Salem's Cipher (27 page)

76

Chinatown, San Francisco

E
very one of Lu's computer workers responded to the takedown like they'd rehearsed for it. Two women and two men ran outside the room. A fifth followed to the doorway, locking the door behind them, sliding a second door made of soldered iron bars over that, and then locking it as well.

“People who run out? They stalling for you.” Lu patted Salem's bottom and pointed toward the opposite wall. “You go out window.”

“What?”

Lu nodded, smiling. “Don't worry. Fire escape out there. SFPD come up through living room. Maybe also on roof, so you be small. Blend in.”

“Why is SFPD here?” Bel was following Lu to the window.

Lu shrugged. “Slow day. Sometimes, they just want to come check on us.” She pointed at the five workers still on their computers, each of them leaning to work two computers simultaneously. “We only need seven minutes to hide everything. They find nothing but digital mahjong club, no gambling, when they get here!” Her laugh was punctuated by the screech of Bel forcing open the window.

A flood of cool air and the refreshed smell of baking cookies flowed in. The discordant Chinese music below was almost too loud to be heard over. “A parade! You so lucky,” Lu said, exaggerating her accent. “Like the fortune cookie. Now go.”

She stepped aside and shoved Bel out onto the fire escape. Bel scanned the perimeter, assessing the situation, before offering her hands to Salem.

“My damn gun is back in the room,” Bel muttered. “I almost don't deserve one.”

Salem stepped onto the fire escape, too scared to respond to that. “Is this a good idea?”

They were perched a story above the sidewalk, floating over a group of boys who waved red ribbons and wore red and gold kimonos. Salem's eyes followed the long, looping dragon behind the boys, four men wide and at least fifty feet long. Sparklers glittered and popped inside its nostrils, and ornately dressed soldiers flanking the dragon set off small fireworks that erupted green and blue in the sky. These were met with cheers from the throngs on the crowded sidewalks. The setting sun added to the visual cacophony, raspberry dusk blending with caramel celebration.

“I don't even know what a good idea looks like anymore,” Bel said, shoving on the fire escape's rusty metal ladder to release it to street level. It wouldn't give. She kicked at it. It yelled back at her and moved an inch. “Help me!”

Salem began kicking the ladder along with Bel. A few of the parade children glanced up as heavy rust flakes rained down on them. From inside the apartment, violent knocking sounded on the other side of the caged door. The noise was muffled by the volume of the parade, but Salem still heard it.

“SFPD, we know you're in there! Open the door or we'll break it down.”

“Hurry,” Salem begged.

Bel knelt so she could put her shoulder to the ladder. Salem did the same. They pushed until sweat broke out on their foreheads, but it wasn't budging. The dead drop was at least 20 feet.

“Get help!” Bel said.

Salem stood and turned back to the window. Lu was now seated at a computer station, all the workers typing so fast that their fingers nearly disappeared.

Suddenly, the wood of the door splintered, revealing the head of an ax.

“They're breaking down the door!”

Bel stood and stared over the side of the fire escape. “God help us, I hope we don't weigh too much.”

“What?” Salem was frantic.

Bel pointed below. The parade dragon was just weaving its way under the fire escape. Salem could make out the forms of people below the rich, brocaded material of the beast. They seemed to be holding the dragon's body over their head like a blanket.

“We can't jump on them!”

The ax swung against the door again, this time sending a foot-long splinter of wood halfway across the room.

“It'll be like the parachute game in school,” Bel said, leading Salem to the edge of the fire escape. “Remember? We'd all hold the edge of a parachute, and someone would roll into the middle, and we'd toss them in the air like popcorn. Their weight would be spread out. Easy peasy.”

“But we didn't jump on each other's heads!”

The ax slammed through the door a third time, ripping the knob free. The wooden door opened. A masked man in all black knelt to begin work immediately on the iron bars, the only barrier between him and the computer room.

It was either stay, get arrested, and lose any chance at saving Grace or Vida; jump 20 feet to a sidewalk and crack their ankle bones like toothpicks; or aim for a soft spot on the back of a parade dragon.

Salem didn't give herself time to think. She let Bel grab her hand, they both hoisted their legs over the iron side of the fire escape, and they tipped forward. They fell through music, firecracker smoke, the strident song of the parade actors, and their own yelling.

Thump.

Thump.

Salem landed first, her heart and stomach still back on the fire escape. Bel followed immediately. If they'd thought it over, they'd have spread out their weight more, but the people underneath held them as firmly as a palanquin.

“Are you okay?”

Salem nodded. The dragon's back was a thick felt. It smelled like mothballs. Underneath her, hands adjusted, and what sounded like swearing in Chinese assaulted her ears. She didn't blame them one bit.

The dragon carried them down the street, jostling them above the crowd. The noise was even louder at street level, people yelling and pointing at them, music pounding, colors swirling, the sizzle of sparklers threatening them from every angle.

Bel glanced above toward the fire escape they'd just flown from, raising her voice to be heard. “The SWAT hasn't made it outside yet. I hope Lu had time to hide what she needed to hide.”

But Salem didn't hear her.

Her eyes were drawn somewhere else—across the street, beneath the blue awning of Powell Grocery, and into the bemused stare of Agent Lucan Stone.

77

Mission District, San Francisco

T
he Misión San Francisco de Asís, nicknamed Dolores Mission, Spanish for “Mission of Sorrows,” was founded in 1776, making it one of the original missions in the United States and the oldest San Francisco building still standing. At the time of its construction, missions were not merely religious centers. They were settlements that housed people, contained animals, raised crops, manufactured goods, educated, and healed. At one time, the mission encompassed 125 square miles.

Bel and Salem were interested in a single building, the only remaining original construction: the adobe mission chapel, dedicated in 1791, along with its three bells: San Martin, San Francisco, and San Jose.

Lu had conjectured that the priests of the mission, themselves friends to the poor and dispossessed and particularly the native population, may have been Underground members, or at least sympathetic to the cause. It made perfect sense to her that Beale would have hidden his keytext there, inside bells that would stand the test of time.

Salem and Bel stood side by side, on the Dolores Street median directly facing the white-washed adobe mission. It was a story and a half high. The upper level was surrounded by a copper-colored metal railing. The three bells and a short door were inset into the wall behind the balustrade.

The wedding was actually taking place next door, in the basilica erected over a century after the adobe chapel. People were filing into the basilica. The hosts must be offering some sort of hors d'oeuvres to hold guests over because white-coated caterers were unloading a van and heading toward the breezeway between the chapel and the basilica.

“Maybe we should steal one of those hats and jackets,” Salem joked. “You can sneak in anywhere in a caterer's outfit.”

A limo pulled up on Dolores Street, unloading six women dressed bright as peacocks along with one resplendent bride. Her strapless gown cascaded over her body, her streaming veil dusting her shoulders. The seven women were talking animatedly and laughing. Their entrance elicited applause and hollers from those assembled on the sidewalk.

“Now's a good time.” Bel pushed Salem off the median. “All eyes will be on the bride. Let's sneak into the chapel.”

They crossed the street. Salem had felt super-visible the whole run to the Metro station, riding the M, and walking here, as if her haircut looked as amateur as it felt. But the self-consciousness was even more acute here, surrounded by wedding guests wearing their finest and catering staff in immaculate white. Salem's frumpy hair and informal clothes felt like a beacon.

“We'll do fine,” Bel said, reading her mind.

“How do you know?”

“Because we don't have a choice.” Bel used her weight to yank open the heavy wooden doors of the mission.

A wave of incense washed over them. The interior was glorious Spanish baroque, with a multicolored chevron-design ceiling that reminded Salem of a pair of corduroy pants her mom used to wear. Behind the altar, a wall of bronze stations of the cross dominated the area, floor to ceiling. The church was empty except for a handful of women sitting in the front pews, their heads bent, and a single elderly woman lighting a candle. The space had an aura of song, everyone inside held in the arms of a chant.

A spiral staircase immediately inside the door and to their right led to the second-story bells. The steps were so narrow that Bel and Salem had to climb single file. Salem was too scared to glance behind and see if any of the supplicants were watching. What would she do if they were? At the top, they crawled out a door so small they barely fit and emerged into the jasmine-scented night air.

Salem risked a glance down. They were as high as they'd been on Lu's fire escape, give or take, with no dragon below to land on. The wedding must be starting soon because the crowds outside the basilica were thin, and the catering van had pulled around to the side. No one seemed to be glancing their way. The only sounds were the occasional car passing or the chatter of a distant conversation. Above, in the wall of the second story of the mission, three bells were mounted in alcoves.

“Which do you think it is?” Bel remained in a crouch.

Salem pointed at the middle bell. “The San Francisco. Lu said it's the only one mounted in its original rawhide and wood bind.”

Bel turned to watch the sparse crowd below. “Then get to it. You know the drill.”

“Yeah,” Salem muttered. “Find centuries-old messages in wood, copper, and bronze. Easy peasy.” Except Beale's note couldn't possibly be inside the bell because that would affect the sound. It
had
to be concealed in the wood. Right?

“Can you kneel here? I need to stand on your back.”

Bel quirked an eyebrow but obliged, dropping to all fours in front of the tiny door so Salem could reach San Francisco's ancient harness. She climbed on Isabel's back and managed to shove her knee into one side of the bell's alcove, using her hand to hoist herself onto the rim of the cavity.

“Hey!” A man pushing a stroller stopped near the church door and hollered up at them. “You're not supposed to be doing that!”

“It's okay,” Bel called down. She stuck her hand through the balcony and waggled it at him. “This is part of an all-city scavenger hunt. We'll be careful.”

He wasn't buying it. He yanked his phone from the top of the stroller, next to the sippy cup, and started punching in numbers, pausing every second or so to glare up at them. His toddler protested the stop.

“Hurry,” Bel commanded.

Salem struggled to focus. She reached for her phone and turned on the flashlight function so she could light up the alcove, but her hands were slippery with sweat, and she dropped the cell in the recess. She had to dig through bug carcasses and pigeon feces until she located it. She tried again, this time succeeding.

She ran the light over the bell.

San Martin and San Jose were big bells, colored a silver-green with age, nearly three feet long from crown to clapper, but San Francisco was half the size, more harness than bell. Her light didn't reveal anything she couldn't spot from the ground, so she shoved her cell into her pocket and began exploring with her hands. The bell's metal was cool. She touched it gently to hoist herself higher, toward the ancient wood, smooth and grooved from decades in the elements.

“The police are on the way,” the man with the now-screaming toddler informed them matter-of-factly, raising his voice to be heard over the wails.

“Thank you, sir!” Bel called down. “I'm sure the people being burglarized and assaulted will understand the reallocation of resources to two women in a harmless scavenger hunt.”

“Bah.” The man waved his hand and walked away.

Salem heard sirens. “That could be for anything, right?”

“Could be.”

Salem examined the face of the wood, holding her body at an impossible angle. There were no visible hiding spots, but of course then they wouldn't be hiding spots. She strained to touch the back of the harness, grunting at the effort. She started at the bottom and ran one hand up, swallowing her pain as she embedded a splinter deep into her middle finger. She switched hands so the wounded one could anchor her, and ran her other hand up the back.

The sirens were drawing closer.

“Anything?” Bel's voice was strained.

“Not yet,” Salem answered. “Can you be any taller?”

“Not on all fours.”

Salem tried to grow. She needed to reach the rawhide at the top of the mount, but it was an inch beyond her grasp. She stretched, adjusting her knee to buy length. She was almost there, the rawhide kissing her fingertips.

Then she slipped.

Her hands wheeled in the air, scrabbling for any purchase.

It was happening too quickly to scream.

Her phone fell out of her pocket in the panic, crashing below.

She grabbed the lip of the bell, catching herself at the last possible second. It
donged
solemnly.

Her sweaty fingers dug into the alcove, gaining purchase, and she hugged the wall as her pulse pounded in her ears.

She paused, eyes closed, nauseated from terror.

“Salem. We don't have to do this.” Bel's voice was urgent, worried. The police sirens were almost on them.

Salem steadied her breath. She rearranged herself so she was back on her knee. She balanced so she could use both hands to feel the wood. She retraced her pattern on the face of it. This time, she felt the smallest, cross-grain bump on the upper left corner, just below the leather harness. Her bleeding finger was the closest, so she pushed with it, biting back the pain.

A drawer popped open.

Salem grabbed the cool metal cylinder inside, the size and shape of a magic marker, didn't pause to close the drawer, and slid off of Bel's back.

“I have it.”

The police cars turned on the end of Dolores Street, screaming directly toward the mission.

Bel crawled toward the tiny door leading them back into the chapel, pushed it open, scuttled through, and reached back to help Salem. Everyone inside was most definitely staring at them now. Salem and Bel stood to their full height once inside, Bel's back and Salem's knees creaking, hurried down the spiral stairs, and hopped onto the main floor.

A priest was whispering to a woman at the head of the sanctuary. She pointed at Salem and Bel. The police sirens were just outside. A panic attack bubbled in Salem's belly, battery acid eroding her safety and balance. She needed to run, or yell, or simply collapse.

Bel grabbed her, her eyes darting to the front door and the back, calculating the best escape route.

The police sirens passed.

Salem and Bel exchanged a look of surprise.

The priest was walking toward them, his face a mixture of displeasure and kindness.

“Front door,” Bel said, tugging Salem after her.

“Sorry!” Salem called over her shoulder. “We didn't hurt anything!”

Outside, people were moving normally. No one was staring. There were no police. Salem grabbed the pieces of her phone from the ground and glanced up at the bell. She wished she'd closed the tiny drawer. You couldn't spot it from the street unless you were looking for it, but still. She patted the cylinder inside her jacket pocket.

“Excuse me!” Bel said to a man who bumped into her. Salem's attention was drawn back to the moment. She glanced at the man who'd pushed Bel.

Her heart stopped.

She recognized him.