by A. G. Riddle
“What else do you have?”
“That’s it.”
“This is it?”
“Well, thought you’d want to know straightaway.”
Desmond did. But the news that his brother had indeed survived the fire only made him even hungrier to know more.
“Find him, Arlo. Or find out what happened.”
The weathered man fixed Desmond with a fake sympathetic grin. Finally, he exhaled theatrically, as if regretting the bad news he was about to deliver. “Look, that there weren’t exactly easy to come by. Had to search half the hospitals in South Australia. This little manhunt of yours is getting right expensive, Desy. I mean, my time and expenses is already going on three large.”
Arlo glanced away, waiting. Desmond knew the routine. The man was testing his client to see how deep his pockets were—and how far he was willing to extend his arms.
“I’ll give you two weeks,” Desmond said. “And ten thousand Australian when you find him or a death certificate.”
Arlo spread out his hands. “Hey, I bill by the hour. I can’t control where the case takes me—”
“I pay for results. If the ten thousand doesn’t work for you, we’ll settle up now.”
Arlo glanced away, as if struggling with the decision. “Aw, all right. At this point I just want to see you reunited with your baby brother.”
Every day that went by was agony for Desmond, knowing his brother was alive, that he had suffered, and was likely still suffering, possibly alone.
He slept little. His mind was a record on repeat, replaying that day twenty years ago, standing in front of his childhood home, the flames licking the walls and climbing the roof while he screamed his brother’s name. He knew the truth now: if he had waited, if he hadn’t rushed into the fire, he could have searched the remains for Conner, possibly gotten him to the hospital sooner. They could have been together. Grown up together. How would it have changed their lives? What had happened to Conner? The questions and guilt haunted him.
He tried to focus on Yuri’s final mystery, but couldn’t concentrate.
So, as he had in San Francisco, he turned to exercise for escape. He ran in the Adelaide Park Lands, pushing himself harder each day, to the point when the endorphins shut down his mind and freed him.
Days went by. Arlo didn’t call.
Desmond ran every morning and again in the afternoon. In the spring rain and in the blazing South Australian sun.
On a clear Sunday morning, at the end of a seven-mile run, realization struck him when he least expected it. He hadn’t even been thinking about Yuri’s question, but the answer came, unbidden. Every piece of Yuri’s puzzle fit together, they were like images in a vast panoramic landscape Desmond had been staring at his whole life, but had only ever seen in parts. Now his eyes were wide open.
He drew out his phone and dialed Yuri.
“Yes?”
“I know what the Western Europeans had, why they colonized America, and Australia, and India, Hong Kong, and Africa five hundred years ago.”
Silence on the line.
“They had you, Yuri.”
Chapter 26
The Gulfstream jet banked hard and dove, throwing Peyton into the central aisle. Lin was up first. She ran to the cockpit where Avery was shouting into the radio. Peyton saw the Royal Air Force jets a second later.
She caught the gist of the conversation in clips and phrases as the plane leveled out and flew away from the Scottish mainland. Apparently the Rubicon program had established relationships with governments around the world. Avery was verified via the RAF ground operator, and the jets soon fell in beside them and acted as an escort.
Through the oval window, Peyton got her first look at civilization in a month. Or what was left of it. In the midday light, she saw only deserted highways littered with burned cars. Military vehicles were massed around schools and stadiums and hospitals, like swarms of bees dotting the green expanse and nearly empty cities. A few cars moved along the smaller roads—people going out for supplies, no doubt. But for the most part, the world below appeared to have ground to a halt. Everyone was hunkered down.
Green fields surrounded the Oxford airport. Like Post/Rogers, it had only a single runway. Two dozen armored troop carriers and canvas-backed trucks were parked at the terminal.
As soon as they landed, twenty troops marched out onto the tarmac to greet them. They were dressed in camo and body armor, with beige berets featuring a black patch. The patch showed a sword between wings, with a phrase below: Who Dares Wins. SAS troops. Whoever Avery had made contact with had requested the very best to accompany them.
Inside the terminal, they made ten copies of the data Nigel had rescued from the Arktika. Lin refused to tell her hosts exactly what the data was, what she intended to do with it, or even whom she was working with. She simply asked them to transport copies to the governments of the US, Canada, Australia, Germany, and Russia, and to hold five copies at different locations in the UK. She wasn’t taking any chances.
When the data was on its way, Lin and the others—and their SAS escort—loaded into Land Rovers and drove into Oxford. Peyton took in every detail. Despite spending the first six years of her life in London, she had never visited Oxford. It was a quaint town, filled with old stone buildings with Gothic architecture. Ivy grew up the walls, crawling toward the steep-pitched slate roofs. The village was almost medieval, like something out of a fairy tale, an ancient town frozen in time.
As they turned onto Catte Street, it began to rain, a slow drizzle that blotted out the sun like a curtain being drawn. The city seemed to shrink around them as haze filled the streets.
The convoy stopped at the Old Bodleian Library, and Peyton stepped out into the cold December day. A gust of wind carried a chill, though it was nothing compared to the bone-penetrating gales in the Arctic. And despite the cold, there was no snow on the roofs.
There were also no people in sight, only a few abandoned bicycles leaning against the iron fence across the street. Christmas was in a few days, but no wreaths hung in the windows, no garlands, no strings of lights. In this town devoted to tradition, survival had taken priority.
The Bodleian’s Great Gate lay ahead. At five stories tall, it was the largest gate tower in England. It was also called the Tower of the Five Orders of Architecture, owing to its Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and composite decorative elements. Peyton took in the beautiful stone structure as they marched past its heavy wooden double doors. A ticket booth for tours sat deserted, and beyond, the Old Schools Quadrangle was also empty.
Their footsteps echoed in the stone courtyard as they crossed, altering their course only to go around a bronze statue of the Earl of Pembroke, who was the chancellor of the university from 1617 to 1630.
Another set of wooden double doors led to the library’s vast entrance hall. Large circular information desks lay at each end. A tall man who looked to be about sixty introduced himself as the Bodleian’s librarian. Ten younger assistant librarians crowded behind him, taking in the SAS troops and Peyton’s party with expressions of surprise and curiosity.
On the plane, Lin, Peyton, and Avery had discussed how to find a first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Normally, they would have used SOLO—Search Oxford Libraries Online. But Avery’s Rubicon contact had confirmed that SOLO had gone offline when the internet routers had been compromised. The contact had asked for the title they were looking for, but Lin had been emphatic that they not reveal it. It was Lin’s decision instead that they would select three librarians at random to accompany Peyton, Avery, and herself as they searched for the books. Nigel would remain behind with the SAS troops and Navy SEALs. Lin still didn’t trust him enough to include him in the search.
Lin didn’t introduce herself or say anything about what they were doing here. She scanned the librarians and pointed at three of them: two men and a woman. Together, they made their way out of the entrance hall.
The room they entered
was breathtaking. It reminded Peyton of a medieval church. On each side were five wide windows, at least twelve feet across and twenty feet high, with Gothic arches and stained-glass panes. The ceiling was ribbed in stone. Peyton felt like she was walking through the belly of a giant whale, seeing its back and spine from the inside. The ribs met in star formations that flowed toward the floor like stone icicles hanging from the ceiling.
And something about the place was familiar. “What’s this part of the library called?” she asked the librarian walking next to her, a woman about her age with brown hair and glasses that were slightly too large for her face.
“It’s the Divinity School. It was built in the 1400s. It’s the oldest surviving purpose-built university building.”
Peyton nodded.
Another librarian, a young man with black hair said, “It was in Harry Potter. The infirmary.”
That was how Peyton knew it.
The female librarian shook her head, clearly perturbed that pop culture was coming to define this historic place.
They stopped in the middle of the room, and Lin said, “What we’re about to do here is very important. Many lives are at stake. You must not reveal anything I’m about to tell you or what occurs after.”
The librarians went wide-eyed. Lin waited for everyone to nod.
“We’re looking for a book. A first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”
The female librarian spoke up. “Which first edition?”
“What do you mean?” Lin asked.
“Well, the first print run was planned for two thousand books. But they were scrapped at Carroll’s direction.”
“Elaborate.”
“The publisher, The Clarendon Press, now MacMillan, sent Carroll fifty advance copies in June of 1865—copies the author could give away. But when the illustrator, John Tenniel, saw them, he told Carroll that he was dissatisfied with the way his drawings were printed. Carroll asked for the advance copies he had sent out to be returned, and he told MacMillan to sell the rest of the two thousand books as waste paper.”
“He was a perfectionist,” Lin said, almost to herself.
“Yes. ‘First Alice,’ as the editions are called, are exceedingly rare. Sixteen of the known copies are in institutions. Another five are in private hands. Christie’s auctioned a copy last year. Bidding reached almost two million dollars, but it failed to sell.”
“Yes,” Lin said. “That’s the edition we’re looking for. Are there any copies here at Oxford?”
“Of course. Carroll was one of the dons of the university. It was written here. There’s a copy at the library in Lady Margaret Hall. Another in the closed stacks at Weston. And the last is upstairs, in the Duke Humfrey’s Library.”
“Good. We’ll form three teams—each led by one of the three of us,” Lin motioned to Peyton and Avery, “and accompanied by a librarian.”
Lin assigned Peyton to the upstairs location, and Peyton knew why: safety. Most of the SAS troops were located here, and going outside was a risk; Yuri or his men could already be in Oxford, waiting to ambush them.
The female librarian, who introduced herself as Eleanor, led Peyton upstairs. The Duke Humfrey’s Library was incredible. Stacks of books on dark-stained wood shelves stretched the length of a two-story room. The hazy, midday light blazed through the window. Peyton recognized this place as well, and she placed it this time: this was the library used in the Harry Potter movies. The setting had served as a turning point in so many of the stories.
“Here it is,” Eleanor said.
She spread a cloth on a nearby table and donned white cloth gloves. She withdrew a silver key from her pocket, opened a glass cabinet, and gently withdrew a small red volume. There were no words on the cover, just an emblem in the center: a circle, engraved in gold, containing the silhouette of a girl with flowing hair holding a pig. Three golden lines ran around the cover’s edges.
Gripping it with both hands, Eleanor turned the book so Peyton could see the back cover, which also had a round golden emblem, this one containing an illustration of a Cheshire cat. She then set the book on the table and glanced at Peyton, who nodded for her to proceed.
Eleanor opened the book.
The title page read:
ALICE’S
ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND
by
Lewis Carrol
With Forty-Two Illustrations
by
John Tenniel
Eleanor continued turning the pages gently, past the table of contents and to the first page of chapter one, which was obscured by a see-through piece of trace paper. It looked as though someone had begun tracing something, but stopped. Eleanor turned past the loose page, revealing the illustration and text below it.
The chapter heading read: DOWN THE RABBIT-HOLE. The illustration featured a rabbit standing upright wearing a waistcoat and holding an umbrella. He was peering at a pocket-watch.
“I’ve never seen an original copy with vellum pages,” Eleanor said.
It was a beautiful volume, but Peyton was more interested in that sheet of trace paper. “Can you hold that paper up to the light?” she asked.
Eleanor removed the semi-transparent page from the book and held it so the light from the two-story window shone through it.
Peyton activated her comm. “We’ve got something here.”
Her mother responded instantly. “Say nothing more over the radio. Avery, retrieve your book, but don’t open it. We’ll meet back at the Divinity School.”
Eleanor carefully returned the trace paper to the book. “Should we go back down, or…?”
“No. We’ve got time. Keep going.”
Eleanor continued turning pages. There were more pieces of trace paper—one for each illustration at the beginning of the first five chapters.
“What are these?” Eleanor asked.
“I don’t know.” But Peyton had a sense of it now. Dr. Paul Kraus had left this here—these were his bread crumbs. What they meant, she didn’t know.
When all three teams had gathered in the ornate room in the Divinity School, Lin dismissed the librarians and SAS troops, requesting that they remain sequestered in the Duke Humfrey’s Library above. The two Navy SEALs led Nigel into the room, where the three first-edition Alice copies lay on a long table.
“We searched the other two,” Lin said. “No markings or notes.” She held up the first page of trace paper Peyton had found. “This is what Kraus wanted us to find.”
Avery was unimpressed. “An incomplete drawing?”
“It’s complete enough,” Lin murmured.
She took a sheet of paper from her coat pocket and began drawing. Peyton didn’t recognize what it was at first, but when Lin sketched the Strait of Gibraltar, she realized Lin was making a map of Western Europe.
Lin placed the trace paper on top of her crudely drawn map. The lines met for the most part.
“A map,” Nigel said. “We’ll need to get a detailed—”
“I know where this is,” Lin said.
The group fell silent.
“It’s in northern Spain, outside Santillana del Mar. There’s a cave there that once changed our understanding of human history. And I think it’s about to once again.”
“The Cave of Altamira,” Nigel said.
“Yes. I believe that cave is our rabbit hole.”
Chapter 27
Yuri’s plane was flying thirty thousand feet above the Atlantic when his sat phone rang. It was Melissa Whitmeyer, the Citium’s best remaining analyst.
“We’re tracking Lin Shaw’s plane off the coast of Spain. It’s losing altitude.”
“Likely destination?”
“Santander.”
That didn’t make sense. Unless—
Whitmeyer answered his unspoken question. “We checked. There’s no record of Shaw ever visiting there.”
“What about Kraus?”
Keyboard keys clacking.
“No. The Beagle never stopped t
here either.”
“Interesting.”
“We’ll be out of sat range in thirty minutes. Shaw might know that. She could be stopping to change planes.”
“Next flyover?”
“Two hours. We’ve got most of the satellites tasked to coordinate the Looking Glass transfer in rural areas.”
That was a problem. If he couldn’t figure out where Lin Shaw was going, he was going to lose her.
“Keep digging. On Shaw and Kraus. And activate everyone we have in Western Europe. I want the planes on the tarmac and ready.”
Chapter 28
They landed in Santander, a port city on Spain’s northern coast, and drove southwest on the A-67. Their entourage had grown. The SAS troops had followed them to Spain, and been joined by just as many soldiers from the Spanish Army’s Special Operations Command. Adams and Rodriguez were still with them, as was Nigel.
Peyton stared out the SUV’s window at the rolling green countryside. It was beautiful, almost like a rainforest: damp and cloudy, with lush vegetation unrestrained by civilization. The terrain grew mountainous as they moved inland. One of the Spanish special forces remarked that Spain was the second most mountainous country in Europe. Only Switzerland had more mountains. Peyton was happy to have the conversation; the others all seemed lost in thought, perhaps contemplating what they’d find at the Cave of Altamira.
The sun was setting when they arrived at the cave complex. Vehicles broke from the convoy as they entered. One blocked the access road, while two others barricaded the entrances and exits to the car park. The remainder parked at the visitor center, which was set into the hill and had a flat roof covered in grass, making it almost disappear into the landscape.
Lin forbid any of the SAS or Spanish troops from accompanying them into the cave, so they set about establishing a defensive perimeter and making camp inside the visitor center. The museum section of the visitor center had a large room with rough stone walls and ceilings, replicating the cave Altamira’s prehistoric residents had inhabited, and its plate-glass windows looked out on the green, hilly countryside beyond. The troops seemed to like it; they unrolled their sleeping bags there and laid down their packs. Their piles of munitions and supplies contrasted bizarrely with the exhibits and informational placards.