“I did watch them. I noticed they spoke English to each other, and one of them spoke Spanish to everybody else—rapid, fluent Spanish that didn’t leave anybody looking confused. I thought about who would spend several days watching us like that without doing anything. The only answer is that Sarah Allersby must have sent them.”

“Why would she do that? She has the codex. She doesn’t need a copy.”

“To find out what we’re doing and what we’ve accomplished.”

“And?”

“And now she knows. Once her men followed us to Valladolid, I’m sure she could figure out what else might be here. All I could do is make sure we know them if we see them again in the next few days.”

They walked quickly to their hotel, downloaded the photographs from the digital cameras to Remi’s laptop computer, and then sent two versions to Selma’s computer in San Diego as a backup. While Remi waited for the transfers to be completed, she made a reservation to fly to San Diego on the red-eye leaving in four hours.

As she and Sam finished packing, Remi’s phone rang. She said, “Hi, Selma. Are the pictures all clear? Good. We’re coming home.” There was a pause. Then she said, “Because a couple of men stole Sam’s briefcase. When they open it, they’re going to want to kill us. If they don’t succeed, we’ll see you tomorrow night.”

Chapter 18

VALLADOLID, SPAIN

Russell was in the bathroom of the hotel suite in Valladolid, dabbing at his blue face with a cotton ball soaked in acetone. The thick nail-polish-remover smell stung his sinuses. Added to the smell of the isopropyl alcohol and the turpentine he had tried first, it made the small, enclosed space unbearable. He looked in the mirror above the sink. “This isn’t working either. And it stinks.”

“Maybe if you rub a little harder,” said Ruiz. He could see through the blue dye on Russell’s face that his chin was getting blotchy and irritated, but Ruiz didn’t feel like going out again searching Valladolid for more chemicals and solvents.

Russell handed him the bottle and then used soap and water to wash the acetone off his face. “Get something else.”

Ruiz said, “This stuff almost always works. We used it to wash checks years ago. It would take off the ink in a couple minutes.”

“We’re not washing checks now,” said Russell. “This is my face. But you gave me an idea. Remember, there was a secret to washing checks. If the dye in the ink was polar, the best thing to get it off was a polar solvent, like alcohol and acetone. Well, we’ve tried those. So let’s try a nonpolar solvent like toluene.”

“Toluene?” said Ruiz. “What’s another name for it?”

“Methylbenzene.”

“Where do I go for that?”