seldom listed in tourist guides. Tall ivy-covered houses lined the street, interrupted only by cobblestone alleyways not much wider than a Roman chariot. Pedestrians strolled along the streets.

Clasping her shoulder satchel to her side, Eva risked a glance back. As expected, Judd was still several houses behind, looking Mediterranean in his sunglasses, swarthy face, and arched nose. They had stopped to buy new clothes so they would fit in with the warmer weather and locals’ tastes. He wore a loose brown sports jacket, an open-necked blue shirt, and Italian jeans. She wore Italian jeans, too, with a green shirt and jacket.

As Fiats and scooters rushed by, she passed a leafy piazza filled with preschool children romping under the doting gazes of nannies. At last she crossed onto the busy street where Yitzhak Law lived.

AS HE followed Eva, Judd covertly scrutinized the bustling area, picking out the three-person team Tucker Andersen had sent to watch over Professor Law’s home.

Across the street was one: a man with a cloth shopping sack, dressed in a worn business suit and sitting on a bench. A quarter block away was another-what appeared to be an elderly woman, sunk into a beach chair beneath a pepper tree outside a trattoria while she read the Italian daily La Repubblica. The third was a youthful skateboarder in sunglasses and a backpack. He slalomed lazily past, wearing earphones as his hips gyrated to music.

Judd used his mobile to call the skateboarder-the team leader. “Anything new, Bash?”

The unit had been in place an hour, not as long as he would have liked, but they’d had to be assembled from Catapult’s undercover officers already on operations in and near Rome.

“Everything’s cool, man. No one’s gone in or left,” Bash Badawi reported. He sailed his skateboard off the curb.

“Let me know if the situation changes.”

Judd watched Eva moving ahead, her stride long and confident, her red hair blazing in the shimmering sunlight. He picked up his pace.

As he passed her, he said without moving his lips, “It’s safe. Go in.”

YITZHAK LAW’S house was a three-story building of aged yellow stone with large windows and white shutters. Eva ran up the worn steps and touched the bell. Chimes rang inside.

When the door opened, she smiled widely. “Buon giorno, Roberto.” Roberto Cavaletti was Yitzhak’s longtime partner.

“Do not just stand there, Eva. Come in, come in. I am delighted.” He kissed her on both cheeks, his close-cropped brown beard prickling. Short and lean, he gave the appearance of a sleek fox, with a long, intelligent face and bright brown eyes.

“I’ve brought a friend,” she warned.

She turned and nodded in Judd’s direction. Glancing around, Judd was soon at her side, and they stepped into an entryway of antiques and paintings. The fragrant scents of a spicy tomato sauce lingered in the air. In Rome, lunch was traditionally the largest meal of the day and eaten between noon and three o’clock at home, which was why she had high hopes of finding Yitzhak here.

She introduced Judd as her traveling friend from America.

“Benvenuto, Judd. Welcome.” Roberto shook his hand enthusiastically. “You are not jet-lagged? You do not look jet-lagged.” It was an ongoing concern of Roberto’s, who never traveled beyond the borders of Rome’s time zone, despite Yitzhak’s frequent invitations to accompany him.

“Not a speck of jet lag,” Judd assured him.

Relieved, Roberto turned to Eva, put his hands on his hips, and scolded, “You have not kept in touch.” With a single short sentence, he had covered the car crash, her guilty plea, and her imprisonment, at the same time letting her know as far as he was concerned they were still friends.

“You’re right, and it’s my fault. I loved the letter from you and Yitzhak.” She had not trusted the compassion in the men’s note, and so she had never answered it. With sudden clarity she saw how she had isolated herself.

“You are completely forgiven. Like the Pope, I am stern but magnanimous. Are you hungry? Would you like un caffè? It is dripping even now.” In Rome, coffee was as important as wine.

“Coffee would be great,” she said. “The way you always make it, molto caldo.”

He smiled, acknowledging the compliment, and turned to Judd. “And you, Eva’s friend?”

“Absolutely. Let us help you.”

Roberto raised his brows at Eva. “He has good manners. I approve.” Then he whispered in her ear, “And he’s gorgeous.” He pointed in the Italian way with an outstretched hand, palm down, toward the hallway, then he followed them.

As they passed open doors showing a sitting room and a small, elegant dining room, she asked, “Is Yitzhak home? We’d love to see him, too.”

“Of course. And he will want to see you. You will take coffee to him. He is in his rifugio.”

They went into the modern kitchen, which gleamed with enameled white walls and a stainless-steel refrigerator and gas stove. The aroma of fresh coffee infused the airy room. Roberto poured coffee into a carafe, then arranged cups, a cream pitcher, a sugar bowl, and spoons on a tray.

He indicated the tray. “It is your responsibility, Judd.”

Judd picked it up. “Lead on.”

Roberto took them out into the hall again and toward the back of the house, where a broad staircase rose two floors. But he opened the door beneath, the stairs showing simple wood steps going down. Cool air drifted up. They ducked their heads and descended into the cellar, which reflected the house’s period in its rough brick walls and uneven brick floor.

In the center of the floor was the area’s dominant feature-a ragged hole with wood steps, built only ten years before, going down into what seemed an abyss. Beside it lay a trapdoor of old bricks built on top of a plywood platform. The trapdoor was the exact dimensions of the hole, and when it was put into place, Eva knew, the bricks fit neatly into one another, hiding the hole.

Judd stared down and deadpanned, “Where are the flames? The screams of suffering souls?”

Roberto laughed. “This is not Dante’s Inferno, my new friend. You are about to see a glorious sight few others have. But then, this is Rome, once the caput mundi, the capital of the world, teeming with more than a million souls while Paris and London were mere outposts of mud huts. No wonder we Romans are so proud. Here is where I leave you.” He called down, “We have two more visitors, amore mio. Prepare yourself for a pleasant surprise.”

“More visitors?” Judd’s expression was curious, revealing nothing. The presence of outsiders would complicate their ability to find out quickly from Yitzhak what Charles’s message meant.

Roberto nodded and said mysteriously, “Eva will be happy about it.” He returned upstairs.

Eva had learned about the steep steps in previous visits. She turned and went down backwards, gripping the rail. Balancing the tray, Judd followed, and they entered the professor’s private preserve.

It was a vast area, illuminated by torchère lamps and encompassing the width of the house. The length stretched from the rear garden to the street, where there appeared to be a small tunnel at the edge of a long pile of rubble. The flooring was glowing purple Phrygian marble. Placed here and there on it were statues of nudes uncovered during the excavation. Pink marble columns partially exposed-they were still mostly embedded in raw brown earth-shone palely. One wall was revealed; it was smooth, flat brickwork displaying the meticulous craftsmanship of builders two thousand years ago. Its centerpiece, which always made Eva’s heart beat a little faster, was a stunning mosaic displaying Jupiter and Juno, king and queen of the Roman gods, reclining on thrones. Few had seen it since it was buried in antiquity.

She sensed Judd’s awe, and then an instant return to acute awareness. His gaze swept the room, where Yitzhak sat with a man and a woman in wood chairs around an unvarnished wood table on which lay his notes and reading glasses. An American, the professor was a world-renowned scholar of medieval Greek and Roman history, with an emphasis on Judaism. He had published a dozen books on the subject.

Eva put a smile on her face, and all three stood up. The professor hurried toward her, arms outstretched. He was a small, slope-shouldered man who exuded the energetic optimism of a Rome native. His face and belly were round, his gaze sharp, and his head completely bald, shining in the light. In his early sixties, he was fifteen years older than Roberto.

“My dear, it’s been far too long.” He enveloped her in his arms.

“Much too long.” She hugged him.

When he released her, she introduced him to Judd.

“You like my little sanctum sanctorum, Judd?” Yitzhak asked curiously. “It was once the domain of wealthy families in the Augustan era. Roberto saw some pottery shards beneath the cellar’s bricks when we had to do some repair work, and that’s how we discovered it.”

Eva explained, “Ancient Rome is a buried city, lying under layers of history forty-five feet deep in places. What you’re seeing is unusual-more than eighty percent is still uncovered.”

Yitzhak said in a mock whisper, “Please don’t tell on us, Judd. We private homeowners do our digging like thieves in the night because we don’t want the Beni Culturali knocking on our doors to evict us. And they have a habit of doing just that, so they can make our little finds public.” He gazed around, his eyes glowing. “The silence and seclusion make the distant past seem eerily tangible, don’t they?”

“They do,” Judd agreed as he set the coffee tray on the table. Then he said just what Yitzhak wanted to hear: “Your place is very beautiful.”

The professor smiled broadly, his round face crinkling. “You must meet my other guests. This is Odile and Angelo Charbonier, in from Paris by way of Sardinia. We’ve had a delightful lunch. But then, why not? We’re old friends. Such good old friends that Angelo’s been buying and reading my books for years, emphasis on ‘buying.’ ” He winked at Judd. “Who can ask more than that? Eva, I believe you already know the Charboniers.”

Angelo pumped Judd’s hand. “Delighted.” His French accent was light.

A little more than six feet tall and in his late forties, Angelo looked fresh-faced and vigorous in his open-necked white shirt, beige jacket, and slacks. His face was chiseled in the way of European men who spent long hours in the gyms of their exclusive athletic clubs. Although he was a rich investment banker, Eva had always found him to be a down-to-earth and charming companion at the openings and dinner parties where they had met.

Eva could read nothing on Judd’s smiling face as he responded, “It’s good to meet you.”

Always more reticent, Odile shook Judd’s hand and said simply, “A pleasure.”

“For me as well,” Judd said.

A little younger than Angelo, Odile was quieter, with refined features and perfectly coiffed platinum-blond hair. She made a graceful athletic figure in her highly expensive velour jacket and trousers. At the same time, there was a steely quality about her that no doubt had been useful as Angelo and she had climbed high in Paris society through his business connections and her philanthropic work.

After exchanging pleasantries with Judd, Angelo turned to Eva. “I am sorry about Charles. Of course his death was a tragedy. Will you forgive me for saying whatever happened, it was also an accident and surely not your fault? Charles was a great man, and you are a great lady. Odile and I have always been fond of you.”

He glanced at Odile, who gave a firm nod of agreement.

Odile shook Eva’s hand. “Oh, chérie, we are simply too sorry for words.”

Immediately, Angelo extended his hand, too. Touched, Eva took it. He pressed his lips against the back. When he looked up, he smiled into her eyes. “I’m glad you weren’t badly injured in the car accident.”

“Thank you, Angelo. Thank you, Odile. You’re both very kind.”

“Why didn’t I know you were coming, Eva?” Yitzhak complained, appraising her. “We’ve heard nothing from you in a very long time.”

“It’s all my fault,” she admitted. “I wasn’t sure-”

“That we still adored you?” Yitzhak finished for her. “Silly girl. Of course we do.”

“You will be interested to know Yitzhak and I were just talking about the Library of Gold,” Angelo told her. “We missed the opening at the British Museum.”

“Ah, The Book of Spies. What a find.” Yitzhak bent over the table and picked up the carafe. “Who wants coffee?”

“Enjoy yourselves. I am going upstairs to ask Roberto for my usual aperitif,” Odile said.

As she climbed the steps, Yitzhak added cream and sugar as requested, then handed the cups around. As the four stood together, Eva glanced at Judd, who had been covertly studying the Charboniers. He smiled at her over his cup as he drank. She could read nothing in his gray eyes.

“If only Charles were still alive so he could have attended the opening,” the Frenchman said. “I am certain he would have given us another theory about the library’s location. His theories were always very clever.” He peered at Eva. “Were you able to go?”

“Yes. It was interesting, and The Book of Spies is fabulous.”

“I’m envious.” The professor sipped his coffee.

“What do you think Charles would have said?” Angelo asked curiously.

Before she could answer, Judd interrupted. “As a matter of fact, Charles did say something-in a way.”

Surprised, Eva stared at him.

“Eva,” he told her, “I think this is a good time to fill in the professor. No need to bore him with a long explanation. Just give him Charles’s message.”

Judd seemed to have decided it was safe to do so. Angelo Charbonier was a bibliophile, too, and perhaps he might be helpful-or was Judd testing the Frenchman in some way?

“It’s something I discovered recently.” Eva paused. “It was just your name, ‘Law,’ and the date of Charles’s and my wedding anniversary in 2008-the one we spent with you and Roberto. Do you know why Charles would leave a message for me like that?”

The professor frowned, trying to remember. He rubbed his chin. At last he chuckled. “Of course. My old brain had nearly forgotten. Charles left a secret gift for you, Eva-or for an emissary if you sent one-but you had to ask for it and mention the anniversary date.” He walked toward the ladder.

“It’s here?” Eva asked, excited.

He turned, his eyes dancing. “Yes. Come with me. I’m eager to know what it is, too.”

28

EVA FOLLOWED Yitzhak, and they climbed upstairs, first into the cellar and then back into the house. Angelo and Judd brought up the rear. In the hallway Eva could hear Odile’s and Roberto’s voices floating back from the sitting room.

The professor led them through the airy kitchen and into a large storage room lined with metal shelves stacked with cardboard boxes. They stood beside the professor, the air electric with suspense as he peered around.

“Now, where did I put it?” Lips pursed, he headed into the back and pushed aside some cartons. When he emerged, he was carrying a small box taped tightly shut. He rotated it to show the top. “See? Here’s your name, Eva.” He handed it to her.

She stared at the handwriting. It was Charles’s.

“Perhaps it is some fabulous necklace from ancient Persia, or jeweled earrings from Mesopotamia.” Angelo’s chiseled features were alight with excitement.

“Open it,” Yitzhak ordered.

She tore off the tape and lifted the lid. On top of Styrofoam bubbles lay two pieces of protective paper boards about eight inches wide by twelve inches long, held together with clips. She separated them, revealing a fragment of parchment. One side showed cramped, faded Arabic lettering, while the other side was blank. There was nothing written on the protective boards.

“What’s that?” Judd asked.

“It looks like something from an ancient document.” Eva handed the yellowed piece to Yitzhak. It was much smaller than the boards, about three by four inches.

“Let’s go into the kitchen, where I can see better.” Yitzhak led them back into the room, where he carefully put the fragment on a high butcher-block table.

She watched as he scrubbed his hands at the sink. Many professional archivists wore white cotton gloves when handling manuscripts and other artworks to protect them from skin oils and acids. At the same time, others claimed gloves were dangerous, since they not only could contain unseen dirt and particles, but they also minimized the wearer’s sensitivity when handling the article. For them, thorough hand-washing was the better choice. Yitzhak belonged to the hand-washing school, as did she. Charles had been a white-glove archivist.

When Yitzhak finished, she washed her hands, and he ordered Judd and Angelo to do the same.

She joined Yitzhak on one side of the high table as he positioned his reading glasses on his nose. Judd joined Angelo on the other side, two men of the same height with similar body builds, she noticed.

As Yitzhak muttered to himself, translating the fragment, Eva dug through the Styrofoam packing in the box. “There’s something else in here.”

She pulled out a tapered cylinder of glistening gold, about eight inches long and, judging by its heft, hollow. At the narrowest end it was two inches in diameter; at the other, about four inches. Perfectly round ivory knobs shone on each terminus.

Yitzhak stared at the baton. “Simple, but spectacular.”

“Gorgeous,” Angelo said. “But what is it? Is there any writing on it?”

“Does it open?” Judd asked.

Eva rotated the cylinder, and everyone leaned close.

“There are small engravings of arrows, shields, and helmets. Decorations, no writing. I can’t find a way to open it. You try, Judd.” She could see nothing that related to the Library of Gold. She handed it to him.

“It looks very old,” Angelo observed.

“It is,” Eva told him. “And it’s not only a work of art; it had a real purpose. You can tell from the deep patina-the small abrasions and scratches that come from being used. It didn’t just sit on some mantel in a throne room.”

“If it opens,” Judd reported, “I don’t see how.”

“I will attempt.” The Frenchman took the conical baton, cupped it in both hands, and studied it.

Yitzhak peered up at them over his reading glasses. “The fragment is Arabic Judaica. Military poetry. It mentions the Spartans and secret letters.”

“That’s it,” Eva said, understanding. “The fragment gives us the clues-the Spartans, secret letters, and the military. The cylinder is a scytale.” She pronounced the word SIT-ally, rhyming with Italy. “The Spartans invented the scytale around 400 B.C. for secret communication between military commanders. It’s the first use of cryptography for correspondence that we know about, but scytali are usually uniform in diameter-not tapered like this one. When I curated an exhibit of ancient Greek artifacts at the Getty, I got lucky and found one to display, but it was plain laurel wood.”

“How does it work?” Judd asked.

“A narrow strip of parchment or leather is wrapped around the baton from one end to the other without overlapping itself. Then the message is written lengthwise along the scytale. When the strip’s unwrapped, the writing looks like scrambled letters, gibberish. At that point a messenger takes it to the recipient, who winds the ribbon around his own scytale-which obviously must have the same dimensions. Then he can read it.”

“So scytali were used for transposition ciphers,” Judd said. “Let me see it again, Angelo.”

Reluctantly, Angelo handed it over. “It warms the hands. Gold does that.”

Yitzhak smiled at Eva. “Charles left you a lovely gift. It’s probably worth a great deal of money.”

“It would be my honor to buy it from you,” Angelo said instantly.

“Thanks, Angelo. But I want to keep it.”

He pursed his lips, disappointed. “Is there anything more in the box? I’m still waiting for that necklace from Persia.”

She took the scytale from Judd, laid it on the table, and dug through the carton.

“I’m wondering whether Angelo’s right,” Judd said. “Whether there shouldn’t be something else-for instance, a strip of paper with another message from Charles that fits around the scytale for you to read.”

Eva stared at him, then abruptly turned over the carton, spilling out the Styrofoam bubbles. As the others spread them out, she inspected the inside of the box.

“There are tiny words written on the bottom,” she said, surprised. “I need something to cut open the sides.”

Judd grabbed a bread knife from a magnetic holder above the counter and handed it to her. She sliced open the cardboard, and he returned the knife.

“It’s Charles’s writing.” She read aloud:

“ ‘Think about the Cairo geniza. But the geniza of the world’s desire has the answer.’ ”

“What’s a geniza?” Judd asked.

“It’s the Hebrew word for a container or hiding place,” Yitzhak explained. “All the tattered books and pages-from old Haggadahs and dictionaries to business invoices and children’s readers-are put in some safe place in a synagogue, perhaps inside a wall or in an attic, until they can be given a proper burial.”

“Veneration of the written word is common in religion,” Angelo said. “For instance, Muslims believe the Koran is too holy simply to be discarded.”

“But the Jewish geniza is different,” Yitzhak explained. “It recognizes that not a single book but the written word in general is sacred. In the rabbinical tradition, a geniza is a grave of written things.”

“Where does Cairo fit in?” Judd asked.

Yitzhak stood back and closed his eyes, reverie on his face. “It’s long, long ago-the end of the ninth century-and the Jews of what became Cairo are renovating a destroyed Coptic church to be their synagogue. They carve an opening near the top of a tall tower. Children and adults climb the ladder every day to drop inside all the books and pieces of paper we’d throw away now. Can you hear the rustle as they fall through the air? The contributions pile up for a thousand years-a thousand years!-and the desert preserves everything. Then a little more than a century ago, the rabbis finally allow investigation.”

His eyes snapped open. “Voilà! The geniza yields up its treasures. One priceless fragment belonged to The Wisdom of Ben Sira- Ecclesiasticus. The earliest version we’d had until then was Greek, although the original was written long before that, in Hebrew in 200 B.C. Because of Cairo’s tomb in the air, we know far more about how people from India to Russia and Spain lived, what they thought about, what they ate and bought and fought over. Scores of scholarly books resulted.”

“But what does that have to do with anything?” Angelo asked. “This is another mystery. Charles had an annoying habit of being oblique.” He eyed the scytale shining on the table.

Judd kept them on point. “How does Charles’s scytale relate to ‘the geniza of the world’s desire’?”

“His note indicates he didn’t mean the Cairo geniza,” Eva said. “So it’s not Cairo.”

“Of course you’re right.” Judd smiled. “But Istanbul is. That’s what it’s called-the City of the World’s Desire.”

“Every synagogue there would have a geniza,” the professor said. “But that’s a lot of genizot to have to dig through.”

Judd looked across the table to the professor. “Charles may have left the package with you not only because he trusted you to hold it for Eva, but because you might understand what he meant for her to do next.”

“My friend, you have a point,” Yitzhak agreed. “Let me think… Istanbul. Geniza.…” He frowned and ran a hand over his bald head. Atlast he smiled. “Charles could be such a tease. I think he must’ve meant Andrew Yakimovich. Yakimovich has the largest private collection of documents from the Cairo geniza in Istanbul. Actually the largest in the region.”

“I remember him,” Eva said. “He’s an antiquities dealer.”

She had been concentrating on Yitzhak, but now she glanced at Judd in time to see his gaze focus on Angelo, whose hand had just slipped into and out of his jacket pocket. Judd turned casually away.

“Does this Yakimovich person live in Istanbul?” The fine lines on Angelo’s chiseled face deepened with curiosity.

“He’s notoriously secretive and moves around a lot,” she told him. “I don’t remember his address there, and even if I did, it’d be no help.”

“He’s advised Charles and me in the past.” Yitzhak took off his reading glasses and addressed Eva: “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised that since Charles left the scytale with me, he also left what Judd calls a transposition cipher with Andrew.” He added cheerfully, “Another gift, Eva. I wonder what message Charles wrote on it.”

“Finding Yakimovich will be a trick-” Eva froze.

Angelo had pulled a pistol from inside the back of his waistband and quickly whipped it around to aim at them. But Judd was already moving. As Angelo’s mouth opened to warn him off, Judd lowered his head, his feet flew over the floor, and his shoulder rammed into the Frenchman’s chest. They landed with a thud against the kitchen wall.

“What are you doing!” Yitzhak bellowed. “Stop this!”

Eva grabbed the professor’s arm and yanked him down behind the butcher-block table just as the gun exploded. The noise shook the room. A bullet blasted into the ceiling, and plaster sprayed down in a snowstorm.

Angelo slammed the pistol at Judd’s head. Judd dodged, ripped the gun away, and pinned Angelo’s throat with his forearm. He pointed the weapon at his temple.

Angelo’s face was red and furious. He swore in French.

“A man who doesn’t want anyone to know he’s a threat shouldn’t have a bulge at the back of his jacket.” Judd’s voice was calm. “I saw it when I followed you up the ladder. What do you have to do with the Library of Gold?”

“You will never know,” Odile said from the kitchen doorway.

Eva spun around. Roberto was walking shakily in, with Odile behind him, her hand steady as she held a pistol to the back of his head.

The room turned silent.

“Judd, give the gun back to Angelo,” Odile commanded. “Or I will kill Roberto.”

29

RIDING HIS skateboard, Bash Badawi cruised along the street opposite Yitzhak Law’s home. He appeared casual in his baggy shorts, zippered hoodie jacket, and small backpack. His straight jet-black hair framed a dusky-colored face and almond-shaped brown eyes. Although he wore earphones as part of his disguise, the only sound he heard was the constant rumble of traffic and the talk of the pedestrians he passed.

As he slalomed across the intersection and turned back to retrace his route on the other side, he checked Quinn, who still sat stoically on the bench with his cloth shopping sack, and then Martina, who remained in her beach chair under the pepper tree, apparently reading the newspaper, chin tilted high. Everything was under control.

Still, he slowed his skateboard to study the area, wondering about a man who was pushing a baby carriage. Dressed in gray sweatpants and sweatshirt, he had passed by a half hour ago, returned, and was now heading off around the corner again. The man was big and bulky, with sharp features and thick black eyebrows. He could simply be taking the baby out for fresh air, circling the block.

Bash also noted a man with long brown hair and a thin face, riding a blue Vespa motor scooter. He had driven past fifteen minutes ago and perhaps earlier, too. Motor scooters were ubiquitous in Rome, and many Vespas rushed along the street. The man might be a messenger of some kind.

Passing beneath a branching maple tree, Bash again neared Yitzhak Law’s old house. He could see no one through the windows. But then as he cruised past, there was a faint explosion from deep inside, the noise muffled by the stone walls. A gunshot. His chest tightened. He did an immediate one-eighty and dug his foot into the pavement, speeding back on his skateboard toward the steps.

IN THE kitchen, Judd held his pistol steadily against Angelo Charbonier’s temple, his arm braced against his throat. With a single hard thrust, he could crush Angelo’s windpipe if he tried to retake his weapon.

But now that Odile had arrived, Angelo smiled triumphantly. His eyes were as hard and black as anthracite. “Return my pistol, Judd,” he ordered. “You do not want anything to happen to Roberto.”

Roberto’s face was pale with fear. Sweat glistened on his forehead. “I do not understand…” He stared helplessly at Yitzhak.

The professor had risen from his hiding place behind the table. His eyes blinked too fast as he demanded, “Put your guns away. All of you. What is this insanity?”

Odile asked her husband in French, “Have you summoned the men?”

Eva started to translate for Judd.

Judd interrupted her. “I know what Odile said. And my guess is their men are either here or soon will be. I saw Angelo reach into his pocket when he heard about Yakimovich.” He said to Angelo, “You figured you’d learned all you were going to, so you signaled them, right?”

Angelo’s smile widened, but he did not answer the question. “We now have, as you Yankees say, a standoff. If you do not return my weapon, Odile will shoot Roberto. And she will, believe me.”

“I’m tempted to fire anyway,” Judd said. “Wipe you, and by the time Odile pulls her trigger, I’ll get off a clean shot at her. Then you’ll both be dead.”

Odile stepped farther behind Roberto so his body was a better shield against the threat of Judd. “There is another solution,” she said. “You and I can put down our weapons. We can talk.”

“Lower your gun, Odile,” Judd said, “and I’ll lower mine.”

She nodded. As their gazes locked, they let their gun hands descend.

AS HE neared the house’s steps, Bash Badawi slowed his skateboard, watching again. Something besides the gunshot was wrong, but he could not quite identify it. The afternoon sunlight beat down harshly, turning the street scene with its growling cars and low scooters and bobbing pedestrians into waves of streaming color. As his mind quickly sorted through what his eyes saw, he realized six men in shorts and T-shirts in wide bands of green, white, and red-the colors of Italy’s flag-had rounded the corner in a bunch, feet light and forearms raised, hands loose, in the usual way of joggers. All apparently normal.

But it was not. The pack broke up and scattered, still jogging. Four moved across the street toward Carl and Martina, while two headed in his direction. They were janitors, hired killers, and they had targeted him and his team, which meant someone-perhaps the Vespa rider or the man in the sweatsuit, pushing the baby carriage-had already cased the area for them.

His gaze on the pair who were jogging toward him, Bash slid his hand inside his jacket, unhooked his shoulder holster, and gripped the handle of his Browning.

AS JUDD kept his gaze on Odile, he and she lowered their pistols to their sides. No one moved or spoke, suspended in a tableau of tension. The only sound was Roberto’s short, frightened breaths, which seemed to shudder against the hard surfaces of the kitchen. He ran to Yitzhak, who put his arm around him.

Appearing to give Roberto room, Eva moved closer to Odile and stopped when she was about four feet away. Judd exchanged a glance with her, remembering her expertise in karate. She narrowed her eyes and gave a slight nod.

Judd stepped back from Angelo. “Tell me about the Library of Gold.”

But it was Odile who answered: “There is nothing to say. All of us have been curious about it for years, of course.”

“Bullshit,” Judd said. “The library’s why you’re here. Why Angelo pulled his gun. Why you have men outside. You want to stop us from finding it.”

Angelo Charbonier straightened against the wall, smoothing his sports jacket. “What I want to know is whom you have informed about what you have learned.”

“I’ll tell you that,” Judd lied, “if you tell me what your relationship is to the library.”

“Hypothetically, let us assume you are correct that we have some knowledge,” Angelo said slowly. “Perhaps even that I am a member of the small book club that supports the library.”

“Was my father a member, too?” Judd asked immediately.

Angelo looked surprised a moment, then shook his head firmly. “Your turn.”

It was a beginning, but Judd did not trust Angelo. “Suppose we give you the scytale, and you tell us more. Then all of us can walk away alive and forget this ever happened.”

“That has possibilities,” Angelo agreed.

Judd checked Eva again, and she stared back.

He gestured at the table. “There’s the scytale. It’s all yours, Odile. Take it.”

“No!” Angelo shouted.

But he was too late. Odile was already striding toward it.

BASH MADE a fast decision. His assignment was to protect Judd Ryder and Eva Blake. His fellow team members, Martine and Quinn, would fend for themselves. He had to break into the professor’s house, and quickly.

Neither of the two janitors jogging toward him had showed a weapon yet, and they likely planned not to until they were beside him and could liquidate him quietly. He focused on them, propelling himself faster and faster on his skateboard.

The pair was only twenty feet away. Still jogging, they tensed as they saw his increasing speed. They lifted their shirts a few inches and drew out small-caliber pistols with sound suppressors screwed on.

Bash snatched out his Browning. The air felt hot and slick as he raced through it. The two killers aimed. He bent his knees, slid his left foot forward to the nose of his skateboard, and used the other foot to stomp down on the tail. Instantly the board ollied, flying into the air.

Surprised, the men jerked their gazes up. Bash shifted his weight, and the skateboard crashed into the chest of one. He fell hard on his back, and his gun spun away.

Bash landed and rolled, shaking off the impact. A bullet bit into the pavement next to him, but he continued to roll. Pieces of concrete cut into his skin. The downed janitor was swiftly reaching for his gun and rising into a crouch as a second bullet blasted into the pavement near Bash’s head.

Bash fired twice, once into the chest of the standing man and then into the chest of the other. Blood exploded from their T-shirts. Pedestrians who had been walking toward them from both directions rushed away, screaming and shouting. At the same time a gunshot sounded from across the street.

Jumping to his feet, Bash checked across the traffic. Martine was slumped in her chair, her head dangling over her chest, while Quinn lay on his side on the bench. Bash took a deep breath. Both were down. Then he saw their killers were jogging back to the curb, preparing to cross over and come after him.

He snatched up his skateboard and sprinted up the steps to Yitzhak Law’s door.

30

THE SOUND of Angelo’s loud “No!” reverberated in Judd’s ears as Odile lunged for the gold scytale glittering on the kitchen table. Eva slashed out a fist in a kentsui-uchi hammer strike into Odile’s side, pivoted, and, keeping her hips horizontal and her torso perpendicular, rammed up her elbow in a tate hiji-ate blow to the underside of Odile’s chin.

Odile’s head snapped back, and her pistol fired. There was a moan, and Roberto crashed against the table and slid down to the floor, blood oozing from the top of his shoulder, where his shirt was torn by the bullet.

“Roberto! Roberto!” Yitzhak knelt over him.

Despite the attack, Odile had kept her grip firmly on her gun. As the two women struggled for it, Angelo dove at Judd.

Judd moved quickly out of reach, training his weapon on Angelo. “Stop, dammit.”

Angry furrows creased Angelo’s forehead. He cursed loudly but froze, staring at the pistol.

Judd glanced over at the women just as Eva prepared to smash the side of her hand at Odile’s gun. But Odile slammed a shut -uchi sword-hand strike to Eva’s arm, then balanced and lashed out in a brutal mae-geri front snap kick to her leg.

Eva toppled, and Odile pressed the pistol’s muzzle into her belly. Odile’s platinum hair was wild, and her eyes naked with fury. Judd fired, his bullet going into the top of the Frenchwoman’s head as she suddenly lowered it. Blood sprayed, and she dropped hard onto Eva, still clasping her weapon.

“Get her gun, Eva,” Judd ordered as he turned back to cover Angelo.

But Angelo had yanked a sharp fileting knife from the magnetic holder above the counter. “Bâtard.” He closed in.

Two more gunshots sounded from the kitchen doorway. Freezing in midstride, Angelo reeled, then fell, blood blossoming scarlet across his beige jacket where the rounds had entered.

As the stink of cordite spread through the room, Bash Badawi walked in, his gun still raised in one muscled hand while his skateboard dangled from the other.

“Lucky shots.” Judd grinned at him.

“Lucky shots, my ass. Glad I got here in time for the party. How you doing, Eva?”

“Never better.” Holding Odile’s pistol, Eva crouched beside Roberto and Yitzhak. Her face and green jacket were splattered with blood.

Bash peered across at Angelo’s motionless body, then down at Odile’s. “They must’ve arrived before I did. There was no sign they were here.”

Judd nodded. “How many janitors outside?”

“Four still in action, dressed like joggers. Two others down.” He gave a brief smile, his young face suddenly amused. “I had a bit of a dustup with them.” Then he added soberly, “We lost Martine and Quinn.”

“That’s bad. I’m sorry. How did you get in?”

“I picked the lock. The Polizia di Stato are on the way. I heard sirens, very close. Their focus is going to be on the two janitors in the street and Martine and Carl. The good thing is the sirens and witnesses have probably scared away the last four in the wet squad.”

“But they could still come in the back door.” Judd slammed the dead bolt, then peered out the kitchen’s large window, which overlooked a small rear yard of lilacs and grass. A brick pathway led to the end of a high brick wall, which enclosed the property. There was a cobblestone alleyway on the far side, showing through a wrought-iron gate. No one was in sight.

“We’ve got to get the hell out of here,” Judd told them. “Check the woman, Bash. I’ll take the man.” He went to Angelo.

“Roberto needs a doctor,” Eva reminded them. “How do you feel, Roberto?”

“It is over?” Roberto whispered. He was sitting up, leaning against a table leg. His bearded face was pasty, his lips dry.

“Everything’s fine,” she assured him.

“Hold this down for me.” Yitzhak indicated to Eva the bloody handkerchief he had clamped onto Roberto’s shoulder wound. “I’ll call an ambulance.”

“This one’s a dead rat,” Bash reported from where he stooped over Odile. “How’s yours?”

“Dead, too.” Judd wiped the handle of Angelo’s pistol and pressed it into his flaccid hand. He searched Angelo’s pockets, leaving the billfold. There was nothing useful inside, not even a cell phone. “Is your gun traceable, Bash?”

“No way. That dumb I’m not.”

“Good. Put the woman’s prints on it and leave it next to her. They’ll look as if they shot each other. Take Odile’s gun from Eva. You need to be armed.”

“No.” Reaching for the kitchen telephone, Yitzhak turned to glare at them. His face was an angry red, and drops of sweat dotted his bald head. “We have to give the police the whole truth.”

Feeling the pressure of time, Judd ignored the professor and told Bash, “As soon as you’re done here, go to the front of the house and check the windows. I want to know what’s happening outside.” Then he focused on Yitzhak. “Hang up the phone, professor. Roberto’s got a flesh wound. We’ll get him medical attention, but not just yet. Sticking around here could be your death warrant. Roberto’s, too. These people have been trying to terminate Eva.”

Yitzhak frowned at her. “That’s true?”

“Yes,” she told him. “Remember Ivan the Terrible’s Oprichniki? That’s what they’re like-utterly ruthless.”

“They’re going to want to find out what you know about us and where we’re going,” Judd said. “They’ll track you down, and as soon as you tell them, they’ll kill you. All of us need to leave-and fast. Can you walk, Roberto?”

“I think so.” His voice was weak. He had been listening, his brown eyes round and frightened. “Yes, it is obvious we must go.”

Yitzhak put the telephone back into its cradle. “Eva, you take one side of Roberto, and I’ll take the other.”

As they supported him, Roberto rose to his feet, and Bash ran back into the room.

“The police are blocking off the street,” he said. “I found the dead woman’s purse in the sitting room. She didn’t have a cell, either.”

“I’d rather not risk going out the back door,” Judd told him. “Yitzhak, I saw what looks like the beginning of a tunnel at the end of your refuge downstairs. Can we get out that way?”

“I think so, but it may not be easy.” Yitzhak’s voice was strong. With Roberto’s uninjured arm draped over his shoulder, he had returned to his normal self.

Eva took the gold scytale and fragment of Arabic Judaica, and she and the others went ahead. Judd tore up the top and bottom of the cardboard box with Charles’s writing and Eva’s name. Stuffing the pieces into the garbage disposal, he turned it on, then threw the Styrofoam bubbles and the rest of the box into the trash. He peered around the kitchen to make certain they had left nothing behind. Last, he checked the window-and dropped below the counter. He rose up slowly, just enough to see out again.

Men were at the rear gate. One wore a gray sweatshirt and sweatpants; the others were dressed in jogging shorts and T-shirts. The big man in the sweatsuit tried to open the gate, but it was locked. Muttering to himself, he took out picklocks.

Judd raced to the stairs under the broad staircase and descended into the brick-lined cellar. Voices sounded, floating up from the ragged hole in the floor. He started down it, stopping to drag the brick trapdoor over the opening. It was heavy, but he leveraged it up and settled it into place. With luck, none of the killers would discover Yitzhak’s secret domain.

He hurried down to the bottom, where Jupiter and Juno gazed regally from their thrones. The silence was luminous in the ancient room, a stillness that seemed to wrap around him and promise safety. But there was no safety yet.

Everyone was gathered at the street-side end of the long room, where rubble was strewn and a brown wall of dirt rose to the ceiling. Bash and Eva were throwing rocks out of the way. What had been a small tunnel was now much larger.

Eva saw him. “Are Angelo’s men in the house?”

“Not yet, but they will be in minutes.” Judd hurried toward them.

The tunnel was about four feet high and three feet wide. There was darkness on the other side, and he could hear the sound of distant running water. Five flashlights lay in a row on the marble floor.

“You must lead,” Roberto told the professor, who was still supporting him. “I can walk by myself. Judd is right. I am fine-just messy looking.” He glanced at the bloody handkerchief he was holding to his wound.

The professor nodded. “We’re going under the street. Take your flashlights.” He handed one to Roberto and picked up one for himself. Hunching over, he moved into the darkness.

“I’ll go last,” Judd told the others, thinking about the janitors who might be smarter than he hoped.

Bash grabbed his skateboard, and Eva slung her satchel onto her back. They disappeared into the burrow. Judd paused. When he heard nothing from above, he crouched and hurried into the darkness, his flashlight shooting a cone of light. The air began to smell of moss and damp.

The small group was waiting for him at the end.

“You need to see this,” Eva told him.

He squeezed past to look out at a natural underground tunnel, black and seemingly endless, a crude dirt bore through ancient Rome. It was more than six feet high and twelve feet wide, carved out over the millennia by a freshwater stream that rushed past at high velocity. As he beamed his flashlight over it, it sparkled like mercury.

He moved his flashlight again. There were dirt banks on either side of the stream, not far above the fast-moving water. The banks were dangerously narrow, only a foot wide in places. Walking would be treacherous. They would have to go single file.

“The stream follows the street?” he asked.

“Yes, at least part of the way,” the professor answered. “I believe it feeds into the Cloaca Maxima-the Great Drain-west of here. That’s an ancient sewer that runs beneath the Roman Forum. Several of the city’s underground streams feed into it.”

“How do we get out of the tunnel?”

“We should find a place to exit somewhere along the way. We can’t be the only homeowners who’ve discovered the stream. Roberto and I explored once, but we didn’t go far. It didn’t matter before…”

Judd nodded. “Sounds like better odds than what’s waiting for us in the house. Yitzhak, you lead again. You know the signs that’ll tell us we’ve got a way to escape. Then Eva and Roberto. Bash and I go last, in case we’re followed. Let’s move out.”

31

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

THE SWANK cocktail party was on the thirtieth floor of the stunning Burj al-Arab-the Tower of the Arabs, the world’s tallest and arguably grandest hotel. The suite soared two full stories, boasting a spiral marble staircase, miles of twenty-four-carat gold detailing, and expansive windows showcasing panoramic views of the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Two Saudi princes in flowing white kanduras had just arrived via the twenty-eighth-floor helipad below, flying in from St. Tropez with full entourages.

Martin Chapman, the director of the Library of Gold, turned his attention from the flurry around them to watch a Russian exporter and his mistress take calls on ten-thousand-dollar cell phones encrusted with diamonds. Chapman smiled, amused. Still, he would never allow such gaudy affectation in his employees.

Dressed conservatively in a three-piece, side-vented suit, Chapman excused himself from a group of international bankers and walked off. He wore his vast personal fortune with the natural ease of Old Money, although he damn well had earned every penny himself.

Winding through the partygoers, he savored the undercurrent of excitement and raw avarice. But then, this was Dubai, epicenter of a storm of commerce, with free-trade zones, speed-dial corporate licensing, no taxes, no elections, and almost no crime. It was said the city’s bird was the building crane-skyscrapers seemed to sprout from the desert sands overnight, most apartments and offices presold. Eager and filthy rich, Dubai was perfect for Chapman, who was here to raise money.

“Appetizer, sir?” Dressed in a money-green tuxedo, the server kept his gaze lowered.

Chapman chose Beluga caviar piled on a triangle of toast and continued on. From religion to crime and terrorism, everything in Dubai took a backseat to profit, and the profit was enormous. Even before Haliburton decided to move its world headquarters from Houston to Dubai, Chapman knew it was time to pay attention. So he had added to his string of homes, buying a villa in exclusive Palm Jumeirah-and had begun making friends.

It was time to go to work. He headed for Sheik Ahmad bin Rashid al-Shariff.

The sheik’s black mustache curved upward as he dismissed a bevy of bronzed blond celebutantes and smiled at Chapman. He lifted his bourbon glass in greeting. “Assalaam alaykom.” Peace be upon you.

“Alaykom assalaam.” And peace upon you. Chapman did not speak Arabic, but long ago he had memorized the correct response. “I’m enjoying your party.”

Sheik Ahmad was a dark wisp of a man in his mid forties, elegant in a gray pinstriped suit. A cousin of the emirate’s ruler, he had been partially educated in the United States, with an MBA from Stanford. Earlier that day he had personally taken the wheel of a white Cadillac limousine to escort Chapman around several of his building sites. But then Chapman was no ordinary visitor. He headed Chapman & Associates, once the richest private equity firm in the United States. It had dropped from some $98 billion in assets under management to a mere $35 billion in the economic crash, but all U.S. equity funds had been eviscerated, although his perhaps more than others. Chapman was counting on his Khost project to put him back at number one, where he belonged. Even more important, it would please his wife.

“Yes, the usual financiers and industrialists,” the sheik said. “A sprinkling of the idle rich. They’re like saffron-zesty and attractive, entertaining for working stiffs like you and me. There are several of you private-equity people here, too.”

Private equity was the sanitized term for leveraged-buyout firms. In the first four months of the year, Chapman & Associates had spent and borrowed far fewer billions of dollars than in its heyday, as he had searched out underperforming or undervalued companies to buy. With every deal, a new war chest had to be raised, so he was constantly on the money circuit, charming, cajoling, rattling off figures as he seduced those he targeted with his strong handshake and visions of a glorious future. Since he retained a larger interest in the company than anyone, he took a hefty percentage from every new transaction.

He ate his caviar, dusted his fingers on the cocktail napkin, and dropped it onto the tray of a passing waiter. “I was speaking with some of them earlier. They’re eager to go on personal tours of Dubai with you, too.”

The sheik laughed. “That’s what I like about you, Martin. You’re happy to give away my wealth, even to your competitors. As usual, they’ll be too small for me, as you already know. By the way, I’ve made my decision about your proposition.”

He paused to increase the drama and hint his answer might not be what Chapman wanted.

Without hesitation, Chapman gave an understanding nod and countered, “Yes, I’ve been thinking about the buy-in, too. Perhaps it’s not right for you. I think I should withdraw the invitation and save us both embarrassment.”

Sheik Ahmad blinked slowly, his hooded eyelids closing and opening like those of a hawk perched in a banyan tree, awaiting prey. But his prey was Martin Chapman.

He smiled. “Martin, you are too much. Playing my game, are you? I’ll come to the point. I want in. It’s five hundred million dollars, yes?”

“Three hundred and twenty million. No more. Still, that will give you twenty percent.”

Chapman’s rule was always to leave investors hungering for more, and if the deal went sour, which he knew it would not, the sheik would have fewer reasons to lash back. Chapman was confident the $16 billion leveraged buyout of a mass-market retail company would return profits of at least 60 percent. Management had been unable to keep up with the changing times, but the structure was sound for a turnaround, financed by selling off ancillary holdings and taking loans. Only five thousand employees would have to be fired.

“Then it will be three hundred and twenty million,” Sheik Ahmad agreed good-naturedly. “I like investments where I don’t have to lift a finger. Do you have anything else I can give you money for?”

“Soon. The deal isn’t ready yet-but soon.”

“What is it? A retail chain, a distribution company, steel, timber, utilities?”

Chapman said nothing and smiled, thinking about his highly secret Khost project.

The sheik nodded. “Ah, I see. I’ll wait until you’re ready to reveal all. Your glass is empty. You must have another drink so we can celebrate.” He raised a hand and signaled. Within seconds, a waiter stood before them.

It would be impolite to refuse, so Chapman accepted another bourbon and talked longer, resisting the urge to check his watch. Finally the sheik invited him to attend a majlis, his royal council, which was convening upstairs, and Chapman was able to exit gracefully.

On the sweeping steps of the palatial hotel, Chapman dialed his wife as he luxuriated in the outdoor air-conditioning. He looked out over the gulf to the collection of man-made islands called the World, one of Dubai, Inc.’s recent Las Vegas-style fantasies come to life. He had heard Rod Stewart had bought “Britain” for £19 million. Perhaps the next time he came, after the Khost project was certain, he would see about buying a continent, too.

When there was no answer, he left a message on the machine. “I’m flying out, darling. I just wanted to let you know I love you.” She was still in San Moritz but was scheduled to leave for Athens soon.

As he watched the blazing red sun sink toward the gulf’s purple waters, his limo pulled up. The chauffeur opened the door, and Chapmen climbed into the rear, where his briefcase was waiting. Soon they were on the Sheikh Zayed Road, cruising east beneath the city’s Manhattan-style skyline while the darkening desert and gulf spread flat and austere on either side.

He called his assistant at the Library of Gold. The Khost project was so secret that Chapman was running the operation from there.

“Where are we?” he demanded.

“The army uniforms and equipment have arrived in Karachi.” The port on the Arabian sea was notorious for being porous. “Preston has handled everything impeccably. Your meeting with the warlord is scheduled for tomorrow in Peshawar.”

“And security?”

“I’m working with Preston. It will be complete.”

After he hung up, Chapman made several more phone calls, bringing himself up-to-date on other pieces of business and of course issuing orders. No matter how high the quality of the people one employed, they still needed guidance.

When the limo reached the private section of Dubai International Airport, the chauffeur drove out to the Learjet. Its engines were humming. He stopped the limo and ran around to open the rear door.

Chapman climbed out, carrying his briefcase. Handing over his passport to the waiting customs agent, he expected no trouble and got none-the agent simply stamped it. As the chauffeur unloaded his suitcase, Chapman marched toward the aircraft.

Two more men were waiting at the foot of the stairs. One was the pilot; the other was the armed man Preston had arranged. He was carrying a small bag.

“Good to see you, sir.” The pilot touched the brim of his cap.

“Any problems?”

“No. We’ve followed your instructions and haven’t spoken to her.”

Chapman nodded and climbed into the opulent aircraft. It had wide leather seats, custom colors, and high-tech accessories. Sitting in the last row was Robin Miller, the only passenger.

“Hello, Mr. Chapman.” She stared at him down the length of the aisle, her green eyes red-rimmed, her face flushed from weeping. She was a mess. Her long blond hair was disheveled, her bangs pushed to the sides, her white sweater rumpled over her chest.

He ignored her and gazed at the black backpack strapped into the seat across the aisle from her. Pleasure coursed through him. Then he remembered the CIA was intent on finding the Library of Gold. With a brusque gesture, he told the armed guard to sit in the bulkhead.

As the pilot closed and locked the door, Chapman marched down the aisle and rotated the seat in front of Robin to face her. He locked the seat into place, sat, and snapped on his safety belt. Still saying nothing, he folded his hands into his lap. Now he needed to find out how deeply she was involved in Charles Sherback’s deceptions.

AS THE jet’s engines revved up, Robin glanced nervously at the director. His unlined face was stern, his thin lips set in a straight line, and his long fingers entwined over his suit coat as if in his hands he controlled the universe. And he did control her universe-the Library of Gold.

The silence was frightening. She had seen the director do this before-saying nothing-which encouraged the other person to blurt into the vacuum, often with revelations that were later regretted. She forced herself to wait.

The jet took off, rising smoothly into Dubai’s starry night. She looked out her window. Below them the city’s lights extended along the coastline in sparkling colors.

Then she heard her voice filling the unbearable silence: “Are we still going to Athens?” That seemed neutral enough. The plan had been that from there they would helicopter The Book of Spies home to the library.

“Of course. Why didn’t you phone to tell me immediately Eva Blake recognized Charles at the British Museum?” The question was posed curiously, an uncle interested in a favored niece’s reply.

“Preston was going to take care of her.” She thought about Charles’s poor dead body, wrapped in canvas and hefted into the jet’s baggage compartment like someone’s castoff belongings.

The director gave a slight frown. It came and went quickly, but she knew her answer was wrong. Preston must have told him Charles and she had kept the information from him.

“What’s important is we got The Book of Spies.” She nodded at the backpack across the aisle. “It’s fabulous, more even than our records show. Wouldn’t you like to see it?” Once he cradled the illuminated manuscript, he might forget she had not reported Charles immediately.

“Later. Tell me what happened.”

Girding herself, she described everything in London carefully, making certain she was accurate. She had a sense he was comparing every word to what Preston had said.

When she finished, he asked, “You saw the tattoo on Charles’s head?”

“Yes.”

“What does it mean?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t even know he had it.”

He nodded. “Why do you think he wanted a secret tattoo?”

“I don’t know.”

“If your head were shaved, would I find one there, too?”

She felt a shiver of fear. “Absolutely not.”

“Then you don’t mind if I check.”

“You can’t mean you want me to cut off my hair?”

“No, Magus will do it.” The director called over his shoulder to the front of the jet, “I’m ready for you.”

The guard picked up his small bag and walked down the aisle.

She peered up at him helplessly.

Magus took shears from his bag, grabbed hair, and cut. Long blond curls floated to the floor. He grabbed more hair and cut. And more and more. The hair fell around her. Robin felt tears heat her eyes. Furious with herself, she blinked them away.

The only sound in the jet was of the clipping scissors and the distant thrum of the engines. As she used shaky fingers to wipe hair from her face, Magus put away the shears and took out a battery-powered electric razor. The steel was cold as it ran over her scalp. Her skin vibrated and itched. Little hairs flew. Her head was too light. She felt naked, ashamed.

“Do you see anything, Magus?” the director asked. “Any words, numbers, or symbols?”

“No, sir.” He turned off the razor and dropped it into his bag. “Go back to your seat.” The director fixed his gaze on her. “Did Charles ever talk to you about where the library’s located?” His eyes were blue frost.

Looking into them, she suddenly saw her father’s eyes, black but just as icy. She remembered the moment she knew she must leave and never return to Scotland. She had walked away from everything, got rid of her accent, and put herself through the Sorbonne, then Cambridge, studying classical art and library science. She had made a life of her own, first working in rare books and manuscripts at the Houghton Library in Boston then at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, where she had heard about the Library of Gold and steeped herself in its mythic history. The more she learned, the more she had hungered to know, until the exhilarating moment Angelo Charbonier had recruited her to join the elite staff, where she had met Charles and thought finally, after a decade of wandering, she had found a home.

“Charles never mentioned the library’s location,” she told him coolly.

“Does Charles’s tattoo reveal it?” the director asked.

“I already told you I don’t know what the tattoo means.”

“Do you know where the Library of Gold is?”

“No. I never asked Charles, but I don’t think he knew anyway. I never tried to find out from anyone. It’s against the rules.”

He nodded again, seeming to like that answer. “Remember the old Latin proverb ‘What was sour to endure is sweet to recall.’ You’ve proved your point, and your hair will grow back. Now I have business to conduct. Go to the front of the plane and sit near Magus.”

Despite his words, dread filled her. She had a sense she was doomed, and doomed ironically by Charles’s tattoo. If the director had been unable to trust Charles, who had seemed to love the library more than life itself, how could he ever really trust her when she so obviously had been in love with Charles?

She had made a huge error-not loving Charles, but associating with the library at all. Her mouth went dry as she realized what she had to do. She must walk away again, just as she had from her father. When the Learjet landed in Athens, she must find a way to escape.

32

Rome, Italy

IN THE dark dirt tunnel, Judd followed Yitzhak, Eva, Roberto, and Bash. Their shoes stuck and sank, slipped and slid on the narrow muddy ledge a foot above the stream. Time passed, and the enclosure grew claustrophobic, the noise of rushing water oppressive. Their flashlights did little to ward off the bleakness.

Commanding everyone to stop and be silent while he listened, Judd checked behind again. It had been a half hour, and there was still no sign of pursuit. They resumed their slow pace. Roberto’s breathing was labored.

“How are you doing, Roberto?” he called over the shoulders ahead of him.

“I am trembly but well.”

“Let us know when you want to take a break.”

Roberto nodded, then asked worriedly, “How deep do you think the water is, Yitzhak?”

“No way to know.” The professor paused. “Eva, it’s time you explained what’s going on.”

“If I did, I’d only put you in more danger.”

“When we get out of here,” Judd assured him, “Bash will take you and Roberto to a private doctor who’ll keep his mouth shut. Then when Roberto is treated, he’ll find you a place to hide out. Don’t go home until you get word from him that it’s safe. He has his own work to do, so say nothing about him-or us-to anyone.”

The professor thought about it. “Who are you, Judd? You and Bash?”

“All you need to know is we’re helping Eva. I brought Bash and a couple of other people in to back us up.”

Yitzhak’s voice toughened. “In the kitchen, Angelo said he might be a ‘supporter’ of the Library of Gold. In the book club. What does that mean?”

“That’s something else you should forget about,” Eva told him.

The professor hesitated. “You’re asking a lot, but I’ll do as you say.”

As they continued on, their flashlights revealed ancient Rome embedded in the dirt walls-fragments of pottery, spearheads, pieces of marble tiles, and chunks of brick. They stopped for Roberto to rest, then resumed their treacherous journey.

When they heard the scurrying of rats, Bash said, “Someone told me the rats under Rome were as big as cats.” His skateboard was clamped low on his chest, one arm wrapped around it.

Yitzhak chuckled. “You’ve been drinking with unsavory people.”

“I don’t like rats,” Bash admitted. “Does anyone other than crazy lab people like rats?”

“I’m more concerned about the albino creatures,” the professor said, baiting him.

“Albino rats?” Roberto steadied himself by pressing his hand against the wall. Then he stared at his muddy palm.

“Yes, but they’re not here-they’re in the Cloaca Maxima,” Yitzhak said. “In any case, we don’t want to go that far. For those of you who don’t know, the Cloaca isn’t an ordinary sewage conduit-it’s a huge, fast-moving river of crap. It was built twenty-five hundred years ago, but Rome is still using it. No one’s safe going into it without covering every inch of themselves with boots, gloves, hooded suits, and masks.”

“I wish I’d known,” Eva said. “I would’ve brought my wet suit.”

“Reminds me of a root canal I once had,” Bash said. “Bad outcome.”

“The stink is memorable,” Yitzhak went on. “A bouquet of mud, diesel, feces, and rotting carcasses. Rat carcasses.”

Bash groaned.

Judd laughed. “You get an A-plus for tormenting students, Professor.”

The professor glanced over his shoulder, his round face grinning.

They fell silent as the underground passage descended steeply, and the air grew cold and clammy. Ghostly stalactites hung from overhead rocks, caused by the seep of calcium-rich groundwater. Then as the tunnel made a sharp bend, the noise of racing water quadrupled-and a stench of rot wafted toward them. Dizzying in its intensity, it carried all the horrific odors Yitzhak had described.

Judd’s nose burned. “The Cloaca can’t be far ahead.”

“We cannot go into the Cloaca,” Roberto said nervously. “Let us turn back.”

“Not just yet-”

But before he could finish his sentence, the professor screamed. His arms lashed up over his head, and his feet flew out from under him. He twisted, his hands scrambling against the rough dirt wall, seeking purchase as his feet dropped into the water. If the stream were fast and deep enough, it would carry him into the big sewer.

Before Judd could jump in to help, Eva grabbed the professor’s arm. “I’ve got you.”

The current caught the professor’s legs. He was being pulled away.

“Face the bank, Yitzhak,” Judd ordered. He leaned out to peer around Bash and Roberto. “See if your knees can find a slope.”

“You can do it!” Eva’s hands were white from tension. Her jaw muscles bunched as she held on to him.

Sweat coated Yitzhak’s bald head as he turned slowly away from the current until he faced Eva. His free hand grabbed her arm, and he curved his back and hunched his hips.

“Come on. Come on.” She was bent nearly double, her profile strained, as she held on to him with both hands.

Yitzhak grunted and lifted one knee out of the water, then the other. As less water dragged at him, she helped him inch upward. Finally he was out. With a shudder, he planted his feet on the narrow shelf, standing between Eva and Roberto.

“You are in one piece, Yitzhak?” Roberto asked, patting his shoulder and back.

He peered down at his trousers, now laminated to his legs. Water streamed out of his shoes.

“Right as rain.” He gave a sober smile. “Thank you, Eva.”

“What made you slip, Yitzhak?” Judd said. “Check around your feet. What do you see?”

There was a pause. “You’re right. Here’s the top of a skull. I didn’t see it before. It must’ve been hidden under the mud.”

“Are there more skulls?” Eva slid her foot along the ledge, moving the muck away.

“I’ve found another one,” the professor announced.

“So have I,” Eva said.

The professor shone his flashlight along the cave wall above them, then ran the beam back and forth, lower and lower until he reached the wall’s intersection with the bank.

“Here’s a small opening.” He crouched and aimed his flashlight into it.

“What’s in there?” Eva squatted beside him.

“I can’t tell. Help me dig, Eva.”

“We’ll do it,” Judd told them. “Come on, Bash.”

The others moved ahead, and Bash sat on his heels in front of the hole. He plowed the nose of his skateboard into the wet dirt, scooping piles of it back onto the ledge, where Judd slid the dirt into the stream. They continued a half hour, taking turns until the hole was three feet in diameter and formed a tunnel two feet deep. A scent of musty age wafted toward them.

Judd beamed his flashlight into the small passageway and crawled through. Standing erect, he inhaled sharply as he shot his light around. He had entered a gray world of the dead. Age-bleached skulls pinioned one on top of another blanketed the walls from the floor to the vault ceiling.

He moved into the center of the large crypt and turned, continuing to shoot his flashlight over the eerie scene. It was like a macabre carnival. Skulls arched around nooks, framing stone walls on which faded crosses and religious symbols had been painted. Full skeletons dressed in tattered brown monk robes reclined on stone benches as if awaiting the call to prayer.

“My God.” Eva took a deep breath as she walked up to him. “The only time I’ve seen an ossuary like this was in a history magazine.”

“It’s impossible to know what Rome’s underground has in store.” The professor joined them, supporting Roberto. “Buried passageways, latrines, aqueducts, catacombs, firehouses, access tunnels-and that’s just the beginning. It looks to me as if this crypt belonged to the Capuchin order. That means some of the bones could date back five centuries.”

“There’s got to be thousands of them,” Bash decided. “But how in hell do we get out of here?” Beneath his shorts, his bare knees were coated in mud-but then, all of them were muddy now.

“I’m hoping that way.” Judd aimed his flashlight at the end of the room, where a tall arch of skulls wreathed worn stone steps leading upward. “Roberto, do you want Bash to carry you up?”

Roberto pushed himself away from Yitzhak. “I will do it myself.”

Judd nodded, and he led them past mounds of bones and up a stone stairwell, where more crosses and religious symbols were painted. As they turned the corner of a landing, the wall above their heads displayed pelvic bones arranged like angel’s wings.

He stopped, listening to Roberto’s panting breath behind. He turned. “Carry him, Bash.”

Before Roberto could object, Bash handed his skateboard to Eva and swept the small man up into his arms. “Combat victims get special treatment. Hey, it’s a free ride.”

Roberto looked up into the muscular young face. “This is not an unpleasant fate. Thank you.”

Finally they reached the top, where an ornate iron door blocked their path. Judd peered through the grillwork-there was another stairwell on the far side, this time of modern cement.

“I hear traffic,” Eva said, excited.

Judd tried the door. “Locked, of course.” They were silent, and he could feel their exhaustion. “I seem to be shooting out a lot of locks these days.”

Telling them to stand back, he screwed his sound suppressor onto his Beretta and fired. Metal dust spewed into the still air. The popping noise bounced off the stone walls.

He pushed open the door and gazed up. “Blue sky.”

“Hallelujah,” Eva said.

They resumed climbing, Judd still leading. As he neared the top, he stopped and rose up to see. They had emerged into a ruins of toppled columns, slabs of travertine, and chunks of granite scattered among dirt and weeds between two ancient buildings. Behind the area was another old building. A commercial chain-link fence blocked the ruins from the sidewalk and street.

He turned back. Their expressions were expectant as they stood beneath him in the stairwell. “I don’t know exactly where we are. At least it’s an open area. All of us are dirty, but it’s the blood that’ll draw the kind of attention we don’t want. That means you-Eva and Roberto.”

In seconds, Eva was out of her jacket. Her green shirt was clean. As she turned the jacket inside out and tied the arms around her waist, Bash lowered Roberto onto his feet. Judd studied him. He was standing erect, but his skin color was slightly pink, perhaps feverish. The handkerchief was gone from his shoulder, lost somewhere along the way. Blood coated his white shirt. Gingerly he unbuttoned it.

“Bash, give Roberto your T-shirt,” Judd decided.

Bash took off his jacket and peeled the black T-shirt up over his head.

Judd checked Roberto’s gunshot wound, a ragged slash through the top of his shoulder.

“You’re going to be fine,” he said. “Probably hurts like hell, though.”

“The pain is a small matter. We are free.” Roberto stood motionless as Yitzhak tugged the T-shirt down over his head.

“Take the professor and Roberto,” Judd told Bash. “Eva and I’ll wait until you’re gone. You’ll have to break through a chain-link gate to get out of here.”

Bash grinned. “After this… a piece of cake.”

“So now we leave you.” The professor smiled at Eva. He was wet and bedraggled, but his optimistic disposition shone through. “Be well, and even though I don’t understand anything that’s happened, my heartfelt thanks.” He hugged her, then shook hands with Judd. “We’ve had an adventure. Next time we meet, I hope it’ll be boring.”

Roberto kissed Eva on both cheeks. “You must stay in touch.”

“I will,” she promised.

Finally Judd and Bash faced each other. “There’s no way the Charboniers should’ve known we were going to Yitzhak’s house,” Judd told him, choosing his words carefully. “I’ll call our mutual friend and fill him in. We have a leak somewhere.”

The young spy nodded soberly, and they shook hands. Then he led Roberto and Yitzhak up the steps into the ruins.

Eva joined Judd, and they climbed so they could watch the trio approach the fence. Bash looked around. When there was no one on the sidewalk, he used his skateboard to smash open the padlock. Soon they were out the gate and walking away, the tall young man and his two older charges.

“We have to assume the Library of Gold people have figured out who you are now, too,” she told him. “So we can’t use your credit cards, and obviously we can’t use mine. It’s a long hitchhike to Istanbul.”

“I have an extra set of ID on me. I’ll buy the tickets. What’s worrying me is whether they’ll follow us to Istanbul.”

33

AS VEHICLES sped past, red taillights streaming red, Preston waited impatiently outside the terminal of Ciampino International Airport, Rome’s second-largest. He had chosen it because it was closer to the city’s heart and therefore more efficient. Efficiency mattered particularly now-the report from his man in Rome had been bad. Angelo and Odile Charbonier had been shot to death, while Judd Ryder, Eva Blake, Yitzhak Law, and Roberto Cavaletti had vanished. In a foul mood, he checked his watch-eight P.M.

When a long black van pulled up, he slid open the side door and stepped inside. The car entered the airport traffic, and he crouched in the rear beside the corpses. He lifted the blanket: Angelo Charbonier’s face was angry in death. Odile’s head was coated with dried blood and splintered bone.

He crawled forward to the half-seat behind the driver. “Took you long enough to get here.”

Nico Bustamante, still dressed in his gray sweat suit, was behind the wheel. A big barrel of a man, he swore in Italian, then spoke in English. “What did you expect? I told you we had a rotten mess to clean up.”

In the seat next to him, Vittorio nodded. Slender, with a wiry build, he had changed out of his tricolor jogging clothes into jeans and a denim shirt.

“Tell me again exactly what you found,” Preston ordered.

“Signore and Signora Charbonier, both murdered in the kitchen,” Nico said. “We searched the house. No one was there, and we did not find any hidden exits. The targets did not leave through the front door. I know this because I posted men at both ends of the street. And they did not leave through the rear-we were there.”

“It was as if they evaporated into the world of souls.” Vittorio crossed himself.

As they stopped at a traffic light, Preston said, “What about when you cleaned up the kitchen?”

“There was just the usual junk in the trash-I say this because I know you will ask. The only piece that was strange was blood splatters too far away from the signore and signora to be theirs.”

“So someone else was injured. Tell your people to check the neighbors, the hospitals, and the police.”

Taking out his cell phone, Nico drove the van onto the congested Via Appia Nuova.

As Nico made the call, Preston said to Vittorio, “What about the Charboniers?”

“It is all arranged. A yacht rented in their name is waiting at Ostia Antica.”

Ostia Antica was Rome’s ancient seaport, where the Tiber River flowed into the Tyrrhenian Sea. Today the town was little more than a bookshop, a café, a tiny museum, and mosaic-filled ruins, but it was appropriate for the Charboniers: Ovid’s play Medea had premiered in its amphitheater some two thousand years ago and was now lost-except to the Library of Gold.

“And then?” Preston prompted.

“We will put the signore and signora onto the yacht, sail it far out into the Mediterranean, steal everything-and abandon it. It will seem as if pirates attacked and robbed them.”

“You have their suitcases?”

“Of course. We got them from the hotel, and paid the bill, too.”

Preston nodded, satisfied. Now he had a larger problem: Where had Blake, Ryder, Law, and Cavaletti gone?

As the van headed toward Ostia Antica, he considered everything he knew. It seemed as if at least one of the four was wounded, but not so badly he or she could not escape. He needed the Rome operatives to find all of them. He thought about Charles’s tattoo-the security staff had torn apart his and Robin Miller’s offices and the cottage they shared, but had found nothing about it or any records of the library’s location. The tattoo reminded him of the director-by now he was on the jet with Robin Miller. If the director learned anything from her, he would phone.

As he thought that, his cell rang. “Yes?”

It was his NSA contact. “Your person of interest has turned on her cell and made three calls from Rome.”

“From where exactly?” Preston felt a burst of hope. It was Eva Blake’s cell phone-he had found the number on Peggy Doty’s cell after he had wiped her in London.

“Fiumicino airport.”

He cursed. It was the other airport, and too far away to reach quickly. “Whom was she calling?”

“Adem Abdullah, Direnc Pastor, and Andrew Yakimovich. I can give you the phone numbers she dialed. All were to Istanbul. Two have accompanying addresses.”

“Did you listen to the conversations?”

“You know better than that, Preston. That far I can’t go-even for you.”

“Whom did she dial first?”

“Yakimovich. It was short, less than a minute-a disconnected number. The two other calls were five and eight minutes.”

“What are their numbers and addresses?” He wrote the information in the small pocket notebook he always carried. When he no longer needed a note, he tore it out and destroyed it. There were few pages left. “Thanks, Irene. She’ll have to turn off her cell phone while she’s in the air. When she activates it again, whether she phones out or not, tell me. I need to know exactly where she is.” NSA could pinpoint locations within inches, depending on which satellite was in orbit. He ended the connection and looked at Nico. “Turn the van around. Take me back to Ciampino.” He would charter another jet and beat them to Istanbul.

34

Washington, D.C.

IT WAS late afternoon, the shadows long across Capitol Hill, as Tucker Andersen stood at the front door to Catapult headquarters and gazed out longingly. He was tired of being cooped up. A young officer from OTS at Langley was standing on the porch, holding a small package wrapped in brown paper. His expression was one of being properly impressed at meeting the storied spymaster.

Tucker took the package, tucked it under his arm, and signed for it. Then he went to Gloria’s desk. She was nowhere in sight, still on coffee break. He dropped the parcel next to her computer and walked down the hall to his office. Sitting behind his desk, he pushed aside the report he had been reading and checked his e-mail.

One had been forwarded by Gloria from the L.A. coroner’s office. It said the body in Charles Sherback’s grave had been exhumed and they were rushing the autopsy and DNA match, but it would take a couple of days. A second e-mail confirmed a room in the Méridien hotel in London had been registered to Christopher Heath, the name on Sherback’s driver’s license. One of the desk clerks remembered him with a blond woman, but there were no details.

Restless, Tucker was just about to leave when a new e-mail arrived from MI-5. He read it quickly: No adult male corpse with a shaved, tattooed head had been found in London the previous night. Consequently, there were no arrests connected with it. He stared at the message, then leaned back in his chair, trying to understand what it meant. Judd had told him he had shot carefully so Preston would survive. Finally he decided Preston had likely awakened before the police arrived and taken Sherback’s body away with him. Tucker sent an encrypted e-mail to Judd, warning him.

Disturbed, he stretched, stood, and headed down the hall to Catapult’s small communications center, which included data research and IT-information technology. At the door he was greeted by a rumble of voices, clicking keyboards, and a sense of urgency. Worktables arranged in neat rows housed a dozen secure computers and phones. High on the walls hung big-screen TVs tuned to CNN, MSNBC, FOX, BBC, and Al Jazeera, but the monitors could also view classified images. The usual cans of soda, crumpled take-out bags, and empty pizza boxes littered the area, impregnating everything with the salt-and-grease odor of fast food.

Tucker paused, surveying the staff, most of whom were bent over their keyboards. All were under the age of thirty. Since 9/11 the number of applicants to Langley had soared, and now half of all personnel were new hires. He worried about the loss of experience and institutional memory, but that was what happened when good longtime operatives and analysts quit or were fired, which had occurred in the 1990s and again in the next decade, during the tenure of a morale-killing D/CIA. Still, this young new group was dedicated and enthusiastic.

Walking through the room, he joined Brandon Ohr and Michael Hawthorne, who were standing with Debi Watson at her worktable. She was the head of IT. The trio looked as if their average age was twenty-five, although they were around thirty. They were eager, talented, and smart.

“Working hard, I see,” Tucker deadpanned. Not original, but it would get the job done.

Michael and Brandon were home after long tours overseas, waiting for reassignment. Technically neither belonged in here, but then Debi was single, a pretty brunette with large brown eyes and a Southern accent. Tucker was interested in their excuses.

“I’m on break,” Brandon said quickly. He had a square, handsome face with a hint of a movie-star beard.

“I had a question I hoped Debi could help me with,” Michael explained. He was tall and rangy, his black face dimpled.

“It’s all true, suh,” Debi assured Tucker, her Southern belle accent in full flower.

He stared soberly at the men and said nothing. “The glare,” as Gloria called it.

Brandon took the hint first. “Guess I’d better get back to the stack of papers on my desk.” He sauntered off, swiping a can of Diet Pepsi from a six-pack near the rear of the room.

“Thanks, Debi,” Michael told her. “I’ll check in with you tomorrow about the Tripoli refugee I’ve got my eye on.” He followed Brandon.

Tucker liked that neither was completely intimidated by him. It showed the sort of inner fortitude necessary for the job.

Debi sat down behind her worktable and tugged on her short skirt. “I was just about to send you an e-mail.”

“You’ve got answers for me?” He had assigned her to track down Charles Sherback’s altered face and the two anonymous phone numbers in his cell.

“It’s not what you want to hear. Nothing in any of the federal databases matches the face of your man. Nothing in the state databases, either. And no positive match with Interpol or any of our foreign friends. Since he’s an American, you’d think he’d have a driver’s license photo at least. It’s almost as if he doesn’t exist.”

“What about the two phone numbers?”

“They’re to disposable cell phones, but you suspected that already. There’s been no activity on them yet. NSA will let me know immediately.”

Disappointed, Tucker returned to his office. As he went inside, the phone on his desk rang. It was Judd Ryder. He fell into his chair and listened.

Judd related what he and Eva had learned at Yitzhak Law’s house and described the attack by the Charboniers. “There’s no way the Charboniers should’ve known we were going there,” he finished worriedly. “You’ve got to have a leak.”

Stunned, Tucker thought quickly. “Only one person at Catapult besides me has any details-the chief, Cathy Doyle. What about on your end?”

“It’s just Eva and me, and she’s been with me the whole time. Whenever I get in touch with you, I use my secure mobile. Both phone and e-mail.” The mobile’s coding technology not only encrypted voice and data but also scrambled the wavelengths on which the messages traveled, making it impossible for anyone to decipher them.

Tucker swore. “Somehow we’ve been breached. I’ll talk to Cathy.”

“See what you can dig up about the Charboniers, too, and their relationship with the Library of Gold, and whether they’ve been up to anything hinky that might be terrorist related. Angelo said he was a member of the book club. When I asked whether Dad was, he wouldn’t answer.”

Judd’s tone was flat, professional, but Tucker sensed conflicted emotion when he spoke about his father and the book club. “Of course. You’re going to Istanbul?”

“Yes. We’re taking a commercial flight. It seems safest under the circumstances. Eva called ahead, but Yakimovich’s phone is disconnected. He’s probably moved again. She was able to reach two of his longtime friends in Istanbul, but they don’t know where he is now. If you can track him down, it’d be a big help. It’ll take us a few hours to get there.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” As soon as Tucker hung up, he dialed a colleague with whom he had worked during the cold war: Faisal Tarig, who was now with Istanbul police.

“I know Andy Yakimovich,” Faisal said. “A sly fellow, that one. But then, he’s half Russian and half Turk. Perhaps I can locate him. You still smoking those manly Marlboros?”

“No, gave them up for bottled water.”

“I hope you have not become boring, old friend. But if you are asking questions like this, perhaps not. I will be in touch.”

“Don’t tell anyone I called, or the intel I need.”

There was silence. “I see.”

After he hung up, Tucker sat a moment, thinking, then he left, heading to Cathy’s office. It was a large one, directly behind the receptionist’s desk. As chief, she got the best one. Fronting the street, it had special glass in the windows so no one could see inside or use a demodulator to listen in on conversations.

The door was open. He peered in. Family photos hung on the wall alongside CIA commendations. More photos stood on her desk. Some kind of green ivy was growing in a pot. Cathy was typing, staring at her computer screen, her short, blond-streaked hair awry.

“I know you’re there, Tucker. What’s on your mind?” She had not looked at him.

He walked inside and closed the door. “Who’s heard about my Library of Gold operation?”

As he sat, she glanced around at him and frowned. “Why do you ask?”

He explained about the leak. “There’s no way the Charboniers should’ve been at Yitzhak Law’s place, waiting for my people.”

She spun around to her desk, facing him. “I’ve told only one person about Yitzhak Law-the assistant director, in my regular report, about fifteen minutes ago. That’s too late for the leak to have come from us.”

“I’ll talk to our IT people. I suppose it’s possible someone’s broken into our system. But if so, it didn’t set off any alarms. I’ll make my reports to you verbally from now on.”

They were silent. Every day thousands of amateur and professional hackers tried to breach U.S. government computers. So far Langley had lost no important data, and like other small specialized units, Catapult used the same highly secure system.

She nodded. “Anything new about the Library of Gold?”

“Ryder and Blake are on their way to Istanbul, following a good lead. As for me, I’ll be glad when I can go home.” At least he was getting a lot of work done on the missions he was overseeing.

She nodded again. Then she gave him an understanding smile. “We all have to sacrifice sometimes.”

He said good-bye and returned to the communications center. Debi was still at her computer console. He told her what he needed.

“No one’s gotten into our system that I know of, suh.” Her brows knitted. “I’ll get right on it.”

Concerned, he returned to his office.

35

Athens, Greece

THE LIBRARY of Gold Learjet circled down slowly, the lights of Greece’s ancient capital gleaming beneath. Nervously making plans, Robin turned away from the panorama and stared back down the length of the cabin to Martin Chapman, his tall figure upright in his seat. He was on his cell phone, his jaw working angrily.

As the jet touched down at Athens International Airport, she studied her cell phone and battery, remembering Preston’s awful call to her while she was waiting on the jet in London for Charles and him to arrive. He had ordered her to take the cell apart, and then he told her Charles was dead. Grief swelled her throat. She forced herself to repress it.

Preston had never told her why she was to not activate it again. It did not matter; she was going to need a phone. Sliding the pieces into her pocket, she stood and walked to the rear of the plane.

Chapman peered up as she slung on the backpack that contained The Book of Spies. She did not like the look in his eyes.

Still, he spoke neutrally. “The helicopter is ready.”

She nodded. “Good.” But she knew it was not good. Once she was in the helicopter, she would be on her way to the hidden Library of Gold, where security was so intense no one could escape-but people occasionally disappeared. People like her. “Will you be going with us, Mr. Chapman?” she asked, although he had made no move to rise.

“I have other business. Magus will take care of you.”

From the front, Magus nodded knowing agreement. “Yes, sir, Mr. Chapman.”

She followed Magus out of the Learjet and into the black hours of night. The cool air made her shaved head feel even more exposed. She forced herself to stay calm. The airport extended around them, a wide sweep of tarmac with jets coming and going from the long arms of the terminal. It seemed far away, an impossible distance.

A small luggage truck had pulled up to the tail of the jet, and the driver was unloading bags and other items. He was a small man and elderly, with stringy arms showing beneath the short sleeves of his airport shirt. She felt a moment of hope; she might be able to handle him. As he humped Charles’s canvas-wrapped body into the back of the truck, she turned away.

“Let’s go.” Magus’s face was a mask. “I’ll bet you’re ready to get home and settle in.”

“You’re right,” Robin lied. “It will be good to be home.”

They walked toward the waiting vehicle, which would take them to the helicopter. It was only about seven feet long and narrow, with space in front for just two people-the driver and a passenger. The rear was an open bed, packed with her large roll-aboard slammed against the cab, Charles’s corpse, and several wood boxes Preston had picked up in London.

“I’ll help you in.” Magus stopped at the rear, where, as the junior member, she would ordinarily sit.

She stared at him, allowing a sense of helplessness to sound in her voice. “I’m so tired. And I’m supposed to keep this backpack with me all the time. Mr. Chapman’s orders. Would you mind if I sat in front with the driver?”

They looked at the bed of the truck. There was no gate or upper flap at the end, while the sides had short walls about a foot tall. The floor was hard steel.

“Sure,” he said. “Why not.” But he touched his hip, where she suspected he kept his gun inside his jacket. The gesture might have been automatic, but it felt like a threat.

Robin gave him a bright smile. “Thanks.”

He walked her around to the passenger side. There were no doors on the cab. She took off the backpack and climbed in. Then he walked around to the driver’s side, which was also open. He ordered the elderly man out from behind the steering wheel, and her heart sank. Now it would be Magus sitting next to her, armed, young, and strong.

As soon as the driver crawled into the back, Magus studied the automatic transmission, then put the light truck into gear. They rolled away.

She held the backpack on her lap, cradling it in her arms, realizing she had one lucky break-he was an unsure driver, glancing at the steering wheel, the small rearview mirror, the gear shift. That might help-that, and if she surprised him.

She turned around and watched the Learjet taxi away. Returning to face the front, she asked innocently, “Wouldn’t you like to see what’s in the backpack, Magus?”

“No.” He was focused on his driving.

But she started to unzip it, the sound jagged and sharp.

He glanced at her. “Close that up.” He reached a hand toward it.

She bit the hand and tasted blood. Swearing, he jerked his hand back, and she slammed the heavy backpack against the side of his head. Reeling, he lashed out with an arm, connecting only with the pack. With the sharp toe of her boot, she kicked the calf of the leg that had a foot on the accelerator and immediately crashed the backpack against his head again.

His foot bounced off the accelerator, the small truck careened, and there was a shout from the back as the driver slid out.

Magus hit the brakes and reached inside his jacket for his gun. In a flurry of motion, Robin slammed her foot down on the accelerator and bit his ear. The truck shot ahead. As his gun appeared in his hand, she slashed her fingernails down his face and eyes, ripping skin.

He yelled and lashed the gun toward her. But he was off-balance now, and the truck was lurching forward, alternating between braking and accelerating. His gun was aimed at her.

In a fury, she smashed the backpack into his face again and rotated her hips toward him. Bracing one hand on the back of her seat and gripping the handhold on the dashboard with the other, she rammed her boots into his hip, inching him across the vinyl seat.

His gun went off, the shot deafening as the bullet exploded through the cab’s roof. Blood dripped into his eyes as he tried to see. He shot wildly again, and she shoved him out the door and floored the gas feed. The truck hurtled forward.

Her heart pounded like a kettledrum as she slid behind the wheel and began to steer. More bullets sliced through the cab, barely missing The Book of Spies on the seat beside her. Driving, she crouched low, eyes just above the dash, thankful for the vast open space of the tarmac. A shot flew over her head, a lethal whisper. And then there was no more gunfire.

She rose up and peered into the rearview mirror. Magus was running after her, more and more distant, a hand angrily wiping his face of blood. Behind him lay a trail of capsized wood crates and Charles’s corpse. For a long moment she was furious with Charles, furious he had put her in this position, and then the emotion vanished. She was on her own now, as she had been in years past. You know how to do this, she told herself.

Determined, she spun the steering wheel, heading toward a chain-link fence. At last she saw a gate beside a dark airport outbuilding. It was quite a bit away, which was good. More distance between her and Magus. The night air cooled her face as she kept the gas feed pressed to the floor.

At the wire gate, she screeched the truck to a stop and jumped out. Putting on the backpack, she looked back. Magus was very far away and had slowed to a jog. His hand was at his ear, no doubt calling for help. But as long as she had The Book of Spies, she had a bargaining chip. Martin Chapman would stop at nothing to get her back, hunt her to the far reaches of the planet if he had to, but with the illuminated manuscript she could perhaps negotiate permanent freedom.

She wrestled her roll-aboard out of the truck’s bed. It had been crammed against the cab and had missed the fate of the rest of the luggage. Pulling it, she hurried through the gate and into a big parking lot.

She moved quickly among the cars, vans, and SUVs, peering inside. At last she found an old Peugeot, battered and rusted, with a key in the ignition. Scanning around, she took her purse from the roll-aboard. She still had pounds from England; she would exchange them for euros. Last, she found the straw hat she had bought in London. She slammed it down on her bald head and tied the ribbon under her chin.

She loaded the roll-aboard and the backpack into the car. Fighting fear, she drove off through the moonlight toward the exit, her gaze constantly going to her rearview mirror.

36

The Sultanate of Oman

MUSCAT INTERNATIONAL Airport lay on flat sands above the Gulf of Oman. In the distance, clusters of oil rigs stood glittering with lights, their toothpick legs sunk deep into the gulf’s black waters. The night smelled of the desert as Martin Chapman descended from his Learjet. He was breathing hard with anger: Robin Miller had stolen The Book of Spies and escaped. Magus and a team were searching for her in Athens, but it was one more problem, and right now he did not need it.

The danger that worried him most was Judd Ryder, who was CIA, and in that one word lay all the worry in the world: Langley had the resources, the knowledge, the expertise, the guts, to accomplish far more than the public would ever know. One did not cross the Agency lightly, but once done, one had no choice but to end it quickly, which was why Chapman was in Oman now.

The Oman Air section of the ultramodern passenger terminal was quietly busy. He passed tiles, potted palms, and Old Arabia wall decorations without a glance. Turning down a wide arrival and departure corridor, he followed memorized instructions toward a duty-free shop. Near the bathroom door an airport employee in a desert-tan janitorial uniform and a checkered Bedouin headdress was bent over, swabbing the floor.

As Chapman passed, he heard a voice float up toward him: “There’s a supply room four doors to your left. Wait inside. Don’t turn on the light.”

Chapman almost broke his stride. Quickly he regrouped and went to the supply room door. Inside, he flicked on the light. The little room was lined with shelves of cleaning products, paper towels, and toilet paper. He turned off the light and stood in the dark against the rear, a small penlight in one hand, the other hand inside his jacket on the hilt of his pistol.

The door opened and closed like a whisper.

“Jack said you needed help.” The voice was low. The man seemed to be standing just inside the door. “I’m expensive, and I have rules. You know about both. Jack says you’ve agreed to my terms. Before we go further, I need to hear that from you.”

“You’re Alex Bosa?” Chapman assumed it was a pseudonym.

“Some call me that.”

“The Carnivore.”

No expression in the voice. “I’m known by that, too.”

Chapman inhaled. He was in the presence of a legendary independent assassin, a man who had worked for all sides during the cold war. Now he worked only occasionally, but always at astronomical prices. There were no photos of him; no one knew where he lived, what his real name was, or even in which country he was born. He also never failed, and no one ever uncovered who hired him.

The assassin’s voice was calm. “Do you agree to my terms?”

Chapman felt his hackles rise. He was the boss, not this shadowy man who had to live hidden behind pseudonyms. “I have a cashier’s check with me.” There were to be two payments-half now, half on completion, for a total of $2 million. Ridding himself of the CIA problem was worth every cent. “Do you want the job or not?”

Silence. Then: “I work alone when it’s time to do the hit. That means your people must be gone. You must never reveal our association. You must never try to find out what I look like or who I am. If you make any attempts, I will come after you. I’ll do you the favor of making it a clean kill, out of respect for our business relationship and the money you will have paid me. After tonight, you will not try to meet me again. When the job is finished, I’ll be in touch to let you know how I want to receive the last payment. If you don’t pay me, I will come after you for that, too. I do wet work only on people who shouldn’t be breathing anyway. I’m the one who makes that decision-not you. I’ll give you a new phone number through which you can reach me when you have the additional information about the targets’ whereabouts. Do you agree?”

The menacing power in the quiet voice was breathtaking. Chapman found himself nodding even though there was no way the man could see him in the dark.

He spoke up, “I agree.” The Carnivore specialized in making hits look like accidents, which was the point-Chapman wanted Langley to have nothing to trace back to him or the Library of Gold.

“Tell me why Judd Ryder and Eva Blake need to be terminated,” the Carnivore demanded.

When Chapman had decided to bring in outside talent, he had gone to a source outside the book club, a middleman named only Jack. Through encrypted e-mails, he and Jack had arranged the deal. Now he repeated the story for the Carnivore: “Ryder is former military intelligence and highly skilled. Blake is a criminal-she killed her husband when she was driving drunk. I’m sure you’ve checked both facts. They’ve learned about a new secret business transaction I’m working on, and they want it for themselves. I tried to reason with them, but I got nowhere. If they steal this, it’ll cost me billions. More important, now they’re trying to kill me. They’re on their way to Istanbul. I should have information soon about exactly where.”

“I understand. I’ll leave now. Put the envelope on the shelf next to you. Open the door and go immediately back to your jet.” He gave Chapman his new cell number.

There was a movement of air, the door opened and closed quickly, and darkness surrounded Chapman again. He realized he was sweating. He put the envelope with the cashier’s check for $1 million on the shelf next to him and left.

As he walked down the corridor, he looked everywhere for the cleaning man in the brown uniform and Bedouin headdress. He had vanished.

37

Istanbul, Turkey

JUDD STARED down from his window on the jet at the twinkling lights of fabled Instanbul. He drank in the sight of what had once been mighty Constantinople, the crown of the Byzantine Empire-and the birthplace of the Library of Gold.

Eva awoke. “What time is it?” She looked nervous.

“Midnight.”

As the jet touched down and taxied toward the terminal of Ataturk International Airport, he checked his mobile.

“Anything from Tucker about where Yakimovich is?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No e-mail. No phone message.”

“If Tucker can’t find him, it could take us days.”

Although there seemed to be no way they could have been followed, they had stopped in Rome on their way to the airport not only to buy supplies but also to disguise themselves. Now as they deplaned, Judd helped Eva into a wheelchair. She curled up low, her head hanging forward as if asleep. A blanket covered her body, and a scarf hid her hair. He put her shoulder satchel and a large new duffel bag containing other purchases on her lap. He was dressed like a private nurse, in white slacks, a white blast jacket, and a white cap. Tucked inside his lower lip was a tight roll of cotton, making the lip protrude and his jaw look smaller.

Keeping his cheeks soft and his gaze lazy, he adjusted his internal monitor until he was comfortably projecting a not-too-bright attendant to the nice lady in the wheelchair. Watching surreptitiously around, he pushed her into the international terminal and showed his fake passport and her real one at the visa window. They acquired visa stamps and passed through customs. Although the terminal was less congested than at high-traffic hours, there were still plenty of people. Beyond the security kiosk waited even more, many holding up signs with passengers’ names.

Rolling the wheelchair down the long corridor toward the exit doors, Judd stayed on high alert. Which was when he spotted the one person he did not want to see-Preston. How in hell had he known to come to Istanbul? His chest tight, Judd studied him from the corners of his eyes. Tall and square-shouldered, the killer was leaning against the exterior wall of a news store, apparently reading the International Herald Tribune. He was dressed as he had been in London, in jeans, a black leather jacket, and probably a pistol.

Because he did not have ID to carry a weapon onto a commercial flight, Judd had left his Beretta in Rome. He considered. It seemed unlikely Preston had been able to see his face in London from the floor of the alley. On the other hand, it was possible the killer had somehow figured out who he was and had acquired a photo.

“Preston.” The worried whisper floated up from Eva.

“I see him,” Judd said quietly. “You’re asleep, remember?”

She returned to silence as he continued to push the wheelchair at a sedate pace.

Above the newspaper, Preston was studying the throngs. His eyes moved while his body gave the appearance of disinterested relaxation. He paused at the faces of not only women but men the right age, the right hair color, the right height-which told Judd that Preston had somehow learned what he looked like. Watching couples and singles, Preston missed no one, took no one for granted. He pulled a radio from his belt, listening and speaking into it. That meant he had a least one janitor nearby.

As Preston hooked the radio back on to his belt, he noticed Judd and Eva. And focused.

His gaze felt like a burning poker. Judd did not look at him, and he did not speed the wheelchair. Either action would make Preston even more curious. Then he saw a tall woman sweeping along, pulling a small suitcase. Despite the late hour, she wore large diva sunglasses-and her hair was long and red, like Eva’s.

Seeing an opportunity, Judd moved the wheelchair alongside her and slumped his shoulders to make himself appear even more boring in his attendant’s uniform. Preston’s eyes moved, attracted to the woman. He stepped away from the news store, following as the woman hurried in front of Judd and Eva to a car rental stand.

Judd exhaled. He pushed Eva out the glass doors and to the line of waiting taxis.

AS SOON as the yellow cab left the terminal, Judd closed the privacy window between the front and rear seats. It was an old vehicle, the upholstery threadbare, but the glass was thick, and the driver would not be able to hear their conversation.

“How could Preston have found us?” Eva asked again. “The Charboniers knew about Yakimovich and Istanbul, but they died before they could tell anyone.”

“It’s hard to believe Tucker has another leak. IT will be covering headquarters like a mushroom cloud. Maybe it’s us. Could Charles have planted a bug on you in London?” As they talked, he watched the rear for any sign of Preston.

“If he did, those clothes are gone. But why would he bother? He thought he had me. Did you see anyone following us at any time?”

He shook his head. They were silent.

“Okay, let’s take it from the top,” he finally said. “It’s not a bug, and it’s not a cyberbreach at Catapult.”

“If Charles were alive,” she decided, “he would know we’d be heading to Andy Yakimovich.”

“Peggy Doty’s the only loose end I can think of. But she didn’t know about Yakimovich or Istanbul, so there’s no way Preston could’ve gotten the information from her.”

Eva suddenly swore. “Of course-Peggy’s cell phone. Whoever killed Peggy could’ve found my number on it.” She pulled her cell from her satchel. “The only time I dialed out was in the Athens airport, when I called around looking for Andy. I was calling Istanbul.”

“Give it to me.” He turned on the phone, then watched the screen to make certain it was connected to the network. Rolling down his window, he tossed it into the open bed of a passing pickup.

Eva smiled. “That’ll give Preston something to chase.”

He smiled back. In the small rear seat of the taxi they inadvertently gazed deeply into each other’s eyes. For a long moment warm intimacy passed between them. Judd’s heart rate accelerated.

Saying nothing, Eva looked away, and he turned to stare out the side window. That was the problem with shared danger. Inevitably it led to bonding of one sort or another, and one of the “sorts” could be sexual. He sensed her discomfort, her sudden aloofness, but he was not going to go there and explain what had just happened. Or that he had liked it.

Mentally he shook himself. They were on the outskirts of the city. Choosing a busy intersection, he told the driver to stop. There was a chance Preston had gotten their taxi’s plate number.

After helping Eva into her wheelchair, he paid the driver. The taillights disappeared into traffic, and he wheeled her around, heading in the opposite direction. He scanned cautiously.

“There’s an alley ahead,” Eva prompted.

“I see it.” He pushed her inside.

She got up and discarded her blanket and scarf, piling them into the wheelchair’s seat. From the duffel bag she took out a midnight-blue jacket. As he removed the cotton from his lower lip, stripped off his attendant’s jacket, and unbuckled his white trousers, she pulled on her jacket and, without looking at him, took her shoulder satchel and hurried off to keep watch.

He slid into jeans, a brown polo shirt, and a brown sports jacket. Folding the wheelchair and their discarded belongings against the wall, he turned to gaze at her, a slender figure dwarfed by the alley’s tall opening, somehow jaunty and more unafraid than he would have thought.

Carrying the duffel, he joined her. “See anything?”

“No sign of Preston. Which way?”

They walked six blocks, went around a corner, and Judd hailed another cab. Within twenty minutes they were in the Sultanahmet district in the heart of historic Old Town, not far from Topkapi Palace, the Hagia Sophia, and the Hippodrome. The taxi stopped, and they got out.

They walked another ten minutes, at last crossing onto a narrow street, at best a lane and a half wide. There were no cars, but trolley tracks ran down the middle. Tall stone buildings from centuries past abutted one another, shops and stores on the ground and second floors. He inhaled. The exotic scents of cumin and apple-flavored tobacco drifted through the night air.

“This is Istiklal Caddesi,” he told her. “Caddesi means avenue. Our hotel’s four blocks farther.”

As they continued on, she commented, “You seem to know a lot about Istanbul. Have you been here before?”

“No. I Googled it.”

The hotel was a stuccoed structure with a simple wood entry door and two shuttered windows on the right. The street was quiet, businesses closed, with no restaurants, cafés, or bars to attract customers.

He slowed. “We have a small problem. All you’ve got is your real passport, which means you’ll have to give the hotel your name. So I’m going to go in alone and register myself under one of my covers. Then I’ll come out for you.”

He gestured, and she stepped up into the recessed entry of a trinket store. Her dark jacket and jeans blended into the shadow.

She’s learning, he thought to himself as he left her and went into the hotel. The interior was narrow and deep, with old unvarnished woods and faded upholstery. As expected, the clerk handed over a plain cardboard box with the correct cover name printed on it. Mentally Judd thanked Tucker. He placed an order with room service, walked toward the elevator at the rear, and continued on, exiting out the rear door.

When he appeared in the mouth of the alley, he could not see Eva, so well was she hidden in the doorway.

She hurried out, a question in her eyes.

“We’re fine,” he told her as they retraced his path down the alley. “I told them my brother would be joining me in a couple of days.”

“I thought you had only cousins.”

He grinned. “I have a brother now.”

They climbed the rear stairs to the sixth floor. She had agreed with him it was safer for them to stay together. Their room had two small beds and was sparsely furnished with florid furniture in the Old Turkish style.

While she went into the bathroom, he dropped the duffel onto the bed nearest the door and opened the box. Inside was another subcompact semiautomatic Beretta pistol just like the one he’d had to leave behind in Rome. He checked it, loaded it from the box of ammo, and tried on the canvas shoulder holster, adjusting it. Satisfied, he went to the window. The lights of the city spread out before him in a glittering vista, beckoning.

“Come look at this.” He pushed open the two vertical panes and leaned out.

She emerged from the bathroom, her striking features smoothed at last. She was beginning to feel safe again, he decided. She smelled fresh, of soap and rose water.

She leaned out the window, too. “What a magnificent view.”

“Istanbul is the only major city in the world to straddle two continents,” he said. “It’s built on seven hills, just as Rome is. Where we are-the Sultanahmet district-is on top of the first hill, on the south side. It’s the historic core of the city. See that?” A series of fireworks in calico colors sprayed above the dark waters of the Marmara. “That’s from a wedding boat. Look at the lighted mosques. The domes and minarets. The temples and churches. The maze of winding streets.” The night gave a spectacular quality to the ancient city, as if it were secretly reinvigorating itself while its inhabitants slept. “It must’ve looked something like this during the Byzantine period, when the emperors were conquering the world and collecting the best books.”

“It’s beautiful. Did you learn all of that from Google?”

“From my father. Visiting ancient Constantinople was something we’d always planned to do together. That’s how I knew Istanbul was called the City of the World’s Desire. He particularly liked this hotel. There’s a lot of history connected to it.” His chest tight, he turned to her. “If my father were a member of the book club when your husband joined the library, he could’ve been responsible in one way or another for the dead man in your husband’s grave and for sending you to prison. I just want you to know I’m sorry.”

“Charles told me they wanted to have me killed, but he talked them out of it.” She sighed heavily, and he felt a gap open between them. “I know you loved your father. Whatever he did or didn’t do has nothing to do with who you are. It’s not your fault.”

But he sensed that somehow, in her mind, he was tainted by it. He turned back into the room, remembering. When he was growing up, his father was gone for longer and longer periods of time. He had moved them around Washington from one house to another, always larger, more expensive. His mother’s loneliness. The beautiful gifts brought back from each trip. Artworks, jewelry, furnishings, books. His father had grown not only richer but leaner and stronger. As his hair grayed, their conversations more often focused on lessons he wanted to pass on: Think for yourself. You can never learn enough. No one can protect you but yourself. Money solves almost every problem.

“You said you’re a CIA contract employee,” Eva said. “What did you do before?”

“Military intelligence. The army. I retired about a month before Dad was killed.”

“You’re a rich kid with every opportunity in the world. I’ll bet your father would’ve loved for you to jump on the fast track to the executive suite at Bucknell.”

“True.” It was his father’s dream.

“But you ended up in the army. Why?”

“It seemed like the right thing to do. And no, it was before 9/11.”

“So you rebelled by being a stand-up guy. But that’s not all, is it? Who are you really, Judd Ryder?”

For that he had no answer. He was saved by a knock on the door. Sliding out his weapon, he padded toward it and peered through the peephole. Dinner had arrived.

They ate at a small table in the corner-lamb meatballs with lemon sauce, tangy roasted eggplant salad, and a spread of ground walnuts and sweet red peppers. They talked quietly, and when they finished, he poured raki, a milky aperitif flavored with anise, a Turkish drink he had enjoyed with his father at home. As he handed her a glass, his encrypted mobile rang.

She looked across the room to his bed, where the mobile lay. “Tucker with good news, I hope.”

He was already picking it up. As he punched the Talk button, he confirmed by saying, “Hello, Tucker.”

Setting down her glass, she listened as he put the mobile on speakerphone.

“You’ve arrived?” Tucker wanted to know.

“Yes, we’re at the hotel,” Judd said. “Your package was waiting. Thanks. You should know Preston was at the airport. We got past him. This time it wasn’t a leak; they tracked us through Eva’s cell phone.”

“Christ.” The spymaster sounded frustrated.

“Did you find out anything about Yakimovich?” Judd asked.

“Yes, a good lead from an Istanbul source. There’s a merchant of old calligraphy in the Grand Bazaar who’s supposed to know where Yakimovich is. His name is Okan Biçer, and he shows up for work around three P.M. I’ll e-mail you his photo and give you directions to his shop.”

When they had memorized the directions and examined the photo, Judd ended the connection and tossed the mobile back onto his bed. Then he raised his glass, and Eva raised hers. They touched the rims with a soft clink. Drinking, they avoided the intimacy of each other’s eyes, the pain of their shared past, and the worry about what tomorrow would bring.

38

Fairfax County, Virginia

CATHY DOYLE was exhausted. It was nearly one A.M., and the day had been filled with work and the usual pressures to succeed at the various missions on which Catapult was working. As she drove across the Potomac River into Virginia, heading home, she turned on the radio. But it was a report of new terrorist attacks in eastern Afghanistan, and she already had enough facts about it; the last thing she needed was the somber news repeated. She punched off the radio.

Virginia was a land of urban congestion amid broad swathes of woods and farmland. She loved it-it always made her think of Ohio, where she had grown up. She turned off onto a two-lane road washed with moonlight. It ran along the river north of the District. At this hour, traffic was light, the widely spaced houses mostly dark.

She thought longingly of her twin daughters, home from spring break at Columbia, and her husband, a lawyer at the Department of Labor, who had just returned from a conference in Chicago. All would be sleeping, which she would be soon, too.

Humming to herself, she checked the road. There was almost no traffic, and she felt herself relax. She was thinking about home and bed again when she realized there was another car behind her now. She glanced at her speedometer. She was locked in at forty miles an hour, just where she wanted to be, and so was the other guy. Someone else heading home for a good night’s sleep.

To her right, the forest opened up, and she could see the river with its rippling surface painted a silky silver by the moonlight. She liked that, too. Nature in all its beauty. She cracked her window. The air whistled in, the cool night air tasting moist, of the river. She turned on the radio again, this time found a blues station. Ah, yes.

Settling back into her seat, she glanced into her rearview mirror. And stared. The other vehicle’s headlights were closing in, bombarding her car with light. She hit the accelerator, pushing out. As she passed sixty miles an hour, she checked her rearview mirror again. Her follower was even closer. There was still no other traffic as she started up the long, high hill that would eventually dip down into the valley where her house was, only a couple of miles farther.

Again she looked into her rearview mirror. The other car had moved out of their lane and into the oncoming lane. It was a big pickup. He had not signaled, and he had not slowed, either.

She slammed her foot on the accelerator, speeding toward seventy miles an hour. The pickup dropped back behind, in their lane again. But then the headlights loomed abruptly closer. As she floored the accelerator, he swung into the other lane, overtaking her. Her mouth went dry as they raced up the hill together

She braked to drop behind. Too late. The pickup crashed sideways into her car. Furious, she fought to control the steering wheel. The pickup slammed into her again, holding, pushing her toward the cliff over the river. This time the wheel ripped from her grasp.

Terror filling her, she gripped the steering wheel as the car hurtled through the guardrail, shot over the cliff, and crashed down through young pines, smashing against boulders. One collision after another hurled her back and forth. As the sedan flew over a final precipice and dived toward the shadowy river, she felt a moment of blinding impact, and then nothing.

Washington, D.C.

AT EIGHT A.M. the headquarters of Catapult was solemn and quiet, although all of the morning staff had arrived. A sense of shocked grief infused the building. The news of Catherine Doyle’s fatal accident had spread. Tucker had heard hours before, awakened by his old friend Matthew Kelley, the director of the Clandestine Service. When she had not returned home, Cathy’s husband had called. Then the Virginia State Police found her car submerged in the river, only a patch of the top visible. The vehicle was badly banged up, which was consistent with the terrain it had crashed down through, and she had apparently drowned. There would be a coroner’s report and the results of forensics in a few days.

Tucker wandered the old brick building, chatting with their people, comforting them, and by doing so comforting himself. Cathy had been a good boss, tough and fair, and they had liked her. He urged them to get back to work. Their operators abroad were counting on them. Besides, it was what Cathy would have wanted, and they knew it.

By the afternoon, the pace had quickened, voices talked business, telephones rang, computer keys clicked. He returned to his office and tried to concentrate. Finally the habits of a lifetime returned, and he bent over his work.

“Hello, Tucker.” Hudson Canon stood in the doorway, looking concerned. He was an assistant director in the Clandestine Service, a longtime field officer who had been brought home to Langley to oversee a slew of people who in turn created and managed missions. Short, dignified, and heavily muscled, he gave the impression of a high-class American Kennel Club bulldog, with his pug nose and round black eyes and thick cheeks. “How are you doing?” Canon asked.

“It’s terrible news, of course. Cathy will be greatly missed.”

“Gloria says everyone is working hard, but I must say the place feels a bit like a mausoleum. Damn. I liked Cathy a lot. A fine woman.”

“Have a chair.” Tucker motioned to one. “What can I do for you?”

Canon gave a quick smile and sat in front of the desk. “Matt Kelley sent me over to take Cathy’s place until a new chief is named. You interested in the job?”

“That’s fast.”

“Don’t I know it. Are you interested?”

Tucker’s soul felt heavy. “Let me think about it.” The position had been offered to him before Cathy was appointed, but he had turned it down.

“I haven’t been to Cathy’s office yet,” Canon went on. “I told Gloria to pack up all of her private things before I moved in. Meanwhile, I’d like you to bring me up-to-date. Start with the hottest missions.”

Canon crossed his legs, and they talked. Tucker filled him in on Berlin, Bratislava, Kiev, Tehran, and others. Canon knew the basics about all from Cathy’s weekly reports.

“I hear you might’ve had a breach in your e-mail or Internet system.”

“Debi is honchoing it,” Tucker told him. “Someone did get in and was able to access Cathy’s e-mail for about three minutes.”

Canon grimaced. “Long enough to steal more than any of us would want.”

“Agreed. Still, we’re not sure what they took. Maybe they got nothing. In any case, that pathway is now a dead end, and Debi’s team is on high alert, looking for even the smallest signs of attempt to trespass. There’s been no other successful cybersleuthing since. The problem was, the breach occurred during the night shift, when we had fewer bodies. They missed the invader-he was damn good at it obviously.”

“I see. What else do you have for me?”

Tucker launched into a description of the Library of Gold operation.

When he had finished, Canon sat back, thinking. “Is this a wise use of Catapult’s resources? You still have no evidence of involvement in terrorism. Who in hell cares about the Library of Gold? So what if it’s some marvelous old relic. That’s the bailiwick of historians and anthropologists. This is a waste of time better spent on more critical missions.”

Tucker stiffened. “I understand your point, but we’re deep into it now. I’ve got a contract employee and a civilian on the run, being hunted. And a dead man who turned up alive who said he was the chief librarian. He’s dead now, too, and it’s real this time. There are other corpses-people like Jonathan Ryder and the Charboniers.”

“Have you learned anything about the library’s location through Ryder or the Charboniers?”

“Nothing yet. Jonathan’s life is far easier to probe. We have his travel records, but he was an international businessman and flew around the globe. A lot of cities and towns. As for the Charboniers, we have to work with the French to get information, and that’s difficult. You know how secretive they can be.”

“It’ll be another dead end.”

“Maybe. But my two people in Istanbul have a good lead. We need to follow up on that.”

“A good lead? What is it?”

“The man’s name is Okan Biçer. He sells calligraphy in the Grand Bazaar.” Tucker checked his watch. “He’s supposed to know where an old acquaintance of Eva Blake’s husband is, an antiquities merchant named Andrew Yakimovich. They’re hoping Yakimovich may be holding something for Blake that’ll tell them where the library is.”

Hudson Canon seemed to think about it. At last he nodded. “I’d already expressed my reservations to Cathy about whether this operation was worth it, but she convinced me to give it some time. Your argument for more time is good, too. However, I’ve also taken it to my boss. Especially now that Cathy’s gone and we’ll need to rethink Catapult, we’re going to have to pull in our horns. You have thirty-six hours to find the library. If you don’t know where it is by then, the boss says to pull the plug and end the operation.”

39

Peshawar, Pakistan

THICK STORM clouds rolled black and angry overhead, and the temperature dropped five degrees as Martin Chapman rode into the polluted and paranoid city of Peshawar. He was dressed in a traditional shalwar kameez-the long shirt and baggy trousers worn by most Pakistani and Afghani men-so he could pass for an Uzbek, Chechen, or light-skinned Pashtun.

A hotbed of Taliban and al-Qaeda, the city was where he was to meet the warlord who had promised him safe passage. Still, Chapman did not believe in relying on promises. His pistol was on his belt, the holster latch unfastened, and his hand on the weapon’s grip. Beside him lay the truck driver’s fully loaded AK-47.

Peshawar was an armed garrison. Men and boys as young as five years old wore, cradled, or shouldered an array of weapons. But then, it was the capital of the politically unstable North-West Frontier Province and just six miles from the lawless Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Jihadists poured into the city to regroup, to fight, to buy and trade weapons and supplies, and to partake of civilization. It had always been a smugglers’ haven and a center for indigenous arms manufacture, but now more so than ever. Private homes were functioning gun factories. Using the crudest of tools, entire families fabricated quality copies of major small and medium arms.

As the truck drove through the city, Chapman was taken aback by the poverty and destruction. Empty shells of buildings, some towering precariously several stories high, dotted streets, the result of suicide bombings, personal disputes, police assaults, and the occasional drone attack from across the mountains in Afghanistan.

Despite it all, people strove for normalcy. Women draped in ghostly burkas drifted like shadows among the stores, carrying string shopping bags. Men in tribal headdresses or pakul hats-traditional flat round wool caps-sat for portraits in front of old box cameras screwed into rickety wood tripods.

“We there soon,” the driver told Chapman. An Afghan Pashtun, he worked directly for the warlord. Thankfully he understood English far better than he spoke it.

The driver turned the big truck onto Lahore Road. Bouncing over potholes, he turned again and slammed on the brakes. Dust spewed a choking cloud around them. They had stopped in front of a gun shop.

“This is it?” Chapman asked.

The driver nodded enthusiastically.

“Wait here,” Chapman ordered.

Nodding again, the man turned off the ignition and peered up through the windshield, eying the stormy twilight sky. He shook his head in despair, then climbed out and lit a brown cigarette.

Chapman got out, too, silently cursing Syed Ullah for insisting they meet in Peshawar. But that was Ullah for you. He was one of a long line of Pashtun tribal chiefs from the border province of Khost in Afghanistan. The warlord was his own man, regarding Kabul’s commands with indifference.

As Chapman walked toward the store, Ullah appeared in the doorway, filling it. Gigantic, powerfully built, he had hands that looked as if they could palm bowling balls. His cheekbones were high, the coldly intelligent brown eyes widely spaced, the thick mustache above his wide mouth neatly trimmed. He wore a brown wool sweater, a shalwar kameez, and sturdy black boots. Twin pearl-handled pistols were holstered on his hips.

He looked comfortable and pleased with himself. “You are here, Chapman. Come in. Pe kher ragle.” Welcome.

Chapman walked inside and stopped, keeping his manner casual. Weapons ranging from small two-shot pistols to juiced-up rocket launchers were for sale, stacked four and five deep against the walls, lying on shelves up to the ceiling, and bunched and leaning together like haystacks in the corners. The place smelled like cheap grease. In the back of the store, silently blocking a door, stood six of Ullah’s soldiers. They carried rifles, while flowers were tucked into their belts in the Pashtun style. Two bandoliers crossed each of their chests, displaying not only bullets but dangling grenades.

Smiling proudly, the warlord looked around the store, then peered down at Chapman.

“Impressive,” Chapman admitted.

With a nod from Ullah, his men headed for the open front door. “They will bring in the crates. You have what we agreed on in the back of the truck?”

“Everything.”

“Good, good.” Ullah gestured grandly at the two low stools beside a desk.

They sat. A white silk cloth edged with lace had been spread out, and a white porcelain teapot decorated with red poppies waited in the middle of it. The warlord poured tea into two glasses rimmed in gold and set into decorative golden bases with golden handles.

Offering no milk or sugar, he handed a cup to Chapman. “This is a fine black Indian tea, flavored with cardamon and honey. I serve it on only the most important occasions, to my most important guests. According to our Pashtunwali code, it is my duty to host you, treasure you, and protect you.” Ullah lifted his cup in salute.

Chapman lifted his cup, too, and gave a nod of appreciation. They drank, and Chapman said nothing about the code, knowing full well the warlord’s hospitality would evaporate and Chapman’s life would be in danger if he did not fulfill his end of their agreement. Pashtuns were bound by fierce cultural, emotional, and social ties-the Pashtunwali code. At the same time, if they breathed, they fought. An old Pashtun saying was “Me against my brother, me and my brother against our cousins, and we and our cousins against the enemy, any enemy.” In that way they confirmed their honor, and it did not seem to matter whether they ended up successful-or dead.

The first crate came in, one of Ullah’s men rolling it on a dolly, followed by another, and another, all disappearing into the back. From Karachi, the crates had been shipped to Islamabad, then trucked into Madari, where Chapman had jetted in from Oman and met Ullah’s driver.

Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distant hills.

“My boys will hurry now,” Ullah commented, amused.

He barked an order in Pashto to a soldier who had picked up speed and was rushing past with another crate. The man wheeled it around, brought it to Ullah, and ripped off the top with a crowbar.

Ullah and Chapman stood and looked down. Ullah lowered his great height to finger a new U.S. Army camouflage uniform. “Good, good.”

“The other boxes contain more uniforms,” Chapman told him. “Kevlar helmets with night-vision scopes, grenade belts, GPS units, encrypted cell phones, flares, M4 carbine rifles with telescopic sights, and body armor. Everything we agreed upon and more, all regulation army and authentic.”

“I will check each crate before you leave.” The warlord settled back down onto his stool, his dainty teacup disappearing into his big hand as he sipped.

For a moment Ullah was not a ruthless brawler, not the Mike Tyson of the tribal lands, but a gentleman of good taste. Driven into exile in Pakistan by the Taliban in the 1990s, he had returned to Afghanistan after 9/11 to lead anti-Taliban soldiers, moving in and out of alliances, keeping his distance from the national government and coalition forces. Today his home base was a vast area of eastern Khost province that was largely rural and backward. His photograph hung in every office, shop, and school, and he maintained firm control with a personal army of more than five thousand.

What mattered most to Chapman was he owned ten square miles of land he needed.

Lightning split through the dark clouds, illuminating the shop in a moment of startling white light. Thunder boomed, and the heavens opened. Rain poured down in a brutal torrent as the last of the crates rushed through.

Ullah peered over his teacup. “About my money. I am eager to have it back.”

“And you will. Soon.”

“Now.”

When Chapman had discovered Ullah owned the land, he had ordered a complete investigation of the man. Through book club member Carl Lindström’s chief of security-an accomplished black-hatter-a hidden overseas account containing some $20 million in profits from drugs and gun-running was uncovered. If Chapman told the Kabul government about it, the minister of finance would confiscate it, and the president would find unpleasant ways to punish Ullah.

Instead, Chapman had led his equity firm in a leveraged buyout of the bank-and frozen the account. With that incentive, Ullah had agreed to meet him at a Caspian Sea resort, where Chapman had offered to release the money and give him a small percentage in a deal the greedy bastard could not refuse. He would earn enormous profits for decades to come in an honest business venture through which he could launder his heroin and opium profits. But it hinged on Chapman’s being able to buy the land, which the warlord could not sell because he was renting it to the United States for a secret forward base.

“When you finish the job, you’ll get your money,” Chapman told him.

Ullah stared hard.

“As we agreed,” Chapman reminded him, thinking of the Pashtunwali code.

There was a pause. Then Ullah chuckled and changed the subject. “Why do you want my land?” He had asked the question several times before.

“You’ll find out as soon as you sign it over to me.”

Ullah nodded. “It is good you arrived on schedule. We will be able to truck the crates into Khost by tomorrow.”

“And then?” Chapman prompted.

“The next night two hundred fifty of my men will put on your uniforms and use your weapons to take out about a hundred villagers. A lot of gunfire and dead bodies. Much blood. I will have a Pakistani reporter and cameraman there. They will make many videos. It will be a splendid show that all the world will see of ‘American’ soldiers slaughtering innocent civilians.” He laughed loudly, his solid white teeth gleaming.

Because of the changed-and charged-political atmosphere in Afghanistan, the Kabul national government insisted its complicity in the U.S. forward base be kept secret. But with the harsh light of international outrage shining on the massacre, Kabul would have no choice but to close the base. Of course before then Ullah would have made all of the American uniforms and equipment vanish, and those who knew what actually had happened would be bound to silence by the Pashtunwali code. The result would be the warlord would at last be able to sell the land to Chapman.

As the rain drummed down, Ullah boasted of his past successes in battle, hair-singeing tales to remind Chapman of his power. But Chapman had something Ullah did not-the knowledge of what lay in the land, and the technical expertise to exploit it. Afghanistan had many natural riches, but the war-torn country was unstable, illiterate, untrained, and in no position to make use of them and would not be for decades to come.

As soon as they finished their tea, the warlord announced, “We will inspect the crates now.”

“Go ahead. I need to make a phone call. I’ll join you when I finish.”

As Ullah left for the back room, Chapman walked to the front of the shop and stood alone at the window. The thunderstorm had stopped as suddenly as it had started, and the sky was clearing. With that good omen, he dialed his wife’s iPhone. It had been days since they last talked, a month since he last saw her. He longed to hear her voice.

But it was her assistant, Mahaira. “She is showering. I am so sorry.”

He kept his voice calm. “Where are you?”

“In Athens, as you requested.”

He sighed with relief. He would see his wife in just a few hours. “How was the party in San Moritz?” It was supposed to have been a gala affair-jet-set society in all its ravenous glory.

“She wore the diamond necklace, earrings, and tiara to the ball,” Mahaira said proudly. “She looked gorgeous. Glowing, like a star.”

The necklace and earrings had been her mother’s and grandmother’s. He had bought them two decades before, when her family had lost its money. The tiara was new-purchased just last year. He remembered the excitement in her eyes, how she had clapped her hands and danced around the room wearing it, naked, beautiful.

“Does she miss me?”

Mahaira answered too quickly. “Of course. Terribly.”

When he hung up, he took out the photo from his wallet and stared at it, reliving the past, the happiness, the hopes and dreams of youth. It was a copy of the picture that always stood on his desk at his Arabian horse spread in Maryland, his home base. There she was-a glorious young Gemma in her tight long formal gown, the family diamonds sparkling at her ears and around her throat-and he in his rented tuxedo. A long time ago now, when they were in their early twenties and deeply in love.

His cell phone rang. Putting the photo away, he answered.

It was Preston, sounding jubilant. “Catherine Doyle is dead, and I have the information about where Ryder and Blake are going in Istanbul.”

“Give me the details.”

“The contact is Okan Biçer, a calligraphy seller in the Grand Bazaar. I’ve hired local men, and I’m on my way.”

“Good. Let me know.”

As soon as he hung up, Chapman phoned the Carnivore and repeated the information. There could be no loose ends to interfere with the warlord’s attack in Khost, especially no further CIA interest.

“Preston will merely set up the hit, as we agreed,” he finished.

The Carnivore’s voice was neutral. “That is acceptable. I’m in Istanbul. Your two targets are as good as scrubbed.”

40

Istanbul, Turkey

A WORLD atlas of languages filled the air as crowds poured in to the Grand Bazaar through the Light of the Ottomans Gate. Eva peered around as she and Judd moved with the throngs. While many women wore shoulder-baring sundresses ending above the knee, others concealed their hair beneath traditional khimar scarves and their bodies under long coats. Some men sported fezzes and large mustaches, and some were clean-shaved and dressed in business suits or skin-exposing tank tops and walking shorts.

They had been watching for Preston or a sign they were being followed. To lessen the chances of discovery they had changed their appearances in the hotel before checking out. Now her hair was black, pulled severely back into a bun at the nape of her neck, while Judd’s chestnut brown hair was bleached blond and cut very short. He wore glasses with plain lenses and looked very much like a tanned Viking tourist.

She’d had a restless night, wondering how she could have so badly misjudged Charles and whether Judd was somehow also going to betray her. Truthfully, she did not hold him responsible for his father’s actions. But still, there was something about it all that made her uneasy. She hoped she could continue to trust him.

Inside, the marketplace was teeming. Completely roofed and domed, with thick exterior walls, gates, and doors, it boasted some four thousand shops, miles and miles of avenues and lanes, and hidden nooks known only to locals.

Judd was giving her a tour. “It’s the largest covered mall in the world and the most famous souk. This street is Kalpakçilarba i Caddesi, the main one. Look at all the gold stores. That’s what it’s known for.”

Kalpakçilarba i was a tunnel of light, with a tall arched ceiling, high windows, and pale walls adorned with exquisite blue tiles. Seeming to extend endlessly, it emanated taste and wealth, with gold jewelry, gold plates, and decorative gold items shining from the glass display windows.

Judd directed them into a giant labyrinth of tiny streets and alleyways, all swarming with shoppers. The view changed time and again. They passed mosques, banks, coffee shops, and restaurants. From the doors of hans-stores-merchants called out their wares in a variety of languages-the strongest Turkish Viagra, the best pottery, the finest watches, the most lovely antiques, the most religious icons.

Suddenly there was a scream. A woman turned, her hands gripping her face in distress. “My purse! He stole my purse!” she yelled in German.

A bag-slasher raced off, his long hair flying as he rounded a corner and vanished. It had happened so quickly no one had time to react. As someone gave the woman directions to a police station, Eva and Judd went onto another street, finally reaching their destination.

A picturesque relic of Old Istanbul, it was a small, dead-end shopping area surrounding a tiled patio. Photos of whirling dervishes in their ecstatic dances decorated walls. Goods spilled from hans. Games of backgammon were in progress at wood tables in the patio, where the players drank from tulip-shaped tea glasses. Eva spotted a cabal of pickpockets, a mother with three children, but no actual dipping.

“I see the shop,” she told Judd.

The windows of the han showcased aged pages of calligraphy. As they walked inside, a sturdy middle-aged man in an embroidered caftan grinned at them.

“Merhaba.” Welcome. He quickly took in their appearances and switched to English. “British and Swedish, yes? You are obviously interested in our gorgeous old script. You must take home many pages. Hang them on your walls. Impress all your family.”

Eva remembered the photo of Okan Biçer that Tucker had e-mailed. This merchant was not he.

“We’re looking for Mr. Biçer, Okan Biçer,” she said. “A friend told us about him.”

“Ah, you have mutual friends. No doubt he sent you to buy calligraphy. We have the best in Istanbul. In all Europe and Asia.”

“My name is Eva Blake,” she tried again. “Andrew Yakimovich is a personal friend. We were told Mr. Biçer would know where Andy is.”

His small black eyes examined her shrewdly, then Judd. “No calligraphy? How sad. You will leave your phone number and address, and I will see.”

The beaded curtain separating the store from the back rustled, as if someone had been starting to come through and then changed his mind-or had been listening. When the shopkeeper glanced back nervously, Judd strode past him.

He hurried after Judd. “Hayir, hayir.” No, no. “Okan is not here. He is not here.”

Checking the other shoppers who were watching curiously, Eva followed as Judd pushed the merchant aside, brushed through the curtain, and opened a wood door. A sweet, cloying odor filled the narrow hall.

They strode down it, the shopkeeper on their heels, wringing his hands and lamenting. When they finally passed through an arched stone opening, Eva and Judd stopped and stared.

“I’ll be damned,” she said.

Their shirts off, men lay on faded lounges against stone walls, eyes half closed, fezzes crowning their heads at drunken angles. Some propped themselves up on elbows, holding long pipes, the bowls heating over oil lamps. In the bowls were waxy brown “pills”-opium. It was an old-fashioned opium den. In the light of the small lamps, the men turned toward their visitors, their gazes dreamy, their cheeks puffing as they continued to inhale the intoxicating vapors.

Okan Biçer was standing in the middle of them, rubbing his elbows, distraught. His long thin face was sweaty, and his eyes darted nervously around. He gave a quick nod to the shopkeeper, who shrugged and marched back toward the store.

Collecting himself, Biçer walked forward and bowed. “This is no place for you. We must leave. You can tell me everything I can do for you then. That way.” He gestured toward the shopkeeper’s retreating figure.

But Eva was already moving toward a man asleep on his side on a lounge. His large fez lay over his ear, and one chubby hand dangled to the floor. Fifty-plus years old, he had a large head, thick gray hair, heavy round cheeks, and oddly sensitive lips. The bags under his eyes were huge and dark, almost bruised-but that was opium for you. Dressed only in loose trousers and tennis shoes without laces, he was snoring lightly.

She shook his shoulder. “Andy, wake up. Andy Yakimovich. Wake up.”

Yakimovich, the antiquities dealer, rolled over onto his back, his large white belly spreading. He snored louder.

Judd grabbed Yakimovich and propped him up against the stone wall. “Wake up, Yakimovich. Polis.” Police.

His eyes snapped open, and the room emptied-Biçer raced away through a different door, off to the side, and the other men staggered to their feet and stumbled after him. Opium poppies were one of Turkey’s largest crops, and through international agreement, the United States annually bought a large percentage of their legal opium. But just as it was in the United States, the narcotic was illegal for self-entertainment in Turkey.

“Polis?” Yakimovich muttered worriedly. He looked at Judd. “You are police? You do not look like police. What kind of police are you?”

Eva tapped Judd’s arm, and he moved aside. “Hello, Andy. I’m Eva Blake, Charles Sherback’s widow. I believe Charles left something with you for me.”

His eyes wandered. “You are not police. Go away.”

She grabbed his stubbled chin. “Look at me, Andy.” When he focused, she repeated, “My name is Eva Blake. I’m Charles Sherback’s widow. I want what he left for me. Judd, get out the scytale.”

Judd took the tapered gold cylinder from the duffel bag and handed it to her. Even in the dim light it glowed, engraved and beautiful. She held it up for Yakimovich to see.

A tender look entered his eyes. He snatched the baton from her. Holding it in both hands, he pressed it against his heart. “I have missed you,” he murmured.

“I believe Charles left a message for me that fits around the scytale. I need it-now.”

His eyes narrowed. “Absque argento omnia vana.” Then he gave what he seemed to think was a winning smile.

“What does he want?” Judd asked.

“It’s a Latin phrase: ‘Without money all efforts are useless.’ He expects to be paid.” She yanked away the scytale from Yakimovich.

His gaze followed it hungrily.

“Do you want it back?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yes. Please.”

“Give us Charles’s message, and you can keep the scytale.”

Yakimovich’s eyes adjusted. For the first time he seemed really to see Judd and her. His body shuddered with a sigh. “All right. It is in my office.”

41

ANDREW YAKIMOVICH dropped a white cotton shirt over his head and led them out through the side door and into a meandering stone passageway. The air smelled of dust, and the walls were rough. Naked lightbulbs flickered overhead. Positioning his fez carefully onto his gray hair, he walked slowly, a wounded lion, aged but proud.

“The foundation is Byzantine, the floor plan Ottoman,” he told them. “This is one of the hidden worlds of the Grand Bazaar. Along here are rooms that have been workshops for centuries.”

As Eva watched, he gestured at doors. Few displayed signs. Most were open, showing antiques being repaired, stones being set in silver and gold, and tourist T-shirts being sewn. The mother with three children whom Eva had spotted earlier stood inside one room with a half dozen other people. She pulled billfolds from her purse and handed them over to a man sitting behind a desk.

“How far does this go on?” Judd wanted to know.

Yakimovich waved a hand. “It winds. A quarter mile perhaps.”

He took out a large old key and stopped. Unlocking a door, he stepped inside and rotated a switch. Electrical conduit ran up the wall and across the ceiling. Low-wattage lightbulbs beamed into life.

Eva and Judd followed him inside. Once a prominent antiquities dealer, Yakimovich seemed to have packed his entire life into this cavernous room. Crates rose to the ceiling, most unlabeled, fading into the dark recesses. Pieces of beautiful but dusty old furniture were stacked in a corner. Tall rolls of handmade carpets leaned against walls.

With a proprietary glance around, he moved to a marble-topped table and sat. “The scytale, if you please.” His tone was businesslike.

Eva laid it on the table, which was empty. There were no record books, no accounts, no letters from buyers eager to purchase one of Yakimovich’s treasures. No chairs in which customers could sit.

She tried to figure out how to phrase the question without insulting him: “You’ve retired, Andy?”

He let out a loud hoot, his face animated in the way she remembered. “You are too kind. I have no illusions about what I have become.” He peered at her, his gaze sharp for a moment. “Once I was great, like Charles. He could be a bastard, but I understood that. We have our own code, we bastards. Especially when we share a passion.”

He opened a small drawer and took out a long strip of tan leather on which letters in black ink were visible on one side. Eva inhaled, excitement coursing through her. At long last perhaps they would learn where the library was. As he started to lay down the strip, Eva snatched it up. The leather was stiff but pliable. She grabbed the scytale.

“Wrap from the large end first,” Yakimovich advised.

She did as he said, working slowly. It was an awkward process, the leather’s stiffness making it even more difficult. She could feel Judd’s intensity beside her. Finished, she gripped the scytale by both ends, holding the strip in place with her thumbs, then turned the cylinder horizontal to read the words.

Disappointment filled her. “All I see is gibberish.”

“I will do it,” Yakimovich said. “One must help the letters to grow into words.”

With a flourish, the antiquities dealer pulled the dry leather slightly and used a thumb to press it flat against the scytale as he rotated it and rewrapped the strip. It was slow work. Finished at last, he gave a nod of satisfaction. Holding the baton at the ends as Eva had so the strip would not slip, he turned the scytale and studied the script.

“It is Latin, and it is from Charles, but perhaps that is to be expected, since he is the one who left it here with me.” For a moment he continued to read silently to himself. Then his head jerked up, and his eyes flashed with excitement. “My God, Charles did it. He did it! He tracked the library! Listen to this: ‘You can find the location of the Library of Gold hidden inside The Book of Spies.’ ”

THE CALLIGRAPHY shop was silent. The customers had been banished, and the door locked. A large bruise was appearing on the shopkeeper’s cheek where Preston had hit him with his fist. He cringed as Preston grabbed his arm roughly.

“Show me exactly where they went,” Preston ordered and shoved him through the beaded curtain into the back.

The man ran down the dim hall toward an arched opening. Following, Preston took out his S &W pistol and screwed on the sound suppressor. Behind him were his two men, weapons in hand. A third man soon joined them.

JUDD LEANED forward. “Keep reading, Andy,” he ordered.

“Hurry!” Eva said, thrilled.

“It says here Charles’s predecessor wrote it inside the book, then smuggled the book out of the library-” Yakimovich stopped, the scytale frozen in midair.

Pounding feet in the corridor echoed loudly against the stone walls. The feet were coming toward them.

Judd pulled out his Beretta and ran toward the door, the only door to the storeroom.

Eva snatched the scytale from Yakimovich’s hands.

“No!” he yelled, reaching for it.

“I’ll send it back to you.” Eva sprinted.

Judd had flattened himself behind the open door. He motioned Eva to stand back beside him.

At his desk, the antiquities dealer seemed unable to move.

“Hide!” Judd commanded.

Yakimovich’s face blanched. He scuttled back among the crates and disappeared.

Suddenly the shopkeeper from the calligraphy store burst through the door as if he had been thrown. His eyes were wild, and sweat poured down his bruised face.

“Help me! Help me!” He ran in among the old furniture.

Light noises of a struggle reverberated from the stone corridor. Feet scuffed and snapped against the floor. There was a loud grunt, then another. The dull sound of something hitting flesh. A swift crack, then another. From the floor?

It was if they were listening to a radio, with the only clue being that some kind of fight was going on. Eva peered at Judd, who had a distant, cold look that sent chills over her skin. Finally there was a horrible quiet.

Judd raised a hand, silently telling her to wait as he stepped to the edge of the doorway. Pistol up, he peered out cautiously. Then he vanished into the hall.

Ignoring his order, Eva followed.

Four men were down. Two were about twenty feet away, bloody exit wounds showing on their foreheads. The other two-Preston and another man-lay close together near Yakimovich’s door. There were no obvious wounds on either.

Instantly Judd kicked Preston’s pistol from his limp hand, then swept it up.

“Dammit, Preston found us again,” she whispered.

He nodded. “We’ll talk about it later.” Looking up and down the winding hallway, he crouched beside the killer. “Check the other guy’s pockets, Eva. Do it fast. We can’t stay here long.”

She knelt. The man had gray hair and a long gray mustache. His face was the color of a roasted almond, the lines deep, the nose prominent. His fez lay upside down beside him. She rustled through the caftan and found only a wallet. Inside was an Istanbul driver’s license for Salih Serin, a credit card in the same name, and a few Turkish lira. The photo on the driver’s license matched the face of the man lying beside her.

“No weapon,” she said. “His name is Salih Serin. He lives in Istanbul.”

“Preston has a pistol and cash, no ID, and a small notebook. He’s pulled out most of the pages, but there’s one left. He wrote, ‘Robin Miller. Book of Spies. All we know is Athens-so far.’ ”

Eva felt a surge of excitement. “Then we have to go to Athens.”

“Yes.” He gave her Preston’s weapon. “If he so much as moves, shoot him. We don’t know about Serin yet, so be careful of him, too.” He tucked the note and money inside his jacket and hurried back into Yakimovich’s room.

Serin moaned and murmured something in Turkish. Opening his eyes, he jerked his head from side to side, panicking, until he saw Preston was lying unconscious.

He looked up at her and smiled. “You are pretty.”

Judd returned, carrying rope and their duffel bag. “The shopkeeper was no help. He’s blithering, scared to death.” As he tied Preston’s hands tightly behind him, he peered across at Serin. “What happened?”

The Turk sat up. “I know those two.” He pointed a thumb down the hall at the prone men. “They are evil. I was back there in a workroom, visiting a friend, and I saw them run past. A long time ago I was with MIT.” He gazed at them and explained. “Our Milli Istihbarat Teskilati, the National Intelligence Organization. So I thought I would see what badness they were planning. By the time I got here, both of them were on the floor with gunshot wounds, and that one”-he gestured at Preston-“had just hurled Mustafa through the door. He and I had a large battle.” He gave a conspiratorial grin. “But I am an old street fighter, and he thought he could take me. Still the weasel managed to whack me a good one just before I got him, and I fell and cracked my head.” He rubbed the back of his skull. “In the old days… ah, in the old days I would’ve eaten his gizzard.” He sighed tiredly.

“Are you all right, Mr. Serin?” Eva took his arm as he struggled to his feet.

Judd was suspicious. “There wasn’t any bump on Preston’s head. How’d you knock him out?” He finished binding Preston’s feet together.

“Pressure.” Serin grabbed his own throat, his thumbs pushed deep, then quickly released them. “We learn useful things in the secret service.”

Judd nodded. “Thanks for your help. You aren’t armed, so who shot the other men?”

“Maybe that one.” He gestured at Preston. “I saw no one else. I know those guys. They could have waited until he had no choice and demanded more money-or something else he could not or would not provide.” He shrugged, then scrutinized them. “You are in trouble, yes? I think they were planning to kill you. But you look like such nice tourists.”

Judd only glanced at him. “Come on, Eva.”

“I believe I heard someone mention Athens,” Serin continued. “You wish to go? I know a boat rental place where few questions are asked. I can take you in the boat to a small airport south of here where the owner and I are friendly. Perhaps it would be good for you to slip out of Istanbul before this one”-he pointed at Preston lying hogtied on the stone floor-“gets free, or someone else is sent to take his place. I am a poor man now. You could pay me well. Perhaps you are glad for the assistance of someone who knows the terrain.”

Worrying how Preston had found them again, Eva looked at Judd. Her inclination was to accept the offer.

Judd made a decision. “You won’t mind if I check you for weapons.”

Serin threw up his arms, the sleeves of his caftan billowing down past his elbows. “I insist.”

Judd patted him from his neck to the soles of his feet, paying particular attention to his armpits, lower back, thighs, calves, and ankles.

Finally Judd said, “All right. Let’s go.”

Serin rushed ahead, trying doorknobs until he located a closet. Judd found rags inside. Stuffing one into Preston’s mouth and tying another around it, he left the unconscious man bound tightly in his ropes.

“You didn’t kill Preston,” Eva whispered as they hurried after Serin.

“I thought about it. But he’s unarmed, apparently doesn’t know where The Book of Spies is in Athens, and anyway, he’s out of commission long enough for us to get away.” He hesitated, then admitted, “And I have enough blood on my hands.”

42

THE APRIL daylight was fading, the lavender colors of sunset spreading softly across the indigo-blue Sea of Marmara. In the vast Istanbul marina where Salih Serin had taken Judd and Eva, waves lapped boat hulls and ropes rattled against masts.

Judd took up a position fifty feet away from Eva and Serin, observing as Serin negotiated in Turkish with a stooped youth for the boat they had selected-a sleek Chris-Craft yacht powerful enough to make the journey easily and outrun other small vessels.

Judd was on his mobile with Tucker. It was about eleven A.M. in Washington, six P.M. in Istanbul. He described the events in the Grand Bazaar. “Preston found us again.”

“Dammit. What in hell is going on? There’s no way anyone could’ve gotten the intel on my end…” There was a pause. Tucker sounded worried as he continued, “I’ll think about it. Go on. What else did you learn?”

Judd repeated the information in Preston’s notebook. “See if you can track down who Robin Miller is. I’m wondering whether she might be the blond woman Eva saw with Sherback in London. Remember, The Book of Spies might’ve been in the backpack he left with her.”

“NSA is monitoring the two numbers you got off Sherback’s phone. I’ll let you know instantly if we get a hit.”

“Good. Eva’s going to translate the rest of the message on the leather strip as soon as we’re alone. Supposedly it says exactly where the library’s location is hidden inside The Book of Spies.”

“Langley had that book in storage three years.” Tucker sighed with frustration. “I take it you’re leaving for Athens?”

“Immediately. I’m not going to tell you exactly how we’re planning to get there.”

He watched as Serin jabbed a thumb toward the yacht, the darkening sky, and the boat merchant, at last extending both palms up in a gesture of attempting to be reasonable. Serin had told the boat merchant he was going to insist they receive a large discount, since so few people wanted to rent at night. His animated face showed deep enjoyment in the haggling.

“A damn good idea,” Tucker said. “Stay safe.”

The Sea of Marmara

WITH SERIN at the helm, the yacht cruised through the night, heading southwest across the Sea of Marmara. A wind had arisen out of the north through the Bosporus Strait, whipping the sea and making for a bumpy ride. They had progressed some ten miles, eaten fish sandwiches bought in the marina, and adjusted to the boat’s rough rhythms.

Judd was confident they had not been followed to the Istanbul marina, but still he found himself peering back to where the city’s lights spread across the horizon. He studied the traffic-fishing boats, cargo ships, and behemoth oil tankers and container ships, all blinking with lights. The great inland sea was a busy thoroughfare linking the Black Sea in the north to the Aegean and Mediterranean seas on the south through the Dardanelles Strait. None of the other boats seemed to be pacing them.

“Where exactly are we heading?” Eva raised her voice to be heard over the wind, sea, and motors.

Despite a bench seat directly behind them, Serin stood at the wheel, Eva beside him, where he had invited her. A low windshield partially protected them. Judd stood behind the bench seat, gripping the back with both hands. Eva’s midnight-blue jacket was buttoned up to her chin, and tendrils of her long black hair had fallen out of the knot at the nape of her neck. Windblown and rosy-cheeked, she looked quietly happy. As she turned to listen to Serin, Judd was struck by how much he liked her, liked being with her. Then he remembered the role his father had probably played in her imprisonment for manslaughter. He gazed away.

“South of a big city called Tekirdağ,” Serin yelled, “and north of a little village called Barbados. We are going to the Thrace part of Turkey, on the Europe side of course.”

Serin held the wheel confidently in his brown hands. He was a little shorter than Judd, but broader, with thick muscles. He appeared nonchalant and self-satisfied. At the same time, there were signs of his past-the athletic way he moved on the boat and the flashes of intense acuity in his gaze. If he had not already said he had been a member of the national government’s tough MIT, Judd would have suspected some sort of similar background.

“An old comrade of mine has a private airstrip,” Serin was continuing. “We will be there in about three hours.”

Judd saw they were doing a good thirty-plus knots despite the waves. Speedy, with two powerful inboard engines, the Chris-Craft was a stunner. Belowdecks were fully appointed staterooms, a salon, and a galley.

“You’re not taking us through the Dardanelles?” Eva asked. “We’d pass the ruins of Troy if you did, and we’d be much closer to Athens.”

“Too dangerous. The strait is narrow and crowded. It twists itself this way and that. Besides, the current is unusually swift.”

“What do you do with yourself when you’re not ferrying people in rented boats?” Judd asked.

“Ah, that is a long story. To make it short, I am what you call a jack-of-all-trades. I am hired to guide, to guard, and to deliver important items. I have a reputation, you see. I am trustworthy. And you two are very important items and now know I am trustworthy also. What about you, Mr. Ryder? You have not told me anything.”

“We’re tourists, just as you thought.”

“You are trying to fool an old dog, but I know all the tricky tricks. I am curious. What is wrong with curiosity, I ask you?” His loud voice sounded hurt. “At least explain this thing called The Book of Spies. Entertain me while I work so hard.”

Eva laughed. “It’s an illuminated manuscript from the sixteenth century. A one-of-a-kind book and very valuable. It’s been lost. We’re trying to track it down.” She glanced back at Judd. “I’m getting tired of shouting.”

“So this book is in Athens, and you wish to find it. It is part of some big business deal?” the Turk coaxed.

“Why would you think we’re involved in a business deal?” Judd asked.

“I had hopes it would make you much money, and then you would come back to Istanbul and hire me again. Is it for this book your lives are in danger?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.” It seemed like innocuous enough information, Judd decided.

Serin glanced over his shoulder at him, frowning. And as he turned back, he wiped his face. The wheel spun out of his other hand. Serin grabbed the steering again with both hands-too late. The craft lurched from side to side, the waves pounding, the wind screeching. Banging down hard in the trough of one wave, the yacht lifted sharply on the crest of the next. Water drenched them.

Eva reeled as Serin fought to control the yacht, but it slammed and torqued violently. One of her hands slipped from the safety handle on the console. The boat heaved to the starboard, tossing all of them. But Eva’s foot slid, and she fell to her knees.

Instantly Judd snatched her arm, locking his other hand on to the back of the bench seat, trying not to lose his balance, too.

As the boat continued to rotate back and forth, up and down, the wet steering wheel whirled through Serin’s grasp.

The boat pitched hard again, banging and yawing. Judd lost his grip. His hand slid uncontrollably across the moist seat back, and he stumbled. Eva fell halfway over the boat’s side, pulling him with her because he would not let her go. One more lurch, and both would be hurled into the black churning water.

His heart thundering, Judd looked back, searching for a way to save them. Instead he saw something else: Serin was not panicked, not even worried as he clinically noted their life-threatening situation. The icy intelligence in his gaze told Judd he could easily let them fall overboard and would abandon them. Was that what he had planned all along?

“You bastard!” Judd yelled. “Why are you doing this!”

Serin blinked. He looked off into the distance, then back at them. He seemed to decide something. Giving a small nod, he fitted his hands into the spokes of the steering wheel. His caftan sleeves fell back, showing the cording muscles. Shoulders hunching, he poured strength into dominating the yacht.

Slowly the boat’s heaving eased. Judd yanked Eva back onboard and pulled her to his chest. Chilled and furious, he wrapped his arms around her. She resisted only a moment, then held on for dear life. He kissed her hair. She burrowed deeper. Then he slid his hand inside his jacket and yanked out his Beretta.

He released her and rolled free, aiming the pistol up at Serin.

43

EVA WAS watching, stunned. “Judd, stop!” Black hair blowing around her face, she scrambled toward Serin.

“No, Eva. Come here!” Judd ordered as he sat on the seat behind Serin and slid to the side where he had a fuller view of the man’s profile and a safer distance. He steadily pointed his Beretta at him.

Her eyes wide, Eva grasped the arm of the seat and pulled herself around the rocking yacht.

“What did I miss?” She fell in beside him.

Serin’s fez was gone, and his almond-colored features had shifted, revealing a depth of something Judd could not quite name but felt in himself and did not like. Something predatory. Serin’s facial skin seemed different, too, and Judd had a sudden insight the man was in disguise. A hell of a good disguise, with skin dye and some of the new manmade materials that, when smoothed on skin and allowed to dry, puckered the surface and formed deep crevices. The large nose could be fake, too.

“This has been what we in intelligence call a movie,” Judd explained to Eva grimly. “It’s a setup that looks and feels completely real.” He gestured with his pistol at Serin. “Tell her,” he ordered.

There was no hesitation. “I have rules,” Serin said over the noise of the engines and wind. “They are inviolate. My employer agreed to all of them. One of them is I do wet work only on people who shouldn’t be breathing, and I’m the one who makes the decision. My employer was convincing about both of you, so I agreed to the job. He ordered Preston to create a movie in which you’d believe I’d be useful to help you get away. So when Preston realized you were in Yakimovich’s storage room, he eliminated two of his people and called me in.” He hesitated.

“Go on,” Judd said.

“At that point I took over. But when you arrived I began to wonder. The people I wipe aren’t solicitous of an old man. They don’t inquire about his well-being. You were prepared to scrub Preston if he moved because he’d tried to do the same to you earlier-but you were just as willing to wait to find out whether I was a threat. Evil people murder first and don’t bother about questions. All of this meant I needed to find out more. Were you trying to kill my employer and steal some big business deal as he contended? Finally I learned you claimed to be treasure hunters chasing a chimera, some old manuscript called The Book of Spies. That did not fit the profile my employer gave me. Then I looked back at you, Judd, and lost control of the wheel. My specialty is in making hits look like accidents, so I’d planned to erase you out here. Losing control of the boat presented an elegant opportunity. They are few.”

“Why did you change your mind?” Eva said.

“Because, God help me, I know human nature-in my world it’s nasty, corrupt, and mean. You aren’t, so in the end I had to believe you. I’ll tell you now I’m glad.” He looked at Eva. “You remind me of my daughter. You’re about the same age, and both very pretty in similar ways. According to the photo I was given, your true hair color is red. Hers is auburn.”

The yacht cruised onward, rolling up and down with the sea. The wind howled around them.

“I can’t trust you,” Judd decided.

“I understand. However, I’ll still take you to my friend and his airstrip.”

“Who hired you?”

“I won’t tell you that.”

“Your rules?”

He gave a curt nod. “I’ve survived many years in a business in which most of my colleagues have been killed off. Seldom do we die of old age. Rules are not for the timid or the careless. They require discipline. King Lear railed against the universe when he was punished for breaking its rules. I don’t want the same fate. Besides, the longer I live, the greater my chance of seeing my daughter again.”

“What’s your name?” Judd asked.

The assassin’s black eyes cut into him. “The Carnivore.” Then he smiled.

Thrace, Turkey

THE CARNIVORE turned off the yacht’s engines in calm waters near a strip of uninhabited land north of the village of Barbados. Judd dropped the anchor, they found flashlights, and they took off their shoes. The Carnivore pulled off his caftan. Beneath it he wore black jeans and a black T-shirt. His muscle tone was excellent, but his skin elasticity showed advancing age. Judd guessed him to be in his fifties.

They rolled up their jeans and waded ashore. Judd carried the duffel, and Eva wore her satchel, the strap across her chest. The wind was quieter here. They crossed the beach, and the Carnivore led them up ancient stone steps carved into a cliff.

At the top, they paused. The moon had risen, casting an eerie light across acres of grapevines tied neatly to wires running between gnarled wood posts. The vines were just beginning to leaf. The air smelled raw, of freshly tilled soil.

They headed off on a narrow dirt trail through the grapevines.

“Do you want to tell me what this is all about, Judd?” the Carnivore asked.

“Reciprocity is another of your rules?”

“A good one, don’t you think.”

“I like it,” Judd said. “But no, I’ll handle this.”

The trail widened, and the three moved on side by side.

The Carnivore peered around at Judd and said thoughtfully, “Yes, I believe you will-if it can be handled at all. But as for reciprocity, I consider us even by my giving you a safe route into Athens.”

“Is Preston free now?” Eva asked worriedly.

“He must be,” the Carnivore said. “He had backup.”

“What if I’d decided to kill him back in the Grand Bazaar,” Judd said. “Your movie would’ve been burned.”

“That would’ve worked just as well,” the Carnivore instructed. “He would’ve ‘awakened’ and attacked you. I would’ve saved the day by helping you to escape, him to live, and the movie to continue.”

Judd changed the subject. “What about his note, the one that mentioned Athens. Was it legitimate or a plant?”

“Legitimate. A note to himself. It added to the authenticity and gave you a significant reason to believe what you saw was real. Perhaps more important, we didn’t expect you to live long enough to use it or anything else you might’ve learned there.”

“Do you have any information about The Book of Spies and Robin Miller?” Eva asked.

“It was none of my business.”

“What about the Library of Gold?”

The Carnivore frowned. “I’ve heard of it. Is that what this is all about?”

“Yes.” But Judd said no more. Venomous snakes like the Carnivore shed their skins occasionally, but their bites remained just as unpredictable-and poisonous. “What will you tell your employer?”

“Nothing.”

Judd sensed fury behind the one-word answer. The Carnivore was making his employer pay for lying to him. It also meant the employer would think he and Eva were dead-at least for a while.

“It gives you time,” the Carnivore said, “but it’s also good business for me. When one deals in death, one must make certain the rules are clear-and there are costs involved when they’re broken.” He glanced at Judd. “And it means you don’t have to contemplate eliminating me, and I don’t have to take proactive measures to make certain you don’t try.”

The words were calm, matter-of-fact, but they sent a chill through Judd.

“You won’t be paid,” Judd said.

“I have half. I’ll keep it.”

“Where do you come from?” Eva asked the Carnivore. “Where do you live now? How did you get into this business? You sound almost American.”

“I’m sorry, Eva. It’s really better you don’t know. Once a KGB assassin from the old cold war days went after my daughter, thinking I was dead and he’d get his revenge on me by eliminating her. Fortunately she was able to save herself. If anyone finds out you have information about me, your lives could be threatened, and there’s no guarantee you’d be as lucky as she.”

At the top of a slight incline they saw a house, large and expansive, built of weathered stone with a blue-tile Ottoman roof. Lights showed inside, and as they approached, exterior lights flashed on, illuminating flower beds, patches of grass, and a stone gazebo. Empty wine barrels were stacked against sheds. There was a large clapboard structure toward the back that was probably where the wine was made and aged.

The door to the house opened, and a man in his late fifties appeared, a shotgun resting across an arm.

“Who goes there?” he shouted in Turkish and English.

“An old friend from long ago, Hugo Shah,” the Carnivore replied. “You remember me, Alex Bosa.”

“Alex, you’ve come to taste my wine again. I’m honored.” Then as they approached, Shah stared. “Alex? Yes, it is you. What a magnificent disguise. What are you up to now?”

“No good, as always.”

Shah laughed. The pair shook hands, and the four trooped into a living area of tasteful wallpaper and thick carpets. Fine old furniture was placed here and there, while a modern sofa and easy chairs faced a handsome fireplace.

“Who are your friends, Alex?” Shah asked.

“It doesn’t matter. They need your help, which means I need your help. Is that light plane of yours available?”

“At this hour?” Shah’s eyes narrowed as he studied the Carnivore. “I see. It is an emergency. Very well, I will fly them myself. Do you wish to accompany us?”

“I’ll wait here with the wine.”

Shah smiled broadly. “Excellent. Please give me a moment.” He returned soon, wearing a jacket and carrying a small valise.

As all four walked outside, Shah explained about his vineyard, “I grow gamay, cabernet, and papazkarasi grapes. I have in mind two fine reds I will open for us, Alex-it will be Alex and Hugo again.”

About a half mile from the house, they went into a large garage where a single-engine Cirrus SR20 was waiting. They helped Shah roll out the plane. He gazed at the wind socket and sniffed the air.

“I’ll say good-bye now.” The Carnivore backed off.

They climbed on board, Judd sitting next to Shah, and Eva behind. As the engine warmed up, Judd gazed out the window. The Carnivore was smiling. He lifted his hand and pressed two fingers against his temple in a smart salute.

Judd found himself smiling back. He snapped off a two-finger salute in return.

“Where are we going?” Shah asked as the propellers started rotating.

Judd glanced back. Eva was looking at him. He heard the strength in his voice-also the urgency. “Athens.”