Chrissie rose and moved onto the sofa while Bourne opened the laptop and started it up. He had made sure to fully charge the battery on the flight over. Scarlett sat on the edge of the cushion to be closer to the screen.
The screen swelled with images as the computer finished booting up.
“Scarlett,” Bourne said, “do you have the ring I gave you?”
“I keep it with me.” Scarlett dug it out. “Do I have to give it back?”
Bourne laughed. “I gave it to you and I meant it.” He held out his hand. “Just for a moment.”
He took the ring and inserted it in the slot that had been built for it. This was the laptop he had stolen from Jalal Essai, Holly’s uncle, at Alex Conklin’s behest. He hadn’t delivered it because he had discovered what it contained and determined that it was too important a find to be given over to Treadstone, or anyone in the clandestine services. Instead he had asked Deron to make a fake laptop. Accompanying Holly on one of her trips to Sonora to stock a narcorrancho, he had been introduced to Gustavo Moreno. Bourne had allowed the fake laptop to fall into the drug lord’s hands because having it eventually come to light in Moreno’s possession would keep any suspicion on Conklin’s part from falling on him.
Similarly, he had switched the Solomon ring with the one Marks had taken off his London assailant. The fact that Scarlett had found Marks’s ring when Marks had been shot gave him a perfect cover for the switch. He had been correct to assume the Solomon ring would be far safer in her hands than in his own.
The two pieces fit together perfectly. The mysterious inscription engraved on the inside of the ring unlocked the ghost file on the laptop’s hard drive, a PDF file, a perfect replica of an ancient Hebrew text.
Chrissie hunched forward. “What is this? It looks like… directions?”
“You recall the discussion we had with Professor Giles.”
She glanced at him. “Funny you should mention him. A squad of MI6 came and took him away yesterday.”
“I’m afraid I had something to do with that,” Bourne said. “The good professor was part of the group that made so much trouble for us.”
“Do you mean-?” Her gaze returned to the ancient text. “Good Lord, Jason, you don’t mean to tell me-!”
“According to this file,” Bourne said, “King Solomon’s gold is buried in Syria.”
Chrissie’s excitement grew. “At Ugarit, somewhere on or around Mount Casius, where the god Baal was said to live.” She frowned as she came to the end of the text. “But where, exactly? The text is incomplete.”
“True,” Bourne said, thinking of the SD card Arkadin had found in the shattered statue of Baal. “The last bit is lost. I’m sorry about that.”
“No, don’t be.” She turned and hugged him tightly. “My God, what a fantastic gift.”
“If it’s the truth, if you find King Solomon’s gold.”
“No, in and of itself this text is invaluable. It provides a trove of research material that will help shed light on what’s fact and fiction about King Solomon’s court. I… I don’t know how to thank you.”
Bourne smiled. “Give it as a gift to the university in your sister’s name.”
“Why, I… Of course! What a wonderful idea! Now she’ll be closer to me, and a part of Oxford, too.”
He felt the memory of Tracy settling around him with a contented sigh. He could think of her now in all her incarnations and not be swamped in sorrow.
He put his arm around Scarlett. “You know, your aunt had a hand in this gift.”
The girl looked up at him, her eyes wide. “She did?”
Bourne nodded. “Let me tell you about it-and about how very courageous she was.”