Visitors, he signalled with his fingers.
I touched my ear, then raised my eyebrows. He shrugged. Damn, we’d have to sweep the whole freaking apartment again. But in the meantime, we’d have to act innocent, so I made coffee as we chatted about the weather. As I ran the scanner through the rooms, I saw tiny giveaways of the visitors; magazines not quite in the same place, our sticky-tack on the doorjamb distorted, marks in the dust, the lid of the toilet cistern slightly off centre. They’d been reasonably thorough, but not careful. Not a sign of a bug, which was strange. We carried on as if we were surrounded by them.
I sipped my coffee and chatted about supper while Flavius got to work ostensibly confirming flights for three. Not even the legation here knew that we would be heading for a private airfield where the smallest transport of the Imperial Roma Novan Air Force would land tomorrow evening. No way were we risking a standard commercial flight with Vibiana. Conrad had arranged this directly with some sky jockey friend.
I bent down to the freezer and pulled a pizza out of the middle drawer along with a plastic bundle of bubble wrap. Inside was a freezer baggie with my Glock. At the back of the next compartment, the ammunition clips. It was a compact but deadly 177 mm of firepower.
Flavius looked up as I unwrapped it. His eyebrow shot up. I laid my fingers to my lips. In the bathroom, I ran the shower, wrapped my hands in the thickest towel in the bathroom but left some wriggle room and checked the movement of the little weapon. Stuffing it in my pocket, I reached up and stopped the shower.
Flavius handed me a note.
Didn’t know we had authority for arms.
I scribbled back, We don’t, but hey.
He made a face and rolled his eyes. I just grinned.
Via the courier?
That’s why we had to recover the bag.
We ate, washed up and went for an early night. I lay under the blankets with the scrambler attached to my new phone and texted Conrad the number.
The reply zoomed back immediately.
‘Why the change? Problem?’
‘Precaution. Unfriends at work. Tell you when we land.’
‘Now.’
I gave him the short version.
6
‘What in Pluto do you mean, “she’s gone”?’ My heart pounded and I felt the heat of my temper rising.
The legation Praetorian commander’s face was pink. Anger? Embarrassment? I didn’t care.
‘Look, Captain,’ Flavius said in a voice trying to be reasonable, ‘this is a massive breach.’
‘Of course it is,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t need an optio to tell me that.’
‘Tell us exactly what happened, ma’am,’ he said.
She flopped into her chair behind her desk and waved us to two in front. I just stood there, arms tight across my chest, trying to keep my anger in.
Flavius looked steadily at me. I shrugged then plunked myself in one of the chairs.
‘We put her and her luggage into the secure room and checked her every hour,’ the commander said. ‘There is no window, no exit apart from the door where a guard was stationed all night. We gave her a bottle of water and a tray of food – only a plastic spoon.’ She gave me a look as if expecting an argument. I said nothing. ‘When we collected the tray, she asked to use the bathroom. She had her handbag, a plastic carrier bag with toiletries, and the towel we’d supplied. The guard reports hearing some musical humming, then water noises – the lavatory and the shower. After a while, she noticed the shower was still running, so she knocked on the door. No answer. She knocked again. When there was still no answer, she went in and found the bathroom empty.’ She looked down at her desk.
‘Window?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ she replied in a low voice.
‘Show us.’
It was depressing. The bathroom was a short way along the basement corridor, next to the exercise room and used by legation staff sweaty from their fitness efforts. It must have been converted as the frosted window was a standard size. And as a non-secure room, it had no bars nor an alarm.
‘It’s in the basement with a high railing and mesh cover over it.’
‘Yes, but that’s designed to keep others out,’ I said as I leaned out of the open window. The release catches on the inside were now open. The service alleyway it gave onto was closed off by a metal gate at the end with a one-way security lock. I took a deep breath of the chill air, then pulled myself back into the bathroom. ‘What time did the guard notice the shower was still running?’
‘Just after ten yesterday evening. We tried to call you, but had no reply. We sent a flash signal home, then I sent out a search party, but they found nothing.’
‘Show me her things.’
In the secure room, Flavius and I searched through Vibiana’s suitcase and carry-on, but found only the usual stuff. Her briefcase was down the side of the table. I opened it and picked through the folders, but nothing sprang out. They were mainly academic extracts, some notes, a printout of a geological report and a list of books from the library. One title was underlined. The one I had taken out on Roman silver mining that Vibiana wanted so badly. Was that so significant?
‘No coat or boots,’ said Flavius. ‘Did she actually go to the bathroom dressed for outdoors?’ He tried to keep the irritable tone out of his voice, but failed.
‘Look, we’re a legation guard, not intelligence people like you. We don’t suspect every action, word or breath. We’re not that paranoid.’ Flavius stepped on my foot before I could retort. ‘Vibiana complained about being cold,’ the commander continued. ‘So we didn’t think it unusual she kept her coat on.’
The three of us stood there for a few moments, resentful and annoyed with each other.
‘Okay, let’s move on,’ I said after a few moments. ‘Can your people check with the railroad and bus stations, and the airport, to see if they have any CCTV?’ She nodded and hurried off.
‘Hell’s teeth,’ Flavius said. ‘What is it with these regulars? How hard is it to keep hold of somebody for twelve hours? Shit.’ He glanced at me. ‘Hadn’t we better get out there, searching?’
‘You go look round at the back of the building and see if you can see anything in the alleyway and check the precise timings.’ I looked at my watch; only just after nine. ‘I’m going back to the university library. Vibiana underlined that book on the list for some reason.’
* * *
I smiled my most saccharine smile at the librarian and explained that the woman arguing with me had felt faint so I’d called a taxi for her and made sure she got back to her room. I apologised for leaving my books out and wondered if I could have them back for half an hour.
‘Très bien, but make sure you return them properly this time.’ She didn’t quite peer over her glasses like my grandmother did, but she gave me that look.
I let the one on Roman silver mining fall open naturally, but it didn’t do that classic thing in the movies where the page that was significant was immediately obvious. I flicked through, but then something caught my eye. Somebody had turned a corner over. Sacrilege in an academic library. But it was the only one in the whole book. I searched the page, but nothing except a boring description of extraction methods, angles of tools used and daily ore counts. No dots, dashes or other marks under the words to show a hidden message. That would have been childish, and surely even Vibiana hadn’t been that obvious?
What had Vibiana done that was so secret even Conrad wouldn’t tell me?
I hurried over to the photocopier, wrote my fake name of Lauren Jackson on the log sheet and found that Vibiana had copied this and three other pages. I did the same.
* * *
‘Anything?’ Flavius asked back at the legation.
‘Zilch. If you don’t count the four pages out of some history book she photocopied.’ I handed him the pages and plunked myself on the chair in the secure room.
‘Well, I’ve found something in her luggage that may help.’
‘
What?’
He unfolded a handkerchief, a beautiful thing. Delicate strands chased each other into expanding networks, all tenuously held together with tiny knots. Here and there, tiny pieces of silk interlaced with silver threads completed the random squared pattern. It was unlike the symmetrical machine-produced handkerchiefs. My cousin, Silvia, who collected these things, would kill to add this one. You would never blow your nose on it.
Flavius smiled to himself as he flattened it out on the table by the photocopied sheets. I stared at the random gaps not covered by the silk patches.
Juno.
‘It’s a bloody grille,’ I snatched the last photocopy and draped the handkerchief over the text. The copies were the same size as the originals, thank the gods. Individual letters showed through the gaps. I looked up at Flavius. ‘See if the legation has a decent cryptographer.’
* * *
‘Well, ma’am, you’re right, it’s a grille, a turning grille based on the Cardano.’ He leant back and smirked. ‘I haven’t seen anything this old and primitive since I did my first course.’ His name was Granius and he looked as if he had as smart a mouth on him as his ancient namesake.
‘Okay, I know the general principle, gaps in text revealing a message and so on, but what’s this turning thing?’
‘A cipher message shouldn’t appear to be a cipher and the original Cardano grille did that. That was its main protection. But once the opposition gets hold of the grille, they can easily recover the text. So later cryptographers did all kinds of clever things to hinder anybody else reading the cipher apart from the grille holders including turning in 90 degrees, 180, whatever.’
‘Yes, but can you bust it?’
‘No problem.’ He bent his head over the sheets and started scribbling notes.
Flavius and I were drinking coffee in the tiny mess bar when Granius sauntered in barely an hour later.
‘This was so simple it was almost laughable.’ The young cryptographer grinned. A bit too cocky, I thought, but he seemed to know his stuff.
‘Okay, sit down and show us, smart-ass.’ He chuckled. He set his laptop down on the coffee table, then spread the sheets and his notes out.
‘The content seems to be information and instructions for different situations. These must have been a series of presets and the recipient was probably signalled by a phone text or voicemail which one to use and which book and page. The third one is probably the most relevant at this moment.’ He glanced at me and handed over the first two of his plaintext notes.
The first ran, Confirm your arrival. And the second, Essential you hand over now. Proceed to point 49.
‘And the third one,’ I said, stretching my hand out.
Hunters still loose. Fallback point 63.
‘Presumably that’s us.’ I glanced at Flavius. ‘And where the hell is “point 63”?’
‘What’s the fourth one say?’ Flavius chipped in. ‘It must be the one she was trying to get when Lieutenant Mitela wouldn’t let her have the book.’
Confirm handover.
‘So she hasn’t given whoever it is whatever it was she fled with. I guess that’s something.’
‘Or she might have but hasn’t been able to confirm it.’
I stood up and rubbed the back of my neck. Our target turned out to be trained for covert operations. She had disappeared. We didn’t have a clue what she was up to. Worse, who was giving her instructions? And who had searched our apartment and attempted to intercept our courier?
7
‘If I may make a suggestion, ma’am?’
‘Sure, Granius. All ideas welcome.’
He loaded the map program and zoomed down on the university campus.
‘Point 49. If you reduce it to simple numbers four and nine that’s quattuor novem. Well, the university library is situated in the Rue du Quartier Neuf. Seems a bit of a coincidence, doesn’t it?’
‘Okay, what do you suggest for point 63? That’s sex tres.’
He tapped away for a few moments.
‘I’ve looked on Interpedia as well. There’s a Sixtrees Street in the Autonomous City of New York. Nothing else comes near it anywhere else. There’s a private business library at number thirty-eight and a hotel at twenty-six.’
New York. Inside the Eastern United States. Where there was still a subpoena out on me from when I fled from the EUS over four years ago. Conrad had said there was no risk of me having to cross the border. Pluto in Tartarus. I took a deep breath to counter the fluttering in my stomach. Granius glanced at me, then when I said nothing, picked up his laptop and notes. I just about remembered to add my thanks as Flavius dismissed him.
‘That’s a cute idea but also crazy,’ I said. ‘Vibiana can’t travel – her passport is locked in the legation safe. And she can’t have developed into a Grade A safecracker overnight.’
We checked, much to the legation quaestor’s disgruntlement. He’d just sat down to his lunch. But the purple pasteboard document with the gold eagle was still in the safe.
‘Now what?’ I glanced from Flavius to the Praetorian commander. We sat in her office, swallowing our disappointment.
‘I’ve emailed her photo and description to my contact in the border police to keep an eye out for her. On a strictly unofficial basis, naturally. We have no jurisdiction here and I’m sure you don’t want your mission to become public. But he owes me one.’ And she smiled.
All we could do was wait. I had Granius write up a report about the cypher handkerchief and his findings. We were back in the mess bar, when a breathless young Praetorian guard asked us to come stat to the commander’s office.
‘We’ve found her.’ The commander swivelled her screen round. Vibiana had bound up her hair, but we recognised her dumpy figure instantly from the CCTV feed as she went through the Aéroport Louis-Napoléon. She cleared security super smoothly and arrived at the gate for the New York flight just as it was called. She must have had a priority ticket as she went ahead of the rest of the passengers. How was she travelling without her passport? Who the hell was helping her?
‘Obviously, I’ll have to go by myself,’ Flavius commented as we studied the images again.
‘Why don’t you go with Optio Flavius, Lieutenant?’ The commander frowned at me.
‘Diplomatic reasons which security prevents me going into, Captain.’ I dared her to push it.
‘Really?’
‘Perhaps I’ll take Granius with me as backup – he seems quite sharp,’ Flavius intervened. I glared at him. The commander hesitated, but after a moment nodded. Out in the corridor, I looked both ways to check nobody was in earshot.
‘You are joking, Flav. Granius is only a regular grunt, a signals cypher clerk, not trained for outside ops,’ I protested.
‘It’s either him or letting somebody else into the operation.’
‘My ID is a good one and the EUS isn’t expecting its black sheep to return,’ I bleated.
‘Now you’re joking! I’m not explaining to the boss why you got picked up and thrown in an EUS jail. Besides it would cause an almighty diplomatic and security stink.’
‘So you think I’d be caught? Am I that sloppy?’ I stuck my chin in the air at him.
‘Don’t get huffy. It’s operational procedure.’
He was right, of course, but I didn’t like it. The Praetorian commander persuaded the signals chief to release Granius on detachment, but gave me a stern look. She was shut out of the full loop and didn’t like it one little bit. Granius would travel as himself on his diplomatic passport as if on vacation. Luckily, he’d visited the EUS for short breaks before. I gave him my sensor and explained it was fully shielded and would get through airport security.
‘Just say it’s a backup battery for your cell phone.’
Flavius took Vibiana’s passport with him. Whatever she’d used before to get into the EUS wouldn’t be safe to use when Flavius and Granius brought her out. I drove them to the airport in the rental car. Flavius sat in the back, giving Grani
us a Spying 101 course.
‘For the gods’ sakes, do not get caught or I will come after you,’ I said. We had ten minutes in the drop-off parking lot. ‘I’ll bust you out and then make your lives a total misery for at least a week.’
Granius looked worried, but Flavius just smiled at me.
‘We’ll be back before you know it.’ He grabbed his bag and strode off in the direction of the Departures.
‘Give him five minutes, Granius,’ I said. ‘When you enter the terminal, go and sit somewhere for ten minutes, buy a magazine or go to the men’s room. What I’m saying is don’t go through at the same time as Flavius.’
‘It’s okay, ma’am. I go through the priority line as I’m on a diplomatic passport.’
‘Make sure you keep to field signals protocol,’ I said. ‘Remember I’m Aquila Zero, Optio Flavius is Aquila One and you’re Aquila Two. No real names.’
‘Sure, I know that.’ He gave me a superior smile. He really was a smart-ass. I just hoped he didn’t get overconfident.
I drove back to the apartment in a foul mood. I was angry about losing Vibiana, frustrated I couldn’t go with Flavius to retrieve her and as anxious as hell about the hidden aspects of his operation. I parked up at the far end of the street and, pulling my parka hood up, walked back on the opposite side of the road past the entrance door as if aiming for the station. Everything looked undisturbed as I went by, peeking through the fur edge of my hood. Further up, I crossed the road and walked back briskly, fished my key out of my pocket and went in.
It was warm; the heating had kicked in. I paused at the bottom of the stairs. I couldn’t smell or hear anything wrong. I slipped each of the three keys between the fingers of my right hand, flicked on the light with my left and walked up. The single-strand cotton-hair thread across the stair treads halfway up was unbroken. I let my breath out slowly. At the top of the stairs I switched on the other lights and saw I was alone. A quick check in the other rooms confirmed it. I dropped the keys in the saucer at the side and grabbed the kettle.
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