“Roche told me that he was working on a new book,” she said. “Will you be able to release that?”
“Sadly, no. I know that’s what you’ve come here for, but Mr. Roche shared the manuscript with Mr. Parrott in electronic format and I haven’t been able to locate the file just yet. As I said, things have been chaotic.”
“Even so,” Professor said, “I would think you’d want to strike while the iron was hot, so to speak.”
Kellogg spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “As soon as it turns up, I’ll publish it.”
Jade decided to push a little harder. “Roche believed that Parrott was murdered to keep the book from being published. What do you think about that?” The man’s eyes widened in dismay, but Jade pressed ahead. “And now Roche is dead too. Do you think he was right?”
Kellogg spent several seconds shaping his answer. “I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead, but…Mr. Roche was right bloody-minded about these theories”
“So you don’t believe any of it?” Professor said. “It’s all just grist for the mill, right?”
The other man answered with a guilty shrug.
“Could the manuscript be at Roche’s home?” Jade asked.
Kellogg raised an eyebrow as if he found the possibility intriguing. “Why, I don’t know. I would have to get permission to search the premises.”
“Mr. Roche gave me permission,” Jade said quickly. “Not in so many words of course, but he told me about the book and wanted me to look for more supporting evidence. I think finding the manuscript is the obvious first step, don’t you? Here’s an idea. Why don’t you come with us to Roche’s place? Once we’ve had a look at the manuscript, you can take it and do with it what Roche intended.”
She almost said “cash in,” but decided not to push that particular button too hard.
“Can’t argue with that,” Professor added quickly before the other man could reply.
Kellogg frowned as if the logic of the statement troubled him. “How would we get in?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Professor said. “We have a key.”
An avaricious gleam appeared in Kellogg’s eyes. “Well, what are we waiting for?”
Professor’s “key” was a set of lock-picking tools which, in his expert hands, would be able to defeat the lock securing the door of Roche’s Mortlake townhouse almost as quickly as if he possessed an actual key. Breaking into Roche’s home had been their plan all along, but enlisting Kellogg’s assistance was necessary to give their illicit intrusion a veneer of authenticity. A pair of foreigners lurking about the dead man’s front door might arouse the suspicion of locals. This way, if the police did come to investigate, Kellogg would be able to explain that they were there on official business.
It was a fragile illusion, and as it turned out, an unnecessary one. When they arrived at Roche’s residence on the south bank of the River Thames, they found the door standing slightly ajar.
Jade’s breath caught in her throat. We’re too late. Someone beat us to the punch.
Someone wants that book.
It was an enormous leap of logic, but Jade knew it was true. And when taken with what had happened in Paracas, and the disappearance of Ian Parrott, the conclusion was inescapable.
Roche had been right about everything.
Professor raised a hand, warning them to freeze, and then touched a finger to his lips. Jade dragged Kellogg a few steps back, while Professor crept forward and pushed the door open a little more.
“What’s going on?” Kellogg whispered the question, but it sounded as loud as a shout to Jade, who immediately shushed him. She tensed, half-expecting the intruder to burst through the doorway like a homicidal jack-in-the-box, but nothing happened. Professor moved inside and then, after a full two minutes, came out and signaled for them to join him. She could tell by the look on his face that her earlier assumption was spot-on, and as soon as she stepped inside, she got final confirmation.
The tastefully decorated sitting room — where just eight months earlier, Jade had sipped tea with Roche, blissfully unaware of the trap he had laid for her — was a shambles. Every stick of furniture had been overturned, every seat cushion slashed with a razor. The content of drawers and cabinets lay strewn haphazardly on the floor amid piles of furniture stuffing. The intruder had even knocked holes in the wall plaster in an evidently futile search for a wall safe or some other secret compartment.
“The whole place is trashed,” Professor said, breaking the ominous silence. “But if it’s any consolation, I don’t think they found what they were looking for.”
“How can you know that?” asked an aghast Kellogg.
Professor waved his hand in an expansive gesture. “Look at this place. This kind of overkill is the result of frustration.”
Jade did not find this the least bit consoling. “Roche kept his collection of Dee memorabilia in a basement room. Maybe there’s something down there. Something the burglar missed.”
“I saw the room you’re talking about. It’s been completely ransacked, but I guess since we’re here, we might as well take another look.”
Kellogg found his voice again. “I say, shouldn’t we call the police before tramping around and destroying the evidence?”
Jade ignored him and headed for the stairs, descending the familiar route to the basement. She had last trod these steps eight month earlier, racing up them with a gun-wielding Roche chasing after her. The memory haunted her until she reached the bottom step, whereupon the scope of the damage wrought to the collection of unique artifacts and books snapped her back to the present.
The room was unrecognizable. All of the bookshelves that had once lined the walls had been toppled, and now lay atop their scattered contents. The glass display cases which had held remarkable clockwork devices from the Elizabethan era, as well as exotic occult items of dubious provenance, were smashed apart, their contents scattered. Jade stared in disbelief at the ruined collection, feeling both angry and helpless. “Looks like we’re back to square one.”
“This was always a long shot, Jade,” Professor said from behind her. “It’s the 21st century. The manuscript, if it even exists, is probably a computer file stored on a secure Cloud server.”
Jade knew he was right but that didn’t make the pill any easier to swallow.
“There’s a line from an old James Bond novel,” Professor went on. “‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time, it’s enemy action.’”
Jade tore her gaze from the wreckage and stared at him. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Rafi didn’t do this. And I doubt very much that he was involved in the disappearance of Flight 815. I could almost believe that Roche’s death and Parrott’s disappearance on that plane were coincidences, but this…” He waved to the room. “Strike three. Enemy action.”
“But who? Who’s the enemy?”
“That’s what I intend to find out.” He took out his phone and began tapping the screen, scrolling through his contacts list. “The disappearance of the plane is the piece that doesn’t fit. Roche’s murder and this break-in both could be the work of disorganized Muslim extremists, but making a plane vanish completely requires planning and sophistication on a different order of magnitude.”
He held the phone to his ear and was silent for a moment until the connection was established. “Tam, it’s me.”
Jade returned her attention to the wreckage while Professor updated Tamara Broderick on what had happened and what he intended to do about it. Broderick was the director of a special CIA cell — code-named “Myrmidons”—primarily tasked with battling the Dominion. She was, technically speaking, Professor’s boss, though the arrangement was a little more complicated than employee-employer. Professor had a great deal of latitude when it came to operations, as long as he kept Jade safe and occasionally saved the world. Jade had briefly worked with the Myrmidons as a contractor, which was how she and Professor had initially became acquainted, though at the time, he had been working directly for her as a researcher, and international intrigue had been the last thing on either of their minds.