Library Of Gold

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Then, reading down the rows moving from left to right, Annja spelled out the entire message, inserting breaks between words where they seemed most appropriate. To her surprise, it had been coded into English.

CZAR WANTS VAULT TO REMAIN A SECRET. INTENDS TO MURDER ENTIRE WORK CREW. CANNOT ESCAPE WITHOUT AROUSING SUSPICION BUT AM SENDING A DETAILED MAP WITH GIUSEPPE FOR YOU TO USE AS YOU SEE FIT. GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN. YOUR BROTHER DOLFO.

If we could only get our hands on that map…

Charles’s confident smile. Did he already have it? Is that why he’s so convinced the journal will lead him to the library?

There was only one way to find out.

Annja took a photograph of the page containing the unbroken code and then one of the decoded message she’d worked out on her scratch pad. Afterward she packed everything up and emerged from the examination room to find Charles’s butler, a tall, thin balding man with tufts of gray hair sprouting out of his ears and dressed in a sharply pressed black suit, waiting for her.

“Sir Charles and his guest have retired to the study. Sir Charles left instructions for me to guide you there, if that would be all right with you?”

Annja indicated the hallway before them with a sweep of her arm. “Lead on.”

He took her down a few of the hallways she’d passed through earlier on her way to the examination room and then up a set of stairs to a room on the third floor. Gianni and Charles were deep in discussion over what looked to be a map—presumably of Moscow—but broke off when Annja arrived. The butler served them all drinks—Scotch for their host, espresso for Gianni and a mug of hot cocoa for Annja—and then they settled down to discuss their next steps. Annja and Gianni sat in leather armchairs in front of the desk with Charles in his wheelchair between them.

Annja didn’t waste any time asking the question that was burning her up inside.

“Do you have it?”

Charles looked at her with a cautious expression. “Have what?”

“The map, of course. Or did you think a simple substitution code was going to trip me up?”

He laughed aloud, delighted, it seemed, with both her ability to figure out the code and her attitude. He turned to Gianni and said, “Decoding that message took us, what? Seventy-two hours?”

“Seventy-four and a half,” the younger man replied, his gaze intent on her.

Annja pretended not to notice. “Since I obviously passed your test with flying colors, let’s get down to brass tacks. What exactly am I here for?”

“I should think that would be obvious by now,” Charles replied. “I want you to lead an expedition to find the lost library.”

Annja wasn’t surprised. From the moment he’d mentioned the ancient library she knew that was where he was headed. But she also knew there was much more to an expedition than just deciding to conduct one.

“While I certainly appreciate the confidence you’ve shown in me…” she began, but got no further.

Davies held his hand up. “Now just hang on a minute,” he told her. “Hear me out before you go telling me how crazy this is.”

She hadn’t been thinking quite that negatively, but waved to him to continue nonetheless.

“There have been more than eighteen well-funded attempts to find the library in the past fifty years, including two by Soviet leaders Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev. All of them have ultimately failed,” Charles said. “I have no intention of having my expedition join that long and illustrious list.

“That’s why I want to hire you, Annja. You have far more experience than any of the other expedition leaders I would be forced to consider if you turn me down. Though I’m confident you won’t,” he hastened to add.

Don’t be so sure of that.

“Money is no object, so you will have the best gear and whatever equipment you need to retrieve the library once you have confirmed its location. I will also call on my contacts in Russia to provide you whatever access and assistance you need to be successful.”

She had no doubt that his connections would be invaluable, as half the trouble on expeditions like this was securing the right to go where they wanted to go and search where they wanted to search. But she still wasn’t confident about his motives.

“What is it you expect to do with the library once we find it?” she asked.

For just a moment Charles appeared startled, as if the thought had never occurred to him.

“Is that what you’re concerned about? Rest easy, Miss Creed. If you locate—” he shook his head “—excuse me, when you locate it, the library will be turned over intact to the proper authorities inside the Russian government.”