Chapter Nine

 

London - Sunday, April 5

The Watcher transferred Jean to two men behind a warehouse. They loaded her into a van, handcuffed one leg and one wrist to “D” rings on the side of the van, and taped a cloth over both eyes.  She could lie comfortably on the mattress, but was stretched out full-length with no chance to move away from the side of the van. One man climbed in the back, while the other drove.

She began to stir, and when the grogginess passed, the violent struggle with the woman in her bedroom came back, then being tied to the chair and receiving another injection of some sort. And now she was in the back of a truck?  Kidnapped? By whom? Why? The woman? Hammid? A Beatles tune played in her head. Where did that come from?

She tried to move, but her hands and feet were tightly secured. Her mouth was dry, but she managed, “Hello, is anybody there?”

The man in the back had been watching her since she began to regain her wits.  “Yes. Would you like some water?”

She nodded and he helped her raise her head and tipped a water bottle to her lips.

“Where am I? Where are we going? What’s going on?”

“If you remain quiet, I’ll leave the gag off your mouth. If you say another word, just one single word, I’ll tape your mouth. Nod if you understand.” The voice was even, not angry, not threatening. She shuddered. Worse. It sounded professional.

She nodded. This had to be those damn Arabs, she thought, but the voice was pure London.

“We have about fifteen minutes left, then you will have access to toilet facilities, food, and drink.”

“Where are we? I…” she blurted before catching herself.

The strip of duct tape cut off any more conversation. That was stupid, she thought. How long had they been driving? She didn’t hear any traffic or city noise, no horns or music, and the vehicle wasn’t making any turns, so they were probably on a highway somewhere.

A woman had attacked her in bed, but a man spoke to her now. How many were in on this? Had the woman been an Arab? She remembered grabbing thick black hair, but that’s where memory began to blur. Damn.

 

*     *     *

The door closed gently, but firmly behind her, and she heard a lock clicking into place. They had silently placed her sitting on the floor and had cut the tape binding her hands.

She carefully pulled the duct tape off her eyes, mouth, and ankles, and looked around the room. A single light fixture hung from the ceiling, a futon with clean linen was on the floor, and a heavy table with an equally heavy bench was opposite the futon. She wouldn’t be lifting either table or bench to use as a weapon. She saw a toilet, washbowl, and shower stall in an alcove, but no door for privacy. Worst of all, there were no windows.

She slowly stretched the painful joints. What time was it? Where was she? How long had they had her? She listened intently for the slightest sound or vibration. Nothing. Cameras blinked from the ceiling in two corners, and she refused to look in the alcove with the shower and toilet.

It was a cell, more comfortable than most, but still a cell, and she was the prisoner. A familiar suitcase and purse were on the table, familiar because they were hers. She opened the suitcase and found her own casual clothes, hair dryer, brushes, makeup, and lotions. A woman must have packed this. The book she had been reading when the woman attacked her in bed was next to the suitcase.

She rooted through the purse and found everything but her cell phone, and the cash and credit cards from her wallet, and her keys were gone. That made sense since she had a small knife and teargas spray on the key ring. Was this her captors’ attempt at some psychological play? What did they call it? The Helsinki effect? Or Stockholm syndrome? It was something like that.

A knock on the door, a door with no knob on the inside, interrupted her inspection. A male voice told her to move to the far corner of the room. When she did, the door opened and a hand placed a tray of food on the floor. The door closed and locked again.

The food was good, two excellent roast-beef sandwiches and two flimsy bottles of water, but there were no utensils. No knife, no fork, no spoon. She wondered if they would ever be serving Jello.

Well, there wasn’t much to do. And to hell with the cameras. She showered and got ready for bed, walking around naked more than necessary. Was she playing the game, too? What if they were pointing and laughing?

She felt surprisingly tired. Maybe an after effect of the drugs? She fell asleep with an old Patrick McGoohan TV show playing in her head. What was it? The Prisoner…

 

Dhahran, Saudi Arabia - Monday, April 6

Hammid clicked from one London Internet site to another. All the daily papers had the story about Professor Jean Randolph’s tragic death in a fire at her Kings Crossing flat. The Daily Mail even had a half-screen picture of the fire gutted three-story building. He could always count on Jamilah. She did good work.

The message Jamilah had sent last night confirmed that Jean Randolph not only had a sample of the treaty parchment, but also a series of pictures. The stupid cow was writing a scholarly article so she could be the first to publish when Hammid released the treaty to the world.

But Jean Randolph wasn’t a problem anymore. Neither were her pictures, samples, or articles. Jamilah had seen to that. He imagined that with her work done, Jamilah was probably dancing on tables in some club. Good for her.

The Old Man might have his suspicions, but Hammid doubted he would do anything. Jean, and whatever threat she posed, had been eliminated. And even if the Old Man found out what he did, he’d have to admire it enough to let it go.

 

Salisbury - Monday, April 6

Callahan and Marie watched Jean exercising on the monitors. She did pushups, crunches, running in place, and whatever else could be done in a closed room, then looked up at the camera and said, “I’m going to take a shower. Can I have breakfast, or maybe it’s lunch, or dinner? I don’t know, maybe in about fifteen minutes?” She waved, stripped down and stepped into the shower.

“She do anything unusual, Ted?” Callahan asked the Templar who had been watching Jean until he and Marie arrived from London.

“No. Cool as they come. She slept for eight hours, and woke up about 8:00 am. Ate everything last night. No screaming, crying, or banging on the door. We haven’t told her anything, and she hasn’t said anything.”

“I don’t want her to see me,” said Marie. “It’s better to hold that in reserve.”

Callahan opened the outer sound-proof door and knocked on the inner door. “Back in the corner.” Ted glanced at the monitor and nodded to Callahan.

He opened the door and entered with the tray. Jean stood quietly in the corner with hands folded in front. He put the tray on the table, gestured for her to sit, and stepped back.

“Thank you.” She sat.

“You should know some things, Jean,” he said. “First, last night your partner Hammid Al Dossary sent someone to kill you. The plan was to kill you and burn down your house to destroy any evidence of the Treaty of Tuscany.”

Now he had her attention. The glass of orange juice in her hand shook, and she put it down. “What are you…?”

 “Quiet.” He cut her off. “I’m providing information you need to know. We already know it.” He paced in front of the table. “The world thinks you are dead. Your body was found last night in the burned-out husk of your building. The people on the upper floors escaped. Even the cat… Elliot.”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked over his shoulder at her. She had frozen in position, holding the edge of the table and staring at the orange juice.

“Eventually, your Al Qaeda friends may find you’re not dead. Burned bodies are hard to identify, and the body was in your bedroom, in your big T-shirt, in your bed. Maybe some enterprising coroner or cop pushes too much. I don’t know. Maybe they get a tip.  It’s hard to say.” He shrugged. “You know how it goes. Then they’ll kill you again.

“Now, the Church also has a beef with you since you killed the Pope and a thousand people, not to mention the two thousand injured. You’re a historian. You know how the faithful treat folks like that.

“The Italians want you for that guy who got shot at your table in the café in Rome.

“In fact the whole world is after you. They don’t know it’s you, but they are after the guys who blew up all those people in church.”

She stood up. “I didn’t know…”

“Shut up! Sit down! I talk. You listen.” She sat slowly.

“I represent an interested organization and we have already passed sentence on you. You’re a terrorist. It’s simple. Death. We don’t mess with the legal niceties.”

He leaned against the wall and watched her for thirty seconds.

“And your Swiss bank account at Steiner Strasse Bank? We took all the money. Well, not all. We left eleven euros as a maintenance balance.” He pulled out an index card and flipped it on the table. “This is the account I’m talking about.”

She picked up the card and saw her account number, plus the three passwords necessary to withdraw or transfer funds. That really got to her, he saw.  He didn’t tell her she had such bad luck she deposited her funds in one of the Templar private banks.

“Get the picture? You’re broke. Your house is smoking cinders. The world thinks you’re dead. If anyone found you were alive, you’d be explaining forever. Suppose we let the authorities and newspapers know what we know? Now Al Qaeda knows. And everyone wants you dead. You can’t work in any university. You can’t get a regular job. All you can do is hide in the shadows hoping nobody finds you. Ever thought of becoming a hooker? It’s a cash business.”  He gave her an appraising look. “Hmm, medium grade… a few good years left, but I hear those are really hard years.”

He walked to the door and turned. “And all for an old piece of blank paper. Sorry, parchment.” He shook his head. “That was really dumb.”

 

*     *     *

Marie and Ted were staring at the three monitors and Callahan moved to look over their shoulders.

“Well, how did I do?” he asked.

“Wait, just wait,” said Marie, pointing at the screen. Jean sat at the table with her elbows on her thighs and her hands pressed between her knees. Then she slammed both fists down on the table, grabbed the tray and hurled it down on the floor.

“Looks to me you did real good, Callahan,” Marie turned back toward him. “Didn’t I say you two would make a great couple? I think you just had your first fight, or maybe she did.”

Ted’s partner came in the house and tossed the Daily Mail, Telegraph, and Guardian to them. They all had pictures of the fire and stories about the unfortunate demise of Jean Randolph, well-regarded professor of medieval history. The Daily Mail had a half-page picture on page three.

Callahan folded each to the page with the story of Jean’s death, and headed to her room.  She was sitting in the far corner with her arms wrapped around her knees. He just laid the papers on the table, said nothing, and left.

 

*     *     *

Jean spent most of the day on the futon staring at the ceiling. The newspapers had indeed shown her burned-out house, and gave a brief biography of the victim, her biography. And the body found in her house? Who was that? The woman who attacked her? Or just someone off the street? Was it Marie? And who held her prisoner? Who was that guy who told her everything she had done? How did he know about Hammid?

When the man returned, he had a laptop computer. He set it up, and connected to a WiFi wireless network. “I suggest you access your Swiss account to check the balance. I already know the codes, so there’s no worry about confidentiality. No need to trust me. You check.”

    What more could go wrong, she thought? She accessed the account, typed in the passwords, and stared at the eleven euro balance. Who the hell could pull off something like that? At a Swiss bank?

“Logoff the bank,” said Callahan. She clicked the button and slumped back in the chair. What to do now?

Callahan closed the laptop and left.

 

*     *     *

“Ok. What do you want from me?” It was 4:00 pm and Jean had been in the room for almost seventeen hours.

“Yes!” Marie turned from the monitor and punched the air. “Our gal has seen the light! She’s dead. No friends. No money. Everyone wants her dead. Who does she have but us?”

“Let her sit for another hour or two,” said Callahan from his lounge chair. “We’re not jumping whenever she calls.”  He went back to reading his Economist.

She repeated the question several times over the next hour, then retreated to a fetal position on the futon. “Well,” Callahan stretched after getting up from the lounger, “let her ask one more time. Then we give her an answer.” He popped the top on a Coke. Almost on cue, Jean stood up and faced the camera.

“I’ll do whatever you want. Just tell me.”

“Now, that’s the spirit,” Marie twirled a finger over her head and pointed at Callahan. “It’s show time. Go get ‘em, big boy.”

Callahan closed the door and put the cold Coke on Jean’s table. “What we want? Simple. Answer all our questions truthfully and fully. Enthusiastically cooperate. Don’t ever cross us.”

“Cross you? I don’t even know who you are!” She plopped down on the bench and took a deep breath, “Ok. Ok. Ask your questions.”

He said nothing, just left her alone.

 

*     *     *

“What were your plans for the blank piece of Twelfth Century paper?” Callahan resumed his usual pacing.

“Plans? I didn’t have any. I never even dreamed something like that would fall into my lap.”

“Why did you test it at the British Museum?”

“I wanted to make sure it was good, and I wanted to find out soon, a few years before using it. I couldn’t wait to test it in a few years, then follow up with a manuscript that would be tested at the same place. The profiles would be the same and someone might get suspicious. If I tested, then waited a few years, nobody would remember the first test, and I would also be testing legitimate things in between times.”

“How many other things have you forged?”

That was the question, thought Marie, watching the interrogation on the screen. That’s the big one. What else had she done? Give it up, Bitch.

“Eleven or twelve. I’m not sure.”

“Where did you do the work?”

“At my place.” She shrugged.  “You don’t need that much.”

He went on for another hour after she admitted to the forgery, asking about Hammid, how she met him, how she was paid, who else was involved, and how much she knew about the St. Peter’s bombing. Then he gave her a pen and a pad of paper and told her to write the details of each meeting with Hammid, what she remembered about the contents of the treaty, and the details of each of her forgeries, including what it was, who bought it, how much she got, and who turned a blind eye.

At 10:00 pm he went back and she handed him a page. “Here’s my best recollection of what the treaty says. That was easiest. And it’s not an exact translation, but I guarantee the meaning is accurate.” She passed another three pages.  “And here are the elaborations on the thoughts of great thinkers, what you call the forgeries. I’m working on the Hammid stuff.”

 “Hungry?” he asked.

“Starved,” she replied.

He left and returned with half of a cold pizza. “You get to eat the same stuff we eat.” She grabbed a piece and inhaled it.

“Finish the Hammid stuff and that’s all for today.”

When he turned to leave, she asked, “I’m cooperating. What do I get in return?”

“What do you get? You got it. We saved your life last night.”

 

*     *     *

“Give me that.” Marie grabbed the list of forgeries and scanned it. “Miserable bitch,” she mumbled. Then she set the list down next to her computer and started searching the Internet.

 “She has eleven listed here, and it looks like we can get a look at five of them. At least five, maybe seven. These others I can’t find on the net. I’ll send the whole list back to the Archivist and see what he can do.”

“How long?” he asked.

“I’ll do these two in London myself,” she said. “Tomorrow. I’ll leave tonight. And the Archivist can get his people on these others. We should be able to examine all the ones in the public collections tomorrow and the next day. If she really did them, we can see how good she is. Then we can test her.”

“Why not just test her now?”

“The Archivist wants to see her best work first, not something she knocks out in a cell.” She jerked a thumb toward Jean’s room.  “And we can also have her duplicate one of the things she already did. They should be very close in style and content. It’s sort of another test.”

“Does she have the stuff she needs to do a duplicate of anything? I mean all those pens and special inks?”

“No. I’ll be bringing all that back with me from London tomorrow night.”

 

Salisbury, UK - Tuesday, April 7

Marie returned from London around 6:00 pm with several long, wooden boxes of pens, a stack of different types of paper, a tilting desktop, and fifty different bottles of ink. Then she hauled out erasers, blotters, wipers, magnifying eyeglasses, high intensity lamps, mirrors, and anything else the aspiring forger could hope for.

“What did all this stuff cost?” Callahan watched her unload the supplies.

“A little over five thousand pounds.”

“For pens and paper? Five thousand?”

“You’re still an ass. This is the best. And believe me, if she did those manuscripts I saw in the London collections today, she really is the best, and she uses the best. I have a hard time believing those were fakes. Nobody would question their authenticity.”

“Well, you saw her flat. She didn’t have all this stuff.”

Marie shrugged. “Yeah. She had her favorite tools. I can’t say what they were, so I just got everything. She can pick what she needs.”

“What did the Archivist say?”

“His people looked at three manuscripts and had the same reaction I did. They would never have suspected a thing. Now he wants to test her on the Kepler letter. Have her to do it again. If she can do it, great. If not, then we have to figure out what to do with her. She’s already under Templar death sentence, so I suppose…”

“Ok. Tell me what to say and I’ll bring these things in and give her the assignment.” He picked up the Xacto knife set, and hefted scissors. “You know we’ll be arming the prisoner?”

“Can’t be helped. She can’t use chalk for this.”

 

*     *     *

Jean stood up when Callahan entered the room. She hadn’t seen him since the previous evening, and her meals had been brought by Ted, who didn’t say a word.

“You said you forged a letter from Johannes Kepler.”

“Yes.”

“I want you to recreate that letter right here.”

“I can’t. I don’t have any equipment or supplies.”

He left and returned with the tilting desktop and boxes full of the supplies Marie had brought from London. A very strange smile crossed her face when she saw the supplies. So, here was yet another side of Jean Randolph.

She began to open boxes and order items on the long table. “I can’t do it exactly, but I can come close.  I have an idea this is a test, anyway. I don’t have it memorized, so it won’t be exactly the same words, and a line by line comparison won’t match. And the ink won’t match because I have to make it from scratch using the same ingredients they used in Kepler’s time.” She waved a hand at the bottles of ink. “These are very nice, but all modern. There’s no oven for heat treatments, either. But I think I can convince you I did the manuscript in the Rothham collection. I presume you have seen it by now?”

Now he was out of his depth. Don’t answer when you don’t know. “Remember earlier when I said you shouldn’t cross us?”

She hesitated. “Yes.”

“You do or do not remember?”

“I remember.”

“Good. Hiding any of these sharp things is considered crossing us. Trying to stick anyone is crossing us.” He picked up a rubber band. “Hiding this is crossing us.”

“Yes, I understand. Now can I get to work?”

 

*     *     *

She selected pens and inks, laid out wet rags, little cups of water and alcohol, angled the desk, and hollered for an extension cord for the high intensity lamps. Then she spent fifteen minutes drawing different sized circles on scratch paper with the different pens. That was followed by boxes, alphabets, lightning bolts, and a long series of swirling fishhooks.

“What the hell is she doing?” Callahan asked Marie.

“She’s warming up. Watch this. That’s the master forger limbering and stretching before the big game. Just like any athlete. Like each instrument in an orchestra practicing the scales before the performance.”

By then Jean had tied her hair back, and bent over the desk wearing the magnifying eyeglasses, carefully drawing the letters on the page. She threw away pages, started over, tore some in two, but finally settled down into an even flow, and eventually laid three pages next to each other on the table. She stood up, stretched, did some deep knee bends, and shook her hands out.

She looked up at the camera and said, “Give them about five minutes to dry, then you can have them. I’m done for the day.” She spun around and held her hands out. “And look. No sharp pointy things hidden up my sleeves.” She pointed back at the three pages. “The script matches the Kepler in the Rothham. Size, point, style, and pitch should be the same.”

Jean waved, stripped off her clothes, and stepped into the shower.

“Why Callahan, I do think the lady is inviting you to her chambers,” leered Marie.

“She’s a weird one. Yesterday she was curled up in the fetal position. Now she’s dancing around naked as a jaybird.”

He waited for her to climb into the futon, then brought the three pages out and laid them on the table for Marie. She took some large photos of the Kepler letter at the Rothham from her briefcase and laid them next to Jean’s pages, then went through them line by line.

“I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes. She’s truly gifted.” She took her glasses off and pushed back from the table. “I think those old men in Zurich were right about her.”

Marie went to the computer and typed a short email to the Archivist. “Kepler done to perfection.”

 

Zurich - Thursday, April 9

“Ah, the woman’s a witch, a witch is what she is. A witch, I tell you.” The Templar Archivist tapped the table next to him. “But what a wonderful witch she is, yes, indeed. She’s a rare talent, and if we handle this right, she’s our rare talent.”

The Master peered from the other side of the table at the pages neatly spread before them. “Are these forgeries really that good, Patrick?”

“If he says they’re that good, then they’re that good.” The Marshall sat at the end of the table. “What the hell do you or I know about this stuff? We can look at these papers all day and hardly tell if they’re up or down.”

The Master dismissed the Marshall. “I know you don’t know anything. Surprise. That’s why I’m asking Patrick.”

The Archivist stood up and brushed a hand across the pages. “Let me take you through these,” he said, almost to himself.

“These two pictures on top are pictures of the forgeries she told Callahan and Marie she made. We went and looked at them in the collections that bought them from her.”

“This one is supposed to be a letter from Kepler, and this one is supposed to be a letter from Voltaire. Now these are on exhibit, and are accepted as genuine. I would never have doubted them until the last few days.”

Now he pointed to the pages below each picture. “Now here’s what she did in that safe house in England. Look. The handwriting exactly matches the writing in the public exhibits.”

He pulled a briefcase from behind his chair. “Now here is an actual letter from Kepler in our very own collection. We’ve had it since way before Jean Randolph was born. Look at the handwriting.” The Archivist glanced from the Master to the Marshall and sighed.

“Ok. I’ll spell it out. She wrote just like Kepler did. Same style of letters, pitch, strokes… everything. It’s like she’s channeling him.”

“You mean she writes just like Kepler did?” asked the Marshall.

The Archivist hung his head and mumbled to himself. “Yes. Very good. You get a gold star.” He stood up again. “And it’s not just a fluke, because she also can write just like Voltaire.” He pulled another manuscript from his briefcase and placed it on the table. “This is ours. Again, it’s been ours for a long time. The writing’s the same.”

The Master scanned the pages and nodded slowly. “Do we have anyone who can do this?”

“Not on your life. We have good people, but it’s mainly passports and that stuff. Nothing is handwritten anymore. More’s the pity in some ways.” He pointed to the third set of pages. “But here is the best. The top is a picture of the Treaty of Tuscany that Jean took from the Vatican Library. It’s a damn good picture, too. Below is the copy she made from the picture.”

The Marshall came down and bent over the pages. They did look the same. “Can’t read that stuff, but they look the same.”

 “Exactly. The point here is that she precisely mimicked Kepler, Voltaire, and some unknown copier at the Vatican in the Twelfth Century. I bet she can do anyone’s writing better than they can themselves.”

The Master looked at the Marshall, who shrugged, then back at the Archivist. “Do you think she can do it, Patrick?”

“I do indeed. I do indeed.”

The Master rubbed the scar on his forehead. “Do it. Your mission, Patrick.”

He looked from one to the other. “Something else to remember. There’s a new Pope, this Mexican guy. From everything I have read he seems pretty good. I think we can work with him. Under the Concordat, someone has to approach him.”

Marshall and Archivist both looked at their shoes. The Master pointed at the Marshall. “You know all there is to know about the Concordat and what we face. You do it. As soon as you can.”  The Archivist grinned.

 

Salisbury, UK - Thursday, April 9

Callahan picked up a TV in town, and Marie made a trip to the local bookstore, so Jean spent her time reading, watching TV, and exercising. She hadn’t heard anything more about forgeries since they had asked her to duplicate the Treaty of Tuscany.  The man she dealt with simply refused to address anything beyond her food and immediate physical needs.

She really had boxed herself into a corner, she thought, and all her dreams were now part of a dead woman’s tragically lost future.  These people knew everything she had done. They even showed her the Web page the university history department had created in her honor. They had posthumously made her a distinguished professor. Would they revoke it if she walked back into the faculty lounge and was promptly shackled for mass murder?

But these people wanted something, too, and her talent with pen and ink just might give her a bargaining position. She looked around. Some bargaining position, trapped with a TV, a stack of paperback books, cold pizza, and Cokes.

Think like a survivor. All she really did was filch that treaty. She didn’t know about the bomb. She wouldn’t have gone within a thousand miles of the Vatican if she had. Yeah, and who’d believe that?

Callahan knocked, and she obediently retreated from the futon to the corner. These were not trusting people.

He took the only chair. “You have an opportunity,” he said. “We can use your skills as a forger and a historian. We can also protect you.” She silently laid her book aside and focused her attention on him. He was an attractive man, very attractive, she thought. And he wore no wedding ring. But how many kidnappers wore rings? She didn’t know.

“To put it as simple as I can, you have the choice between working with us and death. We won’t even have to kill you. You can walk out that door and see how far you get. The London medical examiner will find an urgent need to reexamine the body found in your apartment, MI6 will get a packet detailing your recent adventures, and the tabloids will go wild. We won’t even have to call Al Qaeda. They’ll know.”

 He stared at her, but Jean said nothing.

“We can offer you a very good life,” he continued. “And I can assure you that if you exhibited same level of professionalism and dedication you have shown through your career, you would be a valuable asset and your lifestyle would reflect that.”

He stood up and pushed the chair under the table. When he left, the inner door remained open, and she felt a breeze from the open outer door.

He stuck his head back in the room. “You’re free to go, Jean. This is when you make your decision. But remember what I said. If you choose to join us, and then betray us, we will definitely hunt you down and kill you. Nobody can protect you from us.” He shrugged. “Nothing personal, it’s that way for all of us.”

 

Switzerland - Friday, April 10

“You’re now Louise Koch. I don’t know where they get these names.” Callahan handed Jean a Swiss passport and a three-page biography detailing her new identity. “You’re Swiss. Memorize the details. When we arrive, you’ll learn more about who you are. For now, let’s just get to Zurich.”

He laid one thousand euros, two credit cards, and a cell phone on the table. “In case you were wondering, if you take off, that passport will appear on a terrorist alert list, and you’ll be behind bars as soon as you use it. Same with the credit cards.”

She picked up the phone and flicked it open. “And this?”

“The worst mistake you can make now would be to call someone… anyone… and anyone means anyone… and let them know you are alright. No exceptions, not even the exceptions you know are Ok. Calling anyone betrays us, and you know how that ends.”

“You give me all this, but I can’t use it?” she asked.

“Hell, everyone has a phone. But if you’re going to cross us, we may as well get that out of the way. It’s more efficient that way. Like I said, it’s nothing personal, just the rules we all play by.”

“And you still won’t tell me who you are?”

“Nope. Not yet. Have faith, child.” He laughed and stuffed things into his own bag.

 “And I’m Sean Callahan. I can tell you that. American, if you hadn’t guessed it. You can use my name in public. No problem there. But, I’ll be calling you Louise, Louise Koch. Poor Jean Randolph died in a tragic fire. So sad.”

 

*     *     *

Callahan leaned a hand on the railing of the deck that ran around the Swiss chalet and pointed down the valley. “The village is about three miles. A bus leaves about seven in the morning, and again around two in the afternoon. The village is the end of the line, and anyone can show you where to get the bus.”

“You sound like you want me to run.”

“Not at all. But I do want you to understand your situation. You’re not a prisoner.” He waved his arm toward the snowy mountain peaks that surrounded them. “Beautiful place, isn’t it? Think what it would cost to rent. Great hiking. Running is superb. There’s a trout stream back behind the house.”

“What about the guy with the gun?’ Jean jerked her head back toward the house.

“He’s here to protect you, not guard you.” Callahan turned to the open door to the house and shouted, “Klaus!”

Klaus appeared immediately. “Yes, Sir.”

“Klaus, Louise is confused regarding your duties. Will you please tell her your mission?”

“Certainly.” He faced Jean. “My primary orders are to keep you alive, to protect you. Beyond that, I am an excellent cook, can guide you all around these mountains, and am charged with providing whatever assistance I can. I am also explicitly forbidden to prevent you from leaving.”

“Who do you work for, Klaus?” Jean asked.

Klaus grinned. “Ah, let’s just say I report to Callahan.”

“So, what am I supposed to do here, Callahan?”

He leaned both elbows on the railing and stared at the mountains. “You’re going to forge a copy of the Treaty of Tuscany.”

That damn treaty again, she thought, always the treaty. But that’s why she was still alive. “And why do you want that?”

“You’ll be working with a team far more qualified than I am, and they will fill you in. For now, we have to get everything you will need. We can do whatever you want. Klaus can take you to Zurich. Or if you want to make a list, I can pass it to someone who will get what you need. Anything. Whatever it is, you will have it.”

“You have the parchment?” she asked. Without it, she would be worthless to them. “The Twelfth Century parchment? Without that, laser spectrography would expose it as a hoax.”

“Yes. We have the paper you tore from the bottom of that treaty.”

“I see. I could use some help. I’ll need lots of supplies, and someone who understands calligraphy, art, or these kinds of manuscripts and their production would be helpful.” She paused. “Klaus just doesn’t seem the type.”

“Ha, never under estimate Klaus. He’s a graduate mechanical engineer. I’m not sure how he drew this assignment. But, you’re right, he knows no more about Twelfth Century manuscripts than I do. But he can build anything.”