Library Of Gold. Alex Archer

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      Chapter 8

      Up close, Annja could see five circular enamels set in the cover, one on each corner and a larger one in the center. All five were surrounded by wreathed inscriptions linked to one another in nielloed gold. The image in the center was that of the risen Christ, while those in the corners represented various saints praying or studying.

      It was a stunning piece of workmanship, made all the more so by the knowledge that the work had been done by hand in the sixteenth century.

      “My office is just down the hall,” Semyon said, “so if you need anything, dial 475.”

      He pointed to an old-fashioned push-button phone hanging on the wall in the corner. He didn’t mention the state-of-the-art security camera that hung from the ceiling above it. It was positioned so that most of the room would be visible, but Annja doubted the feed would be monitored 24/7.

      Then again, this was Russia… .

      Satisfied that all was in order, their host left them to it.

      Annja and Gianni spent the next several hours going through the Gospel one page at a time, carefully examining each one before moving on to the next. As they had decided the night before, Annja concentrated on the text of each page while Gianni focused on the artwork that decorated the borders and surrounded the drop cap that started each section of text. If Gianni’s research was correct, somewhere in the Gospel’s gilded pages were instructions to find the map that would lead them to the library.

      The workmanship was beautiful. The scribe had used bold clean strokes and the words and images seemed to jump right off the page at her. It was hard to believe this was a book that had been produced more than four hundred years ago.

      Beauty aside, however, after hours of careful observation they could find nothing that pointed to the location or even the existence of the map that Fioravanti had mentioned in his journal. They’d been through the complete text and, having arrived at the blank page at the end, Annja was ready to admit they might need to rethink their approach.

      She was used to setbacks and suggested they take a break, come at it again later with fresh eyes.

      “Damn it!” Gianni swore, getting up from the table and pacing in frustration. “We can’t give up now. It’s here somewhere, I know it is!”

      “No one is giving up,” she said soothingly, glancing over his shoulder at the camera on the other side of the room, hoping he’d recognize the unspoken warning in her eyes. She didn’t want to offer their hosts any excuse for removing them from the room. “I’m just suggesting we take a short break—that’s all.”

      With her gaze still on her companion, Annja reached out to close the book and in the process her fingers brushed across the surface of the end page.

      Something tugged at the cotton glove covering the tip of one finger.

      One-one-hundredth of a degree less pressure and she never would have felt it.

      She looked down at the page in front of her but didn’t see anything that was immediately obvious and a second pass with her gloved finger across its surface didn’t turn up whatever it was that had snagged it in the first place, either.

      But something was there.

      She was certain of it.

      A tingling sense of anticipation built in her gut, the one that she usually experienced just before a big find. And that told her she was on to something here.