by Alex Archer
“Last month I was approached by a young man named Gianni Travino, who claimed to be a descendent of the architect hired to build Ivan’s secret vault. After establishing that he was who he claimed to be, and that his family was, indeed, distantly related to Fioravanti himself, Gianni and I had a long chat.”
Charles paused and glanced around, and Annja realized it was all part of the show. Her host apparently loved a good story and he was milking this one for all it was worth.
That was fine with Annja. She was as much a romantic when it came to a mystery as anyone else. Perhaps even more so, given what she did for a living. She settled back and let Charles tell it his way.
“Gianni’s father passed away a few months ago and while going through the old man’s things, Gianni discovered a hand-carved wooden box that no one in the family remembered having seen before. None of his father’s keys fit the lock, so Gianni took it to a locksmith and had it opened. Inside he found a leather journal he claims was not only written by Fioravanti himself, but that also holds the key to finding the secret resting place of the Library of Gold.”
Annja could guess where this was going, as she’d heard stories like it a hundred times before. Charles was going to ask her to use the journal to track down the treasure and would offer some percentage of whatever they recovered in payment for her time and energy. She almost stopped him right then and there. But he’d invited her out for an expensive night on the town, something that didn’t happen all that often, and treated her with respect. A little courtesy wouldn’t cost her anything but a bit of time, and she had enough of that to go around at the moment.
Charles Davies surprised her. “As you can imagine, I was immediately skeptical,” he said. “I mean, come on, Fioravanti’s journal suddenly shows up after being hidden away in a wooden box in some old guy’s closet for the past four hundred years? Seriously?”
Annja laughed. Charles was well into his sixties and hearing him use language more suitable for someone a quarter his age struck her as highly amusing. Never mind the fact that he was calling someone else an “old guy.”
“I see you understand my skepticism,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “That’s why I asked Mr. Travino to allow me to examine the journal and make a determination as to its authenticity on my own. Surprisingly, he was happy to let me.”
“And?”
Rather than answer her, Charles simply pushed the envelope in her direction.
Inside was a report from the office of David Carmichael, the chief archivist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Annja had never met Carmichael, but she was familiar with his work and knew that you weren’t put in charge of the country’s historical records if you were sloppy with your science.
She turned the report to catch more light and began reading. It didn’t take her long to get the impact of what the document was saying.
Charles had sent the journal to Carmichael with the request that he do what he could to verify the historical provenance of the document. He’d supplied written permission from Gianni to run whatever tests were necessary, paid the required fees to cover the costs and included a generous contribution to the Smithsonian’s general fund in exchange for moving the project to the front of the line.
It had still taken two months, but that was far better than the three-year wait Annja knew it could have been.
The results were far from expected.
Glancing through the report and the accompanying documentation relative to the tests themselves, it was clear Carmichael had put the journal through the ringer. He’d tested the composition of the paper, ink, glue and leather cover, verifying that they were all produced somewhere between 1500 and 1550, which was smack in the middle of the time frame necessary for it to be authentic. Annja knew this wasn’t proof of the journal’s authenticity in and of itself. A good forger will use age-appropriate materials when assembling a forgery intended to pass close scrutiny, but at least it was a start.
As expected, Carmichael put the journal through other rounds of tests, such as examining the way the words were inscribed on the page as well as the language used within the text. He verified that the word usage and syllogisms were all appropriate to the time period in question.
His final conclusion?
While he couldn’t say for certain the journal had been written by Ridolfo di Fioravanti, Carmichael did confirm it had mostly likely been assembled in the mid-1500s in southern Italy and that the ink that was used to inscribe the text on its pages was of the type available in Russia during the same time period.
It was pretty solid support for Gianni and his story, as far-fetched as it might seem.
Annja slipped the report back into the envelope and passed it across the table to Charles. “I want to see it for myself.”
He smiled. “I was hoping you would say that.”
Chapter 4
Sir Charles Davies had a house outside the city in Greenwich, just across the Connecticut state line, and it was there Annja found herself early the next morning. She’d wanted to see the journal for herself before listening to the rest of Charles’s proposal and he’d readily agreed. Doug hadn’t been so thrilled when she’d called to let him know she wasn’t going to make the day’s voice-over session.
“We’ve still got a ton of work ahead of us, Annja. We can’t afford to take a day off.”
“And yet that’s exactly what we’re going to do,” she said with a mischievous grin. “Unless, of course, you want me to tell Sir Charles I couldn’t possibly continue the discussion we started last night about his funding an expedition to find the lost library of Ivan the Great.”
“We can’t afford to waste any more…wait. Did you say Ivan the Great?”
“I did, but you’re right. We couldn’t possibly take a day off. I’ll tell Sir Charles I can’t make it and…”
“Wait!” Doug cried, a hint of panic in his voice. “You can’t tell him that.”
“But I thought you wanted—”
“Never mind what you thought. I’m telling you I want you to spend whatever time you need with Sir Charles. Make that expedition a reality and make sure you get broadcast rights for Chasing History’s Monsters.”
Annja had barely been able to keep herself from laughing as she’d solemnly agreed to follow Doug’s instructions to the letter before she hung up the phone.
She’d taken a taxi from the Greenwich train station and now stood outside the property’s gates, staring at the mansion just beyond. The place was enormous; at least as expansive as Roux’s place outside Paris.
Well, you knew Charles had money, right? Just what did you expect?
Definitely not this.
She was reaching for the intercom when the gates swung silently open. Clearly, someone had been watching the closed-circuit security cameras for her arrival. She glanced up at the black eye of the camera pointed at her from on top of the nearby gatepost, gave it a little wave and headed up the drive toward the front door.
Charles was waiting there in his wheelchair, a smile on his face. Next to him stood a good-looking man in his late twenties, with a mop of curly brown hair and big brown eyes. He was dressed in jeans and a button-down Oxford, Italian loafers on his feet.
This must be Gianni.
“Annja, so glad you could make it,” Sir Charles said, reaching out and shaking her hand. “And this man, my dear, is the reason I dragged you all the way out here this morning. Annja Creed, Gianni Travino.”
Bingo.
They shook hands.
“Good to meet you, Gianni.”
Annja didn’t miss the fact that he seemed to hold her hand a fraction of a moment longer than necessary.
They followed Charles inside.
“I suspect you’re eager to get started so we’ll save the tour for later and I’ll take you to the room we’ve set up, if that’s all right with you…?”
They made small talk as he led them through the house. She could feel Gianni’s gaze on her as they
walked, and she assumed he was sizing her up. Her long auburn hair, athletic form and decidedly feminine curves were likely a far cry from the stuffy museum heads he’d been dealing with about the library.
Then again, he might just be admiring her for totally different reasons. And wouldn’t that be nice?
Yes, it would. She hadn’t had a date in what felt like forever; she been too busy dashing here and there around the globe on behalf of Chasing History’s Monsters, never mind her unofficial role as champion of the innocent.
Charles took them to a small room off the second floor. The diary was waiting for her in the center of the table like a long-lost friend and she went to it eagerly, pulling on the pair of white cotton gloves Charles gave her. Then he and Gianni excused themselves to go back to the meal they’d been sharing. Annja didn’t want a thing. She was too excited.
The journal was thin, bound in dark leather and tied together with a red ribbon that had seen better days. Maybe that’s why Charles Davies had tied his invitation with a ribbon. Cute. It rested on a glass platform designed so she could observe the specimen from all sides. It came equipped with two lamps, one shining down on the book from above and the other shining up on it from below. A legal pad and pencil lay on the table, in case she wanted to take notes.
Annja unzipped her knapsack, removing both her laptop and her digital camera. Booting the laptop, she connected it with a thin white cable to the camera and, after verifying the link between the two devices was working properly, began taking photos. This was so much a part of her standard procedure that it had become second nature to her. She always made a visual record of the artifact first, before beginning a more hands-on examination, and she had no intention of taking shortcuts now just because she wasn’t in the field. What she was doing was simply good science, and if there was anything she prided herself on, it was being thorough. That way, the client couldn’t ever accuse her of being sloppy or, worse yet, unprofessional. Her reputation was all she had in this line of work.
Finished with the camera, she turned her attention to the journal itself. She untied the ribbon and set it gently aside. With anticipation thrumming through her veins, she opened the book and stared at the crisp, clean handwriting on the first page. The Italian unfurled smoothly in her mind.
The morning began with a personal summons from the czar.
Three uninterrupted hours later she closed the journal and sat back. Charles and Gianni must have looked in on her, but she hadn’t noticed them and fortunately they’d let her be. The legal pad beside her was covered with notes, and a fresh set of pictures, this time of some of the journal’s pages, were displayed on the laptop. The journal was just what Gianni and, by extension, Charles had claimed it to be—a firsthand account of the design and construction of the vault commissioned by Ivan the Terrible to house the Library of Gold.
At first Fioravanti’s excitement at being chosen for such an important project had practically leaped off the page and he’d been clear and direct in his language. This changed once he began to suspect that he might never live to see the finished result. By the last several pages he’d become downright evasive in his wording.
But what had interested Annja the most was the final page of the journal. Unlike all of the others, this one was clearly in code, with a series of letters laid out in a rectangular arrangement with eleven rows of eighteen letters.
CAECPARTIZSNAIIYOI
AETPCIOUIRCIEIEUTC
WRRWODTOAAEEINMOFN
NTWTBAURYTIOHUPSUO
SNROTWESUVTKUAIASR
AECTMTSIBUNRASHYAR
LDEREGOWOTSWONIUHT
TTCUDUSIHOOASISELE
RMNINEEEREUNNGPFYD
MNOGAPIOOADTSDETUL
IEEUEFGSENRSSTOETO
It was a form of substitution code and, luckily, one she was familiar with. The trick was to lay out the message with the proper number of rows, each with the right number of letters, until something made sense when you read down the vertical rows.
After a little bit of trial and error, Annja settled on twenty-two rows, each with nine letters.
CAECPARTI
ZSNAIIYOL
AETPCLOUL
RCIEIEUTC
WRRWODTOA
AEEINMOFN
NTWTBAURY
TIOHUPSUO
SNROTWESU
VTKUAIASR
AECTMTSIB
UNRASHYAR
LDEREGOWO
TSWONUUHT
TTCUDISIH
OOASISELE
RMNINEEER
EUNNGPFYD
MROGAPIOO
ADTSDETUL
IEEUEFGSF
NRSSTOETO
Then, reading down the rows moving from left to right, Annja spelled out the entire message, inserting breaks between words where they seemed most appropriate. To her surprise, it had been coded into English.
CZAR WANTS VAULT TO REMAIN A SECRET. INTENDS TO MURDER ENTIRE WORK CREW. CANNOT ESCAPE WITHOUT AROUSING SUSPICION BUT AM SENDING A DETAILED MAP WITH GIUSEPPE FOR YOU TO USE AS YOU SEE FIT. GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN. YOUR BROTHER DOLFO.
If we could only get our hands on that map…
Charles’s confident smile. Did he already have it? Is that why he’s so convinced the journal will lead him to the library?
There was only one way to find out.
Annja took a photograph of the page containing the unbroken code and then one of the decoded message she’d worked out on her scratch pad. Afterward she packed everything up and emerged from the examination room to find Charles’s butler, a tall, thin balding man with tufts of gray hair sprouting out of his ears and dressed in a sharply pressed black suit, waiting for her.
“Sir Charles and his guest have retired to the study. Sir Charles left instructions for me to guide you there, if that would be all right with you?”
Annja indicated the hallway before them with a sweep of her arm. “Lead on.”
He took her down a few of the hallways she’d passed through earlier on her way to the examination room and then up a set of stairs to a room on the third floor. Gianni and Charles were deep in discussion over what looked to be a map—presumably of Moscow—but broke off when Annja arrived. The butler served them all drinks—Scotch for their host, espresso for Gianni and a mug of hot cocoa for Annja—and then they settled down to discuss their next steps. Annja and Gianni sat in leather armchairs in front of the desk with Charles in his wheelchair between them.
Annja didn’t waste any time asking the question that was burning her up inside.
“Do you have it?”
Charles looked at her with a cautious expression. “Have what?”
“The map, of course. Or did you think a simple substitution code was going to trip me up?”
He laughed aloud, delighted, it seemed, with both her ability to figure out the code and her attitude. He turned to Gianni and said, “Decoding that message took us, what? Seventy-two hours?”
“Seventy-four and a half,” the younger man replied, his gaze intent on her.
Annja pretended not to notice. “Since I obviously passed your test with flying colors, let’s get down to brass tacks. What exactly am I here for?”
“I should think that would be obvious by now,” Charles replied. “I want you to lead an expedition to find the lost library.”
Annja wasn’t surprised. From the moment he’d mentioned the ancient library she knew that was where he was headed. But she also knew there was much more to an expedition than just deciding to conduct one.
“While I certainly appreciate the confidence you’ve shown in me…” she began, but got no further.
Davies held his hand up. “Now just hang on a minute,” he told her. “Hear me out before you go telling me how crazy this is.”
She hadn’t been thinking quite that negatively, but waved to him to continue nonetheless.
“There have been more than eighteen well-funded attempts to find the library in the past fifty years, including two by Soviet lea
ders Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev. All of them have ultimately failed,” Charles said. “I have no intention of having my expedition join that long and illustrious list.
“That’s why I want to hire you, Annja. You have far more experience than any of the other expedition leaders I would be forced to consider if you turn me down. Though I’m confident you won’t,” he hastened to add.
Don’t be so sure of that.
“Money is no object, so you will have the best gear and whatever equipment you need to retrieve the library once you have confirmed its location. I will also call on my contacts in Russia to provide you whatever access and assistance you need to be successful.”
She had no doubt that his connections would be invaluable, as half the trouble on expeditions like this was securing the right to go where they wanted to go and search where they wanted to search. But she still wasn’t confident about his motives.
“What is it you expect to do with the library once we find it?” she asked.