Lost Empire

Wendy stepped out of the archive room, smiled at them, held up a Just one second finger, then sat down at one of the workstations. She tapped away at the keys for five minutes and said, “On your screen.”Selma used the remote control to find the new graphic:

• March 1866: Shenandoah sold to Sultan of Zanzibar.

• November 1866: Shenandoah arrives Zanzibar, renamed El Majidi

.• November 1866-October 1870: El Majidi spends most time sitting at anchor or on occasional merchant voyages.

• October 1870: First Sultan dies. Brother’s reign begins.

• October 1870-April 1872: El Majidi presumed at anchor.

• April 1872: Hurricane damages El Majidi . Sent to Bombay for repair.

• July 1872: El Majidi

reportedly sinks en route to Zanzibar.

• July 1872-November 1879: Six years’ lost time. Disposition unknown.

• November 1879: En route to Bombay, El Majidi reportedly sinks near island of Socotra.

Sam said, “We’ve got two seemingly reliable accounts of her sinking that contradict each other, and over six years where the El Majidi is unaccounted for.“Selma, what’s the earliest date in Blaylock’s journal?”

“As best we can tell, August 1872, about five months after he arrived in Africa. On our time line, that’s a month after the El Majidi’s first reported sinking and at the begi

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO

FIFTEEN HUNDRED MILES to the south, Itzli Rivera sat in President Garza’s anteroom waiting to be summoned, as he had been for the past hour.

Garza’s executive assistant, a doe-eyed girl in her early twenties with glossy black hair and an hourglass figure, sat at her desk typing, her index fingers wandering over the keyboard and occasionally punching a key. Her expression was one of puzzlement. As though she’s trying to finish a master-level Sudoku puzzle, Rivera thought. Clearly, the woman’s administrative skills had not been a priority during the hiring process.

Hoping to kill some time, Rivera wondered if Garza had ordered the woman to take a Mexica name. If so, what would it be? As if on cue, President Garza’s voice came over the intercom on the woman’s desk, answering Rivera’s question.“Chalchiuitl, you may send Mr. Rivera in.”

“Yes, sir.”

She smiled at Rivera and gestured toward the door with one of her ridiculously long fingernails. “You may-”

“I heard him, thank you.”

Rivera walked across the carpet, pushed through the double doors, and closed them behind him. He strode to Garza’s desk and stopped at semiattention.

“Sit down,” Garza ordered.

Rivera did.

“I was reading your report,” Garza said. “Do you have anything to add?”

“No, sir.”

“Let me summarize, if you don’t mind . . .”

“Go ahead, sir.”

“That was rhetorical, Itzli. You and your men, after being outwitted for days by these treasure hunters . . . these Fargos . . . You finally manage to take possession of the bell and transport it to Okafor’s island, only to have it stolen out from under your noses.” Rivera nodded.“Not only did they steal back the bell, but they also stole Okafor’s four-million-dollar helicopter.”

“And I lost a man. Nochtli fell from the helicopter and broke his neck.”

President Garza waved his hand dismissively. “You were vague about how the Fargos managed to get aboard the helicopter at all. Can you elaborate? Where were you when all this was happening?”Rivera cleared his mouth and shifted nervously in his seat. “I was . . . unconscious.”

“Pardon me?”

“The man, Sam Fargo, attacked me aboard Okafor’s yacht. He surprised me. He clearly has some martial arts training.”

“Clearly.” Garza rotated his chair and gazed out the window. He drummed his fingers on his desk blotter for a minute, then said, “We have to assume they’re not going to give up. That could work in our favor. If they’re as clever as they seem, we know they’ll be visiting at least one of the areas we’ve already searched.”“Agreed.”

“Start reaching out to your contacts-immigration officers, airport employees, anyone who will alert us when the Fargos appear.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll start with Antananarivo. Anything else?”

Garza stared hard at his underling. “You mean, are there going to be any repercussions for your failure?”

“Yes, sir.”

Garza chuckled humorlessly. “What are you expecting, Itzli? Something from the movies, perhaps? For me to pull out a pearl-handled revolver and shoot you? Or open a trapdoor beneath you?”Rivera let himself smile.

Garza’s expression went cold. “For now, you’re still the best man for the job. The best I have, in fact. Now I want you to prove that my faith isn’t wasted. Ideally, that would involve Sam and Remi Fargo ending up dead.”“Yes, Mr. President, thank you.”

“One more thing before you go: I want to make memorial arrangements.”

“For Nochtli,” Rivera said. “Yes, sir, I-”

“No, no, for the other one-Yaotl. It seems he and his wife died in a car accident this morning.”

Rivera felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “What?”

“Sad, isn’t it? He lost control and drove his car off a cliff. They were both killed instantly.”

“They had a child, a five-year-old.”

Garza pursed his lips as though weighing the question. “Oh, the girl. She’s fine. She was at school at the time. I suppose we’ll have to find her new home. You’ll see to that as well?”“Yes, Mr. President.”

CHAPTER 23

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, WASHINGTON, D.C.

THEIR FIRST LEAD INTO WINSTON BLAYLOCK’S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS arrival in Africa came in the form of an old friend of Selma’s, Julia

Severson met Sam and Remi at the Second Street researcher’s entrance of the Jefferson Building. The other two buildings that made up the library’s campus, the Adams and the Madison, sat a block to the east and the south respectively.After shaking hands, Severson said, “It’s a pleasure having you, Mr. and Mrs. Fargo-”

“Sam and Remi,” said Remi. “Wonderful. I’m Julia

She handed them a pair of laminated badges attached to neck lanyards. “Reader identification cards,” she explained with a shrug and a smile. “All part of the CSP, Collections Security Program. Ever since nine/eleven, the protocols are much more strict.”“We understand.”

“If you’ll follow me . . .” They started walking. “I’ll be helping you personally while you’re here . . .”

“That’s kind of you,” Remi said, “but we don’t want to take up your time.”

“Nonsense. The library runs smoothly on its own; my assistant will handle anything that comes up.” Severson turned up a marble stairway, and Sam and Remi followed. “How much do you know about the library?”“We’ve visited several times, but never as researchers, believe it or not,” Remi replied.

The tour alone was a breathtaking experience, Sam and Remi knew. The oldest federal institution in the country, the Library of Congress was founded in 1800 and located in the Capitol Building until 1814, when British troops lit the building on fire and destroyed the library’s core collection of three thousand volumes. A year later, Congress voted to reestablish the LOC and purchased Thomas Jefferson’s personal library of some six thousand books.

The library’s collection had since grown significantly: 33,000,000 books and printed materials, 3,000,000 recordings, 12,500,000 photographs, 5,300,000 maps, 6,000,000 pieces of sheet music, and 63,000,000 manuscripts-in all representing almost 500 languages-some 145,000,000 items altogether on 745 miles of bookshelves.“It almost seems more a cathedral than a library,” Remi said. “The architecture is . . .”