Library of Gold (4 page)

Tucker had found himself leaning forward as he listened. He stepped back and peered at Jeannine. “Is that what you remember?”

“That’s much more than I ever heard.”

“I checked into the library and came up with pretty much the same information,”Tucker admitted. “The Byzantine court library existed, but many historians believe none of the books landed in Moscow. Some think a few ended up in Rome, and the Ottoman Turks burned a lot, kept some, and sold the rest.”

“I like Jonathan’s story more,” Jeannine decided.

“Did you ask your father how he heard the story, Judd?”

“Never saw any reason to.”

“Where did Jonathan say the library was now?”

Judd gave him a hard look. “The way I ended the story for you was the way Dad ended it for me—with Ivan the Terrible’s death and the library’s disappearance.”

“Would you mind if I looked through Jonathan’s papers?” Tucker asked Jeannine.

“Please do, if you think you might find something,” she said.

“I’ll help,” Judd told him.

“It’s not necessary—” Tucker tried.

“I insist.”

The Ryders lived on the prestigious Maryland State side of Chevy Chase. The house was a baronial white mansion in the Greek Revival style, with six towering columns crowned by an intricately carved portico. Jonathan’s office was filled with books. But that was nothing compared to the real library. Tucker stared. From the parquet floor to the second-floor ceiling, thousands of books beckoned, many in hand-tooled leather bindings.

“This is amazing,” Tucker said.

“He was a collector. But see how worn his chair is? He didn’t just collect; he read a lot, too.”

Tucker gazed at the red leather armchair, worn and softened. Returning to the task at hand, he led Judd back to the office. They began inspecting Jonathan’s cherrywood desk, matching file cabinets, and the cardboard banker’s boxes of his personal belongings sent over from his office at Bucknell headquarters.

“The Department of State is a good cover,” Judd said non commitally. “Who do you really work for, Tucker? CIA . . . Homeland Security . . . National Intelligence?”

Tucker let out a loud laugh. “Sorry to let you down, son. I really do work for State. And no, not State intelligence. I’m just a paper pusher, helping the diplomats wade through the various policy changes that have to do with the Middle East. A paper pusher like me is perfect to go through Jonathan’s papers.” In truth, Tucker was a covert officer, which meant his fellow spies, operations, assets, agents, and the people who had worked knowingly or unknowingly with him could be endangered if his real position were made public.

“Right,” Judd said, letting the matter drop.

When Tucker asked, Judd described the conditions he had seen in Iraq and Pakistan without ever telling him anything substantive about his own work.

“I’ll bet you’re being recruited by every agency in the IC,” Tucker said. The IC was the intelligence community.

“I haven’t been home long enough.”

“They’ll be after you. Are you tempted?”

Judd had taken off his suit jacket and was crouched in his white cuffed shirt and dark suit pants over a banker’s box, reading file names. “Dad asked me the same question. When I said no, he tried to convince me to join him at Bucknell. But I’ve saved my money and have a lease on a row house on the Hill. I figured to do nothing until I couldn’t stand it anymore. By then I should know what’s next for me.”

Tucker had been going through Jonathan’s desk. The last drawer contained files. He read the tags. The end file was unnamed. He pulled it out. In it were a half-dozen clippings from newspapers and magazines from the past week—and each article was about jihadism in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He peered up. Judd’s back was to him. He folded the clippings and stuffed them inside his jacket and returned the empty file to the drawer.

He activated Jonathan’s computer. “Do you know your dad’s password?”

Judd looked over his shoulder. “Try ‘Jeannine.’”

When that did not work, Judd made more suggestions. Finally the date of his birth did the trick. As soon as Judd returned to the banker’s boxes, Tucker activated a global search for “Library of Gold”—but uncovered nothing. Then he inspected Jonathan’s financial records on Quicken. There were no red flags.

“Dinner,” Jeannine announced from the open door. “You need a break.”

They joined her for a simple meal at the maple table in the kitchen.

“Your place is beautiful,” Tucker commented. “Jonathan came a far way from the South Side of Chicago.”

“All of this was important to him.” Jeannine made a gesture encompassing the house and their privileged world. “You know how ambitious he was. He loved the business, and he loved that he could make a lot of money at it. But strangely I don’t think he could ever have made enough to make him really happy. Still, we had many good times.” She stopped, her eyes tearing.

“We’ve got a lot of great memories, don’t we, Mom?” Judd said.

She nodded and resumed eating.

“Jonathan traveled a lot, I imagine,” Tucker said.

“All the time,” she said. “But he was always glad to come home.”

After coffee, Tucker and Judd returned to the office. By ten o’clock, they had finished their search, and Tucker was weary of the tedious work.

“Sure I can’t convince you to have a brandy?” Judd asked as he walked him to the front door. “Mom will join us.”

“Wish I could, but I need to get home. Karen is going to think I’ve gotten myself lost.”

Judd gave an understanding nod, and they shook hands.

Tucker went out to his old Oldsmobile. He liked the car. It had a powerful eight-cylinder engine and ran like a well-oiled top. He climbed inside and drove the rest of the way around the circular drive and out past the electronic gates and onto the street, heading to his far more modest home in Virginia. Since he was working, he had not brought Karen to the funeral. But she would be waiting for him, a fire burning in the fireplace. He needed to see her, to remember the good times, and to forget for a short while the fear in Jonathan’s voice for some impending disaster he had not had time to name.

Earlier, when he followed Jeannine and Judd’s limo to their place, he had thought a black Chevy Malibu was dogging him most of the way. He had slowed the Olds as he drove in through the Ryders’ gate, watching in his rearview mirror. But the car had rolled past without a glance from the driver, his profile hard to see beneath a golf cap pulled low over his forehead.

Now as he drove, Tucker went into second-stage alert, studying pedestrians and other cars. After ten blocks he made a sharp turn onto a quiet street. There was a car again, maybe
the
car, behind him. A dark color. A motorcycle turned, too, trailing the car.

Tucker made another sharp right, then turned left onto a silent residential avenue. The tailing car stayed with him, and so did the motorcycle. He hit the accelerator. Shots sounded, smashing in through the rear window. Glass pebbles sprayed, showering him. He crouched low and pulled out his 9 mm Browning, laying it on the seat beside him. Since Jonathan’s death, he carried it all the time.

Flooring the accelerator, he felt the big eight take hold, and the car hurtled forward into the night. Houses passed in a blur. No more bullets, but his tail was still with him, although falling behind. Silently he thanked the Olds’s powerful motor. Ahead was a hill. He blasted up it, the front wheels lifting at the crest, and over. The front crashed down, and he raced onward, turning onto one street and then the next.

He looked around, hoping . . . there was an open garage, and the attached house showed no interior lights. He checked his rearview mirror. No sign of his tail—yet.

He slammed the brakes and shot the car into the garage, jumped out, and yanked hard on the door’s rope. The door banged down.

Standing at the garage’s side window, gun in hand, he watched his pursuer rush past. It was the black Chevy Malibu, but he saw only the right side of the car, not the driver’s side, and could not quite make out the license plate number. He still had no idea who was behind the wheel. Immediately following, the motorcycle whipped past, its rider’s face hidden by a black helmet.

Tucker remained at the window, watching. A half hour later, he slid his Browning back into its holster and went to the center of the big garage door. With a grunt, he heaved the door up—and froze, staring into the mouth of a subcompact semi-automatic Beretta pistol.

“Don’t reach for it.” Judd Ryder’s face was grim. He had changed out of his funeral clothes and was wearing jeans and a brown leather bomber jacket.

Tucker let the hand that had been going for his weapon drift down to his side. “What in hell do you think you’re doing, Judd? How did you find me?”

Ryder gave a crooked smile. “You learn a few things in military intelligence.”

“You put a bug on my car?”

“You bet I did. Why didn’t the sniper in Stanton Park kill you, too?”

“I got lucky. I dove under the bench.”

“Bullshit. You claim to be a paper pusher, but paper pushers freeze. They wet their pants. They die. Why did you set up Dad?”

Tucker was silent. Finally he admitted, “You’re right—I’m CIA. Your father came to me for help, just as I said. After I got away, the sniper tried to shoot me, too. He was run down in traffic while chasing me. But when I went back, the body had disappeared. Either he survived and got out on his own, or someone picked him up. He’d seen me, which is why I shaved my beard—to make myself more difficult to identify. Someone just tried to kill me again, maybe the same asshole.”

“What exactly did Dad say?”

“That he was very worried. He told me, ‘I stumbled onto something . . . an account for about twenty million dollars in an international bank. I’m not sure exactly what it means, but I think it has to do somehow with Islamic terrorism.’ ”

Judd inhaled sharply.

Tucker nodded. “He was shot before he could say anything more than he’d found the information in the Library of Gold.”

Judd’s eyebrows rose. “He told the story about the library to me as if it were fiction. You’re certain he said he found this out in the library?”

“He said the library was key. That he’d been there.” He saw a flicker of hurt in Judd’s eyes. “Everyone has secrets. Your father was no exception.”

“And this one killed him. Maybe.”

“Maybe.” An idea occurred to him. “Were you on the motorcycle behind me?”

“It’s parked up the block. I got the license tag of the Chevy that was chasing you. I can’t have it traced—you can. He lost me in Silver Spring, dammit.” He slid his gun inside his jacket. “Sorry, Tucker. I had to be sure about you.”

Tucker realized sweat had beaded up on his forehead. “What’s the plate number?”

Judd gave it to him. Tucker walked back through the garage to the driver’s side door of his car.

Judd followed. “Let’s work on this together.”

“Not on your life, Judson. You’re out of the game, remember? You’ve got a row house on the Hill, and you’re taking some time off.”

“That was before some goddamn sniper killed Dad. I’ll find his killer on my own if I have to.”

Tucker turned and glared. “You’re impetuous, and you’re too close to this. He was
your father,
for God’s sake. I can’t have anyone working with me I can’t trust.”

“Would you really have handled it any differently?” Before Tucker could answer, Judd continued. “It’s only logical I’d be suspicious. Maybe you were responsible for Dad’s death. You could’ve tried to liquidate me, too. Look at it another way: You don’t want to be tripping over me. I sure as hell don’t want you in my way, either.”

Tucker opened the car door and sighed. “All right. I’ll think about it. But if I agree, you take orders from me.
Me,
get it? No more grandstanding. Now rip that bug off my car.”

“Sure—if you drive me to my bike.”

“Jesus Christ. Get in.”

5

As soon as he dropped off Judd Ryder, Tucker Andersen phoned headquarters.

“I’m coming in now.”

Watching carefully around, he parked the Olds at the back of a busy mall outside Chevy Chase, caught a taxi, and phoned his wife. Then he hailed another cab, this time directing it back to Capitol Hill.

The headquarters of the highly secret Catapult team was a Federalist brick house north-east of the Capitol in a vibrant neighborhood of lively bars, restaurants, and one-of-a-kind shops. This sort of busy neighborhood provided good cover for Catapult, a special CIA counteroperations unit—counterterrorism, counter-intelligence, countermeasures, counterproliferation, counter-insurgency. Catapult worked covertly behind the scenes, taking aggressive action to direct or stop negative events, both in triage and planning.

Tucker let the taxi pass the unit’s weathered brick house with its shiny black door and shutters. The porch lamps were alight. The discreet sign above the door announced
COUNCIL FOR PEER EDUCATION
.

Three blocks later, he got out and strolled back as if nothing was on his mind. But once inside the fenced lot, he hurried past the security cameras to the side door, where he tapped his code onto the electronic keyboard. After a series of soft clicks, he pushed open the door. It was heavy steel, engineered to protect a bank vault.

He stepped into the hallway. While the exterior of the house was elegant with history, the interior was utilitarian and cutting-edge. The plaster walls and thick moldings were painted in muted greens and grays, and stark black-and-white photographs of cities from around the planet hung on them, reminding the few who were allowed to enter of the far reach of Catapult.

Glancing up, he noted the needle-nose cameras and dime-size motion detectors as he passed a couple of staffers carrying high-security blue folders. In the reception area, the office manager, Gloria Feit, reigned from behind her big metal desk. To his right was the front entry, while to the left a long corridor extended back into the house, where there were offices, the library, and the communications center. Upstairs were more offices, a conference room, and two large bedrooms with cots for covert officers and special visitors in transit.