The Librarians and the Lost Lamp (30 page)

“Ditto,” she pointed out, but she recognized that Krieger had the upper hand at present. Reluctantly, she keyed in her password and switched the device to speakerphone.
Please,
she thought,
let there not be any vital intel in those messages.

Any such hopes were dashed as Cassandra's anxious voice emerged from the phone.

“Baird? Eve? We've found the Lamp, but where are you? Why aren't you taking our calls?”

Marjanah plucked the phone from Baird's hand and laid it down on the coffee table so that they could all listen to Cassandra's messages, which were basically more of the same. Krieger grinned triumphantly.

“Congratulations, Eve,” he said mockingly. “Clearly, the moral here is to never send a thief to do a Librarian's job.” He shot a disparaging glance at Marjanah, who bristled in response. “The trick is making sure they don't get to keep it.”

“That's where we come in,” Marjanah said. “Taking what we want, when we want it, has always been the way of the Forty, whether by theft … or ransom.”

Uh-oh,
Baird thought.
I don't like where this is going.

“So it is,” Krieger agreed. Reclaiming the phone, he called Cassandra back.

“Hello?”
she answered immediately.
“Where have you been, Eve?”

“I'm afraid Colonel Baird is presently in our custody,” Krieger said. “But you can get her back … in exchange for the Lamp.”

A stunned silence greeted his proposal, before Cassandra finally spoke up again.

“Who is this?”

“An old friend of Eve's who has a vested interest in obtaining the Lamp. I trust we can work out an equitable transaction: your Guardian for the Lamp.”

“Let us talk to her,”
Ezekiel's voice broke into the debate.
“We need proof of life.”

“Fair enough,” Krieger said, handing the phone to Baird with a warning. “Watch what you say. Marjanah is not in a good mood.”

“You can say that again,” the woman said.

Baird recalled that Stone had foiled her earlier. “Cassandra, it's me. Whatever you do, you can't let them get the Lamp. Remember what Jenkins said—”

“That's enough!”

Marjanah snatched the phone from Baird's grip and gave it back to Krieger, who resumed his negotiations.

“There you have it,” he said. “Eve is still in good condition, but I can't guarantee that she will stay that way if you don't cooperate. I'll give you an hour to think it over. Expect my call … and don't disappoint me.”

He hung up on Cassandra and Ezekiel. Baird wanted to think they would listen to her and not surrender the Lamp on her behalf, but she couldn't really imagine any of her Librarians could do that. They weren't soldiers. They didn't understand about acceptable losses.

Which meant it was up to Jenkins to talk sense to them.

 

24

2016

“Absolutely not,” Jenkins said. “We cannot under any circumstances turn over the Lamp to the Forty, no matter the cost.”

Stone and the others had returned to the Annex to figure out what to do next. The newly acquired Lamp rested atop the conference table, alongside Cassandra's phone. Attempts to track the Forty's call to its source had not panned out; apparently the thieves had upgraded their technical prowess since the days of Aladdin. Stone had been tempted to bring Dunphy with him for safekeeping, but, as Jenkins had quickly reminded him, the Library did not have visiting hours, nor was it to be used as a safe house for wayward civilians. He would have to hope that Gus would be safe enough now that he was no longer in possession of the Lamp.

“But what about Baird?” Cassandra asked. “We can't just leave her in the hands of the Forty.”

“Do not think I say this lightly,” Jenkins said, his face grave, “but Colonel Baird would hardly be the first Guardian to put the safety of others before her own. She is a soldier. She willingly chose the risks that arduous duty entails.”

“Easy for you to say,” Stone protested. “I get that you've buried generations of Guardians and Librarians, but I'm not about to write off Baird as expendable, not while there's still a chance to save her.”

“You misjudge me, Mr. Stone, if you think that this comes at all easily to me, but we must remain cognizant of the larger picture. Do we truly desire the Forty to gain the power of the Lamp? And need I remind you that the Djinn once vowed eternal vengeance on this very Library?”

“The Lamp
is
in pretty bad shape,” Cassandra conceded.

“That is putting it mildly.” Jenkins called their attention to the hairline cracks riddling its polished jade surface. He had even put down a coaster to protect the table's finish from the unnatural heat of the Lamp. “I would venture to say that it is on the verge of imminent collapse, making it all the more imperative that we keep it away from the reckless hands of the Forty. By all logic, I should be filing the Lamp away in a secure vault at this very moment, preferably with an abundance of bubble wrap and packing peanuts.”

“But we're the Librarians,” Stone said, “which makes it our call, right?”

They seldom pulled rank on Jenkins, whose exact duties at the Annex were, well, undefined, but Stone was not above doing so where a friend's life was concerned.

“If you insist, sir.” Jenkins sighed philosophically. “But I would urge you all to consider the possible consequences of whatever course you choose.” He consulted his wristwatch. “In the three minutes, fourteen seconds that remain, that is.”

Time was running out as the Forty's deadline approached.

“Maybe we ought to give Baird the benefit to the doubt,” Cassandra said, grasping at straws. “This is Eve we're talking about. She probably already has a plan to get away from those thieves.”

“Don't call them that,” Ezekiel said with surprising heat. “They're not thieves. Kidnappers, robbers, extortionists, maybe, but not thieves. Real thieves don't need to take hostages.…”

“
Bandits
is perhaps the better term,” Jenkins agreed, “but who am I to second-guess Scheherazade? Regardless, they are a genuine threat to both Colonel Baird and the world at large. We can certainly hope that she will indeed extricate herself from their clutches, but we cannot rely on that. She is indisputably in jeopardy.”

Stone scowled at Jenkins, not appreciating his pessimistic attitude. “I thought you didn't want us trading the Lamp for her, so why rub in how much danger she's in?”

“As you noted before, Mr. Stone, the final decision is yours. I merely wish to be certain that you all understand what is truly at stake, whichever course you choose. Wishful thinking is no substitute for an accurate appraisal of one's situation.” A hint of melancholy infiltrated his voice. “Trust me when I say I learned that the hard way.”

“Doesn't mean we have to give up on Baird, though.” Stone directed his words at Cassandra and Ezekiel as well. “Baird has put herself on the line for every one of us more times than I can count. I say we don't write her off without taking a few risks of our own.”

“And the Forty?” Jenkins asked. “And the Djinn?”

“We'll roll with the punches as they come,” Stone said, “and deal with the Forty
after
we get Baird back. As my pop used to say, sometimes you have to take a few hits before you win the fight.”

“That's what Napoleon said, too,” Jenkins said. “And Custer.”

Stone ignored the mordant remark. This was no time to assume the worst.

“I say saving our friend is job one. What about the rest of you?”

Cassandra wrung her hands, obviously conflicted. “Baird wouldn't want us to lose the Lamp for her sake, but…” A look of determination came over her face. “No, I'm not ready to lose her, no matter what she said. We need to do right thing, even if it's not necessarily the smart thing.”

Jenkins looked like he wanted to respond to that, but he reconsidered and kept mum.

“Count me in,” Ezekiel said. “I don't bargain with kidnappers who call themselves thieves. And I suppose I owe Baird a favor or two. She's a good egg, even if she doesn't always appreciate just how much I bring to this outfit.”

“Good enough for me,” Stone said. “Sounds like we're all on the same—”

Cassandra's phone rang. Stone picked it up.

“You have a deal,” he said grimly. “When and where?”

 

25

2016

“So this is how you got off that island?”

Baird crouched upon the flying carpet as it carried her and her captors southeast toward Arizona, soaring through the night sky at an altitude of approximately five hundred feet. Krieger and Marjanah sat to her left and right, having left their henchmen behind in Vegas. Apparently, the carpet's carrying capacity was not what it had once been, before that roc had torn it to shreds a decade ago.

“It wasn't as easy as you make it sound.” Krieger, whom Baird could no longer think of as
Mark,
watched over her closely despite the fact that the carpet's extreme altitude forestalled any possibility of escape. “Marjanah and I scoured that blasted island for weeks, forever watching out for the roc, before we managed to salvage all the scattered pieces of the carpet and stitch it back together. Those were trying times, especially after we lost the last of our bodyguards to that damn bird.” He paused reflectively. “What was his name again?”

Marjanah shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“I suppose not.” He patted the intricate pattern of the carpet, which was now marred by several crude stitches. “Sadly, despite our attempts to mend it, the carpet is still somewhat the worse for wear. It could not guide us directly to the Lamp, as it did before, but was only able to trace it to the right general vicinity, more or less.”

Baird could connect the rest of the dots.
We had the Clipping Book,
she thought.
They had the crippled carpet. Both of which pointed us toward Vegas.

A cool dry wind blew against her face as the carpet cruised over seemingly endless vistas of grass and sagebrush. Even after all she had experienced as a Guardian, Baird found it hard to believe that she was actually riding a flying carpet across the sky. Cassandra was going to be sorry she missed this, aside from the whole taken-hostage-by-ruthless-criminals thing.

“One thing I still don't get,” Baird said. “How come you didn't search Dunphy's penthouse like you did his trailer?”

Cassandra had not mentioned anything about the penthouse being ransacked when she and Ezekiel apparently found the Lamp there.

“Oh, we did,” Krieger assured her, “just a good deal more discreetly. Tossing a run-down trailer in some miserable dump of a trailer park is one thing. Breaking into a luxury suite on the richest part of the Strip is something else altogether. That requires a more subtle touch in order to avoid attracting unwelcome attention.”

“The Forty has always operated in the shadows,” Marjanah added. “We came and went without notice, leaving no trace of our presence behind.”

“But you didn't find the Lamp,” Baird said. “Did you?”

Marjanah shot Baird a dirty look. “No,” she confessed.

Because you didn't have Cassandra or Ezekiel,
Baird thought, proud of her Librarians. She enjoyed the other woman's sullen expression.
Take that, Second of the Forty. Sucks to come up short all the time.

“Not that it matters,” Krieger said. “Soon the Lamp will be ours again.”

Not if my team has anything to say about it,
Baird thought. “I don't suppose there's any point in trying to convince you that summoning the Djinn is a truly terrible idea?”

“Like Carsen did years ago?” Krieger contemplated his injured hand, which, along with his other hand, was now protected by a thick leather glove. “I've waited too long, endured too much, to give up now.”

“We both have,” Marjanah said, “and the Forty has waited even longer. But now at last we will achieve the honor and glory we have been denied for centuries.”

“I think we have very different definitions of
honor.
” Baird looked at Krieger, still stung by his treachery. “Dare I ask what exactly you have in mind if and when you get your double-crossing hands on the Lamp?”

“Not if,
when,
” he declared. “And to begin with, a preemptive strike against the Library to prevent you and yours from ever interfering with our enterprises again.” He smiled mirthlessly. “Considering how Carsen foiled him before, I can only imagine that the Djinn will be happy to oblige.”

That was all too likely, Baird feared, given what Jenkins had said about how angry and vindictive the Djinn was known to be. Her body tensed as the carpet, traveling at hundreds of miles an hour, carried them past the sagebrush to the woods and forests beyond, skimming above the tops of towering ponderosa pines as the time and place of the exchange grew nearer. The sun was just beginning to rise as the ground below dropped away sharply. A vast, red-walled chasm, many miles across, stretched before her, cutting deeply into the earth. Sunlight lit up vast cliffs, pillars, and plateaus. Bands of colored rock, pressed together like the pages of a book, testified to millions of years of geological history.

Dawn had come to the Grand Canyon.

*   *   *

White light, accompanied by the crackle of eldritch lightning, spilled from the doorway of a shuttered park rangers' station as Stone and his fellow Librarians burst through the door onto a remote lookout point at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, accessible only by a challenging dirt trail. Sunrise was approaching fast, but Stone took a moment to survey his new surroundings. It was the off-season, and this stretch of the Canyon had been abandoned by the tourists who routinely flocked to the more popular South Rim several miles away. The Forty had clearly put some thought into picking the site for the exchange. They were unlikely to be interrupted here, although Stone wondered how the kidnappers intended to reach the out-of-the way site without the aid of a magical Back Door.