“I’m sorry?”
“Boe-sher. Cajun grandparents. With that last name you must have some French in your family?”
That same question, she thought, embarrassed by the answer.
“I don’t really know. My pedigree is pretty fuzzy. American, I guess.”
“Can’t beat that. So.”
She took in his watch, smart not flashy, his shined shoes and trimmed hair.
“Thank you for seeing me on your day off.”
“That’s OK. I don’t really have any of those.”
“You look more like a detective than a forensic paleographer.”
He looked at her, surprised.
“The museum website. Your bio?”
“Well, you do your homework. Take your pick. Right now, I’m both. I can’t tell which job I’m moonlighting. Neither one pays much.” He smiled. “Sit down, please. Now show me the documents.”
In her bag was a scroll on a wooden spindle, along with some of Osley’s translations. She took the scroll and opened it. There before them, in the middle of an ornate forest of Elvish, lay the great rune that resembled an “A” with eyes and other filigree about it. Ara’s sign. Bossier put on rubber gloves and gingerly unrolled the entire scroll on a large plastic examination table. He weighted its corners and sides with beanbags. He flicked a switch and the table surface illuminated, giving a rich, yellow glow to the parchment. She watched his movements, the careful note-taking, the apparent cross-reference to his computer.
After awhile he looked up at her. “It’s a very old document or a very clever fake. I can give you a pretty clear answer right now, to about seventy per cent certainty.” He uncased a small digital device that looked like a hand-held scanner. “Behold the Mancuso Analytics 43. A test model. Wireless, non-invasive, no sample needed. Laser-enabled. Designed for quick analysis in the field and for national security uses. It’s a chemical and atomic variance reader. Uses Raman patterns. Instant and accurate enough for on-the-ground decisions. The real brains are in the 429-level server slaved to it.”
“Uh-huh.” She sounded dubious. “Sounds like Spock’s tri-corder.”
“Raman — no relation to Romulon and not a noodle dish. He was an Indian scientist. He won the Nobel Prize in 1928. In any case, put simply, it’s a digital bloodhound.” He held it up, his eyebrows lifting in question.
“OK, let’s do it.”
He ran the device over the middle of the document. A touch screen menu gave him access to several national databases. After a few moments he looked up at her.
“Unless someone had eight-hundred year-old ink and vellum, this is legit.”
Cadence blinked at him. “You’re finished? Already? And it’s real …”
Bossier nodded. “Yeah, you can’t fake this.”
She held her breath as she looked at him. “I’d been afraid to ask.”
“That’s just the science, of course. The real truth, the magic, I like to call it, may be in what it says.”
“Well, you want to read some? Here’s a translation of some of this stuff. Knock yourself out. Please.”
She handed him several pages and pointed to a spot. “Start here.” She sat back in a chair and he began reading in silence.
After a few moments he looked up. “OK, Ms. Grande, this is pretty … out there. I was expecting some royal decrees or land-rent tallies.”
“Just keep going, please.”
He gave the slightest ‘oh-well’ shift of the eyes and continued to read.
When he finished, he put down the translation and gave a courtesy cough. Cadence stared at him like he was the last sane man on the planet. “What do you think?”
“It’s some made-up story from long ago. I wouldn’t think it’s all that important. The physical document, not its contents, may be the real prize here.”
She thought about the pragmatic wisdom in his words. “Only one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Someone thought this story was important enough to preserve on this scroll and a bunch of others.”
“So what are you going to do with this?”
“That’s a really, really good question. Look, I want to thank you.” Then she hesitated, “Is there a charge?”
“No, not for using this bloodhound. Here’s my card. Call me if you have any other questions.”
“OK I will.”
Cadence left and ran for the stairs, passing a figure in a knit cap studying a 1930s mural of American Industrial Progress: heroic figures, big skies and big machines. She glanced at the man and the mural but kept going. Before following her, Barren stayed a moment longer, lingering to study the great towers and trains and boats and planes.
He felt resolved now. He would gather his allies and then close on this steward when she had her precious scribblings in hand.
Besides, other of the Dark Lord’s emissaries, unknown to Barren but surely already here, would be hunting her now. If her fate was to be in his hands, he must set his traps with speed.
Chapter 26
OCTOBER 27. 10:15 A.M
Cadence did not anticipate the trap set for her by L’Institut des Inspecteurs.
Clues abounded, but they eluded her. The address was on a steep block on West Sixty-first Street that spilled down to the Hudson River. No tony office buildings here — only warehouses, storage rental buildings and housing projects that must have seemed forlorn when they were built in the early sixties.
The address was a nondescript concrete building with no signage whatsoever. It could have been anything from a wholesale warehouse to an S&M bar. Feeling her confidence sink by the second, Cadence steeled herself and entered the building.
Inside, she passed through a steel door. An elevator beckoned to her. She pressed the button and it whooshed open much too quickly for comfort.
When she arrived at the sixth floor, things were no clearer. Everything was black — the walls, the floors, even the ceilings were painted black. Halogen lights gave their eerie sharp glow. She walked a long corridor until she arrived at another closed steel door.
She didn’t like it. She was considering leaving the building when the steel door flung open.
“Oh, there you are.” It was the chatty receptionist from the uptown office. Cadence was whisked away to a room that looked, well, like a television studio. Lights, cables, monitors, blacked-out windows. The chair on which she was instructed to sit was hard-backed and uncomfortable. It was like a set-up for a third-degree. A bank of lights came on.
She winced. Facing her was a panel of four strangers, all sitting and looking at her with clinical smiles. The Inspecteurs, she presumed.
A woman with a Yankees baseball cap scurried around. She brought a wireless mike to Cadence and pinned it on. From the periphery, Cadence saw two people with small, pro-look digital cameras roaming the room. She could feel the close-up focus on her as the side door opened and Bois-Gilbert lurched into the space between Cadence and the panel. He adjusted the conch-shell buttons on his bespoke suit, smoothed his impeccable tie, shot his gold cuff-linked cuffs, and focused a barracuda smile on Cadence.
It fell into place with a thud. This wasn’t a scientific exam at all. Feeling ridiculously slow on the uptake, Cadence realized she was in a television studio. It was a TV show — a pilot, maybe, for a French-produced reality show.
Mel had set her up.
“Are you ready, Miss Grande?” asked Bois-Gilbert in mock-portentous tones.
What could she say? Here she was, pinned like an insect on an examination card. She could make a disagreeable scene or go with the flow. She wanted the three documents back, and going with the flow seemed like the most reasonable path to get to them.