was the Wheatstone cipher device from the nineteenth century. It consisted of two concentric rings, an outer one with the twenty-six letters of the alphabet plus a blank, and an inner one having just the alphabet itself. Two hands, like those of a clock, were used to substitute letters from the outer ring for coded letters from the inner one. The person receiving the coded message needed to have an identical device and had to know the setting of the two hands. A few years after the Wheatstone was in general use, the French came up with a cylindrical cryptograph, which had twenty discs with letters on their outer rims, all arranged on a central shaft, further complicating any attempts at deciphering a coded message.
Scrolling down, her eyes fell on a picture of a device that looked vaguely similar to the one she had seen at the museum.
She read the caption underneath it and froze.
It was described as 'the Converter,' an early rotor encoder, and had been used by the U.S. Army in the 1940s.
For a second, it felt as if her heart had stopped. She just stared at the words.
1940s was 'early?'
Intrigued, she read through the article. Rotor encoders were strictly a twentieth-century invention.
Leaning back in her chair, Tess rubbed her forehead, scrolled back up to the first illustration on the screen, and then reread its description. Not the same by any means, but pretty damn close. And way more advanced than the single-wheel ciphers.
If the U.S. government tJiought that its device was early, then there was little wonder the Vatican was eager to show off one of its own devices; one which appeared to predate the army's by some six hundred years.
Still, this bothered Tess.
Of all the glittering prizes he could have taken, the fourth horseman had zeroed in on this arcane device. Why? Sure, people collected the weirdest things, but this was pretty extreme. She wondered whether or not he might have made a mistake. No, she dismissed that thought—he had seemed very deliberate in his choice.
Not only that, but he took nothing else. It was all he wanted.
She thought about Amelia Gaines, the woman who looked more like someone out of a shampoo commercial than an agent of the FBI. Tess was pretty certain that the investigators wanted facts, not speculation, but even so, after a quick moment's thought, she went into her bedroom, found the evening bag she'd carried last night, and pulled out the card given to her by Gaines.
She placed the card on her desk and flashed back to the moment the fourth horseman had picked up the encoder. The way that he had picked it up, held it, and whispered something to it.
He had seemed almost . . . reverent.
What was it he had said? Tess had been too distraught at the Met to make a big deal out of it, but all of a sudden it was all she could think of. She focused on that moment, pushing everything else out of her consciousness, reliving the scene with the horseman lifting the encoder. And saying . . .
what? Think, damn it.
Like she had told Amelia Gaines, she was pretty sure the first word was Veritas . . . but then what?
Veritas? Veritas something . . .
Veritas vos? Somehow, that seemed vaguely familiar. She trawled her memory for the words, but it was no use. The horseman's words had been cut off by the gunfire that erupted behind him.
Tess decided she would have to go with what she had. She turned to her computer and selected the most powerful metasearch engine from her links toolbar. She entered 'Veritas vos' and got over twenty-two thousand hits. Not that it really mattered. The very first one was enough.
There it was. Calling out to her.
'Veritas vos liberabit'.
The truth will set you free.
She stared at it. The truth will set you free.
Great.
Her masterful detective work had uncovered one of the most trite and overused sound bites of our time.
Chapter 9
Gus Waldron emerged from the West Twenty-third Street station and headed south.
He hated this part of town. He wasn't a big fan of gentrification. Far from it. On his own turf, the fact that he was the size of a small building kept him safe. Here, his size only made him stand out among the fancy piss-ants scurrying along the sidewalks in their designer outfits and two-hundred-dollar haircuts.
Hunching his shoulders, he knocked a few inches off his height. Even then, big as he was, it didn't help much and neither did the long, black, shapeless coat he wore. But he could do nothing about that; he needed the coat to conceal what he was carrying.
He turned up Twenty-second Street, heading west. His destination was a block away from the Empire Diner, located in the center of a small row of art galleries.
As he walked past, he noted that most of the galleries had just one or maybe two pictures in their windows. Some of the pictures didn't even have frames for chrissakes, and none that he could see had a price tag.
How were you supposed to know if it was any fucking good if you didn't know what it fucking cost?
His destination was now two doors away. To outward appearances, Lucien Boussard's place looked like a slick upmarket antiques gallery. In fact, it was that and a whole lot more. Fakes and pieces of dubious origin infected the few genuine, unsullied objects. Not that any of his neighbors suspected as much, for Lucien had the style, the accent, and the manners to fit in seamlessly.
Very cautious now, eyes alert for anything or anyone that didn't look right, Gus walked past the gallery, counted off twenty-five paces, then stopped and turned around. He made as if to cross the street, still couldn't see anything that seemed out of place, and went back and was inside the gallery, his movements quick and light for a man his size. And why shouldn't they be? In thirty fights, he had never once been hit hard enough to go down. Except when he was supposed to.
Inside the gallery, he kept one hand in his pocket, wrapped around the butt of a Beretta 92FS. It wasn't his handgun of choice, but he'd had a couple of misfires with the .45 ACP, and, after the big night, it wasn't smart to carry the Cobray. He took a quick look around. No tourists, or any other customers for that matter. Just the gallery's owner.
Gus didn't like many people, but, even if he had, he would not have liked Lucien Boussard. He was a smarmy little shit. Narrow face and shoulders to match, he wore his long hair pulled back into a ponytail.
Fucking French fag.
As Gus came in, Lucien looked up from behind a small spindly legged table where he sat working and faked an elated smile, a feeble attempt to hide the fact that he had instantly started sweating and twitching. That was possibly the one thing that Gus did like about Lucien. He was always on edge, as if he thought Gus might at any moment decide to harm him. The greasy little fuck was right about that.
'Gus!' It came out like 'Gueusse,'which only made him hate Lucien even more, every damn time he heard it.
Turning his back to him, Gus set the lock on the door, then walked over to the table. 'Anyone out back?' he grunted.
Lucien shook his head rapidly from side to side. 'Mais non, mais non, voyons, there is no one here but me.' He also had an annoying habit of repeating his faggoty French expressions several times.
Maybe they all did that.
'I wasn't expecting you, you didn't say—'
'Shut the fuck up,' Gus spat back. 'I've got something for you.' He grinned. 'Something special.'
From beneath his coat, Gus pulled out a paper bag and laid it on the table. He glanced back at the door to make sure they were out of any passerby's sight line and took something out of die bag. It was wrapped in newspaper. He started to unwrap it, looking up at Lucien as he did.
Lucien's mouth opened and his eyes suddenly flared wider as Gus finally brought out the object. It was an elaborate, jewel-encrusted gold cross, around a foot and a half long, breathtaking in its detail.
