the socialist activism of its members as well as their fervent Christian convictions—decidedly less popular among their audience, which spanned the age range from preteens to baby boomers. But their sincerity won over even the most irreligious—as did their hard-rocking music.
Annja was intrigued. He seemed wholly aboveboard. Despite the unsolicited contact his manner was correct and friendly. Charisma emanated from him like heat from a forge.
“What exactly did you whisk me here for, Sir Iain?”
He offered a lopsided smile and bobbed his head once. “Fair enough question,” he said. “Permit me to answer with one. How would you like to save the world?”
“That’s not an offer an archaeologist hears very often,” she said. “But I’m afraid I can’t contribute much to any of your causes.”
“It’s not money we want,” he said. “But your courage, your skills—your soul.”
She looked at him and he grinned.
“How would you like to see an authentic cursed tome?” he asked.
She grinned back. “You do know the way to a lady’s heart, sir,” she said. “Lead on.”
“I T’S IMPRESSIVE ,” she said.
With his two shadows drifting along behind—making little more noise than shadows—Moran had squired her down into the skyscraper and to a window he assured her was bulletproof polycarbonate, double paned.
It looked out, and down, on a cold room. In the middle of the sterile white floor, twelve feet below them, stood a large cylinder with what looked like a mirror-polished brass base and a similar cap. The cylinder itself was clear.
“It’s Lexan, as well,” Sir Iain said. “Treated with a special coating inside and out that resists corrosion.”
On a gleaming chrome pedestal within the cylinder rested a book. It was certainly grand enough—the approximate size and shape of an unabridged dictionary. The cover was thick and cracked from what she could see on the open book. The pages were brown. She could just make out faded, crabbed brown writing on them.
“Nitrogen environment?” she asked.
“Of course.”
She tried not to thrill at that rolling deep baritone.
She turned a raised brow to him. “I’m surprised you’re interested in rare books.”
“You think all rock ’n’ rollers are illiterate, hell-raising dopers?” He shrugged. His shoulders rolled impressively inside his immaculately tailored coat. “I’ve been clean and sober since my well-publicized overdose. I’ve had to find something to do with my time since other than read the Bible.”
I N A ROOM down a flight of stairs he gestured toward a large flat-screen monitor, hung above a modern workstation of stainless steel. Several other computers were set up at other stations. On the big screen two pages were represented many times larger than life. Here the ink looked purplish rather than brown.
“It’s the journal of an eighteenth-century Portuguese Jesuit,” Moran said, “recounting his journey up the far Amazon.”
“A lot of Jesuits made the trip in those days,” Annja said.
“Indeed. I rather suppose they did. Would you care to read it?”
“I generally prefer to read the original document when it’s available,” she said. “The camera so seldom catches everything”
She was a hands-on sort of woman where historical artifacts were concerned. It was a major reason she’d chosen to be an archaeologist as opposed to a historian. She didn’t just want to study history. She wanted to feel history. To see where it had taken place, to hold in her hands implements—or documents—that had changed the world. She wanted to breathe the same air the heroes and heroines of history—unknown and world famous—had breathed when they performed their great deeds. She wanted to be part of history.
And I am, she thought. A lot more literally than I’m comfortable with.
“Not possible, I fear,” he said.
“I understand,” she said, unable to repress a little sigh of frustration. “Obviously it’s in an extremely fragile state to require such extreme preservation measures.”
“You don’t understand, Ms. Creed,” he said. “Everyone who handles this book dies. Horribly.”
She looked aside. A wall-sized window, waist high, opened into the cold room from the reading chamber. The book itself in its high-tech bell jar looked even more impressive closer up.
“I don’t believe in curses, Sir Iain.”
His laugh was short. “There’s nothing paranormal about it,” he said, “or not overtly so. The pages and binding are imbued with a hitherto unknown living organism that is not unlike slime molds. It attacks whoever touches it, both by means of airborne spores and by contact. The effect resembles a cross between flesh-eating bacteria and sarin gas. It isn’t pretty. And it is extremely fast acting. As well as untreatable by any known means.”
“Nice.” She sucked in a sharp breath. The air was cool, smelled vaguely of ozone. “How did you get it back here?”
“Carefully. Very carefully.”
She went to the workstation and sat in the chair. Reading was dead easy. A black wireless mouse controlled a cursor on the screen. She could point to icons around the perimeter of the image. When she ran the cursor over them, text tips popped up.
“Interesting,” she said, frowning slightly in concentration at the huge high-definition screen. “Are these the pages it’s currently open to?”
“Yes,” he said, “although you can page through it. The entire volume has been digitized.”
“I see. Well, it’s open to a very dramatic passage. Our author’s talking about what seems to be the end of his journey, of both the wonders and hazards he encountered—a colossal snake—had to be an anaconda. They’re one of the world’s largest. And, whoa, a golden onza. Hmm.”
“You can read that? That easily?”
“I specialize in archaic Romance languages, Sir Iain.”
“But the handwriting—it’s all just spider tracks to my eyes. Worse than my handwriting, and that’s saying a packet.”
She smiled. “As I guess I hinted earlier, this isn’t the first old Portuguese Jesuit diary I’ve looked at.”
“What’s a ‘golden onza ’?” he asked. “It seemed to strike you as significant.”
“An onza is a jaguar. A golden onza is a particularly impressive specimen. Larger than life, you might say. Legend imbues them, some of them anyway, with incredible intelligence and sometimes outright supernatural powers.”
“Indeed.”
“Okay. Apparently our
