The Book of Spies

20

THE TWO bobbies turned and closed ranks, blocking the garbage bins as Preston approached. Preston said something to them, but his words were lost over the distance. After listening, the policemen relaxed a bit. One nodded and gestured.
Preston walked over and leaned low to peer at Charles Sherback's corpse. Ryder noted a slight tensing in his shoulders.
And then it happened. In concise, swift movements, he was suddenly upright, a sound-suppressed pistol in his hand as he turned back toward the bobbies. His face showed no emotion.
Ryder yanked out his gun. Too late. Preston fired under his arm point-blank into the heart of the nearest bobby, then immediately into the heart of the second. He had shot them without completely facing them, so certain was he of their positions and his ability to kill.
Eva stiffened. Ryder put a hand on her arm.
The two policemen stood motionless, stunned into bleeding statues. When they went down, one sat cross-legged, and the other knelt on one knee. Then they toppled, the first landing on his belly, the second on his side. As blood oozed out, their limbs made jerky movements.
Preston holstered his weapon and dragged Charles's body out from behind the bins. The scuffing noise of Charles's heels on the pavement drifted upward. Preston hefted the body over his shoulder and loped off. Ryder noted he still showed no emotion.
"He doesn't want anyone to see the tattoo," Eva decided.
Ryder studied the moving killer. Charles's body was draped over one side. Part of Preston's torso was covered by it, but Preston's head and legs were even more chancy targets at this distance. Soon he would pass beneath them, heading out toward the Renault. Ryder had to act quickly. The torso was his best target.
"Call 999 and describe where the alley is," he told her. "Go over to the shed to do it. Your voice shouldn't reach the alley from there. Don't tell them about us."
Without a word she grabbed Charles's cell and ran.
Balancing himself, he aimed carefully, inhaled, exhaled, and fired twice in quick succession, targeting Preston's right side to avoid his heart. The explosions were loud. Preston suddenly staggered.
But as Charles's body fell to the alley floor, Preston recovered, dropped beside it, and rolled. His weapon appeared in both hands, pointing upward, looking for the shooter. The man was damn good.
Ryder aimed and fired twice again.
Preston jerked back, and then Ryder got lucky--Preston's head thudded against the pavement. The additional blow did it. Preston froze a moment. His eyes closed. One hand released his pistol, and the other flopped to the ground.
Smiling grimly to himself, Ryder hurried to the stairwell shed.
Eva was standing near the door. "I called them. Two dead bobbies got their attention. They're on their way. Did you kill Preston?"
"I hope not. I want him to face some intense questioning. Move away from the door."
It was padlocked. Using the handle of his Beretta, he broke the lock and swung open the door. A dank odor blew out. Lit only by thin starlight, concrete steps descended into a black abyss. He turned on his miniature flashlight, and they walked down quickly side by side.
He kept his voice even. "Are you up to talking about Charles's tattoo?" Although she seemed to be coping well, he had no idea how much of what had happened had affected her.
"Are you kidding? You bet I am."
"It seems to me since Charles wanted the library to be found, he intended the tattoo to be decipherable. My guess is he told us about Aristagoras and Herodotus because he thought you'd not only figure out he'd left a tattoo but you'd understand the message. So let's go back to the beginning. What does LAW 031308 mean?"
She said nothing. They descended two more flights. The doors were numbered, indicating they had reached the sixth floor.
Finally she decided, "I suppose LAW might have nothing to do with the law or something legal. Or the letters could be initials, an acronym. But it's not an acronym I recognize. 'Loyal Association of the West.' 'Legislative Agency for War,' " she free-associated. "None of that makes a darn bit of sense. The number's too short to be a telephone number. It might not be just a string of individual numbers either, but a whole number--if one skips the zero, then it's 31,308. Or it could have a decimal. But where does the decimal point go?"
"Okay, let's think in terms of codes. Bar codes. Postal codes. Some kind of shipping code."
"Doesn't ring a bell."
Silently they continued downward.
"Maybe it does involve the law," he said. "Were you ever in a lawsuit?"
"That bullet I've dodged."
When they arrived at the ground floor, he cracked open the heavy metal fire door and gazed out. He closed the door gently.
"We've got company," he said. "There's a guard behind a reception desk, and he looks disgustingly alert. I'm not in the mood to take any more chances. We'll go to the basement."
Again they descended.
He had an idea. "Maybe the code is something personal. You know, personal to you and Charles."
At the bottom, the stairway door opened onto an empty parking garage lit by a scattering of overhead fluorescent lights. A hundred feet away a driveway rose toward the entrance. It was sealed at the end by a heavy garage door, but there was a side door next to it. They rushed toward it. It was locked, but this time there was no padlock for Ryder to knock open. Surveying around, he screwed the sound suppressor onto his Beretta.
"Step back," he ordered.
She did, and he directed the muzzle downward so the bullet would go into the ground on the other side. He fired. Pop. Metal dust spewed.
Putting the weapon away, he turned the knob and peered out. They were on a busy street, but he did not know which one.
"Looks safe," he told her.
They stepped outside into the stink of exhaust. There were plenty of people on the sidewalk, entering and leaving watering holes. A pub door opened, and loud techno music blared out. But above that was the screaming noise of more police sirens. Two, he guessed.
He glanced at her, saw the alarm in her face. "With luck, they're on their way to the alley," he told her. "They'll find Preston, and the rounds in the policemen's bodies will match his pistol."
"Yes, but they could have a description of us from the call that brought the two bobbies to the alley in the first place. The caller might've seen us."
He was worried about it, too. There had been enough unpredictable events tonight that he was taking nothing for granted.
As they walked, she continued: "I've been thinking about what you said, Judd--that the code could be personal to Charles and me."
It was the first time she had called him by his first name. "Go on."
"The numbers could be a date. Charles and I were married on March the thirteenth in 2000. So '03' could be March, '13' could mean the thirteenth day, and '08' is 2008."
"That was just a month before he disappeared. So what happened on your anniversary in 2008?"
Suddenly two police cars were racing down the street toward them. Their rotating blue and red lights lashed through the night like sabers.
He smoothed his features. "We need to slow down and blend in. Hold my arm."
Instead, she slipped her hand inside his, and he felt a strange sensation so pleasant he forced it from his mind before it could turn to grief. They continued on through the lamplight--and the police cars rushed past.
Dropping her hand, he busied himself by taking out his palm mirror and checking it. "They've turned the corner."
He felt her relax. When she spoke again, her voice was businesslike. "If I tell you what I've figured out, you've got to promise to take me with you. I'll bet everything that's happened tonight will only make the people with the Library of Gold want to get rid of me more. I want to see them captured. I want to be there."
"You're blackmailing me."
She gave a wry smile. "It appears I've learned something from you."
He found himself smiling, too. "All right, it's a deal." Then he stared at her sternly. "But if I do, you've got to do exactly what I say--when I say it. I'm serious about this, Eva."
"You're the pro. Whatever you say, as long as you're reasonable."
"No. This isn't negotiable. Look at it this way--if you come along, you'll be putting me in danger, too. There may not be time to ask questions or argue."
She sighed. "All right. So this is what I think . . . In 2008, Charles and I celebrated our anniversary by flying to Rome. We visited an old friend of his, Yitzhak Law. He's a professor, well-known in the field. He and Charles often talked late into the night. They had a shared passion: finding the Library of Gold. Maybe the reason Charles left the tattoo was to say Yitzhak knows where the library is."
He inhaled deeply. "Then we go to Rome."