The Givenchy Code (22 page)

“I
’m sure glad we found that clue,” Stryker said. “It’s all so very clear to me now.”

I shot him a look that was supposed to make him behave and aimed a finger toward the counter. We’d left Tiffany’s with our clue and headed straight for the nearest Starbucks. Stryker might be suffering from a severe case of defeatism, but I was back in my element. Genuine codes. Not this pseudo-scavenger hunt over Manhattan Island, racing between esoteric clues.
This
was fun. Just like that very first pigpen code. If it weren’t for that little downside of dying if I screwed up or Lynx found me, I’d actually be having a really good time.

Stryker returned with one latte and his boring cup of solid black coffee.

“So what do we know?” He leaned forward. “Actually, I know what I know. Nothing. So the real question is, what do
you
know?”

“A bit more than that,” I said. And, yeah, I was feeling a bit smug and pleased with myself. I scooted my chair around so he could see my notes right side up. “The ‘secret roi urn’ reference is a bit odd—”

“No shit.”

“—so we’ll leave that aside for the time being. This is the key,” I said, pointing to the second line, For Rebecca. “And I mean that literally.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll bite. What the hell are you talking about?”

“Do you read spy novels? Any Ken Follett?”

He shook his head.

“Eye of the Needle? The Key to Rebecca?”

“Sorry.” Then, “Wait. The second one. Didn’t that have something to do with a code and a book?”

“Exactly. Like Enigma, the system really was used during the war. A code was sent using a book as a key. In that case, Daphne du Maurier’s
Rebecca.”

“So we need a copy of the book?”

“No, no. The reference to
Rebecca
just tells us what kind of code we’re dealing with. The key isn’t that book. It’s something else.”

“What?”

I shrugged. He’d pretty much tuned into the heart of the matter.

He shifted in his seat, downed a slug of coffee, then shifted again. “Okay, back up here. You’re sure the book we need isn’t
Rebecca.
How do you know?”

“These numbers.” I pointed to the first number in each pairing. “Those must be page numbers. But
Rebecca
doesn’t have eight hundred pages. It must be something else.”

“All right,” he said. “What?”

I shook my head. “No clue.”

He grunted. “So if these numbers are pages, what do these mean?” He tapped the numbers following the colons, one by one in succession.

“Not sure. Words or letters. We won’t be positive until we figure out what the book is.”

“Secret roi urn?”

I looked at him, tapping my pencil against my chin and nodding slowly. “No idea. Too bad Warren isn’t here.”

“Warren?”

“Used to be my study partner. He’s a total anagram fanatic. The anagrams in
Silence of the Lambs
were too easy for him. He was totally bored. He’d figure this out in a heartbeat.”

“No problem,” Stryker said. “I can do that.”

“Really?” I looked at him with respect. “I had no idea.”

“Sure.” He opened the laptop, and I sat there shaking my head, both amused and befuddled. But he was right. Less than two minutes later he’d pulled up an anagram generator on the Internet and had a whole list of words that could be made from
Secret roi urn.

“We have to keep in mind that it might not be an anagram,” I said as I scanned the list. Somehow words like
sorcerer unit
or
erect insuror
seemed less than useful. “Maybe it refers to a crypt.
Roi
means ‘king,’ right? So maybe dead royalty? Ashes in an urn?”

“Keep reading,” Stryker said, his eyes never leaving the screen.

I did.

Oh yeah. These were helpful.
Not.
I kept my mouth shut and kept reading as Stryker scrolled through the list. It’s amazing how many words and phrases (albeit nonsense words and phrases)
Secret roi urn
could produce.

The last one pretty much cracked me up, and I kept one hand on the back of Stryker’s chair so as not to fall over in a fit of helpless giggles. (I know, I know. It wasn’t
that
funny. But I think under the circumstances I was entitled to a little hysteria.) Escort Ruiner. Yeah, there’s a
great
clue. We’ll just go by every brothel and—)

I blinked, realizing with a start that I was an absolute and total idiot.

I must have made some sort of noise, too, because Stryker looked back over his shoulder at me. “What? What is it?”

“Resurrection.”
I said. “That’s got to be it.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll bite. Why?”

“Well, for one, it’s the only really sensible word in the entire list.”

He half nodded, but I didn’t wait for him to say anything.

“Plus, it fits one of the themes.”

“Themes?”

“The religious clues. The saints, the cathedral, the altar.”

“Okay.” He nodded slowly, then added, “Yeah,” with a much more vigorous nod. “That makes sense.”

“So, if we’re talking resurrection, we need a Bible, right? Does a Bible have at least eight hundred pages?”

“Sure,” he frowned. “I think. It must—”

I stifled a laugh. “You’re not sure.”

He grimaced. “Don’t rely on me. Let’s find a Bible and look.”

“Right.” I paused. “Um, new problem.”

“What?”

“The translation.”

A grin played at the corner of his mouth. “English would be good.”

“Thank you, Mr. Comedian. I mean there are about eight billion different translations of the Bible and even more editions. Unless we know which translation and which edition, the words or letters we need won’t line up the same.”

He shook his head slowly, and I tried again.

“You read Mark Twain in school, right?”

“Sure.
Huckleberry Finn.”

“Right. And you bought some cheap paperback copy of the book, right?”

“Actually, my dad had a really nice leather-bound edition from some collector’s set. I read that. Bent one page. Got read the riot act.”

“Let’s say you bent page one twenty-seven. If you went to a bookstore and looked at page one twenty-seven of the paperback, the words on the page wouldn’t be the same, would they?”

He frowned. “I never thought about it, but I guess not.”

“That’s why in this type of code you always know the publisher, edition, all that kind of info.” I gnawed on my lower lip, thinking. “Maybe
secret roi urn
tells us that.”

“The resurrection version of the Bible?”

I shrugged. It certainly didn’t sound familiar, but I was fresh out of ideas.

“Well, it could be—” He cut himself off, his brows pulling down into a V over his nose.

“What?”

“Not a Bible. The catechism.”

“Ah…,” I said. I didn’t want to sound stupid, but, “What’s that?”

“It’s like a reference book for Catholics. Very important to the faith.”

“Oh.” I nodded slowly. “Well, that makes sense. A lot of the clues have been pretty Catholic oriented. Does it have different editions?”

“I have no idea.”

I sighed, exasperated. “Stryker, you’re not listening to me. We have to know which edition or else we won’t be looking at the right page, and we’ll be reading the clues entirely wrong.”

“Not page,” he said. “Section.”

He leaned back in his chair, looking perfectly content and absurdly proud of himself.

“Okay. I’ll bite. What sections?”

“The catechism is broken down by sections. Or maybe it’s paragraph numbers. I don’t remember. The point is that there are at least eight hundred of these sections, probably a lot more. And every catechism is uniform. Doesn’t matter how it’s printed—it could be an audiobook—and the words and section numbers are all going to be exactly the same.”

That had to be it. “You’re brilliant,” I said, leaning across the table and giving him a big hug. “So where do we find one of these things?”

“Where else?” he said. “Back at St. Patrick’s.”

“I
’ve got a missal right here,” Paddy said, reaching under the counter and pulling out a red leather-bound volume, then handing it to Stryker. “But I don’t have a catechism on me, and we don’t keep one at the Information desk.”

Stryker passed the missal back. “Appreciate the help, but it’s got to be a catechism.”

“Oh, right. You’re on a scavenger hunt. Hmmm.” He stroked his chin. “Have you checked the gift shop? And if they don’t have it, there’s another shop outside. Just around the corner. Surely they’d have one.”

“The gift shop’s a great idea,” Mel said. “Thanks so much.”

She hurried off, and Stryker started to follow, tossing out a last-minute thank-you to Paddy for all his help.

“No problem, boy,” he said as Stryker moved away. “You must be winning your game so far. That other fellow hadn’t even figured out what he needed to be looking for.”

Stryker stopped dead, turning slowly back to face Paddy. “What other guy?”

“Tall fellow. Dark. Clean-cut looking, but I can’t say I cared for the glint in his eyes.”

Stryker’s stomach roiled. Somehow, Lynx had learned about St. Pat’s. But how? Had he tracked Stryker and Mel? Or was he interpreting the clues, too? Whatever the answer, Stryker didn’t like it. The bastard was too damn close.

Beside him, Paddy leaned in, then lowered his voice, a bit conspiratorially. “I’m rooting for you and your lady friend to win.”

“Did you tell this other guy about the altar?”

“Not me,” he said. “But I’d told your whole story to Evelyn. She works the counter with me. She took a liking to the lad and, well, I think she’s rooting for him and not you two.”

“Tiffany’s,” Stryker said urgently. “Did she tell him about Tiffany’s?”

“Yeah, son, I’m afraid she did.”

S
tryker paced just inside the cathedral doors, his cell phone pressed to his ear. I sat off to the side, the catechism open in my lap and one ear cocked as I tried to decipher his half of the conversation. Not easy, and since I kept losing count, I finally gave up and just listened.

“Absolutely,” Stryker said, his voice sounding perfectly calm and reasonable but his face reflecting a temper I hadn’t yet witnessed. He turned in his pacing and our eyes met. I looked back down at the catechism. Section552, two words out…there it was.
Peter.

“No, no, really. It’s not a problem. I’m just surprised, that’s all.” Another pause. “Exactly. He sent the thing, so why would he need to see it again?”

I snuck a peek and decided that Stryker looked calmer. Good. I didn’t have to worry that he was going to start slugging passersby just for the hell of it.

Section 9, word 15. I flipped pages, found the section, and tapped out fifteen words with my fingertip.
Trent.

Peter Trent.

Didn’t mean a thing to me yet. I drew a breath and soldiered on.

A few feet in front of me, Stryker was wrapping up. “Right. No problem. And thanks again for all your help.” Perfectly polite, perfectly calm. Then he snapped the phone closed. “Goddamn son of a
bitch.”

“Stryker!”
I said, pointedly looking around. We were, after all, still in the church. “I take it we have a problem?”

“She showed Lynx the plaque. Long story, he sweet-talked her, she mentioned the guy who bought it was named Lynx, apparently he has some sort of ID with that name on it, and so she showed it to him.”

“Oh. Guess we shouldn’t have used his name, huh?”

Stryker looked at his phone, hauled his arm back as if he were going to toss it, then sagged a bit as he obviously thought better of it.

“But wait a second,” I said. “This could be good for us. His name really is Lynx? Can we check DMV records?”

He shook his head. “She said it wasn’t official. Like a club identification card. He told her it was a nickname.” He met my eyes. “If we had all the time in the world—”

“Right. I know.” With time, maybe we could have turned the tables, hunted
him.
But time had been our enemy from the get-go, almost as much as Lynx himself.

I shook my head, determined not to dwell on our losses. All we had to rely on were my brains and Stryker’s skill. I wasn’t going to sap our strength by throwing bad vibes our way. “We’re just going to have to work with what we have.” I held my notebook up. “I’m actually making some progress on this.”

“Good. I hope Lynx isn’t sitting on a bench somewhere doing the same thing. She said he copied it down letter by letter.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why does he even want the code? He doesn’t win anything by solving the codes. He only wins by…well, by killing me.” Now
there
was a lovely thought.

“But you’re following the codes. If he solves the codes, he’ll find you.”

I’ll admit he had a point, but something didn’t quite fit. “I don’t know,” I said, thinking aloud. “That seems like a lot of trouble. I mean, he hasn’t had any problem finding us so far. And at least two times, we weren’t anywhere near a clue. We were at the hotel once, and then we were at Starbucks. So how did he find us?”

For a moment, Stryker’s expression didn’t shift at all. Then his eyes flashed with inspiration. I expected him to clue me in, but he said nothing. Instead, he moved slowly and deliberately out of the cathedral and down the steps to the street, his arm extended to hail a cab. When one pulled over, he turned to me. “In. Now.”

“What? Where are we going?” But I wasn’t really arguing. I’d decided early on in this little adventure to trust Stryker. I wasn’t going to stop now.

“We need to keep moving.”

I dutifully shoved all my papers and things into my bag, then climbed in. He followed, his jaw tight and his entire body more tense than I’d seen before.

“Stryker? What’s going on?”

“He’s tracking us.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I had a sudden mental picture of Lynx as Elmer Fudd tracking Bugs Bunny. “You mean like a hunter? In Manhattan? You’re joking.”

“I mean like the military. With a GPS tracking device.”

“Oh.” Well, that was a horse of a different color. I turned the idea over in my head, deciding that I really didn’t like the idea of being tracked. Nope. I didn’t like it one little bit.

I shifted in my seat, trying desperately to make what Stryker said not be true. “Does that mean one of us has to have something with the GPS thingamabobbie in it?”

“Yup. That’s exactly what it means. The question is what.”

“Well, that’s absurd.”

He ignored the comment. “It’s not the coat, because he found us before we found it.”

He reached over and grabbed my bag, unceremoniously dumping my personal stuff all over the backseat. I’d shoved my new Givenchy shoes in my tote, too, and now they bounced to the floorboards.

“Hey!”

“It’s got to be something one of us is carrying around. Something Lynx or the PSW powers that be could have loaded with a chip.” He started poking through the debris.

“Do you mind?” I snatched a tampon and my birth control pills away and shoved them back inside.

He looked at the bag.

“Don’t even ask,” I said. No way was I watching him rip apart a tampon in a search for a microchip.

I thought the side of his mouth quirked, but I wasn’t sure. “Cell phone?” he said.

“I’ve had it off since the last time I used it. It’s running out of juice.” I pulled it out and switched it back on, just in case there was a message. “It can’t be the phone, anyway. He couldn’t have put a chip in it. And in the movies, they can only do that triangulate location thing when the phone is on, which it hasn’t been for a couple of hours.” I know a lot about the spy business from movies.

“It might already have a chip. Some phones do now.”

“Not this one. It’s ancient. At least three years old.”

“The original clue.” He reached for the brown paper note, now pretty crumpled. He smoothed it on his thigh and held it up to the light.

I gaped. “You’re kidding, right? How small can those tracker things be, anyway?”

“Pretty small. But as far as I know, not as thin as a paper fiber. I thought there might be a chip glued onto a corner. Something small and brown so that we just hadn’t noticed it.”

“Is there?”

“I don’t see a damn thing.”

He put the paper down and started fingering the rest of my stuff. I snatched up the CD just as he reached for it. “This, maybe?”

“I don’t know…” He frowned. “I’ve never heard of a tracking chip in a CD, but I suppose it’s theoretically possible. I hate to destroy it.”

“I copied the file to the laptop,” I said. “We should be safe.”

“I’m still nervous about destroying the disc. What if there’s something on there that didn’t get copied? Something key?”

“Okay. That makes sense.” There had to be a solution, though, and when I glanced out of the cab, I realized what it was. I tapped the Plexiglas, then leaned forward. “If you make your next left, you’ll see a Kinko’s. Could you pull up in front for a second?”

“Sure thing.”

When the cab pulled over, I took my purse and the CD and ran inside. I have to confess I was feeling pretty clever, and I hummed a bit as I got back in the car with Stryker.

“What did you do?”

“Sent it by FedEx to Mr. and Mrs. Johnson at the Plaza. We never officially checked out, so I’m sure they’ll hold it for a couple of days.”

“Not bad,” he said. “I can do you one better.”

“Yeah?”

He held out his hand, now balled into a fist, then opened his fingers. The watch dropped down, dangling from its chain, the end of which Stryker still held on to.

I stared at him, my mouth hanging open. We’d never taken the gears and things out.

As I watched, he pried the back open with his knife, then used the same blade to force the interior gears out. I found a tissue in my tote, and we laid the pieces in my lap and poked through them.

“Nothing,” I said.

“I know this is right,” Stryker said. “It has to be. Lynx started shooting right after we found the watch. There’s got to be a connection.”

He held the watch in his hand, turning it this way and that before finally focusing on the ball at the top. About the size of a nice pearl, the gold ball topped the winding stem. Stryker looked at it, then me. Then he grinned and dropped the whole watch onto the floorboard of the taxi. He leaned over and smashed the blunt end of his pocketknife against it. The thin metal plating split apart. And there, among the remnants, was a tiny electronic chip.