by Steve Berry
“You in charge?”
“I have that honor.”
“I want to see the library.”
“To do that, you must release the man you’re holding.”
Sabre shoved the Guardian away. “All right.” He leveled the gun at the Librarian. “You take me.”
“Certainly.”
MALONE AND PAM ENTERED THE CHURCH. TWO ROWS OF monolithic granite columns, painted white, their capitals gilded, displayed medallions of Old Testament prophets and New Testament apostles. Frescoes on the walls showed Moses receiving the Law and confronting the Burning Bush. Reliquaries, patens, chalices, and crosses rested in glass-fronted cupboards.
No sign of McCollum or Straw Hat.
To Malone’s right, in an alcove, he spotted two bronzed cages. One held hundreds of sandstone-colored skulls, piled upon one another in a ghastly hillock. The other housed a hideous assortment of bones in an anatomical jumble.
“Guardians?” Pam asked.
“Has to be.”
Something else about the sunlit nave caught his attention. No pews. He wondered if this was an Orthodox church. Hard to tell from the decoration, which seemed an eclectic mixture of many religions.
He crossed the mosaic floor to the opposite alcove.
Inside, perched on a stone shelf, backdropped by a bright stained-glass window, was a full skeleton dressed in embroidered purple robes and a cowl, propped in a sitting position, head slightly atilt, as if questioning. The finger bones, still clinging to bits of dried flesh and nails, clutched a staff and a rosary. Three words were chiseled into the granite below.
CVSTOS RERVM PRVDENTIA
“Prudence is the guardian of things,” he said, translating, but his Greek was good enough to know that the first word could also be read as “wisdom.” Either way, the message seemed clear.
What sounded like a door opening then closing echoed from beyond an iconostasis at the front of the church. Clutching the gun, he crept forward and stepped through the doorway in the center of the elaborately decorated panel.
A single door waited on the far side.
He came close.
The panels were cedar, and upon them were inscribed the words from Psalm 118. THIS GATE OF THE LORD, INTO WHICH THE RIGHTEOUS SHALL ENTER.
He grasped the rope handle and pulled. The door opened with a cacophony of moans. But he noticed something else. The ancient panel was equipped with a modern addition—an electronic deadbolt fit to the opposite side. A wire snaked a path to the hinge, then disappeared into a hole drilled into the stone.
Pam saw it, too.
“This is weird,” she said.
He agreed.
Then he stared beyond the doorway and his confusion multiplied.
SEVENTY-FIVE
MARYLAND
Stephanie leaped from the chopper that had deposited her and Cassiopeia back at Camp David. Daniels waited for them on the landing pad. Stephanie marched straight for him as the helicopter rose back into the morning sky and disappeared across the treetops.
“You may be the president of the United States,” she said in a sharp tone, “but you’re a sorry son of a bitch. You sent us in there knowing we’d be attacked.”
Daniels looked incredulous. “How would I have known that?”
“And a helicopter with a marksman happened to be in the neighborhood?” Cassiopeia asked.
The president motioned. “Let’s take a walk.”
They strolled down a wide path. Three Secret Service agents followed twenty yards behind.
“Tell me what happened,” Daniels said.
Stephanie calmed down, recapped the morning, and finished by saying, “He thought somebody is plotting to kill you.” Weird referring to Daley in the past tense.
“He’s right.”
They stopped.
“I’ve had enough,” she said. “I don’t work for you anymore, but you’ve got me operating in total darkness. How do you expect me to do this?”
“I’m sure you’d like your job back, wouldn’t you?”
She did not immediately answer and her silence conveyed, to her annoyance, that she did. She’d conceived of and started the Magellan Billet, heading it for its entire existence. Whatever was happening had, at first, not involved her, but now men she neither liked nor admired were using her. So she answered the president honestly. “Not if I have to kiss your ass.” She paused. “Or place Cassiopeia in any more danger.”
Daniels seemed unfazed. “Come with me.”
They walked in silence through the woods to another of the cabins. Inside, the president grabbed a portable CD player.
“Listen to this.”
“Brent, I cannot explain everything, except to say that last evening I overheard a conversation between your vice president and Alfred Hermann. The Order or, more specifically, Hermann is planning to kill your president.”
“You hear details?” Green asked.
“Daniels is taking an unannounced visit to Afghanistan next week. Her mann has contracted bin Laden’s people and supplied the missiles needed to destroy the plane.”
“This is a serious accusation, Henrik.”
“Which I’m not in the habit of making. I heard it myself, as did Cotton Malone’s boy. Can you inform the president? Just cancel the trip. That’ll solve the immediate problem.”
“Certainly. What’s happening there, Henrik?”
“More than I can explain. I’ll be in touch.”
“That was taped over five hours ago,” Daniels explained. “No call has come from my trusted attorney general. You would think he could have at least tried. Like I’m hard to find.”
She wanted to know, “Who killed Daley?”
“Larry, God rest his soul, pushed the envelope. Obviously he was a busy man. He knew something was happening and he chose to Lone Ranger it. That was his mistake. The people who have those flash drives? They’re the ones who killed Larry.”
She and Cassiopeia stared at each other. Finally she said, “Green.”
“Looks like we’ve found a winner for the who’s-a-traitor contest.”
“Then have him arrested,” she said.
Daniels shook his head. “We need more. Article Three, Section Three, of the Constitution is real clear. Treason against the United States is giving aid and comfort to the enemy. The people who want me dead are our enemy. But no one can be convicted of treason except on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act. We need more.”
“I guess you could take that flight to Afghanistan and, after your plane is blown from the sky, we’ll have our overt act. Cassiopeia and I can be the two witnesses.”
“That’s a good one, Stephanie. Okay. You were bait. But I had your back covered.”
“So nice of you.”
“You can’t flush birds from the bushes without a good dog. And shooting before that happens is a waste of pellets.”
She understood. She’d ordered the same thing herself, many times.
“What do you want us to do?”
The resignation in her voice rang clear.
“See Brent Green.”
Malone stared at a puzzling sight. The door from the church opened into what was the face of the mountain. Ahead lay a rectangular hall about fifty feet wide and that much deep. Dimly lit with silver sconces, the granite walls shone mirror-smooth, the floor another handsome mosaic, the ceiling decorated with borders and arabesques of red and brown. On the opposite side of the room stood six rows of gray-and-black-marbled pillars bound with primrose bands. Seven doorways opened between the pillars, each a dark maw. Above each portal was a Roman letter—V S O V O D A. Above the lettering was another biblical passage. From Revelation. In Latin.
He translated out loud.
“Weep not: behold the lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed to open the book and loosen the seven seals thereof.”
He heard footsteps echoing from beyond the doorways. From which one was impossible to say.
“McCollum�
�s in there,” Pam said. “But where?”
He walked to one of the doorways and entered. Inside, a tunnel penetrated the rock, more low-wattage sconces every twenty feet. He glanced into the adjacent opening, which also led into the mountain, only through a different tunnel.
“This is interesting. Another test. Seven possible ways to go.” He dropped the pack from his shoulders. “What happened to the days when you just got a library card?”
“Probably went the same place as leaving a plane only when it lands.”
He grinned. “You actually did good on that jump.”
“Don’t remind me.”
He stared at the seven doorways.
“You knew McCollum would act, didn’t you? That’s why you let him go with that Guardian.”
“He didn’t come for the intellectual experience. And he’s no treasure hunter. That man’s a pro.”
“Just like that lawyer I dated was more than a lawyer.”
“The Israelis played you. Don’t feel bad. They played me, too.”
“You think this was all a setup?”
He shook his head. “More manipulation. We got Gary back too easy. What if I was meant to kill those kidnappers? Then when I went after George, they’d simply follow. Of course you were there and the Israelis were tracking. So they made sure I took you with me by spooking me in the airport and in the hotel. All makes sense. That way the Israelis kill George and they’re done. Whoever kidnapped Gary links up with us to find this. Which means the kidnappers have a far different agenda from the Israelis.”
“You think McCollum took Gary?”
“Him, or at least whoever he works for.”
“So what do we do?”
He fished the spare magazines for his gun from the pack and stuffed them into his fatigues. “Go after him.”
“Which door?”
“You answered that yourself in Lisbon when you said Thomas Bainbridge left clues. I read his novel on the plane. Nothing there even remotely close to what we’ve experienced. His lost library is found in southern Egypt. No hero’s quest. Nothing. But that arbor in his garden—that’s another matter. I wondered about the last part of the quest McCollum gave us. It would make no sense to just walk in once you get here.”
“Unless you’ve got a gun to someone’s head.”
“True. But something’s wrong.” He motioned at the doorways. “With this type of safeguard, they could easily lead an intruder astray. And where is everybody? This place is deserted.”
He again read the letters above the doors. v s o v o d a.
And he knew.
“You used to get on me all the time, wondering what good an eidetic memory is.”
“No. I wondered why you couldn’t remember my birthday or our anniversary.”
He grinned. “This time it pays to have good recall. Remember the last part of the quest. Heed the letters. The arbor. At Bainbridge Hall. The Roman letters.”
He saw them perfectly in his mind.
D OVOSVAVV M.
“Remember, you asked why the D and the M were spaced apart from the other eight.” He pointed at the doorways. “Now we know. One gets you in. The other, I assume, gets you out. It’s the middle part I’m unsure of, but we’re about to find out.”
SEVENTY-SIX
VIENNA
Thorvaldsen assessed his situation. He needed to best Hermann, and he’d brought the gun beneath his sweater for that precise purpose. He still held the letters of St. Augustine and St. Jerome. But Hermann held a weapon, too.
“Why did you kidnap Gary Malone?” he asked.
“I don’t have any intention of being questioned.”
“Why not humor me for a moment, since I’ll soon be leaving?”
“So his father would do what we needed done. And it worked. Malone led us straight to the library.”
He recalled what the vice president had surmised the night before and decided to press the point. “And you know that?”
“I always know, Henrik. That’s the difference between us. It’s why I head this organization.”
“The members have no idea what you’re planning. They only think they understand.” He was fishing to see if anything more might be offered. He’d sent Gary to hide for two reasons. One, so there would be no possibility that what they’d overheard last night would be revealed. That would place them both in absolute jeopardy. Two, he knew Hermann would come armed and he needed to deal with the threat alone.
“They place their trust in the Circle,” Hermann was saying. “And we have never disappointed them.”
He motioned with the sheets. “Are these what you planned to show me?”
Hermann nodded. “I was hoping that once you saw the fallacy of the Bible, its inherent flaws, you’d understand that we’re merely telling the world what it should have been told fifteen hundred years ago.”
“Is the world ready?”
“I don’t care to debate this, Henrik.” He thrust his arm forward and leveled the gun. “What I want to know is, how did you learn of those letters?”
“Like you, Alfred, I always know.”
The gun stayed aimed. “I will shoot you dead. This is my homeland and I know how to handle the matter once you’re gone. Since you already have my daughter, I can use that. Some sort of extortion plot you’d concocted that went bad. It won’t really matter. You won’t care.”
“I believe you’d actually prefer me dead.”
“No question. Much easier, in every way.”
Thorvaldsen heard the running steps at the same moment he spotted Gary bolt from the plants and tackle Alfred Hermann. The boy was tall, lanky, and solid. His momentum toppled the older man from his feet and caused Hermann to lose the gun.
Gary rolled off his opponent and snatched up the weapon.
Hermann seemed stunned by the attack and came to his knees, searching for breath.
Thorvaldsen stood and grabbed the gun from Gary. He wrapped his hand around the weapon and, not giving Hermann time to rise, slammed the butt into the side of his head.
The dazed Austrian crumpled to the dirt.
“That was foolish,” he said to Gary. “I would have handled it.”
“How? He was pointing the gun at you.”
He didn’t want to say that he was indeed running out of options, so he simply clasped the boy’s shoulder. “Good point, lad. But don’t do that again.”
“Sure, Henrik. No problem. Next time I’ll let whoever shoot you.”
He smiled. “You’re just like your father.”
“What now? There’s another guy outside.”
He led Gary near the exit and said in a soft voice, “Go out and tell him Herr Hermann needs him. Then let him enter first. I’ll take care of things.”
Malone followed the tunnel marked by the letter D. The route was narrow, two people wide, and extended deep into the bowels of the rock. The path turned twice. Light came from more low-wattage sconces. The chilled, mysterious air carried an acrid quality that stung his eyes. After another few twists, they entered a chamber decorated with magnificent murals. He marveled at their brilliance. The Last Judgment, hell mouthing flames in the river, a Tree of Jesse. Cut into the wall from which they entered were seven doorways, above each of which was a single Roman letter. On the opposite wall seven more doorways, a solitary letter above each, too.
d m v s o a i.
“We take the O, right?” Pam said.
He smiled. “You catch on fast. That arbor is the way through this maze. There’s going to be seven more of these junctures. V O S V A V V. That’s what’s left. Thomas Bainbridge left an important clue—but one that makes no sense until you get here. That’s why the Guardians left it alone for three hundred years. It’s meaningless.”
“Unless you’re in this rat maze.”
They kept moving forward through the puzzle of passageways, misleading corridors, and dead ends. The time and energy required to construct the tunnels staggered Malone’s imagination. But the Gu
ardians had been at their task for two-thousand-plus years—plenty of time to be both innovative and thorough.
Seven more junctions appeared and he was pleased to see that each time a letter from the arbor appeared above a door. He kept his gun ready but heard nothing ahead of them. Each juncture contained a different marvel of hieroglyphs, cartouches, alphabet engravings, and cuneiform symbols.
Past the seventh intersection and into another tunnel, he knew that the final path lay ahead.
They turned a corner, and the light from the exit ahead was clearly brighter than the other junctures. McCollum could be there waiting, so he positioned Pam behind him and crept forward.
At the end, he stayed in the shadows and peered inside.
The room was large, maybe forty feet square, with overhead chandeliers. The walls towered twenty feet and were covered in mosaic maps. Egypt. Palestine. Jerusalem. Mesopotamia. The Mediterranean. Detail was minimal, coastlines tapered off into the unknown, and the writing was in Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew. On the opposite wall were seven more doors. The one with the letter M above it surely opened into the library itself.
They stepped inside the chamber.
“Welcome, Mr. Malone,” a male voice said.
Two men took form from the darkness of one of the other doorways. One was the Guardian whom McCollum had earlier held at gunpoint, minus his straw hat. The other was Adam from Haddad’s apartment and the monastery in Lisbon.
Malone aimed his weapon.
Neither the Guardian nor Adam moved. Both men simply stared at him with concerned expressions.
“I’m not your enemy,” Adam said.
“How did you find us?” Pam asked.
“I didn’t. You found me.”
Malone thought about how the man standing across from him had gunned down George Haddad. Then he noticed that Adam was dressed similarly to the younger Guardian—baggy pants, cloak tucked into his waistband, rope belt, and sandals.
Neither man was armed.
He lowered his gun.
“You’re a Guardian?” he asked Adam.
“A faithful servant.”