Page 36 of The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6)
The interior of the van was getting colder by the minute, and Jonas Faukman was shivering.
His hands were still bound behind his back, and his fingers had gone completely numb.
Faukman’s captors had torn off his vintage gray peacoat before tying him up, searching the seams and pockets, before dumping it onto the floor beside him.
The stocky man with a buzz cut was sitting on his milk crate, only a few feet away, and his partner remained in the front seat, typing intermittently on his phone. He seemed to be having a conversation with someone.
A commanding officer?
Faukman had been trying to put the pieces together, but he could not fathom who these guys were or that they had brazenly abducted him off the street.
They stole one specific manuscript…and destroyed all of the publisher’s copies?
Even if Katherine’s book was a runaway bestseller, to hack a corporate system, destroy hard copies, and kidnap people over it?
This is book publishing, for crying out loud… not Die Hard !
“Okay,” Buzzcut said, glancing up from his iPad. “I have some questions for you, Mr. Faukman.”
“You can call me Jonas,” he chirped. “Kidnapping is much less formal than it used to be.”
Buzzcut stared at him, clearly unamused by the quip. “Is Katherine Solomon overseas?”
“Yes.”
“Where overseas?”
“You know where. You’re just calibrating your little lie detector by asking me questions to which you already know the answers.”
“Where?” Buzzcut repeated.
The editor had no desire to be sucker punched again. “She’s in Prague.”
“Very good.” He looked back at his iPad. “At some point before seven a.m. local time, Dr. Solomon left her Prague hotel room and entered the Four Seasons Business Center.”
Faukman did a double take, feeling a trace of panic. “Wait…you’ve been spying on her?”
“Let’s just say we’ve been paying attention.”
“Who the hell are you guys?!”
“While in the business center,” Buzzcut continued without answering, “Dr. Solomon used a hotel computer to log into the PRH server. She accessed the latest version of her manuscript.”
So what? Authors frequently get last-minute jitters when their editors are poised to start reading. Katherine was probably second-guessing something and decided to reread it.
“Why didn’t she use her own laptop in the privacy of her own room?” Buzzcut asked.
“Because Dr. Solomon does not have a laptop. She prefers a full screen, keyboard, and mouse.” And if you were really watching her, you’d know that.
The guy on the laptop nodded. “True.”
Buzzcut looked back at his iPad. “Our records show that this morning Dr. Solomon printed a complete hard copy of her manuscript—all four hundred and eighty-one pages—and left the hotel with it.”
For an instant, Faukman was startled these thugs knew the precise page count, until he remembered they had just stolen his editorial copy. Easy bluff. “Dr. Solomon printed no such copy, and you know it.”
The muscular guy sitting on the milk crate stared at him a long moment and then arched his back to stretch, inadvertently revealing a shoulder holster with a startlingly large handgun.
Faukman hadn’t seen a move that transparent since fourth grade when he tried to put his arm around Laura Schwartz at the IOKA movie theater. Nonetheless, he got the message.
“You sure you want to play games with me?” Buzzcut asked.
“Hold on,” Laptop interjected, eyeing his screen. “Avatar says he’s telling the truth. He’s unaware that Solomon printed a copy.”
Buzzcut looked surprised. “Interesting. So…Dr. Solomon printed the manuscript behind your back?”
Nice try. Faukman had edited too many police interrogation scenes to fall for the Good Cop–Bad Cop routine—a divide-and-conquer strategy to get him to distrust Katherine.
Unfortunately for these clowns, Faukman’s professional career had been built on analyzing story narratives and pointing out inconsistencies.
If his captors had said Katherine carefully printed a copy to edit in her hotel room, he might have believed them.
But the devil was always in the details, and these guys claimed Katherine had carried the manuscript outside the hotel. Not something she would have done.
“We want to know,” Buzzcut pressed, “why did Katherine print a manuscript? And who did she give it to?”
“To whom did she give it,” Faukman corrected instinctively.
Buzzcut glared. “That’s what I said.”
“No, it isn’t. Can you untie my hands? My arms are numb.”
“ Whom did she give it to?”
Faukman shook his head. “Still wrong. I have no idea.”
“He doesn’t know.” Laptop called from the front.
Buzzcut looked flustered. “Has Katherine reached out to you?”
“No.”
“And how about Robert Langdon?”
“No.”
Laptop nodded. “Both true.”
Buzzcut scratched his head, apparently pondering his next line of questioning.
Faukman was shivering more violently now as the cold intensified. “Can you at least turn on the heat?”
“I’m sorry, are you uncomfortable?” Buzzcut reached over the driver’s seat and pressed a button on the dash. But rather than the heater kicking on, the driver’s-side window went down. A blast of cold air swirled through the van. “Better?”
Faukman was starting to believe he might actually be in serious danger tonight.
Through the open window, he again heard the mechanical sounds from outside, louder this time, and he realized what he was hearing—the unmistakable roar of jet engines.
Holy shit…am I on a military base?