The Sixth Day (A Brit in the FBI #5)(121)
“I do wonder about that. But if I did tell the whole story, they might lock me up in an institution.” And she laughed, a small laugh, but it was a start. “Oh yes, I’ve got something to show you.” Isabella reached into her black handbag and pulled out a piece of newspaper, handed it to Mike.
Mike read, then raised amazed eyes to Isabella’s face. “They’ve found Dracula’s tomb, in Italy, near Naples, of all places? Why in heaven’s name would Dracula visit Naples, much less die there? Not Transylvania? And how did he even die?”
“We’ll see. It’s still more supposition than fact.” She paused a moment. “I wonder what Roman and Radu would think of it?”
Nicholas came up to Mike, took her elbow to take some of her weight off her foot. “How’s the boot?”
“Getting heavier and heavier.”
“Hang in there, as you Yanks say. Not much longer.” He spoke to Isabella, then guided Mike away.
She fingered the medal over her breast. “I sent photos of the medal to my parents. My dad texted to congratulate me and I know he was bursting at the seams. My mom now, I bet she was already out the door showing it to the neighborhood. Hmm, so now I’m to call you Sir Nicholas? Not, say, Sir Lamebrain?”
He smiled down at her. “Both have a ring to them. I was thinking we need to run away from home for a while.”
What was this all about? “As in no bombings, no guns, no birds, no drones for a week or two?”
“Not a one.”
“Yes, Nicholas, that would be grand.”
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope, waved it in her face. “I spoke to Savich and Zachery, and they’ve given papal dispensation for all of us to take some time off. I’ve already booked us a flight. Since you have to stay off that foot for a while longer, I thought maybe floating around some islands on a yacht for a few days, something calm and sedate. Near Santorini.”
“Santorini. Oh yes, Nicholas—ah, Sir Nicholas.”
There was a flash from the window, and Mike started, her heart going into overdrive. “What was that?”
He lightly ran his fingers over her cheek. “Only a swallow from the tree outside. Only a swallow.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
No one knows what strange byways the missing Voynich quires have traveled over the centuries, how many eyes have puzzled over the pages, how many hands have touched them, felt the magic in them. Did the pages meet Napoléon? Bram Stoker? Rasputin?
We know the manuscript itself went to England and was studied in the sixteenth century by John Dee of Queen Elizabeth’s court. Many have suggested possible authors of the strange book, but none have ever been proven. So even today, no one knows who wrote it, where it was written, or what its coded language means. The Voynich continues to confound scholars as one of the few remaining unbroken ciphers in the world.
So maybe, just maybe, this incredible journey is exactly what did happen.
Catherine Coulter J.T. Ellison
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CATHERINE COULTER is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than eighty novels, including the FBI Thriller series and the Brit in the FBI international thriller series, cowritten with J.T. Ellison. Coulter lives in Sausalito, California, with her ultra-talented husband and three critters, Cleo, Peyton, and Eli.