Newton’s Fire Page 2

  ‘But that’s the point,’ said Croke. ‘It wouldn’t have been a gift. Not under coercion like that. It would have beentribute.’

  She took another gulp, frowned and shook her head. ‘I don’t see-’

  ‘Tribute is something demanded by the stronger party and paid by the weaker,’ explained Croke. ‘I don’t pay tribute. I never pay tribute. It sends all the wrong signals. It lets people know you can be pushed around. Gifts, on the other hand, are what equals exchange freely and willingly. They’re a valuable part of what I do; they’re how I form bonds with other powerful people, how I build my influence. Here’s a tip for you: in situations like this morning, where you find yourself at a temporary disadvantage, do whatever you can to achieve parity first, and only then show generosity. Otherwise it will be misinterpreted as weakness. Do you understand?’

  She sat a little heavily down in one of the white leather armchairs. ‘My head,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t feel so good.’

  ‘A reaction to the tension, I expect.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Or perhaps to what I put in your Bloody Mary.’

  She frowned a moment then looked in dismay down at her drink. But it was already too late. She tried to push herself up but collapsed back down again.

  ‘You really should have let me know you spoke German,’ he told her. ‘I need to be able to trust the people around me.’

  She tried to say something, maybe explain herself, but nothing came out. The tumbler slipped from her weakening grasp and shattered on the polished marble floor, tomato juice spreading like blood around the translucent shards. Her eyes glazed and her head lolled forward, a little pinkish drool leaking out onto her white blouse.

  The door banged open, Manfredo and Vig sprinting in, handguns already drawn, alarmed by the tinkle of breaking glass. ‘It’s all right,’ Croke assured them. He nodded at Irina, slumped unconscious in her armchair. He turned to Manfredo. ‘Take her back to our friend from this morning, would you,’ he said. ‘Tell her she comes with my compliments, to celebrate our deal.’

  Manfredo holstered his gun. ‘Yes, sir. And afterwards?’

  ‘Meet us at the airport. We wouldn’t want to miss our slot.’

  ‘No, sir. Anything else?’

  Croke knocked back the dregs of his Bloody Mary, set his glass down on the counter. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You’d better call Francesca in Geneva for me. We should probably let her know I’ll be needing a new assistant.’

  TWO

  I

  ‘You found them,’ said Penelope Martyn in an awed murmur, when Luke tracked her to her kitchen. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  Luke allowed himself a smile. ‘I don’t either,’ he admitted.

  ‘And? Are they … are they what you were hoping?’

  He didn’t quite know how to answer that. Her house was grand but badly rundown; and he’d got the distinct impression, when they’d chatted earlier, that a windfall would be more than welcome. ‘They’re alchemical papers,’ he said carefully. ‘Four sheets, written front and back. Citations from other authors, as far as I’ve been able to tell.’

  ‘Oh.’ She tried, unsuccessfully, to keep the shadow of disappointment from her expression. ‘So not his original work then?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’ He’d already explained to her the sliding scale of value for Newton’s papers: the highly prized letters he’d written to both his famous and lesser-known friends; the coveted annotations for Principia Mathematica and Opticks; the significantly lesser interest in his theological and alchemical writings, especially those that didn’t represent Newton’s own thinking, but were merely his transcriptions of other authors. ‘It could have been worse,’ he said. ‘They could have been his papers from the Royal Mint.’

  ‘Newton was at the Royal Mint?’

  ‘He joined just a year or two after he wrote these pages, as it happens. Ran the place for decades. Oversaw a complete recoinage of the realm.’

  She shook her head. ‘Why would a man like Newton take a job like that?’

  Luke shrugged. It was a question that had vexed many academics over the years, and no one had really come up with a satisfactory explanation. ‘The Principia Mathematica had made him a star,’ he said. ‘We think maybe he wanted to go to London to bask in all that glory. The Royal Mint was his ticket. And the money was pretty good too, especially after he was appointed Master.’

  ‘Oh, well.’ She touched the papers with her fingertip. ‘Is there anything of interest in them?’

  ‘I haven’t been through them properly yet,’ Luke told her. ‘I wanted to show them to you at once. Besides …’ He gestured at the cramped handwriting, the upside-down passages, the esoteric words, the passages in Latin and French, indicating how hard they were to read. ‘But there is at least one thing.’

  ‘Yes?’

  He pointed out the four words to her. Then, unsure of her eyesight, he read them out aloud. ‘It says “Fatio O my Fatio”.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ She frowned. ‘Who’s Fatio? What’s Fatio?’

  ‘It’s a who.’ He stooped to unzip his laptop case, pulled out his digital camera. ‘A he, to be precise. Nicolas Fatio de Duillier. A young Swiss mathematician who became a close friend of Newton’s in the early 1690s. Perhaps even a very close friend.’

  ‘Very close?’ She tipped her head to one side. ‘You’re not implying …?’

  Luke smiled. ‘It’s possible. Some people certainly think so.’

  ‘Sir Isaac Newton? And some young Swiss man?’

  ‘There’s no evidence whatsoever that anything physical ever happened between them,’ said Luke, setting the first page square on the tablecloth, the better to photograph it. ‘Though they did spend a week together in London one time, when no one else even knew that Fatio was in the country.’ He checked the image in his digital display, turned the page over to photograph its reverse. ‘And Newton later implored him to live with him in Cambridge.’

  ‘My word.’ She let out a bark of a laugh. ‘Maybe that’s why Uncle Bernie wanted these papers.’

  Luke set the second page in place. ‘How do you mean?’

  A little colour pinked her cheeks. ‘They called them “confirmed bachelors” in my day,’ she said, with just a hint of a smile, as though unaccustomed to revealing family skeletons, yet rather enjoying it. ‘“Not the marrying kind”. I had no idea what that actually meant. I simply assumed Uncle Bernie hadn’t yet met the right woman. I even hoped I’d be able to help find her for him myself. He was so nice to me. The only Martyn who truly welcomed me into the family. But then I called on him without warning one afternoon.’ She gave another of her barking laughs and blushed even deeper. ‘Well, I’m sure you can imagine.’

  ‘Must have been a shock,’ said Luke, photographing the third paper.

  ‘For both of us,’ she admitted. ‘All three of us, I should say. We girls were so naive back then. You wouldn’t believe.’

  He photographed the back of the last page, held up his camera. ‘May I email these off? The sooner my client gets them, the sooner he’ll make an offer. If he wants them, that is.’

  ‘And I’m not obliged to accept, you said?’

  ‘Of course not. All he asks is the opportunity to make the first bid.’ His client’s lawyer had been absurdly emphatic about that, repeating it at every opportunity. ‘You’ll be perfectly free to accept it, reject it or negotiate something better.’ The house was too remote for his own WiFi service, but Penelope had assured him earlier that he’d be welcome to use the wired broadband she’d had put in to tempt her grandkids to come and visit. He plugged his laptop into her router, transferred the photographs, attached them to an email and sent them on their way. The high resolution files were big, however, and her connection was slow. ‘This could take a while,’ he said.

  ‘We’ll have a nice cup of tea,’ said Penelope.

  He toured the walls as her old kettle struggled to the boil, looking at family photographs. A surly lot,
for the most part, with long noses and sour upper lips, posing grudgingly for the camera. But then he reached a picture of a young woman with short brown hair and an enchanting smile leaning against the driver door of an old grey-blue Rover.

  ‘My great-niece Rachel,’ Penelope said, appearing at his side with a plate of shortbread biscuits. ‘She’s one of your lot.’

  ‘My lot?’

  ‘An academic. She’s doing her doctorate at Caius College, Cambridge. She wants to be a lecturer like you.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Luke, a touch guiltily. He’d used old university letterheaded paper for his correspondence with Penelope; and somehow he’d neglected to let her know about their parting of the ways following his convictions for assault and offences against the Terrorism Act. ‘What’s her field?’ he asked.

  ‘The archaeology and history of the ancient Near East, I think. Something like that, anyway. Between you and me, I find it terribly hard to follow.’

  ‘She looks nice.’

  ‘As opposed to my own brood, you mean?’

  ‘I didn’t mean that at all,’ protested Luke, a little too hotly. ‘I just meant that she looks nice.’ His laptop beeped, sparing his further blushes. He went to check it. The battery was running low. ‘Mind if I recharge?’ he asked.

  ‘Be my guest.’ She pointed him to a spare socket, cleared her throat, now suffering from awkwardness of her own. ‘I hate to ask,’ she said, ‘but do you have any idea exactly how interested your client might be in these particular papers?’

  Luke hesitated. He’d already given her a ballpark estimate and was reluctant to do more. Go too low and she’d think he was trying to fleece her; go too high and he’d be setting her up for disappointment. He checked his screen to find that the photographs were on their way, gave her a blandly optimistic smile. ‘I guess we’ll find out soon enough,’ he said.

  II

  Vernon Croke clenched a crystal tumbler of bourbon as he stared through the window of Naples’ private jet terminal, watching airport security guards mill like ants around his plane.

  It was like this everywhere.

  The cabins of modern jet aircraft were pressurized as a matter of course. They flew so high that the thinness of the air would otherwise kill their passengers and crew. Their cargo holds, on the other hand, were often left unpressurized. In such aircraft the pressurized and unpressurized compartments had to be securely sealed off from each other lest some unfortunate accident provoke a catastrophic depressurisation.

  There’d been times recently, however, when certain international agencies had found themselves frustrated by this. Times when they’d regretted the lack of an airlock system that would enable passage between the pressurized and unpressurized parts. Such a system could even allow an external hatch to be opened in mid-flight: to jettison potentially embarrassing evidence, say, or to parachute agents or supplies into hostile territory. Cargo planes were too slow, low and visible for such sensitive work, but no one looked twice at a private jet cruising at 25,000 feet. That was what the CIA had assured Croke, at least, when they’d offered him this plane ahead of a Department of Justice investigation into rendition flights. What with the generous discount, and its sophisticated comms systems, it had seemed too good an opportunity to refuse. But there were times he regretted his decision, for the plane’s peculiarities of design invariably drew extra scrutiny wherever he went. ‘How much longer?’ he asked Vig.

  ‘Five minutes, sir.’

  ‘They said that ten minutes ago.’

  The bodyguard shrugged. ‘Another drink?’

  Croke shook his head. ‘I have calls to make,’ he said. ‘I can’t make them here. Anyone could be listening.’

  The door opened. An airport security guard beckoned. They were cleared. Croke strode briskly across the concourse. ‘Are we secure?’ he asked Craig Bray, his pilot, waiting at the head of the cockpit steps.

  ‘Just done a full sweep,’ Bray assured him. ‘We’re secure.’

  The comms suite was towards the front. Croke had turned it into his on-board office, from where he could manage his small empire in perfect confidence. He went there now, checked his messages. All were routine except for one from Max Walters, boss of his London office. He called him at once. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Just got an email from our Newton friend,’ said Walters.

  Croke sat up a little. ‘Has he found something?’

  ‘Four pages, sir. Up near Thetford in some old biddy’s attic. I wouldn’t have disturbed you, except that there’s a list of twelve letters on the back of one of the pages, which is one of the things you told me to look out for, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Croke. ‘Send them to me.’

  ‘Already on their way, sir. I just wanted to alert you.’

  ‘Good work.’

  ‘Thanks. If you want the originals, I’m free this afternoon and I’ve still got that Riyadh cash. And I’ve put Kieran and Pete on notice.’

  ‘Let me take a look,’ said Croke. ‘I’ll call you back.’ He downloaded and opened the email, found the twelve letters in four groups of three in a perplexing passage on the back of the third page. He brought up an online King James’ Version, went straight to Exodus, scrolled down for the relevant passage and split the screen to check email against scripture. Then he sat back in his seat, his heart pumping.

  A perfect match.

  Over the past six months or so, his friends in Jerusalem and the southern United States had been increasingly in his ear, urging him to ramp up the hunt for these papers, claiming they needed them found by a very specific date. That date was the day after tomorrow, Tuesday 7 June.

  Mostly, Croke was his father’s son, feeling only mild disdain for religion and related superstitions. But there were other times, times like these, when his mother’s blood would assert itself and he’d glimpse the vast hinterland of the unknown. He called Walters back. ‘I want those papers,’ he told him. ‘I want them today. I don’t care what they cost. Just get them for me.’

  ‘What if she won’t sell?’

  ‘Find a way. That’s what I pay you for, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And I want all copies of these photographs destroyed. And this woman and your Newton expert are to keep their mouths shut. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir. And when I get the originals, where do you want them sent?’

  Croke hesitated. His father’s seventy-fifth birthday wasn’t until next weekend, and his flight-path back to the States would near enough take him over the UK. And what was the point of a private plane, after all, if not for moments like this? ‘I’ll try to do a fly-by,’ he said. ‘Are there any airports up that way?’

  ‘Cambridge and Norwich for sure. There are bound to be others.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll let you know.’ He ended the call then spent a few moments staring at Newton’s cryptic message, trying to puzzle it out. But it was too obscure for him; he couldn’t make head nor tail of it.

  It was time to call in the expert.

  It was time for Avram.

  III

  The Old City, Jerusalem

  There was another aftershock that afternoon, half an hour or so after Avram Kohen returned from the hospital. It was mild, as tremors went; barely enough to rattle the crockery in his cupboards and set off an intruder alarm further down the street. Yet it sent a shiver through Avram all the same. What with the news he’d had earlier, it was as though the Lord Himself, praise His Name, had come into his home to tell him bluntly that there were to be no more deferments, no more excuses.

  This was to happen now.

  His heart swelled within his chest. His eyes began to water. And then, just like that, his phone began to ring.

  ‘Shalom,’ said Avram, picking up. He heard soft breathing and three distinct clicks before the caller disconnected. He put the receiver down, his heart racing, hands a little clammy. This was how he had to communicate these days, since learning that his security had been compro
mised. He went to his bedroom, rolled up the rug, levered up the terracotta tile to get at the steel safe beneath. He punched the password into the keypad, opened its door, took out the small laptop, the satellite modem and his security keys, and carried them all up the wooden ladder onto his flat roof.

  The afternoon was cloudless and fiercely hot, exacerbating the stench seeping from all the sewers in the Old City that had been fractured by the earthquake, and hadn’t yet been repaired. He sat with his back to the low perimeter wall as he aimed his modem north. From the corner of his eye he could see the Dome of the Rock, lording it over the Old City of Jerusalem like some conceited golden toad. But he didn’t look away. He’d taken this house precisely because of this view, for he’d known it would act on him like a scourge.

  Three thousand years before, King Solomon had built his temple upon that sacred mount. The Babylonians had torn it down some four hundred years later, but Cyrus had authorized its rebuilding and then Herod had renovated and expanded it. In 70 AD, the Romans had destroyed it again, punishment for the Jewish uprising. Then the Muslims had arrived. Aware that this was Judaism’s holiest site, in 691 Abd al-Malik had built his wretched Dome upon it. And there it had remained ever since, a golden thorn in the heart of every Jew.

  Many years before, Avram had dedicated his life to pulling that thorn free. Yet he’d gradually come to realize that bringing down the Dome wouldn’t be enough. World opinion, after all, would be outraged; and Israel’s craven leaders would doubtless succumb to pressure to rebuild it. And what sacrilege that would be! Not merely a Dome, but a Dome enabled by Jews. So he had come to the conclusion that it had to be brought down in such a way that only a Third Temple could be built in its place: in such a way that the Promised Land would be theirs forever.

  The satellite modem finally acquired its signal. He typed in clearance codes from his security key to make the call. ‘You’ve found the papers,’ he stated when Croke picked up. ‘Didn’t I tell you that you would?’