The Lost Choice (15 page)

“Holy moly!”Dorry exclaimed as they burst out laughing.

Mark stood and leaned against the wall, still adrift in the concept of one life having so much meaning. “Wrap your brain around this,” he said. “These billion people. They are a part of only
one
move Carver made. All the peanut stuff? That was a totally different flap of his wings-to stick with the same metaphor. Consider that! You think the ‘little boy' connection is big? When Carver flapped his wings and created the uses for the peanut, how many billions have been affected by that?”

“Here's my question,” Dylan said standing up. He moved the food stone to the center of the table. “Where has this thing been?” He looked sharply at each of the others.“By your hand, the people shall be fed?” Then, Dylan moved Michael's object to the center of the table. “And this! By your hand, the people shall
live
? What does that mean? And where has
this
one been?”

Dylan turned to his girlfriend. “Ab, think about it,” he said.“You feel that the condition of these objects indicates personal handling. Okay, I agree. Now . . . I want to know
who handled them
.”

TEN

DENVER, COLORADO—NOVEMBER

MARK HAD RESCUED DORRY FROM A ROUGH morning at the
Post
in time to join Dylan and Abby for lunch at a diner downtown. It was their fifth time together since their first meeting as a foursome. They were discovering quickly how much they enjoyed each other's company and to a person were increasingly interested in the broadening mystery of the relics.

Mark's experience as a detective had made him the acknowledged leader of their quest, and at his direction, they had each agreed to shoulder separate tasks—exploring different angles—for information. Mark sent requests to the data banks of the FBI, Scotland Yard, and Interpol hoping a “stolen items report” might include a description of one of the objects. Unlike news releases, which report broadly, he explained, arrest reports required itemized listings. Still, he was not optimistic.

Dorry worked a reporter's angle with friends in the research department at the
Post
. Focusing on archaeological finds, she narrowed the search to “leaded bronze pieces weighing less than 200 grams” and waded through mountains of articles—most of them pre-Internet from AP or UPI.

As they ordered and ate sandwiches, the four friends tried to lay out their facts and questions in as orderly a fashion as possible. As Abby listed her findings, mentioning again that the two relics were hollow, Dylan stopped her. “Hey, here's a question,” he said. “Are both hollow in the same way?”

Noting Abby's furrowed brow, he explained,“I mean . . . were they cast in hollow form? Or were they left hollowed by pressure—like when you bend a car antenna until it breaks. If you do that to an antenna in two places, you are left with a piece that is closed at the ends and hollow in the middle.”

“I see where you are going with this,” Abby said as she narrowed her eyes to concentrate. “If I ran a scope on the objects and concluded pressure closure . . .” She paused.

“What?” Dorry asked.

“Pressure closure would prove the objects are in secondary— broken—form.”

“And that would mean . . . ?” Dorry prodded.

“It would mean that we have a new question,” Abby said.“And that would be:What did these objects look like in their primary form?” She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. “I made the assumption that the relics were relatively unchanged because of the lack of erosion on their surface. But that doesn't preclude the possibility of a catastrophic event. And in archaeological terms, that can be anything from a meteor strike to a hammer blow. It's the opposite of erosion, which happens over time.”

Abby was quiet for a bit, thinking, then breathed deeply. “This gives me a direction, at least,” she said and turned to Dylan.“Tell Mark and Dorry about Perasi.”

“Well,” Dylan began, “at the museum, we have this one guy, Perasi—that's his first name; he's Indian—he is a computer god! Short, stubby kid. He never goes home . . . I swear he sleeps there. He's with Library and Archives. Anyway,” Dylan said with a sly expression, “I bring him pizza every now and then, so he's my buddy, you know? Well, two or three months ago, he got his new computer platform up and rocking . . . cutting-edge software. I'm telling you, this is a state-of-the-art, monster system. We're only one of four museums in the U.S. that even has one of these. Perasi says there are governments of countries that don't have systems this powerful! I'm telling you, he can do anything. This kid could create a program to determine how many inches of string are used in the basketball nets owned by the Boy's Clubs of America east of the Mississippi River! “So for me . . . us . . . Perasi has created a massive search engine designed specifically to search photographs, paintings, statuary, videotape, microfiche . . . that kind of thing. He fed 3-D representations of the two objects into the program and the computer will sweep for items of the same likeness that appear in any visual medium.”

Dorry was amazed. “Is that possible?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” he said excitedly.“I was only asking him to go through
our
museum archives and he said, ‘How about the world?' And the kid was not joking! Just to show me what could be done, while I was standing there, he ran a program that searched for ‘United States presidents shooting a bow and arrow.'He designated ‘color photos only' to narrow the field and in seventeen minutes showed me one of Eisenhower and one of Nixon!”

“So exactly what will he search,” Mark asked,“and when does he start?”

“Perasi is programming as we speak. He says he'll be ready to fire it up tonight. We aren't on a deadline, so I told him to sweep everything he can. He is programming for photographs—published and nonpublished—which means the computer will also search museum collections and news archives around the world. He's scanning paintings, carvings, and statuary
and
cross-referencing all of it . . . in case there's a painting of a statue or a photograph of a carving.”

“Great job, guys,” Mark said as they noticed the time and stood up from the table. “Let's keep plugging away.”

LEAVING THE DINER, EVERYONE HAD AGREED TO meet again at four o'clock Saturday afternoon. It had been Tuesday, and five days, they felt, would have allowed time to work on their respective projects and, hopefully, have some progress to report. However, Thursday evening the telephone at the Chandlers' house rang. Dylan was on the other end of the line, muttering,“Come on! Come on!”

“Hello,” Dorry answered. It was eight-thirty. She had just put Michael to bed and was about to take a bath.

“Dorry! Is Mark there? Can you get him on the other phone? I need to talk to both of you.”

Less than twenty seconds later, Mark picked up. “Hey, Dylan. What's going on?”

“Are you both there?”

“Yeah, we're here,” the Chandlers responded.

“We have to meet in the morning,” Dylan said in a rush. “Before work. Unless we could do it tonight. But you have Michael. I can't find Abby anyway. We have to get together in the morning. If we—”

“Dylan! Hey, whoa! Stop!” Mark said. “Take a breath. What in the heck is going on?”

“I'm not kidding,” Dylan said.“I'm at the museum with Perasi. He called me and said to come down. Abby's at a movie with her lab assistant, and I guess her cell phone's off. I'm here and we have a hit on this program. I made a call and, man! This changes everything. Oh, man! Can we meet in the morning?”

Mark was on a cordless phone and had made his way to the bedroom where Dorry had originally answered Dylan's call. They listened to him babble excitedly as they watched each other. Mark furrowed his brow and made an expression on his face to his wife that asked,
What's up with this?
Dorry shrugged an
I have no idea
as Mark spoke again. “Dylan. Slow down, brother. Tell me what you have.”

“No,” Dylan answered.“Not yet. I have one more call to make; let me get to Ab—then we might
really
have something to talk about.”

“Dylan!” Dorry said.“You have to—”

“Just trust me on this. Where can we meet in the morning and how early?”

“Well—,” Mark started.

“How about the coffee shop right across from the museum?” Dylan pushed.“I'm gonna spend the night here.” “Seriously?” Dorry asked, raising her eyebrows at Mark, who still stood in the bedroom with the cordless phone.

“Yeah, absolutely. I have to get to Abby, but other than that, I'm watching this computer all night. Can we say six o'clock?”

“Whew!” Mark tossed a questioning glance at Dorry, who quickly calculated the timing of taking care of her child, then nodded.“Yeah,” he answered, “six will be fine.” “Okay, don't be late. See you there,” Dylan said and hung up before the Chandlers could say good-bye.

The next morning, Abby and Dylan were waiting outside the tiny restaurant when Mark and Dorry walked up the sidewalk at five minutes until six. Due to the early hour, the Chandlers had been able to park on the street just down from the coffee shop. As they greeted the younger couple, Dylan opened the door and said,“Hi, guys. Come on!”

Abby hugged Dorry and said secretively, “Oh, gosh! I'd blurt everything out right now, but he'd kill me. We spent the night here . . . in the museum, I mean. I am sooo excited!” “
You
spent the night here too?” Dorry said as they took their jackets off and sat down at the farthest table from the door. Thanks to Dylan, there were already cups and an insulated pot of coffee on the table, which Dorry began pouring immediately.

“Yes,”Abby said, now speaking to all of them.“I went to a movie last night with some friends, and when I got home, Dylan was in the parking lot of my apartment complex. I had forgotten to turn my phone back on when I left the theater. Once he showed me what you're about to see . . .well, I went back to the museum and stayed. Perasi is still there.”

“
What
then?” Mark said.“Don't keep us in suspense any longer. What?”

Dylan laid a manila envelope on the table, opened it, and reached inside. “Breathe deeply, children,” he said mysteriously and pulled a sheet of paper from the envelope.“What you are about to see will amaze and astound you.”

“Didn't I see you doing your magic act on a cruise ship?” Mark asked with feigned sincerity.

“Hush,” Dorry commanded.“Go, Dylan.”

Before he set the paper on the table,however, Dylan placed his hand over a part of it. When the page was displayed before them, Mark and Dorry saw that it was a computer printout, in color, of a painting. The painting, set in a gold gilded frame, was that of a warrior. Dylan's hand covered a portion of the warrior's image. “This painting belongs to a museum in Venice, Italy, and is part of a collection that once belonged to Charles VII of France.” He looked down at the paper under his hand and whispered,“Do you know who this is?”

Dorry stared intently. The figure in the painting wore white armor and stood in front of an army. Dylan's palm hid the warrior's face and arms. As he slowly slid his hand to the top of the painting, the face of the armored figure was revealed first. Dorry saw that it was the face of a young girl and said cautiously,“Joan of Arc?”

With those words, Dylan removed his hand from the rest of the painting. Dorry's fingers flew to her mouth as she gasped.“I don't believe it,” she said.“Mark, do you see?”He nodded.

Both arms of the figure were held above her head. In her left hand, she held a sword. But in her right, the Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc, the seventeen-year-old girl who led her king's army to victory, held one of the relics. It was clasped tightly in her palm, but the image was unmistakable.

“The museum's director told me that the painting's subject is, supposedly, the Battle for Orleans in 1429,” Dylan said. “I looked it up. She won.”

“I don't even know what to say,” Mark exclaimed.

“Don't say anything yet,”Abby said.“Just wait.”

“There's more?” Dorry said, looking quickly at Abby, then Dylan, and back to the painting of Joan.

“Yes, there is,” Dylan said as he reached into the envelope again. “Check this out.” He pushed a printed photograph across to Mark. Dorry shifted to get a good angle in order to view the picture. It was of four men. One was seated behind a desk, the others posing behind him. Plainly visible in the photograph, closer to the camera, in fact, than the men,was the object of the computer's search. It was sitting on top of the desk.

“Who . . . ?” Mark murmured as he carefully touched the relic in the picture with his finger.

“Oskar Schindler,” Abby said. “
Schindler's List
? Did you ever see the Spielberg movie?”Dorry nodded blankly.“That's the real guy. He's the one sitting at the desk.”To Dylan, she said,“Show them the rest.”

Dylan removed a stack of prints from the envelope and began laying them one by one in front of Mark and Dorry. Schindler signing papers. Schindler with a uniformed Nazi. Schindler laughing. Eating. With a woman on his lap. Eight photographs in all. Every picture had the desk in it, and the object was featured prominently on the desk in every shot. Dylan lay one more down, a ninth picture. It was a candid photo of Oskar Schindler—with the relic in his hand.

Mark and Dorry were dumbfounded. They couldn't take their eyes off the evidence in front of them—evidence that the objects truly
were
valued for some reason and passed from person to person throughout the years.

“Incidentally,” Dylan said as he sat with his arms crossed, waiting patiently for the Chandlers to come up for air, “a Web search registers 491,000 hits on Joan of Arc, and Perasi's computer scanned 58,641 images of her in order to uncover the painting in Italy. Schindler was easier—27,900 hits and these nine shots showed up among 2,556 searched images.”