The Sixth Day (A Brit in the FBI #5)(79)

“You’ve killed people before me to take their blood?”

Radu said simply, “It is the only way. Roman researches and selects Romanians who seem possible, he brings me their blood, and we experiment.”

Isabella couldn’t help herself. “I know you are ill, that you are afraid of dying, but so am I. So was the man I was supposed to marry, yet your twin murdered him, in cold blood, for no higher reason than he was there! And all the other people your brother has murdered for their blood? Do you believe your life is more important than theirs? Than mine?”

“Roman says I cannot die, I am too valuable to humanity. Every human we sacrifice is to provide me longer life to continue with my work. This man with you last night, he wasn’t really all that important, now was he?”

If only she could have leaped on him, killed him with her bare fists. He believed what he’d said as he believed his brother, utterly. Another tack then. Isabella said, “Surely you must know by now I’ve been missed. My employers will have reported my absence to the police.”

He shrugged. “It is nothing to us. Roman has eyes and ears everywhere.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“You think I’m lying? Our software is on every computer that matters. We can look into any of them, at any time. We own you. We own the government. We own the world.”

“And yet here you are, locked away, shuttered inside these rooms, unable to leave, or love. I think the world owns you.”

He shrugged. “Who needs to move in the real world? It’s dirty and cruel. I live in cyberspace. I live in the crevasses most people forget. When they stopped worshipping in churches and started worshipping their screens, I became their god.”

“Like your brother, you are mad.”

“I am far from mad. I told you: I’ve spent my life looking for a cure for this affliction, my family affliction. So many generations with twins, one strong, one weak. How did you really come by the pages, Isabella?”

“You heard everything I said to your brother. It’s all true.”

“It is not. We both know you’re lying.” He walked to the far counter. He brought the loose pages back to her. “Tell me where you got the pages.”

She saw the pages, knew his brother had stolen them from their lead box in her bedroom. She was shaking her head.

“Tell me.” He held the pages close to her. She couldn’t bear it. The pages were singing, speaking to her, they wanted her. No, they wanted him, too—they wanted Radu. She said nothing. He said, “The pages speak to you, don’t they? And that is why you put them in the lead box. They do to me, too.”

“What do they say?”

“They tell me things. And they cry for the rest of the book. You’re not mad, Isabella. If you’re worried I’ll think you’re crazy, I know you’re not. The pages are special.”

She took a deep breath. “The pages were in my mother’s keeping. I was the strong twin, my sister the weak. Did she have the affliction? She died before it was known. But she heard the pages, too. My mother saw the pages upset me. And one day, soon after my sister died, she buried them so I wouldn’t hear them anymore.

“I found the pages after she died.”

“That is not the whole truth, Isabella.” Radu shrugged. “We can control so little in our lives, but through the Voynich we’ve gained unimaginable knowledge. It gave you power, didn’t it? Gave you precious knowledge no one else had? And in the back of your mind when you studied and deciphered, you knew you wanted greatness.”

“No, no, of course not.”

But they both knew she was lying.

The rapid PCR—polymerase chain reaction—machine testing Isabella’s DNA started to beep. Radu’s heart leaped into his throat. The printer kicked in with a mechanic whir, and a single sheet of paper slipped out.

He rushed across the room, held the scroll up to the light. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was everything they’d hoped for, for so long.

He shouted in English, “She’s a match. Iago, she’s a perfect, exact match. Get Roman in here.”





CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE


The British Museum

Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury

London

The entrance of the museum reminded Mike of the Parthenon, with its huge columns presided over by a triangular frieze. The massive courtyard was full of people; tourists and students, many segregated into groups with leaders, speaking different languages—a polyglot babble of voices.

Inside the glass doors was another large courtyard with walls painted a calming shade of green, lined with marble busts of Roman leaders. She wondered if they were replicas like they’d seen in Italy, with the real pieces stashed away where thieving hands couldn’t steal them.

The interior was stunning under a clear honeycombed metal roof, the huge white cylinder in the center.

Mike saw a young woman with a blond bun and glasses approaching her, saw the woman had been crying. How much had Ian told her?

“You’re the investigator from Scotland Yard? Please come with me.”

Mike didn’t bother to correct her, or show her creds. She followed her deeper into the museum, past the gift shop, past the donation box signs Mike read as they passed—The British Museum, free to the world since 1753.