Library of Gold (33 page)

Yitzhak pushed himself to rush, and he crossed at the intersection. “Leoni! Leoni!”

The youth looked up, his long black hair blowing around his face. “
Professore,
you have been waiting for me?”

Yitzhak said nothing and slowed, catching his breath. When Leoni reached him, he said, “Good to see you, boy. Is that my package?”

“Yes, sir.” He handed it to him.

“
Grazie.
My car is around the block. I’ll see you back at the university in a few days.”

Leoni nodded.
“Ciao.”
He returned the way he had come.

Yitzhak went in the other direction, feeling smart he had thought to misdirect the student. As he climbed Janiculum Hill, he stopped. His heart was thundering. He had been meaning to lose weight for years. Now it was evident he had better hurry on that promise.

He resumed walking, slowly this time, and finally reached the apartment building. He opened the front door and gazed up at the long staircase. He had to mount two flights, and the second was as long as the first. He hefted the package—it felt heavy, the weight of a book. He would rest a moment, and he was curious.

Ripping off the staples, he pulled out the volume. And stared, surprised. It was a thick collection of Sherlock Holmes stories, so battered it looked as if it had come from a used-book store. Definitely not a first edition. Why would the
monsignore
send this? He checked for a note but found none.

Shaking his head, he stuffed it back inside the envelope and climbed. Behind him he heard the front door open and close. When he reached his floor, he could hear footsteps on the stairs, hurrying upward. For some reason he found himself rushing down the corridor. As he slid the key inside the lock, he glanced back and froze.

Two men were running toward him, aiming guns.

“Who are you?” Yitzhak demanded, although even to him his voice sounded weak. “What do you want?”

There was no answer. One man was large, burly, and ferocious looking, the other small and wiry, with a mean face. The shorter man grabbed the key from Yitzhak’s hand, unlocked the door, and the big man shoved him inside. The door closed behind them with an ominous
click
.

47

Athens, Greece

The Carnivore’s friend flew Eva and Judd into Athens International, and from there they took the suburban railway Proastiakos northwest through the night, transferring to Metro line three, which would take them into the city. They had been watching carefully for anyone too interested in them. The Metro car was crowded, people sleeping or talking quietly. Eva was eager to check into a hotel so they would be alone and she could rewind the leather strip around the
scytale
and translate the rest of Charles’s message.

She peered out the windows as the Metro sped past houses and apartment blocks built in modern Greece’s ubiquitous cement-box architecture. Ancient ruins occasionally showed, alight in the night. The juxtaposition of new and old was somehow reassuring, the past meeting today and making the future seem possible. She clung to her hopes for a future as she sat beside Judd, very aware of him. There was a lot about him she liked—but also something she feared.

She looked down at his hands resting on his thighs, remembering Michelangelo’s statue of David, his great masterpiece, in Florence. Michelangelo had said when he cut into the marble it had revealed the hands of a killer. Judd’s hands looked like David’s, oversized and strong, with prominent veins. But when he had sculpted David’s face, Michelangelo had uncovered a subtle sweetness and innocence. She glanced at Judd’s weathered face, square and rugged beneath his bleached hair, the arched nose, the good jaw. There was no sweetness or innocence there, only determination.

“How old are you, Judd?” she asked.

His body appeared relaxed, despite his constant watchfulness. There was no way to be certain how long it would take Preston to figure out the Carnivore had not eliminated them. Preston might be chasing them now.

“Thirty-two,” he said. “Why?”

“So am I. I’ll bet you knew that already.”

“It was in the dossier Tucker gave me. Is my age important?”

“No. But I thought you might be older. You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?”

He stared at her. “Why do you say that?”

“In prison there were women who had a sense about them of . . . it’s hard to describe. I guess I’d call it a challenging past. You’re something like that.”

What she did not mention was the women came from violent backgrounds, many sentenced on murder or manslaughter charges. They seemed to ache to fight, although, win or lose, the consequences for them would be serious. But she had never seen Judd start a fight or even look for one. Then with a chill she recalled his saying he wanted no more blood on his hands.

“I was undercover in Iraq and later in Pakistan,” he explained. “Military intelligence. Of course both were ‘challenging.’ But there were good things, too. In Iraq, I was able to help rebuild several schools. The Iraqis were coming back from the brink, and education was high on their list. Dad put together shipments of books for their libraries.”

“That doesn’t sound like military intelligence.”

“I had some downtime. That’s what I did with it, particularly at the end.”

She heard something else in his voice. “And before then?”

Smiling, he said, “Do all eggheads ask so many questions?”

“I’m an egghead?”

“A Ph.D. qualifies you.”

She scanned the other passengers. “Think what you know about me, including my shady past. I know almost nothing about you.”

He chuckled. “At least I’m sure you’re not a perpetrator of vehicular manslaughter.” He stared at her expression. “Sorry. That was stupid of me.” He faced straight ahead again.

Eva said nothing, sitting quietly.

At last he continued: “I uncovered some intel on an ‘al-Qaeda in Iraq’ operative and finally was able to catch him and take him in for questioning. God knows how he managed to get rope, but he did. He hung himself in his cell. His brother was also al-Qaeda, and when he heard about it, he came after me. It went on for weeks. He was ruining my ability to do the rest of my job, and I wasn’t able to track him down. Then there was a shift. It seemed as if he’d lost interest. I couldn’t figure it out—until a message was passed to me he was going to punish me by liquidating my fiancée.”

His fingers drained color as he knotted his hands. “She was MI, too. A damn good analyst. I got the intel just as she reached her usual security check. A Muslim woman stumbled and fell beside the checkpoint, and her suitcase slid under my fiancée’s Jeep. It looked like an accident, but the guards were instantly on it. The woman managed to shake free and run for it just as the suitcase exploded. It was an IED, of course. ‘She’ was wearing a burka, but one of the soldiers saw legs in jeans, and big feet in men’s combat boots.” He took a deep breath. “Four people were killed, including my fiancée. Later I got another message. In English it said, ‘Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’ The New Testament, of course. Apostle Paul. The son of a bitch was an Islamic jihadist quoting the Bible to me to justify murdering her.”

“You haven’t told me her name,” she said gently. He cleared his throat. “Amanda. Amanda Waterman.”

“I’m so sorry. How horrible. You felt responsible for her death.”

“She’d still be alive. Her job wasn’t that dangerous.”

“I’ll bet you wanted to kill him for what he did.”

His body tensed. “I could never find him.”

“Do you still want to kill him?”

He looked at her sharply. “Would you blame me?”

“When I believed there was a chance I’d been driving and had killed Charles, it took me a long time to come to terms with it.” She paused. “No one went to Iraq without knowing the risks. Both of you were very lucky to find love.” She heard the sadness in her voice and wiped it away. “A lot of people never have that.”

He nodded, his expression granite.

Still, she wondered whether that was the only story behind the chilling looks she had seen on his face. One of his hands moved toward hers, to hold it. She remembered how he had pulled her to him after she had almost pitched off the yacht, how he had wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, how he had kissed her hair . . . the wonderful sound of his pounding heart. His musky, wet smell. He had saved her at the risk of his own life. In that moment she had wanted nothing more than to burrow in and forget the hard times. Pretend his protectiveness was the beginning of love. But the truth was she did not know what she really thought of him, much less what she felt, or whether someone with deep heartache and a violent past could ever be stable enough for enduring love. Could she, even?

She gave his hand a quick squeeze and released him. “Your mobile is chirping.”

Judd took it from his pocket. “An e-mail from Tucker. Some good news—he thinks he may have found Robin Miller.” He handed the device to her. “What do you think?”

She analyzed the photo of the woman displayed on the mobile’s screen—green eyes and thick ash-blond hair, but no bangs. The mouth was lush and round. Included were the woman’s age, height, and weight.

“The statistics match Robin Miller,” she told him. “But if I didn’t know better, I’d still say it’s not her. On the other hand, Charles had plastic surgery when he joined the library, so she might’ve, too. If she did, then her nose could’ve been shortened and turned up at the end, and an implant inserted in her chin. The eyes, hair color, and the rest of the face are the same.”

“With plastic surgery they’d be identical?”

“Absolutely.” She was still thinking about his fiancée’s death. “It’s interesting about the al-Qaeda jihadist and his last message to you. A version is in the Old Testament, too. Job said, ‘They that plow iniquity and sow wickedness reap the same.’ Then, thousands of years later, Cicero wrote, ‘As you have sown, so shall you reap.’ Anyway, what strikes me is it’s also in the Koran, which came some seven centuries later, after Cicero: ‘Have you considered what you have sown?’ The jihadist must’ve been at least somewhat educated. Otherwise he would’ve fallen back on what he knew—the Koran.”

“I thought about that, too. But I’m not going there, and God knows where he is or whether he’s even alive. Besides, you and I have a much more urgent problem—how to find Robin Miller and the Library of Gold.”

And survive, she thought.

48

Eva and Judd disembarked at Platia Syntagma—Constitution Square—the center of modern Athens. A grand expanse of white marble, the plaza stretched below the parliament building, glowing serenely in lamplight. At the edges were elegant cafés sporting outdoor tables, where people were eating, drinking, gossiping.

As they walked toward the taxi stand, Eva mulled whether she could stay with the mission. As she glanced around, the Athens traffic seemed unusually thick, the shadows too dark and dangerous. She was troubled, her mind in turmoil.

They stopped as the ruins of the Parthenon temple came into view, towering majestically above the high Acropolis. The glowing white columns and pediments could be seen from all over the city, from between buildings and at the crosswalks of streets.

“The Parthenon is really something,” Judd decided. “And before you ask—no, I’ve never been to Athens. This is my first time.”

She forced a smile.

They took a taxi into the Exarchia district near the Athens Polytechnic, a quirkily bohemian neighborhood she had visited before meeting Charles. At the bottom of Stournari Street they got out and climbed into the Platia Exarchia, the nerve center of the area, where Athenians satisfied their love of political debate, and intellectuals came to spout their latest theories. Serious nightlife started in Athens after midnight. Through windows she could see the bars were bustling.

“Let’s get some food,” Judd said.

They went into a
taverna
named Pan’s Revenge. A musician strummed a mandolin-like
bouzouki
and sang a Greek sea song of yearning for a far-off love. Stopping at the bar, Eva translated as Judd chose a bottle of Katogi Averoff estate red, 1999, 90 percent cabernet, 10 percent merlot. She ordered the house speciality—moussaka and zucchini stuffed with wild rice—to go.

Purchases in hand, they walked around the corner. She felt Judd’s tension as he continued to watch for tails, and her own tension as she tried to decide what to do.

“You’re being awfully quiet,” he said.

“I know. Just thinking.”

Soon she saw the small hotel she remembered—pink stone with white stone moldings and enameled white shutters—where she had stayed years before.

“Hotel Hecate,” Judd read. “A Greek god or goddess?”

“The goddess of magic.”

“Maybe it’s a good omen.” He stared at her a moment, seeming to try to read her mind. “Are you going to be all right?”

Quite a few people were entering and leaving the various establishments. The door to a bar opened, and waves of laughter rolled out. She saw no sign of threat.

“Sure,” she said. “I’ll just hang out while you register.”

“Don’t run out on me.”

Her brows rose in surprise. Had he guessed she had been considering it? Before she could respond, he hurried into the hotel.

Walking along the block, she studied the other pedestrians as she tried to sort through her thoughts. She had made a lot of mistakes, and now she feared staying with the operation was another. What kind of man was Judd really, to do such violent work? Could he turn off the violence? Would he ever use it against her?

At the corner she paced back toward the hotel. She felt responsible for putting Yitzhak and Roberto in danger and for being the cause of Peggy’s murder. But once she had discovered Charles was alive and had left a message for her, she had blindly followed the trail to know more about what he might actually have felt for her. As she was thinking about that, an old man and woman passed, holding hands, talking to each other as if no one else in the world mattered. She felt a stab of heartache.