“You’re telling me his friends send him classified material that could be used against the United States if it were to be discovered by the wrong people?”
Narrowed eyes replaced the smile. “Yes. What are you implying?”
“I’m saying a civilian having access to these plans violates hundreds of laws. And the friend you speak of, the one who e-mailed these plans? He masked the e-mail address, bouncing it through about forty servers all over the world, so it’s virtually untraceable.”
He stopped, reached down and clicked the mouse, closing the image on the screen. That was enough for now—the satellite image didn’t even scratch the surface of what Nicholas had seen, but she didn’t need to know that.
“My father would never do anything to hurt this country.”
Mike paused in the doorway, listening. She saw Nicholas was towering over Sophie, but Sophie hadn’t moved. She looked mad, ready to square off with him. Mike had the distinct impression Sophie Pearce was more than the sum of her parts. Like the Fox, she thought, who’d very nearly brought them down, Sophie had that same feel to her—softness covering steel. She knew more than she was saying, a lot more. How to make her level with them?
Mike stepped into the office. “Excuse me. Nicholas, can I speak with you a moment?”
He shot her a look, nodded. Mike said to Sophie, “Do you have other family here in town? Someone who can come be with you?”
Sophie shook her head. “It’s only us.” Her voice cracked, and they knew the fact of her father’s death was sinking in now.
“Who is ‘us’?” Nicholas asked.
“My . . . my brother.”
“What is his name?”
“Adam.” Her voice shook. “Please, where is my dad? I mean, where is his—body?”
Mike said, “At the morgue. There will be an autopsy. We need to be one hundred percent sure about how he died.”
Sophie swallowed hard. “Someone shoving a knife in his back isn’t clear enough?”
Mike touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I truly am. Are you sure there’s no one we can call for you? Your brother, Adam?”
Sophie said, “No, Adam’s not here. I forgot—I have a meeting this afternoon and I need to call and cancel. Tell them what’s happened.”
Mike said, “All right. Go ahead, we’ll be out in a moment,” and watched Sophie pull her cell from her pocket as she stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind her.
“You think it’s safe to leave her alone?”
Mike said, “Worry not, crime scene’s here. They’ll watch her, see if she does anything hinky. We’re in here, so she can’t hop on this computer and delete anything.”
“Wouldn’t matter,” Nicholas said. “I’ve already copied his hard drive and downloaded the files from the SD card.” He held up a small thumb drive. “I also encrypted the drive with my own program so no one can tamper with the files now.”
Mike grinned at him. “I knew I asked to partner with you for a reason. I listened to some of your conversation with Sophie. Do you think she’s clean in all this?”
“Mike, she works for the UN. She’s a translator.”
She nodded. “Yes, and that means international connections. We’ll keep a close watch on her.”
“She also knows who EP is. I don’t think she knows what her father meant when he said ‘The key is in the lock.’ What else does she know that she’s not telling us? The big question is why isn’t she telling us everything she can think of? Her father was murdered. I can’t tell you if Pearce was up to no good, but what I saw on the SD card—I think this is big, Mike, we’re talking government secrets, big-money secrets. We need to pull apart Pearce’s financials, and Sophie’s, too.”
“And we need to protect her and her brother, Adam, given what Mr. Olympic threatened. Zachery called to report someone’s been hanging around Ariston’s this morning, as if he’s waiting for the store to open. We need to get up there and check it out.”
“I bet Pearce has another computer at the store. I’d like a chance to see what’s on it. We should take Sophie with us, if nothing else, to keep her safe. Maybe, too, she’ll break down and tell us what else she knows about all this.”
15
Ariston’s Antiquities and Rare Books
Second Avenue and East 57th Street
Noon
They walked to Ariston’s, only minutes from Mr. Pearce’s apartment, the perfect commute for a Manhattan businessman. Mike assumed the vast majority of Pearce’s life was carried out in the few square blocks between his store and his apartment.
Nestled between a boutique clothing store and a high-end jewelry shop, Ariston’s was in an older, handsome building, tall and narrow, the brick paled over the decades. The windows were dark, a hand-lettered CLOSED sign draped inside.
East 57th was busy, people hurrying to lunch, to work, to their lives. Mike had her hand on Sophie’s arm, holding her back. They watched carefully for signs of anyone paying special attention to the store. They saw no one out of place.
Mike was on her cell with the Facial Recognition guys who’d spotted the man lingering around the store. “Anything?”
Nicholas glanced over. She shook her head and clicked off. “It’s a guy, young, that’s all they could tell us, that and he seems to have left for now. They’ll call the minute they see him again. We’re clear to go in.”
Sophie unlocked the front door, opened it slowly, and disarmed the alarm. So this was Ariston’s. It was a comforting smell, Nicholas thought, familiar—it immediately shot him back to his family’s home in England, Old Farrow Hall, and his grandfather’s extensive library of rare books, the smell of old vellum, the warmth from the fireplace.
Ariston’s was a bibliophile’s dream: floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, some behind glass and many under lock and key. There was row upon row of shelves, all clearly labeled according to genre, sub-labeled according to century.
There was a small register area up front, and a larger seated space midway back, with two well-worn oversized brown leather chairs edged in nail heads. A gooseneck reading lamp hovered over each chair, and every other inch of space was filled with books.
Nicholas realized Sophie had stopped just inside the door. He heard her swallowing. He knew this was difficult for her. He couldn’t imagine hearing that his own father was dead, hearing that someone had killed him. He prayed she’d keep it together, maybe even tell them what she knew.
He watched her square her shoulders and turn on the lights. He heard the pain in her voice when she said, “Dad spent most of his time here in the store. It was his whole world. The entire time I was growing up, he had me in here every spare minute, dusting, curating, answering the phones. When I got old enough, I started handling the orders. We have a worldwide clientele, especially for military titles.”
Mike ran her fingers along the spines of the shelf nearest her. “How exactly does all this work? Do people come in off the street to buy rare books?”
“More than you’d expect, actually. But the bulk of the sales are online. The Internet was the best, and worst, thing that happened to our industry. It used to be all the work was done by letter, then by phone, but both had a distinctly human touch. Once people could buy the books without any direct interaction with Dad, well, it wasn’t nearly as fun for him. He loved meeting new people. He lived for the auctions.”
“Auctions?” Mike asked. “Like Sotheby’s and Christie’s do with furniture and artwork?”
“Similar, yes. He could pay the rent for a year on this place with a single rare-book sale.”
Nicholas thought back to the books he’d seen under glass at Pearce’s apartment. “Did your father keep the rarest books at his place?”
“Some, yes, but for the most part, those are the ones he really loves—loved.”
Her face went blank, then she gestu
red for them to follow her, and went to the back of the store. She unlocked a door, and they saw a small office with a desk and ledger books, and a brand-new twenty-seven-inch iMac computer on the desk. Sophie didn’t hesitate, walked to the back of the room, pressed a series of buttons on a rectangular steel lock, and the door swung open with a pneumatic hiss. Behind it was a circular stairway.
“This leads to the basement where he keeps—kept—the really valuable books.” Her voice hitched. They watched her gain control. She flipped a switch inside the door and the basement was lit with the soft red glow from a single light, like a small fire on the wall. They walked down the narrow stairs into a space that didn’t run the full length of the store but took up at least four hundred square feet, all bookshelves behind tempered glass.
Mike whispered, “I feel like I’m in the Vatican vaults.”
Nicholas felt his chest tighten. “Low-oxygen environment?”
Sophie shot him a surprised look. “Exactly. Plus humidity and temperature regulation. Sixty-four degrees, with an ambient humidity of forty-five percent. It’s the only way to keep the books from crumbling into dust. We had to reroute all the water pipes, too, and the fire retardant is a special chemical mix that’s safe for books and papers.”
She stepped to a case and pointed at a book with thick-edged gilt lettering. “This was his favorite. He’s had so many offers over the years, but I never could convince him to sell.”
It didn’t look remarkable, but when Nicholas read the spine, a chill washed through him. “William Blake’s The Book of Urizen? That must be worth millions.”
Sophie smiled. “Only eight copies in existence. One went at auction for two and a half million in 1999.”
Nicholas said, “I wouldn’t give it up, either. I love Blake.”
Nicholas looked like he might begin to quote Blake’s poetry, so Mike quickly said, “We’re looking at some incredibly valuable books here. Is there anything in this store, a book, some papers, some secret archives he’s been getting offers on and refused to sell, like this Blake?”
Not an instant’s hesitation. “Not that I know of.”
“Is there anything someone might want badly enough to kill your father?”
She shook her head. “I’m telling you, the antiquities world has its fair share of cutthroats, but none that would be capable of killing my father. He was a great man, and had the respect of a lot of people.”
That wasn’t the point. Money was always a great motivator for murder, but it wasn’t right. Mike said, “Think of the man who sent him the specs on a classified satellite system. Who was he?”
They watched a tear streak down her face. She made no sound, simply wiped it away with her fingers. “I told you before, I don’t know what you’re talking about. My dad was into books, that’s it. That satellite specs on his computer? Perhaps someone who admired my father thought he’d enjoy seeing it.”
Nicholas showed her a photograph of Mr. Olympic that he had saved on his mobile. “Have you ever met this man before?”
She looked at it closely. It was obvious the man was dead. His eyes were slitted open, his face a dusky blue. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” Drummond said. “Do you know him?”
She slowly shook her head, swallowed bile. “No. I’ve never seen him before.” She watched him change the photo and quickly stepped back, her hands up. “Please don’t tell me you have a photo of my father on your phone. I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to see him like that.” Her voice ended in a yell, and Nicholas put a hand on her arm to steady her.
She gathered herself, took a deep breath. “That dead man, he killed my father?”
“Yes.”
“And now he’s dead, too. Good. Thank you.”
Mike lightly touched Sophie’s arm, her voice low and calm. “Sophie, let me ask you again. Can you tell us why your father, as he was dying, said to his murderer, ‘The key is the lock’? What does it mean, Sophie?”
She was back in control. She shook her head. “I have no idea.”
Mike said, “Sophie, don’t you think it’s time for you to level with us? You know your father’s murder wasn’t a random mugging. You need to tell us everything you know.”
“I have told you all I know. I don’t feel well. Can we continue this conversation later? I want to go home.”
There was a bump above, and they all froze.
16
Nicholas put a finger across his lips. “Sophie, did you lock the door when we came in?”
Sophie nodded. She was staring upward, her eyes fixed.
Heavy steps now, clumping on the hardwood, moving toward the back of the store.
Both Nicholas and Mike moved in front of Sophie, their Glocks at the ready. Mike whispered, “They were supposed to call me if they saw anything. Something’s wrong.”
Sophie now looked frightened, even paler in the odd reddish light. “There’s no cell service down here.”
Nicholas jerked his head at Mike, then started slowly up the stairs.
Mike whispered to Sophie, “Stay here,” she followed Nicholas.
When they reached the top, Nicholas used the reflection of his mobile’s screen to see if anyone had come into the back office. It was empty, the door still closed. They eased their way out of the staircase.
Nicholas held his Glock against his leg. There would be no more surprises, like this morning’s debacle.
When they reached the door, he mouthed a one, two, three to Mike, and they went into the bookstore, Nicholas high, Mike low, perfectly coordinated, as if they’d been doing this together for years.
No one was there.
They went silent, walked slowly through the stacks toward the front of the store, guns up, clearing each stack as they went. Nicholas saw the front door. It was closed, but the hand-lettered OPEN/CLOSED sign was twisted halfway between the two.
Three stacks to go now, two, one, and Nicholas stepped around the last bookshelf to see a young man, a kid, maybe, no more than early twenties, blond and brown, sitting at the front reception desk, his hand literally in the till.
Nicholas said, “FBI. Stop what you’re doing and show me your hands.”
The kid saw the guns aimed at him and froze. He raised his hands slowly, his face a blank mask, his eyes on Nicholas, a twenty-dollar bill still clutched in his right fist.
“Don’t you move an inch. Who are you?”
The kid merely shook his head. When Mike moved to get behind him, he exploded from the chair, leapt over the counter, and headed toward the door.
A bad move, that. Nicholas was ready for him. He slammed into him, then landed a solid punch to the kid’s stomach, stopping him in his tracks. The kid’s eyes went wide and terrified because he couldn’t breathe. Mike pulled him to the ground, her knees against the middle of his back, her hand in his back pocket for his wallet, but it wasn’t there.
The kid took a deep breath. He was clearly panicked, terrified, his legs churning to get away. Mike cuffed him and hauled him to his feet.
She shook him. “Who are you? Tell me or I’ll sic Superman on you, and believe me, you don’t want that to happen.”
Sophie pushed her way past Mike. “What are you doing here?”
Nicholas was looking at the young man. There was something familiar about him, but he couldn’t nail it. “Tell us who this is, Sophie.”
Sophie said, “Yes, of course. This is—um—Kevin Brown. He’s a family friend. He used to work here at the store. But he left a few months ago.”
Mike eased back a bit. “Well, your family friend was trying to rob you.”
Kevin Brown shook his head. “No, no, I wasn’t. I was leaving Mr. Pearce a note. He called me last week, told me I could come back to work part-time, weekends only.”
Sophie stared at him. “Really? I thought you were in sch
ool.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Well, it didn’t work out. I contacted your dad and he told me to come back. Look, can I go now? Like I said, I stopped to leave Mr. Pearce that note. I gotta go have lunch with a friend. Really, I need to be getting on.”
“I don’t think so,” Mike said, and pushed him into the chair behind the register. “First things first, Mr. Brown. Where is your wallet?”
“I left it in my backpack, in a locker at Grand Central.”
“Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. How did you get in? The door was locked.”
“I still have a key.”
“Then why did you have the register open?” Mike asked him. “And why did you try to run?”
His chin came up. He gave her a cocky grin, despite the uncomfortable cuffs around his wrists. “Hey, I was making change for a twenty. I knew Mr. Pearce wouldn’t mind. Suddenly you two Feds are sticking your guns in my face. What was I supposed to do?”
Sophie rolled her eyes. “Maybe, Kevin, you could have simply done what they asked you to do.”
Kevin shrugged. “I don’t bow to the man, Sophie.”
“You’re an idiot. Get out of my store.”
“Hey, I only wanted to let Mr. Pearce know I could come back to work. I, well, things aren’t going the way I thought in school, so I came back, and I could use the coin.”
Nicholas watched Sophie draw a deep breath. “Listen, Kevin, my father is dead. He was murdered this morning.”
Kevin Brown’s face seemed to leach of color. He leaned toward Sophie, almost as if he was going to hug her, but she stepped back a foot and Nicholas could have sworn she shook her head slightly. Brown stopped and eyed her, as if she were a bomb that might explode at any moment.
“You’re not kidding, are you? What happened?”
“I would never kid about something so horrible. They don’t know what happened yet. Why do you think they’re here?” Sophie pointed to Nicholas and Mike, then said to Mike, “Can you uncuff him, please? He wasn’t doing anything wrong. He’s right, my father wouldn’t mind.”
The Lost Key Page 7