Book of Dreams Read online

  Sandra Harwood studied her a long moment, then nodded once. “I can accept that.”

  Elena took a long breath. “Your husband is going to be offered the position of vice president. He has already been approached. You know this. The President will call your husband with the formal invitation tomorrow afternoon.”

  Sandra Harwood struggled to maintain control. “He has dreamed of this moment. For years. We both have.”

  Elena hesitated.

  “What is it?”

  “I had the impression,” Elena replied, “that I was shown these things as a means of establishing authenticity.”

  Sandra Harwood’s gaze widened. “You were shown.”

  “That is correct.”

  “To establish truth.”

  “I have no way of knowing this for certain. But that is what I think.”

  Elena was waiting for the inevitable question, the truth of what. Instead, Sandra Harwood leaned back in her chair. Tears erupted from her eyes. “You don’t know, you can’t understand, how good it is to know I’m not going crazy.”

  “You are not insane.”

  “Or suffering from a tumor. Or early-onset Alzheimer’s. Or …” The elegant woman searched her purse for a handkerchief. “I’ve been so afraid.”

  Elena waited. There was nothing to be gained by saying the woman had every right to be afraid.

  Just not for the reason she had thought.

  Elena rose from her seat and walked to the rear window. She could not leave the room without alerting the bodyguard. But she needed Sandra Harwood to be utterly composed before she continued. Alert. Ready. Or rather, as ready as anyone could be.

  The rear garden was surrounded by a high stone wall. Rose bushes that had been planted while Victoria was still queen clenched the Cotswold stone and sent out another generation of buds and green shoots. A pair of stone benches rested beneath English willows. In the distance, the steeples of five colleges poked into a china-blue sky. The most distant was New College, called such because it was the youngest of the three colleges founded in the twelfth century.

  Somewhere around the year one thousand, the city’s monasteries had been approached by wealthy Cotswold merchants who sought teachers for their sons. At the time, neither the church nor the king wished for the landed gentry to gain the ability to read and write, for their ignorance permitted those in power to rewrite the laws at will. The bravest monasteries defied the pope’s orders and admitted students to learn Latin, Scriptures, and mathematics. Elena stared out the window and reflected on how there were worse places on earth to call home.

  Behind her, Sandra asked, “Is there anything else?”

  Elena took that as her cue. She returned to her chair and said, “Your husband has a heart condition.”

  She absorbed the shock well. “This was supposed to be a secret.”

  “It’s not.”

  “How did you …” She stopped. “I’m sorry.”

  “There’s no need to apologize. I will tell you everything. Just not now.”

  “You don’t have any connection to the political establishment?”

  “Not here, and not in the US. And anything that I say to you remains utterly confidential.”

  “Lawrence has been checked out by the best. They say his condition is under control.”

  “It is,” Elena agreed. “So long as he does not take on an inhuman level of stress. Such as on the national campaign trail.”

  “You mean, it could kill him?”

  “I mean,” Elena corrected, “there are people who want him to take this position so that he will die.”

  Sandra whispered, “The wraith I saw off to one side of the stage.”

  Elena said, “The man you identified as your husband’s opponent has a different candidate in mind. Someone the President does not want to run alongside. They see your husband’s health issue as the perfect means to put their candidate in place.”

  Sandra’s gaze had distanced. Her entire upper body rocked slowly. Back and forth. “They intend to install their candidate as a last-minute replacement. When no one else is available. They want to steal—”

  Abruptly Sandra rose from the chair. “I must go. I don’t know how—”

  Elena interrupted, “There is more.”

  “M-more?”

  “This is not the only reason why your husband has been put forward. But telling you the rest is important only if your husband refuses the vice presidency.” Elena rose to stand beside the ambassador’s wife. “And grants you both a future. Then you and I must speak again.”

  “Y-you’ll tell me how you know …”

  Elena nodded. “I will tell you everything.”

  8

  WEDNESDAY

  Miriam said, “You look very nice, my dear.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Are you going somewhere special?”

  “Yes.”

  Miriam smiled at Elena’s terseness. “Down these stairs. Show this gentleman your card.”

  The bank’s security desk flanked the entrance to the vault and the safety deposit boxes beyond. The guard accepted the document Miriam had obtained from the bank’s vice president, stating that the safety deposit box was now transferred to Elena’s ownership. He checked Elena’s new key card against the computer records. Then he inspected the women’s passports and asked Elena to sign the register.

  They followed the guard through the barred entrance. A series of curtained alcoves adorned the hall leading to the vault. The box that Miriam had transferred to Elena was about three feet square. The guard slipped Elena’s new card through the reader, then his own. When the door clicked open, he asked, “You need any help?”

  Miriam replied, “We’re fine, thank you.”

  When the guard departed, Miriam drew a cart over and helped Elena slide out the metal drawer. Elena then pushed the box into one of the alcoves. Miriam sealed the curtain, then opened the drawer to reveal four packages, all wrapped in plastic and vacuum sealed. Each was the same size as the book sitting on Elena’s coffee table.

  Elena asked, “Which is the original?”

  “The one on top.”

  Through the clear plastic sheet she saw what appeared to be a blackened blanket. “What is that?”

  “Waxed vellum. How long it has been in place, I have no idea. There is a seal on the other side.”

  Elena inspected her friend. “You sound so … I don’t know. Detached.”

  “I am still growing used to the idea that you had a vision.”

  “Or something.”

  “It is so good to know I have chosen rightly. You have no idea what a burden has been lifted from my heart.”

  “I hope you’re right. About the choice, I mean.”

  “I know what you mean. My dear, I am certainly capable of making a wrong choice. I should know. My life is littered with them. But God does not.”

  Elena traced one finger across the plastic surface. “When did you seal them?”

  “Thirty years ago. More.”

  “Can I open it?”

  “My dear, you can do whatever you want. These are yours now.”

  “You don’t have a list of rules?”

  “I have nothing except a few terse sentences imparted by my great-grandmother. I have always assumed that part of selecting an heir is being certain they will hold these books in trust.”

  Elena found Miriam’s calm assurance vaguely unsettling. “I wish I was as certain as you sound.”

  “I know.”

  “I have so many questions.”

  “I’m sure you do. If I recall, your pastor is a very good man.”

  “One of the finest I have ever known.”

  “Well, then. If you trust him with the state of your soul, I would suggest you trust him with this as well.”

  “Should I tell him about …” She waved a hand at the sealed tomes.

  “My dear, you may tell whomever you want whatever you feel is correct. On that point my great-grandm
other was perfectly clear. She made a habit of explaining the trust bestowed upon her to everyone she worked with.” Miriam slipped the cover back in place. “Shall we go?”

  Elena followed her back into the vault and helped her slide in the drawer. “I feel like there ought to be some rite of initiation. A vow of some kind.”

  “All that is between you and God,” Miriam said. She closed the door with a click, then stood there, her hand resting on the steel. “Do you know, I believe I can see my great-grandmother smiling down at me.”

  Elena’s taxi pulled into the stone gates with the lamps burning real gas flames. Elena wore her finest outfit. She had purchased the blue midlength cocktail dress and matching pashmina shawl when her book first hit the bestseller list. At the time, she had thought such matters were important. By the time she had finished her one and only international tour, Elena had learned that when the public’s appetite was whetted, they would devour her regardless of how she dressed.

  The previous afternoon, Fiona had entered Elena’s office as her last patient departed and announced that Elena had an important phone call. When Elena answered, an officious lady identified herself as the ambassador’s personal aide. She wanted to know why the embassy had not heard back from Elena regarding the ambassador’s invitation.

  When Elena responded that she had never heard anything from the American ambassador in her life, and nothing from his wife since Monday, the aide had turned contrite and said that Ambassador Harwood was hosting an event at his private residence the next evening, and was so hoping she might be able to come.

  A white-gloved marine guard waved her taxi driver to a halt. The young man opened a door and asked, “Good evening, ma’am. May I see your invitation, please?”

  “Certainly.” But a sudden case of nerves left her fumbling with the catch to her purse.

  If the marine noticed, he gave no sign. Finally she passed over the embossed envelope couriered to her that afternoon. The marine unfolded the sheet, then asked, “Can I please see some ID, Dr. Burroughs?”

  “Of course.” The ambassador’s aide had told her to expect this as well.

  “Everything is good here, ma’am.” He handed back the papers, straightened, and offered his white-gloved hand. When she alighted from the taxi, he gave her a crisp salute. “Enjoy your evening, Dr. Burroughs.”

  The ambassador’s residence was in a leafy alcove at the border of Saint John’s Wood, west of central London. The house was very grand, but to Elena’s eye almost everything was in dire need of updating. Another pair of marines stood at attention by the front doors. Elena joined the formal greeting line moving slowly through the front portico.

  The marble-tiled alcove had a peaked roof and gilded chandelier. Sandra Harwood stood beside a tall man of aging Hollywood good looks, just like the photograph Elena had found on the embassy website. To the ambassador’s right stood a portly woman with a grandmother’s smile, and beside her stood a man even wider than his wife. Elena recognized the secretary of state from his numerous television appearances.

  When Elena arrived at the head of the line, Sandra Harwood greeted her with professional cordiality. She granted Elena the same amount of time that she had the dozens of others who had come before. She made some apologetic joke about misplaced invitations, and said she hoped Elena had not been put to much trouble by the last-minute notification. Elena did not even hear her own reply.

  Sandra then turned and said to her husband, “My dear, I’d like to introduce Dr. Elena Burroughs.”

  In person Lawrence Harwood possessed a solid gravitas, a stern authority, and genuine comfort with power. “My wife rarely speaks so highly of someone as she does of you, Dr. Burroughs.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.”

  “Could I ask you to kindly turn slightly to your left? Our embassy photographer would like to capture the moment.” He moved in closer, smiled for the flash, then turned her back around in a smooth motion he had undoubtedly practiced a million times before. “It’s not every evening we have the honor of hosting the author of a national bestseller, that’s for certain.”

  “International bestseller.” His wife smiled, already shaking the next hand in line. “How many languages has your book been translated into now?”

  “I’ve lost count.”

  “Well, I look forward to speaking with you later. Can I introduce you to Secretary and Mrs. Roddins?”

  Elena exchanged greetings with the visiting couple, then allowed herself to be launched into the party. She entered the main ballroom, accepted a glass of champagne, and wondered what she was doing there.

  The reception was an elegant affair, but also quite impersonal. The ambassador, his wife, and the visiting Washington couple circulated through the room. Yet neither Sandra Harwood nor her husband ever glanced in Elena’s direction.

  Almost an hour passed. A visiting ensemble of Juilliard students played Baroque sonatas. Various people glanced Elena’s way, took in her solitary stance, and dismissed her as being of no consequence. Elena positioned herself by a marble pillar. From her vantage point she could observe the room, the smiling faces, the diplomatic chatter, the power. She did not resent this. She simply did not belong and did not care. She checked her watch and decided to give the ambassador’s wife another half hour.

  It took only ten minutes. A slender British gentleman with the lean features of a long-distance runner and the markings of a silver fox came over. “Dr. Elena Burroughs?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Nigel Harries. How do you do.”

  “Are you military?”

  Gray eyes with a dagger’s piercing quality inspected her. “I was, at one time. Long ago. More recently with MI5. I assume you know what that is.”

  “Yes.” British intelligence was split into several divisions. The two most important civilian branches were MI5, which was responsible for internal security, and MI6, for international. “Did the ambassador’s wife send you?”

  “Absolutely not. The lady you mention has no connection to me or my current organization. None whatsoever.” He had a military officer’s manner of diction. Each word carved in units as precise as bullets. “Do I make myself clear?”

  “Perfectly. What is your current position?”

  “Ah. A good question, that. I’m the head of a private security outfit. I thought you might be interested to know that your office has been bugged.”

  “When?”

  Elena was a professional observer. She could tell the gentleman was intensely pleased with her response. She did not waste time with either outrage or surprise. She did not ask the unnecessary. As in how he knew about the bugging. Nigel Harries replied, “Your office was clean yesterday. It was bugged when we checked again this morning.”

  “Which means the listeners did not hear my last conversation with the ambassador’s wife.”

  This time, the gentleman’s humor actually surfaced. “As I told you, Dr. Burroughs, I have no information on that count. None whatsoever.”

  “Of course.”

  “However, it may be a good idea if you were to inform your receptionist that a change has been made to tomorrow’s schedule, one you forgot to inform her about.”

  “For what time?”

  “Would nine tomorrow morning be convenient?”

  She thought through the next day’s appointments and decided. “I can make that work.”

  “Excellent. Our mutual acquaintances will be most pleased. You may be surprised by the direction of this next discussion.”

  Elena glanced around the ballroom. The undercurrents of power were more visible now. “She will be speaking for the listeners and not for me.”

  The man’s gaze tightened in approval. He bowed slightly. “I regret to inform you that there will be a break-in tonight, in the office building next to yours. A gentleman will stop by in the morning. He will offer your receptionist a pamphlet from Strand Securities. I suggest you give us a call.”

  9

&nbs
p; THURSDAY

  The next morning Elena rose earlier than usual. She logged into the counseling service’s system, inspected her schedule, and made three calls. The first was to her pastor, asking if she might stop by that morning. Her first patient that morning was Sandra Harwood. Elena felt she had no choice other than to accept that the security man’s warning was valid. She moved her next two patients to later that afternoon, in an attempt to maintain professional confidentiality. Elena then left home and drove to her church.

  The receptionist informed her that the vicar was running late, so Elena walked next door to the church-run café. She ordered a coffee and took it to a table that granted her a view of the church’s front door.

  Saint Aldates was a modest structure situated on the side of Oxford’s central district opposite her offices. From the outside, Saint Aldates looked like just another city church, its grimy stone facade interrupted by a lone stained-glass window. The entrance fronted a small plaza shared with the café and Pembroke College. Across the street rose the spires of Christ Church, perhaps the most imposing of all the university’s colleges.

  Oxford’s college system was developed during the early medieval era, when the growing number of students forced the monks to formalize the structure. The university still held to many of the edicts laid down almost a thousand years earlier. Students enrolled at one of the colleges. The university maintained the administrative umbrella. The university was responsible for final exams and for granting degrees. Most lectures were university-wide. But tutorials, the personal system of instruction for which Oxford was known throughout the world, was handled through the colleges.

  Christ Church had been her husband’s favorite college, a vast repository of lore and fable. Isaac Newton’s apartment was just visible through the café window, a peaked corner of the college’s front wall, which itself was designed to look like a mythical fortress. The Anglican cathedral of Oxford was built into the rear of the main quadrangle. According to legend, the chapel floor contained marble tiles laid down when the site was home to a Roman temple. One of the rear quadrangles contained the tree where a certain young girl named Alice played with the college kitten, while her uncle taught mathematics and wrote a tale about his favorite niece entering a realm named Wonderland. Elena finished her coffee and reflected on how this was what she most loved about the city and the university—the past neither died nor faded away, but rather lived in parallel to the contemporary.