The Librarians and the Lost Lamp (6 page)

“Any time,” Stone said.

They headed back to Dunphy's trailer. Baird nodded at the closed front door.

“Time to work your magic, Jones. Get us into this trailer.”

“A tragic waste of my talents.” He reached for the door handle. “I could break into this tin can with both eyes closed and one hand tied behind my—”

The door swung open easily.

Stone was impressed. “Smooth work, man.”

“It wasn't me.” Ezekiel sounded vaguely disappointed as he fiddled with the handle. “This lock has already been jimmied, and not by an amateur.”

Stone scowled. “Not sure I like the sound of that.”

“Me neither,” Baird said, drawing her gun. “Watch yourselves.”

They cautiously entered the darkened trailer, with Baird taking point and clearing the corners. Stone flipped a light switch, but nothing happened. He guessed that power had been disconnected and drew back some window curtains instead. Sunlight invaded the trailer, revealing that parties unknown had already ransacked Dunphy's former residence. Closets, cupboards, and drawers had been emptied, their contents carelessly dumped onto the floor. Unpaid bills, most labeled “FINAL NOTICE,” littered the main living area, next to an overturned wastebasket. Plywood and laminate had been peeled off the walls in search of concealed hiding places. Even the mattress in the sleeping compartment had been sliced open and rifled through. Handfuls of cheap foam padding were strewn about the room.

“Somebody's tossed the place,” Stone said. “But looking for … what?”

“Good question.” Baird put away her gun. “On the bright side, it definitely looks like we're onto something. This is suspicious, or promising, or maybe promisingly suspicious.”

Ezekiel surveyed the mess disdainfully, as though he didn't see anything worth stealing. “You think it was that Middle Eastern crew the old lady mentioned?”

“Possibly,” Baird said. “But what were they looking for, and did they find it?”

“The only person who might know that is Dunphy,” Cassandra said. “Too bad we don't know where he disappeared to.”

“Are you kidding?” Ezekiel asked. “You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes—or our old friend Moriarty—to figure that out. This is Vegas. Where else would a diehard gambler who has just come into money go?”

“The Strip,” the other Librarians realized in unison.

“Took you long enough.” Ezekiel beamed in anticipation. “Viva Las Vegas.”

 

5

2006

Six thousand miles, seven time zones, and more than twelve hours after departing the Library and New York City, Flynn arrived in Iraq. Dust, heat, and swaying palm trees greeted him, but there was nary a genie or flying carpet to be seen. The twenty-first century had been hard on Baghdad. Three years into the American occupation, the former home of the House of Wisdom was still effectively a war zone, torn apart by insurgency, strife, and a devastated infrastructure. An armored vehicle, along with an armed military escort, was required to travel safely from the airport to the fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad, which was pretty much the only secure part of the city. Peering out through the tinted, bulletproof windows of the airport shuttle, Flynn caught glimpses of a city under siege. Military helicopters buzzed overhead, while US troops and tanks patrolled the streets. Years of tanks and mortar shells had pitted the city streets, making for a bumpy ride through heavy traffic.

It was a far cry from the Baghdad of the Golden Age, hundreds of years ago, when the city had been a center of science and learning known throughout the civilized world for the quantity and quality of its libraries, where scores of dedicated scholars and scribes had devoted themselves to preserving, translating, and building upon the accumulated wisdom of ancient Greece, Persia, China, and India. Under the reign of such legendary caliphs as the great Harun al-Rashid, Baghdad had shone brightly while Europe was still mired in the Dark Ages. Gazing soberly out the window, Flynn felt a pang in his heart, remembering the city's glorious past and contributions to civilization. It was hard to imagine the likes of Sinbad or Aladdin swashbuckling through the war-ravaged Baghdad of today.

But perhaps the Forty Thieves were still at work?

Even gaining access to occupied Iraq was tricky these days, but Charlene had managed to pull the necessary strings to get Flynn a visa. In theory, his visit to Baghdad was part of the ongoing effort to recover precious antiquities and documents that had gone missing during the looting back in 2003, in the early days of the invasion. As cover stories went, it was a pretty good one; it made sense that an expert from the New York Metropolitan Library might be involved in the recovery effort. Flynn hadn't even needed to fake his credentials.

For once.

Fortunately, the Baghdad Museum of Arts and Antiquities was located in the Green Zone, so Flynn didn't have to worry about navigating the unsecured streets, where a lone American librarian might easily find himself in trouble. After passing through a series of gates and checkpoints, Flynn's transport dropped him off outside the museum. Clutching his solitary suitcase, he abandoned the air-conditioned comfort of the shuttle to step out into the overpowering heat and sunlight. Blinded by the sudden glare, he stumbled onto the sidewalk before remembering the sunglasses tucked into the front pocket of his safari jacket. He fumbled blindly for them.

“Mr. Carsen?”

An attractive woman, about Flynn's age, was waiting for him at the curb. Curly brown hair framed her face. Conservative Western attire, of a professional nature, looked good on her.

“That's me,” he answered. “But, please, call me Flynn.”

“Dr. Shirin Masri,” she said, introducing herself in flawless English, albeit with an appealingly exotic accent. “I'm the curator of the Rare Documents Archives here at the museum. I was told to expect you.”

Her neutral tone made it unclear if she was happy about this or not. Dark brown eyes looked Flynn over skeptically. They were nice eyes, he noticed, and more than a little distracting.

Uh-uh,
he cautioned himself.
Keep your mind on the business at hand.

“Thanks for meeting me.” He held out his hand, while trying to smooth a stubborn cowlick back in place with his other hand. “My apologies if I seem a bit discombobulated, what with the twelve-hour flight and all. Jet lag cramps my style, I'm afraid.”

She shook his hand, holding it not a moment longer than necessary.

“I'm not sure you needed to come all this way. I've already spoken with the authorities about the recent theft.” She eyed him quizzically. “You're with the New York Metropolitan Library, or so they tell me?”

“That's right. Part of a new task force investigating black-market trafficking in rare manuscripts and relics.”

“I wasn't aware of any such task force,” she said.

“Well, we're more interested in results than publicity.” He wiped his brow, which was already perspiring in the heat. “Any chance we can move this discussion indoors? I haven't quite adapted to the climate yet.”

“Of course,” she said. “Come with me.”

His luggage rolled and bounced on a paved walkway as she guided him into the museum, which, like the city itself, had seen better days. Armed guards were posted at the front entrance, which was possibly a textbook case of closing the barn door after the horse had already been rustled. A sign out front indicated that the museum was presently closed to the public.

“We've been closed since the looting a few years ago,” Shirin explained, “while trying to reconstruct the collection.” Frustration tinged her voice. “We were on the verge of reopening when
this
happened.”

“I'm sorry,” Flynn said sincerely as they entered the building. Stark white walls strived not to compete with the ages-old artifacts and statuary on display. Glass display cases held souvenirs from thousands of years of recorded history. “Do the authorities have any idea who is responsible?”

“If they do, they haven't told me.”

Crime-scene tape still sealed the lobby of the museum. A chalk outline on the floor reminded Flynn that, according to what he'd been able to learn about the burglary on the plane, at least one security guard had been killed by the thieves, his throat cut quickly and efficiently sometime during the heist. He gulped at the thought, while noticing that Shirin averted her eyes from the outline.

“Tariq Hassan,” she said quietly. “He was a good man. Honest and incorruptible.”

“I'm sure he was,” Flynn said. “I'm sorry … again.”

“Not your fault,” she said, shrugging. “But thank you.”

Passing by galleries of ancient statuary, tapestries, and relics, which had apparently gone untouched by the thieves, they arrived at Shirin's office in the Archives section of the museum. A plethora of volumes and scrolls were stacked in the corners of the office, waiting to be reshelved. An overturned bookcase needed to be righted. A spinning fan struggled to combat the heat and stuffiness; apparently the museum's air conditioning was another casualty of war.

“Here we are,” she said. “Sorry about the mess. We're still picking up the pieces after the robbery.” She sat down behind a cluttered desk, whose disorganized state would probably have given Charlene a heart attack. “Take a seat … if you can find one.”

Rooting around, Flynn found a chair buried beneath a pile of books. He cleared it off before sitting down. The cramped, overstuffed office offered barely more leg room than the plane had.

“Don't get too comfortable,” she said impatiently. “No offense, but I can't really spare you much time right now. Like I said, I've already spoken with the local authorities, and, as you can see, I've got plenty of work to do putting things back where they belong.”

“I understand,” he said, getting down to business. “So I'm told the thieves targeted the Archives specifically. Do you have any idea of what they were after?”

“Well, I'm still in the process of conducting a thorough inventory to determine exactly what might have been taken and what was left behind, but … yes, at least one item has gone missing,” she said bitterly. “A very rare and precious item.”

“And that would be?”

“Possibly the oldest existing edition of the
Kitab Alf Layla Wa-Layla,
or, as it's known in the West,
The Arabian Nights,
or
One Thousand and One Nights.
This particular copy dated back to the eighth century, which makes it a good century older than any other version in existence.”

“Whoa,” Flynn said, impressed. “In Persian or Arabic?”

He was aware that that no complete edition of the
Alf Layla,
containing all 1001 tales, was known to exist and that the very origins of the book were obscured by the mists of time; as he understood it, current scholarship held that the celebrated Arabic version had been based on an even earlier Persian chronicle long lost to history. Subsequent translations and variations, including the early French and English editions, had taken the collected stories even further from their roots, to the extent that there was no definitive version of the text, only countless variations comprised of different combinations of stories. There were practically a thousand and one versions of
One Thousand and One Nights.

“Ancient Persian,” she said. “A sixth-century Farsi script, to be exact. I had only recently stumbled onto the volume while cataloging a treasure trove of old documents captured from one of Saddam's palaces.” Her eyes lighted up at the memory. “You can imagine my excitement when I realized what I had discovered. Mind you, I'm not saying that it was the
original
text, said to be penned by Scheherazade herself, but it was older and more authentic than any other surviving copy of the
Alf Layla.
I was in the process of translating it when—”

She gestured at the messy aftermath of the robbery.

“This whole travesty makes me sick to my stomach, not to mention mad as hell. I really wish you could help me, Mr. Carsen, but I'm afraid that one-of-a-kind copy of the
Alf Layla
has been lost again, perhaps forever this time.”

“Never underestimate a determined Librarian,” he said, while wondering how the thieves had found out about the book in the first place. “How many people knew about your discovery?”

“I'd mentioned it to a few of my colleagues and fellow curators,” she said, shrugging. “It never occurred to me to keep it a secret. In retrospect, that might have been a mistake.”

“You can't blame yourself. It's not your fault that some bad people got wind of the book's existence. You were just doing your job.”

“I suppose,” she said, sounding unconvinced. “But speaking of my job, I really do need to get back to it.” She stood up behind her desk, as though to signal that the interview was over. “I'm sorry you came all this way for nothing.”

I wouldn't say that,
he thought. If nothing else, he had discovered what the thieves had absconded with, even if he still wasn't quite sure if this was a matter for the Library. A unique, centuries-old edition of
The Arabian Nights
was undoubtedly a priceless item, well worth stealing, and its theft a genuine loss to legitimate scholars and historians, but he wasn't convinced that this was “fate of the world” territory. Sometimes a museum heist was just a museum heist.

“I'm staying at the Tigris Hotel, at least overnight.” He handed her a business card with his cell phone number on it. “If you think of anything else…”

“Don't get your hopes up, Mr. Carsen. The
Alf Layla
is gone, and, frankly speaking, I doubt that the New York Metropolitan Library can do anything about that. This was, by all indications, a professional operation, executed with merciless precision. I suspect you're out of your league.”