Book of Souls wp-2

by Glenn Cooper

  In Lord Cantwell’s bedroom, the old man was dead of smoke inhalation before the flames arrived. When they did, creeping up the walls and spreading over the furniture onto his night table, they caught the corner of the last thing he had read before going to bed.

  The Shakespeare poem curled into a hot yellow ball, then it was gone.

  Chapter 27

  DeCorso pulled his car into the Hertz lot at Heathrow off the Northern Perimeter Road. It was 3:00 A.M… he was tired, and he wanted to get over to the Airport Marriott, wash the smell of accelerants off his body, and get a few hours of sleep before his rendezvous with Piper. Since it was the middle of the night, and there were no lot attendants, he carried his bag into the lobby. There was a single night clerk, a bored young Sikh in a turban and polo shirt, who mechanically checked him in and began to settle the bill.

  The clerk’s demeanor changed and he started to glance at his terminal.

  “Any problems?” DeCorso asked.

  “Keeps freezing up on me. Just need to check the server. Won’t be a minute.”

  He disappeared through a door. DeCorso swung the terminal around to have a look but the screen was blank. He shifted his weight from leg to leg in frustration and fatigue and drummed the counter with his fingers.

  The speed with which the police arrived impressed him purely from a professional point of view. Blue lights flashed into the lot and surrounded the office. DeCorso knew that run-of-the-mill British cops didn’t pack, but these guys had assault weapons. Probably an airport antiterror unit. They meant business, and when they yelled for him to get down on the floor, he did, without hesitation, but that didn’t stop him from angrily swearing out loud.

  When he was cuffed with plastic wristbands and hauled to his feet, he looked the ranking officer in the face. He was Special Branch, a deputy inspector who was looking as smug as the cat who’d caught the canary. DeCorso demanded, “What’s this about?”

  “You ever been to Wroxall, in Warwickshire, sir?”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Funnily enough, the local constabulary had a report from a member of the public of a suspicious vehicle loitering about up there on a country lane. Your vehicle, sir.”

  “I can’t help you.”

  “There was a fire with casualties a few hours ago at a house in Wroxall. The number plate of your Ford Mondeo matches the report. We’ve been waiting for you to turn up.” The DI sniffed a few times. “Do I detect a smell of kerosene, sir?”

  DeCorso sneered at the officer. “I’ve got only one thing to say to you.”

  “What would that be, sir?”

  “I’ve got diplomatic immunity.”

  Will awoke early at the Heathrow Marriott, unaware of the fire and its aftermath. Unimpeded, he caught the shuttle bus to Terminal 5, boarded the 9:00 A.M.. British Airways flight to JFK, and filled the first-class cabin with snores most of the way across the Atlantic.

  Will landed in New York and cleared customs before noon, local time. He strode through the arrivals hall, pulled out his cell phone, then put it away without using it. He’d hop in a cab and surprise Nancy at work. That was the play.

  It was just before noon in Nevada, and Frazier was at the Area 51 Ops Center in a panic. They were following local news feeds from the UK and had confirmation that the first part of DeCorso’s mission had been successful. Cantwell Hall, a stately old home in Shakespeare Country, was a smoking crime scene. But where the hell was DeCorso? It wasn’t like him to go dark on this kind of assignment. They tried raising him by phone and e-mail, but he was off the grid.

  Frazier’s line lit up, and he answered, hopeful it was his man, but the familiar voice of an attache to the Secretary of the Navy was there instead, instructing him to hold for Secretary Lester. Frazier banged his fist against the desk in frustration. This was not a good time for Lester to be calling for an update.

  “Frazier!” Lester boomed. “What the hell?”

  Frazier was confused. What kind of way was that to start a conversation? “Sorry, sir?”

  “I just got a call from the State Department, who got a call from the US embassy in London. One of your guys is in the slammer invoking diplomatic immunity!”

  Will stepped from the terminal out into a drizzling, washed-out morning. He was beginning to head to the taxi stand, when he heard a deep honk and saw Spence’s bus rolling toward the terminal. He frowned with indignation. He’d get to them in time, but first he wanted to make amends to his wife and grab Philly and kiss his chubby little face. The bus door opened, and he had to deal with Spence’s fat, bearded face instead. Unexpectedly, Spence didn’t look pleased to see him. He urgently waved him on board.

  Kenyon was hovering and said fussily, “We’ve been circling. Thank God you’re here, and thank God we found you.”

  Will sat as Spence pressed the gas pedal. “Why didn’t you call my cell?”

  “Didn’t dare,” Spence said. He looked gray. “They burned the house. It’s all over the UK news.”

  Will’s gyroscopes went haywire, his equilibrium helter-skelter; he felt seasick, like throwing up. “The girl? Her grandfather?”

  “I’m sorry, Will,” Kenyon said. “We don’t have much time.”

  His eyes welled, and he started to shake. “Take me downtown to the Federal building. I’ve got to get my wife.”

  “Tell us what you found,” Spence said emphatically.

  “You drive, I’ll talk. Then we’re done. For good.”

  Frazier ran through the corridors of the Truman Building, with two of his men trotting after him. They rode the elevator to the ground level and jumped into a waiting Humvee to take them out to the runway. A Learjet was scrambled and waiting on the tarmac, and Frazier ordered an immediate wheels-up. The pilots asked their destination. “New York City,” Frazier growled. “I don’t care how long it usually takes. Get there faster.”

  Will condensed the previous days into a staccato military-style debrief. All the wonder of discovery, the exhilaration of the chase, the thrill of revelation were flattened by the crushing news. Had he caused their deaths by sticking his nose in? The notion flashed through his mind. Yes and no, he concluded bitterly, yes and no. Some goddamned, red-haired monk savant had written their names down on a piece of parchment a thousand years ago: Mors. Yesterday was their day. That’s all there was to it. Nothing could have changed their fate.

  It could drive you crazy, he thought.

  It should drive you crazy.

  When he was done with his robotic briefing, he handed Kenyon the originals of the Felix letter, the Calvin letter, the Nostradamus letter, and Isabelle’s neatly handwritten translations. On the flight from London, he had split the Felix letter into two parts as he and Isabelle had found them, to recapture the drama of its discovery. Now, he didn’t much care about the impact of storytelling.

  Will closed his eyes while Kenyon read aloud the translations and Spence drove, his teeth clenched, his heavy chest rising and falling, his oxygen lines sibilating.

  Kenyon provided running commentary and gasping asides. Although it would be hard to find a more mild-mannered, mild-tempered man, the Cantwell letters were electrifying his thin body, turning his eyes wild.

  The Felix letter thrilled them. In one fell swoop, all their years of speculative debate on the origin of the Library was replaced by a contemporaneous account. Kenyon cried: “You see, you big oaf, I was right! From God’s mind to a scribe’s hand. This is absolute proof. Finally, man has its answer to the age-old question.”

  Spence shook his head. “Proof of what? Why God? Why not the supernatural or mystical with all this seventh-son business. Or extraterrestrials, for that matter? Why is it always God?”

  “Oh, please, Henry! It’s as plain as the nose on your face.” Then, all of a sudden, he realized the letter wasn’t finished. “Where’s the end of this? Is there more?”

  Will raised his lowered head to say, “Yeah, there’s more. Keep going.”

  Kenyon
tackled the Calvin letter next and he read the last of it with rising triumph in his voice.

  “Maybe you’re not convinced, Henry, but the greatest religious scholar of his day damn well was!”

  “What else was he going to think?” Spence huffed. “He fit it into the context he was familiar with. No surprises there.”

  “You’re impossible!”

  “You’re monolithic.”

  Kenyon offered, “Well, here’s something we can agree on-this is proof positive where Calvin got his bedrock belief in predestination.”

  “I’ll give you that,” Spence said.

  Kenyon jumped on him, “And if I choose to believe with total certainty, as Calvin did, that God knows everything that will happen because he has chosen what will happen and therefore brings it about, then you’ll have to give me that too!”

  “Believe what you like.”

  The two old friends batted their arguments back and forth, making no effort to draw Will in. They could see he wanted to be left alone.

  The Nostradamus letter made Spence chuckle. “I always thought he was an old charlatan!”

  “Looks like you were half-right,” Kenyon exclaimed. “For some reason the full powers weren’t passed down the female line. He inherited half a deck. That’s why his stuff is so sketchy.”

  The traffic was heavy on the FDR Drive, but the bus was steadily approaching their lower Manhattan exit. “Okay, Alf,” Spence said. “Time for clue number four. That’s going to be the piece de resistance, isn’t it, Will?”

  “Yeah,” Will answered ruefully, “it’s the big enchilada, all right.”

  Kenyon turned to the last pages in Will’s folder. He read Isabelle’s translation of the conclusion of Felix’s letter in a hushed monotone, and when he was done, no one spoke. It had started raining again, and the wiper blades beat like a slow metronome.

  Finally, Kenyon whispered, “Finis Dierum.”

  “That’s what I always feared,” Spence said. “Worst-case scenario. Shit.”

  “We don’t know for sure,” Kenyon sputtered.

  “We know I’m going to be dead in three days,” Spence snapped.

  “Yes, old friend, we know that. But this is altogether different. There could be other explanations for their mass suicide. They could have gone on the fritz and lost their bearings. Mental illness. An infection. Who knows what?”

  “Or they could have been spot on. At least admit it’s possible!”

  “Of course, it’s possible. Happy?”

  “You’ve satisfied a dying man’s wish to have you agree with me. Keep it up for another few days, will you?”

  Will broke in with the pedestrian instruction, “Turn here.”

  He was sick of these old farts, sick of the Library and everything associated with it. He’d been wrong to let himself get sucked back into their bizarre world. He wanted to see the back of Spence and Kenyon and forget all this happened. Twenty twenty-seven was tomorrow. He wanted his wife and son. He wanted today.

  He guided Spence to the FBI headquarters at Liberty Plaza and waited for him to open the door of the idling bus.

  “End of the road, fellows,” Will said. “I’m sorry about next week. What can I say? You’re still letting me have the bus?”

  “The title and keys will be sent to you. Someone will tell you where to pick it up.”

  “Thank you.”

  The passenger door was still closed.

  Spence exhaled forcefully. “You’ve got to let me see the database! I’ve got to know about my family! I’m not dying without finding out whether they make it to 2027!”

  Will exploded. “Forget it! I’m not doing another goddamned thing for you guys! You’ve put me and my family at risk! I’ve got a whole lot of trouble on my plate now thanks to you, and I don’t have a fucking clue how I’m going to get out of this. Your watchers are no more than paid assassins with get-out-of-jail-free cards.”

  Spence tried to grab his arm, but Will recoiled. “Open the door.”

  Spence turned to Kenyon with a pleading look of desperation.

  “Is there anything that we can do to persuade you otherwise, Will?” Kenyon asked.

  “No there isn’t.”

  Kenyon pursed his lips and handed him a plastic carrier bag, bulging with objects. “At least take these and think about it. Call us if you change your mind.” He plucked a cell phone off his belt clip and waved it at Will. “They’re preprogrammed with our number. Plenty of minutes. We’re going to have to fly back to Las Vegas. I’ll get someone to deliver the bus.”

  Will looked inside the bag. There were a half dozen AT &T prepaid mobile phones. He knew the drill well enough. The watchers were bugging and tapping everything in sight. Anonymous prepaids were the only communication systems they couldn’t breach. The sight of the phones and all they implied nauseated him, but he took the bag with him when he climbed down and left the bus.

  He didn’t look back, and he didn’t wave.

  One of the uniformed security guards at the lobby desk recognized Will and called out, “Hey, look what the cat dragged in! How you doin’, man? How’s retirement?”

  “Life goes on,” Will answered. “Any chance I can go up and surprise my wife?”

  “Sorry, man. Got to be signed in and escorted. Same ole same ole.”

  “I understand. Can you call her for me and tell her I’m down here?”

  She flew off the elevator and flung her arms around his neck and when he straightened his back, her feet lifted off the floor. The lobby was crowded, but neither of them cared.

  “I missed you,” she said.

  “Ditto. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. You’re home. It’s over.”

  He let go of her. She knew there was something very wrong when she looked up into his mournful face. “I’m sorry to tell you this, Nancy, but it’s not over.”

  Chapter 28

  DeCorso sat on the hard bench of his detention cell in the basement of the Met’s Heathrow Airport Police Station. They had his belt and shoelaces and had stripped him of his watch and papers. If he was nervous, he didn’t show it. He looked more like an inconvenienced passenger than a murder suspect.

  When three policemen came to collect him, he assumed they’d be escorting him all the way to the terminal, where he’d be bundled onto a flight stateside, but instead, he was deposited only yards away in a bare, harshly lit interview room.

  Two middle-aged men in dark suits came in, sat down, and announced that their conversation would not be recorded.

  “You going to tell me who you are?” DeCorso asked.

  The man directly across the table from him looked over the top of his glasses. “It’s not for you to ask.”

  “Did someone forget to tell you guys I invoked diplomatic immunity?”

  The other man sneered. “We don’t give a flying fuck about diplomatic immunity, Mr. DeCorso. You don’t exist, and neither do we.”

  “If I don’t exist, why are you interested in me?”

  “Your lot killed one of our lads in New York,” the fellow with glasses said. “Know anything about that?”

  “My lot?”

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” the other man said. “We’re going to tell you what we know, so we can cut through all the bullshit, okay? You’re Groom Lake. Malcolm Frazier’s your boss. He was on our patch quite recently trying to buy an interesting old book. He was outbid by a telephone bidder in New York. Our man delivers it, and before he can report in, he’s snuffed. Then you show up this morning reeking of accelerants fresh from a barbecue involving the book’s original owner.”

  DeCorso kept his best poker face and said nothing.

  The second man picked up the thread. “So here’s the thing, Mr. DeCorso. You’re a guppy, nothing more. You know it, and we know it. But we’re going to turn you into a very large whale as far as your government is concerned if you don’t play along with us. We want to know things. We want to know about the current operationa
l capabilities of Area 51. We want to know why you’re so keen on the missing book. We want to know the intel behind the Caracas Event. We want to know what’s coming down the lane. In short, we want a window into your world, Mr. DeCorso.”

  DeCorso hardly reacted. All they got was, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  The man with the glasses took them off for a handkerchief polish. “We’re prepared to fight your immunity claim. We’re prepared to publicly leak your role in the arson attack, which will embarrass your government and inconvenience your career, I should think. On the other hand, if you come over the wall and work with us, you will find yourself greatly enriched, the proud owner of a Swiss bank account. We want to buy you, Mr. DeCorso.”

  DeCorso shook his head in disbelief and fell out of stony-faced character to exclaim, “You want me to work for MI6?”

  “It’s called the SIS now. This isn’t a Bond movie.”

  DeCorso huffed out a laugh. “I’m going to say this one more time: I’m claiming diplomatic immunity.”

  There was a sharp metallic knock, and the door opened. One of the senior Met officers barged in and declared to the man with glasses, “Sorry to interrupt, sir, but there are gentlemen to see you.”

  “Tell them to wait.”

  “It’s the US ambassador and the Foreign Secretary.”

  “You mean their people?”

  “No, it’s them. In person!”

  DeCorso stood up, stretched his arms over his head, and smiled. “Can I have my shoelaces back?”

  Will and Nancy sat in the back of a taxi heading up the Henry Hudson Parkway toward White Plains. Nancy clutched Phillip to her chest and didn’t speak. He could tell she was still absorbing the details he’d laid on her back at their apartment when Moonflower handed over the baby and left them alone.