The Warehouse
Baltimore, Maryland
June 15, 5:15 p.m. EST
Rudy set the coffee cup down where Circe could see it, but she was too focused to notice or care. Her workstation monitors were filled with multiscreen images from the Voynich manuscript and the Book of Shadows. Images came and went as Circe, sitting rock-still except for the hand controlling the mouse and her darting eyes, studied the arcane pages.
The communicator gave a soft bing-bong and Bug’s face replaced one of the screens. He was grinning.
“Hey, docs… I got some good news. Or, at least I think it’s good news.”
Circe looked up and Rudy could see the lines of stress and worry that were etched into her lovely face. That, and the desperate hope in her eyes, made his heart ache.
“What is it?” she asked.
“MindReader came through again. I had my buddy Aziz help me with some search arguments in a couple of different Persian dialects, and that gave us the edge we needed to slip through the security at the National Museum in Tehran. And guess what we found there?”
Circe’s eyes came fully alive and she half rose from her chair.
“You found it?” she demanded.
“Yes, ma’am,” beamed Bug. “I just uploaded it to the server. A complete copy of the Saladin Codex.”
“Is it in the same ciphertext?” asked Rudy.
The question dialed up the wattage on Bug’s grin. “Nope. There are fifty-four separate translations. Persian, Arabic, Pashtun, Farsi, and… wait for it, wait for it… English.”
The change that came over Circe’s face was miraculous. As Rudy watched he could see the weariness drop away, the stress burn itself to nothingness, revealing a refreshed intensity and a predatory glint that was startling and, he had to admit, a bit intimidating. For the first time he could see in her eyes the reflection of her father.
“Now we have a chance,” said Circe fiercely. “Damn it, now we have a real chance.”
“Let’s just hope that there’s some clue in there to help us crack the other books,” observed Rudy and he was instantly sorry he said it because the newfound confidence in Circe’s eyes diminished by half in the space of a heartbeat. He wanted to bang his head against the wall, but Circe set her jaw and almost sneered at the possibility of defeat.
“No, damn it,” she growled. “We are going to crack this. We have to.”
It broke Rudy’s heart to hear her tack on those last three desperate words.