The Book of Spies

73

JUDD, TUCKER, and Roberto hurried along the quiet hallway toward the stairwell. Judd saw instantly both elevators were descending. Passing them, he yanked open the stairwell's door and heard feet pounding down from high above, echoing against the stone walls. They sounded like a battalion.
"Run!"
With Tucker and Roberto following, he hurtled down the steps to the fourth level and peered through the window into a formal anteroom. Assault rifle in both hands, he slid out, Tucker on his heels. No one was around.
Tucker pulled Roberto from the stairwell, locked and bolted the door, and shoved the small man into a corner beside a tall cabinet, where he would be out of range.
Judd nodded at a huge carved-wood door. "The Library of Gold." But before they could breach it they still had to face the security teams in the elevators.
"Looks like it," Tucker agreed.
Judd dropped flat, facing one of the two elevators. Tucker lay prone in front of the other. They aimed their M4s.
Tucker's elevator arrived first. Four guards were standing inside. Tucker sent a fusillade of automatic fire across them, the noise thunderous. Completely surprised, they'd had no time to aim.
As they grabbed the walls and each other and fell, Judd's elevator door started to open. This time gunfire exploded from the cage, but aimed high, where men should have been standing. Immediately Judd returned fire, ripping rounds across the five men's torsos. They staggered and sank, blood pouring from their chests. The air filled with a metallic stink.
Judd and Tucker jumped up and disabled each elevator.
Roberto was already at the library's big wood door, his eyes wide, his gaze determined.
"Don't go in there," Tucker snapped from across the room.
A guard appeared at the window in the stairwell door and yanked, trying to open it. Other guards were behind him, up the steps. The guard saw Judd and Tucker. As he shot through the glass, they sprinted. The rounds splintered across walls and into mirrors.
When they reached Roberto, there was sudden silence--they were beyond the guard's view, with only seconds before he broke through the door. As bullets exploded again, Judd exchanged a look with Tucker. Tucker put Roberto behind him and readied his assault rifle.
Judd opened the massive carved door a crack, realizing instantly its core was solid steel, the hinges hidden, the movement pneumatic. It was a vault door. No way anyone could shoot through with an M4, and there was no lock to pick.
They slid inside, low, weapons leveled. As Tucker slammed the bolts behind them, sealing out the guards, Judd stared at eight pistols aimed at them by men standing around a large dining table. He quickly took in the room.
To the right was a shocked sommelier cringing in front of a wine bureau, his hand inside his tuxedo jacket, clasping his heart. Farther along the same wall Yitzhak crouched, sweat greasing his bald head. Eva was sprawled on the floor near him. Oddly, both were dressed in tuxedos. Preston lifted his pistol from Eva to train it on Judd and Tucker. Wearing jeans and a black leather jacket as he had the last time Judd had seen him, he let two towels fall from his hand.
"Judd, what a pleasant surprise," Martin Chapman was saying. "I thought I wouldn't have the pleasure of seeing you again." Tall and genteel, he stood before the banquet table, his thick white hair flowing, his blue eyes sparkling with amusement, his pistol calmly pointed.
Judd stared at his father's old friend. "You're the one who had Dad killed? You son of a bitch." As a wave of fury rolled through him, he felt Tucker's restraining hand on his arm.
"Actually," Chapman said, "Jonathan did it to himself. I tried to talk him out of it, but you know what a hothead he could be. He was completely unreasonable. I'm sorry we lost him. All of us liked him a great deal."
He gestured with his free hand at the other men around the table. They came out and stood in a line on either side of him, their weapons never wavering as they aimed at Tucker and Judd.
Judd studied the men in their expensive evening clothes. Each was at least six feet tall and ranged in age from early forties to late sixties. Perfectly groomed and with strong athletic bodies, they had an unmistakable air of pride and confidence. Their uniformity was chilling.
"Yitzhak." Roberto ran around the outside of the room, passing the sommelier.
The sommelier watched, his eyes enormous. A man in his sixties, he had deep wrinkles and a bulbous red nose, a man who enjoyed wine far too much.
"Shh," Yitzhak warned.
Roberto dropped to the floor beside the professor. As Preston glanced in their direction, Eva lashed out a foot at his leg.
Preston stepped back and pointed his pistol down at her. "Get up!"
Judd realized several of the tuxedoed men were weaving. Those close to the table steadied themselves on it.
Chapman noticed, too. Puzzled, he looked left and right along the line.
The knees of two buckled, and they fell.
"What in hell--" The oldest grabbed his forehead and keeled over.
"Goddammit." Another stared at his gun hand. It was shaking uncontrollably.
Two more struggled to stay upright, and then all three collapsed.
"The brandy--it must've been poisoned," the youngest said to Chapman.
He and Chapman were the last standing. They swung their pistols toward the sommelier.
With the hand that had been gripping his heart, the sommelier whipped out a 9-mm Walther. In one smooth motion, he fired twice. One bullet struck the younger man in the head, and the other shattered Chapman's gun hand.
Reeling, Chapman grabbed up the M4 with the other hand.
At the same time, Preston shoved Eva aside and was running along the wall of books, aiming at the sommelier. Before the sommelier could swing around to fire, Preston squeezed off a shot that sliced across the top of the sommelier's shoulder. From across the room Judd released three explosive bursts into Preston's chest.
Preston froze. Fury crossed his aristocratic features as he looked down at the blood spreading across his heart. He took two more steps. "You don't know what you're doing. The books must be protected--" He pitched over onto his face, arms limp at his sides. His fingers unfurled, and his gun fell with a metallic clunk onto the marble floor.
Ignoring Chapman, the sommelier ran to Preston and grabbed the pistol. "Nice shot, Judd. Thanks." As blood dripped down his jacket, he felt for Preston's carotid artery.
"Damn you all to hell!" Martin Chapman trained the M4 on Judd, his finger white on the trigger.
Judd aimed.
"No!" the sommelier shouted from where he crouched. "We need Chapman alive!"
No one moved. Chapman scowled, his weapon pointed at Judd, Judd's pointed at him. The room seemed to reverberate with tension.
Then Chapman's face smoothed. A twinkle appeared in his eyes, and warmth infused his voice. "You should know, Judd, that your father had always hoped you'd join our book club." With his bloody free hand he gestured grandly at the towering expanse of jeweled books. "These can be yours, too. Think of the history, of the trust your father and I inherited. It's sacred. With Brian dead, we're shy three members now. Join us. It would've pleased Jonathan a great deal."
Behind Chapman, Eva had been watching. Judd kept his eyes apparently locked on Chapman, while noting she was taking off her shoes.
"Sacred?" he retorted. "What you have here isn't a trust. It's god-awful selfishness."
Eva sprinted in stocking feet across the marble floor, her black hair flying, her eyes narrowed. She threw herself forward onto her belly and slid silently under the banquet table.
Chapman gave Judd a wry smile, "As John Dryden said, 'Secrets are edged tools and must be kept from children and fools.' You were raised to appreciate the priceless value of this remarkable library. No one can take care of it--cherish it--better than we can. You have a responsibility to help us--"
Hunching up, Eva threw her shoulders into the backs of his knees. He reeled, then crashed forward with a grunt, landing hard. His M4 spun away. He swore loudly and scrambled toward it.
But Eva scooped it up and rolled, and Judd, Tucker, and the sommelier converged. The four stood over Chapman, pointing their weapons.
Face flushed, he clasped his good hand over his bloody hand against his ruffled white shirt and peered around at his downed companions then back over his shoulder at the dead Preston. Finally he glared up, deep fury and a strange hurt in his eyes.
"Who are you?" he demanded from the sommelier.
"Call me Domino," the sommelier said in a husky voice. He had a wide face and a stocky figure. "The Carnivore sends his regards. My orders are to remind you that you were warned about his rules. Then I'm supposed to scrub you."
"I'm not dead yet, you a*shole. What did you do to them?"
"Gamma hydroxy butyrate, GHB. Tasteless, odorless, and colorless. A date-rape drug. In the brandy, of course, poured from the 'new' bottle. They'll wake up in a few hours with very bad headaches. I heard you talking. Tell us what's going to happen in Khost, Afghanistan."
"Why would I do that?"
Judd had no idea what Domino meant, but he came from the Carnivore, and that was enough reason for him. All four weapons moved slightly, training on Chapman's head.
"Tell us!" Judd said.
Chapman stared around at the guns. "And if I do?"
"Maybe you get to live, you lucky SOB," Judd said. "But if we have to kill you now, that's all right, too. Your friends will wake up, and one of them will talk."
Chapman blinked slowly. Then he sat up and told a tale of a forgotten diamond mine in Afghanistan and the warlord who was going to eliminate Taliban fighters so the army base would be closed and Chapman could buy the land.
"It's too late to do anything about it," Chapman finished. "The action is going on right now. Besides, it ultimately benefits all of us. Actually, the world. You don't want to stop it."
"You goddamned fool!" Tucker exploded. "You think you can trust a warlord to do anything he promises? He's going to do only what he thinks is in his best interest. There could be a dozen different scenarios, and none of them we'd like. Worse than that, the United States maintains those secret bases because Kabul needs us to. This could bring down the government and start another bloody war." He looked around the room. "Where's a satellite phone?"
As Domino handed one to him, the door thudded. All looked at the only entrance to the library. The guards must have finally broken through to the anteroom and were preparing to blast their way into the library. New worry filled the room.
"They may have something with more kick than M4s," Judd said, listening.
Tucker nodded and punched numbers on the phone's keypad, while they stood silently, trapped.