The Sixth Day (A Brit in the FBI #5)(70)

“I agree with you. I’ve already done your research—I have given the manuscript to many other sets of twins. There was no recognition. The best cryptographers approach it as if it’s a cipher. They look for a key, a code, when it’s a unique language. Your press conference on Thursday—how do you believe your announcement will be received by your peers and other so-called Voynich experts? And your claim that page seventy-four provides a sort of key to help the lay reader understand the manuscript?”

“They’ll probably laugh at me, about all of it.”

“As do I, at least about page seventy-four. I have examined all the loose pages, including page seventy-four. They are more of the same. Why were they torn out? Why was page seventy-four cut out? I have no idea, nor have I been able to find a single clue about it.”

He took a step toward her, and the falcon on his arm leaned toward her, as well. Isabella couldn’t move. “Yes,” Roman said, “Arlington would very much like to visit you again for a bite to eat. A reminder you will continue to tell me the truth. Now, before you tell me why you lied about where you found the pages, tell me, do you believe the twins who wrote it were mad?”

“No. Of course not. They were as sane as I am.”

He slowly nodded.

She was scared, desperate. “Please, you took the pages from my apartment, you killed my fiancé, why did you bring me here? What do you want of me?”

“We need you,” Radu said from the doorway, obviously listening. “We want you to help us.”

Isabella pulled up as far as she could to see him. “How can I possibly help you? I’ve told you everything I know. I’m a twin, I can understand Voynichese and read it, just as you and your brother can. So we are special twins, I suppose, but there’s nothing more I can say, nothing more I know.”

Roman moved closer to her. Arlington spread her wings again, sharp beak clacking at the noise. “Oh, you’ll help, Dr. Marin. Or you’ll wish you were dead, like your unfortunate fiancé.”





CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT


MI5 Headquarters, Home Office

Thames House

12 Millbank

Westminster, London

Seven in the morning. The team, with the exception of Adam, sat around the private conference room with cups of hot black coffee in their hands. Except Harry Drummond, who was drinking his favored oolong.

Nicholas sat forward. “Father, Ian, sorry it’s so early, but this is critical. Mike found a common time and location on each victim’s calendar, and we spent the night pulling it all together.”

Mike said, “We think it’s more than a theory, sir. Look at this.” The screen filled with a series of letters and numbers.

Mike took another sip of her coffee. “As you can see, these are GPS coordinates. 21.0976° North, 33.7965° East. They correlate to the Nubian Desert in Sudan, south of the Egyptian border. The coordinates show in every victim’s calendar on the same date, seven months ago, December. We looked at the recent history of the area, and there’s been nothing in the news, nothing happening, no attacks, no people. It’s sand.”

Nicholas said, “So we accessed the satellite footage from that day, for those specific coordinates.”

“Do I want to know how?” Harry asked.

“Quite aboveboard, Father, don’t worry. We sent an emergency request to the NSA—Adam has a friend there.” He gave his father a sleepy grin. “We didn’t hack them.”

“I’m glad to hear it. So what did the satellites show?”

Ben forwarded the slides. “This is the area represented by the coordinates the morning of December second. You can see a small village on the dunes. It’s not on any maps we could access, but this is a desert area, things shift and change. Nomads set up shops. Sandstorms blow through. It’s an ever-changing environment. Lidar, short for light detection and ranging, that allows for measurements below the land’s surface area, doesn’t show any permanent structures, no deep foundations. This was all on the surface, temporary. The satellite itself wasn’t trained on it—it simply flew over that area once a day. We’re lucky it was nearby.

“Now, this is the morning of December third.”

Harry could see the village was no longer standing. There were pieces of it in different places, though, scattered like toothpicks across the reddish sand.

“Storm blew through?”

Nicholas said, “No, sir, we think this was manmade destruction. We think this was a proving ground for a weapons test. We checked with all the services we could and no one had any assets in this area. There’s no knowing exactly what happened between the second and the third of December. But—”

Ben flashed up another slide. “Here we have a shot from two weeks earlier. There’s nothing. Now, watch the progression.”

They watched a village slowly take shape, day by day, rising from the desert sand. The footage was clear, easy to pick out the details.

Ian said slowly, “So someone builds a village only to blow it apart. Who does that?”

Mike said, “Someone who had a show to give.”

Harry sipped at his oolong. “And with what sort of weapons?”

Nicholas flipped closed his laptop. “I’m going to bet it was drones. We know whoever is behind this has an army—from tiny drones that can shoot poisoned needles into people’s necks to large ones that can drop bombs on trains. I think this was the demonstration to the people they wanted to fund the drone army, to get them on board. It might be legitimate, it might be off-book. I don’t know. I would assume the victims were a party to this, though if they were funding it, I don’t know why they’d be murdered. Father, have you heard anything about the victims’ possible involvement in building an army of drones?”