all, things had been moving along quite smoothly.
Then, two months earlier, the Professor procured a piece of antiquity that McCullum was hell-bent on acquiring. From the day that DeVris told McCullum about the diary, DeVris had been walking a tightrope, trying to maintain a balance between McCullum’s determination to obtain the diary and Ludlow’s terror of allowing the secrets that the diary held to fall into “the wrong hands.”
Now, with Ludlow permanently out of the picture, and the diary apparently still secure within Ludlow’s safe, housed behind the oven, DeVris was finally in control.
DeVris turned his attention back to the phone conversation. It was time for a contribution from him.
“From what the police told me when they notified me of the incident, Ludlow must have walked in on his attackers,” DeVris explained. “The intruders must have been in the apartment for some time trying to force Ludlow’s wife to tell them where the diary was, apparently keeping her alive until Ludlow came home.”
“Lucky you followed my suggestion and had Ludlow get the diary to you,” McCullum concluded.
Fear shot through DeVris’ body. McCullum was testing him, waiting for DeVris to assure him, once again, that the diary was safe in DeVris’ possession.
The Director broke into a cold sweat. Perhaps McCullum was giving him one last chance to confess that he had been lying. If McCullum suspected that Ludlow had never given up the diary, DeVris might do better to just admit it and take his punishment like a man.
But how could he admit he only had the bits and pieces of the diary that Ludlow had doled out to him? How could he say he had been stringing McCullum along for weeks?
It had seemed like a foolproof scheme at the time. Ludlow, unwilling to turn over the diary, had agreed to upload a small section of the manuscript each day for DeVris to translate directly off the Internet. In exchange, DeVris had paid the small fortune demanded by the antique dealer for the diary and had agreed to provide Sabbie’s services, without whom Ludlow would not have been able to decipher the more esoteric passages of the moldy manuscript.
Though the exchange had been more than fair, at the last minute, Ludlow had insisted on maintaining strict control. By using a special copyright protection program, the Professor had ensured that DeVris could view each day’s section of the diary on the Internet but had barred him from copying the material into a document or from printing it out.
At least, that’s what the old guy believed. DeVris had worked his way past a similar program used by online booksellers for customers who searched the contents of books. By instructing his computer to take screen shots, DeVris had been able to photograph each page of the diary and save them as PDF files for printing, reevaluation, and compilation at his leisure. He had allowed Ludlow to believe he was in control. It made the old man happy and, most of all, kept him quiet.
Without actually having the diary, DeVris had been able to provide McCullum with the ever-growing manuscript translation and copies of the original text for which McCullum paid extraordinarily well.
It would have been the perfect plan if DeVris had not lived in fear that McCullum might someday demand to see the actual diary. When that day came … well, DeVris never actually allowed himself to consider what might happen.
With notification of Ludlow’s death, DeVris had feared his pretense might be revealed but the gods had been with him. The police had indicated that Ludlow’s wall safe had been broken into but made no mention of the oven safe. Both Ludlow’s assassins and the police appeared ignorant of its existence and DeVris had every reason to believe that it was still intact, the diary safe within.
All of his warnings to Ludlow to tell no one but his assistant, Peterson, of the existence of the oven safe had paid off … in spades.
It had been DeVris’ additional good fortune that Ludlow had uploaded the last of the diary’s pages only two days before heading for his meeting in the States with CyberNet.
As soon as things calmed down a bit, DeVris would fly to England, gain access to the apartment, get Peterson to open the oven safe, and bring the diary home with no one any the wiser. Piece of cake. Until then, the Internet photos that DeVris had taken would continue to convince McCullum that the diary was secure within DeVris’ hands. And, for all intents and purposes, it was. As Ludlow would have put it, what the top WATSC Nazi didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
“So Ludlow’s murderers never got what they were looking for?” McCullum reiterated.
“How could they?” DeVris replied with as upbeat a tone as he could muster.
“Good,” McCullum concluded, seemingly satisfied. “By the way,” he added nonchalantly. “Interesting turn of events, this Peterson thing, don’t you think?”
DeVris froze. “What Peterson thing?”
“Oh, didn’t you know? Ludlow’s assistant has been missing for two days now.”
ELEVEN
Later that afternoon
Main Entry Gate, Israel Museum
The cab pulled into the grand circle driveway. Beyond the great gates lay an unending boulevard walk. Buildings on both sides of the boulevard seemed miles away.
“Can’t you get any closer?” Gil asked. Although he had landed at the airport with more than three hours to spare, customs inspections and mid-day traffic had eaten up almost all of the time. He had less than a half an hour to get to DeVris’ office in the Shrine of the Book before the Director left for the day. Gil could have called and said he was running late if he had had the time to charge his cell phone, which he hadn’t, so he couldn’t.
“This is as far as I can go,” the driver said. “You could take the old-people’s shuttle to the Entrance Pavilion Information Desk if you like,” he added with a grin.
“Some sage advice,” Gil retorted. “Don’t make fun of the customer ’til after you get your tip.”
“Some sager advice,” the driver replied. “Don’t assume the tip isn’t already built into the fare.”
The buildings, crosswalks, and soft grassy areas that made up the Israel Museum complex covered more than twenty acres. The maze that led to the Shrine of the Book was indecipherable. He was lost. The simple map provided by the security guard at the gate was useless. Asking three people for directions yielded four different sets of instructions in what Gil had quickly termed “Heblish,” for the indistinguishable blending of Hebrew-English lexicon.
A final request to a passerby brought help in the form of a Canadian who, taking Gil by the elbow, steered him past the Youth Wing of the Museum to where they presumably could get a better view.
The white, mushroom-shaped roof in the distance rose to a peak in the center, jutting into the cloudless blue sky. Black walls rose in stark contrast. “That’s the Shrine of the Book,” the Canadian said softly. “She’s a beauty, ehh?”
The grandeur of the architecture was unexpected, as was Gil’s reaction. With each step, he felt less sure of himself and more in awe.
A simple map in the lobby of the white-capped building, its legend in English and Hebrew, pointed the way to the Museum offices. Pulling open the heavy door to that wing, Gil stepped into the cool, dark corridor. Though light streamed in, the labyrinth of layered walls more resembled a cave than a hall. Gil walked slowly, finding the appropriate turnoff at the end. Reluctantly, he left the peaceful passageway and entered the glaring efficiency of the faculty offices.
The secretary greeted him with a smile that was only as friendly as it had to be. Gil explained that he was already late and would appreciate it if she would tell Dr. DeVris that he had arrived.
She shrugged and turned back to her phone conversation.
“Yes, I know,” she whispered loudly. “Isn’t it a tragedy? And he was such a dear man. Always so polite.”