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“Money is just money. It’s what you do with it that counts.”
“Spoken like a true do-gooder.”
Remi rolled over and sat up beside Sam. In answer to her questioning expression he mouthed, Bondaruk.
“What do you want?” Sam said.
“I’m curious: You were among the guests at my party, weren’t you?”
“We were standing right behind you during your lecture in the Sword Room. We got the distinct impression you like to hear yourself talk.”
“You’re brave, both of you, I’ll give you that much. You invaded my home, Mr. Fargo. If you were anyone else you’d—”
“Already be dead. Skip the threats and make your point. I’d like to get back to sleep.”
“I’m giving you one last chance. We work together. When it’s over, you get the bottles, I get what I’m after, and we part company. No harm done.”
“Speaking of what you’re after . . . It wouldn’t have anything to do with your private Persian funland below the laboratories, would it?”
Bondaruk didn’t answer.
“I thought so,” Sam said. “Bondaruk, don’t you think you’re taking your Xerxes infatuation a little too far? It’s not healthy.”
“You’re making a mistake, Mr. Fargo.”
“It seems to us that you’ve been making all the mistakes. By the way, we know your people have been casing our house in San Diego. If any of them so much as touch a newspaper in the driveway half the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department will fall on them like an avalanche.”
“So noted. This is the last time I’ll ask nicely.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
Sam hung up.
Remi said, “‘Private Persian funland’? Very imaginative.”
“I have my moments.”
CHAPTER 44
Armed with the next lines of the riddle and Yvette’s broadband Internet connection, Sam and Remi locked themselves in the study and went to work. Yvette, ever the gracious host, ordered Langdon to supply them with snacks and beverages, pens and paper, a second laptop, dry-erase markers, and a four-by-six-foot dry-erase board. On this they wrote the riddle in huge block letters:
Anguished House Fellows in amber trapped;
Tassilo and Pepere Gibbous Baia keep safe the place of Hajj;
The Genius of Ionia, his stride a battle of rivals;
A trio of Quoins, their fourth lost, shall point the way to Frigisinga.
They began by compiling a list of synonyms for each word that easily lent itself multiple meanings. They counted sixteen: “anguished,” “House,” “Fellows,” “trapped,” “Gibbous,” “keep,” “safe,” “place,” “Hajj,” “Genius,” “stride,” “battle,” “rivals,” “trio,” “point,” “way.”
From these they generated a list of dozens of words. Those they wrote on the board’s opposite side in a spiderweb-like chart, branch leading to thread leading to question marks.
Next they turned their attention to words they felt had clear links to history—“amber,” “Tassilo,” “Baia,” “Hajj,” “Genius,” “Ionia,” “Quoins”—which they also placed on the board, in their own separate columns and lists. Once done they divided up the words and began scouring the Internet for historical references, which they plugged into briefs of each word.
Five of the words—“amber,” “Tassilo,” “Baia,” “Hajj,” “Ionia”—had links to well-known places, peoples, or things. Amber was a fossil resin used for jewelry; Tassilo was the given name of a long line of Bavarian kings; Hajj was the name of the yearly Islamic pilgrimage to the holy site of Mecca; Baia, which meant “mine,” was the name of a commune in Romania on the Moldova River; and Ionia was a Greek island in the North Aegean Sea.
Unfortunately, like their list of synonyms, each of these historical referen
