“Yup.”
Satisfied, Jill’s mind raced on. “Even flying out of Canada, they’ll probably track us eventually.”
“Naturally,” the rabbi put in. “That’s what they do.”
“If they bother to try. We’ll have to travel under our own names. It would take too long to get fake ID. The trick will be making it to the airport in Kraków before they do. As long as we can get away from the airport there, we should be fine. No one knows where we’re heading.”
Handalman shrugged. “They’ll figure it out. The question is how long will it take them? Long enough, that’s all we can hope for.”
Everything was packed. Jill checked her watch and grabbed the clothes she’d set aside to put on. She’d taken a shower while Nate was gone and she felt better than she had for days, but she was still in the hospital robe. She started to head for the bathroom to change, but Nate’s peculiar silence got through to her at last. She paused. “What happened?”
“What? Did you have a problem?” Rabbi Handalman seconded.
For a moment, it looked like Nate was going to say something. But he was still studying her with that peculiar wary look. He cleared his throat. “Nothing. You said we were in a hurry, Jill. So let’s go.”
O´swi¸ecim—Auschwitz—looked no different from any of the other Polish cities they’d driven through on their way from Kraków. It was charming and modern, well maintained. The main street through town was lined with businesses that had an international flavor. A discreet sign pointed the way to the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum.
“So now it’s a national monument.” Rabbi Handalman was driving. He snorted sourly. “Polish children come from all over, no doubt, to see what outrage the Germans committed during the invasion.”
Jill glanced in the rearview mirror at Nate. He was looking at the scenery, quiet and reserved. His head was back on the seat, his eyes brooding. He’d been that way since Seattle.
“This must be hard for you, Rabbi. Coming here.” Nate’s eyes met hers, briefly, in the rearview mirror as they shifted to Rabbi Handalman.
Handalman shrugged. “It’s no one’s idea of a picnic.” He almost said more, then just shook his head, lips tight.
Nate’s eyes shifted back to hers, held. Her hands clenched nervously in her lap as she tried to read him.
On the plane Nate had told them what really happened at her house—a small detail he’d previously left out like stabbing Lieutenant Farris. Just the thought of Nate, her Nate, and that man she’d met in her hospital room—the man with the soulless eyes—engaged in combat was enough to send her into paroxysms of distress on any number of levels. Nate could easily have been shot! And Farris—god, what a disaster. He was her recruiter, for god’s sake. How would she ever be able to explain?
She should have gone back to the hospital; she could see that now. She should have told Farris about Kobinski’s manuscript and let the DoD track it down. But she’d seen the pages and just… well, she hadn’t made the best decisions.
Kobinski had her equation. It hadn’t been in the pages Handalman had shown her, not in its exact form, but the principle of it had been clearly used in other equations that were there, equations even Jill didn’t completely comprehend. Nobody understood what that meant. Nate certainly didn’t understand. To know that not only was her equation not original, but that it had been formulated in the 1940s! How could she have gone to Farris and admitted that someone else had gotten there way ahead of her, that everything he wanted was in somebody else’s work?
No. No way. She wasn’t ready to concede defeat yet, not as long as there was a chance to get that manuscript for herself. It wasn’t that she intended to bury Kobinski’s work. That would be unconscionable. No, but she could adapt it. Aharon had translated several pages for them on the plane and, however good the man’s math, some of his ideas—for example, the microscopic black hole thing—were clearly looney tunes. That was a good thing. That meant she could still be the one to place the equation in a rational, twenty-first-century framework. After all, she had rediscovered the equation after it had been lost for decades, confirmed it, really, using Quey. This didn’t have to be a complete catastrophe.
If only she could be alone with Nate so she could explain. She needed his support now, more than ever, when everything they’d worked for was balanced on the head of a pin.
Anatoli Nikiel lived outside of town, down a country road. It was a tiny place surrounded by empty land and woods. The porch light was on. They parked in the long dirt driveway and got out, shivering in the frigid temperatures. The front door opened as they drew near.
Anatoli was impossibly old and fragile. He wore a sweater that looked like the vestigial tatters on a skeleton thanks to its age and his emaciation. He welcomed them inside and took their coats, hardly seeming strong enough for the task. He disappeared to take the garments into a back room.
Jill glanced at Nate. She was so nervous her stomach was quivering. She wanted to slip her hand into his but didn’t because that would be incredibly childish, not to mention unwelcome, the way he’d been acting. Then he turned to look at her. There was a new excitement in his eyes now that they were finally here, and a smile of reassurance on his lips. For the first time in a long while, she felt as though they were in this thing together.
“Please, this way,” Anatoli said.
He motioned a hand to a short, narrow archway. It looked like something from a gnome’s dwelling. They bowed their way through it and on the other side was a miniature parlor and a man standing in the middle of the room. The stranger was blond, tan, preppyish, and someone had beaten the crap out of him. His nose was swollen and there were deep purple bruises on his face.
“Hi. I’m Denton Wyle.” He smiled. The smile looked odd on someone who’d been used as a punching bag.
Introductions went all around. There was something a little too smooth about Wyle that Jill disliked immediately. He was friendly enough, but she didn’t trust him. Still, it wasn’t her house and she couldn’t very well ask him to leave. They took chairs that Anatoli dragged into place, including a shaky wooden one brought in from another room.
As soon as they were seated, Jill began. “Rabbi Handalman says you have copies of Yosef Kobsinski’s manuscript. I’d like to see it.”
Anatoli motioned to Wyle. “One. There is only one copy. There it is. Look all you want.”
Wyle hesitated. He had a paperbound manuscript about two inches thick in his lap, which he seemed reluctant to give up. After a moment he held it out. She met his eyes as she took it.
“The Book of Torment,” he said, with an awe that made her uncomfortable.
What was this? Was there a cult around this thing or what? Wyle didn’t look like a man who’d be up on his physics. As if reading her mind, he said, “I’m a reporter. I was tracking down the Kobinski manuscript when I met Anatoli.”
“You’re working on an article about the Holocaust?”
“No, about disappearances.”
“I don’t understand.”
Wyle and Anatoli looked at each other, but neither answered. Jill didn’t really care. The manuscript was in her hands and that was the important thing. She didn’t care what the rest of these wackos were into. She had problems of her own.
She flipped past the notations she’d already seen in Seattle, past pages of text in Hebrew. She came across two sheets of mathematical equations in a sure, cramped hand and her breath caught in her throat. She got absorbed in it. After a while, she was aware that people around her began talking. She didn’t follow the conversation. She got a notepad and pen from a satchel she’d bought at the airport and dived into the math. Nate scooted his chair closer and watched her work.