Kenyon offered, “Well, here’s something we can agree on-this is proof positive where Calvin got his bedrock belief in predestination.”
“I’ll give you that,” Spence said.
Kenyon jumped on him, “And if I choose to believe with total certainty, as Calvin did, that God knows everything that will happen because he has chosen what will happen and therefore brings it about, then you’ll have to give me that too!”
“Believe what you like.”
The two old friends batted their arguments back and forth, making no effort to draw Will in. They could see he wanted to be left alone.
The Nostradamus letter made Spence chuckle. “I always thought he was an old charlatan!”
“Looks like you were half-right,” Kenyon exclaimed. “For some reason the full powers weren’t passed down the female line. He inherited half a deck. That’s why his stuff is so sketchy.”
The traffic was heavy on the FDR Drive, but the bus was steadily approaching their lower Manhattan exit. “Okay, Alf,” Spence said. “Time for clue number four. That’s going to be the piece de resistance, isn’t it, Will?”
“Yeah,” Will answered ruefully, “it’s the big enchilada, all right.”
Kenyon turned to the last pages in Will’s folder. He read Isabelle’s translation of the conclusion of Felix’s letter in a hushed monotone, and when he was done, no one spoke. It had started raining again, and the wiper blades beat like a slow metronome.
Finally, Kenyon whispered, “Finis Dierum.”
“That’s what I always feared,” Spence said. “Worst-case scenario. Shit.”
“We don’t know for sure,” Kenyon sputtered.
“We know I’m going to be dead in three days,” Spence snapped.
“Yes, old friend, we know that. But this is altogether different. There could be other explanations for their mass suicide. They could have gone on the fritz and lost their bearings. Mental illness. An infection. Who knows what?”
“Or they could have been spot on. At least admit it’s possible!”
“Of course, it’s possible. Happy?”
“You’ve satisfied a dying man’s wish to have you agree with me. Keep it up for another few days, will you?”
Will broke in with the pedestrian instruction, “Turn here.”
He was sick of these old farts, sick of the Library and everything associated with it. He’d been wrong to let himself get sucked back into their bizarre world. He wanted to see the back of Spence and Kenyon and forget all this happened. Twenty twenty-seven was tomorrow. He wanted his wife and son. He wanted today.
He guided Spence to the FBI headquarters at Liberty Plaza and waited for him to open the door of the idling bus.
“End of the road, fellows,” Will said. “I’m sorry about next week. What can I say? You’re still letting me have the bus?”
“The title and keys will be sent to you. Someone will tell you where to pick it up.”
“Thank you.”
The passenger door was still closed.
Spence exhaled forcefully. “You’ve got to let me see the database! I’ve got to know about my family! I’m not dying without finding out whether they make it to 2027!”
Will exploded. “Forget it! I’m not doing another goddamned thing for you guys! You’ve put me and my family at risk! I’ve got a whole lot of trouble on my plate now thanks to you, and I don’t have a fucking clue how I’m going to get out of this. Your watchers are no more than paid assassins with get-out-of-jail-free cards.”
Spence tried to grab his arm, but Will recoiled. “Open the door.”
Spence turned to Kenyon with a pleading look of desperation.
“Is there anything that we can do to persuade you otherwise, Will?” Kenyon asked.
“No there isn’t.”
Kenyon pursed his lips and handed him a plastic carrier bag, bulging with objects. “At least take these and think about it. Call us if you change your mind.” He plucked a cell phone off his belt clip and waved it at Will. “They’re preprogrammed with our number. Plenty of minutes. We’re going to have to fly back to Las Vegas. I’ll get someone to deliver the bus.”
Will looked inside the bag. There were a half dozen AT &T prepaid mobile phones. He knew the drill well enough. The watchers were bugging and tapping everything in sight. Anonymous prepaids were the only communication systems they couldn’t breach. The sight of the phones and all they implied nauseated him, but he took the bag with him when he climbed down and left the bus.
He didn’t look back, and he didn’t wave.
One of the uniformed security guards at the lobby desk recognized Will and called out, “Hey, look what the cat dragged in! How you doin’, man? How’s retirement?”
“Life goes on,” Will answered. “Any chance I can go up and surprise my wife?”
“Sorry, man. Got to be signed in and escorted. Same ole same ole.”
“I understand. Can you call her for me and tell her I’m down here?”
She flew off the elevator and flung her arms around his neck and when he straightened his back, her feet lifted off the floor. The lobby was crowded, but neither of them cared.
“I missed you,” she said.
“Ditto. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’re home. It’s over.”
He let go of her. She knew there was something very wrong when she looked up into his mournful face. “I’m sorry to tell you this, Nancy, but it’s not over.”
Chapter 28
DeCorso sat on the hard bench of his detention cell in the basement of the Met’s Heathrow Airport Police Station. They had his belt and shoelaces and had stripped him of his watch and papers. If he was nervous, he didn’t show it. He looked more like an inconvenienced passenger than a murder suspect.
When three policemen came to collect him, he assumed they’d be escorting him all the way to the terminal, where he’d be bundled onto a flight stateside, but instead, he was deposited only yards away in a bare, harshly lit interview room.
Two middle-aged men in dark suits came in, sat down, and announced that their conversation would not be recorded.
“You going to tell me who you are?” DeCorso asked.
The man directly across the table from him looked over the top of his glasses. “It’s not for you to ask.”
“Did someone forget to tell you guys I invoked diplomatic immunity?”
The other man sneered. “We don’t give a flying fuck about diplomatic immunity, Mr. DeCorso. You don’t exist, and neither do we.”
“If I don’t exist, why are you interested in me?”
“Your lot killed one of our lads in New York,” the fellow with glasses said. “Know anything about that?”
“My lot?”
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” the other man said. “We’re going to tell you what we know, so we can cut through all the bullshit, okay? You’re Groom Lake. Malcolm Frazier’s your boss. He was on our patch quite recently trying to buy an interesting old book. He was outbid by a telephone bidder in New York. Our man delivers it, and before he can report in, he’s snuffed. Then you show up this morning reeking of accelerants fresh from a barbecue involving the book’s original owner.”
DeCorso kept his best poker face and said nothing.
The second man picked up the thread. “So here’s the thing, Mr. DeCorso. You’re a guppy, nothing more. You know it, and we know it. But we’re going to turn you into a very large whale as far as your government is concerned
