Alex Archer - Library Of Gold

RMNINEEEREUNNGPFYD

MNOGAPIOOADTSDETUL

IEEUEFGSENRSSTOETO

It was a form of substitution code and, luckily, one she was familiar with. The trick was to lay out the message with the proper number of rows, each with the right number of letters, until something made sense when you read down the vertical rows.

After a little bit of trial and error, Annja settled on twenty-two rows, each with nine letters.

CAECPARTI

ZSNAIIYOL

AETPCLOUL

RCIEIEUTC

WRRWODTOA

AEEINMOFN

NTWTBAURY

TIOHUPSUO

SNROTWESU

VTKUAIASR

AECTMTSIB

UNRASHYAR

LDEREGOWO

TSWONUUHT

TTCUDISIH

OOASISELE

RMNINEEER

EUNNGPFYD

MROGAPIOO

ADTSDETUL

IEEUEFGSF

NRSSTOETO

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.”

It was a reasonable response, but Annja found herself pushing him just a bit further. “Right after you pocket a hefty finder’s fee, right?”

Charles laughed outright. “Look around you, Annja,” he said, indicating with a sweep of his hands the house, the grounds, his entire business empire by extension, she supposed. “The media claims I have more money than God and you know what? That’s probably the only time I’ve ever agreed with them. I set a record last year for the most consecutive appearances on Forbes magazine’s Top Ten Wealthiest People list. What on earth would I do with more money?”

It was the response she was looking for. The library was part of the world’s cultural heritage, a glimpse into the beliefs and practices of the past. It belonged to the Russian people and shouldn’t be locked away in some private collector’s vault.

“Good,” she said, “at least that’s settled. But we’re still faced with the issue of finding the map Fioravanti was talking about in his journal. You said you think you know where it is?”

Charles looked over at Gianni, who had been sitting patiently listening to their exchange. “Tell her,” he said to the younger man.

Annja saw the flash of excitement in Gianni’s eyes as he turned to face her. “According to what I’ve been able to discover, Ridolfo’s brother gave the map to Kasmir Nabutov, their cousin by marriage and an Orthodox priest assigned to the Cathedral of the Annunciation. Everything I’ve found on the topic suggests that Nabutov secreted the map inside the Gospel of Gold, though how or exactly where I don’t know.”

She knew that Ivan the Terrible had gifted the Gospel to the cathedral in 1571, right about the same time the library had gone missing. Legend claimed the Gospel had once been a part of the library and that it contained a clue to the library’s whereabouts, but it had been stored in the cathedral for hundreds of years with restricted access. Nobody had verified if the legend was true.

Given that they weren’t getting in to see the Gospel, Annja didn’t see how this was going to help them and said as much to the other two.

“As it turns out,” Charles replied, “I have a colleague on the staff of the cathedral. I’ve made arrangements for the two of you to privately examine the Gospel the day after tomorrow.”