The Library of Shadows

33

When Katherina first heard about where Jon had gone, she was relieved. It meant he was still alive. But the next moment she felt terribly despondent. The distance between her and Jon was pictured on Mehmet's screen as a long, curving arc from Denmark to Egypt, and it seemed insurmountable. She had no idea how she was going to get there or how she would be able to find him in a country of that size. In despair, she simply fell apart standing there next to Mehmet.

He took it well. He led her gently over to the sofa and then sat down beside her, putting his arm around her shoulders. At no time did he ask about the reason for Jon's trip or why she had reacted the way she did. He just let her cry.

When Katherina finally regained her composure, she thanked him over and over, promising to tell him the whole story some day. Mehmet responded by offering his help, no matter what she might need. Katherina was sure that before long she would have to take him up on his offer.

There were probably plenty of questions that she should have asked Mehmet, but she could no longer remain idle. She had already slept away almost two whole days, and all she wanted to do now was drive straight to the airport and catch the first flight to Egypt. But when she said goodbye to Mehmet and climbed onto her bicycle, she thought better of it, and rode instead over to Libri di Luca as fast as she could.

Henning was standing behind the counter. That surprised her until she remembered that Iversen had said he was supposed to relieve Henning and take over the surveillance at Remer's place of residence.

'Everybody can stop looking for him,' said Katherina as she entered the bookshop. 'I know where he is.'

Henning looked at her in astonishment.

'Katherina… Aren't you supposed to be…' He pointed to the windows. 'Are you okay?'

'I'm fine,' Katherina lied. She didn't have the patience for questions about either her health or her state of mind. 'You can call the others back. Jon isn't in Denmark at all. He's in Egypt.'

Henning's expression was now both annoyed and concerned. He was about to open his mouth, but Katherina was way ahead of him.

'I don't know why. The only thing I know is that they flew him there twenty-four hours ago.'

Henning nodded and wisely didn't say a word until he'd gathered his wits enough to pick up the phone to ring Iversen. Several phone calls later, the message to withdraw had reached everyone involved.

In the meantime, Katherina had found a big atlas, which she placed on the counter, leafing through the pages until she came to North Africa. Her eyes flitted over the map, over the rivers, cities and the wide open areas of desert. As a child she had often paged through atlases, occasionally imagining herself to be a god looking down on her handiwork. If she squinted hard, she could even see the people moving around down there. Right now she wished she could reach down into the sands of Egypt and pick Jon up with her fingertips to bring him home.

Iversen was among the first to arrive, and Katherina told him how she'd found out the information about where Jon had gone. He nodded pensively as he studied the map lying on the counter. The names of countries and cities washed over Katherina as he read, and she tried to cling to the flow of names to find just one that she could link to something meaningful. She focused on Iversen's reading so that he'd be able to scan the map faster, but in her eagerness she pushed him too hard. He calmly placed his hand on hers, asking her to back off. She nodded, apologized and immediately stopped trying to influence him.

'What do they want?' asked Iversen rhetorically, sticking his fingers under his glasses to massage his eyelids. 'Why Egypt?'

'It could be a diversionary manoeuvre,' Henning suggested without sounding convinced. 'If they wanted to keep Jon's whereabouts secret, they wouldn't have used his real passport, would they?'

'Maybe there wasn't time for anything else,' said Iversen.

Katherina stood with her arms crossed. She was having trouble remaining calm.

'Why can't we just go there?' she asked impatiently. 'They're already a day ahead of us.'

'Egypt is a big country,' said Iversen. 'We need to have a better idea where he is. They may have gone somewhere else from there.'

'Not on the same passport,' said Katherina. 'Mehmet checked.'

Iversen nodded.

More of the other Lectors turned up, including Clara, who shamefacedly avoided looking at Katherina, who reciprocated in kind. Katherina still couldn't forgive Clara for letting her sleep so long. Iversen filled in everyone on the situation as Katherina retreated to the background. Before long a lively discussion had started up around the counter, with one theory replacing another, each more outlandish than the last. She didn't understand why they had to waste time on speculation. Of course Iversen was right. Egypt was a big country if you were looking for just one person, but she would feel much better if she was actually there instead of talking about what they should do once they'd arrived.

Katherina went over to the window and looked out. She touched her hand to her chin. It was late afternoon, and dark clouds had gathered over the city, threatening rain at any moment. The wind had picked up, and people were leaning into the gale as they tried to hold onto their overcoats. A figure approached the bookshop and came to a halt at the window, right in front of Katherina. It was a man with a big beard and dishevelled hair sticking out in every direction in the wind. Instead of studying the books on display, he fixed his clear blue eyes on Katherina.

She practically shouted with surprise when she recognized Tom Nшrreskov. He hadn't bothered to change his clothes since they'd met at his farm in Vordingborg. He broke into a wide grin.

Katherina ran over to the door and tore it open, making the bells leap on their cords. The other people in the shop turned round to stare, their mouths agape, as Katherina pulled the visitor inside.

Clara took a step closer.

'Tom?' she asked, with doubt in her voice.

Nшrreskov nodded and with some embarrassment looked about at the group.

'This is Tom Nшrreskov,' said Katherina.

Iversen came forward to take Tom's hand in both of his.

'Welcome, Tom. It's good to see you.'

Nшrreskov merely nodded and continued glancing around, as if this were the first time he'd set foot in Libri di Luca. His gaze moved along the shelves up to the balcony and then slid over all the volumes and stacks of books on the main floor. A wide smile slowly spread over his face.

'It's been a long time, Iversen,' he said. 'But the place looks just the same, thank God.'

Everyone present forgot all about the map of North Africa and began saying hello to Nшrreskov as if he were an old schoolmate. His eyes flitted from one Lector to the next; there were many he'd never met before, but he studied each of them attentively, as if he were searching for someone.

'Where's Campelli's boy?' he asked at last, reaching into his inside pocket. 'I have a postcard from his father.'

No one said a word, and a strained mood settled over the group.

'It's taken a long time to get here,' he went on. 'More than a month, but it's a long way from Egypt.'

Katherina gave a start and then grabbed the postcard out of Tom's hand.

'Egypt?' she cried, staring at the card.

The picture on the front was dominated by a large, circular building made of sandstone. The sloping roof consisted of glass sections that gleamed like metal in the strong sunlight. It looked most like a flying saucer that had made an emergency landing in the desert sand. With shaking hands Katherina turned the card over.

Never in her life had she felt so frustrated at not being able to read as when she looked at the meaningless symbols on the back of that postcard. Reluctantly she passed it on to Iversen. He grabbed the card and read what it said aloud.

'They are here – Luca.'

For the second time that day Katherina felt a great sense of relief. The card pointed out the city and maybe even the building where Jon was being held. The printed text indicated that the building on the front was the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the port city of Alexandria.

Iversen's reaction was to put his hands to his head and declare, 'Of course!' He broke out in relieved laughter. 'How could I have missed it?'

Tom Nшrreskov looked perplexed as he stared at the others, surprised by the effect of the postcard.

'So where's Jon?' he asked again.

No one spoke.

'Here,' said Iversen at last, holding up the postcard in front of Tom. 'You brought us the answer.'

While Iversen talked to the astonished Tom, filling him in on the events of the past weeks, the postcard was passed around among the others present. Each person studied it intently, as if it were a puzzle picture that concealed more secrets.

When Katherina had the chance to examine the card again, she stared at the picture, imprinting in her mind every detail of the round building and its surroundings. In front of the library was a half-moon-shaped basin, a natural counterpart to the gigantic glass surfaces that made up the slanting roof of the building. The metallic-looking light boxes under the glass served to let only indirect light into the reading rooms below; at the same time they gave the glass surface a futuristic appearance, so that the whole disc resembled a silicon electronic circuit. A notch had been cut into the right side of the circle, creating a rectangular courtyard into which a spherical building was partially sunk. In the notch of the main building was the entrance.

That was where she had to go.

'Bibliotheca Alexandrina,' said Iversen behind her. 'Probably the world's most famous library in antiquity, now rebuilt in the spirit of the original – for the purposes of collecting knowledge and making it available to all.' He sighed. 'We have to hope that it won't suffer the same fate as the original library. Invaluable texts were lost during all the wars, plundering raids and fires. It's said that the building plans for the Cheops pyramid were stored in the library. Just imagine. Who knows how many other important works we've lost because of the voracity of the fires and the stupidity of people. Works that would change our conception of history, culture and science.' He fell silent, out of respect for the cremated books.

'But why have they gone there?' asked Katherina.

'We can only make a guess,' replied Iversen. 'Maybe it's some sort of ritual. The library may be a gathering place for the Shadow Organization.'

'I think it's because of the charge,' said Nшrreskov.

Everyone in the bookshop turned towards him, which made him look down at his hands.

'Luca had a theory,' he began in a low voice. Everybody moved closer, crowding around him and listening attentively. 'In his opinion, it wasn't just the force of the book used during activation that was decisive. He thought that the charge that existed in the books surrounding the participants could also prompt the activation, by their very presence. So an activation conducted in the company of the Campelli collection, which we all know is strongly charged, would be much more effective than an activation carried out in a farmer's field, for example.'

Iversen nodded. 'That's common knowledge,' he said, though he didn't sound convinced.

'So the collection in the Alexandria library would enhance the activation?' asked Clara.

'There's one problem with that,' said Iversen. 'From what I've heard, the library is still in the acquisition phase. And since the original conception of the project, the development of electronic media has progressed so rapidly that many works are now on CDROM or DVD instead of in printed editions.' He threw out his hands. 'And we know that these types of media can't be charged like real books.'

'Correct,' Tom admitted. 'But we both suspected that a kind of spillover effect could take place in the surrounding area, an accumulation of energy from the charged books, and maybe even from utilizing the powers.'

'That's never been proven,' said Iversen.

'But just imagine what that might mean for the Bibliotheca Alexandrina,' Tom insisted. 'I've been thinking about it ever since the postcard arrived. For more than seven hundred years, at that same location, hundreds of thousands of volumes of the highest quality were stored. We can only assume there were Lectors during antiquity, and with Alexandria being the stronghold of knowledge, there must have been Lectors there – Lectors who could take care of and strengthen the collection.'

No one said a word. Everybody seemed to be digesting the theory Tom had presented.

'I'm positive that an enormous energy source exists there,' he went on. 'And that the new library has been perfectly designed to focus that energy, like a lighthouse.'

'And the Shadow Organization wants to use the energy to activate new Lectors?' asked Katherina.

Nшrreskov nodded.

'But why do they need Jon?' she asked, sounding defeated.

He looked down. 'I can't answer that question.'

'I still think it's some sort of ritual,' said Iversen. 'But under any circumstance, everything indicates that a gathering is going to take place at that site. Whether it's to drink tea or to conduct activations, that's not really important. Jon is going to be there, and we have to be there too.'

Katherina nodded eagerly. Nothing was going to keep her away.

'What we need to do is find out what exactly we're up against, or how many people are involved,' Iversen went on. 'We have to assume there will be more than just Remer and Jon present, and it's safe to bet that some people from the school here in Copenhagen will be participating too.' He turned to Katherina. 'Do you think your computer friend could find out whether any pupils from the Demetrius School are taking a trip to Alexandria?'

'I'm sure he could,' replied Katherina.

Mehmet had given her his phone number on a scrap of paper, telling her that she could ring him night or day. He probably hadn't expected to hear from her just a few hours later, but he seemed very amenable when she did ring.

'The Demetrius School, you say,' she heard on the other end of the line. Katherina could already hear the keys clacking in the background. 'Uh-oh, the place burned down,' he exclaimed a second later.

'We know that,' said Katherina. 'Can you find out whether any of the pupils have travelled to Egypt recently?'

'Hmm, provided their Internet server hasn't gone up in smoke too,' Mehmet replied, humming to himself as the keys clacked. 'Nope, here it is,' he exclaimed. 'Alive and kicking.' He started humming again, interrupting himself with little, dissatisfied exclamations and grunts. 'Hey, listen here, Katherina. It's probably going to take me a while. Can I ring you back?'

Katherina said yes and put down the phone.

'Well?' asked Iversen, anxiously.

'He'll ring later,' she replied, disappointed. She would have preferred to be sitting next to Mehmet, or to keep him on the line so she could sense when something happened. She clapped her hands together. 'What now? How many plane tickets are we going to need?'

Iversen gave her a worried look, but he didn't offer any objections. He knew her well enough to realize that nothing he could do would prevent her from going. 'Not for me,' he said, looking down at the floor. 'I'm too old, and the heat… I'd just be in the way.'

'That's okay, Iversen,' said Katherina. 'We need you here.'

Iversen nodded without raising his eyes from the floor.

'You're going to need a transmitter,' declared Henning, raising his hand as if taking an oath. 'I'll go.'

The others all exchanged glances.

Tom shook his head. 'I'm already too far away from my farm,' he said with a dejected expression. 'I'm sorry.'

'Maybe it's best with a small group,' suggested Clara.

Everyone agreed, some people showing obvious relief. Katherina didn't care. As long as she could go, it wasn't important whether one or a hundred went with her. Once she found Jon, she'd find a way to free him.

After an hour Mehmet still hadn't called back and almost everyone had left the shop. Iversen had stayed and was pottering about with some books but keeping his distance from Katherina, who was spending the waiting time alternately sitting down and pacing back and forth in front of the windows. She sensed that Iversen was still a bit embarrassed that he couldn't go along. He avoided her eyes and moved quietly among the shelves, as if not wanting to disturb her.

After yet another hour had passed, Iversen went home too when Katherina insisted he needed to get some sleep. She rang Mehmet a couple of times, but he didn't answer. Gradually her pacing around the shop got more and more restless. She walked in order to keep her thoughts at bay. But after more than two hours of pacing, she sat down on the floor with her back against a bookcase. Her legs ached, which provided a welcome distraction from her speculations. She wrapped her arms round her legs and rested her forehead against her knees. When she pressed her eyelids closed, spots danced before her eyes like flies in the afternoon sun. She even felt the heat of the sun baking on her back. The sun of Egypt.

The phone rang.

Katherina awoke with a violent start and looked around in fright. She was lying on the floor in a foetal position. It was daylight outside.

With some difficulty she stood up. Her legs were stiff, and she tottered the first few paces over to the counter.

'Libri di Luca,' she said when she finally picked up the phone.

'It's me,' she heard on the other end of the line.

Katherina recognized Mehmet's voice and was instantly wide awake.

'Meet me at the main library in half an hour.'

'What?' Katherina stammered, but by then Mehmet had rung off.

Katherina broke all the traffic rules as she biked over to the main library. She rode on the pavement, headed the wrong way down one-way streets and used the bus lanes without regard for traffic lights or the honking cars. Her leg muscles, which already ached, began to burn so badly that she almost fell off her bike before she finally reached the main library on Krystalgade. She parked her bicycle without bothering to lock it and dashed through the revolving door into the library.

The white vestibule stretched up through the entire building to the roof, where frosted panes let in the sun to light up the big open space below. Katherina paused in the middle of the hall to look around. The library had opened only an hour earlier, so there weren't many people. She was picking up words from far fewer people reading than she had feared, and she was able to concentrate on those who were present.

At the counter on her right stood a lone librarian who was idle at the moment, while others were pushing carts crowded with books, which they methodically put back on the shelves. A solitary woman was sitting in front of a monitor among a cluster of computers on the ground floor.

Mehmet was nowhere in sight.

Katherina went over to the escalator that led from the entrance up to the floor above. She got off at the fiction section on the second floor and went to stand at the railing so she had a view of the vestibule below. Her heart was still pounding from the mad dash on her bike and she noticed that she was sweating. She fixed her attention on a group that had just come in, but they turned out to be a bunch of students headed for the comic book section.

'This way,' said Mehmet's voice behind her.

She turned to see Mehmet moving towards the escalator that would take him up to the next floor. He was wearing a grey hoodie. She noticed that he was limping, and when he turned his head to make sure she was following, she saw he was wearing sunglasses that didn't quite cover the bruise over one eye.

On the third floor he went over to a terminal that was suitably tucked away between the bookcases.

'What happened?' Katherina asked when she came up to him.

Mehmet sat down with a grimace. 'It'll be easier if you see for yourself,' he said and started tapping away on the keyboard.

A picture of a room showed up on the screen. The image was fuzzy and not particularly well lit, but there was no doubt that it was Mehmet's flat. Even though his living room had never been especially neat, it was clear that something was very wrong. The furniture and boxes were all jumbled together, with the contents strewn across the floor. The desk had been turned over and the monitors that used to sit on top were nowhere to be seen.

'That's what it looks like right now,' muttered Mehmet. 'We have to go back to last night to see why.'

Underneath the picture was a row of buttons with symbols, like on a videotape player. Mehmet clicked on the button to rewind. A time indicator in the upper right corner began counting down. The image was the same, but Katherina could see that the light coming from outside was changing. The counter went faster and faster, and suddenly there was a lot of movement in the picture.

'There,' said Mehmet and clicked on the play button.

On the screen they could see that Mehmet's living room had been restored to its normal appearance and Mehmet himself was sitting in front of his monitors.

'This is right before it happened,' he said.

The pictures showed Mehmet working at the keyboard. He was bobbing his head rhythmically to some tune they couldn't hear. All of a sudden he stood up and stretched his arms in the air as he did a little victory dance.

Mehmet cleared his throat. 'Well, okay. That's when I cracked the school's security system. Good thing there's no sound.'

He clicked on the fast-forward for a few seconds and then on the play button again.

On the screen Mehmet was back in front of his computers, but he stood up abruptly and looked towards the corridor. Through the open doorway they could see boxes cluttering up the floor of the hall. Mehmet went over to the door, but at the same instant a figure appeared behind him and hit him on the back with some sort of club. Mehmet staggered a few steps forward but managed to turn round before the next blow came. He fended it off with his arm and then threw himself at the person, who flew backwards and crashed into a pile of boxes. That gave Mehmet enough time to grab one of the golf clubs from his collection of prizes and he delivered a blow to the chest of his assailant. In the meantime, two more figures entered the living room from the hallway. They too were armed with clubs, and Mehmet had to defend himself from all sides. He was struck numerous times, once on the shin and several times in the face, but he fended them off as he backed out through the garden door.

In the library Mehmet shifted uneasily in his chair and turned to glance around.

On the screen one of the intruders tossed aside his club but pulled out a pistol and aimed it at Mehmet, who raised his hands. But as he stepped backwards he was lucky enough to topple over a stack of crates piled up close to the door. Two quick flashes issued from the barrel of the gun, but by then Mehmet had already got up and out by the garden door. Two of the assailants struggled with the boxes blocking their way while the man with the gun fired yet another shot through the windowpane towards the garden.

'That's about all,' said Mehmet sadly.

On the screen the burglars gave up the pursuit and vented their frustration on the contents of Mehmet's flat before leaving.

'Are you okay?' asked Katherina, putting her hand on his shoulder.

'I'll be fine,' Mehmet replied. 'Just a few scratches.' He pointed at the image of his ravaged flat. 'Those bastards.'

'Did you manage to find out anything about the school?'

'Of course,' said Mehmet and smiled for the first time. 'I'm about to download the last bit right now.' He glanced around. 'Let's switch to a different terminal.'

They got up and went towards the escalator.

'These terminals aren't good for much,' he said. 'But from here I can go through the library's server and access… well, just about anything.'

'If you say so,' said Katherina.

They took the escalator up to the fourth floor.

'It wasn't easy to get into the school's server. Not exactly what you'd expect from a school,' Mehmet whispered along the way. 'But I guess it's not what you'd call a normal school, is it? At least I don't know any other school that has that kind of security monitoring and can react so quickly. In fact, I don't know of anyone who can trace a hacker in such a short time and even send out a bunch of thugs while he's working.'

On the fourth floor they found an available terminal and Mehmet sat down and started typing. The screen went blank and then slowly filled up with symbols.

'What did you find out?' asked Katherina.

'I finally got into their security system and found the class lists,' he began. 'As I said, a strange school. It looks like they have their own grading system. All the kids have an RL value, whatever that means. Anyway, I ran the list of student names against the airline passenger lists and got two hits on the same flight as Jon.'

'Only two?' said Katherina in surprise. 'Are you sure?'

'A hundred per cent,' replied Mehmet. 'But then I tried the private charter companies. Even though they don't operate regular flights, they still have to enter passenger lists.'

'And?'

'There have been two departures during the past week. Each flight carried twenty-five passengers who either attend or have attended the Demetrius School. Of all ages.'

Katherina sighed. 'Fifty,' she said, sounding dejected.

'Plus a few more,' Mehmet added. 'There were a few passengers who aren't on the lists of students. Approximately ten others.'

'Can you print out the lists?'

'Of course,' replied Mehmet. 'You can have names, addresses, even photos if you want. At least of the students.' He got up. 'We're going to have to change terminals again.'

They found another monitor at the opposite side of the floor. A moment later photos and lists began scrolling down the screen.

'But now I think it's time for you to giveme something,' said Mehmet. 'You can start by telling me what the hell is really going on.'

He took off his dark glasses and looked Katherina in the eye.

'It's one thing when the two of you get mixed up in something, but when it starts affecting my business and my health, I think I'm entitled to an explanation.'

Katherina nodded. 'And I'll give you one,' she said, 'but not here.'

Mehmet gave her a dubious look.

She shifted her gaze back to the class lists.

'Stop,' she said, pointing.

With the press of a button, Mehmet stopped the scrolling on the monitor.

'Back up a little,' Katherina told him.

A photo appeared on the screen, showing a dark-haired boy. It was an old picture, but his crooked, arrogant smile was unmistakable.

It was Pau.