Secret Of The Slaves

Her eyes narrowed. I know that voice, she thought. It sounds so familiar.

“Ms. Creed?” She was certain of the Irish accent.

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. This is Annja.”

“Ms. Creed, my name is Iain Moran. I’m a musician. You may have heard of me.”

“ Sir Iain Moran?” Annja asked. It couldn’t be.

“The same.” Her mind’s eye could see that famous smile, at once roguish and world-weary.

“Publico? Lead singer for T-34?”

“The very one.”

“Right,” Annja was in no mood for pranks.

“Don’t hang up! Please. I really am Sir Iain Moran.”

“Sure. Multibillionaire rock stars call me every day. If Doug Morrell put you up to this, you’re both way overdue for a good swift kick to the—”

“Please. I’d very much like to consult you on a professional matter, concerning your expertise. Would it help to assuage your doubts if my helicopter collected you on the roof of your flat in fifteen minutes?”

It was original, as pranks go. She had to give her caller that. “You’re on,” Annja said, daring her caller to push this as far as it would go.

Fifteen minutes later she stared openmouthed into the brownish haze of a hot Brooklyn day. Her face and hair were whipped by the downblast as a Bell 429 helicopter descended to the roof.

2

A man with long dark blond hair blowing out behind his craggy face was striding toward the helicopter as its landing gear bumped down into the yellow painted circle of the skyscraper’s helipad. He wore a tan suit with a dark chocolate tie blown back over his shoulder.

Two men stood flanking the doorway the long-haired man had emerged from. Their hands were folded before them and they looked like slabs in black suits. Even from a distance Annja got the impression their musculature was the force-fed beef characteristic of U.S. ground-force soldiers, not the torturously detailed sculpting of weight-room juicers.

The pleasant young Asian woman in a blue-gray business suit who had originally squired Annja aboard the helicopter, and smilingly evaded the questions Annja peppered her with, helped Annja into the heat of the Manhattan summer morning. The man in the pale suit neared. His face split in a smile.

“I’m Sir Iain,” he said, raising his voice to carry over the dying whine of the engine and the slowing blades. “Or Publico, if you prefer.” He took the hand Annja extended in a dry, strong grip.

“It was good of you to accept my invitation on such short notice,” he said. He put fingertips behind Annja’s shoulder and applied gentle pressure. “I’m a huge fan of your work. Your writing, as well as your television career. Please, come with me.”

She found, as he guided her toward the doorway, that she did not resent the physical contact. He was around her height, five-ten maybe five-eleven. His shoulders and chest seemed massive, which seemed unusual for a rock musician; she had them pegged as mostly on the weedy side. But his sense of presence loomed like a skyscraper and warmed like the sun.

There was no mistaking that this really was the famous Publico. There were those blue eyes, pale as the northern Irish sky beneath which he’d grown up. There was the famous craggy profile, looking more like a prizefighter’s than a rock and roller’s, thanks to the nose famously smashed by a British paratrooper’s rifle butt during a Dublin demonstration. The voice, gravelly yet the more compelling for it, was compliments of an Ulster policeman’s baton that nearly crushed his larynx.

Unlike a lot of celebrities, neither Moran nor his two longtime bandmates had any whiff of the poseur about them. They had been there and done that, protesting the English occupation of Northern Ireland, as well as the bloody sectarian violence of both Catholics and Protestants. They’d earned the admiration of the world and the hatred of zealots on all three sides, and had paid their dues in real blood and pain.

The band’s music reflected the socialist activism of its members as well as their fervent Christian convictions—decidedly less popular among their audience, which spanned the age range from preteens to baby boomers. But their sincerity won over even the most irreligious—as did their hard-rocking music.

Annja was intrigued. He seemed wholly aboveboard. Despite the unsolicited contact his manner was correct and friendly. Charisma emanated from him like heat from a forge.

“What exactly did you whisk me here for, Sir Iain?”

He offered a lopsided smile and bobbed his head once. “Fair enough question,” he said. “Permit me to answer with one. How would you like to save the world?”

“That’s not an offer an archaeologist hears very often,” she said. “But I’m afraid I can’t contribute much to any of your causes.”

“It’s not money we want,” he said. “But your courage, your skills—your soul.”

She looked at him and he grinned.

“How would you like to see an authentic cursed tome?” he asked.

She grinned back. “You do know the way to a lady’s heart, sir,” she said. “Lead on.”

“I T’S IMPRESSIVE ,” she said.

With his two shadows drifting along behind—making little more noise than shadows—Moran had squired her down into the skyscraper and to a window he assured her was bulletproof polycarbonate, double paned.

It looked out, and down, on a cold room. In the middle of the sterile white floor, twelve feet below them, stood a large cylinder with what looked like a mirror-polished brass base and a similar cap. The cylinder itself was clear.

“It’s Lexan, as well,” Sir Iain said. “Treated with a special coating inside and out that resists corrosion.”

On a gleaming chrome pedestal within the cylinder rested a book. It was certainly grand enough—the approximate size and shape of an unabridged dictionary. The cover was thick and cracked from what she could see on the open book. The pages were brown. She could just make out faded, crabbed brown writing on them.

“Nitrogen environment?” she asked.

“Of course.”

She tried not to thrill at that rolling deep baritone.

She turned a raised brow to him. “I’m surprised you’re interested in rare books.”

“You think all rock ’n’ rollers are illiterate, hell-raising dopers?” He shrugged. His shoulders rolled impressively inside his immaculately tailored coat. “I’ve been clean and sober since my well-publicized overdose. I’ve had to find something to do with my time since other than read the Bible.”

I N A ROOM down a flight of stairs he gestured toward a large flat-screen monitor, hung above a modern workstation of stainless steel. Several other computers were set up at other stations. On the big screen two pages were represented many times larger than life. Here the ink looked purplish rather than brown.

“It’s the journal of an eighteenth-century Portuguese Jesuit,” Moran said, “recounting his journey up the far Amazon.”

“A lot of Jesuits made the trip in those days,” Annja said.

“Indeed. I rather suppose they did. Would you care to read it?”

“I generally prefer to read the original document when it’s available,” she said. “The camera so seldom catches everything”

She was a hands-on sort of woman where historical artifacts were concerned. It was a major reason she’d chosen to be an archaeologist as opposed to a historian. She didn’t just want to study history. She wanted to feel history. To see where it had taken place, to hold in her hands implements—or documents—that had changed the world. She wanted to breathe the same air the heroes and heroines of history—unknown and world famous—had breathed when they performed their great deeds. She wanted to be part of history.

And I am, she thought. A lot more literally than I’m comfortable with.

“Not possible, I fear,” he said.