Book of Cures (A Thomas McAlister Adventure 2)

by Hunt Kingsbury

  Chapter 28

  McAlister leaned over a shallow spot in the stream and began gently cleaning the dagger with a toothbrush, taking care not to let any remnants fall away. He’d known plenty of world-famous archeologists who had to learn about plumbing in order to remove gemstones and other small treasures that had gone down their drains and ended up in the U-traps underneath their sinks.

  When he found the dagger, there had been a layer of silt around the handle. He had been able to see a few threads of gold that would have held a leather wrap in place. Now with all of the mud washed away, he held a very effective killing device, a heavy double-edged dagger.

  The blade was a light-gray metal, which was a pitted, full-tang construction. The metal that was running through the handle, which Thomas could now see, would have originally been covered with fabric or wrapped tightly with leather and held together by the threads of gold wire that were still present.

  It was a large knife, clearly a combat dagger, and it had been responsible for the death of at least one human, possibly more.

  It did not look like a monk’s knife. There was nothing austere about it. This was a knife that was designed to represent an empire.

  Without pause, Bertram said, “Chinese Elite Guard.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “One hundred percent. I’ve seen these knives many times. They’re the equivalent of our Bowie knife.”

  Once McAlister had finished cleaning it, he carried it over to the camp and set it down on a grassy area, where Bertram had laid out a small white towel.

  McAlister looked at the front and back of the knife, then the end butt, and placed it on the towel.

  “Looks too nice to be standard-issue.”

  Bertram picked up the knife and took his time examining it. Then he began looking closely at certain areas of it. He got up, went over to his field pack and rifled through it.

  “Like the breastplate, its condition is quite good,” he said over his shoulder. Some museums would restore the handle, which would not be hard; some would just leave it as it is.”

  “Well, I’m not looking to sell it to a museum. I need it to lead me to its owner.”

  Bertram raised his hand, palm out, and said, “I know, I know.” He sat back down with a magnifying glass and unfolded a sharp-looking spiked blade from his Leatherman tool.

  He placed the dagger on the ground in front of him and held the magnifying glass in his left hand and the Leatherman tool in his right. He said, “Here’s where it would’ve been,” and slowly began scraping an area where the blade met the hilt.

  “Where what would’ve been?” Thomas demanded.

  “The soldier would have put his identification mark here, at the hilt. You remember the identification mark we talked about earlier?”

  While Bertram was lightly scraping one side, a piece of rust came loose, enabling him to gently pry it off. Once the rust was gone, McAlister and Bertram were shocked by what they found.

  Bertram looked up at McAlister and then back down at the knife. “Do you see this?”

  McAlister clearly saw the symbol. “That makes no sense! It’s the same mark--Ming Wu’s mark.” 

  “Yes,” said Bertram. “How in the world could Ming Wu have been killed with his own knife?”

  Chapter 29

  Later, after McAlister had walked down to the creek, Dr. Bertram took his own walk. A wave of exhaustion came over him. He badly needed sleep, but he had one last thing he needed to complete before going to bed: his weekly report.

  Once he was about a mile from camp, he unzipped the false bottom in his backpack and removed a small satellite phone. It was a model designed to operate on a bandwidth dedicated to top-secret U.S. government communications.

  It was slightly larger than most cellular phones because of an encryption module attached to the bottom. It was the most advanced and secure communication device the FBI possessed.

  Bertram turned the phone on, pressed S, (meaning he needed a special “super” secure connection) and dialed his partner’s phone number.

  There was dead air for five seconds, followed by two sharp clicking noises. Then he was connected with his partner, who said, “Warrant.”

  The connection was good, and Bertram answered, “It’s Elmo. We’re secure.” His voice was hushed and tight with stress; he scanned the horizon as he spoke. This was Elmo’s first undercover assignment.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. How are you holding up?” DJ Warrant could hear the fatigue in his partner’s voice.

  “Tired. I had no idea how taxing undercover work could be, let alone posing as a specialist in Tibetan history and medicine.”

  The real Dr. Bertram was at his summer home in upstate New York, taking the summer off. His vacation had left his office at NYU empty. With government credentials in hand, DJ and Elmo had worked with the university to let them use the office for a week. The hardest part had been making sure there were no university employees in the office when McAlister arrived.

  “I know. It’s mentally and physically exhausting, especially if you’re not used to it. Have you had any lapses?”

  “No, none. McAlister’s completely, one-hundred-percent convinced I’m Dr. Bertram. The training was perfect, and I’ve needed it all. He leans on me for local and historical facts. He’s brilliant when it comes to Egypt, but he doesn’t have the same depth of knowledge of Tibet.”

  “Elmo, be very, very careful with him. Just when you think you’ve fooled him, he’ll surprise you. You need to get plenty of rest. Give yourself a buffer between when you wake up, and when you go into your role as Dr. Bertram. Take time to think about what you’re doing. That will make it easier. If you slide in and out quickly, you’re more likely to have a lapse. It’s proven. Tested.”

  “Yes, I know, I’ve seen that data. Don’t worry. I just need some sleep.”

  “Status?”

  “Chinese military records are very clear. There were two soldiers who entered the Hall, Ming Wu and his partner Hai Cai. They were elite soldiers who were responsible for clearing the Hall. The records indicate that Ming Wu was killed in fighting and Hai Cai lived, but he deserted.”

  “Go on.”

  “Today was big. We made a breakthrough, but I’m not sure where it’s going to take us.”

  “What happened?” For the first time there was a hint of excitement in DJ’s voice.

  “We were digging in the catacombs, looking for Ming Wu’s body with some hope of also finding the book, or at least a clue as to where it could be. We found a breastplate. The breastplate had Ming Wu’s symbol on it.”

  This was good, very good. “Yes.”

  “There was no organic material inside the breastplate--just mud. Then as we cleared out the bottom, McAlister found a knife. It had pierced the back of the armor. Wu was killed from behind.”

  “Any trace of the book?”

  “No, none.”

  “So, Ming Wu was killed in the battle at the palace?”

  “Yes. But, maybe not. I mean, yes, he was killed, but not necessarily in battle.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That’s what’s so odd. He was stabbed with his own knife. The symbol on the knife was the same as that on the breastplate.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No. Identical.”

  “McAlister and I think someone snuck up behind Wu, pulled his knife out from behind, and stabbed him in the back with it.”

  “That's one theory, but Elmo, if these soldiers were going into a potential fight, they would’ve had knives drawn. Wu’s dagger would never have been sheaved. Not only that, but soldiers are well-trained, and one of their first lessons is to never relinquish their weapons. It’s the same way today.” DJ paused.

  “It’s possible that there was a fight, he dropped his knife, and someone else picked it up. Or maybe it was wrested away in the heat of battle.”

  Elmo countered, “Yes, but
that wouldn’t account for him being stabbed in the back. If he was fighting someone, he would’ve been sliced, or stabbed from the front.”

  “Do the records say what happened to his partner?”

  “Hai Cai? Yes, he deserted. He went AWOL right after the battle.”

  “You must be kidding.”

  “No. Disappeared.”

  DJ got quiet, and Elmo knew he was putting himself in the killer’s shoes. It was what DJ did; he was a born profiler. There was no one better at it, not even the new guys coming out of the latest FBI training programs.

  After a full minute of silence, DJ spoke. “I don’t think your theory about how Ming Wu came to be stabbed in the back is right, Elmo. In fact, I don’t think Ming Wu was stabbed in the back at all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Listen, these were monks that the Chinese soldiers were fighting. No single group of warriors honors tradition more than monks. A militant monk would never have stabbed a man in the back with his own knife. They take far too much pride in the process of the fight. There’s honor in the form for them.

  “I don’t buy the stolen knife theory either. If it was Ming Wu’s knife, then Ming Wu did it.”

  Elmo was shocked. “What? What do you mean Ming Wu did it? Ming Wu killed himself? Stabbed himself in the back? Impossible.”

  “Not at all. What was Ming Wu’s partner’s name again?”

  “Hai Cai.”

  “They probably came across something valuable, and Ming Wu knocked Hai Cai on the head and took it. Maybe they hated each other, maybe they argued, or maybe Wu was in financial trouble. Wu would’ve switched breastplates with Hai Cai, taken any identification papers he had on him, stabbed him to make sure he was dead, and then deserted.

  “The palace was on fire, right? So, there would be no remains. Wu acting as Cai tells a random military secretary that Ming Wu is dead. If anyone wanted to check, they would see the mark on his armor--if it survived the fire. Everyone thinks Wu is dead. Cai goes AWOL--but it’s really Ming Wu. Ming Wu, who needs a fresh start for whatever reason, gets exactly that. That’s how I think it happened.”

  “What about the knife? Why would he leave his knife?”

  “The knife is tough. Either he forgot it was marked, he couldn’t pull it out, or someone was coming, and he needed to get going. It’s possible that the place was burning so fast, he didn’t have time. He planned to go AWOL, so he wouldn’t want to take it with him anyway. It would tie him to the military.”

  Elmo tried to digest this. “So after going AWOL, when he emerges somewhere else, who does he come out as--Wu or Cai?”

  “Has to be Hai Cai. Wu is dead.”

  “But why fake his own death? Why would he need a new identity?”

  “Christ, come on Elmo, are you kidding me? There are over twenty thousand murders every year in the United States alone. You tell me. Why would anyone want to assume a new identity? Bad family situation, debt, lust, betrayal, anger, greed…. I could go on. All the reasons people flee. Could be that he found the healing book, the Blue Beryl, and didn’t want to share it with Hai Cai. Maybe Hai Cai found it and wouldn’t share it with him.

  “It’s possible that Ming Wu was in a situation that he desperately needed to escape. He saw an opening. The death could not be vigorously investigated. They were soldiers entering a hostile environment; people were expected to die. Plus, the place was on fire, so there would be next to nothing to investigate.

  “So he killed Hai Cai and assumed his identity. Ming Wu became Hai Cai.”

  Elmo nodded.

  “The fact that he went AWOL cements it for me,” DJ added.

  “Right. He never reported back to his squad leader.”

  “Right. If he had reported back, they would’ve recognized him. He was Chinese, so he wouldn’t have gone back to China. He would’ve traveled west. You need to look for someone named Hai Cai who emerged at about that same time in a country west of Tibet. Maybe India, or if he went to Europe, Turkey.”

  “One problem, DJ. McAlister is not currently following this line of thinking. He’s . . . weighing options. Unsure of his next step.”

  “Yes, of course. That’s only natural. You have to introduce this hypothesis tomorrow. Answer all of his questions, Elmo--but convincingly. It was Ming Wu’s knife. It was Ming Wu who killed Hai Cai. I can feel it. You have to get McAlister to see the light; otherwise, he’ll go down the wrong path. But I think he’ll see it. In some ways, he and I think alike.”

  “It does make more sense than any of the other theories.”

  “So, the question is, where did Hai Cai surface after going AWOL?”

  Elmo, one of the FBI’s foremost computer and data collection experts, was finally in comfortable territory. “That data, if recorded, would be in the Inter-Continental Database.”

  “Which one?”

  “The ICD. I was asked to join the team three years ago, the one funded by the United Nations.”

  DJ was silent; Elmo knew he was drawing a blank.

  “Remember? They asked me to be a permanent board member, and I declined but agreed to work on the project as a non-board-level participant. They sent teams of catalogers out to every country. The charter was to comb through birth, death, and immigration records, and digitize them. The thinking at the time--and they were right--was that if it wasn’t done soon, all those mostly paper records would disintegrate. I consulted on the storage and access. It ended up taking more than the allotted two years.”

  “Were they successful? Could it help us find Hai Cai?”

  “Very successful. You can view many of the original documents online. For instance, if your ancestors came into the United States through Ellis Island, you can go on the Internet and actually see your ancestors’ signatures on the passenger manifests. Without the ICD, you’d have to travel to individual public records offices and search through files. It would take months.”

  “But did China participate?”

  “China, being a communist country, kept the best immigration records of all. They’re very concerned with nationality, ethnicity and population statistics, since they practice population control, allowing each family only one child. They track all migration, and always have. I remember at one point thinking they were more obsessive than the Germans in the 1930s and 1940s. Very clean record-keeping. Little dossiers on everyone over eighteen years of age.”

  “Well, that’s excellent, Elmo. This should improve our chances of finding Hai Cai...or Ming Wu. Would McAlister be aware of this database?”

  “Doubtful. He probably knows about the Ellis Island work. That made national news. But many countries prohibit public access. He’ll probably suggest that we visit public records offices in the countries west of Tibet. That’s what I would do if I didn’t know about the database.”

  “That would take forever, and I can’t keep our little side assignment a secret from Director Hargrove much longer. Accessing the database is the only way. You’re going to have to come up with an excuse as to how you know about it.

  “Also, for Christ’s sake, Elmo, if he’s around, don’t type and click on everything as fast as you usually do. If McAlister’s around, you’re going to have to slow it down. No normal university professor could be as adept at computing as you are.”

  Elmo smiled. “I can do that.”

  “So assuming McAlister goes along with the database search, do you think you’ll know anything by tomorrow?”

  “Impossible to predict. I’ll have to go to the Archive building tomorrow to get Internet access and see what I can find. I’ll call to let you know how I do, okay?”

  DJ paused and then said, “Yes, that’s fine. Call me right away.”

  “Okay.”

  “After that, if and when he finds it, we’ll starting planning how we take it from him.”

  “We need to find Hai Cai first.”

  “I know, I know. I’m more confident than ever. But Elmo, remember, be careful. Never underestimate
.”

  “Got it. Talk to you tomorrow. Over.”

  Elmo pressed the End button and zipped the phone safely back into the bottom of his bag.

  As he started his walk back to camp, he thought about DJ’s warning. He wondered if McAlister had any inkling that he was a government agent impersonating a college professor named Dr. Bertram. DJ always said everyone who was undercover had a “tell.” He wondered what his was, and if McAlister was sharp enough to pick up on it.

  He wished he were more perceptive, that he’d taken more time in life to understand the reasons behind people’s moods and motivations.

  Thank God, tomorrow he’d be back in front of a computer where none of these extraneous variables mattered.

  What he really wished was that he could go back to being DJ’s silent partner: the swashbuckling computer expert who could pull data out of thin air. He was sure that tomorrow would bring him one step closer to going home.

  As he returned to camp, he walked past the spot where Uri had been observing their camp earlier in the day. Uri was camouflaged near where Elmo and DJ had just had their conversation, and he’d heard every word.

  Chapter 30

  Later that evening, after Dr. Bertram left for a walk, McAlister went down and sat alone by the creek. He put his feet in the water and forced thoughts of the Beryl out of his mind. The sound of the trickling water running over his feet offered a peaceful backdrop. He closed his eyes and thought of Lisa, missing her.

  He took out his fifty-dollar Savinelli pipe (he never traveled with the Dunhill) and put in three pinches of Queen Anne. The routine of filling and lighting the pipe reminded him of the relaxing nights he and Lisa had spent in the Caribbean, aboard his sailboat, before any of this had begun.

  He pulled a bottle of Bordeaux out of the stream; Dr. Bertram had picked it up in Lhasa. He opened it with his Swiss army knife and took a swig. A blanket of soothing warmth spread out in his stomach.