October 6, 1987

I suppose I can live with being thoroughly out-thought as long as everything turns out all right. Better than the other way around.
    We were all up bright and early, ready for anything (we hoped). Dawn fussed over Phoenix Talon, who has a bruise on his arm from the inoculations but doesn't seem to have contracted any horrible diseases, at least not so far. Privateer seemed somewhat in awe at breakfast.
    "Who cooks all of this?"
    "Dawn. Isn't she great?" Talon grinned.
    "Milk, sugar?" she asked the visitor.
    "Just black, please. Thank you."
    "Eggs, bacon, waffles?"
    "Uh... sure, thank you, eggs sound great."
    "Scrambled, over-easy, poached, Benedict, blasted...?"
    "Benedict."
    "Here you go."
    "Thank you." He looked puzzled.
    There was, naturally, a huge screaming headline in all the papers about the "Sphinx Crime Spree! 30s Master Criminal Returns!"
    "We'll be hearing from Holly soon." Once we had all assembled, Scott played the tape he'd found at the Semitic Museum.
    "Charatismata, Revolution. Grave tidings, for my voyage terminates at the following," he warned. What followed was another riddle:
    Bound to be digested by worms,
    preserved but still rotting to dust,
    leaves rustle in our king-guarded land.
    "That would seem to imply mummies," Phoenix Talon suggested.
    Sipping coffee, Privateer asked, "So do you still really think that it's not your friend?"
    Scott remained equivocal. "It could be. Admittedly, this is possibly somewhat wishful thinking, but... it's not quite right."
    "Wouldn't Felix have had something incredibly clever to say to you when you showed up at the museum?" I wondered.
    "Well, first of all, if it was actually him I'd hope that he'd at least file a letter of resignation. It's going to be dreadful the next time I have to talk to Holly. Wait a minute, it's dreadful every time I have to talk to Holly." It's a measure of the woman's unpleasantness that not even Scott can stand her. The phone rang. "Dawn, would you like to get that, please?"
    "Sure. Hello, Revolution? Oh, hi Reilly, how are you? What? You're sure? Yes, someone'll be right there. Okay."
    "What is it hon?" Talon asked her.
    "They have Felix in jail," she told us with a confused look. "They arrested him at the airport last night."
    "Of course they did," I sighed.
    "I'll head over," Scott announced.
    "Actually, that pretty much confirms that it wasn't him," Phoenix Talon said. "They never would have been able to take him."
    "Considering the man beat off what, twenty, thirty guys from that mob that broke into the office, before the human wave took him down, airport security really wouldn't have stopped him," the robot agreed.
    "Which means we need to figure out what this other riddle is," I sighed.
    "Actually, if another robbery takes place while he's in jail...." Talon looked thoughtful. Others pointed out that we would still have a robber on the loose. Scott left to bail out his employee, with Privateer tagging along. Phoenix Talon and I had to go keep an eye on the Greek family that seemed strangely central to all of this, and we all kept thinking about the riddle.
    We were looking over the map of the Freedom Trail with the Greeks' regular security contingent when Talon noticed that on the trail is the King's Church Cemetery, the oldest burial ground in Boston. That seemed to fit the riddle; I flew on ahead and checked the place out while he called the others to alert them, but everything seemed normal. The cemetery is right downtown, and a busy place in all but the most inclement weather. Tourists like that sort of thing.

[Aside: Scott and Privateer]

    Scott and Thunderbolt had joined us as soon as they were done with their own errands. The security detail knew we were around, but we tried not to call attention to ourselves. We had all checked the cemetery area with our varied skills and come up with nothing suspicious.
    Phoenix Talon was doing his ninja thing in the crowd, following the family as they walked along, viewing the historical landmarks on the way, while Thunderbolt did his impression of a Secret Service agent and Scott lay low. I stuck fairly close on the ground, ready to erect a shield over the visiting Greeks if need be. Spotted Privateer flying in on his odd little contraption; apparently he'd determined for certain that Felix couldn't have done anything in Boston last night. We were all primed and ready for anything up to full-on attack by the League of Nations.
    Which, as usual, meant that things were happening somewhere else. I actually expected it this time.
    A distant explosion caught our attention, a sound like stone grinding on stone, from the other side of the Common.
    "Needle, I'll watch them, you check it out," Talon suggested.
    "Okay." I flew off in that direction, left the phone link open and kept up a running description for Talon in case I ended up getting shot or something. The sound had come from the Boston Public Library; there was a wisp of smoke coming out one of the upper windows. The front of the building was covered in scaffolding from the restoration work they're doing on the facade; I edged through it and looked inside.

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