Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
The Lost Island
Lincoln Child dedicates this book to his wife,
Luchie
Douglas Preston dedicates this book to
Joshua Richholt
1
The conference room at Effective Engineering Solutions emptied. Everyone left, leaving Gideon Crew alone with Eli Glinn and Manuel Garza in the austere room, high above the streets of Manhattan.
With his withered hand, Glinn motioned Gideon to a chair at the conference table. “Gideon, please, sit down.”
Gideon took a seat. He sensed already that this meeting — which had begun with a celebration of his successful completion of the latest project for EES — was morphing into something else.
“You’ve had quite an ordeal,” Glinn said. “Not just the physical manhunt, but the, ah, emotional toll as well. Are you sure you want to jump right into something new?”
“I’m sure,” Gideon replied.
Glinn looked at him carefully — a long, searching look. Then he nodded. “Excellent. Glad to hear you’ll be continuing with us as our…” He paused, searched for a word. “Our special deputy. We’ll engage you a suite at a hotel around the corner, so you’ll have a place to stay while we find you an apartment. I know how you hate to be away from your beloved Santa Fe, but it’s a very interesting time to be in New York. Right now, for example, there’s a special exhibition at the Morgan Library — the Book of Kells, on loan from the Irish government. You’ve heard of the Book of Kells, of course?”
“Vaguely.”
“It’s the finest illuminated manuscript in existence, considered to be Ireland’s greatest national treasure.”
Gideon said nothing.
Glinn glanced at his watch. “Then you’ll come have a look at it with me? I’m a great fancier of illuminated manuscripts. They’ll be turning a new page of the book every day. Very exciting.”
Gideon hesitated. “Illuminated manuscripts are not exactly an interest of mine.”
“Ah, but I was so hoping you’d accompany me to the exhibition,” said Glinn. “You’ll love the Book of Kells. It’s only been out of Ireland once before, and it’s only here for a week. A shame to miss it. If we leave now, we’ll just catch the last hour of today’s showing.”
“Maybe we could go Monday.”
“And miss the page displayed today — forever? No, we must go now.”
Gideon started to laugh, amused at Glinn’s earnestness. The man’s interests were so arcane. “Honestly, I couldn’t care less about the damn Book of Kells.”
“Ah, but you will.”
Hearing the edge in Glinn’s voice, Gideon paused. “Why?”
“Because your new assignment will be to steal it.”
2
Gideon followed Eli Glinn into the East Room of the Morgan Library. Despite its being packed with visitors, entering the magnificent space was nevertheless an overwhelming experience. Gideon hadn’t been in the Morgan since its renovation — he always found its treasures too tempting — and immediately became entranced all over again with the vaulted and painted ceilings, the three-story tiers of rich books, the massive marble fireplace, the opulent tapestries, furniture, and thick burgundy rug. Glinn, operating the joystick of his electric wheelchair with one claw-like hand, moved into the room aggressively, cutting the line and taking advantage of the fact that people tended to yield to the handicapped. Soon they had moved to the front of the line, where a large glass cube contained the Book of Kells.
“What a room,” murmured Gideon, looking around, his eyes instinctively picking out the many aggressively visible details of high security, starting with the hyper-alert guards, the single entrance, the camera lenses winking in the ceiling moldings, the motion-sensor detectors and infrared laser placements. Not only that, but — in entering the room — he had observed the side edge of a massive steel pocket door, ready to seal the space off at a moment’s notice.
Glinn followed his eye toward the ceiling. “Magnificent, isn’t it?” he said. “Those murals are by the artist H. Siddons Mowbray, and the spandrels feature the twelve signs of the zodiac. J. P. Morgan belonged to an exclusive dining club that admitted only twelve members, each of whom was given a zodiac code name. They say the arrangements of the signs and other strange symbols painted in the ceiling relate to key events in Morgan’s personal life.”
Gideon’s eye fell to the grand fireplace adorning one end of the hall. Even in its intricately carved recesses he could make out the faint presence of security devices, some of which he had never seen before and had no idea what they did.
“That tapestry over the fireplace,” Glinn continued, “is sixteenth-century Netherlandish. It depicts one of the seven deadly sins: avarice.” He issued a low chuckle. “Interesting choice for Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, don’t you think?”
Gideon turned his attention to the glass cube that contained the Book of Kells. It was clearly bulletproof, and not the standard blue kind, either, but white glass — he guessed a P6B standard — which rendered it not only bulletproof but blast-proof, hammer-proof, and ax-proof as well. He stared intently into the case, ignoring the fabulous and irreplaceable treasure it contained, his eyes instead picking out and categorizing the many layers of security within — motion sensors, atmospheric pressure sensors, infrared heat detectors, and even what looked like an atmospheric composition sensor.
Clearly any disturbance would trigger the instant shutting of that steel door — sealing the room and trapping the thief inside.
And that was just the security he could see.
“Breathtaking, isn’t it?” murmured Glinn.
“It’s scaring the shit out of me.”
“What?” Glinn looked startled.
“Excuse me. You mean the book…” He looked at it for the first time. “Interesting.”
“That’s one way of putting it. Its origins are shrouded in mystery. Some say it was created by Saint Columba himself around AD 590. Others believe it was created by unknown monks two hundred years later, to celebrate Columba’s bicentennial. It was begun at Iona and then carried to the Abbey of Kells, where the illumination was added. And there it was kept, deeply hidden, as the abbey was raided and looted again and again by pagan Viking marauders. But they never found that book.”
Gideon looked at the manuscript more closely. Despite himself, he was drawn in, enthralled by the fantastically complex abstract designs on the page, almost fractal in their depth.
“The page on display today is folio 34r,” Glinn told him. “The famous Chi Rho monogram.”
“Chi Rho? What’s that?”
“Chi and Rho are the first two letters of the word Christ in Greek. The actual narrative of Jesus’s life starts at Matthew 1:18, and that page was often decorated in early illuminated gospels. The first word of the narrative is Christ. In the Book of Kells, those first two letters, Chi Rho, consume the entire page.”
The crowds began to back up behind them, and Gideon felt someone’s elbow giving him a faint nudge.
Glinn’s whispery voice continued. “Look at the labyrinth of knotted decoration! You can see all kinds of strange things hidden in there — animals, insects, birds, angels, tiny heads, crosses, flowers. Not to mention Celtic knots of stupendous complexity, a mathematician’s dream…And then the colors! The golds and greens and yellows and purples! This is the greatest page from the greatest illuminated manuscript in existence. No wonder the book is considered Ireland’s greatest national treasure. Just look at it.”