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Captain Koelliker did, at least, get to finish his lunch. He even got halfway through a cup of good Swiss coffee before Corporal Amacker came into his office.
Koelliker could tell by the corporal’s bearing that they had not found Campinelli. He had not really expected that they would. Due diligence had required that he order the search, and he had.
But Amacker stood in front of the desk and said nothing, and Koelliker knew that something else was bothering the corporal, other than a search with no results.
Koelliker sighed and put down his coffee cup. “You didn’t find Campinelli,” he said.
“No, sir,” Amacker said.
“I did not expect that you would,” Koelliker said. But that statement did not appear to make Amacker any easier. “Well, what, then?” he asked.
“I’m not sure, Captain,” Amacker said. “Just—we found this? Um, just outside the library?” He carefully placed an object on the desk in front of Koelliker.
At first, it was impossible to tell what the thing was. It was some kind of reddish material, wadded up and shapeless. Koelliker picked it up, turned it over, straightened it out. After a moment, he could tell that it was a false beard, the kind you might glue onto your face for a part in a movie. And that made no sense; who would wear a fake beard to the Vatican Library? And then discard it?
But wait—he had seen a red beard recently. Where had it been . . . ?
And then he remembered.
“Scheisse,” Koelliker said. He stood up and beckoned to Amacker. “Come with me,” he said. He had to check, but he knew what he would find when he got back to the library.
He was right.
The Urbino Bible was gone.
PART 3
38
Monique was most definitely a city girl. Aside from the fact that she had been born and raised and educated in cities, and that she knew very little about the countryside except that that’s where food came from, she just didn’t like peace and quiet and bucolic scenery. She needed the adrenaline that only a great city can provide, the sense that exciting things were happening all around you, all the time, and that you were part of a smart, fast-moving culture. She could not be happy without the sound of crowds, the smell of traffic, and the promise of galleries and shops and the theater.
That said, Monique had never been so glad to see a view that held nothing but trees, bushes, and chipmunks. The past few weeks had told her that cities, crowds, people, all meant danger. She had fled Rome as if her life depended on it—and of course, she was quite sure it did. Her brief stay in Frankfurt had been just as bad. She could feel the lethal pursuers breathing down her neck. Even when Riley arrived, he had not been able to reassure her, and she had hurried to finish the work—as much as you could hurry when you are doing something that has to be absolutely perfect or you will die horribly.
And when they finished, Monique had fled Frankfurt in just as much of a cold sweat. Everybody in the airport seemed to be staring at her with sinister intentions, and every passenger on the flight to New York appeared to be watching her, waiting for her to lower her guard.
So in spite of being completely exhausted, Monique stayed awake, all the way across the Atlantic. And when she landed in New York at around midnight, she didn’t wait for daylight. She just grabbed a rental car and drove north as fast as she could, straight up I-87 to the Adirondacks and the place Riley had told her to find. She drove straight through the night, arriving at her destination as the sun was just starting to color the sky in the east.
Riley’s directions were very good; otherwise, she would never have found the place. That was a comforting thought. It meant nobody else could find it, either. She came off I-87 onto a much smaller state road, and from that onto a county road plagued with potholes. And from there the directions led her onto even smaller and bumpier roads as she drove farther up into the mountains, until she found herself on a series of dirt roads, the last one not much more than a slightly widened trail.
And then, finally, the big steel gate Riley had described. It was set into a barbed-wire fence hung with signs warning of an electric shock for anybody who touched it. Beside the gate was a box, secured with a combination lock. Monique opened it with the combination Riley had given her and turned off the security systems. She drove through the gate, turned it all back on, closed the box, and shut the gate behind her.
It was another mile or so down the smallest and bumpiest dirt road yet, and then she drove into a little clearing. Set at the far edge was a small and battered-looking log cabin. Safety. Monique parked, turned off the engine, and collapsed against the steering wheel with her forehead pressed to the back of her hands. She stayed like that for several minutes, just breathing. She felt suddenly empty, drained of all emotion, all energy, all possibility of moving and doing anything. It surprised her to realize how totally spent she was. But she’d been living in fear for weeks. Now it was over, and she was as safe as she could be.
Monique did not exactly fall asleep. It was more like tumbling into a trance, a kind of numb haze. She knew where she was, and that she needed to get out of the car. She just couldn’t summon up the energy to do that, or anything else. And the front door of the cabin suddenly seemed so far away. So she just sat, breathed, let her mind go blank.
Eventually, the sound of birds registered on her overworked senses. She sat up, blinked at the suddenly bright morning around her, and stumbled out of the car and into the cabin. She made it all the way inside and to the battered couch that slouched in front of the big stone fireplace. She flopped facedown onto the couch and was asleep in under three minutes.
The sun was setting when Monique opened her eyes. She lay on her back, looking up at a wooden ceiling crossed with large wooden beams. That made absolutely no sense. The ceiling in her apartment was acoustic tiles, not wood. She blinked, and it came back to her: Rome, Frankfurt, New York, the drive north—she was in Riley’s mountain hideout. And weirdly enough, that felt good.
Monique stretched, got up, and explored the cabin. One entire wall was a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, and it was packed with books. Beside it was a rolling cabinet with a stereo amplifier and a CD player. A large rack of music CDs stood beside it.
A short hallway led to two small bedrooms. The area opposite the fireplace was the kitchen. It held a heavy wooden table and three chairs, a battered refrigerator, and a sink with a hand pump—Riley had told her the water came from a well and was fresh, clean, and delicious. Next to the fridge was a large pantry filled with freeze-dried food. At the back of the pantry she found a carefully disguised panel. She
pulled it open and found the compartment Riley had described. He had said it had a small selection of weapons.
But to Monique it looked like an entire arsenal. She stared at the assortment of pistols, rifles, boxes of ammunition, and other things that she did not really want to know about. Monique did not like guns, and her experience with them was extremely limited. Under the circumstances, however, she was very glad they were there.
She selected a pistol that didn’t seem too ridiculous, a simple revolver with a duct-taped grip. She examined it carefully, figured out how to pop open the cylinder; it was not loaded. Although it was a simple matter to see that the bullets went right into those six little holes in the cylinder, there was nothing that indicated which bullets to use.
