Page 67 of The Paradox Club

But Hary Maxwell was not the only person who knew how to secretly record conversations. Before the Great Debate even began, Montag 5, at the instruction of Pilgrim 3, had recorded a conversation between Harry and President Calvin 4. After listening to thirty minutes of drivel about weather and how Tess Maxwell might have OCD, Pilgrim 3 heard the exact piece of information she had hoped for.

“Did you finish the math?” asked Calvin 4.

“I did,” said Harry. “Calculated it all on the island.”

“And?”

“My initial calculations were correct. There is one this summer.”

“And after that?”

“Nothing else for ten years. October fourteenth, 2015, at five twenty-two a.m.”

“You can be that precise?”

“I can be more precise,” said Harry. “Five twenty-two and seventeen seconds. And I’ve calculated the one after that.”

Pilgrim 3 didn’t need to listen further. She would have liked the details of the alignment coming in the summer of 2005, but she had the specifics for the 2015 alignment. She could bide her time. Ten years was nothing in the history of science.

MISSING GATSBY

Pilgrim 3 spent twenty minutes searching her office before she realized what had happened. She looked through every drawer in her desk and scanned every shelf in her bookcase before the truth hit her like a thunderbolt.

“The bitch stole it,” she said.

“Stole what?” said Lidenbrock 2.

“I didn’t see you standing there,” said Pilgrim 3.

“Who stole what?”

“That little devil Valentine 6 stole Gatsby the Great.”

“That book you’re always reading?”

“She removed a UFO from club premises without authorization,” said Pilgrim 3.

“That’s against club rules,” said Lidenbrock 2.

“It certainly is,” said Pilgrim 3. “And rule breakers must be punished. Where is she?”

“Valentine 6?” Lidenbrock 2 pulled out his cell phone and after a few taps held the screen up for Pilgrim 3 to see. “Newark airport.”

“I thought I told you to tell me if she left her neighborhood.”

“I just checked on her a half hour ago.”

“And in a half hour she’s driven to Newark?”

“Maybe it was forty-five minutes,” said Lidenbrock 2, taking a step back.

“The question is,” said Pilgrim 3, “does she have the book with her?”

“Can’t we trace it on the big board?”

“The big board doesn’t work that way, you fool. It only detects freshly arrived objects. Gatsby the Great has been here for decades.”

“It detected the radio,” said Lidenbrock 2.