Valhalla Rising (66 page)

“Please do. Though we’ve only met face-to-face moments ago, we’ve known each other for a long time.”

“Tell me, how can I help your research?”

Perlmutter spun his cane around in front of his spread knees. “I would like to dig into Verne’s research on Captain Nemo and the
Nautilus.
”

“You mean, of course,
Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea.
”

“No, Captain Nemo and his submarine.”

“Nemo and his submarine were Verne’s greatest creations.”

“Suppose they were not merely creations?”

Hereoux looked at him. “I fear I don’t understand.”

“I have a friend who thinks that Verne did not create Nemo from scratch. He suspects Verne used a real-life model.”

Hereoux’s expression remained constant, but Perlmutter detected a slight twitch in the blue eyes. “I’m afraid I can’t help you with that theory.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Perlmutter asked. It bordered on an insult, but he offered a patronizing smile to go along with it.

A hint of displeasure crossed Hereoux’s face. “You’re not the only one who has come here with such an outlandish proposal.”

“Ridiculous? Yes, but intriguing nonetheless.”

“How can I help you, old friend?”

“Allow me to search through these archives.”

Hereoux relaxed as if he’d been dealt a straight flush. “Please, consider the library yours.”

“One more request. May I have my chauffeur assist me? I can’t climb ladders anymore to reach books on the higher shelves.”

“Of course. I’m sure he can be trusted. But you must be responsible for any inconveniences.”

A nice way of saying damage or theft of the books and manuscripts, Perlmutter thought. “That goes without saying, Paul. I promise that we’ll be very careful.”

“Then I will leave you to it. If you have any questions, I’ll be in my office upstairs.”

“There is one question.”

“Yes?”

“Who categorized the books on the shelves?”

Hereoux smiled. “Why, Mr. Verne. Every book and manuscript and file was set exactly where he left it when he died. Of course, many have come to research, such as you, and I instruct everyone that all material must be returned exactly as they found it.”

“Most interesting,” said Perlmutter. “Everything in its place for ninety-eight years. That’s something to think about.”

As soon as Hereoux closed the library door, Mulholland looked at Perlmutter through thoughtful, circumspect eyes. “Did you notice the reaction when you insinuated that Nemo and the
Nautilus
actually existed?”

“Yes, Dr. Hereoux did seem put off balance. I can only wonder what, if anything, he’s been hiding.”

P
erlmutter’s chauffeur, Hugo Mulholland, was a dour fellow, who gazed from sad eyes under a bald head. “Have you figured out yet where you wish to start?” he asked. “You’ve been sitting and staring at the books for the past hour without pulling any from the shelves.”

“Patience, Hugo,” Perlmutter replied softly. “What we’re searching for does not lie in an obvious spot, or other researchers would have discovered it long ago.”

“From what I’ve read about him, Verne was a complicated man.”

“Not complicated, or necessarily brilliant, but he had an imaginative mind. He was the founding father of the science-fiction story, you know. He invented it.”

“What about H.G. Wells?”

“He didn’t write
The Time Machine
until thirty years after Verne wrote
Five Weeks in a Balloon.
” Perlmutter shifted on the couch and continued studying the bookshelves. For a man his age, he had an amazing ten/fifteen eyesight. Optometrists marveled at his vision. From the center of the room, he could read almost every book title on its spine, unless it was too faded or set in tiny type. His gaze did not linger on the books or the unpublished manuscripts. His interest lay more in the wide range of notebooks.

“So you think Verne had a concept on which to base
Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea,
” said Mulholland, helping himself to a cup of coffee Hereoux had personally carried into the library earlier.

“Verne loved the sea. He was raised in the seaport of Nantes, and ran away as a hand on a small sailing ship, but his father beat him to port on a steamer and took him home. His brother, Paul, was in the French Navy and Verne was an avid sailor. After he became successful, he owned several yachts and sailed all the seas around Europe. When he was young, he wrote about a voyage he took on the largest ocean liner of her time, the
Great Eastern.
I have a nagging feeling that something happened on that voyage that inspired Verne to write
Twenty Thousand Leagues.
”

“If a Nemo truly existed in the eighteen-sixties, where did he get the scientific knowledge to build a submarine a hundred years ahead of its time?”

“That’s what I want to find out. Somehow Dr. Elmore Egan knew the story. Where he got it is a mystery.”

“Is it known what happened to Captain Nemo?” queried Mulholland.

“Verne wrote a book called
The Mysterious Island
six years after
Twenty Thousand Leagues
was published. In
Mysterious Island,
a group of castaways settle on a deserted island and are harassed by pirates. A mysterious unseen benefactor leaves food and supplies for the settlers. He also kills the crew of pirates who attack the settlement. Near the end, the settlers are led to a tunnel leading to a flooded cavern inside the heart of the island’s volcano. They find the
Nautilus
and Captain Nemo, who is dying. He warns them the volcano is about to erupt. They escape in time, as the island destroys itself, burying Captain Nemo and his fabulous creation for eternity.”

“Strange that Verne took so long to write closure on the story.”

Perlmutter shrugged. “Who can say what was on his mind, unless he didn’t receive news of the death of the real Nemo until years later.”

Hugo turned in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree circle, gazing at the thousands of books. “So which needle in the haystack holds the key?”

“We can eliminate the books. Anything that’s been published has been open for everyone to see and read. And we can skip the manuscripts. They’ve undoubtedly already been gleaned by anyone who collects Verne lore. Which brings us to his notebooks. Again, they’ve all been studied and pored over by Verne researchers.”

“So where does that leave us?” asked Mulholland.

“Where nobody else looked,” Perlmutter said thoughtfully.

“Which is …”

“Jules Verne was not the kind of man to hide secrets in an obvious place. Like most good writers of fiction, he had a perverse and devious mind. Where would you hide something you didn’t want people to find for a hundred years in a library, my old friend?”

“Sounds to me like you’ve eliminated every piece of paper with the printed or written word on it.”

“Exactly!” Perlmutter boomed. “A hiding place that is not part of the books and bookshelves.”

“Like a secret compartment in the fireplace,” said Mulholland, studying the stones around the mantel. “That would be more permanent.”

“You underestimate Verne. He had a superior imaginative mind. Secret fireplace niches were all the rage in mystery stories.”

“A piece of furniture or a picture on the wall?”

“Furniture and pictures are not permanent. They can be moved or replaced. Think of something that remains constant.”

Mulholland thought a moment. Then his dour face brightened slightly and he looked down. “The floor!”

“Pull up the rugs and throw them on the sofa,” instructed Perlmutter. “Carefully examine the seams between the boards. Look for small notches on the ends where they have been pried up before.”

Mulholland was on his hands and knees for nearly half an hour, scrutinizing every board laid in the floor. Then suddenly he looked up, grinned and pulled a dime from his pocket. He slipped it between the ends of two boards and pried one up.

“Eureka!” he exclaimed excitedly.

Enthused enough to swivel his great body down on the floor, Perlmutter lay sideways and looked into the slot beneath the board. There was a leather pouch inside. He carefully took it between a thumb and forefinger and gently lifted it out. Then, with no small assistance by Mulholland, he rose to his feet and sank into the sofa again.

Almost reverently, he untied a small velvet cord from around the pouch and opened it. He removed a notebook not much larger than a small stack of postcards but three inches thick. He blew the dust off the cover and read aloud, translating the French wording engraved on the leather jacket.

“
Investigation of the ingenious Captain Amherst.
”

Very slowly Perlmutter began reading the words written in a precise handwriting less than an eighth of an inch high. A master of six languages, he had no problem in comprehending Verne’s narrative about the adventures of a British scientific mastermind by the name of Captain Cameron Amherst.

Though his eyes read the words, his mind conjured up the images of this extraordinary man whom Verne had known and whose life he chronicled. Two hours later, he closed the notebook, and leaned heavily back in the sofa with the expression of a man who has just proposed to the woman he loved and been accepted.

“Find anything of interest?” asked Mulholland, curious. “Something that no one else knows?”

“Did you notice the ribbon around the pouch?”

Mulholland nodded. “Couldn’t be more than ten or twelve years old? If Verne was the last to handle the pouch, the ribbon would have rotted away long ago.”

“Which leads to the conclusion that Dr. Hereoux learned Verne’s secret a long time ago.”

“What secret is that?”

Perlmutter stared off into space for several seconds. When he spoke, his voice was soft and faint, as if the words came from a distance. “Pitt was right.”

Then he closed his eyes, gave a long sigh and promptly dozed off.

E
ight hours into the congressional committee hearing, Curtis Merlin Zale was staring frequently at his watch and fidgeting nervously in his chair. He was not the supremely confident man who had faced Congresswoman Smith and her committee members earlier. The smug grin on his face was also gone, replaced by lips tensed and pressed tightly together.

Word from Omo Kanai and late-breaking reports of a disaster in New York should have reached the hearing room hours earlier.

Congressman William August from Oklahoma was in the midst of questioning Zale about the rising prices charged by the oil company refineries when Sandra Delage, wearing a tailored business dress, approached Curtis from behind and laid a paper on his desk. He excused himself before answering August and scanned the paper’s contents. His eyes suddenly widened and he looked up at Delage. Her face was as grim as a mortician’s. He placed his hand over his microphone and asked several hushed questions, which she answered in a voice too low for anyone sitting nearby to hear. Then she turned and left the proceedings.

Zale was not a man easily shaken by defeat, but at this moment he looked like Napoleon after Waterloo. “I’m sorry,” he murmured to August. “Could you repeat the question?”

Loren was tired. Late afternoon had become early evening, but she was not about to let Zale leave the committee hearings, not yet. Her aides had kept her informed on the operation to stop the
Pacific Chimera
and the fact that no demolition charges had been found. Not until two hours later was she alerted to the mission to stop the
Mongol Invader.
She had heard nothing from Pitt or Sandecker since two o’clock, and had fought a nagging fear during the following four hours.

Her anxiety was made worse by a cold anger directed at Zale, who resolutely fired back calculated answers to their questions without hesitation or claims of faulty memory. To the reporters covering the hearings, it looked as if he was in perfect control and steering the proceedings to fit his own agenda.

Loren knew Zale was tiring, too, and she forced patience on herself. She was waiting, like a lioness in ambush, for the right moment to strike with the damaging information given by Sally Morse. She pulled the papers containing the questions and accusations she had prepared from her briefcase and waited patiently until Congressman August had finished his line of questioning.

At that moment, she noticed the faces in the audience suddenly stare behind her. Whispers began circulating throughout the chamber. Then a hand touched her shoulder. She turned and found herself gazing up incredulously into the face of Dirk Pitt. He was dressed in dirty jeans and a wrinkled sweatshirt. He looked exhausted, as if he had just climbed a mountain. His hair was a tangled mess and his face sported a three-day growth of black stubble. A security guard was clutching his arm, trying to drag him from the chamber, but he pulled the guard along with him like a stubborn Saint Bernard.

“Dirk!” she whispered. “What are you doing here?”

He didn’t look at her as he answered, but stared with a smug grin at Zale and spoke in a voice that carried across the room through her microphone. “We stopped the Liquid Natural Gas tanker from blowing up New York Harbor. The ship now rests on the bottom of the sea. Please inform Mr. Zale that his entire Viper team went down with the ship and it is now safe for Ms. Sally Morse, the CEO of Yukon Oil, to testify before your committee without fear of reprisal.”