“Try me.”
“Okay. Maybe back as far as the time of Vlad Dracul, pages were ripped out of the manuscript. At some point, the pages were separated from the main manuscript, and moved from place to place. Where, I don’t know, until a young girl saw a man bury the pages under a rowan tree in Eastern Poland, back in 1912, I think. She was part of a large Romany tribe camped close by. She dug the pages up and took them back to the camp and showed them to my great-great-grandmother, Kezia. She was also known as the Old Princess. She could read the pages and prophesied twins of her line would come and they would read them and reunite them with the great manuscript, as she called the Voynich.
“Their stories were passed down to me. My sister and I were the first twins in nearly a hundred years. But my sister died when we were four years old. It was then I told my mother I heard the pages weeping.
“She and my father believed the pages would drive me mad, so they buried them in a lead box so I couldn’t ever hear them again. There’s more, of course, but eventually, after my mother’s death, in her will, she told me where to find the pages.”
Isabella studied Mike’s face. “You might believe me mad, but it’s the truth—even before I unwrapped the pages, I heard them singing to me, talking to me, and yes, crying. And I knew I had to reunite them with the great manuscript.
“But someone had stolen the Voynich from the Beinecke at Yale the year before. If I’d known in time, I would have stolen it myself. Instead, I came up with a plan. I pretended to find the pages and made a big announcement, praying the person who’d stolen the Voynich would come after the pages. I wanted him to come.
“I had a gun. I was ready.” She shuddered. “But it all happened so fast. I accepted Gil’s marriage proposal and this Dr. Laurence Bruce, really Roman Ardelean, showed up at the front door.” She swallowed. “Only he wasn’t the one who stole the Voynich.”
“No,” Mike said, “he wasn’t. Actually, it was a very bad man named Corinthian Jones who stole it, as leverage, to use on Ardelean. We even know where it is—in his safe.”
Isabella’s eyes flashed. “Do you know where the loose pages are too? I know Roman had them that night.”
“I don’t know, but I will alert everyone still at the house to look for them.”
“Are you going to put me in a straitjacket?”
Mike flashed back to the Koh-i-Noor diamond, its magic, its prophecy, and slowly shook her head. “I’ve seen and heard so many strange things this past year—well, let me say if we’re talking straitjackets, they’ll have to get two, one for each of us.” She leaned down, smoothed a hand across Isabella’s forehead. “Before the Voynich is returned to Yale, you can reunite the pages—yes, I know we’ll find them—with the great manuscript.” She paused, then said, “The Old Princess, that’s a lovely name.
“Now, can you think of anything to help us figure out what Ardelean might do?”
Isabella shook her head, said instead, “Thank you for saving me.”
Mike nodded and walked to the door. Isabella’s voice stopped her.
“Wait—I remember he did say he had plans, big plans. Something to do with a shipment and a man named Barstow. I only heard bits and pieces of the conversation, and something about it was time for this program to come to light. He was going to give the world a show. I don’t know what program he meant.”
Mike said, “I do. Thank you, Isabella.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
Mike found Nicholas and Harry in a treatment room inside the A&E—accident and emergency—wing. Harry sported a butterfly bandage on his temple and was in a full-blown argument with the doctor, who wanted to admit him for observation overnight.
“No, absolutely not. I passed the concussion protocol, and I have things to do.”
Nicholas said to the harassed doctor, “You aren’t going to change his mind, I’m afraid. I’ll make sure he doesn’t exert himself.”
The doctor handed them the discharge papers, and Mike heard him calling them mother hens as he walked out past her. She waited until the three of them were alone to say, “Isabella confirmed Roman’s been killing and exsanguinating men and women, primarily Romanian, all over Europe, hoping they might be a match to Radu, for a cure. He’s the Vampire Killer. She told me some other things, too, about the pages and the Voynich, how it came down to her. It’s all very strange.”
Nicholas said, “You and I, Mike, strange always seems to find its way to us. Now, one mystery solved. You’ll get that news to Penderley so he can start the proceedings with Interpol?”
“Already texted him.”
Harry, shrugging on his smoky, dirty jacket, asked, “No ideas from her where Ardelean might be or what he might be up to?”
“She says no, outside of overhearing him tell his brother a shipment had arrived and he was going to bring the program to light.”
“The drones,” Nicholas said.
“Probably. But how, and when? She didn’t know anything else, and I believe her. To make her cooperate, he threw food on her stomach and sent a falcon for it.” She told them the rest, Harry asking questions, many of which she couldn’t answer.
Harry said, “We all need food and sleep, and no more drone or falcon attacks. Ideas?”
Nicholas said, “The Connaught?”
Harry nodded. “Why not? Ardelean can’t be scoping out all the hotels in London, can he? I’ll get us a large suite, have Adam and Ben meet us there. I’ll put it under the name Oliver Kittredge.” He chuckled. “They’ll know what to do.”
Mike yawned, and her ear cracked. Her head cleared. “Finally.”
“What happened? You okay?”
“Yes, it was my ear. It’s been hurting since the safe house exploded. I’m fine. Sort of tired, that’s all. Let’s get ourselves to the Connaught. Is it a fancy place as befits the two of you?”
* * *
The three-bedroom suite at the Connaught was beautifully appointed, with a marble fireplace, exquisite blue velvet sofas, and floor-to-ceiling living room windows looking over the sleeping occupants of Mayfair. They set up the computers on the dining room table and ordered fancy pizzas, club sandwiches, warm tomato basil soup, a whole cheesecake, and a separate order of fish and chips for Adam, who swore he wasn’t going to eat anything else for the rest of his life.
Melinda joined Ben and brought news from Downing Street. “The U.S. president’s trip is not going to be canceled. He’ll be showing up tomorrow as scheduled. First stop, Downing Street, then a press conference at Lancaster House. Then he’ll do Buckingham Palace, then he speaks to Parliament. A private dinner is last on the agenda, at Winfield. I’m telling you, every stop is a target. We’ve warned them it’s not safe, but he’s stubborn.”
Nicholas laughed. “You don’t know the half of it, Melinda. Mike and I learned that the hard way at Camp David.”
“Problem is,” Adam said, chewing a fry drowned in vinegar, “every single place except the dinner is on the list of blueprints we found on Ardelean’s hard drives. So Ardelean could be planning an attack on any of them.”
Nicholas said, “Or none of them. Bringing the ‘program to light,’ and what else did Isabella say, Mike?”
“Give the world a show.” She took a sip of soda, continued. “Look, he’s lost the one thing that mattered to him, his brother. And he believes everyone in the government is responsible, and that includes the prime minister. He could fly a drone up to 10 Downing Street and shoot off a missile right through the windows like he did at the safe house, and no one could stop him.”
Harry said, “He wants to give the world a show—and to me that means he wants to make a big splash, make a definitive statement, kill as many people as he can. And the sites with the extensive blueprints are the most likely targets.”