“Didn’t I say that?”
“Stop being mysterious and tell me what you’ve done.”
“You know those booby-trapped bags of money that banks give to bank robbers?”
“The ones that blow up and cover the thief with indelible ink? Oh, no. How did you even get an explosive on the plane?”
“I didn’t use explosives. This one works with springs. Undo the latch and the first spring pops the case open wide, and that allows the second to spring upward and push a piston, like a jack-in-the-box. The cylinder is full of ink. I bought the briefcase, the springs, and the ink here.”
“What would have happened if the librarian had inspected it?”
“He didn’t open anything for the first two days, so why do it later?”
“What would have happened to him?”
“He would have a bright blue face. ‘Azul,’ as they say here.”
“You couldn’t just watch these men and not play some dumb prank?”
“I did watch them. I noticed they spoke English to each other, and one of them spoke Spanish to everybody else—rapid, fluent Spanish that didn’t leave anybody looking confused. I thought about who would spend several days watching us like that without doing anything. The only answer is that Sarah Allersby must have sent them.”
“Why would she do that? She has the codex. She doesn’t need a copy.”
“To find out what we’re doing and what we’ve accomplished.”
“And?”
“And now she knows. Once her men followed us to Valladolid, I’m sure she could figure out what else might be here. All I could do is make sure we know them if we see them again in the next few days.”
They walked quickly to their hotel, downloaded the photographs from the digital cameras to Remi’s laptop computer, and then sent two versions to Selma’s computer in San Diego as a backup. While Remi waited for the transfers to be completed, she made a reservation to fly to San Diego on the red-eye leaving in four hours.
As she and Sam finished packing, Remi’s phone rang. She said, “Hi, Selma. Are the pictures all clear? Good. We’re coming home.” There was a pause. Then she said, “Because a couple of men stole Sam’s briefcase. When they open it, they’re going to want to kill us. If they don’t succeed, we’ll see you tomorrow night.”
VALLADOLID, SPAIN
Russell was in the bathroom of the hotel suite in Valladolid, dabbing at his blue face with a cotton ball soaked in acetone. The thick nail-polish-remover smell stung his sinuses. Added to the smell of the isopropyl alcohol and the turpentine he had tried first, it made the small, enclosed space unbearable. He looked in the mirror above the sink. “This isn’t working either. And it stinks.”
“Maybe if you rub a little harder,” said Ruiz. He could see through the blue dye on Russell’s face that his chin was getting blotchy and irritated, but Ruiz didn’t feel like going out again searching Valladolid for more chemicals and solvents.
Russell handed him the bottle and then used soap and water to wash the acetone off his face. “Get something else.”
Ruiz said, “This stuff almost always works. We used it to wash checks years ago. It would take off the ink in a couple minutes.”
“We’re not washing checks now,” said Russell. “This is my face. But you gave me an idea. Remember, there was a secret to washing checks. If the dye in the ink was polar, the best thing to get it off was a polar solvent, like alcohol and acetone. Well, we’ve tried those. So let’s try a nonpolar solvent like toluene.”
“Toluene?” said Ruiz. “What’s another name for it?”
“Methylbenzene.”
“Where do I go for that?”
“A paint store, the kind for artists, might have it. You go in and ask for paint thinners. Get every kind they have. Try that first. If you pass by a dry cleaner, try them too. Say you spilled ink on a couch and you’ll pay for some of the stuff they use for ink stains.”
“I’m getting hungry,” said Ruiz.
“Buy something to eat on the way, then. I can’t go out like this and shop for thinners, and the smells are making me sick, so I couldn’t eat anyway. Just get me something that will take the ink off. We’ve got to fix this now.”
Ruiz picked up his jacket off the chair and went down the hall to the narrow, cagelike elevator. When Russell heard the elevator’s grating slide to the side to admit Ruiz, he rinsed his face again and looked in the mirror. His face felt hot, that if the blue were removed, it would be glowing.