“Already texted him.”
Harry, shrugging on his smoky, dirty jacket, asked, “No ideas from her where Ardelean might be or what he might be up to?”
“She says no, outside of overhearing him tell his brother a shipment had arrived and he was going to bring the program to light.”
“The drones,” Nicholas said.
“Probably. But how, and when? She didn’t know anything else, and I believe her. To make her cooperate, he threw food on her stomach and sent a falcon for it.” She told them the rest, Harry asking questions, many of which she couldn’t answer.
Harry said, “We all need food and sleep, and no more drone or falcon attacks. Ideas?”
Nicholas said, “The Connaught?”
Harry nodded. “Why not? Ardelean can’t be scoping out all the hotels in London, can he? I’ll get us a large suite, have Adam and Ben meet us there. I’ll put it under the name Oliver Kittredge.” He chuckled. “They’ll know what to do.”
Mike yawned, and her ear cracked. Her head cleared. “Finally.”
“What happened? You okay?”
“Yes, it was my ear. It’s been hurting since the safe house exploded. I’m fine. Sort of tired, that’s all. Let’s get ourselves to the Connaught. Is it a fancy place as befits the two of you?”
* * *
The three-bedroom suite at the Connaught was beautifully appointed, with a marble fireplace, exquisite blue velvet sofas, and floor-to-ceiling living room windows looking over the sleeping occupants of Mayfair. They set up the computers on the dining room table and ordered fancy pizzas, club sandwiches, warm tomato basil soup, a whole cheesecake, and a separate order of fish and chips for Adam, who swore he wasn’t going to eat anything else for the rest of his life.
Melinda joined Ben and brought news from Downing Street. “The U.S. president’s trip is not going to be canceled. He’ll be showing up tomorrow as scheduled. First stop, Downing Street, then a press conference at Lancaster House. Then he’ll do Buckingham Palace, then he speaks to Parliament. A private dinner is last on the agenda, at Winfield. I’m telling you, every stop is a target. We’ve warned them it’s not safe, but he’s stubborn.”
Nicholas laughed. “You don’t know the half of it, Melinda. Mike and I learned that the hard way at Camp David.”
“Problem is,” Adam said, chewing a fry drowned in vinegar, “every single place except the dinner is on the list of blueprints we found on Ardelean’s hard drives. So Ardelean could be planning an attack on any of them.”
Nicholas said, “Or none of them. Bringing the ‘program to light,’ and what else did Isabella say, Mike?”
“Give the world a show.” She took a sip of soda, continued. “Look, he’s lost the one thing that mattered to him, his brother. And he believes everyone in the government is responsible, and that includes the prime minister. He could fly a drone up to 10 Downing Street and shoot off a missile right through the windows like he did at the safe house, and no one could stop him.”
Harry said, “He wants to give the world a show—and to me that means he wants to make a big splash, make a definitive statement, kill as many people as he can. And the sites with the extensive blueprints are the most likely targets.”
Ben asked, “So then, what do you think would bring him the biggest bang for the buck? Buckingham Palace or Parliament?”
Melinda said, “I forgot—they’re going to be having a barbecue at Buckingham Palace, like they did with President Obama. It will be outdoors. The PM and the president, manning the grill.”
Nicholas jumped up from his seat. “That’s it. Adam, bring up the plans for Buckingham Palace. What better way to show off his army than attacking the president and the prime minister, and blowing up the Queen’s house?”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
Sky News
London
There are now more allegations against Corinthian Jones, Lord Barstow, who died last night in a bombing near the Prince Edward Theatre. We’ve received information that detail an array of allegations, from money laundering to sexual harassment to coercion and entrapment. The list of names involved is long. Many of them are dead after being attacked over the past few days, and we are endeavoring to separate allegation from fact.
“As you already know, we at Sky News are not going to release charges until we’re able to confirm the leaks to us are real, and these we will report as we get them.
“Meanwhile, a home in Mayfair was destroyed today, where witnesses say the residence exploded. A gas leak is given as the official cause. No one was injured in the blast, and the fire has now been put out. The owners were on vacation in the Seychelles and say the house has been empty for the past few months.
“In other news, the U.S. president comes for his first state visit tomorrow. With a long and busy day, Londoners can expect road closures and other annoyances—”
CHAPTER EIGHTY
A 2012 study, published in the journal Cell Biology, analyzed genomic data from 13 Romani communities across Europe. The researchers concluded that the Roma people left northern India about 1,500 years ago; those Roma now in Europe migrated through the Balkans starting about 900 years ago. These data confirm written reports of Roma groups arriving in medieval Europe in the 1100s.
—Live Science
Florida
One Year Ago
Nadia lay in a dream sleep. She heard people moving around, speaking in quiet voices, occasionally touching her, but when they bothered her, she simply willed herself to sink deeper in this luminous place where anything seemed possible. She let the years and the decades sweep her back like a slow, gentle tide. She saw faces, some making her happy, others not. She smiled when she recognized her great-grandmother, so old, her face so seamed by the sun, she looked like lovely old leather. She loved to tell Nadia the favored story back in the olden days when Elena, a young girl in their tribe, had come upon a man burying something beneath a rowan tree. It was in Poland, yes, before the tribe moved back to Walachia. Elena’s parents had come to Kezia, who was called the Old Princess, with the pages, and she gave thanks when she saw them. She’d formed the strange words in her mind, then spoken them aloud to all, and showed them strange red and green pictures, had taken a stick and used it to scratch more of the strange plants and figures in the sand next to the fire pit. No one understood the words or the strange drawings, but all marveled at her gift, for she was above and beyond them. She told them the pages were from a great manuscript.
Nadia knew the story so well, passed down from mother to daughter for two generations. The Old Princess had prophesied that one day, special twins would be born into the family, twins who would read the strange words and understand the strange drawings. But Nadia’s mother hadn’t given birth to twins, only to her, Nadia. And The Old Princess had died at nearly ninety years old. Before she breathed her last, she’d whispered again to Nadia’s mother, “Wait, wait.”
She floated through the years, her memories, watched her mother grow ill and die, saw herself young, limber, very talented, a gymnast for the Romanian Olympic team, and she was very good at it, winning, always winning. But then she’d wanted to leave Romania, to be free, and managed to be granted asylum in the United States. She moved to Florida, a flat land of endless sun and water, but she missed the mountains of her birth.
Years, decades, floated like clouds, showing her mother’s memories, maybe others’ memories too, and she’d catch one and linger and savor. She saw Jackson’s hard face, a man of few words who’d loved her deeply, but she saw he was sad because Isabella’s small twin sister, Kristiana, had died. He and Nadia had wept together, though he’d said little. Time rolled forward, still slow and easy, but she was aware of its passing, aware of herself in the passage of time. She saw herself sitting on a sandy beach one lonely day, half-watching Isabella play in the warm ocean. She saw the Old Princess, heard her say clearly, as if she were but a foot away, “I told your mother there would be twins, but there weren’t twins for her.
But it was you, Nadia, it’s you who birthed twins, and they will listen and hear the pages speak and sing and cry to be reunited to the great manuscript.”
But Kristiana was dead. Nadia, the floating Nadia, didn’t say anything. Isabella was still a twin even though she was now alone. And then she knew what she had to do. She saw herself young, still supple and vigorous, pawing through an ancient trunk in the attic of that small house in Florida, finding the box that still held the linen-wrapped pages, all of them torn on the edges, all save one that someone had cut from the great manuscript.
She’d shown Isabella the pages and soon regretted it. Her daughter read them easily, as the Old Princess had, and she’d made drawings like those on the pages, only the colors weren’t ever right, no matter which ones Nadia bought. Isabella said they were about plants and medical sorts of things she didn’t understand. She said the pages spoke to her, they sang to her, and they cried for what they’d lost. And her daughter continued to read the strange words, deep into the night, the pages becoming an obsession.
And Nadia, that anxious young mother, feared for Isabella’s sanity, for the little girl grew withdrawn. That long-ago Nadia had grown frantic, as had Jackson. He’d wanted to burn the pages, but Nadia could not—they’d been passed down from the Old Princess, generation after generation. To her. To Isabella, a twin.
She saw herself, unable to destroy the pages, and she looked down from where she glided above and watched herself as a young mother bury them in a lead box so Isabella couldn’t hear them calling to her, crying to her.
Then, coming through a seam in time was the Old Princess Kezia, and Nadia saw herself trying to explain, telling her over and over she wanted to protect Isabella, that her precious child was going mad and it was because of the pages. She saw the Old Princess, heard her speak, her voice hollow and so very old, even in that lovely dream sleep, and she saw a soft breeze that surely wasn’t really there softly ruffle her snow-white hair around her face.
Nadia said to the Old Princess, “Isabella is a young girl, not of the same ancient superstitious world as you. In this modern world, there are no ties to magic or mysterious words or languages or unknown drawings.”
Where had the Old Princess gone? She drifted, seeing things and people from a great distance or up close, it didn’t seem to matter. Some of them were deep inside her, locked away forever, her memories of them soft as long-ago sunlight on her face.
When had Isabella become enamored with the Voynich manuscript? Then there came the day, that single day, so clear she wondered if the Old Princess had sent it to her now, in this soft, wonderful place where nothing bothered her, where nothing could really touch her, the day she’d told Isabella, “The pages, they’re lost, gone forever. You must forget. Forget.”
She lay there, as if cushioned on soft white clouds, saw herself begging Isabella to swear she would never tell anyone she could read the great manuscript, the Voynich, promise, promise, because Nadia knew it would lead to tragedy, and Isabella had agreed.
Nadia saw the Old Princess hovering beyond her, and she turned and saw her old wrinkled face had smoothed out. She nodded and whispered to Nadia, “Do not be afraid, my beautiful one, soon you will be with me. Soon, but first you must tell Isabella where you buried the pages. She is the only one to reunite them to the great manuscript. You cannot fail, my beloved, you cannot.”
And for some reason no one at the hospital could explain, Nadia Gabor Marin came out of her morphine-induced coma and asked to write another single line to her will. And she wrote in a surprisingly strong hand to Isabella where she’d buried the loose pages and page 74.
THE SIXTH DAY
SUNDAY
Westminster Bridge is 252m long and 26m wide. It’s an arch bridge with seven iron-ribbed elliptical spans; the most spans of any of the Thames bridges. Westminster Bridge was painted green in 1970 to match the seats in the House of Commons, the part of the Palace of Westminster closest to the bridge. Lambeth Bridge, further upstream, is painted red to match the colour scheme in the House of Lords.
The first Westminster Bridge featured semioctagonal turrets at intervals along the crossing to provide shelter for pedestrians. But these cloistered cubby holes soon became haunts for vagabonds, muggers and prostitutes. In the end, 12 night watchmen had to be hired to guard travelers as they crossed the river.
—LONDONIST.COM
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
Air Force pilots near Las Vegas can fly drones 7,500 miles away in Afghanistan. The Air Force has 65,000–70,000 people working to process all the data and footage it’s currently collecting from drones.
—Forbes Magazine
Drone Flight Facility
Warehouse on Thames
North London
The room was pitch-black, the screens lit with tracers of red and green, like a demented Christmas decoration, overlaying on a topographical map of central London. There were five pilots at the ready, hands on controls, and the drones were amassed on the makeshift runway, the camouflage canopy stretching for hundreds of feet above them, sheltering the fleet from prying eyes. Roman needed to get them in the air and keep them low, away from the radar so they wouldn’t be seen before he was ready, before it was too late.
Cyrus Wendell, captaining the fleet, said quietly, “You were right, sir. The threat worked. They changed their plans, no more ridiculous barbeque at Buckingham. They’ll all be in Parliament, as you wished. Where will you be, sir? We wouldn’t want a mistake.”
“No, we wouldn’t, Cyrus. I’ll be on the boat, with the cast. It will be their first major exposure to the full army in a city environment. I want to be able to guide them until we arrive.”
To the pilots, Roman gave a different speech.
“Gentlemen, this is a watershed moment for our company. We’ve been tasked with building the biggest threat detection system in the history of Britain. Our drones will protect the skies of this city, will be used to stop attacks on our homeland by the people who hate us, who wish us dead. You are the front line of defense for your country. Be proud.”
There were cheers and applause. They were patriots, they were thrilled to be a part of this program.
Ardelean continued, “The plans are set, the flight paths programmed, all you need to do is get them in the air and the program will take over and fly them on instruments. You will only be needed if the drones go off course, or if it looks like one might be taken. Then, and only then, will you be allowed to take them over manually.”
“Copy that, sir. We’re ready for the final test run. All circuits are go.”
“Then let’s fly.”
He patted Cyrus on the arm, Cyrus, his one trusted employee, the one who knew he’d lied to the pilots, who knew very well this wasn’t a test, that there was no way to take the drones off their course once it was set, that Roman alone had control of their flight paths.
Roman headed for the dock. His fifty-one-foot Bladerunner speedboat awaited, and the cast was aboard, hooded, sitting on their cages, their flying jesses already on. Arlington stamped her feet; she was ready to get in the air.
He started the engine and heard the drones spark to life as well. He set the telemetry in his ear so he could keep track of the cast.
This is for you, Brother. We come from the skies; we come from the water; we come to hit them in their most vulnerable place. We will kill them, as they killed you.
Roman unhooded his falcons. They were hungry; they were ready. He stroked a wing here, a head there, making sure they all felt his touch. Arlington cheeped happily. She was excited, ready, and the rest of the cabal wagged their tail feathers in response.
Roman smiled at them, his beloved children. “It is time, my lovelies. Conserve energy. It will be a long flight. Now, fly.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
The Connaught Hotel
Carlos Place
Mayfair, London
Nicholas woke with a sense of unease he couldn’t shake. Something was wrong, but wha
t? The sun was up. Mike lay next to him on her back, one arm flung over her head, her beautiful hair spread across the pillow. He lay still, thinking, reassessing everything they’d done.
Mike sighed, rolled over, and saw he was awake. She raised her hand, touched his shoulder. “You okay?”
“Something’s worrying me, and I can’t figure out what it is.”
“We spent half the night warning people and planning for every contingency.”
“We’re missing something, I know it.”
She leaned up to kiss his whiskered cheek. “Every law enforcement official in London will be on high alert today, Nicholas, all eyes focused on the president and the prime minister. Everyone is ready if there’s an assassination attempt.”
“No, no, there’s something we’re missing.”
“We’ll be at Buckingham Palace for the barbecue. They have fighters ready and sharpshooters on the roof to take down any drone that tries to dive-bomb us. Secret Service will be all over the president and the prime minister. We’re only backup today. Now, do you want some breakfast? I saw some waffles on the menu and you know, I’d kill for waffles. Maybe with some strawberries on top.” She touched her fingers to his shoulder. “Nicholas, we do the best we can.” He said nothing. Mike looked around, saw her nightgown draped over the bedpost and pulled it over her head. Still, he looked preoccupied, worried, rather than looking at her, very unlike himself.
“Come on, Nicholas, maybe they can make you a frittata as good as Cook Crumbe’s at Old Farrow Hall. Who knows when we’ll be able to eat again?”
“I don’t want the president at risk at all. I want to find Ardelean before he has a chance to send a drone or one of his falcons.” He shook his head at himself, lifted the phone, and placed a breakfast order, with lots of strong coffee.