Charlie Thorne And The Last Equation

Built in the 1950s, Hebrew University resides outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. Bendavid takes Dante and Milana into the University library, where the archives are located, leaving Rats and Charlie in the car to wait. Charlie objects, but Dante overrules her.

In the library, the director of the archives explains that Einstein routinely sent his books, papers, and artifacts to the archive during his lifetime. They found the Sherlock Holmes book requested, and Dante may inspect it in a viewing room. Dante had assumed he would be able to leave with the book and take it to Charlie. Instead, he realizes he will have to bring Charlie into the library and asks Bendavid to call Rats.

Receiving the call from Bendavid, Rats and Charlie walk toward the building. Charlie, scanning the crowds, notices something strange and stops. She watches a man sitting on a bench and recognizes Alexei from the photo in the CIA file. She points him out to Rats, but before he can do anything, alarms in the archives building go off.

Marko, the youngest member of the Furies, is inside the archives. He watches students around him with deep resentment, not only because he could never afford college but because he hates “everyone from this part of the world” (146). Marko finds an examination room where an archivist places the Sherlock Holmes book on a table for viewing. Marko forces his way into the room, strikes the archivist, steals the book, and runs out of the building. In the hallway, Dante hears the alarms and suspects the Furies have arrived. He, Milana, and Bendavid run to the examination room, where they find the archivist injured and the book gone.

Outside the library, people freeze when the alarms sound, except for Alexei, who immediately runs. Rats chases him, and Charlie stays in the parking lot. Then, she sees Marko running out of the building. She recognizes him from the CIA file and realizes he stole the Sherlock Holmes book.

Charlie steals a skateboard from a college student, chases after Marko, and tackles him. They struggle, and Charlie quickly realizes that despite her self-defense classes, she is no match for a grown man trained to fight. He overpowers her easily, leaving her injured and dizzy, but she uses the skateboard to trip him, and he runs headfirst into a lamppost, knocking himself out. Before she can grab the dropped book, however, someone begins shooting at her.

Charlie dives beneath cars to hide from the gunfire. She is terrified, but she knows panicking will not help. Suddenly, someone walks out to the parking lot, oblivious to the recent fighting and gunfire. Charlie watches from beneath the cars as the person climbs into a car and starts to drive. Laying on the skateboard, Charlie uses the car to shield her and pull her to safety, snatching the book from the ground as she goes. Out of the sniper’s sight, she examines the Sherlock Holmes book and finds a hidden paper beneath the cover. Before she can read it, Dante and the other agents arrive.

Dante tells Charlie that the sniper killed Marko before leaving so that he could not talk, which horrifies her. Rats returns, having lost Alexei in the crowd. They look at the paper hidden in the book cover. It is a single sheet covered in a long, complex equation filled with numbers and variables. Bendavid announces that they have found Pandora, but Charlie disagrees, saying it is another clue.

Outside the campus, the remaining Furies converge. One wishes to go back in and kill the CIA agents, but Alexei forbids it, fearing it would bring in the Mossad. Instead, he has another plan.

While Bendavid stays behind to deal with the police, Rats drives the others through Jerusalem, not headed for the airport as Charlie would expect, but deeper into the city. In the car, Charlie explains the equation is too complex to be Pandora. Rats suggests that Charlie simply does not understand it, but Charlie explains:

The laws of the universe, for the most part, are simple: Newton’s laws of thermodynamics, Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, the theory of relativity—you name it. Whenever Einstein—or any physicist—devised an equation they felt was too complex, they were generally sure they didn’t have it right (168-69).

Furthermore, the variables do not make sense, and there is no hint as to what they are meant to stand for. Dante tells Charlie to solve the clue immediately, and when she fears she is incapable of solving it, Dante threatens to turn her over to the FBI if she fails.

They drive into the Old City of Jerusalem, which is comprised of “well-traveled tourist routes, meandering alleys, and secret passages known only to locals” and has been rebuilt so many times that the street level now rises 50 feet “atop the detritus of a hundred civilizations” (174).

As they drive, Charlie is distracted by her anger with Dante, who had not even tried asking her nicely before resorting to threats and blackmail. She is hurt that he treats her like an enemy instead of family. Returning to Einstein’s clue, Charlie talks through her thought process, encouraged by Milana. She realizes that Milana could be “playing good cop to Dante’s bad cop” but appreciates the kindness anyway (177).

The clue is a cipher, with numbers corresponding to letters. However, she cannot decode the clue without knowing the key. Momentarily, Charlie focuses on the variables. She deduces that they are Roman numerals that combine to MCMXXXI, or the year 1931. Though that is new information, she does not yet know what it means.

The car arrives at a CIA safe house. Rats and Milana walk into the house as Dante and Charlie trail behind. Charlie distracts Dante by asking him about his crush on Milana and insisting Milana likes Dante as well. Then she hits him in the groin and runs, hoping to enact her plan to protect Pandora.

As Charlie runs, she stuffs the paper with Einstein’s clue into her mouth and begins to chew. Before she can get far, however, Dante tackles her, pulling the crumpled but still readable paper from her mouth.

Furious, Dante drags her back toward the house, accusing her of risking millions of lives, but Charlie insists she is trying to save lives. She was trying to destroy Pandora, not keep it for herself. She says: “If the point of this mission is simply to keep Pandora from ending up in the hands of our enemies, then solving the clue isn’t necessary. All we really need to do is get rid of it” (189).

Though Dante insists the CIA’s motives are honorable, Charlie knows that the first thing the US government does with any major discovery is weaponize it. Charlie refuses to help him find Pandora anymore, and he accuses her of being selfish and wasting her gifts, doing nothing with her brilliance except stealing when she could be curing cancer, building rockets, or revolutionizing science.

Then they step through the door into the safe house, and men immediately grab them. The Furies have infiltrated the safe house. Alexei stands in the middle of the room, smiling.

Alexei demands that Dante hand over Pandora. Dante refuses, and the Furies beat him as Charlie watches, one Fury holding a gun to her head. When Dante still refuses, another Fury places the barrel of his gun inside Milana’s mouth. At that, Dante relents and tells them it is in his pocket. Meanwhile, Charlie looks around the room for anything that might help them. The room is filled with CIA equipment, including several computers. She also looks for Rats but realizes the Furies likely killed him.

As the Furies search Dante’s pockets and find the crumpled paper with Einstein’s clue, Charlie notes the angles of a window and a computer monitor and starts making plans. She needs to keep Alexei talking for three minutes and 42 seconds before she can make her move.