Page 55 of Control's Undoing

Colum turned to Annie.Together, he and Franco told her about the theft of several rare books from a Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh.Among those stolen were a rare copy of Ptolemy’sGeography, and John James Audubon’sThe Quadrupeds of North America.

“Ah.”Annie’s lips curved in a soft smile.“Which is why you said ‘geography,’ ‘Carnegie,’ and ‘quadrupeds.’It was less of a code and more shorthand.”

“Yes,” Colum confirmed.“The Ptolemy in particular was notable.”

Once more, the video whirled and then Sebastian was on screen.“Is anyone still interested in hearing about our investigation into the other party looking for this manuscript?”

“Please,” Annie said, winking at Colum.She leaned forward, looking across Colum at Xavier, who was still slumped, eyes covered by his arm.“We might have lost Xavier.”

“Let’s start with the attempted break-in in Dublin.According to the information given to us by the Masters’ Admiralty, they found the assailant, thanks to facial recognition based on images from a security camera several blocks away.The man has been arrested for theft several times, including once as part of an organized crime ring that robbed jewelry stores, but has no connection to the Masters’ Admiralty.After being questioned by members of the Masters’ Admiralty, he revealed that he was hired to do the job, but the contact information he had for his employer led nowhere.”

Xavier sat up as Sebastian talked, his arm brushing against Colum’s.

“What about the financial transaction?”Annie asked.“I’m assuming he got paid some up front.”

“Digital currency.We couldn’t track it.”

“What was he meant to do?”Colum asked.

“Did he know what he was sent to steal?”Xavier added.“Was he specifically looking for a manuscript?How was it described?”

Sebastian’s expression sobered.“Actually, he was looking foryou.Both of you.”

Colum frowned at the screen.Right now, their camera was showing him and Xavier.

“Us?”Colum said, pointing to himself, and then Xavier.

“Yes.He was supposed to go after Xavier first and had an address of a private residence in Dublin.”

Beside Colum, Xavier’s face drained of color.“My friend, I have to let them know.They may be in danger?—”

Sebastian held up his hand.“Apparently, whatever the location was, the hired thug didn’t want to go there, which is why he went after Colum first.”

Colum snorted.“Xavier was staying in the Liberties.”

When no one responded to that, Annie patted Colum’s shoulder.“No one knows what that means.”

“You risk getting your face rearranged if you try anything in the Liberties.”

“Bad part of town?”Annie asked.

Colum shook his head.“No, but anyone from the Liberties wouldn’t be putting up with that kind of thing.”

“Either way,” Sebastian went on, “the man’s instructions were to go to that address, ‘question’ anyone there about Oscar Wilde, and take anything they had that may have belonged to Wilde or someone he knew.”

“What about me?What about the archive?”Colum asked.

“Same instructions—question anyone inside about Oscar Wilde.”

“How did they get those addresses?”Xavier asked, face still stark.

“We’re looking into that, but our cyber investigation hit a snag.While trying to track both the interaction with the thug hired in Dublin, and the initial dark-web inquiry about how much an undiscovered Wilde manuscript would be worth, our cyber expert’s system was attacked.The attacker managed to shut down their entire system and infect it.They ended up burning the hard drive.”

“Wiping it?”Annie asked.

“No, physically burned it,” Sebastian said with a grimace.

Franco piped in from off-screen.“Killed it with fire.It was dramatic.”

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