The Sixth Day (A Brit in the FBI #5)(40)

The camera on her head was an annoyance, nothing more. She was accustomed to wearing a hood; it was part of her daily uniform. The small sliver of leather fit perfectly, designed and cut specifically for her. Each falcon and eagle in the mews had its own hood and special leggings made of Kevlar to cover talons and legs. It was a part of their job to learn how to soar over the rooftops with the tiny cameras recording all they saw.

Although Arlington was trained to hunt drones, to take them from the sky, tonight her mission was one of surveillance only.

The collar pinged, and she pulled up, soaring to her right, toward the final coordinates. She saw pigeons in a nearby tree scatter when they saw her, but she ignored them, flying to the third floor, descending to land gracefully on the brick windowsill. She tensed. She wanted to follow the pigeons, bring them down, talons flexed, tear into them.

A small pulse at her neck.

She looked away from the scattered flock back through the window, to her target. The camera transmitting back to her other master—the quiet one—whirred gently. She trusted him, but she didn’t feel the same affection for him. Still, she would do as she was told. It was what she’d been trained to do.

For ten minutes, Arlington perched calmly, beak forward. A pulse, her head to the left. Another pulse, her head to the right. The camera whirred.



* * *



Back at the Old Garden, Radu looked into the flat. He watched the woman undress, though it didn’t excite him. She showered, made a cup of tea, then sat down at her computer. The computer, now that made him feel something. It was twenty-eight inches diagonally, a perfect size for viewing from across the room. He zoomed the camera onto the screen and started capturing the shots, one after another, as she flicked through the pages.

The quality of the camera on Arlington’s head was professional-grade, which meant he could see every detail, every scratch in the ink, every crease in the paper. The room was well decorated, the computer screen top-notch. He wondered idly how a young woman fresh out of college interning at a museum could afford such a computer, then forgot it, it didn’t matter. They were lucky she had made the investment, because it was making his job easier. Radu loved the spying. Roman was the one who enjoyed the hands-on work.

The woman flipped through the pages, her chin resting on her palm, oblivious to the falcon outside her window watching everything she did. It was a pity, he thought again, that Drummond had not been so oblivious. Radu had a premonition about this Brit, and it scared him. But he knew Roman wouldn’t listen to him if he tried to warn him away, and so he would keep it to himself. Yes, their drone had missed Drummond this morning. Radu would not miss again.

Ten minutes of watching, reveling in reading the words that could cure him of the uncontrolled hemophilia. He’d been told his disease was unique, that unlike most hemophiliacs, a small cut could drain his blood and he’d be dead. Modern medications had no effect. It terrified him. Ah, but these pages—Radu felt they had all they needed. He sent a pulse, and Arlington flew away. His brother said from behind him in their own private language, “Wait, stop her. Look at the desk.”

Radu hadn’t realized Roman was in the room, he’d been lost in the words in the lost pages, seeing them, reading and understanding them.

Radu sent another pulse to Arlington, and she flew back and crouched again on the sill. Again, her head moved to the right, then to the left, the camera whirred.

Radu said, “The camera is hitting its limit. We will lose everything if I don’t shut it down soon.”

Roman sounded amazed, disbelieving. “Soon, but not yet. Imagine, Radu, that woman has the pages, the actual physical pages. There, in her flat. It is all so prosaic, so common.”

Radu said, “Those aren’t the real pages, surely they’re facsimiles.”

“No, I don’t think so. I believe she made copies, and those are the ones locked in a safe at the museum. Radu, look at the corner of her desk. More pages. I don’t believe they’re part of the quire she announced finding today.”

Radu looked closely. His eyes weren’t as good as his brother’s, and even with the exceptionally high-resolution camera, the angle was too much for him. “But why wouldn’t she release them with the others?”

“I don’t know, but I do believe she has them all. Radu, trust me. I have a feeling about this.”

“Then we need to see those pages.”

“Yes. She is Romanian, you know. I could smell it on her even before she told me, gypsy blood calling to mine. Never has that happened before, even when I sought other blood for you. No, this was unique. And I don’t believe she found the pages in some old book at the museum. I think she had them already, brought them into the museum, planted them there so she could ‘discover’ them at the proper time.”

“But how did she get the originals?”

“Are you not listening? She’s Romanian. I knew when she announced she’d found the pages in that Marcus Aurelius, it wasn’t possible, that she’d made it up. Like you, though, I don’t know how she came to have the pages and why she picked now to announce it. She made a huge point of asking the person who stole the Voynich from the Beinecke to return it so the pages could be reunited. Yes, she said those exact words. Reunited. She knows something, Radu. And then there is her blood—”

Radu remained silent, watching his twin pace, back and forth, back and forth. Roman stopped, whirled around, and out it all came. “Is it possible the lost pages were somehow found by her family long ago and passed down through the generations as the book was written by ours? We will research her, see if she has a twin. Maybe that is why she can decode the language. Her blood, Radu, I know it’s our blood. I felt it calling to me today when I met her. Can she read the Voynich? Why not? We can.”