The Collectors (34 page)

Stone looked down at the dying man without a trace of pity. “If you’re going to kill someone, kill him, don’t have a conversation with him.”

As Roger Seagraves quietly expired, they heard sirens in the distance. “I called Alex Ford when I realized that Chambers’ house backed up to the bookshop,” Stone explained.

“That’s why I did this, you know,” Chambers said, finally pulling his gaze away from the now dead Seagraves. “For books. To acquire them, keep them safe for the next generation. With the money I earned I’ve purchased some amazing specimens. I really have.” He looked up to see them all staring at him in disgust.

Chambers slowly rose. “I have something to give you, Caleb.”

A suspicious Stone followed him over to the counter. When he reached in a drawer, Stone grabbed his hand. “I’ll do that.”

“It’s not a weapon,” Chambers protested.

“We’ll see, won’t we?” Stone pulled out a small box, opened it, glanced inside and closed it. He handed it over to Caleb. Inside was the first-edition
Bay Psalm Book.

“Thank you, God!” Caleb screamed in relief. Then he looked at Chambers in amazement. “How did you get this? You didn’t have the code or key to the vault.”

“You recall that I felt ill as we were about to leave the vault and you offered to fetch me a glass of water from the bathroom down there? As soon as you left, I opened the small safe. I’d watched you unlock it and saw what the code was: the number of the reading room. I took the book and put it in my jacket. When you came back with the water, you closed up the vault and we left.”

Reuben groaned. “You dork; you left him in the vault all by himself?”

Caleb snapped, “Well, I didn’t expect him to steal the damn thing.”

Chambers stared down at his hands. “It was just an impulse on my part. Once I’d taken it, I was both terrified and thrilled. I’d never done anything like that before; I’m scrupulously honest with my clients. But that book. To even hold it!” His eyes gleamed for an instant and then dulled just as fast. “At least I can say I had it, if only for a little while. I kept pushing you to get the book evaluated because I thought that would throw suspicion away from me when the loss was discovered.”

Annabelle looked in the box. “Oh,
that
book! So he
did
keep it.”

Caleb stared at her in disbelief. “What? You know about this?” he demanded.

“Oh, it’s a long story,” she said hastily.

CHAPTER 68

A
LEX
F
ORD AND AN ARMY OF
agents arrived a minute later. Surprisingly, Albert Trent was still alive, though badly wounded. His bundle of travel documents inside his jacket pocket had partially blocked the bullet. He was taken away in an ambulance. Chambers gave a detailed statement to the police, recounting all that he had already told the others. As Chambers was being led away, he said to Caleb, “Please take care of the
Psalm Book.
”

Caleb’s reply surprised everyone, maybe himself most of all. “It’s just a damn book, Monty or Vincent or whoever the hell you really are. I’d much prefer to have Jonathan alive and well over this lump of old paper.” He held up the priceless
Psalm Book
before dropping it unceremoniously in the box.

As the story unfolded over time, most of the deductions made by Stone and the others proved correct. Bradley
was
killed because he was about to force Trent to leave the committee staff, making it impossible for him and Seagraves to continue their seemingly innocent relationship. And Behan
was
murdered because he’d uncovered that Jonathan had been killed using the CO
₂
stolen from his company.

They also learned from Chambers’ account that one of Trent’s men, who had gotten a job at Fire Control, Inc., had gone into the reading room vault and placed a small camera in the air duct under the pretense of adjusting the gas nozzle located there. Annabelle and Caleb hadn’t seen this on the tape they’d reviewed because it occurred on a Saturday, when the room was closed, and the tape machine wasn’t turned on. Yet they, of course, had seen something even more critical: Jewell English’s sleight of hand with the glasses, which had ultimately led them to the truth.

A man had been posted in the basement halon storage room waiting for DeHaven to draw into the kill zone. On the second day he unfortunately had, and his life ended before he told anyone what he’d seen. Chambers had admitted to having gone into the vault later and retrieving the camera.

Milton had given the coded letters to representatives from the NSA, and they had already decrypted it. From the little Stone and the others learned, the code was based on a centuries-old encryption formula. It was easily breakable by modern-day decryption techniques with their massive computing power, but Seagraves had no doubt assumed that no one would ever suspect Monty Chambers, Norman Janklow and Jewell English of being spies. And modern-day ciphertexts were all electronically generated, requiring keys consisting of massively long numbers to remain secure against brute-force assaults and other attacks by computers, which would have been impossible to replicate in an old book.

Trent had recovered from his wounds and was busily talking, especially when he learned that the government was trying mightily to pin the death penalty on him. This information included Roger Seagraves’ prominent role as the head of the spy ring. Now that they knew of Seagraves’ involvement, the FBI was investigating everyone remotely connected to him; other arrests seemed imminent.

They’d also searched Seagraves’ house and found his “collection” room. While they hadn’t quite figured out what these items represented yet, when they eventually did, things would really get complicated, since many of them belonged to victims killed by Seagraves as part of his past CIA duties.

Stone had met at length with Ford, members of the FBI and the same two D.C. detectives who’d confronted Caleb at the library.

An FBI agent said, “We knew there was a spy ring operating in the city, but we could never run it down to its source. We certainly never figured the Library of Congress to be involved.”

Stone said, “Well, we had an asset you didn’t.”

The agent looked surprised. “What was that?”

Alex Ford answered, “A highly skilled librarian named Caleb Shaw, that’s who.”

One of the D.C. detectives’ eyes twinkled. “Right, Shaw. Good, is he? He struck me as a little, uh, nervous.”

Stone replied, “Let’s just say his lack of personal courage is more than outweighed by his—”

The detective cut in, “Dumb luck?”

“Attention to detail.”

They’d thanked Stone for his help and left the door open for future cooperation.

“You ever need any help, just let us know,” one of the FBI agents had said, handing Stone a card with a phone number on it.

Stone put the card in his pocket thinking,
I hope to God I never need help that badly.

After things had calmed somewhat, they all met at Stone’s cottage. And that’s when Caleb had held up the
Psalm Book
and demanded that Annabelle tell him the truth.

She took a deep breath and started explaining. “I knew how much Jonathan loved books, and one day I asked him that if he could have any book in the world, which one would it be? He said the
Bay Psalm Book.
Well, I read up on it and found that all of them were in institutions, but one seemed the best choice to hit.”

“Let me guess, Old South Church in Boston?” Caleb prompted.

“How’d you know?”

“Easier to crack than the Library of Congress or Yale, at least I hope.”

“Anyway, I went up there with a friend of mine and told them we were college students doing a paper on famous books.”

“And they let you look at it,” Caleb said.

“Yes. And take pictures of it, all that. Then I had another friend who was really good at making bad pa—I mean, good at making things.”

“So he
forged
a
Bay Psalm Book
?” Caleb exclaimed.

“It was great, you couldn’t tell them apart.” Annabelle’s excitement faded when she saw the furious look on his face. “Well, anyway, we went back up there and did a little switcheroo.”

“You did a little switcheroo?” Caleb said, his face turning very red. “With one of the rarest books in the history of this country you did a little
switcheroo
?”

“Why didn’t you just give DeHaven the excellent copy?” Stone asked.

“Give a
fake
book to the man I loved? I don’t think so.”

Caleb collapsed into a chair. “I don’t believe what I’m hearing.”

Before he got more wound up, she hurried on with her story. “When I gave him the book, Jonathan was stunned. But of course, I told him it was just a copy I’d had made for him. I don’t know if he believed that or not. I think he might have called around to different places to check. And I believe he’d concluded that what I did for a living wasn’t exactly on the up-and-up.”

“
Really?
What a
stunner
that must’ve been,” Caleb snapped.

She ignored him. “But since the church didn’t know their book was a fake and no
Psalm Book
s were missing, I guess Jonathan finally assumed I was telling the truth. It made him so happy. And it was just an old book.”

“Just an old book!” Caleb was really about to erupt when Stone put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s not beat a dead horse, Caleb.”

“A dead horse?” Caleb sputtered.

“I’ll put it back,” Annabelle offered.

“Excuse me?” Caleb said.

“I’ll take the book back and do another switcheroo.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m completely serious. I switched it once, I can switch it again.”

“What if they catch you?”

She looked at Caleb with pity. “I’m a lot better now than I was back then.” She looked over at Milton. “Want to help me do it?”

“Sure!” Milton exclaimed enthusiastically.

Caleb looked apoplectic. “I absolutely forbid your participation in a felony!”

Milton exclaimed, “Will you loosen up, Caleb? And it’s not a felony if we’re putting the real book
back,
now is it?”

Caleb started to say something and then rapidly calmed. “No, I guess it isn’t.”

“I’ll take care of the details,” Annabelle said. “I’ll just need the book from you, Caleb.” She reached out for it.

He immediately clutched it to his chest. “Can’t I keep it until you really need it?” he asked, his hand lightly running over the cover.

“You told Monty Chambers it was just a dumb book,” Reuben reminded him.

Caleb looked miserable. “I know. I haven’t slept a wink since I said it. I think the book fairies have cursed me,” he added glumly.

“Okay,” she said. “You can keep it for now.”

Reuben looked at Annabelle hopefully. “Okay, now that all the fun’s over, would you like to go out with me sometime? Like maybe tonight?”

She smiled. “Can I take a rain check, Reuben? But I appreciate the offer.”

“It won’t be the last one, may-dam.” He kissed her hand.

After the others had left, Annabelle joined Stone, who’d gone to work in the cemetery.

As he washed off a tombstone, she gathered weeds in a plastic bag.

“You don’t have to stay and help me,” he said. “Working in a cemetery isn’t exactly the life I’d picture for someone like you.”

She put her hands on her hips. “So what
do
you picture for someone like me?”

“Husband, kids, nice house in the suburbs, PTO board, maybe a dog.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I’m kidding. So what now?”

“Well, I have to return the book so Caleb will get off my back.”

“And after that?”

She shrugged. “I’m not one who looks that far ahead.” She grabbed another sponge, knelt down and started helping Stone clean off the grave marker. Later, after they’d eaten a dinner that Annabelle prepared, they sat on the porch and talked.

“I’m glad I came back,” she said, glancing at Stone.

Stone said, “I am too, Annabelle.”

She smiled at his use of her real name. “That Seagraves guy, he called you a Triple Six. What’s that about?”

“That was
about
thirty years ago,” Stone said.

“Fair enough. We all have secrets. So you ever think about going someplace other than here?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “
Here
tends to grow on you,” he said simply.

Maybe it will,
Annabelle thought. They sat in silence, staring up at the full moon.

A four-hour drive north, Jerry Bagger stood looking out his window at the same moon overhead. He’d called in every favor he’d ever earned, threatened and beaten up more people than he could remember, loving every minute of it. The result was he was closing in as her defenses and covers started falling away. Very soon it would be his turn. And what he’d done to Tony Wallace would pale next to what he had planned for the lady. The image of her slow destruction at his hands never failed to curl his lips into a smile. He was back in control. Bagger puffed contentedly on his cigar and sipped a finger of his bourbon.

Get ready, Annabelle Conroy. Here comes big, bad Jerry.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To Michelle, the one who really makes it all work.

To Colin Fox, thanks for a great editing job. Here’s to many books together.

To Aaron Priest, the master, enough said.

To Maureen, Jamie, Jimmy and all the rest at Hachette Book Group USA, for being great friends and business partners.

To Lucy Childs and Lisa Erbach Vance, for all you do for me.

To Dr. John Y. Cole at the Library of Congress, for making the Library come alive.

To Mark Dimunation and Daniel DeSimone at the Library of Congress, for showing me the gem that is the LOC Rare Book Reading Room.

To Diane van der Reyden at the Library of Congress, for making the rounds of your department with me. I hope I got it mostly right.

To Dr. Monica Smiddy, thank you for the detailed and thoughtful medical advice.

To Bob Schule, my eagle reader and world-class consultant.

To Deborah, who helps keep me sane and on schedule.

To Rosemary Bustamante, for your foreign language skills, and for being a great friend.

To Maria Rejt, for making it better from across the pond.

To Cornelius Behen, for the use of your name. Hope you liked the character.

And finally, to the memory of Robert (Bob) Bradley, who never got to see his name in the book but who lives in the hearts and minds of the Bradley and Hope families and all his friends.