“I can hardly breathe,” said Remi. “I’m afraid to turn the page.”

Sam reached down and carefully turned the page. What appeared was the opening page of the Mayan codex they had found on the Mexican volcano. They turned page after page, slowly, gently. Each time the vellum turned, there was a familiar display. The four-page map was there in all its complexity. The illustrated story of the creation of the universe was there. The story of the war between the cities was there. Each small glyph was drawn with a fine-cut quill pen, its intricacies reproduced exactly.

Sam stood up. “Excuse me.” He went to the men’s room, made sure it was empty, took out his satellite phone, and called Selma in San Diego. “Selma?”

“Yes?”

“We’ve found it. Turn everything on, and prepare to receive live video starting in fifteen seconds. We won’t be able to speak to you until it’s over.”

“Got it. Making the connection to all four cameras now.”

“Got to go.”

Sam returned from the men’s room and whispered to Remi, “Your eyes must be getting strained. Don’t be vain. Put on your glasses.”

Remi and Sam put on the two cameras disguised as glasses and went back to the first page. As they turned pages, Sam and Remi were sending digital video with the camera glasses. They could see that the copy Las Casas had made was done with extreme care. He had not made an attempt to reproduce the colors of the original, but everything else was the same. The pages had been scored with a straightedge to divide the space into columns, usually six but sometimes eight, as the original had been. The pages had not been given Arabic folio numbers, but Sam and Remi could tell from memory that at least the beginning thirty pages seemed to be in order. Selma’s voice came through the tiny earphones embedded in the stems of their eyeglasses. “I’m receiving everything clearly. Keep going.”

Sam and Remi kept turning pages and filming until they reached the one hundred thirty-sixth and final page. Then they started over again at the end of the section and took still photographs of each spread of open pages, using the cameras in their wristwatches.

When they had finished, Sam folded his glasses and put them into his jacket pocket. “I’m getting tired. Let’s go back to our hotel.”

They returned the volume to the librarian for reshelving and then retrieved Remi’s purse and the briefcase Sam had brought. They thanked the librarian and left the building.

As they went down the steps in the late afternoon and turned to walk along the street toward their hotel, Sam reminded Remi, “No matter what happens in the next few minutes, don’t be startled, and hold on to your glasses and wristwatch.”