The Voynich Cypher

CHAPTER 21

Steven sat slumped over his laptop in the arrival area as though waiting for an early morning train. The terminal had a fair number of people in it: mostly shifty-looking loiterers and the late night fringes of society that frequented train and bus stations. The few police patrolling seemed to be oblivious of him. That made sense — it was too soon, and they hadn’t actually broken any laws. Although there was always the chance that someone would pull some strings and get an All Points Bulletin issued, it seemed highly unlikely if their intentions were to remain a secret. Besides which, Steven was barely recognizable now that he was wearing a hooded sweatshirt pulled over his NY Yankees baseball cap. The ensemble was completed with nondescript black cargo pants, and he could have passed for early thirties, or even younger, at a glance. The attire was miles from what a cryptologist or a technology CEO would reasonably wear.

Steven glanced up as he sensed Natalie’s return and ventured a fatigued grin. She looked like she’d just awoken from eight solid hours of rest, dazzling in a multicolored lightweight sweater and jeans. The wig was now pulled into a pony tail, and the change in her appearance from the goth-princess he’d met two mornings ago was striking. It was hard to believe this was the same woman, but the intense violet eyes were unmistakable.

She appraised him as he tapped at the computer’s keypad.

“Any progress?”

“I entered the photos from the basilica and did a glyph-by-glyph comparison, then recreated the text and fed it into the software.” He touched the screen. “It’s processing, after which I’ll need to translate it from whatever it spits out in Latin.”

“How long do you think it will take?” Natalie asked.

“Maybe an hour — it will check for all permutations, which could turn out to be a lot. No way of knowing until it tells me it’s done. If I didn’t have the program, it would be weeks.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Could you get me a cup of very strong coffee? I’m not used to staying up all night, and I’m starting to drift…”

Natalie nodded. “Relegated to the coffee girl. Fine,” she teased.

“You can sit here for a while and stare at the blank screen telling you the task is only fifteen percent complete while I go get some,” he offered.

“Know what? I’ll take you up on that. It will probably do you good to stretch your legs. Do you mind?” she asked.

“Not at all. Nothing will happen with the software until it’s done, and that will be a while. You want anything? Java? Muffin?”

“Please, no pet names.” She studied Steven’s blank expression. “Sorry. I’m a little punchy too. I was just playing. Sure, I’d love some coffee. Lots of cream, three sugars, please.”

Steven wordlessly handed her the PC, careful not to kick the power cord from the outlet.

He adjusted his hat. “Hot, white and sweet. Got it.” His eyes twinkled. “See? I can play too.”

Without waiting for a response, he departed in search of liquid sustenance. Nothing was illuminated but the fast food restaurant they’d stopped at earlier. Steven bought two coffees and two croissants, which had just come out of the oven. He looked at the wall clock as he waited for his order. Four-eighteen. Either very late, or very early. It would start getting light around six-thirty, so they had a ways to go until dawn.

How had circumstances gotten so crazy in under forty-eight hours? Two days ago, he’d woken up like he did every day, shaved and showered, and had given no further thought to his upcoming day than to hope he wasn’t bored to death. Since then he’d been chased twice, had bludgeoned a man senseless, been forced to run for his life, had set hands on the rarest parchment on the planet, taken a gun from a dead man, slept in a strange villa, fled a hotel in the dead of night, and kissed an incredible woman he barely knew.

Her tongue probing into his mouth had awakened a side of Steven that had been dead for over two years. He wasn’t sure he was ready for it to be roused in such an abrupt manner, but now that it was, he couldn’t stop thinking about it — when he wasn’t consumed with the puzzle of a lifetime and calculating how to escape execution by centuries-old secret societies or murderous billionaires.

The soft feel of her full, lush lips and urgent tongue, the scent of her dewy immediacy, the hard curves of her supple, pert, inviting–

Steven mentally shook himself. That’s enough of that. Mooning around like a high school boy with his first crush wouldn’t do either of them any good, and occupying his limited mental resources with fantasies of Natalie seductively peeling off her skin-tight jumpsuit to reveal her perfectly-sculpted nudity, tattoos heralding her passionate, wanton shamelessness…

Stop it. Now. Enough.

The girl behind the counter, who was all of seventeen, regarded him oddly. Steven supposed she saw plenty of old perverts on the graveyard shift, but still, it made him feel grungy and lecherous. She slid the cardboard tray with two coffees and a bag of croissants across the counter to him with a look that clearly said she was afraid he’d pounce on her if she didn’t snatch her arm away.

Yes, he’d come a long way in the last forty-odd hours. Now he was scaring random females with his newfound Uncle Touchy leer. Great. Hard to add that to the resume.

He realized that his internal dialogue was veering into unexpected areas and attributed it to the fatigue and post-chase adrenaline crash. It had been a long time since he’d had to run from pursuers, and he’d almost forgotten how many inner resources it consumed.

Natalie had seemed almost unaffected by the day’s events, except for Frederick’s death, which Steven had watched her quickly digest and compartmentalize. He understood because he also dealt with grief and pain like that, especially during times of crisis. Getting bogged down in emotion was a luxury those on the run couldn’t afford and came at a cost that could be lethal if you hesitated at the wrong moment or missed a vital danger signal. He’d seen the pain in her eyes when she’d taken the gun from him in the taxi, but she’d quickly bucked up and done what was necessary. A rare trait in most people, much less a gorgeous young ingénue with sex appeal that wouldn’t quit.

Steven forced himself to swallow some of that compartmentalization medicine and stuffed his daydreams about Natalie’s charms behind a mental door, which he shut with commitment, if not enthusiasm.

He returned with his bounty and sat across from Natalie, who was staring at the silent computer screen as if to command it to complete its task through sheer force of will.

“Did it flash the decrypted message alert?” Steven asked, handing her the coffee.

“Will it do that?” she asked, eyeing him skeptically.

“Absolutely. Oh, wait. I never downloaded that update. Sorry.”

She fixed him with a quizzical stare. “Did you just make a funny?”

He couldn’t keep his composure, and just a hint of a smile flashed across his face.

“I’ve been told my sense of humor is one of my most endearing traits,” Steven tried.

“Don’t quit your day job.” Natalie shifted her gaze back to the screen. “When will you know that it’s finished?” she asked.

“Seriously? It will default to a screen that says processing complete. Very low-tech. Once that’s done, I’ll have a file with the contents organized into the three likeliest combinations of words, which I’ll need to translate. Although in my experience the top choice is usually the right one.”

Natalie emitted an impatient sigh and set the computer to one side. She tasted her coffee with a slurp.

“So what drives a young woman to become an FBI agent?” Steven asked, sipping his own coffee gratefully.

“Honestly? I got fascinated with the idea after seeing Silence of the Lambs, and one thing led to another,” she said.

He studied her serene expression. “Are you F-ing with me?”

A trace of amusement crossed her face at his choice of terms.

“Steven, trust me when I tell you that you’ll know when I’m ‘F-ing’ with you. And this ain’t it.”

He decided to let that ball go by without swinging at it.

“You joined the FBI because of a movie?”

“It’s more complicated than that, but that’s basically my story. I graduated from Duke University with honors in three years and decided on getting my JD in half the usual time. At some point during that whirlwind I saw the movie, and I thought, ‘That’s what I’d like to do.’ After I passed the bar, I applied to the Bureau, and they accepted me. The rest is history.”

“You’re an attorney, too?”

“Don’t hold that against me.”

“And you said you were with the FBI for five years?” Steven asked.

“Technically, six. But half the first year was training.”

“I hope you don’t mind my asking, but how old are you, Natalie?”

She hesitated. “Just turned thirty-one. I focused on financial crimes to start with, but quickly moved into specialized field work. The financial stuff was too boring. So I weaseled my way into becoming a mob specialist. Tracking hit men.”

“Why did you leave?” Steven asked.

“I’m not a good team player, and the FBI is all about teamwork and politics. That, and it’s still somewhat of a boy’s club, which makes it tough for a girl to get ahead — even though half their ads feature politically-correct, racially-and-gender-mixed models, the truth is it’s still mostly white men who run things. I loved the field work, but hated the political jockeying. So I quit after sewing up a huge case. They were sad to see me go — when I graduated from Quantico I was chosen to receive the Director’s Leadership award. I was one of their model success stories.” She took another taste of coffee. “I quit being a Special Agent two years ago and almost entered a convent to better serve the church. And in case you’re wondering, I’m still a virgin,” she confessed.

Steven’s mouth actually fell open at her nonchalant recitation. She smiled at him.

“Now I’m F-ing with you,” she said. She leaned over and picked up the sack and rooted around in the paper bag for a croissant.

The laptop beeped.

“I think that’s for you,” Natalie said.

Steven moved to her side and put the computer in his lap. He quickly pulled up a screen and opened a file.

“Let’s use your phone again. I need to translate these from Latin,” Steven said.

Natalie plugged it in the laptop and within a few seconds they were online. He fed in the data to a translation engine and saved the results.

They both peered at it on the screen.

“Huh?” Natalie exclaimed.

“I told you not to expect too much on this first go around.”

“What does it mean?”

“My job, such as it is, would be to find out.”