Journey’s French wasn’t good, but he didn’t need a translator for this.
“The Silver Cross.”
CHAPTER
25
It had been several years since Gray last stayed in the Hay-Adams, Washington’s famous hotel in Lafayette Square, across the street from the White House. She rarely allowed herself such opulent surroundings, preferring to remain carefully anonymous. But for this trip, she felt like treating herself. She was dealing with The Associates on several fronts, and the pugnacious and dangerous Mr. Zale would soon find himself a great deal more uncomfortable than he was now.
When the cell phone rang, she knew the call was from Nick Journey. She’d programmed a special ring for it, and this was the only call for which she would use this phone. “Hello, Dr. Journey,” she said on answering it.
“Who is this?”
“You may call me Ann Gray for the purposes of this call. I trust you are well.”
“Well? We were almost killed last night. Is that your doing?”
“Certainly not. Are you all right? Is Ms. Tolman with you?”
“We’re all right, but—”
“And your son? He wasn’t hurt?”
“Leave him out of it.”
“I wasn’t responsible for the attempt on your life last night, Dr. Journey. You must trust me on that point. The people who came after you have no sense of morals at all. But your son—is he all right? I know about his condition.”
“Do you? I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. If you didn’t do it, who did?”
“I suspect you will know that soon enough,” Gray said. “Did you see the map?”
“I did. Why did you send this to me? Are you the same person who gave Meg that letter in Missouri?”
Gray smiled. “You’re a scholar and your questions are legitimate. I’ve read some of your journal articles, by the way. You write well, and have a fine understanding of your subject.”
“Don’t patronize me, Ann Gray.”
“I assure you, I would not be so rude. My feelings are sincere. But I do understand your frustration, and I am as frustrated as you are. The same people tried to kill me in the last few days as well.”
“I don’t understand this,” Journey said. “Who are you?”
“A manager. A problem solver. Someone who likes an interesting challenge here and there. What do you think of the map?”
Journey was quiet for a moment. “The Silver Cross isn’t some artifact that Napoleon III wanted as a symbol of his invasion of Mexico. It’s a place in Texas, a place Father Fournier saw and wrote about in 1863.”
“Indeed.”
“What is out there? There’s not much in that part of Texas.”
“Indeed,” Gray said again. “You have all you need to find everything you need to find. Can you put Meg Tolman on the phone, please?”
Words were exchanged, then a female voice: “Meg Tolman. Who’s this?”
“As I told Dr. Journey, I believe that you have everything you need. I can’t protect you, though—my resources are spread rather thin at the moment. But I understand you are quite capable, Ms. Tolman.”
“What kind of bullshit is this?”
“Capable, but rather foul-mouthed. That notwithstanding, I’m sorry we didn’t have more of a chance to chat in Cassville.”
“Who shot at me?”
“Don’t concern yourself with that. But do be on the lookout. I am doing all I can to bring the Silver Cross to light.”
“What does it mean?”
“You have everything you need.”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
“I don’t exist, Ms. Tolman. This will eventually all be public, out in the light for the world to see. But someone else will have to do that. I can facilitate others, but cannot stand in the light myself.”
“Dammit, you’re not making any sense.”
“I am rather annoyed with some people who do business on behalf of the U.S. government.”
“Yeah, well—”
“Please, Ms. Tolman, I don’t want to see more bloodshed in Oklahoma.”
“You killed Dana Cable. You lured her to North Carolina and killed her.”
“No, I did not kill her.” Gray sat down on the bed. “In fact, I was trying to correct an error. I tried to protect her, and I made another error. I’m trying to correct those mistakes now.”
“And Jim Cable—you were sloppy there, too.”
“I tried to stop his death as well. But as I’ve said, I must stay out of sight. Others will make the revelations. You will be the one to do it, I suspect, if you stay alive.”
“Goddammit!”
“You should know that April 19 will free its brothers,” Gray said. “The leader will not be silenced.”
“But you’re not—”
Gray pressed end, then turned off the phone and removed the battery. She would toss it in a dumpster when she left the hotel.
The Associates would pay. They were already paying … for the deaths of two of the three Cables, for the attempt on her life on the S.S. Badger … for the attempt last night on Nick Journey and Andrew Journey and Meg Tolman.
She thought of her own son, at the chess tournament in Ann Arbor. She called Rick, who told her that Joseph had won four of five games yesterday. He was in his first Sunday game now.
After she hung up the phone with her husband, she called Barrientos. “The second wave is tonight,” she said. “Make sure the personnel and the equipment are ready.”
She clicked off before Barrientos could reply. Gray found she was perspiring.
Control! she thought. She had never lost control in twenty-five years of living in this shadow world, of managing diverse operations for governments and corporations and individuals around the world.
Control.
She focused on her breathing and soon she was better. She left her room, walked out of the hotel, and hailed a taxi.
“To the French embassy,” she told the driver.
* * *
France’s embassy in the United States was not on the famed Embassy Row, but rather on Washington’s Reservoir Road, north of the Georgetown University campus. It was not particularly impressive from the outside, a simple black and white office building set back from the road, with a guardhouse and automated traffic control arm blocking the entrance to the parking lot.
Gray directed the cab driver to the guardhouse, and the uniformed guard issued a visitor permit. The arm went up and the taxi entered sovereign French territory.
On the phone, Gray had been able to convince a deputy attaché for Commercial and Economic Affairs to meet her on Sunday morning, that she had something important to pass on to the French diplomatic mission. Robert Caron, the young deputy attaché, met Gray in the main lobby of the embassy.
“Anne Arceneaux,” she said, using the name she’d given him on the phone and shaking his hand. “It’s a lovely morning. Perhaps we could walk about your grounds,” she added in perfect French.
“It is lovely,” Caron said. “But the heat will be deadly in two hours or so.”
Gray steered him outside and they walked among the landscaped grounds. “I have information of great importance for the French people,” she said.
Caron acted as if he had heard it all before. “How may the embassy be of service?”
Gray handed an envelope to him. He shook out the photocopied papers and gave them a cursory glance, then looked at Gray.
“Should this not go to a historian or cultural expert?”
“One of these papers—the letter—sets out a rather significant historic statement. But the map…” Gray shook her head, as if in disbelief of it all. “The map concerns things more modern. And it was stolen from French soil.”
Caron stopped walking.
“Oui,” Gray said. “From a church, no less. St. Pierre’s in Montluçon, where it rested for many years.”
“Stolen, you say?” Caron said. “From France? By whom?”
Gray gestured in a sweeping motion.
“Americans?” Caron said. He looked at the map again. “This is Texas, if I am not mistaken. Why was it in Montluçon?”
“I do not know all,” Gray said. “I am only a messenger.”
“How did you come to have these copies? Where are the originals?”
“You will want to take care to have the documents authenticated.”
Caron watched her, rubbing the week’s worth of blond stubble that covered his chin.
“You do not need to accept my word,” Gray said. “You will do your due diligence and you will discover the importance of these two documents. The French people have been cheated, are still being cheated.”
“You bring me photocopies and claim they are stolen from a church in France,” the young diplomat said. “I do not know you. Nor do I know your interest. Why does an old map of Texas so interest you?”
“It does not interest me. But it interests the Americans. And it should interest France, especially in these difficult times. Goodbye, monsieur.”
Gray watched the man as she returned to the waiting taxi. He was young and sharp, and like so many men in their twenties, he was looking for some sort of break, some way to make a name for himself. She suspected he would be on the phone very soon. By the end of the day the letter and the map would be exactly where she wanted them.
As the cab left the embassy complex, the driver asked, “Back to your hotel?”
“No,” Gray said. “Take me to the Capitol.”
* * *
Ninety minutes later, Gray emerged from the Rayburn House Office Building. Instead of Ann Gray, she had been Diane Corbin, and affected a mild Southern accent.
Representative Delmas Mercer of Louisiana had been chosen carefully. He was a centrist, a true moderate, not an ideologue. But he was also a fierce Southern regionalist in Congress. Plus, his undergraduate degree was in history. Gray had done her homework.
She had laid out her proposal for Mercer, and at first he pointed the way to the door. But then he listened, and she grew more persuasive. When she placed the briefcase with three hundred thousand dollars in cash on his desk, he looked at her, nodded without saying a word, and put the case under his desk.
Gray knew why Mercer was a centrist. His vote was for sale—whichever lobbyist funneled the most cash his direction won his vote. Sometimes on the left, sometimes the right, with just enough of what remained of his real convictions thrown in to be convincing to the voters every two years. Mercer was a Southern partisan, educated in history, and as corrupt as they came.
He was perfect for her purposes.
And he would soon make more of a name for himself than he ever had as a back-bench House member in his previous eight terms. Delmas Mercer was about to be a household name, and The Associates would soon be no more. The United States was about to erupt—once again—into division and chaos. And, sadly, blood. But she had planned it well, and the bloodshed would be minimal. That is what separated Ann Gray from the likes of Victor Zale.
I wish it had not come to this, she thought, then asked the cab driver to take her back to the Hay-Adams. They would pass the White House on the way. Gray thought it quite appropriate.
CHAPTER
26
As soon as the phone went dead in her hand, Tolman raced into the spare bedroom and grabbed her laptop. “Give me that paper with the phone number on it.”
In fifteen minutes, she knew that the phone was a prepaid cell, purchased in suburban Chicago. “A throwaway. Chances are she’s already disposed of it. What did she say her name was?”
“Ann Gray,” Journey said. “What are you doing?”
“I’m doing a RACER search for Ann Gray,” Tolman said. “With a name like that, it’s going to pop up a million or so hits, and I suppose that’s her point, using a name like that. I’ll have to narrow the search. She told you that she’s basically a freelance operator. Someone’s heard of her, even if they’ve only heard the cover name. I’ll do some cross-references.” She worked the keyboard and thumb bar and set RACER to work, then looked up at Journey. She pointed at the map. “So tell me about that. Napoleon III wanted … what? A spot in the middle of nowhere in Texas?”
Journey ran a hand along the map’s parchment. “Again, religious symbolism or geographic reality? It’s impossible to tell—”
“Without seeing it for ourselves,” Tolman finished. “I get it. Can you pinpoint a location from that?”
“There are a lot of little rivers and creeks in West Texas. But using GIS, we should be able to get a fix on a modern location.”
“GIS,” Tolman said. “Geographic Information System. Why, Dr. Journey, I thought I was the technology person here.”
Andrew giggled from the couch. He seemed completely unfazed by last night’s ordeal. A blessing of sorts, Journey thought. “Don’t get too excited,” Journey said. “The geography department uses it. I can call—” He reached for the phone, then put his hand down.
“What?” Tolman said.
“Lashley.” Journey met Tolman’s blue eyes. “Someone murdered Graham Lashley in cold blood, and why? Because we talked to him about this.”
“I know, you don’t want to put another professor in danger. I get it, Nick. But whatever all this is, it starts with the Silver Cross. The woman on the phone was talking in circles, but she said we had everything we needed.” Tolman thumped her fingers on the table. Andrew looked up at her, then thumped his own fingers. “She said she didn’t want to see any more bloodshed in Oklahoma. But she also said she didn’t kill Jim or Dana. Said she’d made mistakes, tried to prevent their deaths.”
“But not Barry,” Journey said.
Tolman stared at him. “That’s right. But April 19 killed Barry. That’s never been in dispute.”
“The dispute is what April 19 really means.”
Tolman nodded. “Nick, I’m not going to put anyone else in danger.” She glanced at Andrew. “There’s been enough of that already.”
Journey looked at her for a long moment, then touched the map. “I’m going to find where the Silver Cross is located. By lunch if possible.”
“I like the way you think, Professor.”
Andrew thumped his feet on the wood floor. Tolman thumped hers in response, then returned to her computer.
* * *
Kerry Voss had tried every door, both front and back, to trace the financing of April 19, and when she woke up Sunday morning, she still knew nothing. As an organization, April 19 simply had no money trail. Clearly, the organization existed. It had carried out the shooting at the GAO, and its four operatives were in prison. She’d read something about them a few days ago, before the latest round of bombings, about how they were being moved to a different facility.
Now they were taking credit for the bombings. They had to have money behind them.
Voss sat at her breakfast bar, still stained with purple crayon from where her youngest son had tried to scribble his name a few days ago. The house was quiet—her three kids were with her ex-husband for the weekend. Too quiet. She flipped on the TV, then turned it off just as quickly. Images of Albuquerque, Kansas City, and Cleveland filled every channel, with the occasional story about “Left vs. Right in Middle America,” hordes of protesters and counterprotesters arriving in Chicago. There was nothing new, so the pundits had taken over, and as usual, the pundits knew nothing and used a lot of words to say so. Some of them drew parallels between the April 19 bombings and the dueling protests that were unfolding in Chicago. Voss opened her first Diet Coke of the day and ate a banana.
April 19. She thought about what she knew of the group. Not speculation, not supposition, but what was actually known.
Antigovernment ideology. A fanatical reverence for the Oklahoma City bombers. A willingness to use extreme violence.
And there were four men, now in prison.
Four men.
No others had been identified. No one came forward to claim leadership of the group af
ter these four were convicted and sentenced. The e-mails two nights ago to media outlets after the federal buildings were bombed came from anonymous servers. There were no names.
Except four.
Almost spilling her Diet Coke, Voss ran into her bedroom and dressed quickly. She jammed a baseball cap on her head, not even brushing her hair. She didn’t put on makeup or her contacts—just put on her glasses and ran. She almost went out without a bra, but thought better of that one. She had to get to the office.
Sunday morning traffic was light, and she was in the RIO office in less than twenty minutes. She turned up Rush’s Moving Pictures album as loud as she dared and logged on to her computer.
Maybe April 19 was so loosely organized that they had no bank accounts—or maybe as part of their ideology they didn’t believe in banks—but here were four men who had carried out the shootings in Rockville. At least one of them must have had a job at some point. If she couldn’t find the organization, she would at least find its four most famous members.
She pulled up the names: Jeremy Rayburn, thirty-one, Spokane, Washington, an unemployed sheet metal worker; Logan Hampton, thirty-three, unemployed medical technologist from Mobile, Alabama; David Phipps, twenty-five, self-employed auto mechanic from Vermilion, South Dakota; and Douglas Clay, thirty-eight, unemployed print shop worker from Staunton, Virginia.
She started with the bank records of David Phipps, the only one to have a recent verifiable income. Nothing extraordinary—the guy barely scraped by. She accessed his tax returns from the last three years. He never made more than twenty thousand dollars in a year.
Hampton and Clay had no unusual bank activity. Clay had received unemployment benefits. Voss wondered how he squared that with his antigovernment message.
When she found the bank records for self-appointed April 19 spokesman Jeremy Rayburn, she saw nothing unusual in the account at his hometown bank. But she found something else with his Social Security number: an account at a large regional bank based in Seattle.
Voss leaned forward. When looking at lines of numbers on computer screens, she often found herself actually touching the screen, tracing the lines. She adjusted her glasses and ran her finger across the screen.
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