The Book of Spies

25

Aloft over Europe
THE GULFSTREAM V turbojet soared through the night, its powerful Rolls-Royce engines humming quietly. Above the aircraft stretched an endless canopy of sparkling stars, while far below spread gray storm clouds punctuated by jagged bolts of lightning. From his window Judd Ryder studied the skyscape, feeling a sense of suspension between two worlds, uncertain and somehow dangerous. He wondered what his father had been involved in, and how much he was his father's son.
Shaking off his emotions, he sat back and focused. The Gulfstream had been waiting at Gatwick Airport at a private hangar, one of the aircraft Langley regularly rented for transporting federal employees and high-value prisoners. He and Eva were the only passengers, sitting together near the middle of the cabin. Each armrest contained a laptop and hookups for electronic devices. On their tables stood steaming cups of coffee brewed in the galley. The rich aroma scented the air.
He peered at Eva's tired face, the rounded chin, the light California tan. Her red hair lay in a wreath of long curls around her head where it rested back against the seat. The lids of her blue eyes were at half-mast. At the moment she showed none of the fire and combativeness that had aggravated him, instead looking soft and vulnerable. He was still unsure what he really thought of her. In any case, it was irrelevant. What mattered was he needed her for the operation. He hoped to be able to ship her back to California soon.
Her eyes opened. "I should try to reach Peggy."
"You can't turn on your cell while we're flying, but you can borrow mine." He plugged his mobile's connecting cord into the armrest, tapping into the plane's wireless communications system. He explained about its secure mode, then showed her how to make what would appear to others to be a normal call.
She dialed Peggy's cell phone number. Listening to the voice on the other end, she looked at him and frowned. "May I speak to Peggy, please?" There was a pause. "I'm not going to tell you who I am until you tell me who you are." Another pause. Abruptly she cut the connection.
"What happened?" he asked instantly.
"A man answered. He kept asking questions." As she dialed again, she told him, "I'm calling information for the Chelsea Arms's number." Once she had it, she phoned out again. "Peggy Doty's room, please." She listened. "I know she has a room there. We were going to share it. . . . What? She what?" Her face stricken, she hung up and stared at him. "Peggy's dead. The clerk says the police think she shot herself, but there's no way she'd take her own life. Someone had to have killed her." She shook her head, stunned. "I can't believe she's dead." Tears slid down her cheeks.
Watching her, he felt again the awful loss of his father, his conflicted emotions. He went to the galley and returned with a box of tissues and handed it to her. As she wiped her eyes and blew her nose, he said, "My guess is Charles told Preston that Peggy was your friend, and Preston went to her in hopes of finding you. He's her killer. I'm sorry, Eva. This is horrible for you."
He had a sudden vision of his father when he was about his age, towering over him as he rode the carousel at Glen Echo Park. The full head of blond hair, the strong nose and chin, the happy expression on his face as the music filled the air and he stood beside his son protectively. About five years old, Judd had been riding a palomino horse with a flowing silver mane. As the horse rose and fell and the carousel circled, he felt himself slipping. His mother waved, her face beaming with pride. As he raised a hand to wave back, he fell, his legs too short to reach the floor to steady himself. He dangled half off the horse.
"Hold on tight and pull yourself up," his father had said calmly. "You can do it."
He had grabbed the pole hard, his little arms aching as he slowly righted himself.
"You can do anything, Judd. Anything. Someday you won't need me to stand beside you anymore."
Suddenly he realized Eva was talking.
"Those people are unspeakably evil." She was staring at him, her expression cold. "Those bastards. We've got to find them."
"We will." He grabbed his peacoat from the seat across from them. "Ready to do some work?"
"Absolutely."
He removed the items he had taken from her husband--disposable cell, small leather-bound notebook, billfold, and Swiss Army knife. Leaving the Glock pistol in his pocket, he heaved the peacoat across the next seat. Then he took off his corduroy jacket and tossed it on top. He sat back and adjusted his shoulder holster.
She had the notebook in her hand, turning pages. He thought about it, then decided to let her have a go at the notebook first.
He checked Sherback's cell, looking for phone numbers. "He's coded his address book. What would he use for a password?"
"Probably something classical. A Greek or Roman name. Try Seneca, Sophocles, Pythagoras, Cicero, Augustus, Archimedes--"
"Okay, I get the idea." He tapped in one after another.
"This is interesting," she said at last. "I've looked at all the pages, but there aren't any lists of names with or without phone numbers or addresses. There seem to be only his thoughts and various quotations. Each entry's dated, going back six years. That means he had it while we were living together, but I never saw it."
"He kept it hidden from you, so there was already a pattern of secrecy."
She nodded. "Listen to this--it's the first entry, and it'll give you a taste: 'In ancient times, worshiping a god occurred in some beautiful grove, holy place, or temple. It's no accident almost all libraries were in pagan places of worship, just as in later Muslim, Jewish, and Christian times they were in mosques, tabernacles, and churches. The written word has always had a magical, divine power, unifying people. Naturally religion wanted to control that. But then books are another name for God.' "
"See whether he mentions the Library of Gold or Yitzhak Law somewhere."
"I've been looking. Here's another one: 'There are books I will never be able to find, let alone read.' "
"Poignant."
She nodded and resumed reading silently.
Judd was running out of names to break Charles's cell phone code. He stopped, his fingers poised above the keypad.
She gazed up. "I've just found one of Charles's favorite quotes. It's from Aristotle. 'All people by nature desire to know.' That seems appropriate. Try 'Aristotle.' "
He typed the letters of the Greek philosopher's name, and the screen revealed the address book. "I'm in. The bad news is that it's empty. He must've memorized the numbers he called. Okay, time to check the ingoing and outgoing calls." The list was coded, but 'Aristotle' worked again. "There are only two. Both are London numbers. Do you recognize either?" He read them to her.
She shook her head. "Try them."
He dialed. The first number rang four times, and an automated voice invited him to leave a message. He considered, then ended the connection. She was watching him.
"A machine answered," he reported. He tried the next number and got the same response. "Nothing again."
"When I spotted Charles on the street outside the hotel, he was with a blond woman. Those two cell numbers could belong to Preston and her. I didn't recognize her, but Charles and she were obviously together."
"Describe her."
"Long blond hair and bangs. Pretty. Early to mid thirties, I'd say. Maybe five foot six. She had a large rolling suitcase. He was carrying a backpack and left it at her feet just before he started chasing me. The backpack was fat and solid-looking, so it could've contained The Book of Spies."
"That'd account for the book's being in the hotel."
"Yes." She turned back to the first page of Charles's notebook.
Ryder examined the Swiss Army knife. There was nothing to indicate it was Charles's or anyone else's. Opening the billfold, he took out the driver's license and cash and spread them onto the tray table.
"I may have found something." Eva patted the notebook. "As I told you, everything's dated in here. I've been looking for patterns. With one exception, Charles would write something occasionally, once a week at most. But then there's a three-month period before we went to Rome in which he made a lot of entries, sometimes several a day. That's when he was on sabbatical, supposedly visiting some of the world's great libraries. I never got a real itinerary out of him, and he didn't talk much about the trip when he returned."
"Does he mention which libraries?"
"No, but what he wrote is almost entirely about libraries."
"What do you think the change in pattern means?"
"First, he had enough time he could write his thoughts more frequently and the value of libraries was on his mind. But, second, he wouldn't have wanted me or anyone at the library to know he'd tattooed something onto his scalp. So this is the sequence I see: He tattooed himself, spent three months hiding out, and came home to me with hair long and thick enough for it to look normal. Then we celebrated our anniversary with Yitzhak in Rome. Two weeks later we were back in L.A., and then two weeks after that was the car crash."
"Makes sense."
They drank their coffee and continued to work. He found nothing written on any of Charles's cash. He put the driver's license and money back into the billfold and returned everything to his peacoat's pockets. Next he checked the clip to Charles's Glock. The gun was clean and in pristine condition. No rounds were missing.
Eva handed him the notebook. "I can't see anything else that's useful in here. Your turn."
He took it. "You look tired. Why don't you get some sleep?"
"I think I will." She set her coffee cup on his table and stored her table inside her armrest. Then she reached down and pulled up her pants leg. "I'm going to take off this ankle device."
"No. If something happens to separate us again, I can always find you with my reader."
She thought about it and nodded. Reclining her seat, she closed her eyes.
He e-mailed Tucker, asking him to trace the two phone numbers on Sherback's cell and to investigate whether Sherback and perhaps a woman had stayed at the Meridien hotel, adding the false name on Sherback's driver's license, the woman's description, and that The Book of Spies might have been in her backpack. When he had phoned Tucker to arrange the jet, he had filled him in on the events of the night and given him Professor Yitzhak Law's address in Rome and asked him to check with the London police about Preston and Charles Sherback's body.
He studied the notebook, finding nothing new. Then he looked at Eva a long time. Finally he rested his head back, hoping he would not dream about the past. At last he fell into an uneasy sleep.