The Sign

by Raymond Khoury

  It was Brother Ameen.

  The awkwardness of the moment was stifling. Finch’s eyes were drawn to the phone and back—there was something unusual about it, but his frazzled mind didn’t latch onto it immediately—and he looked the monk squarely in the eyes before he caught himself and relaxed his face into a casual, sheepish half smile.

  “I, um,” he said, wavering, then pointing up at the roof, “I forgot my phone up there.”

  Brother Ameen didn’t answer him. He didn’t return the casual half smile either. He just stood there, rooted in silence.

  Finch sensed the monk’s muscles going tight. His eyes drifted down to the phone, then he realized what he’d unconsciously noted. It wasn’t just a regular cell phone. They didn’t work out there. It was a satphone, with its distinctive, oversized flip-up antenna. Not only that, but it had a small box plugged into its base, which Finch knew to be an encryption module.

  Chapter 48

  Nahant, Massachusetts

  “More than anything, Dom lived for his work,” Jenna Reece was telling Matt and Jabba. “Even when the kids were around, he hardly ever managed to make it up here, and when he did, it didn’t make much difference anyway. His mind was always back in his lab.”

  They were in the living room-slash-studio of her house in Nahant, a small town that squatted on a tiny crescent-shaped peninsula fifteen miles north of Boston. A couple of miles offshore, it was linked to the mainland by a narrow umbilical cord of sand bank. Reece’s house, a fully modernized Dutch colonial, faced the ocean on the town’s western coast. It had once been Dominic and Jenna’s summer home, she’d told them, but following her husband’s death, she’d sold their place in the city and moved full-time out here, where she’d turned the double-height living room into a workshop and lost herself in her sculpture.

  “I imagine your brother was probably the same, wasn’t he?” she asked. “They all seemed consumed by their work.” She shrugged wistfully and leaned down to stroke her dog, a ginger-haired retriever that dozed lazily by her feet. A small Christmas tree twinkled in a corner, by the floor-to-ceiling sliding doors that led onto the deck. “And look what it got them in the end.”

  Matt held her gaze and nodded solemnly. “What do you know about the project they were working on when they died?”

  Jenna Reece let out a light chortle. “Not very much. Dom didn’t really go into much detail about his work with me. Not with his ditzy wife,” she laughed easily. “I haven’t really got much of a scientific mind anyway, so it wasn’t something I was normally curious about. It was his world. And, well, you must know how obsessive he and the rest of them were when it came to making sure no one knew what they were working on—not until they were good and ready to make their announcements and reap the glory. Which I always thought was a bit too paranoid . . . I mean, it’s not exactly the kind of thing I would slip into casual conversations at the coffee shop, is it?” she smiled.

  Matt shifted in his seat and leaned forward, steepling his hands under his chin, clearly discomfited by what he needed to ask her. “Mrs. Reece . . .”

  “It’s Jenna, Matt,” she softly corrected him.

  “Jenna,” he tried again, “I need to ask you something, but you might find it a bit weird, and . . .” His voice trailed off and he looked at her, hoping for encouragement.

  “Matt, you said you needed to talk and you drove all this way to see me, so I figure it has to be important.” She fixed him squarely. “Ask me what you need to ask.”

  “Okay,” he nodded gratefully. “I just wanted to know . . . Did you actually get to see your husband’s body?”

  Jenna Reece blinked a couple of times, and her eyes looked away before dropping down to her feet. She reached down and stroked her dog again, somewhat rattled by the memory. Outside, frothy December waves pounded the rocky outcroppings below the timber deck, their metronomic crashes punctuating the uneasy silence. “No,” she said after a moment. “I mean, not his whole body. But you know how they died, and . . . the conditions out there . . .”

  “I know,” he offered, trying to avoid conjuring up any additional painful imagery. “But you’re sure it was him?”

  Her eyes were aimed at Matt, but they were looking through him, far beyond, beyond the room’s walls and the town itself. “All they had for me was his hand,” she said. The words caught in her throat and she shut her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, they glistened with moisture. “It was his hand, though. His left hand. His wedding band was still on it. I didn’t have any doubts.”

  “You’re sure of it,” Matt probed again, despite his misgivings.

  Jenna Reece nodded. “He had these really lovely, fine hands. Like a pianist’s. I noticed them the first time we met. Of course, it had been . . .” She brushed a painful thought away and straightened up. “I still knew it was his.” She smiled through it at Matt. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, there wasn’t anything left of my brother, so I was just wondering if . . . I was just hoping maybe someone had made a mistake,” he obfuscated.

  “You think your brother might still be alive?”

  The way she cut to the heart of his thinking surprised him, and he couldn’t help but nod.

  She gave him a warming, supportive smile. “I wish I could tell you something that would help clear it up for you one way or another, but all I can tell you is what I know about my Dom.”

  Matt nodded, quietly grateful that he didn’t have to explain any further. He thought back to the main reason for their visit. “Do you know who Dom was working for?”

  “He didn’t share that with me,” she told him thoughtfully. “Not that he wasn’t very excited about it. He was. But like the rest of them, he was cagey about details. And I’d seen it all before—every discovery of his had the potential to change the way we live. That’s how they all thought, it was what they were all chasing after. And I guess some of these things can end up changing our lives, whether it’s cell phones or the Internet or electric cars.” She leaned forward, frowning with concentration, trying to see through the cobwebs of her mind. “But with this project . . . it was different. Like I said, Dom didn’t say much about his work at the best of times, but with this one, he was particularly aloof. And I could see that this was different. It was the big one. Much as he tried to hide it, he had this burning enthusiasm about it, this optimism . . . he felt it could really change things, on a more fundamental level. I pressed him on it a couple of times, and he’d just say, ‘You’ll see.’ And the day he got the green light on the funding—it was usually a big night out for us, a big celebration in some fancy restaurant. This one wasn’t like that. He was delighted, don’t get me wrong. But it was more than that. It was like the next phase of his life had begun. Like he was on a mission. And he was being more secretive than ever after that. I hardly ever saw him. Until . . .” She looked away, shaking the memory away.

  “You didn’t know anything about who was backing him? He must have said something about that,” Matt pressed.

  Jenna eyed him hesitantly, then said, “I’m not sure I should be telling you this.”

  “Please, Jenna,” Matt said, palms open. “I really need to know. My brother was part of it.”

  Jenna studied him, then heaved out a sigh and nodded. “Well . . . I always assumed the money was coming from one of the big tech VCs he knew or maybe the government. He only let it slip once, and that was by accident,” she confided.

  “What?” Matt asked, gently.

  “The money. It was coming from Rydell.”

  Matt looked at her, confused. Jabba took up the slack. “Larry Rydell?”

  “Yes,” she confirmed. “No one was supposed to know. I don’t know why, but that’s how they wanted it. Rydell has such a big public profile, and I guess he has his share price to worry about. Still, I was surprised—and more than a bit pissed off, to tell you the truth—when he didn’t even show up at Dom’s funeral. I mean, I can’t complain, they took good care of me, I didn
’t have any trouble with their insurance people or anything, but still . . .”

  Jabba looked at Matt pointedly. Matt knew the name—most people did—but didn’t quite grasp the significance it seemed to have for Jabba.

  “You’re sure of this,” Jabba pressed.

  “Yes,” Jenna Reece replied.

  Jabba looked at Matt with an expression that said they had all they needed to know.

  Chapter 49

  Deir Al-Suryan Monastery, Wadi Natrun, Egypt

  “So . . . you’ve got a satphone?” Finch found himself asking, rhetorically, as if he were in a trance.

  Brother Ameen didn’t respond in any way.

  “I didn’t think you had one out here,” Finch added, while trying to drain his tone of any hint of suspicion.

  The monk still didn’t say anything. He just kept looking blankly at Finch.

  “It’s funny,” Finch continued, “’cause I just thought the whole point of being here was to isolate yourself from the rest of the world, to allow you to, you know, concentrate on God and . . . and yet you’ve got a satphone,” he stated again, his attention traveling down to the phone in the monk’s hand and back to his eyes.

  Finch’s forced smile dropped. It rose, fractionally, across Brother Ameen’s face.

  “I do,” the monk finally said, almost regretfully. “And it’s got an encryption box.”

  He held Finch’s probing gaze. Finch tried to dismiss the comment with a no-big-deal grimace, but the monk wasn’t buying.

  “I know you recognized it when you saw it,” the monk added. “It was obvious from your expression. I expect you’ve seen them before, given your line of work, the kinds of places you’ve been.”

  “Yeah, but . . .” Finch waved it away, mock-casually. “I see more and more of them these days. It’s safer, isn’t it? What with all the scanners and . . .” His voice trailed off as his mind went off on its own, rocketing back over all the events that had led to his being here, in this small, stuffy room; enlightening him with a barrage of revelations that he’d never imagined—and it suddenly hit him that he was in serious danger, an odd, instinctive reaction he didn’t quite understand but one that still made him take a hesitant step backward.

  The monk mirrored him with a soft step forward.

  Finch frowned. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m sorry,” Brother Ameen said as he took another step toward him.

  Finch’s instincts flared red-hot—and he bolted backward and turned to head back to the stairs, but he’d barely made it past the door’s threshold before the monk was right with him, moving lightning fast, slamming him back against the wall while driving a hard knee straight into his groin. Finch pitched forward, exhaling heavily from the kick. His glasses flew off his face as he bent over, and he pivoted around and raised his hands defensively, hoping to stave off another blow. For a split second, he caught sight of the monk’s fist. Without the spectacles, it was a bit out of focus, but it looked like the monk had it bunched tight, with its middle knuckle extended, and it recoiled before lunging at his head, fast as a rattlesnake’s strike. Its steely tap struck him on the side of his neck, just below his ear, pounding his carotid sinus with the force of a hammer blow. He felt his entire body tense up from the hit, before losing all motor control of his muscles and plummeting to the ground.

  It was the oddest feeling—motionless, no control over his muscles, like a big lump of Jell-O dropped on the ground. Through groggy, hazy eyes, he saw the monk hover over him, look away and then back down, think for the briefest of moments, then bend down, grab him by the arm, lift him up, and sling him over his shoulder.

  “WHERE IS HE?” Gracie asked, scanning the monastery’s courtyard.

  She was standing with Dalton, ready to go. They’d been joined by the abbot and Father Jerome, and the other monks who’d be helping them carry their gear across.

  Dalton tilted his head up at the top of the keep, cupped his hands around his mouth like a bullhorn, and yelled, “Finch. We’re all set here. Time to move out, pal.”

  No answer.

  Gracie looked around, then asked Dalton, “You sure he went up there?”

  Dalton nodded. “It shouldn’t be that long. He’s just looking for his BlackBerry.”

  Gracie glanced around again, impatiently, then frowned at the keep. “I’m gonna see what’s keeping him,” she said, and stepped away.

  She’d almost reached the doorway when something inside her made her look up—the barely perceptible noise of a wind rush, a hardly noticeable darkening of the ground to her right—and she turned and looked up just in time to see Finch’s body hurtling to the ground and slamming into the hard sand a few feet away from her.

  Chapter 50

  Outskirts of Boston, Massachusetts

  “It makes sense,” Jabba concluded, all pumped up, his mouth motoring ahead. “He’s got the money. He’s got the technical chops to pull off something like this. And he’s a major, major environmentalist.” Jabba shook his head, his face locked in concentration. “Question is, how’s he doing it?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Matt replied.

  They were back on the mainland, heading down the Salem Turnpike, toward the city. Jabba had told Matt what he knew about Rydell—the way he championed alternative energy projects across the globe, the passion with which he lobbied Washington to take the climate change issue seriously, the support he gave to politicians and to groups who’d been fighting the mostly losing battle against the previous administration’s callous disregard for environmental concerns. Every word of it added an additional pixel of clarity to the picture that was forming in Matt’s mind: him getting in Rydell’s face and hearing what they’d done to Danny straight from the horse’s mouth.

  “How is it you know so much about Rydell?” Matt asked.

  Jabba looked at him askance. “Dude. Seriously? Where’ve you been living?”

  Matt shrugged. “So he really thought he could start a new ‘green’ religion? Is that it?”

  Jabba cracked a grin. “We’re hardwired to believe from minute one, dude. It’s all around us from the day we’re born. There’s no escaping it. And people will believe all kinds of crap. Look at what a third-rate sci-fi writer was able to pull off, and everyone knew he was only out to get stinking rich. Rydell . . . the man’s in a whole different league. He’s got state-of-the-art technology and all the money he needs at his disposal. And he’s no fool. It’s an awesome combination.”

  Matt nodded, taking it in. “And he’s set this whole thing up to save the planet?”

  “Not the planet. Us. It’s like George Carlin said. The planet’s gonna be just fine. It’s been through far worse than anything we can throw at it. It was here long before us and it’ll still be around long after we’re gone. It’s we that need saving.”

  Matt shook his head in disbelief, then glanced out the window. The traffic up and down the turnpike was already noticeably heavier, with the Christmas rush home starting to clog the nation’s arteries.

  “Do you think they knew what they were really working on?” he asked Jabba. “Danny, the others . . . do you think Reece and Rydell told them?”

  “I don’t know . . . They had to be aware of the power of what they were putting together.” He glanced sideways at Matt. “The question isn’t just whether or not they were told. It’s whether or not they knew about it from day one. Whether or not they were working on it knowing what it was going to be used for.”

  Matt shook his head again with denial.

  “He was your brother, man,” Jabba added, hesitantly. “What do you think? Could he have been part of something like this?”

  Matt thought about it. “A hoax like this? Scamming millions of people.” He shook his head again. “I don’t think so.”

  “Even if he thought it was for a good cause?”

  That one was harder to answer. Danny wasn’t any more religious than Matt was, despite their parents’ best efforts, so there wouldn’t have
been any faith issues for him there. And although he was a high-minded, upstanding kind of guy, Matt didn’t remember him being particularly concerned with the planet’s environmental problems, no more than most well-read, levelheaded people. He certainly wasn’t mes- sianic about it. Still, they’d spent a lot of time apart, courtesy of Matt’s stints behind bars, and when all was said and done, how well did anyone know anyone else, really?

  Jabba was scrutinizing him, unsure about whether or not to say anything more. Matt noticed it.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, dude. I mean, I hate to say it, but it doesn’t look good. It’s been two years. If Danny didn’t pull a disappearing act to be part of this, I don’t see how they could have kept him locked up and muzzled all this time. He would’ve found a way to reach out to someone, to sneak a word out, don’t you think?”

  “Not if they know what they’re doing.”

  “Two years, man,” Jabba added with a slight wince.

  Matt stared ahead, frowning. Suddenly, he was feeling a tightening in his chest. He didn’t know what was better—to find out Danny was actually long dead, or that he was part of all this willingly. Part of something that had gotten his own best friend killed and his brother accused of his murder.

  “No way,” Matt finally said. “He’d never want to be part of something like this. Not if he knew what they were really doing.”

  “Okay,” Jabba accepted and turned away.

  They motored on for a mile or so, then Matt said, “Get us another lock on Maddox’s car, will you?”

  “Okay, but we really shouldn’t be using this,” Jabba cautioned as he pulled out his iPhone.

  “Just don’t stay on any longer than you think is safe. You can be in and out in less than your forty seconds, right?”