Newton’s Fire (16 page)

The Israeli Prime Minister took the news better than the Chief of the General Staff had dared hope. ‘The Chinese, you say?’ she asked.

‘Most likely,’ he told her. ‘Maybe the Russians.’

‘You don’t think …’ She hesitated, unsure whether to voice her thought.

‘Yes, Prime Minister?’

‘You don’t think there’s any chance the
Americans
might have been behind it?’

The General was surprised by the suggestion, but he took it seriously. Unlike many of his comrades, who mistook her dovishness for weakness, he respected his new Prime Minister. Her character, if not her policies. Nor did he romanticize Israel’s relationship with the Americans, but saw it rather as the product of interests that were usually, but not invariably, aligned. ‘Why would you suggest that?’ he asked.

‘They have the best engineers. They know our systems better than anyone, and therefore its weak points too. And I’m about to announce a more pro-European foreign policy. Could this be Washington’s way of reminding us of just how badly we need them?’

‘Worms like these take years to design,’ he told her. ‘And we think infiltration was only made possible by the earthquake. Your speech is a coincidence.’

‘Good.’ She looked relieved. ‘But you’re about to tell me to put it back in my bottom drawer, aren’t you?’

‘No, Prime Minister,’ he said. ‘I came here meaning to. But now I think that would be a mistake.’

‘I thought you abhorred my new policy.’

‘I do. But it’s been too well trailed. Drop it now and you’ll signal weakness. Whoever infiltrated the worm will know that we’ve found it, and that we’re worried. The less information we give them, the better.’

The Prime Minister nodded. ‘I’ll take it down a notch.’

‘Yes, Prime Minister.’

She sat back in her chair, stared up at the ornately plastered ceiling. ‘What’s your gut telling you?’ she asked. ‘About our neighbours, I mean. Is all their recent bluster and skirmishing just the usual nonsense. Or are they girding up for something?’

‘I think it’s the usual nonsense. A war would only work if they all came at us at the same time. They don’t trust each other enough for that.’

‘No.’

‘Besides, their regimes are still too precarious. They need their people with them. And their people don’t want new wars. They want jobs, food, the promise of things getting better.’

‘Don’t rely too heavily on that,’ she said. ‘They’re frustrated and they’re angry; and it doesn’t take much to turn frustrated, angry people against a common enemy. A stray missile on a wedding party. A firebomb in a mosque.’

‘Some Third Temple fanatic taking down the Dome,’ smiled the Chief of the General Staff.

She gave a little shudder, shook her head. ‘Don’t even joke about it,’ she said.

‘No, Prime Minister.’

It was Luke who got the nod from Pelham. ‘I found something earlier today,’ he told Olivia. ‘A folder of lost Newton papers.’

Her eyes glinted and she leaned forwards in her chair. ‘One of the Sotheby’s lots? How thrilling! But what do they have to do with me?’

He passed her the relevant page of the printout and directed her attention to Newton’s cryptic message. Olivia put on her reading glasses, held it up to the light of an ebony lamp. ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Received from E.A. – and you’re thinking Elias Ashmole?’

‘Newton wrote this in 1692,’ said Luke. ‘At least, that’s what the citations and watermark suggest. Ashmole died in May that year. So we think it was probably a bequest.’

Olivia shook her head. ‘But why would Ashmole leave anything to Newton? They hardly knew each other.’

‘We don’t know that,’ said Luke. ‘Not for sure. They could easily have known each other well through the alchemists’ network.’

‘The alchemists’ what?’ asked Rachel.

‘All the alchemists were in surreptitious contact with one another,’ explained Olivia. ‘They had to be, to trade their texts and furnaces, share their potions and theories. So we have overwhelming evidence for some kind of network, but sadly we know next to nothing about how it worked.’

Luke got to his feet and went across to Olivia to point out the bottom line. ‘This is really why we’re here,’ he said. ‘This bit about “in Salomans House well concealed”.’

Olivia nodded. ‘And you think that’s the Ashmolean he’s referring to?’

‘Actually, we rather assumed it was the Royal Society? Why? Was the Ashmolean known as Saloman’s House too?’

‘Oh yes. Everything was back then. It was a real bandwagon for a while. We brought out a history a few years back:
Solomon’s House in Oxford
.’ She pushed herself to her feet to go fetch it when she paused, squinted at him. ‘But why are you here if you didn’t know that?’

‘There’s an anagram,’ Luke told her. ‘Rachel spotted it. Saloman’s House comes out as Sous Ashmolean.’

‘Sous Ashmolean?’ Olivia looked at him with amused consternation. ‘You’re not suggesting there’s something beneath my museum floor?’

‘We’re suggesting that Newton’s note implies it,’ said Pelham, with uncharacteristic moderation. ‘Why? Don’t you think it’s even possible?’

‘No. I don’t think it’s even possible. The Ashmolean opened in 1683. It had been up and running for
nine years
by 1692. And the basement wasn’t some abandoned storage area. It was one of the world’s pioneering scientific laboratories. Then it became England’s leading anatomy lecture hall. Don’t you think someone might have noticed Sir Isaac Newton turning up one afternoon with a pickaxe over his shoulder? And don’t you think that, during one or other of our various refurbishments, someone would have spotted some trace of this mysterious—’ She broke off, put a hand to her chest, her breath suddenly coming a little faster. ‘Oh my lord,’ she murmured. ‘Oh my good lord.’

‘What?’ asked Luke. ‘What is it?’

‘No. No. It’s nothing. I’m sure it’s nothing.’

‘Then you won’t mind telling us.’

She shook her head reluctantly. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘It’s just that one of my predecessors as curator used to tell a story. But no one ever took it seriously. He was always telling stories.’

‘And what was
this
story?’

She let out a long sigh. ‘His name was Conrad Josten. I knew him a little when I was an undergraduate. He was fascinated by Ashmole. He wrote his biography. Anyway, he oversaw a major refurbishment back in the 1960s. After the workmen had broken up and removed the old basement floor, but before they laid the new one, he ran a metal detector over it.’

‘He found something?’

‘So he claimed. Something
big
. Something
iron
.’

‘And he didn’t investigate further?’

She shook her head. ‘You’ve no idea what it’s like to run a museum, have you? Deadlines to meet, exhibitions to put on, absurdly tight budgets. Dig up a floor on a whim like that and you’d better find Sutton Hoo or start looking for a new job.’

‘So whatever it was is still down there?’

‘If there ever
was
anything there, which I doubt. Conrad was quite capable of spinning the slightest anomaly into some great mystery. And metal detectors were dreadfully crude beasts back then, minesweepers really, nothing like as sensitive as the ones we have today.’

‘But that’s a brilliant idea!’ enthused Pelham. ‘You’re exactly right!’

Olivia looked startled. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘We need to run a modern metal detector across your basement floor. Something state-of-the-art. Something infinitely more sensitive than what Josten had. What an inspired thought.’

‘That’s not what I meant at all!’

‘Of course it was,’ Pelham assured her. ‘Maybe not consciously, but I’ll bet it’s what your id was thinking.’ He grinned wickedly at her. ‘Come on, Olivia. You know you want to.’

‘I can’t. I really can’t. What if we found something?’

‘What kind of attitude is that?’ protested Pelham. ‘Don’t I remember you giving a talk about the virtue of relentless curiosity? That
was
you, wasn’t it? My memory’s not playing tricks?’

She gave him a look that could have burned toast. ‘It would never work,’ she said. ‘We’ve laid far too much concrete over the years.’

‘The latest remote sensing devices are extraordinary,’ said Rachel. ‘I spent two seasons mapping a site near Antioch with them. You wouldn’t believe how much we found, and how deep. Ten or even fifteen metres, some of it. And we could still make out what metals the artefacts were made from and how big they were.’

‘You’ve used them before, then?’ asked Luke. ‘You could do it at the museum?’

‘Sure. If it’s a model I know.’

Olivia shook her head. ‘We’ve got a history of time running in our basement. I’m not moving all our exhibits and cabinets for this. I’m simply not. It’s too absurd.’

‘What kind of cabinets?’ asked Rachel. ‘Are they solid or on legs?’

Olivia pulled a face, unwilling to cede ground. But she was too honest to lie. ‘On legs,’ she admitted.

‘Then they won’t be a problem,’ Rachel assured her. ‘We can sweep beneath them, like vacuuming under the bed.’

Olivia gave a little wail. ‘Where would we even get a metal detector at this time of night?’

‘Come on, Olivia,’ said Pelham. ‘This is Oxford. You can barely walk down the street for archaeologists lugging around remote sensing devices. You must know someone.’

‘Oh, Lord,’ she said. ‘We could try Albie, I suppose.’

‘Perfect!’ said Pelham. ‘Albie’s exactly the man.’

‘You know him?’

‘Not yet. And I never will, not unless you make the call.’

‘I knew I was going to regret this,’ said Olivia, ‘the moment I heard your voice.’ But her cheeks were flushed and there was a sparkle in her eyes as she went to her phone and flipped through her address book for Albie’s number.

Parking anywhere near the centre of Oxford was always a challenge, but Pelham finally found a space in a residential street where he barely had to nudge the cars either side. They walked briskly and found Albie waiting by a side door of his college, pacing back and forth, checking his watch. ‘This better be important, Olivia,’ he said, kissing her briskly on the cheek. ‘I’m supposed to be giving some wretched talk.’

‘It
is
important,’ said Olivia. ‘And we’re terribly grateful.’

He waved them inside, then led them with the cautious stoop of a tall man in an old building. They reached a stock room. He gave a courtier’s wave at the array of remote-sensing devices on the shelves and slouched like problem youths against the facing wall.

‘You’ve got a Mala!’ said Rachel, going straight to it. ‘Fantastic.’

Albie winced. ‘Our moon-buggy is a fine machine too,’ he said, steering her towards its neighbour. ‘A real workhorse.’

‘We’ll look after it, I swear,’ promised Olivia. ‘We’ll bring it straight back.’

Albie sighed. ‘Tomorrow will be fine,’ he said, as Luke and Pelham gathered up the Mala and its peripherals. ‘So what are you looking for?’

‘I can’t say,’ Olivia told him. ‘Really, I can’t. But if we find anything, you’ll be the first to know.’

‘I should damned well hope so.’

The old Ashmolean was closer than the car, so they headed straight there. Their route took them past the Sheldonian. ‘Maybe it wasn’t the alchemists’ network,’ mused Olivia, frowning at it. ‘Maybe it was this guy.’

‘You mean Wren?’ asked Rachel.

Olivia nodded. ‘One of Newton’s closest friends. One of Ashmole’s, too.’ Her museum was bang next door. ‘There’s even a suggestion he may have helped design this place,’ she said, leading them up its front steps. ‘At least, that’s what we tell people.’

Rachel smiled. ‘Must add a bit of cachet.’

‘And makes it harder for the council to tear us down.’ She unlocked and opened the door, turned off the alarm, switched on lights. They found themselves in a display gallery that also served as reception and gift shop. An internal staircase led both up and down. They went down, passed through more doors into a large display room crowded with neat ranks of glass-topped display cabinets, and with sundials, grandfather clocks and other large chronometers against its walls. ‘Conrad said it was in here,’ she said. ‘I don’t know exactly where.’

‘Great,’ said Rachel. ‘Then let’s start looking.’

Walters had stopped off for a burger with Pete and Kieran. The mood was gloomy; the trail was cold. They were beginning to talk of giving up for the night and starting fresh in the morning when his mobile finally rang. He swallowed away a mouthful of dry bread and meat. ‘Yes?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know who the hell you think you are,’ said a man.

‘Makes two of us, mate,’ Walters told him. ‘You sure you got the right number?’

‘This is the number I was given. I was told you wanted information about one of our SatNav systems.’

‘Ah,’ said Walters. He beckoned to Kieran for a napkin and something to write with. ‘Go on, then.’

‘I don’t know who the hell you think you—’

‘Yes. I got that bollocks the first time. Where are they?’

‘Oxford city centre.’ He read out the GPS coordinates, gave the name of a road. Walters read it back to make sure he had it right. ‘And they went straight there from Cambridge?’

‘They stopped for a while at a place called Oddington.’ He read out coordinates for that too.

‘Thanks,’ said Walters.

‘This kind of thing shouldn’t be allowed,’ said the man, determined to get it off his chest. ‘Honestly, I don’t know who you people think you are.’

‘We’re the people you just shopped one of your customers to,’ Walters told him, with a certain satisfaction. ‘So I wouldn’t go moaning about it if I were you.’ He ended the call, picked up the remains of his burger and fries, examined them dispiritedly for a moment, tossed them back down. Then he nodded to Kieran and Pete. ‘Come on, fellas,’ he said. ‘We’re in business.’