Rafael looked at the professor very soberly, showing no feelings. He seemed to be an impassive bystander, lacking sentiments, as the drama unfolded before him.
Margulies’s head bent forward in submission, for the executioner to pull the trigger. The silencer was pressed against the nape of his neck. Margulies looked at Rafael for the last time.
“Count the letters,” the cryptographer whispered.
Sarah did not hear what the professor said to Rafael. She was about to immerse herself in darkness. They could make her face Margulies, but not force her to keep her eyes open. Shut your eyes fast, shut them. Defend yourself against this violence, don’t let them torture you.
A dull thud marked the end. The body dropped to the floor, inert, in the middle of a pool of blood that Sarah imagined but didn’t see. The tears flowed uncontrollably down her face. Margulies had fallen forward, his head turned toward Rafael, a red hole at the base of his skull.
Bastards! Sarah thought, aware for the first time that, no matter what she did, she wouldn’t get out of there alive.
“Now we return to the whereabouts of the papers,” Barnes said. “I’m sure that you’re readier to reveal it than a moment ago.”
The agent who had killed Professor Joseph Margulies still stood, gun in hand, ready to kill his next victim, the man he knew as Jack and who had turned out to be a double agent, the highest treason, always punished by death. Once Jack was dead, the woman would say where the papers were, and then-
And then nothing. A tremendous kick broke the agent’s knee and made him fall, screaming. Before he knew what was happening, he lay dead with a bullet from his own gun, which Rafael had snatched from him in the blink of an eye.
Rafael then shot at the head of the man to Barnes’s right. The agent to his left and Barnes himself took cover behind the first thing they could find. Meanwhile, the agent holding Sarah tried to use her body as a shield, but she elbowed him powerfully in the chest, making him double over.
“Get out! Fast!” Rafael shouted at Sarah. “Run! They can’t shoot at you!”
Sarah ran toward the door. Barnes and the other man aimed at Rafael, but he protected himself with the body of one of the fallen agents. He fired for cover and rushed out of the office.
“The woman has to be captured alive!” Barnes yelled. “Son of a bitch.”
33
Rafael flew down the corridor with no idea where he was headed, opening doors at random. His priority was to find Sarah. They found each other quickly, at a nook in the hallway.
“I told you to run. If they’d caught you, you’d be completely fucked.”
They ran blindly. The light was minimal, but their eyes eventually adjusted. The interior of the British Museum was an immense labyrinth.
At the end of the hallway was a door providing access to one of the stairways. They descended to the floor below.
When they got to the lower landing, Rafael opened a door and cautiously peeked through.
“Let’s go. Stick close to me.”
Barely visible signs pointed to the emergency exit.
They came to an enormous hall, the King’s Library, and stopped in front of a huge door, leading to the museum’s covered grand atrium. The large annex was a recent addition, with a rotunda in the center that housed the Reading Room, various shops on the ground floor, and a restaurant on the floor above. On the other side, facing the exit, were numerous tables and chairs anchored to the floor that belonged to the snack bars that offered fast food to the thousands of daily visitors.
Sarah and Rafael hugged the wall of the grand atrium, quickly moving toward the exit. The stretch that remained before them was like an open, barren field. The moonlight, now visible through the glass dome, gave the area a grayish white tinge.
A flash cut through the shadows and Rafael was hurled against the wall by an unknown force: he’d been hit. Sarah instinctively knelt and tried to lift him. He groaned, but the wound didn’t appear to be too serious.
Two shadows darted out from the bar area, moving toward them.
“Take the pistol.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Shoot two or three times, at random,” Rafael insisted.
Sarah looked back. The shadows were gaining ground. Finally she took the gun Rafael was handing her, and fired three times without turning her head to aim. They were both barricaded behind the museum reception desk. Rafael took off his overcoat and ripped his clothes in the area where the bullet had grazed him, almost by his shoulder.
“I was lucky.”
“Really? I thought you were going to die in my arms.”
“That could still happen.”
“Jack,” boomed a voice from somewhere in the atrium. It was Barnes.
Rafael got up and roughly pulled Sarah to his side.
“What are you doing?” she asked in a low voice. Her heart seemed to be stuck in her throat.
“You can’t kill her because you don’t know what she’s done with the papers. She’s the only link you have to them. What’s gonna happen if she dies now?” He raised his gun and pointed it at Sarah’s temple.
“What are you doing?” Sarah thought she was about to faint.
The cards were stacking up against Barnes.
“C’mon, Jack, are you really capable of taking an innocent’s life?”
“Barnes, you know me very well. I’m made of the same shit as you.”
“What do you want?” he asked, already guessing the answer.
“Pay attention. I’m going to leave here with her, and you’re going to tell your men to put away their guns and let us go. You’re going to tell the guys with you and the ones you’ve got posted outside.”
“Let’s be reasonable, Jack.”
“Even more reasonable?” Rafael tossed back sarcastically.
Barnes had no choice but to accept.
“Abort the operation. Lower your guns. Let them go,” he said, turning his head to the tiny microphone on his lapel.
Rafael dragged Sarah out from the protection of the counter, backing toward the exit.
The cold night air wrapped around them. They went downstairs and to the giant doors bearing the Queen Elizabeth II coat of arms. The gun was still pressed against Sarah’s temple. From there to the car was a very short stretch.
34
What were you thinking?” Sarah yelled at the top of her lungs, while the car turned toward Bloomsbury Street at top speed.
“I was trying to save us,” Rafael answered, not looking at her.
“To save us?”
“Stop asking questions. They’re following us and it’s not going to be easy to shake them.”
They turned right on New Oxford Street. Rafael grimaced as pain blazed through his shoulder. At the Tottenham Court Road intersection, the light turned red and he stopped the Jaguar.
“Let’s trade places,” Rafael asked.
“What?
“You drive. I’m not in any shape for it.”
Sarah proceeded on Oxford Street, London ’s main business thorough-fare. She leaned over to the glove compartment and took out the list, which she threw in Rafael’s lap.
“There you have it. I’d left it here and forgotten it when we got out of the car.”
“Your forgetting it saved us this time.”
They drove on in silence for several minutes.
“I don’t know where I’m going,” Sarah said finally.
“It doesn’t matter, keep going. It’s all right if you go by the same place several times.”
“Were you really planning on shooting? If things had gone badly, would you have been able to kill me?”
“Yes,” Rafael answered without hesitation. “And I would’ve killed myself next. Believe me, it would have been a favor for you if things had turned out badly. It’s better to be dead than in their hands. Not having the list with you, whether you forgot it or not, was the best thing that could have happened. It was wonderful.”
“So if we find ourselves in the same situation again, but with no cards to play, you wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger, first on me and then on yourself?”