by Nick Thacker
She frowned. That means I’m close, but not quite right. Does he want me to guess? And what are the ramifications of ‘getting it wrong?’
“So it’s not the Ancient and Primitive Rite, I presume? The Memphis-Misraim cult of Freemasonry? And where the hell are you taking me?” she asked for the third time.
The car sped onto the highway, and she noticed then where they were — about three blocks from the university was a regional airport that provided access to a handful of larger international airports. The man guided the car off the highway and onto the access road, toward the airport.
“Got a private jet fueled up?” she asked. She wanted to keep him talking, to keep Archie — if he was still there — in the fight. “You and your Mason friends have some secret bunker somewhere?”
“We are no more Freemason than we are American, Ms. Reyes. Yes, we live in America, and yes, we have borrowed many of the traditions and conventions of the Freemasons, but that is where the similarities stop.”
His voice was deep, slow and articulate, and over the course of the sentences he allowed it to lilt into a cadence, a slight accent that she tried to place. Italian? Spanish? She also realized that this man was not the same man who had called to threaten her. But were they working together? Both part of the same Mason-esque faction?
“Our operations have taken us all over the world, but we have one, singular mission: to bring about the change that this world desperately needs. To be the catalyst for a new America. A new world.”
“Yeah,” Victoria said. “That whole New World Order thing was tried before. Remember how that ended?”
“We are not a New World Order.”
“Good to know,” she said. “But this, uh, kidnapping and subterfuge thing really doesn’t play well with your stated goal.”
“Actually, it does. This is not a ‘kidnapping’ but more of a ‘protection.’”
“Protection from what?”
“Protection from our enemies. From the group that really wants to bring you down. From the group that you have sworn to reveal.”
“Sworn to — what are you talking about?”
“You are a phenomenal researcher, Ms. Reyes, with a brilliant mind that can overcome nearly any problem you can throw it. Your assumptions and inferences, while impressive, have only gotten close enough to the truth to anger those hoping to suppress it.”
Victoria shook her head. “But I don’t know what you’re talking about. What research?”
“Your paper, The Spanish in South America: Conquest… or Inquest?”
She was about to protest, argue against the man’s cryptic communication style, when she felt a jolt of recognition. No… That was related? She remembered the paper, remembered nearly every word of the article that had been published in a quarterly journal. She hadn’t heard anyone praise or argue her points, and since the topic was a relatively obscure subject with an equally obscure point of view, she hadn’t been surprised.
The premise was simple: She postulated that the Spanish had come to South America for a much more nuanced reason. Something besides simple conquest and a hunt for gold and treasure. She’d written that the Spanish crown, interested in furthering their religious beliefs, had sent soldiers and missionaries to the New World to uncover the truth of a specific group of people. Based on her research of the history of a group of people in South America called the Chachapoyas, she believed the people had migrated to the region from somewhere in Europe hundreds or even thousands of years prior.
The Spanish, she thought, were interested in these people for reasons unknown to her or the pre-modern world. The Chachapoyas were brutally efficient fighters and warriors, staving off previous conquerors like the Inca numerous times, and opting to live a relatively quiet and peaceful life hidden somewhere in a valley that shared their name.
It was all fantastical from a historian’s perspective: she’d had little to go off, and therefore her paper was filled with more questions than answers. She posed an interesting thesis, but she had known that she’d had little hard evidence to provide an academic reasoning behind it, so she’d written it as more of an interest piece than a peer-reviewed theory.
“The… Chachapoyas,” she said. “The light-skinned tribe, thought to be of a European descent.”
The man nodded, and she continued. “And the Spanish — they were trying to find them. I was right?”
Again, a nod.
“So that means the Spanish — the crown and the church — wanted something from them? Why send half their armies and navy to an unknown spot halfway around the world? Even if there was gold, it would take an incredible amount of investment and dedication just to set foot on the coast, much less conquer the nation.”
“Why, indeed? Again, a perfect question that begs an answer.”
“An answer I’m assuming you won’t give me?”
“An answer,” the man said, “that you already have.”
35
Reggie
The screams awoke him.
Bloodcurdling, nasty things. Louder than he would have thought, especially since The Hawk had been correct. The basement space Reggie was in was not entirely soundproof, but it was close. The chamber felt like being deep inside a cave, which wasn’t too far from the truth, considering the floor, walls, and ceiling had been carved from rock.
But he could still hear the screams, and they haunted him even as he was fully awake.
Sarah.
He knew the voice, the soft-yet-fiery timbre of the woman he’d fallen in love with, even though that voice was now masked behind a wall of misery.
Her screams rose in volume until Reggie thought she’d lose her voice, then died down to a mere whimper.
He was pacing, just like Garza said he would.
He was frantic, his mind working overtime. He had to get out.
Where are Julie and Ben?
He wondered if they’d somehow figured out where Garza had taken them and were perhaps on their way here.
But no. That wouldn’t be the mission. He knew Ben well enough to know that they’d go after the Book of Bones. The reason Garza had taken them — without the book, there was little hope they’d get their friends back.
But where was the Book of Bones? Perhaps it was close to where he was now? Perhaps it was in the next room over, waiting for them to find it and deliver it to Garza.
Waiting to end all of this. To free Sarah.
Wishful thinking.
Gareth Red knew Vicente Garza better than most people. He’d trained with him in the military, as The Hawk had tried to recruit Red — a young, talented hotshot Army sniper — for his private paramilitary force, Ravenshadow.
He knew that Garza was motivated by one thing: greed. The lust for power had completely consumed the man, and his reach for funding and resources had created a monstrous force of young men willing to do anything for their boss.
And they had done anything. Murder, rape, torture — Reggie had heard stories of all of it. Garza’s men weren’t just well-trained and intelligent, they were ruthless.
Reggie had been one of the most talented of them all; what he’d lacked in experience he’d made up for with raw talent. But he’d had one glaring flaw that had gotten him washed out of Ravenshadow’s ranks very quickly.
He wouldn’t do just anything.
He wouldn’t follow anyone blindly.
He’d made that mistake before, and he’d made it unknowingly since, but if Gareth Red was anything it was a decent human being. He fought for what was right — and he shut down and turned away when he felt the fight was anything but just.
He hated Garza, Ravenshadow, and all they stood for. Their corporate clients never asked about The Hawk’s methods, so they kept him in the black. He’d made a fortune selling contracts on international hits, moving against corrupt governments, even usurping the power from a banana republic that held too tightly to the reigns of a cash crop that a rival manufacturing company wanted control over.
/> But after the events in Philadelphia that had left his good friend and fellow soldier dead, and with his and Sarah’s capture, Reggie had made up his mind.
This was personal.
There was nothing that would stop him from destroying The Hawk and his crack team of mercenaries.
Another scream stopped him in his tracks. He heard Sarah’s voice, but he felt another pang of sadness that had nothing to do with her.
He remembered another moment of helplessness. Standing in a doctor’s office inside an abortion clinic.
A girl, a scared girl, but a girl he’d loved. A girl carrying his girl inside her.
It had been her decision, the doctor had told them.
Her decision alone.
They weren’t married, and even then… Reggie had known all along that he couldn’t fight it.
But he’d tried.
And failed.
Sarah screamed again, and Reggie fell to his knees.
He cried, large, warm tears he hadn’t felt on his face in a long time.
The baby had never had a name; she’d not wanted it. But after she’d left, gone out of his life like their child, Reggie had begun calling her Clair in his mind. Little Clair, he’d thought. The nightmares had jolted him awake every night for years afterward, and still sometimes haunted him.
Little Clair.
And now Sarah.
His head fell, the tears collecting on the floor in front of him.
It seemed he was two people now, two different personas wrapped into one.
One of those personas wanted to cry, to sit here and weep for the moments he’d never had. To live in the past, as he’d tried to train himself not to do.
But the other persona won. He stood up, his fists clenched tight enough to crush a human skull, and he walked forward.
Toward the stairs.
The other persona only had one thing on its mind, and he allowed it to fill his thoughts, to fill his conscious brain and push out the rest of the emotions.
He stood at the bottom of the stairs, waited for Sarah’s screaming to die down.
The other persona wanted something, and it was becoming his sole focus.
“Garza!” he shouted. “I’m ready to talk!”
The other persona wanted to kill.
36
Ben
“Ben!”
Ben tried opening his eyes, but the surrounding pressure forced them to remain closed. He tried again.
Warmth.
It was warm here, satisfying.
He tried his eyes again, nothing. Fine. They stay closed.
He felt a tickle on his face, something brushing against it. It was wet. But warm.
“Ben!”
He cracked an eye open. Something came inside his head — no, just his eye. What the hell?
He saw streaks of light, azure shapes dancing across his one-eyed vision. What’s wrong with the other eye? he thought.
He felt another brushing, another poke, this time harder. Then a grip. It pulled him — yanked him.
He opened his mouth to scream, finding that his mouth still worked, but then he was immediately choking. Coughing.
Panic set in, and finally his eyes adjusted.
The world around him was blue. Dark and getting darker.
Where am I?
It all came rushing back then. The plane, the pilot’s last message, the rocking back and forth and the…
The crash.
We crashed into the Mediterranean Sea.
Only then did he notice Julie. Her face, nothing but a silhouette, but he knew her shape. Her hair floated around her head, an angel.
He reached for her, then found out he was too far away.
“Ben, you need —”
He didn’t hear the rest. He realized he was slipping away, falling. Falling.
He was sinking.
He felt around for his seatbelt. He’d forgotten about it, but it was holding him in, the thing that had likely saved his life now taking it away just as easily.
Where the hell is the release button?
He found it, tried clicking it open. It wouldn’t budge, but he tried again. And again. Finally, he felt the click, the sound of it dulled by the immense pressure of the water all around him.
As soon as he’d clicked the lap belt, he felt himself rising, his own buoyancy pushing against the gravity of the ocean. His right arm aimed upward toward the open, broken window, while his left dangled uselessly at his side. He could feel the pain there, the dull, slow throbbing, but the cold water helped. The warmth he’d felt was completely gone now, replaced by a blanket of sheer terror that felt like cold needles hitting him from every side.
His arm floated up through the window as the plane floated downward, and then his hand found Julie’s.
He grabbed it and held on, allowing her to pull him up.
His body reeled, but his hand stayed fastened around Julie’s. He realized she was floating on something, but he couldn’t tell what. Her silhouette stayed motionless even as he fought, kicking against the pull of the small window around his waist. Thankfully, it was just large enough for his torso to fit through, and by pulling his legs together it slipped past him and sailed down into the murky depths.
His head blasted from the water, his mouth barely waiting to breach the surface before sucking in a huge gasp of air.
“Ben, are you okay?” Julie asked. Her voice was frantic. “I — I tried, but I couldn’t get there. The belt. I thought — I thought…”
He tried to speak, but he had to breathe. Another breath, then another, then finally he fell face-first on the thing Julie was floating on. A wing, broken off the plane.
“Ben…”
“It’s okay,” he said, gasping. “You — you’re okay.”
She laughed, a bit of frantic deliriousness in her voice. “Yeah — yeah, I’m okay. But you were —”
“I made it,” he said. “But I’m never flying again.”
She dipped her head, looking down at the water around her. Ben did as well. There was detritus everywhere. Objects he couldn’t identify, some he could. A seat cushion — perhaps the floatation device he’d heard flight attendants talking about? A can of something, apparently full of enough air that it floated. A bag, some sort of pack.
“Our stuff,” he whispered.
She nodded. “It’s gone, Ben. All of it. Our phones, my computer. And the pilot…”
She didn’t finish, but Ben looked down. The water was clear to about fifteen feet, then it disappeared into inky blackness. The plane — and the pilot, apparently — were long gone.
“It’s okay,” he said. “We’re going to be okay.”
“Ben, we can’t keep —”
“Julie, we’ll be fine. We just need to get to Rome. Okay?” he sniffed. He couldn’t tell the temperature of the water, but it didn’t matter. He hadn’t died in a fiery plane crash. “We’re close to something, see?”
He pointed to the building he’d seen off in the distance. It sat on a hill, raised from the land around it but nestled in amongst many other buildings. Small, as if they were part of a tiny town. The land extended around to the edges of his vision.
Good, he thought. That means we’re close to whatever it is.
The land was less than a mile away. Swimmable, but they’d be tired. If the town was on a beach, there was a chance the depth of the Mediterranean here worked its way up to a long, shallow sandbar that reached the shore. They might be able to walk part of it.
“Is it Rome?” Julie asked.
“I don’t think so,” Ben said. “Not sure, but I’d guess the coast of Italy is a lot more densely packed and urban than this. I also hadn’t seen any land for quite a while during the flight, so I’d guess this is one of the large islands in the north Mediterranean, between Spain and Italy.”
“Corsica, probably,” Julie said. “That’s really the only one that’s on the way.”
They were on opposite sides of the wing, and it di
dn’t appear to be sinking, so Ben took a deep breath and tried to get more comfortable. He reached his hand out and placed it on Julie’s, whose arms were stretched across one of the plane’s flaps.
“Good,” Ben said. “Someone will be here soon, then. We should just —”
“Ben,” Julie said, her voice nearly a whisper. “I saw the pilot, before he… died.”
“What do you mean?” Ben asked. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m talking about the pilot’s… reaction. He didn’t seem to care.”
“About… dying?”
“Yes.”
“What are you saying?”
She paused, then looked around them as if searching for something. Ben did the same, and aside from the shoreline, he couldn’t see anything. No planes, no boats, not even a bird in the sky.
“I’m saying he didn’t care about going down with the plane. He was alive, Ben. I saw it. I was thrown out the side of the plane — it got a huge hole in it when we hit the water. But I swam back to find you, and I saw the pilot, through the cockpit window. He was… looking at me.”
“Looking at you?”
“Like he knew what was happening, and he was okay with it. I can’t — I can’t say for sure, Ben, but I think he did it on purpose.”
Ben scoffed. “What? He crashed the plane on purpose?”
She shrugged, then wiped her eyes of the sea spray. “Ben, I saw the plane. Both engines. The tail, all of it.”
“Yeah?”
“It was fine, Ben. Totally fine.”
“Could have been an instrument malfunction, an issue with communications, you know Reggie says that —”
“Ben,” Julie held up a hand. “There was nothing wrong with the communications or instruments. And if there had been, it’s a perfectly clear day outside, and we weren’t exactly flying high above the clouds. He had near-perfect visibility. He probably wasn’t even using any computer navigation.”
“Julie, what are you trying to say?”
“The engines were fine, Ben. There was no visible damage to the plane, and I would have seen any other aircraft in the area. Doesn’t it seem strange to you that we came down right off the coast, but there just happened to be no other planes or choppers in the sky at the time?”
