Glenn Cooper - Book of Souls

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.

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 why anyone in military intelligence would give a hoot over a Web-site listing of an old book coming to auction.

But to the cognoscenti at Area 51, this was a bombshell. The one missing volume. The needle in a haystack, found. Where had the book been all these years? What was its chain of possession? Did anyone know what it was? Could anyone figure it out? Was there anything special about this particular volume that could compromise the lab’s mission? Meetings were held. Plans were drawn. Paperwork was pushed up the line. Funds were allocated and wired. Operation Helping Hand was looming, and Frazier was personally chosen by the Pentagon for the job.

With the room near capacity, the auctioneers arrived and took their positions. Toby Parfitt, impeccably turned out, approached the podium and began adjusting the microphone and his auction implements. To his left, Martin Stein and two other senior members of the books department seated themselves at a draped table. Each dialed into a telephonic connection for off-site bidders and, with receivers pressed against ears, placidly awaited the start of the proceedings.

Peter Nieve, Toby’s junior assistant, positioned himself to his master’s right, a fidgeting dogsbody at the ready. Nieve made sure he was closer to his boss than the new lad, Adam Cottle, who had joined the department only a fortnight earlier. Cottle was a dull-eyed blond in his twenties with short hair and sausage fingers, by looks more of a butcher boy than a book dealer. Apparently his father knew the Managing Director, and Toby was told to take him on, even though he didn’t need the extra help, and Cottle lacked a university degree or, indeed, any relevant experience.

Nieve had been merciless to the fellow. He finally had someone lower on the pecking order, and he delegated his most mundane and humiliating chores to the colorless young man, who would quietly nod and get on with the task like a subservient oaf.

Toby surveyed the audience, nodding curtly to the regulars. There were a few new faces, none more imposing than the large, muscular gentleman seated in front of him, oddly out of place.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the appointed hour has arrived. I am Toby Parfitt, your auctioneer, and I am pleased to welcome you to Pierce & Whyte’s autumn auction of select antiquarian books and manuscripts, representing a diverse selection of high-quality literary collectables. Among the many featured offerings today is a veritable treasure trove of material from the collection of Lord Cantwell’s country house in Warwickshire. I would like to inform you, we are also accepting telephonic bids. Our staff is at the ready to assist you with any inquiries. So without further ado, let us begin.”

A rear door opened, and a pretty female assistant with white gloves entered with the first lot, demurely holding it out in front of her bosom.

Toby acknowledged her, and began, “Lot 1 is a very nice copy of John Ruskin’s The Unity of Art, a lecture delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Manchester School of Art in 1859, published at Oxford in 1870. The copy is lightly browned in its original wrappers and would make a worthy acquisition for Ruskin aficionados and art historians alike. I would entertain starting bids of?100.”

Frazier grunted and steeled himself for an ordeal.

In New York City, it was five hours earlier, two hours before the sun would crack the chilly gloom over the East River. Spence and Kenyon had awoken early at their nighttime domicile, a Wal-Mart parking lot in Valley Stream, Long Island. In the bus’s kitchen, they made coffee and bacon and eggs, then hit the road to beat the rush hour into lower Manhattan. It was four thirty when they arrived at Will’s door. He was waiting at the curb, shivering from the cold but steaming from an early-morning argument.