by Jay Stringer
The room was small, white, and well-lit. The books were held on black shelves lining three of the walls, with a desk in the middle and a glass door looking out onto the manuscript area. Hass scanned the shelves until he found what he was looking for: an aged hardback copy of Henry Morton Stanley’s autobiography. A more detailed search online had told him there had been a signed first edition in the Queen’s collection, handed down through the family. Hass had decided a first edition would be the best source, free of any revisions. He took a seat at the table and started scanning through the pages. This was another skill you picked up on the job as a relic runner: looking across textbooks, maps, and ancient documents for key words that related to whatever object you’re searching for. It took almost twenty minutes, but he found the right passage.
It was on the way out of Khartoum, fleeing the coming carnage, that I came across freebooters in the desert. They were a British regiment, recently deserters. We traded brandy and stories, sharing our fears of what would happen to General Gordon and his men. They related a legend they’d heard from their guides along the Nile, of the Mountains of the Moon, topped with silver and gold. They were intent on taking the description literally. I attempted to dissuade this approach by telling them of similar stories I had heard on previous journeys, and that the Mountains of the Moon were said to be the source of the Nile. I told them of the many mountains already discovered to the south, each of them topped with snow that could be the origin of the silver and gold they’d heard of, the sort of metaphorical descriptions so common to the tribes of the dark continent. In attempting to illustrate the dangers of believing myth, I told them of the legendary mountains of Western Punt, topped with jewels and guarded by evil spirits. I fear this only further fired their imaginations.
They inquired about retaining my services to act as their guide. I explained I had served my time on fool’s errands. They were insistent on their quest, and I advised them to follow the White Nile, as it would lead them toward mountains capped with snow, and they could learn their lessons the hard way.
Does Punt await discovery? I recall an enlightening conversation I had with General Gordon before leaving Khartoum. He spoke at length of an island in the Seychelles and his conviction this was the biblical Eden. He quoted scripture and reminded me that the garden itself was in the east of Eden, not the whole of Eden as we tend toward saying. He believed Eden to have been a larger area, lost now beneath the water. It was his manner during this exchange that convinced me to leave Khartoum at my first convenience. I gathered the forces defending the palace were as given to religious zeal as those attacking it. But in the years that followed, I thought of those two conversations on many occasions. The men who were convinced fortune awaited them to the south, and General Gordon, who believed Eden lay farther in that same direction. I have read with interest the growing theory of Lemuria, the sunken continent that our learned friends now believe acted as a land bridge between Africa and India. I’m given to wonder if perhaps General Gordon was closer than he could know, and the Seychelles are the peak of a lost land. If that proves to be the case, then the Land of Punt could still exist beneath the waves. Its secrets may one day surface.
Hass smiled along with most of the extract. Lemuria had long since been debunked, but it had been seen as a serious proposition during Stanley’s time. And again, as he’d explained to Chase, Punt wasn’t lost. Somalia had a cultural memory of trading with Egypt, passed down in myths and customs. Many of the secrets of Punt were lost. How large the empire had been and what led to its fading away. But Hass was confident the location wasn’t a mystery. Gordon’s theory of Eden was a new one to him, but there were as many theories about Eden as there were Atlantis, and none of them worth giving any time to. There was no mention of the Fountain of Youth, but here was the explanation behind the photograph. James Gilmore and his regiment weren’t soldiers who just happened to get lost in the desert; they had been looking for Punt. And Stanley had sent them south. If they followed his directions correctly, they would have found their way eventually to the Rwenzori Mountains, which included Mount Stanley, named after the man who declined to guide them. Hass knew the area well; he’d been there many times for both work and pleasure. Not once had he heard any mention of the Fountain of Youth. If the freebooters had followed the wrong branch of the river and traveled along the Blue Nile, that would have taken them down into modern Ethiopia, putting them near where “Gilmore” turned up a century later. But Hass knew that region even better and didn’t know of any legends relating to the Fountain.
Movement caught his eye. Someone had just been looking in through the glass in the door. Was it the security guard? Hass glanced at the small black camera in the ceiling above him. He was already being monitored—why would anybody look in?
He watched for a few seconds to see if anyone reappeared at the door, then went back to the pages, scanning for anything else of use. There were more mentions of the mountains of southern Africa, focusing mainly on the Rwenzori range and Kilimanjaro, which during Stanley’s time had been claimed by Germany. There were no more references to the Mountains of the Moon or Punt.
Another movement. This time Hass caught it. A man, glancing in before walking on by. Hass couldn’t be sure it was the same person as before, but the behavior felt the same. Was someone checking in on him? Waiting? He would have written it off as coincidence, or a curious student—the building was full of them—if it wasn’t for the clothing. The watcher was dressed almost identically to the man who’d followed him across town. The same shaven head, the same black clothes, though this one wore a short-sleeved T-shirt rather than the long sleeves of his previous watcher. Everything else was the same.
He was still being followed.
* * *
Chase parked the car a few streets away from the library, near Oakley Square. Enough of a distance to see if she was being tailed. She’d been disappointed to find Mason wasn’t giving up her sexy blue sports car. She was now in a yellow MINI Cooper. The spot it was parked in, Mason said, was off the grid. And the car was registered to a fake name. If Chase was careful, she had a shot of getting out of London without being tailed.
If she was careful. Like, ever.
She walked down to the library. The line was long, and the security check was in force, but that was fine, as she’d left her bag in the car. She breezed in past the checkpoint and walked over to the information desk. A Frenchwoman greeted her with a can’t-I-just-get-five-minutes-alone smile.
“Hey,” Chase said. “I’m looking for a friend of mine. You wouldn’t miss him. Big guy. Hot. Built like the Rock.”
“Henri.”
“Sure.”
“He’s popular.”
That gave Chase pause. A knot of concern formed in her gut. “Excuse me?”
“Some of his other friends have already gone up.”
* * *
Hass flicked back to the extract he’d found useful and took pictures with his cell. He slipped the book back into place on the shelf and sat on the desk, facing the door, kicking his feet like a child. When the watcher passed by a third time, Hass was waiting. He smiled, waved, and blew the man a kiss. The watcher panicked and ducked back out of sight.
Now that Hass had confirmed the tail, he had a new problem.
There was at least one person out there. Possibly two. And that was based only on what he’d seen so far. Hass’s own rules of survival included doubling the threat at any given moment. If you’ve seen one person, that means there are two. If you’ve seen two people, that means there are four. So he was going to assume four people were out in the library, waiting for him.
What was their next move?
The door itself was locked. They couldn’t get in without a security pass. Right now, he was safe. Could one of them sign in at the front desk, the way he had, and be let in? That was possible. And then he would be locked in a tight space with up to four people. He couldn’t wait around in here. He needed to move. There was a
button on the wall beside the door, set into a small metal square. If he pressed that, the lock would disengage and he could leave. But, if it worked the same way as on the way in, there would be a low electronic beep to announce it was unlocked, and anybody waiting outside would know he was coming.
He swore out loud and laughed at himself.
This was his exact problem. Always had been. He was standing here thinking everything through without actually doing anything. By now Chase would be several steps into an escape plan. And she wouldn’t even have a plan. It would all be on instinct. She was a natural at doing things, and they almost always came off. Even the wildest gamble, the dumbest idea. Hass needed to sit and think through all the options, to know several steps ahead, and he would second-guess every single decision.
He swore again. He was now overthinking the idea of overthinking. If Hass’s life had any meaning, it was to learn to be in the moment, to accept who you were and roll with it. But he was the one person who always failed to learn that lesson.
There was a fire alarm on the wall.
He punched the glass. Within seconds, the whole building was filled with buzzing and a polite voice asking people to make for the nearest exit. Hass guessed every publicly accessible door would now be unlocked. He counted to five, giving more time for confusion to set in outside, then pushed out into the manuscript hall.
Four people were being ushered out of the hall by men in security uniforms. Two of them were dressed all in black, one in long sleeves, one in short sleeves. The man he’d already seen and his friend. They turned to see him and, ignoring the security guards, charged.
Okay. It’s a fight now.
This is why I’m not in charge of plans.
Hass set his feet square, imagining himself growing roots deep down into the ground, making himself solid. The first attacker, Short Sleeves, bounced off him and fell backward. The impact had taken all of Hass’s strength, and then Long Sleeves took his turn, knocking Hass to the ground, falling down on top. The security guards were shouting but not doing anything to stop the fight. Underpaid immigrants working in uniform at a library, they weren’t paid to deal with this. They shouted into handheld radios.
Hass climbed to his feet before either of the two men could react. He blocked a punch from Short Sleeves and threw one of his own, knocking the guy back to the floor. Long Sleeves jumped forward. Hass ducked, taking the attacker’s weight on his back and rolling him, throwing him headlong into a glass case displaying some ancient parchment. Hass ran, pushing out past the confused security guards, onto the walkway overlooking the glass tower of books. To his right he could see four more security guards, running in his direction. Two of them were dressed differently, wearing some kind of black jumpsuit and carrying Tasers. Wow. There was a librarian tactical unit? Hass turned to his right and started to sprint in the other direction. He was heading toward the front of the building, but he was still two floors up. When he reached the end of the walkway, he came to the balcony overlooking the large open-plan foyer.
The security team had split into two. One each of the uniformed staff and the tac team entered the manuscript hall to deal with whatever was going on in there. The other two were still following Hass, shouting. There was a spiral staircase immediately ahead of him. He took it down one floor. He was about to head down to the next level when he heard footsteps coming up toward him.
“No fair,” he called out. “I’m trying to do what the nice recorded lady is telling me.”
He turned away, heading along the walkway beside the glass tower. And then he found a whole new problem. Stepping into his path up ahead was a large woman. She was the same height and build as Hass, matching him muscle for muscle, and dressed like the other two attackers. She cracked her jaw and smiled, throwing up fists.
Hass groaned. He wasn’t worried about the fight. Whoever this woman was, he was confident he could win. But it wouldn’t be fast, and in the time it took him to get her down, the security guards would be on them. What was her plan here? Get them both arrested?
There was a blur of movement to the left. Hass caught a shape moving in, swooping across from the open space between the walkway and the glass tower. The shape formed into Chase, swinging on what looked like an electrical cable. She crashed into the larger woman, pushing her into the wall with a thud that shook the floor. The big woman groaned and slumped to the floor, holding her head. Chase, having pulled off a near-perfect landing on both feet, smiled at Hass.
“Hey, Doc.”
“Did you…?” Hass leaned to look up above them, to where the electrical cable was looped over the railing on the floor above. “Never mind.”
“Just followed the noise,” Chase said.
Security guards were on either end of the walkway now, closing in slowly.
Hass looked at them, then to Chase. “What now?”
Chase leaned over the railings to look below. At the base of the glass tower, maybe fifteen feet below them, was the café. Small square tables filled the floor. Chase looked at the tables, then smiled at Hass.
“No way,” Hass said.
The guards were almost on them now.
There was a roar from behind them. The large woman rose up from a crouch and rushed at Chase, growling like an animal. Chase ducked down, in the same maneuver Hass had pulled upstairs, and rolled the woman over her back, lifting her up over the railing and flipping her off the edge. She seemed to hang in the air for a second, defying gravity, before everything returned to speed and she crashed down through two of the tables below, landing in a heap.
“Crash mat,” Chase said. “All part of the plan.”
She didn’t wait for Hass to argue, vaulting the rails and dropping down onto the larger woman, using her to cushion the fall. Hass saw a Taser being raised and followed Chase’s lead. He knew to go limp on impact, letting the momentum roll him away. He heard a dull groan as he landed, telling him the attacker was still alive, and still semiconscious. All the wind was knocked out of him on impact, and he took a few seconds to regain his breath before climbing to his feet. There were no guards down here. All attention must have been focused on the disturbances on the two levels above.
Hass and Chase ran out through the open fire doors, slipping into the crowd of confused students waiting outside.
TWENTY-THREE
Danny led Nash through another tunnel. They left Lenny on the sofa, watching television. Nash was glad of the silence. Danny was a man of few words and clearly didn’t feel the need to fill their walk with pointless conversation.
They turned right and took a staircase up to the next level. By Nash’s reckoning, they now had to be out of the catacombs and into the genuine basement of the redbrick building above them. Danny opened a heavy-looking door, unlocking it by entering a code into a small keypad set into the wall. They stepped out into a wide hallway lined with posters advertising Regent Ale. Nash could smell hops and hear the sounds of hard work, machines clicking, pallets clattering, people shouting.
Danny led him up a second set of stairs, metal and glass set into the old red brick. At the top, through a couple of more doors, they stopped in front of an office. Danny knocked, waiting for a muffled greeting before opening the door and ushering Nash through. Danny shut the door after him, remaining outside.
The office was wide and low. It looked to be a recent addition within the old frame of the building. The far wall was made of glass, looking down onto the brewery below. To the right was a bar, stocked with various types of Regent Ale. Pale. Dark. Stout. Wheat. Lite. Along with the alcohol was a selection of every brand of Dosa Cola Nash could think of. To the right was an original wall, with a small window looking out onto the canal. The center of the room was taken up by a large glass desk, clear except for a laptop and phone.
The man rising from behind the desk had the kind of condescending smile that led Nash to form an instant dislike. He was dressed in work boots, skinny jeans, and a check shirt beneath a corduroy vest. His full beard
was neatly trimmed, and his hair was shaved at the sides and swept back on top.
“August,” he said, annoying Nash further. “So great to finally meet you. Drink?”
“No, thanks.”
“Sure? I’m having one.”
The man lifted two bottles and popped their lids on an opener fixed to the bar. He held one out for Nash, completely ignoring that he’d said no. But what the hell; Nash never saw the point in turning down something free. He took the bottle and nodded a thank-you.
“Apologies, I didn’t introduce myself.” The man held out his hand for a shake. “Greg Richards.”
“I was here to meet Lothar Caliburn.”
“Oh, we’ll get to that, don’t worry.” Richards turned to wave his arm at the window. “Great, isn’t it?”
“Almost as impressive as what you’ve built downstairs.”
Richards gestured for Nash to take a seat in front of the desk and waited until he was settled before sitting again in his own chair. He took a long pull on the beer and sighed theatrically before fixing Nash with another grin.
“This whole place was empty when I found it. Derelict. The council had been trying to sell it for residential development. Just what this town needs, another building full of bland apartments nobody can afford. But I said, why not put it to real use? Create something, put money back into the economy.”
“You funded this yourself?”
“I found good investors.”
“And downstairs?”
Richards leaned back in his seat. “We have good friends. You’d be surprised how many people support us.”
“Interesting location. You’ve seen the neighbors? Isn’t exactly Nazi central.”
Richards pulled a face. “We don’t use the N word anymore. It’s become problematic.”
“Then what are you?”
The condescending smirk returned. “I’m just a free-speech advocate. I want to be able to say what I believe without getting canceled or called a racist. I want an open debate.”