be in what it says.”
“Well, you want to read some? Here’s a translation of some of this stuff. Knock yourself out. Please.”
She handed him several pages and pointed to a spot. “Start here.” She sat back in a chair and he began reading in silence.
After a few moments he looked up. “OK, Ms. Grande, this is pretty … out there. I was expecting some royal decrees or land-rent tallies.”
“Just keep going, please.”
He gave the slightest ‘oh-well’ shift of the eyes and continued to read.
When he finished, he put down the translation and gave a courtesy cough. Cadence stared at him like he was the last sane man on the planet. “What do you think?”
“It’s some made-up story from long ago. I wouldn’t think it’s all that important. The physical document, not its contents, may be the real prize here.”
She thought about the pragmatic wisdom in his words. “Only one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Someone thought this story was important enough to preserve on this scroll and a bunch of others.”
“So what are you going to do with this?”
“That’s a really, really good question. Look, I want to thank you.” Then she hesitated, “Is there a charge?”
“No, not for using this bloodhound. Here’s my card. Call me if you have any other questions.”
“OK I will.”
Cadence left and ran for the stairs, passing a figure in a knit cap studying a 1930s mural of American Industrial Progress: heroic figures, big skies and big machines. She glanced at the man and the mural but kept going. Before following her, Barren stayed a moment longer, lingering to study the great towers and trains and boats and planes.
He felt resolved now. He would gather his allies and then close on this steward when she had her precious scribblings in hand.
Besides, other of the Dark Lord’s emissaries, unknown to Barren but surely already here, would be hunting her now. If her fate was to be in his hands, he must set his traps with speed.
Chapter 26
OCTOBER 27. 10:15 A.M
Cadence did not anticipate the trap set for her by L’Institut des Inspecteurs.
Clues abounded, but they eluded her. The address was on a steep block on West Sixty-first Street that spilled down to the Hudson River. No tony office buildings here — only warehouses, storage rental buildings and housing projects that must have seemed forlorn when they were built in the early sixties.
The address was a nondescript concrete building with no signage whatsoever. It could have been anything from a wholesale warehouse to an S&M bar. Feeling her confidence sink by the second, Cadence steeled herself and entered the building.
Inside, she passed through a steel door. An elevator beckoned to her. She pressed the button and it whooshed open much too quickly for comfort.
When she arrived at the sixth floor, things were no clearer. Everything was black — the walls, the floors, even the ceilings were painted black. Halogen lights gave their eerie sharp glow. She walked a long corridor until she arrived at another closed steel door.
She didn’t like it. She was considering leaving the building when the steel door flung open.
“Oh, there you are.” It was the chatty receptionist from the uptown office. Cadence was whisked away to a room that looked, well, like a television studio. Lights, cables, monitors, blacked-out windows. The chair on which she was instructed to sit was hard-backed and uncomfortable. It was like a set-up for a third-degree. A bank of lights came on.
She winced. Facing her was a panel of four strangers, all sitting and looking at her with clinical smiles. The Inspecteurs, she presumed.
A woman with a Yankees baseball cap scurried around. She brought a wireless mike to Cadence and pinned it on. From the periphery, Cadence saw two people with small, pro-look digital cameras roaming the room. She could feel the close-up focus on her as the side door opened and Bois-Gilbert lurched into the space between Cadence and the panel. He adjusted the conch-shell buttons on his bespoke suit, smoothed his impeccable tie, shot his gold cuff-linked cuffs, and focused a barracuda smile on Cadence.
It fell into place with a thud. This wasn’t a scientific exam at all. Feeling ridiculously slow on the uptake, Cadence realized she
Mel had set her up.
“Are you ready, Miss Grande?” asked Bois-Gilbert in mock-portentous tones.
What could she say? Here she was, pinned like an insect on an examination card. She could make a disagreeable scene or go with the flow. She wanted the three documents back, and going with the flow seemed like the most reasonable path to get to them.
“Sure, what’s on the menu today, Brian?”
“The very best thing — the proofs! Are you prepared to receive them?”
Before she could answer, the stage manager called for quiet on the set and the lights went black except for a spot on M.C. Monsieur Bois-Gilbert. As he began reading off the teleprompter, she realized that his natural, over- elegant, slightly oleaginous manner made perfect sense. In front of the camera, his English became as smooth as Jacques Cousteau.
“In the worlds of myth, religion, art, currency, wines, and documentation of all sorts there is a common, immutable, and ancient rule. Where there has been money or passion, there has been deception. Fakery — the practice of flattery by studied imitation or even brazen imagining of what might have been — is indeed an esteemed art. When done at the hand of a maestro, it brings together precise science, extraordinary diligence, and the deft hand of the often unrecognized and unheralded master.
“So too must be the qualities of those who would unmask the imposters. Nothing is so false and so damaging to a culture than the flood of falsehoods that would wash away truth and originality if left unchecked.”
He paused for a second, as if the script indicated an insertion point for a pre-taped roll-in. Maybe the show’s title sequence, she mused. She felt the sticky, probing, violating fingers of the cameras playing with her features.
“In the fifth century, Greeks routinely faked ancient art for Roman patrons. Much of it sits unquestioned in museums to this day. In more recent times, a rogue’s gallery of forgeries has been detected by the forensic sciences. Witness the stream of imposters!”
His voice was like that of a jury foreman, a reader of verdicts. Firm, definitive, pausing after each damning item. Nothing was in sight, but she could sense the montage that would fill the screen.
“The Shroud of Turin.”
“The Hitler Diaries.”
“The Alamo Diaries showing that, contrary to myth, Davy Crockett did not go down swinging Old Betsy.”
“The MJ-12 documents detailing the American President Truman’s cover-up of UFOs.”
“The lost plays of William Shakespeare.”
“Newly discovered masterworks by Vermeer. So good they fooled Herr Goring.”
Cadence felt transfixed by the indictment. She could imagine his damning finger itching to point straight at her.
“The Vinland Map.”
“The Howard Hughes Autobiography.”
