Glenn Cooper - Book of Souls

“So what’s the answer?” Will asked.

“The answer is…” Spence paused for dramatics, “we don’t know!” He let out a belly laugh. “That’s why we’re driving around Manhattan trying to romance you.”

“I don’t think I can help you.”

“We think you can,” Kenyon said.

“Look,” Spence added, “we know all about the Doomsday case and Mark Shackleton. We knew the guy, not well, mind you, but if someone was going to go off the reservation, it was going to be someone like Shackleton, a grade-A loser, if you ask me. You had some kind of connection to him beforehand, no?”

“He was my college roommate. For a year. What’s your source of information on me?”

“The Club. We’re networked like crazy. We know that Shackleton smuggled out the US database all the way to the horizon. We know that he set up a smoke screen by inventing a serial-killing spree in New York.”

Kenyon sadly shook his head and interrupted. “I still can’t believe the rank cruelty of sending people postcards with their date of death!”

Spence continued, “We know his real purpose was base: to make money from a life-insurance scheme! We know you exposed him. We know he was critically wounded by the watchers. We know you were allowed to retire from the FBI and presumably live an unfettered life. Therefore, Mr. Piper, we strongly suspect, virtually to the point of certainty, that you have unique leverage over the authorities.”

“What would that be?”

“You must have a copy of the database.”

Momentarily, Will was back in Los Angeles, fleeing from the watchers, in the backseat of a taxi, urgently downloading Shackleton’s database from his laptop onto a memory stick. Shackleton: rotting away like a vegetable in some godforsaken back ward.

“Not going to confirm or deny.”

“There’s more to tell,” Kenyon said. “Go on, Henry, tell him everything.”

“Back in the midnineties, I got friendly with one of the watchers, a man named Dane Bentley, to the point that he did me the ultimate Area 51 favor. I was insatiably curious. The only people with access to what I wanted to know were the people tasked with making sure we had no access! The watchers, as you know, are a grim lot, but this fellow, Dane, had enough humanity to break the rules for a friend. He looked up my date of death. October 21, 2010. At the time it seemed very, very far away. Kind of creeps up on you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.” He waited until the next red light before asking, “Did you look yourself up?”

Will didn’t see the point in playing possum any longer. “I did. Given the circumstances, I felt I had to. I’m BTH.”

“That’s good,” Kenyon said. “We’re relieved to hear that, aren’t we, Henry?”

“Yes we are.”

“I never wanted to know my date,” Kenyon said. “Preferred to leave it squarely in God’s hands.”

“Here’s the thing,” Spence said energetically, banging his hands against the steering wheel. “I have ten days to learn the truth. I can’t postpone the inevitable, but goddamn it, I want to know before I die!”

“I can’t see any way I can help you. I really can’t.”

“Show him, Alf,” Spence demanded. “Show him what we found a week ago.”

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.