by Glenn Cooper
“So what’s the answer?” Will asked.
“The answer is…” Spence paused for dramatics, “we don’t know!” He let out a belly laugh. “That’s why we’re driving around Manhattan trying to romance you.”
“I don’t think I can help you.”
“We think you can,” Kenyon said.
“Look,” Spence added, “we know all about the Doomsday case and Mark Shackleton. We knew the guy, not well, mind you, but if someone was going to go off the reservation, it was going to be someone like Shackleton, a grade-A loser, if you ask me. You had some kind of connection to him beforehand, no?”
“He was my college roommate. For a year. What’s your source of information on me?”
“The Club. We’re networked like crazy. We know that Shackleton smuggled out the US database all the way to the horizon. We know that he set up a smoke screen by inventing a serial-killing spree in New York.”
Kenyon sadly shook his head and interrupted. “I still can’t believe the rank cruelty of sending people postcards with their date of death!”
Spence continued, “We know his real purpose was base: to make money from a life-insurance scheme! We know you exposed him. We know he was critically wounded by the watchers. We know you were allowed to retire from the FBI and presumably live an unfettered life. Therefore, Mr. Piper, we strongly suspect, virtually to the point of certainty, that you have unique leverage over the authorities.”
“What would that be?”
“You must have a copy of the database.”
Momentarily, Will was back in Los Angeles, fleeing from the watchers, in the backseat of a taxi, urgently downloading Shackleton’s database from his laptop onto a memory stick. Shackleton: rotting away like a vegetable in some godforsaken back ward.
“Not going to confirm or deny.”
“There’s more to tell,” Kenyon said. “Go on, Henry, tell him everything.”
“Back in the midnineties, I got friendly with one of the watchers, a man named Dane Bentley, to the point that he did me the ultimate Area 51 favor. I was insatiably curious. The only people with access to what I wanted to know were the people tasked with making sure we had no access! The watchers, as you know, are a grim lot, but this fellow, Dane, had enough humanity to break the rules for a friend. He looked up my date of death. October 21, 2010. At the time it seemed very, very far away. Kind of creeps up on you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.” He waited until the next red light before asking, “Did you look yourself up?”
Will didn’t see the point in playing possum any longer. “I did. Given the circumstances, I felt I had to. I’m BTH.”
“That’s good,” Kenyon said. “We’re relieved to hear that, aren’t we, Henry?”
“Yes we are.”
“I never wanted to know my date,” Kenyon said. “Preferred to leave it squarely in God’s hands.”
“Here’s the thing,” Spence said energetically, banging his hands against the steering wheel. “I have ten days to learn the truth. I can’t postpone the inevitable, but goddamn it, I want to know before I die!”
“I can’t see any way I can help you. I really can’t.”
“Show him, Alf,” Spence demanded. “Show him what we found a week ago.”
Kenyon opened a folder and took out a few pages, a printout from a Web site. He handed them to Will. It was an online catalogue from Pierce & Whyte Auctions, an antiquarian bookseller in London, announcing an auction on October 15, 2010, the day after tomorrow. There were multiple color photographs of Lot Number 113, a thick old book with the date 1527 tooled onto the spine. He studied the images and the detailed description of the item that followed. Will skimmed the text, but the gist of it seemed to be that although it was a unique item, the auction house didn’t know what it was. The indicated price range was?2,000 to?3,000.
“Is it what I think it is?” Will asked.
Spence nodded. “It was a well-known piece of trivia around the shop that one volume of the Library was missing. A book from 1527. With under two weeks to live, I discover the son of a bitch has surfaced at an auction! I’ve got to have it! The damned thing’s been floating out there for six centuries! The one missing book out of hundreds of thousands. Why did it get separated from the others? Where’s it been? Did anyone know what it was? Christ, it may tell us more than every other book sitting in the Vault in Groom Lake. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but for all we know, it could be the key to finding out what the heck 2027 is all about! I’ve got a feeling, Mr. Piper, a strong feeling. And by Hades, before I die I’ve got to find out!”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“We want you to go to England tomorrow to buy the book for us at auction. I’m too sick to fly, and Alf here, the stubborn bastard, refuses to leave my side. I’ve got you booked in first class, coming back on Friday night. Nice hotel suite too at Claridge’s.”
Will gave him a black look, started to reply, but Spence interrupted.
“Before you answer, I want you to know that I want something else that’s even more important to me. I want to see the database. I know my own DOD, but I never looked up any of the people who matter to me. For all I know, that fucker, Malcolm Frazier, may Alf’s God strike him dead tomorrow, is onto us. Maybe it’s not my rotten lungs that are going to get me in ten days. Maybe it’s Frazier’s goons. I refuse to shuffle off this mortal coil without knowing if my children and grandchildren are BTH. I want to know if they’re safe. I’m desperate to know! You do these things for me, Mr. Piper, get the book and give me the database, and I’ll make you rich.”
Will was shaking his head before the man even finished. “I’m not going to England tomorrow,” Will said flatly. “I can’t leave my wife and son on short notice. And I’m not touching the database. It’s my insurance policy. I’m not going to risk my family’s safety to satisfy your curiosity. I’m sorry, but it’s not going to happen, even though the rich part sounds pretty good.”
“Take your wife too. And your son. I’ll pay for everything.”
“She can’t get off work just like that. Forget about it.” He imagined how Nancy would react, and it wouldn’t be pretty. “Make a right onto Fifth Avenue and take me home.”
Spence got agitated and started to shout and sputter. Will had to cooperate! The clock was ticking! Couldn’t he see that he was desperate!
The man began to cough severely and wheeze to the degree that Will thought he might lose control and crash into parked cars.
“Henry, calm down!” Kenyon implored. “Stop talking. Let me handle this.”
Spence was speechless by then anyway. He dipped his mottled head and signaled Kenyon to take over.
“Okay, Mr. Piper. We can’t force you to do something against your will. I thought you might not be inclined to get involved. We’ll bid on the book by telephone. At a minimum, allow us to have a courier hand-deliver it to your apartment on Friday night, where we’ll take possession. In the interim, do us the courtesy of considering the rest of Henry’s generous offer. He doesn’t need the entire database, just DODs for fewer than a dozen people. Please, sleep on it.”
Will nodded and remained silent the rest of the way downtown, concentrating on Spence’s wheezing and the hiss of oxygen flowing through his nasal prongs.
At that moment, Malcolm Frazier awoke with a start and a scowl, uncharacteristically disoriented. The credits were rolling on the in-flight movie, and the elderly woman in the middle seat was tapping his granite shoulder to get past him to the lavs. The coach seats on the American flight were not configured for his large, muscular body and his right leg was pressure-numb. He rose and shook out the pins and needles and cursed his superiors for not springing for business class.
There was nothing about this assignment he liked. Sending the head of security at Area 51 on a mission to buy a book at auction seemed ludicrous. Even this book. Why couldn’t they have sent a lab toad? He would have glad
ly dispatched one of his watchers to babysit. But no. The Pentagon wanted him. Unfortunately, he knew why.
The Caracas Event.
It was T minus thirty days and counting.
One of those seminal Area 51 predictions was bearing down on them, but this one was different. They weren’t in their usual reactive, defensive mode. They were going to capitalize on the data, go on the offense. The Pentagon was geared up. The Joint Chiefs were in perpetual session. The Vice President was personally chairing a task force. The full heft of the US government was pushing hard on this. It was the worst possible time for the one missing book to surface. Secrecy was always the top priority at Groom Lake, but no one wanted to be talking about a possible security breech with a month to go until Operation Helping Hand.
Helping Hand!
What Pentagon spin doctor came up with that?
If the missing book wound up in some egghead’s hands, who knew what kinds of questions might be asked, what kinds of facts might surface?
So Frazier understood why he got the assignment. Still, he didn’t have to like it.
The pilot announced they were approaching the coast of Ireland and would land at Heathrow in two hours. At his feet was an empty leather case, specially sized and padded for the job. He was already counting the hours until he was back in Nevada, the priceless 1527 book sitting heavy and snug inside his government-issued shoulder bag.
Chapter 4
The auction room at Pierce & Whyte was off the main hall on the ground floor of the Georgian mansion. Bidders signed in at a reception desk and entered a fine old room with fawn-colored hardwood floors, a high, plastered ceiling, and one entire wall lined with bookcases that required a ladder to reach the top shelves. The auction room faced the High Street, and with the drapes pulled back, yellow shafts of sunlight intersected with neat rows of brown wooden chairs making a chessboard pattern. There was space for seventy to eighty patrons, and on this fine bright Friday morning, the room was filling up briskly.
Malcolm Frazier had arrived early, anxious to get on with it. After registering with a pert girl who cheerfully ignored his surliness, he entered the empty room and sat down in the first row, directly in front of the auctioneer’s podium, where he absently twirled his paddle between a meaty thumb and forefinger. As more people arrived, it became increasingly apparent that Frazier was not the typical antiquarian book buyer. His fellow bidders didn’t look like they could bench-press four hundred pounds or swim underwater a hundred yards or kill a man with one weaponless hand. But Frazier was decidedly more nervous than his nearsighted, flabby brethren, since he had never attended an auction and was only vaguely aware of the protocol.
He checked the catalogue and found Lot 113 deep in the brochure. If this was the order of the day, he was afraid he’d have a long, agonizing sit. His posture was erect and stiff, his feet planted heavily beside his shoulder bag, a big block of a man with a face with more angles than curves. In the second row, the chair behind him stayed empty because he blotted out the view to the podium.
He had learned about the auction from a Pentagon e-mail flashed to his encrypted BlackBerry. He had been pushing a shopping cart at a suburban Las Vegas supermarket at the time, dutifully following his wife through the dairy section. The chime that went off on the device was the high-priority one, an insistent whoop that made his mouth go dry in a Pavlovian way. Nothing good ever followed this particular alert tone.
A long-forgotten Defense Intelligence filter that scanned all electronic media for the keywords “1527” and “book” had been triggered, and a low-level analyst at the DIA forwarded the finding up the line, curious but clueless why anyone in military intelligence would give a hoot over a Web-site listing of an old book coming to auction.
But to the cognoscenti at Area 51, this was a bombshell. The one missing volume. The needle in a haystack, found. Where had the book been all these years? What was its chain of possession? Did anyone know what it was? Could anyone figure it out? Was there anything special about this particular volume that could compromise the lab’s mission? Meetings were held. Plans were drawn. Paperwork was pushed up the line. Funds were allocated and wired. Operation Helping Hand was looming, and Frazier was personally chosen by the Pentagon for the job.
With the room near capacity, the auctioneers arrived and took their positions. Toby Parfitt, impeccably turned out, approached the podium and began adjusting the microphone and his auction implements. To his left, Martin Stein and two other senior members of the books department seated themselves at a draped table. Each dialed into a telephonic connection for off-site bidders and, with receivers pressed against ears, placidly awaited the start of the proceedings.
Peter Nieve, Toby’s junior assistant, positioned himself to his master’s right, a fidgeting dogsbody at the ready. Nieve made sure he was closer to his boss than the new lad, Adam Cottle, who had joined the department only a fortnight earlier. Cottle was a dull-eyed blond in his twenties with short hair and sausage fingers, by looks more of a butcher boy than a book dealer. Apparently his father knew the Managing Director, and Toby was told to take him on, even though he didn’t need the extra help, and Cottle lacked a university degree or, indeed, any relevant experience.
Nieve had been merciless to the fellow. He finally had someone lower on the pecking order, and he delegated his most mundane and humiliating chores to the colorless young man, who would quietly nod and get on with the task like a subservient oaf.
Toby surveyed the audience, nodding curtly to the regulars. There were a few new faces, none more imposing than the large, muscular gentleman seated in front of him, oddly out of place.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the appointed hour has arrived. I am Toby Parfitt, your auctioneer, and I am pleased to welcome you to Pierce & Whyte’s autumn auction of select antiquarian books and manuscripts, representing a diverse selection of high-quality literary collectables. Among the many featured offerings today is a veritable treasure trove of material from the collection of Lord Cantwell’s country house in Warwickshire. I would like to inform you, we are also accepting telephonic bids. Our staff is at the ready to assist you with any inquiries. So without further ado, let us begin.”
A rear door opened, and a pretty female assistant with white gloves entered with the first lot, demurely holding it out in front of her bosom.
Toby acknowledged her, and began, “Lot 1 is a very nice copy of John Ruskin’s The Unity of Art, a lecture delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Manchester School of Art in 1859, published at Oxford in 1870. The copy is lightly browned in its original wrappers and would make a worthy acquisition for Ruskin aficionados and art historians alike. I would entertain starting bids of?100.”
Frazier grunted and steeled himself for an ordeal.
In New York City, it was five hours earlier, two hours before the sun would crack the chilly gloom over the East River. Spence and Kenyon had awoken early at their nighttime domicile, a Wal-Mart parking lot in Valley Stream, Long Island. In the bus’s kitchen, they made coffee and bacon and eggs, then hit the road to beat the rush hour into lower Manhattan. It was four thirty when they arrived at Will’s door. He was waiting at the curb, shivering from the cold but steaming from an early-morning argument.
It hadn’t been a great idea to argue with his wife while she was breast-feeding. He figured that out halfway through their contretemps. There was something mean-spirited about raising his voice and drowning out his son’s gurgling and sucking, not to mention wiping Nancy’s usual look of maternal serenity off her face. On the other hand, he’d made a promise to help Spence, and he argued that at least he hadn’t agreed to haul off to England. Nancy was hardly placated. For her, Doomsday was in the past, and the Library was best forgotten. She understood the danger of black groups like the watchers. She was all about the present and the future. She had a baby she loved and a husband she cherished. Life was pretty good right now, but it could turn on a dime. She told him not to play with fire.
Will wa
s nothing if not stubborn. He had grabbed his jacket, stormed out of the apartment, then immediately started feeling rotten. But he refused to turn tail and apologize. The give-and-take of married life was a concept he understood intellectually, but it wasn’t ingrained, and might never be for all he knew. He mumbled something to himself about being pussy-whipped and hit the elevator down button hard, like he was trying to poke someone’s eye out.
As soon as he boarded the bus, Will admitted, “Good thing we’re not doing this in my place.”
“In the doghouse, Mr. Piper?” Spence asked.
“Just call me Will from now on, okay?” he answered moodily. “You got coffee?” He slouched on the sofa.
Kenyon poured while Spence touched GET DIRECTIONS on his GPS unit and pulled away from the curb. Their destination was the Queens Mall, where Will figured they could park the bus without much hassle.
When they arrived, it was still dark, and the mall was several hours from opening. The parking lot was wide open and Spence parked at the periphery. His cell phone had five bars, so they wouldn’t have to worry about signal quality.
“It’s 10:00 A.M.. in London. I’ll dial in,” Spence said, getting up and wheeling his oxygen box.
He placed the cell phone on the kitchen table on speaker mode, and the three of them sat around it while he punched in the international number. An operator connected them into the auction, and an officious voice answered, “Martin Stein here of Pierce & Whyte. With whom am I speaking?”
“This is Henry Spence calling from the United States. Hear me okay?”
“Yes, Mr. Spence, loud and clear. We’ve been expecting your call. If you could indicate which lots you intend to bid on, it would be most useful.”
“Just one, Lot 113.”
“I see. Well, I think we might not get to that item until well into the second hour.”
“I’ve got my phone plugged in and I’ve paid my wireless bill, so we’ll be okay on this end.”