Contents

The Gutenberg Rubric

Three

CHECKING OUT of the hospital was a pain. Keith overrode the doctor’s recommendation of a few more days’ hospital bed rest. A nurse wrote detailed instructions for Maddie regarding Keith’s medication and dressings. The doctor admonished him to be back in a week for a checkup and Keith made the appointment, dutifully promising to be careful to avoid infections. On that score, I’m safer outside the hospital, he thought. Nonetheless, his body complained about simply getting out of bed to dress.

Maddie left to get her suitcase and car. Keith was so tired from arguing with his doctor that when she got back to the hospital he acquiesced to being wheeled out in a chair.

As they approached the library, he could see the wrecked atrium across the commons, surrounded now by a chain-link fence. Maddie circled to the parking garage beneath the building, showed her employee ID to the new security guard at the entrance, and parked near the elevator.

“Okay, Mr. Man of Mystery,” she said. “What book would you like me to check out for your vacation reading?” When he told her, she looked at him in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding! When you said ‘check out a book,’ I thought you were serious. I can’t check books out of the rare books collection.”

“Sign it out as a temporary transfer to the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany for analysis,” he responded. “I know you can do that. Fill out the paperwork for transfer to Dr. Rolf Schneider, Special Collections Curator.”

“But there’s no shipping available from here this week. I’ll have to arrange a pickup.”

“I want to show it to you before we ship it,” Keith said. “I’d even like to take you there to deliver it in person if we can arrange it.” She sat staring at him, and he was compelled to continue. “I don’t think it was a coincidence that the blast came right after I looked at that book. I think it was meant to send us a message. It sounds so stupidly cloak and dagger that I can’t believe I’m asking you to do this, but I promise that when we get to California I’ll be able to explain everything. We’ll keep the book safe and if you disagree when you see what I’m talking about, we’ll bring it straight back here.”

“California?”

Keith nodded.

“You live in California. You’re taking me home?”

He nodded again.

“We’ll need airplane tickets, and I’m not sure I’m packed right for California. Why don’t we go to my place for now and we’ll make reservations. You can explain what this is all about when we’re relaxed,” Maddie suggested.

“Darling, I need to go home. I bought tickets on-line in the hospital while I was waiting to get released. All we need to do is check-in.” He paused, almost exhausted. He knew that if she pressed to wait until tomorrow he wouldn’t resist, but he made one last plea. “Please. Come with me to California where we’ll be safe and have time to figure out what is really going on. I can’t explain how important it is. The flight is in just over two hours.”

Maddie sat in the car with her hands on the steering wheel looking straight ahead. He was afraid he’d gone too far and realized how new their relationship really was.

“I guess I can live with that,” she said. She opened her door and he reached for the handle on his own.

“Stay in the car, Keith,” Maddie said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “I won’t be long and you still need the rest.” He was asleep before she was out of sight.

She nudged him awake in the airport parking ramp.

“Do you need me to get you a chair?” she asked gently. Keith shook himself fully awake. He breathed deeply, dispelling his disorientation.

“I can walk now,” he said. “But a chair would get us through security more quickly.” They entered the concourse and Maddie flagged down a porter and explained their situation. In minutes, Keith was in a wheelchair. They checked in at a kiosk and went directly to security. As he had predicted they were guided to a special access line and were escorted by the porter to the gate.

“What’s in California besides Disneyland? And your home,” Maddie asked when they were settled. “I think I deserve to know what’s really up.”

“I mentioned seeing a printer, didn’t I? My grandfather lives with me—or I should say I live with him. He’s my number one mentor on book arts and he’s pretty worried about me just now. He’s only had one call from me since I was injured.”

“But…” Maddie’s cell phone rang, cutting off the question she was about to ask. She glanced at the caller ID and answered immediately. “Hi, Joey.” There was a moment’s pause then she began to explain. “I’m sorry, I completely forgot. I’m with Keith and we’re picking up our vacation. No. California at the moment. A few days. I’ll let you know. Don’t worry so much. We’ll be fine. I’ll call when we get back. Bye.” She closed the phone and looked at Keith who was watching with a bemused expression on his face, refusing to ask the question that was hanging over his head.

“Okay,” she said. “That was my brother. He’s a worry-wart. He flew in from Japan the day after the explosion to make sure I was all right. I was supposed to meet him for dinner tonight and I completely forgot to call him.”

“I didn’t know you have a brother,” Keith said. “All the mysterious men in your life.”

“He’s six years younger than I am,” she said. “It’s always been me worrying about and taking care of him. Apparently he thinks he needs to return the favor now. Since I’m off with you, he’ll probably hit the road again and I’ll hear from him from India or Africa or Australia.”

“What does he do?”

“He’s linguist and freelance interpreter. He speaks half a dozen languages, including three Middle Eastern dialects and Japanese. Sometimes he does work for the State Department,” Maddie said proudly. She raised the corner of her mouth in that one-sided smile Keith loved. “I think he’s a spy, but I don’t know for whom. He was certain foreign terrorists had targeted me because of him.”

“I hope I get to meet him sometime,” Keith answered.

“We’ll see how meeting your family goes, first,” she laughed.

“Mr. Drucker,” a gate agent said as she came up to him. “We can get you on board now.” Keith was rolled down the jetway with Maddie in tow and they settled into their first class seats, Keith’s big splurge for their getaway.

It was nearly midnight by the time they rented a car and Maddie drove into the California desert. They had talked more on the plane, but as Maddie sipped a glass of complimentary champagne, Keith’s painkillers dragged him down into sleep again. When they landed, however, he was alert and able to make further arrangements.

He used the GPS and police reports on his computer to warn them of speed traps. On this stretch of almost-deserted highway, 80 was just fast enough not to be passed by most eighteen-wheelers but slow enough to let real speeders take the heat if there were police. Once they were passed by a State trooper cruising in the left lane.

“Tell me about your grandfather so I know what to expect,” Maddie suggested as they cruised down the highway. Keith had to agree. It was only fair that he prepare her a little, and talking would keep them both awake for their midnight drive.

“I didn’t see him from the time I was 10 until I was 18,” Keith answered. “My mother blamed him for my father’s death—it was a printing accident—and just didn’t make him welcome. I think he blamed himself, too. We wrote to each other regularly, but I was really disappointed when he didn’t show up for my high school graduation.”

“You can get killed in a printing accident?” Maddie asked.

“He got caught in a web press at the newspaper. He’d taken over Grandfather’s job when he retired.”

“How awful.”

“Mom thought the whole printing industry was evil after that. I was insatiably attracted to it, though. When I graduated, Mom said she had something for me. She was a little embarrassed, but she gave me an envelope addressed to me in my grandfather’s handwriting. She said she’d held it until after graduation, but knew I’d be going now. My grandfather had sent me a plane ticket and a hundred dollars. I kissed my mom on the cheek and went to my room to pack.”

“How far south does California go?” Maddie asked. It appeared they were headed for the border. “Or are we just eloping to Mexico?”

“Hmmm… Now that’s not a bad idea, but I’d like you to meet my family before you jump into things. You may not want to marry me when you see the rest of the gene-pool.”

“You said that awfully easily,” Maddie whispered quietly. He could see the color rising in her cheeks.

“We’ve not had much time lately to just be together,” Keith answered laying his bandaged left hand on her leg. “But I’ve thought about the possibility ever since we met.”

“Are you trying to scare me?”

“You’ve survived a bombing, three days by my hospital bed, and a mad dash across the country and into the desert,” he said. “Is there something I could do to scare you?”

“Okay, seriously,” she said abruptly. “Why your grandfather?”

“It’s the ink in his veins,” Keith responded. “In our line of work, you and I think of all the scholarly, objective evidence. He thinks of the art and craft and the possibilities. Long before I started my library science degree or applied new technology to the dating of inks, he was able to tell genuine incunabula from fake, identify what printing house a work came from, and even the type of press it was printed on. He can mix ink that will exactly mimic any known formulation. And even now—he’s in his eighties—he can print some of the finest works you’ve ever seen. You might not even be able to tell the difference between his and the originals.”

“Wait,” Maddie interjected. “You mean he’s a forger?”

“It was an art form of its own in the 15th and 16th centuries,” Keith said calmly. “Usually forgery has to do with handwork, though; you know—paintings and signatures. When it’s done with a printing press they call it counterfeiting.”

“Your grandfather prints money?” Maddie asked in disbelief.

“No. Never,” Keith declared. “He specializes in documents. It’s something he’s always been interested in. Mostly he prints things that no one cares about. He just does it to experience the feeling of creating a great piece of art. And he has a legitimate business of printing wedding invitations and graduation announcements—in case we ever need that sort of thing.”

“Why were you in such a rush to get there?”

“There is a letter,” he said carefully. “Actually just a fragment. I found it in the manuscript you so kindly checked out of the library for me.”

“There’s no listing of a letter fragment in the inventory.”

“Precisely,” Keith said.

“What does it have to do with your grandfather?”

“Do you remember the message that detective showed us?”

“I didn’t memorize it, but I recall it pretty well,” Maddie answered.

“I wrote down as much as I could remember while I was waiting to get out of the hospital,” Keith said. “I’m pretty sure I got most of it.” He pulled a slip of paper from his shirt pocket. “There is one true Tree of Knowledge guarded by angels. No key will unlock its secret for the unworthy. If you seek truth in the chamber of lies, you risk your life,” he read. “It’s not exact, but I think I got the important parts.”

“I don’t think it was quite so personal at the end,” Maddie said, “but I agree that’s the gist of it.”

“There are three references to the same imagery in the letter fragment in that book you borrowed,” Keith said. “The Tree of Knowledge, its guardians, and the key to unlock the secret. It just doesn’t feel like the timing of me finding the letter, the explosion, and the terrorist note could be coincidental.”

“Why didn’t you tell the detective that?” Maddie asked. Keith noted that she accelerated slightly and her grip on the steering wheel tightened. Keith carefully phrased what he had to say next.

“If my grandfather confirms that the letter is what I think it is, we don’t want it in the hands of Homeland Security,” Keith said. “We’ll all look at it when we get there, but I am absolutely positive it doesn’t belong in the collection where it was found. Someone put it there deliberately.”

“And you think that same someone bombed the library or that it was an enemy of that someone?” Maddie asked.

“Yes.”

“That was an either-or question.”

“There might be other options as well, but I’m sure they are connected in some way,” Keith answered. “When I found the letter, I realized it was something important, but I put it back in the manuscript so we could talk about it when we were on our vacation. I thought we would be able to figure out together what to do. The blast and drugs drove the idea out of my head until the detective showed us the message. If my assessment is correct, the fragment was stolen from another collection. And that brings Granddad into it, but not Homeland Security.”

Maddie turned on the radio and set it to scan until she found a jazz station. Then she turned the volume up. Keith took the signal that she needed a break from this conversation and absently examined the damage to his computer case with the fingers of his unbandaged hand. He was pricked by something sharp and pulled a glass shard almost as big as the tip of his finger out of the outside pocket of the case. He carefully rolled it around in his hand as an idea came to him. Then he dropped it into his shirt pocket.

Maddie followed Keith’s directions to what looked like a derelict shack in the devil’s backyard nearly two hours later. They had returned to conversation but not about the letter. No cars passed them after they turned off the main highway half an hour before. They traveled deeper into the Colorado Desert under Superstition Mountain. Strange to think of a desert in California being named the Colorado Desert, but the entire region south of the Salton Sea bore that name, including the military reservation.

The shack looked deserted in the quiet darkness when they pulled into the yard. No animals scrambled through the dust that followed them to a stop, and no dogs barked in the distance. Once the car was turned off, the heavy air was still and silent. The shack huddled under the edge of a cliff and only the rusting pickup truck gave the impression that it might be inhabited.

Keith’s grandfather burst through the screen door, slamming it back against the siding so that the house seemed to shake. Keith glanced at Maddie, who hung back, but when the old man wrapped Keith in a gentle embrace, he disappeared into his taller grandfather’s arms. As soon as the old man released Keith, he swept up Maddie into the same hug.

“So this is the one?” his grandfather asked. “A new flower blooming in the desert! Welcome, Madeline. And thank you for delivering my boy home where I can take care of him properly.”

“Thank you,” Maddie said, then unable to stop herself she continued, “You certainly live a long way away from things.”

The old man’s eyes lit up as he grinned.

“You didn’t tell her a thing, did you?” he asked.

“Just that I was coming home. I wouldn’t spoil your surprise, Granddad,” Keith laughed.

“What surprise?” Maddie asked, perplexed. The two men laughed.

“Well, let’s get your things and go inside where it’s warm,” Granddad invited. “Tomorrow it will be close to 90 degrees out here, but nights still get pretty cold.”

“Thank you Mr. Drucker,” she said politely. “I can manage the bags.”

“Now we won’t have any of that,” he answered. “You just call me Frank. I won’t be a Mr. Drucker in the presence of a Dr. Drucker.” He laughed as he grabbed both suitcases from the car. Maddie picked up Keith’s computer and Frank ushered the two through the screen door.

The room they entered was stuffy with two wooden chairs and a table facing the door. It ran the short length of the shack and was only about eight feet deep. Frank scarcely paused in the room as he swept aside a curtain exposing a hidden doorway and Keith led the way into the real house. Once through, Frank closed a solid door behind them.

Maddie caught her breath. Though not opulent, the living room they were now in was warm and comfortable. A few pieces of inviting furniture were placed near the gas fireplace and a dining table was set for three.

“This is beautiful!” Maddie exclaimed.

“Not such an old hermit as you might think,” Frank said, turning off the television. Maddie looked around at the shelves of books in the soft lighting. She realized there were no windows in the room, but illumination came from lights in the cove of the ceiling.

“You’re underground!” she exclaimed, suddenly realizing what it meant. “Your house is built into the rock.”

“Mostly right,” Keith said. “Actually it’s built in a cave. Granddad managed to cover the entire entrance with the shack after he built his house inside.”

“Took a bit of engineering to make sure I had fresh water, electricity, and plumbing, I’ll tell you,” Frank beamed. “But I had help. Trickiest part was getting a television signal.”

“There’s a satellite dish up on the top of the cliff with the cable running down concealed in the rocks,” Keith explained. It was obvious that he was as proud of the engineering as his grandfather was.

“Let me show you to your room, Madeline,” Frank said. “Keith can sleep out here on the sofa. I want to take a look at those dressings.”

“It’s okay,” Maddie said. “I don’t mind sharing.”

“Now see here,” Frank said, “I don’t have any old fashioned notions about couples who aren’t married. But in my home, no young woman is going to be brought thirty miles out into the desert and forced to share a room with any man. If you choose to invite him in, that’s your business; but the room is yours.”

Maddie smiled and gave Frank a hug. “Thank you,” she said. “Now, let’s get Keith a pain pill and into my bed. I think we’re both exhausted.” Frank turned to Keith.

“How you ever got this lucky…” he mumbled.

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