Chapter Eighteen
“I’m not complaining, but I have to admit I never thought my first meal in London would be from Burger King,” Quinn said before she took another bite of her chicken sandwich. She stood directly behind James who sat at the desk in their hotel room. When a few rogue crumbs sprinkled down onto his back and shoulders, she brushed off the offending bits with her fingers. “I’m sorry. I’m giving you sesame seed dandruff.”
“That’s okay,” he replied as he stuck the flash drive they’d found in Ben’s apartment into the USB port of his laptop. “The pigeons will love me.” He took a pull of his drink through the straw and then another bite of his Whopper. “And I promise at some point, we’ll eat food that doesn’t come wrapped in paper.”
“We’re not here on vacation and finding out what’s on this flash drive takes priority over the time it’d take to eat at a restaurant.” Given the angry growls that had come from her stomach as they’d walked back to the hotel, Quinn was happy to eat anything.
A window on the laptop opened to show there was only one file on the thumb drive.
“I’m surprised it’s not encrypted,” Quinn said.
“It is. This computer has the same encryption/decryption algorithms as Ben’s.”
“What would happen if we put that drive in my computer?”
“It would explode.”
“Really?”
After a pause, he snickered and said, “No, not really.”
She pushed at the back of his head with a hand, which made him laugh harder. “You’re a doofus.”
“Sorry.” Still chuckling, he tapped at the keyboard. “I couldn’t pass up the chance at a little spy humor.”
“Very little.”
“Oh, burn,” he said, drawing out the second word. “To answer your question, your computer would recognize a drive had been inserted, but it wouldn’t be able to open it. You wouldn’t see anything.” As he finished speaking, a spreadsheet opened on the screen. James looked at the document for a few seconds before he sighed and said, “Nothing is ever straightforward with Ben. This is just another incomprehensible mess of letters and numbers.”
Quinn bent forward and with her head next to James’s, examined the page. The spreadsheet contained two columns. The one on the far left was a list of three-digit numbers. After a quick scan, Quinn noted the same numbers—082, 100, 850 and sometimes 852—repeated as groups. There were about a dozen of these sets in total.
The next column contained a list of numbers, letters, a word, or a combination of letters and numbers.
“Ben likes multiple layers of security, doesn’t he?” Quinn said. “And since I know he’s a librarian, I’m positive these are MARC tags.”
“They’re what?”
“MARC tags. MARC stands for Machine Readable Cataloging. Every book, DVD, audiobook, or whatever a library holds in its collection has its own bibliographic record. A record contains fields where the cataloger fills in information about an item, like author, title, publication date, call number, subject headings, stuff like that. All of those records make up the library’s online catalog.”
“Okay,” he said. “It’s not that I don’t believe you, because I trust that magical librarian juju you’ve got going on, but nowhere in this spreadsheet do I see anything that says author, title, or call number.”
“And you won’t because MARC was developed in the computer dark ages. In the 1960s, Henriette Avram, a systems analyst and programmer—who incidentally worked at the NSA at one point before she ended up at the Library of Congress—designed a way for libraries to use computers to catalog materials instead of having to type up cards.”
“Impressive.”
“She was.” Quinn remembered being in awe of Henriette Avram when she learned about her in her cataloging class. “Anyway, Henriette used really simple three-digit numbers called tags to indicate field names instead of the actual words like title or author. Computers back then were really slow and couldn’t store much data. Using numbers instead of letters made for faster computing and didn’t take up as much space.” She stared at the spreadsheet. “These aren’t complete MARC records, though. He’s listed only a few tags. That’s why it might seem confusing because you aren’t seeing the whole picture.” She huffed in frustration. “It’d be easier to explain if I just showed you a complete MARC record.” She came around and bumped him with her hip. “Move.”
“So bossy.”
She smiled and slid into the chair when he stood. After opening a browser, she went to her library’s online catalog and typed in the search box, “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
When the record filled the screen, James said, “I still see words like author, title, and publisher.”
“That’s because library software companies make the GUIs—the Graphical User Interfaces—for both the end users and the catalogers easy to use.” She moved the cursor to the top of the page and clicked on the words, MARC Display. “Voilà,” Quinn said, feeling a little like a magician revealing the truth behind the illusion.
“It looks like computer code.”
“It is. It’s what makes the library world go round.”
James pointed at the column of thirty or so three-digit numbers on the left. “So these numbers are the MARC tags?”
“Mmm-hmm. The three-digit tag for a field will be the same in every record. For instance, see the 100? That’s always used for the author’s name. In this case, ‘Lee, Harper.’ Basically, 100 means author.”
“I think I get it.” He pointed a little farther down the list and said, “The 245 tag is the title.”
“Exactly.”
“What’s with the vertical line and the c after it?”
“That’s a subfield. A lot of fields are broken up that way. But subfield codes and indicators are too inside baseball for what we need to know for figuring out Ben’s tags.”
“So you understand what all of these tags mean?” He sounded impressed.
“The main ones, yeah. I don’t remember the specifics of what some of the tags at the top of this record are for. They’re control information, record identification numbers, stuff like that. I’d have to look them up to know for sure.”
“Hey, look,” James said, sounding as if he’d made a great discovery. “The tag for the ISBN is 020. There’s the 978.”
She grinned at the proud look on his face. “Yup. See? Soon you won’t even need me around anymore.”
He made a noise at the back of his throat. “So not true. I knew you were amazing, but I had no idea just how mysterious you librarians really are.”
“Not mysterious,” she answered, chuckling. “Well organized.”
“Okay. I’ll give you that.” His arm grazed her back when he rested it across the top of her chair. “Now we need to figure out what Ben’s tags mean.”
Quinn returned to the spreadsheet. “Ben’s used 082 several times. That’s the tag for the Dewey decimal number assigned to an item.” She pointed at the places where it recurred. After doing a quick search on the three different Dewey numbers Ben had entered, she said, “The numbers here are for medieval manuscripts, illuminated manuscripts, and Latin.”
“Am I reading this right? It looks like he’s entered the same author’s name for several different books,” James said, moving his face closer to the screen.
“Yeah, the ones on Latin. Someone named Dudley.”
James hovered his finger in front of the screen and moved it down the list of tags. “The 850 tag is used a bunch of times with either UkLoKC, Uk or UkOxU. What’s that about?”
“I think I know, but let me double check first.” Back to the browser, she did a quick search. “850 is ‘Holding Institution. ’” The room fell silent except for the sound of clicking keys. “Bingo,” she said in a low voice when she found a pdf file of a list of MARC organization codes for the United Kingdom.
She scrolled through the list. “Let’s see. Uk is the British Library here in London, UkOxU is the Bodleian Library at Oxford University and UkLoKC is the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Library Service.”
Quinn looked at James and said, “I bet these are Ben’s notes on one of Fitzhugh’s items he was researching.”
“I agree. Notes he didn’t want anyone to understand, even if they were able to get past the encryption on the thumb drive.”
“And based on the Dewey numbers, he didn’t want anyone to know he found a medieval manuscript.”
“That might be why he went off grid,” James said. “He found something important in a manuscript and took off with it.”
“Wouldn’t he contact the agency to tell them he found something, though?”
James stared at the screen and then shook his head. “Maybe we’re looking at this backward. What if Ben’s cover wasn’t blown after all? He couldn’t take the chance of communicating with the agency in case he’s wrong about whatever he thinks he found and wants to be able to go back to Fitzhugh’s if he needs to. Ben could have told Fitzhugh he needs to go on a trip to do more research. We told everyone in California the same thing. That would also explain why Ben’s flat wasn’t tossed.”
“If that’s the case, they might not think Ben had anything to do with the disappearance of the letter you and I found in the clock.”
“And why he’s not in a safe house. He may not actually be in danger.” He expelled a loud breath. “It’s a lot of speculation, but it’s possible.”
“Do we stop looking for Ben and go home?”
“No. Until we have some solid answers, we stay on it. We might be wrong.”
“Okay, so what do we do next?”
“We follow up on the only lead we have. How do you feel about visiting a library or two tomorrow?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” The idea of visiting the British Library made the room spin a little. “I don’t think getting into the Kensington Library will be a problem since it’s probably a regular public library. The British Library might be a little more restrictive. I need to find out more about what kind of access we can get.” She returned her fingers to the keyboard.
James gently gripped her wrists and moved her hands away from the laptop. He closed it. “Not tonight you’re not.” He stood, took her hands, and pulled her to her feet. “Time for bed.” His eyes roamed her face. “I know sharing the bed is weird, so you take it and I’ll sleep in the chair or on the floor.”
“No, you won’t,” Quinn said without hesitation. “You can’t possibly get any sleep in that tiny, uncomfortable chair. I’m sure you spy types are trained to handle sleep deprivation, but I’m not going to be one who inflicts it on you. Plus, I can’t live with the guilt if you contract hepatitis from lying on a germy, bodily fluid–soaked carpet.” Jerking her head toward the bed, she said, “Look, we wouldn’t even have to sleep near each other—that king-size bed is bigger than a life raft.”
“That’s true.”
“It also seems only right that a pretend husband should sleep in the same bed as his pretend wife.”
“Okay. You’ve convinced me. I’ll sleep in the bed,” he said. “We can pretend to be one of those couples who’ve been married for so long, all they do in bed anymore is sleep.”
With a wicked glint in her eye, she said, “Oh, sweetie, believe me. When I’m married, that will never be me.”
* * *
The water Quinn downed before bed would not be ignored. Despite her exhaustion, she had no choice but to climb out of the warm bed and stumble to the bathroom. She had no idea what time it was; all she knew was that she wasn’t about to turn the bathroom light on for fear of the excruciating pain of burned corneas.
Once finished, she flushed and opened the bathroom door. She let out a yelp when in the dimness, she saw James filling the doorway wearing nothing but boxers and a smile. Heart pounding, she stood there, frozen, and stared into his face. His smile never wavered and he seemed to be in no hurry to move out of her way. There was only one thing for her to do.
Quinn flung her arms around his neck and smashed her lips on his in a searing kiss. He caught her up in his arms, crushed her body to his, and deepened the kiss. Her entire body exploded with intense, burning desire. Never in her life had she felt anything like it. She caressed the side of his face with one hand while the other roamed over his bare back. When she raked her nails across his skin, he shuddered and moaned with pleasure.
How it was possible she didn’t know, but James somehow intensified their kiss. She wasn’t aware of anything but his mouth on hers, kissing her hungrily, his fingers tangled in her hair, his skin sizzling under her touch. It didn’t matter how tightly she clutched him. She couldn’t get close enough.
James broke the kiss, lifted her up, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. Clinging to him, she lowered her mouth to his and kissed him with passion. He carried her to the bed and in one swift movement, he laid them both back on the rumpled sheets and rolled on top of her. His lips moved from hers and he lightly trailed the tip of his tongue along her jaw and down her neck, her entire body racked by a bone-rattling shock wave. She lolled her head to the side and when he nipped the curve at her neck with his teeth, she arched against him and blurted a surprised, “Oh!”
The sound of her own voice woke her up. Her entire body hummed and her heart was racing. With a hand resting on her forehead, she gave in to a mighty shiver and stared wide-eyed at the ceiling. She closed her eyes and struggled to get her ragged breath under control. She hoped her erotic dream–induced outburst hadn’t disturbed James. If he had heard her cry out, she was fully prepared to lie her head off and tell him she’d dreamt she was being chased by a pack of snarling, ravenous wolves. It would at least explain the heavy breathing.
She rolled onto her side, opened her eyes again, and saw James on his side of the bed. He wasn’t actually in bed, though. Instead, he was stretched out on top of the covers still fully dressed. He lay on his back and the hand resting on his chest rose and fell with his steady breathing. His face was slack and tranquil with sleep. She only hoped from now on she could look at him without her face glowing red like Rudolph’s nose. That dream was going to be with her for a long time. She breathed a sigh in the dark. Who was she kidding? That dream would be burned into her brain forever.
She lay there for a few minutes and hoped against hope that she would fall back asleep. At the realization she really did have to go to the bathroom, she grumbled silently to herself, and slid from the bed. To prove to herself she wasn’t reliving the dream, she flicked on the light. When she finished, she slowly turned the doorknob and cautiously swung open the door.
She was mostly relieved and yet slightly disappointed to find that James was not standing on the other side of the door waiting for her. She stealthily crept back toward the bed. As she passed around the foot of it, she glanced at the clock on the nightstand. The luminous green numbers informed her it was exactly 2:23 A.M.
Once she was settled under the covers again, she peeked over at James and was pleased to see he was still asleep. In fact, he was in the exact same position as when she woke up. His breathing was on the brink of actual snoring, deep and heavy, but hadn’t quite achieved that buzz saw noise like her grandparents’ bulldog, Pot Roast. She was a little surprised by how deeply he slept. From all the novels she’d read, she’d always been under the impression spies slept with one eye open, ready to leap into action. Maybe the dead-bolted hotel door and unholstered Sig Sauer on his nightstand made him feel secure enough to fall into a truly deep and restful slumber.
The Sig on the nightstand reminded her how dangerous the world she’d been sucked into was. And yet despite that danger, she always felt safe with James. She’d noticed how he exuded competence and confidence everywhere he went. His eyes were always moving, assessing threats, scanning faces, formulating potential escape routes from any given area. When she thought about the times they’d been in public before yesterday, she realized he’d always done that. At the time, it hadn’t occurred to her to even wonder about it. She’d seen her father do the same thing her entire life and never really thought about it. After a few minutes of ruminating, she fell into a deep, and thankfully dreamless, sleep.