then I will gladly do so. I seek from You my Lord my God and Savior a sign, and I will fulfill Your wish. I will be Your obedient and most humble servant to the end of my days.
Felix
The third and last brittle and yellowed page was written in a different hand. It seemed a hasty scrawl. There were only two short lines:
9 February 2027
Finis Dierum
Isabelle began to cry, softly at first, then in a crescendo, louder and louder until she was sobbing, sucking at air and getting red-faced. Will looked at her with sorrow but he was thinking about his son. Phillip would be seventeen in 2027, young and full of promise. He was a hairbreadth from crying himself, but he got up and rested his hands on her heaving shoulders.
“We don’t know if it’s true,” he said.
“What if it is?”
“I guess we’re going to have to wait and see.”
She stood up, an invitation to hug her. They held the clench for the longest time until he told her simply and baldly that it was time for him to leave.
“Must you?”
“If I get back to London tonight, I can catch a morning flight.”
“Please stay one more night.”
“I’ve got to go home,” he said simply. “I miss my guys.”
She sniffed her nose dry and nodded.
“I’m going to come back,” he promised. “When Spence is done with these letters, I’m sure he’ll give them back to the Cantwell family. They’re yours. Maybe one day you’ll be able to use them to write the greatest book in history.”
“As opposed to the middling thesis I’ll write otherwise?” Then she looked him in the eyes, “You’ll leave the poem?”
“A deal’s a deal. Go fix your roof.”
“I’ll never forget the past few days, Will.”
“I won’t either.”
“You have a lucky wife.”
He shook his head guiltily. “I’m a lot luckier than she is.”
She called for a taxi. He went up to his room to pack. When he was done, he texted two messages.
To Spence:
Mission accomplished. All 4 found. Bringing them back tomorrow. Prepare to be amazed.
To Nancy:
U’r brilliant. U nailed the prophet. Amazing stuff. Home tomorrow. Can’t believe how much I miss U. Won’t leave U again.
That night, Cantwell Hall was quiet again, down to two residents, an old man asleep and his granddaughter, tossing and turning in her bed. Before she turned in, Isabelle had stopped in the guest room and sat on the bed. It still had Will’s scent on it. She breathed it in and started to cry again until she heard herself saying, “Don’t be stupid.” She obeyed herself, dried her eyes and turned off the light.
DeCorso was watching from the bushes. The guest bedroom went dark, then Isabelle’s bedroom lit up. He checked his luminescent dial. He hunkered down and typed Frazier an e-mail on his encrypted BlackBerry, its keyboard glowing in the night, his hard thumbs mashing the keys:
Finishing up at Wroxall. Have received Piper’s hotel and flight details from Ops Center. He used his credit card! Still has no idea we’re on him. Plan to intercept before he gets to Heathrow. Still awaiting your instructions re Cantwells.
Frazier read the e-mail and wearily massaged his own scalp. It was midafternoon in the desert, but, underground, time of day was an abstraction. He’d been at his desk nonstop for two days and didn’t want to spend a third there. The operation was coming to a head, but there were final decisions to be rendered, and his boss had made it clear that in light of the unsavory options, they were going to be Frazier’s calls, not his.
“These things are in your job description, not mine,” Lester had growled over the line, and Frazier had wanted to reply, “So your hands stay clean and your nights are restful.”
Frazier’s decision on Piper was the easiest one.
DeCorso would intercept him at his Heathrow hotel, immobilize him by any means necessary, and retrieve all the items he’d found at Cantwell Hall. A CIA extraction team would do a pickup at the hotel and transport them up to the US airbase at RAF Mildenhall, where Secretary Lester had a navy transport plane standing by. Piper was BTH, so there was no chance of DeCorso killing the bastard, but there was no guarantee he wouldn’t seriously damage the goods. So be it, Frazier thought. As long as we get our hands on any material that could compromise the integrity of the mission at Area 51.
Then they’d round up Spence and any of his confederates and add the missing volume to the vault. He imagined there’d be some kind of on-site ceremony, but that was the kind of nonsense the base rear admiral could decide.
The decision on Cantwell Hall was trickier. Ultimately, Frazier did what he’d often done when faced with these kinds of situations. He let the Library help him make up his mind. When he reviewed the pertinent DODs he nodded knowingly. His mind turned to the specifics of the plan. He had no doubt DeCorso could accomplish the job effectively. His only concern was the Brits. The SIS was behaving like a swarm of angry hornets over the Cottle affair, and the last thing he needed to do was poke a stick into the nest and twist it around. He would warn DeCorso to be careful, exceptionally careful. But on a risk-reward basis, he was certain it was the right course. What good was neutralizing Piper if the girl and her grandfather could spill their guts about whatever the hell they’d found.
He typed an e-mail to DeCorso with his orders and a stern litany of admonitions.
This was probably going to be his last mission with DeCorso, he thought, without a trace of sentimentality.
When Isabelle switched off her light, DeCorso peered through his night-vision scope to make sure she wouldn’t go roaming. He waited a good half hour to be on the safe side, then began his work. He had his favorite cocktail for this kind of a job-cheap, easily bought, possessing the perfect balance of speed and coverage. Kerosene, paint thinner, and camping stove fuel in just the right ratios. He lugged two five-gallon jerry cans up to the house and quietly began soaking the entire circumference of the building. The old Tudor frame would catch quickly enough but he didn’t want there to be any gaps. He was after a ring of fire.
He worked his way back around to the rear garden. There was still a half a can left. With a small suction cup and a diamond cutter, he carved out a pane of glass in the French Room, directly below Isabelle’s bedroom. He poured the remaining liquid directly inside. Then, with the insouciance of a factory worker ending his shift, he lit a match and flicked it through the window.
Isabelle was dreaming.
She was lying at the bottom of William Cantwell’s grave. Will was heavy on her, making love, and the top of the wooden casket was creaking and groaning under their weight. She was startled, and in fact deeply upset, at the incongruous pleasure she was experiencing amidst the ghastliness of the surroundings. But suddenly she looked over Will’s shoulder into the sky. The sunset was glowing orange, and her lime tree was heaving in the breeze. The soft rustling of its great green branches soothed her, and she was completely happy.
As she was succumbing to smoke inhalation, the ground floor of Cantwell Hall was a raging inferno. The fine paneling, the tapestries and carpets, the rooms crammed with old furniture were no more than kindling and tinder. In the Great Hall, the oil paintings of Edgar Cantwell, his ancestors, and all who followed him bubbled and hissed before dropping off the burning walls one by one.
In Lord Cantwell’s bedroom, the old man was dead of smoke inhalation before the flames arrived. When they did, creeping up the walls and spreading over the furniture onto his night table, they caught the corner of the last thing he had read before going to bed.
The Shakespeare poem curled into a hot yellow ball, then it was gone.
