“You decided on your own to take out a MacClary? What do you think your old man would say about that?” He shoved Ironwood’s son away in disgust. J.R stumbled and fell onto the cold sand by the corpse.
“Well, you started it,” J.R. said, like a kid on the playground. “You killed her aunt. You know what those people are like. Everything’s ‘family’ to them. Sooner or later, she’d have come after us if we didn’t get her first.”
“Those ‘people’ are my concern, not yours.”
“Okay, okay.” J.R. sullenly shook sand from his shoes before awkwardly getting back to his feet. “So I messed up. But you’re supposed to keep me out of trouble. What would the old man have to say to you?” At his mention of his father, loafers in hand, J.R. looked down the beach, toward the casinos. The Encounters resort stood out with its otherworldly green floodlights.
Ironwood senior was still in residence this week. So something was going on, Merrit knew, but his speculation went that far, and no more. If Ironwood thought he had a need to know, he’d be told.
“I want copies of all the police reports,” Merrit said. There was no sense in creating an enemy here. Once Sr. was gone, Jr. would have a few billion dollars to burn. That could buy a lot of revenge before he squandered it.
“Why?”
Merrit pictured himself snapping J.R.’s neck. It wouldn’t take three seconds. “I want to find out about the surveillance. Who they were watching. Who they were.”
J.R. shoved bare feet back into his loafers. “Well, I can tell you that. It’s in the reports. Air Force Office of Special Investigations.”
Merrit was surprised. “Air force? Not Army CID?”
“Yeah, but you have to leave them out of it. I shouldn’t have even mentioned them. It’s sort of a secret between me and the old man.”
“Too late. What’s the rest of it?”
J.R. shrugged. “He took something from the air force. It’s how we’ve been finding the outposts. But don’t worry, Weir doesn’t know, so he couldn’t tell them anything.”
J.R. only had part of it right.
There was just one way to be sure David Weir couldn’t tell anyone anything—and Merrit planned to see to it at once.
TWENTY-ONE
Jess let the words of the memorial service drift over her, unheard. She found her comfort in their familial setting, not their content.
The contemporary Episcopal Church of the United States was just another veil that offered sanctuary to the Family. The Line MacClary had come to the American colonies as public followers of the Church of England. After the American Revolution, the MacClarys had joined in the common mood of the new country and supported the formation of an independent church whose bishops would no longer need to swear allegiance to the British king. In the Americas, as in Europe and Asia, the changing fashions of the pageant of history were little more than camouflage for those who lived to serve the First Gods.
Thus, in Boston’s Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Jess readily found her true beliefs reflected in everything around her. Like the ancient Shrine of Turus, this public place of worship showed private evidence of the Family, to those who knew.
Built in 1819, almost a century before it became Boston’s Episcopal cathedral, the Church of St. Paul owed its existence to, among other notables, Paul Revere, Nathan Hale, and John Hancock. The building committee for the church structure itself had included William Appleton and Daniel Webster. Though none of the five was a defender, each had been among the 144 of the day who knew the truth of the Family. As a result, St. Paul’s looked like no other Christian church of its time.
Instead of the Gothic architecture popular in the America of that era, the Cathedral Church of St. Paul was a distinguished example of what came to be called Greek Revival. Its graceful exterior of limestone blocks and sandstone columns mirrored the classic lines of Greek temples supported, in turn, by Ionic pillars.
Even more intriguing, the church’s Greek Revival style matched that of the secular government structures of the nation’s capital, where the Family also worked behind the scenes. In Washington, D.C., the Family’s goal was not to gather or influence political control but to help create a strong national banking system to protect their assets. It took three attempts, and almost a century, but the U.S. Federal Reserve’s twelve regional banks eventually secured the ancient MacCleirighs’ future in the New World.
The interior of St. Paul’s, despite more than two centuries of repair and renovations, bore even clearer signs of the Family’s influence. The altar of the old church was built in the style of a Chamber of Heaven, complete with its hemispherical ceiling. More telling, above the altar hung a dramatic cross lacking the traditional proportions of a crucifix in which the upright stand was longer than its crosspiece. Instead, each arm of St. Paul’s cross was the same length, as in the Family’s bladed cross. Only the position of the circle on the cross had changed. In the cathedral’s cross, the ancient symbol of the Family now encircled the intersection of the cross’s arms. Yet, when seen in the proper light, when the cross’s wedge-shaped arms cast shadows, that circle divided into twelve segments, not four. The Twelve Restored.
So when Jess gazed upon the cross of St. Paul’s, she saw the symbol of her faith, and today she drew the strength she needed from it.
Publicly, Florian MacClary had been reported dead of a heart attack in French Polynesia. The medical records provided by her personal physician in Boston established she’d been undergoing treatment for angina and had been urged to have bypass surgery. A second physician, in Papeete, Tahiti, had forwarded the paperwork from the autopsy, officially confirming the cause of death was what her own doctor had feared. In accordance with her wishes, Jess’s aunt had been cremated, and her ashes scattered in the great southern ocean.
All of it was a lie arranged to suit the purposes of Family business by the MacCleirigh cousins who were everywhere, working for smooth passage of the Family’s assets between the generations.
In truth, Florian had been lost at sea, without witness. Today’s supposed affirmation of her religious beliefs as a member and supporter of St. Paul’s had no connection to reality. Only the tears shed for her were real.
As Florian’s adopted heir, Jess accepted that she was the focus of the afternoon’s events. She’d dressed in a simple black linen sheath and tied her bright hair with a black silk ribbon. She displayed her silver Tuareg cross openly, as did almost a third of those in the cathedral who sat apart from other, less intimate friends of the deceased. Each of those pendant crosses differed slightly, no two exactly alike.
The remembrances, hymns, and silent prayers finally ended, and Jess rose and walked down the long aisle to stand beside the open doors that led outside. Taking a place to the right of her in the reception line was the Reverend Noreen Enright, who had baptized her in this cathedral, and who had returned from retirement to conduct Florian’s memorial service.
The elderly reverend seemed troubled by Jess’s pendant. Not because the cross that hung from it wasn’t traditional—tradition was not often an issue with the Episcopal Church—but because of the deferential way Jess was treated by the others who wore crosses similar to hers.
Yet the reverend asked no questions. Not even as those others, one after the other, took Jess’s left hand, dipped their heads, even bent a knee as if in service to her. The MacClarys were longtime benefactors of the cathedral, and odd behavior, when combined with wealth and generosity, could be explained as charming eccentricity.
When the last of the mourners disappeared through the doors, into the late-afternoon September sunshine that still bathed the verdant Boston Common opposite St. Paul’s, Jess turned to Reverend Enright to ask permission to stay a few minutes longer. The reverend made no objection, offering only to sit and join her in prayer. Jess declined politely, and the cleric touched her shoulder in sympathy, then left.
Jess was alone.
She returned to the altar. To the right was an oversized colo
r photograph of her aunt. Smiling, vibrant.
She slipped into a pew on that side, next to an arching spray of silver-green eucalyptus bound with fragrant thyme and garlanded with acorns—ancient symbols of protection, of the restful sleep earned through courage, and of immortality. Eleven identical sprays adorned the ends of other pews. Twelve remembrances from twelve defenders.
None but Jess had come to say farewell in person, though, for just as no defender could marry another, ensuring the Lines remained distinct, no defender could attend another’s funeral rites. Another way of ensuring safety from one’s enemies.
Jess bent her head as if in prayer and gave her heart over to her grief for the woman who had become her second mother, who had given her so much, and yet hidden so much more.
Yet, even now, her training kept her alert. She heard careful footsteps approaching, and they were not the light steps of Reverend Enright. Instinctively, she brought both hands to her cross.
“Jessie . . . het is I.”
The soft words spoken in Dutch shocked Jess with joy. She turned. “Willem?”
Incredibly, he was there. Willem, Line Tasman. Defender of Macao. Florian’s partner, her lover, her one true love. By all the traditions of the Family, he was not allowed to be here—but here he was.
The black skin of Willem’s shaved scalp shone in the warm light of the darkened church as he held out his arms to her, his embrace tightening with her first words. “I can’t believe she’s gone.”
Then Jess leaned back, looked up, eyes questioning. Like her, Willem wore mourning black. His suit trim, his shirt collarless. Beneath his jacket, though, she’d felt a gun.
“You’re taking me back to Zurich, aren’t you?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Su-Lin sent you.”
He held a finger to his lips, conspiratorially. “Ssssh, the others think I’m still in Iceland, on the Snæfellsjökull dig.”
“Then why are you here?”
Willem looked up at the altar, to the image of Florian. The photo had been taken on a sailboat in spring. The sea was brilliant blue behind her. Sunlit strands of her short, windblown hair created a halo. Her unguarded face was radiant.
Jess understood. This was something else she was learning for herself: Sometimes, even defenders broke the rules. Just as she had with David Weir.
“Now why would Su-Lin send me to take you back to Zurich?”
“My first assignment as defender. And I botched it.”
“Oh, well. Off to the Shop with you for a few years of academic exile.” Willem squeezed her hand, released it. “Tell me about this ‘botched’ assignment.”
“His name is David. David Weir.”
“And he is . . . ?”
“The researcher? For Holden Ironwood? Su-Lin wants to know if he had anything to do with what happened to Florian. Willem, she told me all of you knew about this.”
The Defender of Macao’s broad forehead creased in surprise. “Not me.” He steered Jess back to the pew and took a seat beside her. “From the beginning.”
Jess shared with Willem everything she knew. How Ironwood’s technician had come to the Family’s attention during Emil’s surveillance of the billionaire’s charter operations. How Su-Lin had ordered her to bring him to Zurich if she found any connection to what had happened in the South Pacific.
Then she told him how Dom had arranged David’s capture, what she’d learned from questioning him, and what she’d discovered in his research lab.
Willem’s astonishment, and his elation, were the equal of her own.
“He can locate the lost temples?”
“Not exactly,” Jess clarified. “What David does is find a general area to search. Then Ironwood takes his information and somehow pinpoints an exact location. That’s why I didn’t want him to go to Zurich. I have a way to have David work for us instead of Ironwood.”
“Money?”
Jess shook her head. “He’s a scientist. You know the type. When I told him that his genetic clusters led Ironwood to three temples, but that there were nine more out there to find—that’s when I got to him. I think he’ll do anything to find out how I know that.”
She put a hand on Willem’s arm. “Don’t you see, Willem? The First Gods brought one of our twelve lines to each temple site—so his analysis must have picked up a unique MacCleirigh gene. I think David’s found long-lost cousins of ours. Five, six, maybe even more times removed. Because when a MacCleirigh line left a temple site, some of their offspring must have stayed behind. That means their genetic legacy is still there today.”
“It sounds reasonable . . .”
“But?”
Willem put a large hand over hers. “What I’m about to say isn’t blasphemy. You have to believe that. Hear me out.”
“It’s all right. I mean, about the Secret. I know it’s been lost, but—”
He interrupted her. “This is something different. Something else that’s missing. From the written Traditions.”
Jess withdrew her hand. “What about them?”
“For a long time now, Florian and I have . . . had . . . been working on a different way to read some of the passages. When that second temple was discovered in Peru”—Willem paused, choosing his words with great care—“it was strong confirmation for what we were looking at.”
When Jess said nothing, Willem forged on. “Some of us have come to believe that the First Gods walked among twelve different families.”
Jess didn’t understand.
“Jess, the twelve lines of the MacCleirighs today are modern branches that broke off from the single MacCleirigh line in the past fifteen hundred years. We don’t know who the other eleven families were or what happened to them.”
His words dropped into the well of silence in the empty church, and their ripples swept Jess into an unknown sea.
“You’ve seen the sun map in the Shrine?” he asked.
Jess nodded, mute with bewilderment.
“Then you also know the First Gods walked among us almost nine thousand years ago. That’s a huge gap in our records—seventy-five hundred years. A lot could happen over that much time. A lot did. Eleven other original families were most likely lost along the way.” He looked toward the photo of his lost love. “Or maybe they’re still out there, still hiding like we are, following traditions of their own.”
“But our Traditions—”
Willem’s voice was solid with conviction. “Nothing I’m saying contradicts them at all. The First Gods did arise from us and walked among us. They scattered humanity on the Twelve Winds, built the Twelve Temples around the world, gave us their gifts, guided the birth of civilization.
“But of those twelve original families, only one remains, Jess. Ours. The MacCleirighs. Yet even the Traditions say we’ll never know what actual names the First Gods gave us, because names themselves are transitory. We do know that MacCleirigh is one of the oldest names from our part of the world, so it’s as good as any.”
“Does anyone else know about this?”
“Of course. Florian and I, we told the others what we were thinking, the areas we were investigating. All Su-Lin requested was that we restrict knowledge of our speculation and our findings to the other defenders. Until we could be sure.”
“I thought all defenders were equal.”
“That’s why the table’s round.”
“So how can Su-Lin tell you what to do?”
Willem seemed surprised by the question. “She’s in charge of the money.”
Jess was surprised in turn. It was something she’d never considered before. The MacCleirighs, at Florian’s level—and, by extension, hers—were independent of any monetary system. Jess had always taken it for granted that she’d be provided with everything she needed: tuition, travel expenses, a limitless Foundation ATM card . . .
“It’s a considerable undertaking to send fifteen archaeologists into India for six months,” Willem said. “To mount an expedition such as
that, even we have paperwork to fill out. And there’s always more to do than the resources available.”
“And Su-Lin decides how the resources are allocated?”
Willem shrugged. “Su-Lin. Andrew. One of the others. Control rotates among us all. If I weren’t in the field so much, I’d even get a turn. Su-Lin’s based in Zurich these days, so she’s the final arbiter.”
Something else Florian didn’t tell me, Jess thought.
Willem put a hand on her shoulder. “Back to you and your ‘assignment.’ Do you see now why this researcher of yours might not be detecting MacCleirigh descendants in India or Peru or Polynesia? Because, if Florian and I are correct, then the MacCleirighs are descendants of a single line associated with a single temple. Probably somewhere in Northern Europe.”
“Then what is he detecting?”
“Without knowing more, I couldn’t guess.”
“There’s another possibility, you know. You could be wrong.”
Willem grinned. “Now you sound like Florian.” His grin faded. “So what’ve you decided to do? With this David Weir.”
“I’m not sure yet. I guess I need to get a new chief of security first.”
“What’s wrong with LaSalle?”
Jess stared at him, startled. “Willem, they tried to kill me again last night. Dom was shot . . . wounded . . .”
“Who tried to kill you?”
“Ironwood’s people. At least that’s what Su-Lin thinks.”
“You used the word ‘again.’ ”
“The first time was in the Barrens. The Canadian Territories. I was at a pipeline site. You haven’t heard any of this?”
Willem’s face was tight as he made her go through all the details. By the time she’d finished recounting the attack on the warehouse lab, his incredulity had been replaced by open anger.
“You have only four bodyguards around this church,” he said. “They didn’t even see me.”
“They probably recognized you. I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. You should have a full detail outside. Three armored vehicles. It’s outrageous Su-Lin allowed this.” A strange look crossed Willem’s face. “You did tell her of this new attack?”
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