Clive Cussler - Fargo Adventures 02 - Lost Empire by Clive Cussler

Author:Clive Cussler [Cussler, Clive]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-03-13T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 24

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

THEY ARRIVED AT THE RESEARCHERS' ENTRANCE AT SEVEN FORTY-FIVE and were met by a security guard, who checked their credentials then escorted them to the Special Collections Room on the second floor. They pushed through the door and found Julianne Severson sitting at her workstation, head resting on the desktop. She was wearing the same clothes as the day before.

As the door clicked shut, she jerked upright and looked around. She saw them, blinked rapidly a few times, then smiled. "Morning!"

Remi said, "Oh, Julianne, please don't tell us you never went home."

"I almost did. I meant to, really, but I was following a thread that turned into another and another . . .You know how it goes."

"We do," Sam replied. "If it helps, we brought a Venti Starbucks dark roast and bagels and cream cheese."

He held up the box. Severson's eyes widened.

AFTER GULPING DOWN half the coffee and most of a bagel, Severson wiped her lips, ran her fingers through her hair, and joined Sam and Remi at the worktable. "Better," she said. "Thanks." Beside her was a manila folder stuffed with printouts and a yellow legal pad covered in notes.

"Before we're done here I'll of course print out all the reference material I've found, so right now I'll just give you the highlights.

"The good news is, everything I found had long ago been declassified and is now open source. I spent the night connecting dots, using private archives, university collections, War and Navy Department documents, Secret Service records, nonfiction books and periodicals . . .

You name it, I checked it."

"You've got our full attention," Sam said.

"First let me show you a picture of my Blaylock. Tell me if it matches yours."

She pulled a photo from the folder at her elbow and slid it across the table. On her iPhone Remi pulled up a scanned version of the Blaylock photo they'd found in the Bagamoyo museum. Severson's version showed a tall, broad-shouldered man, in his late teens or early twenties, wearing a Union Army officer's uniform. Sam and Remi compared the photos.

Sam said, "That's him. In ours he's older, a little grayer and weathered, but it's the same man."

Severson nodded and took back the photo. "The man you know as Winston Lloyd Blaylock was in fact named William Lynd Blaylock: born in Boston in 1839, graduated from Harvard two years early at the age of nineteen with a degree in mathematics--specifically, topology."

"Which is?" Remi asked.

Sam replied, "It's spatial mathematics--curved surfaces, deformed areas. The Mobius strip is a good example."

"Then it's no surprise Blaylock had a thing for the Fibonacci spiral. Sorry, Julianne, go on."

"A month after he graduated, he was hired by the War Department."

"As a cryptologist," Remi predicted.

"Right. By all accounts Blaylock was a genius. A prodigy."

Sam and Remi looked at each other. Given the references to the Fibonacci sequence and the golden spiral they'd found in Blaylock's journal, they'd wondered if there were more to the journal than met the eye. Namely, hidden messages or codes.

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