The Nostradamus File

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Richard Cromwell had spent his last days on an estate 50 miles northeast of London, near Cambridge University. Most of his letters and papers were in the Cambridgeshire Archives. If there was anything in Cromwell's correspondence that could shed light on the location of the Ark, it would be somewhere in those archives.

They checked into a hotel near the University early in the afternoon of a perfect English summer day, the kind of day that had inspired Shakespeare to compare. From there they went to the County Council record office, where Cromwell's papers were stored. The office was in Shire Hall, a massive building of stone that was a shrine to bureaucracy.

Selena had already examined the Cromwell letters that could be seen online and discovered nothing. Some of the fragile documents were available only for serious research and only by permission. Selena's academic credentials smoothed the way to the restricted section.

"This is going to take a while," she said. "You and Ronnie don't need to be here."

"We passed a pub down the road. Ronnie and I will go there. Call when you want us to come pick you up."

Three hours later she found what she was looking for. She called Nick and went outside to wait for him.

When they pulled up outside Shire Hall, they appeared unusually happy.

"We found a good pub," Nick said. "Had shepherd's pie for lunch. Good beer, too."

"Better let me drive," she said.

As they drove away from the Council offices, a dark blue Volvo started up in the parking lot and pulled out after them.

"They're headed back into town," the driver said into his radio link.

"Keep your distance. They're probably going back to their hotel."

"What's our next move?"

"We watch and wait. If they turned anything up, they'll go after it. It's getting late. Probably nothing's going to happen until tomorrow. Make sure you've got somebody on them all the time."

"Roger that," the man said.

"Don't screw up."

"Roger," the man said again.