Library of Gold (6 page)

Chapman heard the annoyance in Preston’s voice. The failure to liquidate Andersen was difficult to swallow for a man who detested loose ends.

Still, all was not lost. “Good work.” Chapman paused, noted the flash of gratitude in Preston’s eyes. “What about the District police?”

For the first time, Preston smiled. “They’re still not asking any questions about the library, and they would be by now if they knew about it. It’s beginning to look as if Mr. Ryder either didn’t or wasn’t able to tell Andersen anything import -ant.” Chief of security for the Library of Gold for more than ten years, Preston was a man passionate about books and completely loyal, traits not only prized but required of library employees.

“That’d be a good result.” Chapman moved on to his next concern: “What about the library dinner?”

Preston drank deeply, relaxing. “Everything’s on track. The food, the chefs, the transportation.”

Book club members had been flying into the library throughout the past month, working with the translators to find and research questions in preparation for the annual banquet’s tournament. It was during Jonathan’s visit to the library just days before that he had learned about Chapman’s new business deal and become alarmed.

“Where are you with the Khost project?” Khost was a province in eastern Afghanistan, on the border with Pakistan. It was there Chapman planned to make back his huge losses from the global economic crash, and more.

“On schedule. The uniforms and equipment have been picked up. They’ll be shipped out in the morning. I’ve got it well in hand.”

“See that it stays that way. Nothing must interfere with it. Nothing. And keep your eye on the situation with Tucker Andersen. We don’t want it to explode in our faces.”

7

Chowchilla, California

Two weeks later

At 1:32
P.M.
Tucker Andersen finished briefing the warden of the Central California Women’s Facility. She was a stout woman with graying brown hair and a habit of folding her hands in front of her. She escorted him out of her private office.

“Tell me about Eva Blake,” Tucker said.

“She doesn’t complain, and she hasn’t gotten any 115 write-ups,” the warden said. “She started on the main yard, tidying up and emptying trash cans. Ten months ago we rewarded her with an assembly-line job in our electronics factory. In her free time she listens to the radio, keeps up with her karate, and volunteers—she teaches literacy classes and reads to inmates in the hospital ward. A couple of months ago she sent out a raft of résumés, but none of the other convicts knows it. There’s an unwritten law here—you don’t ask an inmate sister what she’s done or what she’s doing. Blake has been smart and kept her mouth shut about herself.”

“Who are her visitors?” Tucker asked as they passed the guard desk.

“Family occasionally, from out of state. A friend used to drive up every few months from L.A.—Peggy Doty, a former colleague. Ms. Doty hasn’t been to see her in a while. I believe she’s working at the British Library in London now. This is Blake’s housing unit.”

They stepped into a world of long expanses of linoleum flooring, closed doors, harsh fluorescent lighting, and an ear-bleed volume of noise—intercoms crackling, television programs blaring from the dayrooms, and loud shouts and curses.

The warden glanced at him. “They yell as much to give them something to do as to express themselves. We’re at double capacity here, so the noise is twice as loud as it should be. Blake is in the unit’s yard. She gets three hours every day if she wants it. She always does.”

The warden nodded at the guard standing at the door. He opened it, and the raw odor of farmland fertilizer swept toward them. They stepped outside, where the Central Valley sun pounded down onto an open space of grass, concrete, and dirt. Women sat, napped, and moved aimlessly. Beyond them rose high brick walls topped with electrified razor wire.

Tucker scanned the prisoners, looking for Eva Blake. He had studied photos as well as a video of the court appearance in which she had pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter in the death of her husband. He looked for her red hair, pretty face, lanky frame.

“You don’t recognize her, do you?” the warden asked. “She’s that one.”

He followed her nod to a woman in a baggy prison shirt and trousers, walking around the perimeter of the yard. Her hair was completely hidden, tucked up into a baseball cap. Her expression was blank, her posture non-threatening. She looked little like the very alive woman in the photos and video.

“She goes around the yard hour after hour, loop after loop. She’s alone because she wants it that way. As I said, she’s smart—she’s learned to make herself invisible, uninteresting. Anyone who’s interesting around here can attract violence.”

Impressive both in her attitude and her ability to be inconspicuous, Tucker thought.

The warden clasped her hands in front of her. “I’m going to give you some advice. In prison, male cons either obey orders or defy them. Female cons ask why. Don’t lie to her. But if you have to, make damn sure she doesn’t catch you at it, at least not while you’re trying to convince her to do whatever it is you want her to do. You really aren’t going to tell me what’s going on, are you?”

“It’s national security.”

She gave a curt nod, and Tucker walked across the grass toward Eva Blake, catcalls and whistles trailing him. He wondered how long it would take her to realize she was his goal. A good hundred yards away, her strides grew nervy, and her chin lifted. She stopped and, in a slow, deliberate pivot, turned to face him. Her arms were apparently restful at her sides, but her stance was wide and balanced, a karate stance. Her reaction time was excellent, and from the way she moved, she was still in good physical condition.

He walked up to her. “Doctor Blake, my name is Tucker Andersen. I’d like to talk to you. The warden’s given us an interview room.”

“Why?” Her face was a mask.

“I may have a proposition for you. If so, I suspect you’ll like it.”

She peered around him, and he glanced back.

The warden was still standing in the doorway. Looking severe, she nodded at Blake. That made it an order.

“Whatever you say,” Blake said, relaxing her posture slightly.

As she started to move around him, she stumbled and twisted her ankle, bumping into him. He grabbed her shoulders, helping her. Regaining her equilibrium, she excused herself, moved away, and walked steadily back toward the prison.

The interview room had pastel walls, a single metal table with four metal chairs, and cameras poking out high from two corners.

Tucker sat at the widest part of the table and gestured at the other chairs. “Choose your poison.”

Not a smile. Eva Blake sat at the end. “You say your name is Tucker Andersen. Where are you from?”

“McLean, Virginia. Why?”

She pulled his wallet from beneath her shirt, opened it, and read the driver’s license, checking on him. She spread out the credit cards, all in the same name. She nodded to herself, put the billfold back together, and handed it to him. “First time I’ve ever seen a ‘visitor’ in the yard on a non-visitor day.”

He had not felt her pick his pocket, but her bumping into him had been a clue. As he followed her into the prison, he had patted his jacket and found the wallet missing.

“Nice dipping,” he said mildly, “but then you’re experienced, aren’t you.”

Her eyes widened a fraction.

Good, he had surprised her.“Your juvenile record is sealed. You should’ve had it expunged.”

“You were able to get into my juvenile record?” she asked.

“I can, and I did. Tell me what happened.”

She said nothing.

“Okay, I’ll tell you,” he said. “When you were fourteen, you were what is commonly called wild. You sneaked beers. Smoked some grass. Some of your friends shoplifted. You tried it, too. Then a man who looked like plainclothes security spotted you in Macy’s. Instead of reporting you, he complimented you and asked whether you had the guts to go for the big time. It turned out he didn’t work for the store—he was a master dipper running a half-dozen teams. He taught you the trade. You hustled airports, ball games, train stations, that sort of thing. Because you’re beautiful, you usually played the distraction, prepping and positioning vics. But then when you were sixteen, a pickpocket on your team was escaping with the catch when some cops spotted him. He ran into traffic to get away—”

She lowered her head.

“He was hit by a semi and killed,” Tucker continued. “Everyone beat feet getting out of there. You were gone, too. But for some reason you changed your mind and went back and talked to the police. They arrested you, of course. Then they asked you to help them bust the gang, which you did. Why?”

“We were all so young . . . it just seemed right to try to stop it while maybe we had time to grow up into better people.”

“And later you used the skill to work your way through UCLA.”

“But legally. At a security company. Who are you?”

He ignored the question. “You’re probably going to be released on probation next year, so you’ve been sending out résumés. Any nibbles?”

She looked away. “No museum or library wants to hire a curator or conservator who’s a felon, at least not me. Too much baggage because of . . . my husband’s death. Because he was so well-known and respected in the field.” She fingered a gold chain around her neck. Whatever was hanging from it was hidden beneath her shirt. He noted she was still wearing her wedding band, a simple gold ring.

“I see,” he said neutrally.

She lifted her chin. “I’ll find something. Some other kind of work.”

He knew she was out of money. Because she had been convicted of her husband’s manslaughter, she could not collect his life insurance. She’d had to sell her house to pay her legal bills. He felt a moment of pity, then banished it.

He observed, “You’ve become very good at masking your emotions.”

“It’s just what you have to do to make it in here.”

“Tell me about the Library of Gold.”

That seemed to take her aback. “Why?”

“Indulge me.”

“You said you had a proposition for me. One I’d like.”

“I said I
might
have a proposition for you. Let’s see how much you remember.”

“I remember a lot, but Charles, my husband—Dr. Charles Sherback—was a real authority. He’d spent his life researching the library and knew every available detail.” Her voice was proud.

“Start at the beginning.”

She recounted the story from the library’s growth in the days of the Byzantine Empire to its disappearance at Ivan the Terrible’s death.

He listened patiently. Then: “What happened to it?”

“No one knows for sure. After Peter the Great died, a note was found in his papers that said Ivan had hidden the books under the Kremlin. Napoléon, Stalin, Putin, and ordinary people have hunted for centuries, but there are at least twelve levels of tunnels down there, and the vast majority are unmapped. Its location is one of the world’s great mysteries.”

“Do you know what’s in the library?”

“It’s supposed to contain poetry and novels. Books about science, alchemy, religion, war, politics, even sex manuals. It dates all the way back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, so there are probably works by Aristophanes, Virgil, Pindar, Cicero, and Sun Tzu. There are Bibles and Torahs and Korans, too. All sorts of languages—Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek.”

Tucker was quiet a moment, considering. After a rocky start as a teenager, she had righted herself to go on to a high-level career, which showed talent, brains, and responsibility. She had muted herself to fit into prison, and that indicated adaptability. Pickpocketing him because he was an aberration told him she still had nerve. He was operating in a vacuum with this mission. None of the targeting analysts had found anything useful, and the collection of Jonathan Ryder’s clippings had turned out to be little help.

He studied the face beneath the prison cap, the sculpted lines, the expression that had settled back into chilly neutrality. “What would you say if I told you I have evidence the Library of Gold is very much in existence?”

“I’d say tell me more.”

“The Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection has loaned some of its illuminated manuscripts to the British Museum for a special show. The highlight is
The Book of Spies
. Do you know the work?”

“Never heard of it.”

“The book arrived at the reference door to the Library of Congress wrapped in foam inside a cardboard box. There was an unsigned note saying it had been in the Library of Gold and was a donation to the Rosenwald Special Collection. They tested the paper and ink and so forth. The book’s authentic. No one’s been able to trace the donor or donors.”

“That’s all the evidence you have it’s from the Library of Gold?”

He nodded. “For now it’s enough.”

“Does this mean you want to find the library?” When he nodded, she said, “What can I do to help?”

“Opening night of the British Museum exhibit is next week. Your job would be to do what you used to do when you traveled with your husband. Talk to the librarians, historians, and afficionados who’ve been trying to find the library for years. Eavesdrop on conversations among them and others. We hope if
The Book of Spies
really did come from the collection it’ll attract someone who knows the library’s location.”

She had been leaning forward. She sat back. Emotions played across her face. “What’s in it for me?”

“If you do a good job, you’ll return to prison of course. But then in just four months, you’ll be released on parole—assuming you continue your good record. That’s eight months early.”

“What’s the downside?”

“No downside except you’ll have to wear a GPS ankle bracelet. It’s tamper-resistant and has a built-in GSM/GPRS transmitter that’ll automatically report your location. You can remove it at night, to make sleeping more comfortable, if you wish. I’ll give you a cell phone, too. You’ll report to me, and you must tell no one, not even the warden, what you’ll be doing or what you learn.”