Library of Gold (35 page)

The chauffeur rushed around the limo to open the door. Chapman got out, his mane of wavy white hair gleaming, blue eyes twinkling, tan face composed, carriage erect. Valets scurried. The hotel’s massive doors opened, and he marched inside.

The manager waited beside a tall Ionic column in the lobby, perfectly positioned for effect, surrounded by the hotel’s nineteenth-century art and antiques. He bowed and, after appropriate welcoming remarks, led Chapman across the mosaic marble floor to the private elevator, bypassing the registration desk.

They rose silently to the fifth-floor Royal Suite. Opening the door, the manager bowed again, and Chapman strode into a rich world of damasks and silks and antique furnishings from Sotheby’s, eager to see his wife. But there was no sign of her. Instead, standing in the middle of the grand triple living room was Doug Preston, holding a wood box. He inclined his head slightly, indicating the box contained what Chapman wanted. Dressed in a three-piece suit tailored to show no sign of his holstered pistol, the security chief’s expression was serious.

Chapman’s luggage was wheeled in, and the manager bowed himself out the door.

“Where’s my wife?” Chapman asked.

“Shopping, sir. Mahaira is with her.”

Chapman nodded and gestured. They went into the private formal dining room with its elegant table, set for a business meeting of only eight, since Jonathan Ryder and Angelo Charbonier were dead. Over the next year the book club would decide on their replacements. The centerpiece was a lavish display of orchids. Pads of paper and pricey Mont Blanc fountain pens with the hotel’s logo waited at each place.

Preston closed the door. “The butler will serve drinks. Is there anything else I can order for you?”

Chapman chose a Partagas cigar from the burled-wood humidor. He rolled it between his fingers next to his ear, hearing the muffled sound of fine tobacco. He clipped off the end and sniffed. Satisfactory. Lighting it with the hotel’s gold lighter, he went to stand by one of the tall windows overlooking the city’s landmarks.

“How close are you to finding the Carnivore?” Chapman smoked, controlling his fury.

When after four hours the Carnivore had not given Chapman confirmation of the kill, he had phoned the number the Carnivore had given him. It was disconnected. Then he had sent an e-mail to the contact man, Jack. It had bounced back.

Preston joined Chapman at the window and said, “It’s a problem. As you said, the Carnivore’s security is very tight. The e-mail address was routed through several countries. So far Jan’s had no luck tracing it back to its origin, but she’s still working on it.” Jan Mardis was Carl Lindström’s chief of computer security.“ As for the disconnected number, there’s nothing we can do about it. I checked in with the man who recommended the Carnivore to you, but he claims he has no other way to reach him and you’ll never find him now. He doesn’t understand what happened, but whatever it was, he figures he’s burned, too. When the Carnivore takes a client’s money, it’s a trust to him. He always delivers. And he never forgets.”

Chapman felt a chill, remembering the cold litany of the Carnivore’s rules. Then he brushed it off. The bastard owed him the $1 million advance.

“Find him. I want my money, and then I want him terminated.”

Preston inclined his head. “Yes, sir. As soon as Jan has anything, it’ll be a pleasure to take him out.”

“What about Judd Ryder and Eva Blake? According to our Washington asset, they were heading for Thessalonika and had hooked up with Robin Miller.”

“It has to be Athens. They took a note I’d written to myself, and the Carnivore knew it was legitimate. I’ve posted men at the airport, train stations, and docks to look for them. I don’t see how they could’ve reached Robin, but maybe they have. That could work in our favor.” He paused. “I know how to find her.”

Chapman stopped, his cigar suspended on its way to his mouth. He studied Preston, who stood calmly beside him, the box still in both hands. He was not rattled, not apologetic. In fact, there was a deadly calm about him. His blue eyes looked like chipped ice. He had been humiliated, and he wanted revenge. Good.

“Tell me.”

“I had the pilot check the Learjet,” Preston said. “Robin didn’t leave her cell behind. If she were planning to escape, she’d take it with her because it was the only one she had. She doesn’t know she can be tracked through the cell. My NSA contact is waiting for her to activate it, and as soon as she does, we’ll have her. But there’s another problem: Tucker Andersen got away, and the man I hired in Washington to scrub him has vanished. So has Andersen. I have people looking for both.”

Chapman swore loudly. “Anything else?”

“My men in Rome captured Yitzhak Law and Roberto Cavaletti.”

“They’re dead?” he asked instantly, pleased.

Preston shook his head. “Not yet. Ryder and Blake have turned out to be far more trouble than any of us envisioned. With Law and Cavaletti, we have something to hold over them if we need it.”

Chapman thought about it. “Agreed. We can wipe them whenever we wish.”

“There’s one more thing. I talked to Yakimovich after I got free in the Grand Bazaar. He said Charles left behind a strip of leather with a message—the location of the Library of Gold is hidden in
The Book of Spies
.”

“Jesus. The old librarian smuggled out that book. He knew the location was in it?”

“He’s the one who put it there. Charles must have found some message he left. In any case, it’s not a problem. We’ll retrieve the book. Ryder and Blake will never get close.”

Chapman dropped his cigar into an ashtray and rubbed his hands. “Give me the box.”

But as Preston handed it to him, there was a tap on the door. With a nod from Chapman, Preston opened it.

Mahaira stood there in a beige linen suit, her graying hair perfectly coiffed in a frame around her soft face. “Madame asked me to tell you she is delayed, sir. Friends found her and insisted she have tea with them. She is most regretful.” Stung by the news, Chapman turned his back on her. As he listened to her pad away, his gaze fell on the box. Quickly he opened it. Sighing with pleasure, he plucked from its velvet lining an illuminated manuscript spectacular not only for its physical beauty but also for what it would mean to his wife and the great new fortune he would have.

50

The members of the book club had been checking into the Hotel Grande Bretagne throughout the morning. The meeting began promptly at two
P.M.
, and their arrival infused the room with electric energy. All stood at least six feet or taller, and despite the nearly thirty-year range in their ages, each moved with the grace of an athlete, their bodies trim and fit.

Chosen in their youth, when they were struggling for money and power and displayed great promise, they had been cultivated, mentored, and financed—as Martin Chapman had. Still, very few who received such attention rose to join the fraternity of the secret book club. Those who did were living examples of the ancient Greek ideal of the perfect man.

Studying them as they stood talking around the table, Chapman felt a sense of pride. He had been director five years. They could be troublesome, but that was understandable. Spirited aggression was necessary to accomplishment, and they were warriors in and out of business—another critical trait of the Greek ideal. But at the same time he was concerned about the unusually high pitch of their energy and the sideways glances in his direction. Something had set them off, and he worried he knew what it was.

He checked the butler, who was serving drinks. They would wait to start the meeting until they were alone.

“You’re crazy, Petr,” one was saying, amused.

“You spend too damn much time in the library,” laughed another.

Petr Klok chose a martini from the butler’s silver tray and announced, “This is an organized universe based on numbers. The ancients knew that. The markets—their prices and timings—move in harmonic rhythms.” A bearded man with stylishly clipped hair, he was fifty years old and the first Czech billionaire. Taking advantage of his nation’s privatization reforms, he had begun small, buying an insurance company with vouchers and loans from Library of Gold funds and then growing it into an empire stretching across Europe and America.

Brian Collum found his glass of barolo on the butler’s tray. “You’re claiming financial ups and downs aren’t random? Clearly you’re nuts.” Graying, with a long handsome face, the Los Angeleno was the junior member, just forty-eight. He was the library’s attorney.

“Study the geometrical codes hidden in Plato’s
Timaeus,
” Klok insisted.“Then connect them to the architecture of Hindu temples, Pascal’s arithmetical triangles, the Egyptian alphabet, the movement of the planets, and the consonant patterns in the stained-glass windows of medieval cathedrals. It will give you an edge in the markets.”

“I, for one, am interested. After all, Petr predicted the worldwide crash of 2008,” Maurice Dresser reminded them. A Canadian, he had turned regional wildcatting into a trillion-dollar oil kingdom. He had thinning white hair and strong features. At seventy-five vigorous years, he was the oldest.

“Perhaps Petr is ahead of his time. He wouldn’t be the first,” Chapman said, a challenge in his voice. He paused until he had their full attention. Seeing the opportunity, he hoped to lull them with a small tournament. “Let’s see what you know. Here’s the subject—in 350
B.C.
, Heracleides was so far ahead of his time that he discovered the Earth spun on an axis.”

Collum instantly held up his cigar, volunteering. “A century later Aristarchus of Samos figured out the Earth orbited the sun. Also far ahead of his time.”

“But in the same era, Aristotle insisted we were stationary and the center of the heavens.” Dresser shook his head. “Big error, and rare for him.”

There was a hesitation, and Chapman stepped into it. “Reinhardt.”

Reinhardt Gruen nodded. “In the 1500s most scientists again believed the world was flat. Wrong. Finally Copernicus rediscovered it rotated and went around the sun. That’s a hell of a long time for the facts to come out again.” From Berlin, Gruen was sixty-eight years old and owned a global media conglomerate.

“But he didn’t dare publish his findings,” Klok remembered. “It was too controversial and dangerous. Ignorant Christian churches fought the idea for the next three hundred years.”

“Carl?” Chapman said.

“They claimed it went against the teachings of the Bible.” Regal, his blond hair graying, Carl Lindström was sixty-five, the founder of the powerful software company Lindström Strategies, based in Stockholm.

“Not enough,” Collum called out competitively.

As director, Martin Chapman was also referee. He agreed. “We need more, Carl.”

“I thought you idiots knew the Bible by now,” Lindström said good-naturedly. “It is in Psalms: ‘The world also is established, that it cannot be moved.’ ”

“Very good. Who’s next?” Chapman asked.

Thomas Randklev raised his highball glass. “Here’s to Galileo. He figured out Copernicus was right, and then he wrote his own books on the subject. So the Inquisition jailed him for heresy.” From Johannesburg, Randklev was sixty-three and led mining enterprises on three continents.

“Grandon. You’re the last man,” Chapman said.

Fifty-eight and a Londoner, Grandon Holmes headed the telecom giant Holmes International Services. “It wasn’t until the Renaissance that the Western world accepted the Earth rotated and orbited the sun—more than a millennium after Heracleides made the original discovery.”

Everyone drank, smiling. The tournament had ended with no errors in history, and each had contributed. A sense of friendly warmth and shared purpose infused the room. A full success, Chapman thought with relief.

“Well done,” he complimented.

“But just because Copernicus and the others were vindicated doesn’t mean Petr is right about all his financial nonsense,” Collum insisted.

“Spoken like an attorney,” Petr chortled. “You are a Neanderthal, Brian.”

“And you think you’re a friggin’ clairvoyant.” Collum grinned and drank.

Everyone had been served, so Chapman told the butler to leave. As the door closed, the group settled around the table. He noted the mood had changed, grown tense.

Uneasily he took the chair at the head, where the wood box was waiting. “Maurice, you called this meeting. Begin.”

Maurice Dresser adjusted the pen on the table beside him, then peered up. “As the senior member, it’s my job occasionally to bring grievances to your attention. You’ve been hiding something from us, Marty.”

Martin Chapman kept his tone conversational. “Elaborate, please.”

Dresser sat forward and folded his hands. “Jonathan Ryder, Angelo Charbonier, and our fine librarian Charles Sherback are dead, murdered. We suspect you had something to do with that. You asked Thom, Carl, and Reinhardt to acquire information. It involved blackmailing a U.S. senator, hacking into a secret CIA unit’s computer, and the murder of a CIA officer, one Catherine Doyle. Until we began talking to one another, we didn’t realize the extent of your actions. What in hell is going on?”

“Secrecy is based on containment.” Reinhardt Gruen drummed his fingers on the table. “This is far larger than I thought.”

“You’ve exposed us to discovery,” Carl Lindström accused.

“If the Parsifal Group is investigated, it may lead back to us.” Thom Randklev glared.

The room seemed to vibrate with tension.

Chapman looked around at the cold faces. Inwardly he swore again at Jonathan Ryder for starting the domino disasters that had brought him to this precipice.

He cleared his throat. “The Parsifal Group is safe, because it’s made too damn much money for too many important people for them to allow anything to be known about it. The exposure would have to be calamitous to change the equation, and this isn’t a calamity.”

The initial support money for the Library of Gold had been small but adequate, passed down through the centuries to ensure the library was cared for and secure. But in the second half of the twentieth century, when international commerce boomed, and its select group of supporters was formalized into the book club, common sense took over. A process to choose members was created. Opportunities opened through their successes, and investments were made, backed up when necessary by “persuading” Parsifal’s members to cooperate.