Kenyon opened a folder and took out a few pages, a printout from a Web site. He handed them to Will. It was an online catalogue from Pierce & Whyte Auctions, an antiquarian bookseller in London, announcing an auction on October 15, 2010, the day after tomorrow. There were multiple color photographs of Lot Number 113, a thick old book with the date 1527 tooled onto the spine. He studied the images and the detailed description of the item that followed. Will skimmed the text, but the gist of it seemed to be that although it was a unique item, the auction house didn’t know what it was. The indicated price range was?2,000 to?3,000.
“Is it what I think it is?” Will asked.
Spence nodded. “It was a well-known piece of trivia around the shop that one volume of the Library was missing. A book from 1527. With under two weeks to live, I discover the son of a bitch has surfaced at an auction! I’ve got to have it! The damned thing’s been floating out there for six centuries! The one missing book out of hundreds of thousands. Why did it get separated from the others? Where’s it been? Did anyone know what it was? Christ, it may tell us more than every other book sitting in the Vault in Groom Lake. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but for all we know, it could be the key to finding out what the heck 2027 is all about! I’ve got a feeling, Mr. Piper, a strong feeling. And by Hades, before I die I’ve got to find out!”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“We want you to go to England tomorrow to buy the book for us at auction. I’m too sick to fly, and Alf here, the stubborn bastard, refuses to leave my side. I’ve got you booked in first class, coming back on Friday night. Nice hotel suite too at Claridge’s.”
Will gave him a black look, started to reply, but Spence interrupted.
“Before you answer, I want you to know that I want something else that’s even more important to me. I want to see the database. I know my own DOD, but I never looked up any of the people who matter to me. For all I know, that fucker, Malcolm Frazier, may Alf’s God strike him dead tomorrow, is onto us. Maybe it’s not my rotten lungs that are going to get me in ten days. Maybe it’s Frazier’s goons. I refuse to shuffle off this mortal coil without knowing if my children and grandchildren are BTH. I want to know if they’re safe. I’m desperate to know! You do these things for me, Mr. Piper, get the book and give me the database, and I’ll make you rich.”
Will was shaking his head before the man even finished. “I’m not going to England tomorrow,” Will said flatly. “I can’t leave my wife and son on short notice. And I’m not touching the database. It’s my insurance policy. I’m not going to risk my family’s safety to satisfy your curiosity. I’m sorry, but it’s not going to happen, even though the rich part sounds pretty good.”
“Take your wife too. And your son. I’ll pay for everything.”
“She can’t get off work just like that. Forget about it.” He imagined how Nancy would react, and it wouldn’t be pretty. “Make a right onto Fifth Avenue and take me home.”
Spence got agitated and started to shout and sputter. Will had to cooperate! The clock was ticking! Couldn’t he see that he was desperate!
The man began to cough severely and wheeze to the degree that Will thought he might lose control and crash into parked cars.
“Henry, calm down!” Kenyon implored. “Stop talking. Let me handle this.”
Spence was speechless by then anyway. He dipped his mottled head and signaled Kenyon to take over.
“Okay, Mr. Piper. We can’t force you to do something against your will. I thought you might not be inclined to get involved. We’ll bid on the book by telephone. At a minimum, allow us to have a courier hand-deliver it to your apartment on Friday night, where we’ll take possession. In the interim, do us the courtesy of considering the rest of Henry’s generous offer. He doesn’t need the entire database, just DODs for fewer than a dozen people. Please, sleep on it.”
Will nodded and remained silent the rest of the way downtown, concentrating on Spence’s wheezing and the hiss of oxygen flowing through his nasal prongs.
At that moment, Malcolm Frazier awoke with a start and a scowl, uncharacteristically disoriented. The credits were rolling on the in-flight movie, and the elderly woman in the middle seat was tapping his granite shoulder to get past him to the lavs. The coach seats on the American flight were not configured for his large, muscular body and his right leg was pressure-numb. He rose and shook out the pins and needles and cursed his superiors for not springing for business class.
There was nothing about this assignment he liked. Sending the head of security at Area 51 on a mission to buy a book at auction seemed ludicrous. Even this book. Why couldn’t they have sent a lab toad? He would have gladly dispatched one of his watchers to babysit. But no. The Pentagon wanted him. Unfortunately, he knew why.
The Caracas Event.
It was T minus thirty days and counting.
One of those seminal Area 51 predictions was bearing down on them, but this one was different. They weren’t in their usual reactive, defensive mode. They were going to capitalize on the data, go on the offense. The Pentagon was geared up. The Joint Chiefs were in perpetual session. The Vice President was personally chairing a task force. The full heft of the US government was pushing hard on this. It was the worst possible time for the one missing book to surface. Secrecy was always the top priority at Groom Lake, but no one wanted to be talking about a possible security breech with a month to go until Operation Helping Hand.
Helping Hand!
What Pentagon spin doctor came up with that?
If the missing book wound up in some egghead’s hands, who knew what kinds of questions might be asked, what kinds of facts might surface?
So Frazier understood why he got the assignment. Still, he didn’t have to like it.
The pilot announced they were approaching the coast of Ireland and would land at Heathrow in two hours. At his feet was an empty leather case, specially sized and padded for the job. He was already counting the hours until he was back in Nevada, the priceless 1527 book sitting heavy and snug inside his government-issued shoulder bag.
Chapter 4
The auction room at Pierce & Whyte was off the main hall on the ground floor of the Georgian mansion. Bidders signed in at a reception desk and entered a fine old room with fawn-colored hardwood floors, a high, plastered ceiling, and one entire wall lined with bookcases that required a ladder to reach the top shelves. The auction room faced the High Street, and with the drapes pulled back, yellow shafts of sunlight intersected with neat rows of brown wooden chairs making a chessboard pattern. There was space for seventy to eighty patrons, and on this fine bright Friday morning, the room was filling up briskly.
Malcolm Frazier had arrived early, anxious to get on with it. After registering with a pert girl who cheerfully ignored his surliness, he entered the empty room and sat down in the first row, directly in front of the auctioneer’s podium, where he absently twirled his paddle between a meaty thumb and forefinger. As more people arrived, it became increasingly apparent that Frazier was not the typical antiquarian book buyer. His fellow bidders didn’t look like they could bench-press four hundred pounds or swim underwater a hundred yards or kill a man with one weaponless hand. But Frazier was decidedly more nervous than his nearsighted, flabby brethren, since he had never attended an auction and was only vaguely aware of the protocol.
He checked the catalogue and found Lot 113 deep in the brochure. If this was the order of the day, he was afraid he’d have a long, agonizing sit. His posture was erect and stiff, his feet planted heavily beside his shoulder bag, a big block of a man with a face with more angles than curves. In the second row, the chair behind him stayed empty because he blotted out the view to the podium.
He had learned about the auction from a Pentagon e-mail flashed to his encrypted BlackBerry. He had been pushing a shopping cart at a suburban Las Vegas supermarket at the time, dutifully following his wife through the dairy section. The chime that went off on the device was the high-priority one, an insistent whoop that made his mouth go dry in a Pavlovian way. Nothing good ever followed this particular alert tone.
A long-forgotten Defense Intelligence filter that scanned all electronic media for the keywords “1527” and “book” had been triggered, and a low-level analyst at the DIA forwarded the finding up the line, curious but clueless
