Autumn was unprepared and inexperienced for an escalating situation. She lost her composure.
“He can’t possibly see you. You have to leave. Goodbye.”
She turned on her heels and spoke sharply to the receptionist. McCauley and Alpert easily overheard her say, “If they don’t leave immediately, call the North Hollywood police.”
“What the…?” Katrina whispered much too loudly. “I can’t believe it!”
“Believe it. Krein obviously heard about Greene,” McCauley said as they cleared the door. “And he’s scared.”
“Well, join the club,” she added.
• • •
The English Tea Room, Brown’s Hotel
London
Colin Kavanaugh was led to the regular table. Like clockwork, Gruber’s waiter appeared.
“Good day to you, Mr. Kavanaugh. So pleased to see you.”
“Thank you, ah…” Kavanaugh hesitated, trying to remember the waiter’s name.
“Leon, Mr. Kavanaugh. Not a problem.”
“Thank you, Leon.”
“Of course. And may I add that it’s a pleasure to see you carrying on an important tradition.”
“Yes. Tradition is important.”
“Then I will assume you’ll be in more frequently?”
“As often as possible.”
“More than that, Mr. Kavanaugh.” Leon leaned forward and quietly repeated, “More than that.”
The comment stung as sharply as those of his assistant.
Leon straightened to a proper waiter’s posture. “Now, will it be an Earl Grey, sir?”
“That will be fine, Leon,” Kavanaugh managed.
“I also suggest you try the plain scones with clotted cream and the strawberry preserves. They’re delicious and among Mr. Gruber’s favorites.”
“Yes.”
“And as an old teacher of mine once said, let a word to the wise be sufficient, sir.”
“And that would be?” he snapped.
“Mr. Kavanaugh, you walk in the footsteps of your esteemed predecessor and those before him. You are part of an organization, not the organization.”
The construction of the statement, like the other things he’d heard that day, was unmistakable. A warning.
“Leon.”
“Yes, sir.”
Kavanaugh motioned with his finger to come closer. Now within earshot he continued. “Who are you?”
Leon pulled back and gave a proper smile. “Why, just another servant, sir. Nothing more, nothing less, though perhaps with a soupçon of grace you won’t see elsewhere,” he chuckled. “I’m simply a lifelong, loyal employee.”
Anyone who might have overheard the response would have considered it merely the comment of an appropriately devoted Brown’s waiter. But no one heard. The standard Voyages table was separate from the others in the austere tea room.
“And, if I may, I would recommend a nice walk in the park after your tea.”
• • •
North Hollywood, CA
The same time
“Now what?” Katrina said as they got into their distressed Fiesta.
“And where?” McCauley clamped his eyes shut in thought. “We need to track down the archeologist teacher.”
“Start driving to the airport. I’ll look him up. Remember the guy’s name?”
“How could I forget a college history professor with the name DeCoursey Fales?”
It did seem unbelievable, but Katrina’s Internet search proved him right. She read as they drove. “Here it is. Dr. DeCoursey Fales, archeologist and professor of history at Emerson College, Boston. Noted for his in-depth study of a single two-feet high Athenian black-figured vase from sixth century BC, considered the most important find of its kind, discovered in a tomb at Vulci, an ancient Etruscan town in northern Italy.”
“Aren’t there caves in that region? Big ones?” McCauley asked.
“I think you’re right. There’s more.” She paraphrased now. “The vase is decorated with some two hundred mythological figures including Achilles and Ajax. Apparently a real historic and cultural treasure.” Katrina looked up. “So he could very well have….”
McCauley completed the sentence. “Discovered something else.” He merged onto the 101 Freeway West for the first leg to LAX with renewed excitement. “Let’s go find Professor Fales.”
Katrina returned to the Google homepage and clicked on a New York Times abstract. “Uh oh.”
“What?”
“I think I know where the good professor is. But we won’t be able to speak to him. He died in 2000.”
He slammed his hand on the steering wheel and sped up. “Damn! Two dead ends.”
“I’ll check on his publications as long as you don’t start driving like we’re back in Bakersfield again,” she only half-joked. “And I’ll see about the spelunker and the priest.”
“Yeah, right. I can only imagine,” McCauley said.
Fifteen minutes later, they ground to a halt on Interstate 405, the quickest way to LAX when traffic moved, which was rare. Right now, it didn’t matter much. McCauley and Alpert had no idea where they were going.
• • •
Kensington Gardens
London
The same time
As Kavanaugh strolled to the park bench, he decided to project a better attitude, at least publicly. He noted that someone was already seated in the bench that abutted his.
After a short time, some of which Kavanaugh used to feed peanuts to the squirrels, he initiated the password routine.
“Usually things go well,” the man who went by the name Marvin quietly said. “This time, we moved too quickly.”
Kavanaugh felt the we was aimed at him. He rubbed his scalp with one hand and with the other, threw more peanuts at the squirrels. Then, emphasizing the word his own way, he responded, “Well, we need to fix this!”
Marvin chuckled, “An arrangement is already in progress.”
“Since this is the first operation on my watch, I especially welcome your help. I would like the details, however. Details meaning more than cursory overview. I’m sure you understand.”
Kavanaugh expected Marvin to reply. He didn’t.
Kavanaugh shifted slightly and tossed the remaining peanuts on the grass. This allowed him to glance over his shoulder.
His companion was gone.
Forty-two
Glendive Medical Center, MT
Glendive, MT
“How ya feeling sweetheart?” Tamburro asked Chohany.
“Embarrassed. Ridiculous. Stupid. Out of it.”
She was, and so far Anna, as McCauley suggested, wasn’t opening up.
“Doctors say you might be out in a few days.”
“Hope so.”
“The best thing now is for you to get more rest,” Tamburro replied.
“Can’t wait to get back,” she said. “What’s the latest on the dig and the cave?”
“Not sure.”
“What kind of answer is that?”
“We’re waiting for Dr. McCauley to come back tomorrow. But we might be shutting it down.”
This was more than he wanted to reveal.
“Really? Why?”
“Too dangerous. Potential pockets of gas.”
“Come on, Rich. You told me it was amazing and when Leslie visited she couldn’t stop talking about…”
“The doc got word that it’s off limits,” he said.
“You’re holding out on me.”
He was.
“Nope. We might move to another site. Not sure yet. I guess there are some insurance issues considering what happened.”
Guilt could work, he thought. He hoped.
“I’m sorry,” she offered.
Rich Tamburro moved closer to her. “It’s okay. Look, we met each other. I consider it a great summer.”
“Thanks.” She sighed deeply. “Maybe I’ll get a little sleep. Wanna lie down with me?”
• • •
Twenty minutes later, Rich Tamburro rolled off the bed and tiptoed around the room. Anna’s phone was on the nightstand, but he didn’t want to be too obvious. After a moment, he reached into his pocket to look at his cell. He swore under his breath, suggesting—in case she were actually awake—that his battery was dead. Tamburro casually picked up her cell and turned away. He knew her password, and although he felt guilty, he checked her email and texts. What he saw made him exhale slowly.
Tamburro thought hard about what to do next. With his back to her, he created screenshots of three texts and immediately forwarded them to his phone. There were more, but he heard Anna stir so he deleted the screenshots from her camera and the texts he’d sent.
“Hey, what gives?” she asked, apparently waking up. “Come back to bed.”
She watched Rich return the phone to the nightstand. “Hope it was okay. My battery was dead. Trying to reach Jaffe.”
“No problem,” she replied, fully aware that he was stumbling through an explanation. “Let me check on your battery right now.”
“But…?”
“There are always ways, sweetheart.”
It took him awhile. There were other things now on his mind.
• • •
Hertz Rental Car office
Los Angeles International Airport
Later
“Doc, I think you were right,” Tamburro said. He began to describe Anna’s text messages, but McCauley was simultaneously listening to the Hertz sales person closing out his rental agreement.
“I’m sorry, sir. Same issue,” the rental agent stated. She was a fifty-something African American woman with a pleasant smile and a reassuring tone.
“Hold on a sec, Rich.”
“This card was declined, too,” the agent said. “Do you have another we can try?”
“Yes, sure.” McCauley handed her a third.
“Thank you. No worries.”
While she ran the charge for the car, McCauley jumped back on the phone.
“Still there? Rich?”
“Yup,” Tamburro said. “Just saw Anna at the hospital. Heading to the parking lot now.”
The woman shook her head again.
“Damn. Hold on again, Rich. I’ve got a problem with my cards. Must have maxed out when we bought all the stuff.”
McCauley got Katrina’s attention. “Can you talk to Rich? I’ve gotta deal with the account.”
“Sure,” she said.
McCauley handed over the phone.
“Hi, Rich. It’s Katrina. What’s up?”
McCauley apologized. Once again, the Hertz representative said, “No worries.” But she wasn’t the one who needed to come up with a solution.
“I think your system doesn’t like my cards,” he said fumbling through his wallet. His Bank of America and Chase debit cards and a Citibank credit card were all declined. He retrieved an American Express Jet Blue card. “Let’s try this one.”
“Okay,” she pleasantly offered.
She swiped the credit card once. Then again. “Dr. McCauley, do you have any another means of paying? This card was also declined.”
McCauley, completely frustrated, looked for Katrina. She was still on the call, obviously engrossed in the conversation.
McCauley addressed the Hertz sales woman again. “I…I…” he stammered as he fumbled through his wallet. “One more left.” It was an American Express departmental credit card, his emergency backup. “Okay,” he sheepishly offered, “this better work.”
The woman swiped the card. This clearly wasn’t her first time through such difficulties. Her training taught her to keep the customer calm.
That wasn’t necessary. “The charge went through, Dr. McCauley. Everything’s good.” She returned the card with the receipt for $794.00 which included the $500 deductible for the damage.
After the paperwork was printed and signed she directed him to the airport shuttle kiosk. “The bus stops at all the terminals. Out the sliding doors and at the curb. I hope you’ll have a good day.”
McCauley looked over to Alpert who was still on the phone and pacing.
“I think I’m about to find out.”
• • •
Alpert pressed end and handed the phone back to McCauley.
“More,” she said.
“More what?”
“More problems?”
“Same here,” he added. “You first.”
“Outside. Your hundred-foot rule.”
They pulled their rolling suitcases, walked past the shuttle bus stop into the parking area, and settled on a bench out of earshot of other customers.
“Rich found texts on Anna’s phone while she was sleeping. They were to an international number. He’s forwarding them.”
“And?”
“You were right. She was leaking information.”
“To whom?”
“No name, but multiple texts,” Katrina continued.
“Go on.”
“The cave, the tunnel, the drawings and whatever else she learned from Rich and Leslie, too, even after she fell.”
“Christ!” McCauley exclaimed.
“She described it as something inexplicable. Something technical.”
“When?”
Alpert knew the next revelation wasn’t going to go down easily. “Here’s the worst of it. Before she went to the hospital and after.”
McCauley ran his hand through his hair.
“It gets worse,” she continued.
“How?”
“A text from the other day said we were heading to see Greene in Bakersfield.”
• • •
Glendive Medical Center, MT
The same time
Anna Chohany sent another text. Like the others, it wasn’t answered. She had a phone number to call in case there was something absolutely urgent. She’d been told to use it only once. After that it would be disconnected. This was the time to try.
Anna caught the attention of a nurse and asked her to close her door. Once alone, she dialed.
On the fourth ring a man with a deep, monotone, but friendly voice answered.
“Yes, Anna.”
Chohany was surprised that she was addressed so personally and informally.
“I sent a text a few minutes ago.”
“I have it. Is there something else we need to know?”
The we threw her. She never really thought about a we or much about the research organization that had contacted her right after she was accepted for the summer dig. There was competitive money in the field—from museums, universities and even pharmaceuticals. Based on the little she gathered and the $12,500 she’d been given, she figured no harm, no foul. It would have been, had it not been for her accident.
“I…I don’t know.”
“Anna, what is it you want to tell me? It’s all right.”
Chohany was a back channel, one of many that covered explorations around the globe. She’d be surprised to find out how extensive a network there was and how long it had been around. Most of the time it led to nothing. But not here. Not now. Anna Chohany’s reporting had put into motion the kind of concern that Martin Gruber and his predecessors had operated on for centuries and Colin Kavanaugh seized on now.
The voice on the phone sounded reassuring, so she told him what Rich Tamburro had done.
Forty-three
Glasgow Air Force Base, MT
The same time
Two men spoke cryptically on the sat phone. One was in London walking through Kensington Park, the other in a vacant hangar at the abandoned Glasgow AFB, seventeen miles north of the town of Glasgow in eastern Montana.
The facility, activated in 1957, had been home to the 467th Fighter Group and a base for Air Defense Command interceptors. In 1960, at the height of the Cold War, operations were transferred to the Strategic Air Command which tasked B-52C and B-52D bombers.
The wing was inactivated in February, 1963 and the airport was shut down in 1968 for
five years.
In 1973, Glasgow was rehabilitated, intended as an Army Safeguard Anti-Ballistic Missile depot. But, the construction was never completed. The base closed again in 1976.
Today it offered the perfect place for work to go unobserved.
“Run through the schedule,” the man in London instructed. They’d never met the caller, but they recognized the voice and the clipped delivery. So would Colin Kavanaugh from his conversations on the park bench.
“The talent is in place. We’re on time. Thirty-six hours away from curtain.”
“Are we feeling any pressure from the stars?”
“None. We aim to please. The backers will enjoy a successful opening night.”
Nothing else would be gained through a longer conversation. It was said without saying it. The mission, strike target, payload and deployment were all moving forward as planned. He’d report the basics to Kavanaugh when they next met.
• • •
Outside the LAX Hertz office
“It can’t be connected,” Katrina declared.
“Can and is. The bombing, the chase and now they shut down my bank accounts. Ten to one, yours are also frozen,” he explained.
“Who?”
“Whoever they are, they’re very powerful. If these people have access to my credit cards and have Chohany on their payroll, I can’t imagine what they’re capable of.”
“They’ll kill us.”
“No they won’t,” McCauley said, simply because it was the thing to say.
“Jesus, McCauley. What the hell am I even doing here? I was supposed to be sunning myself in Belize or at the least evaluating some wild ass dinosaur doc who had no real discoveries to his credit. Now—” she stopped, realizing what she’d said. “I’m sorry Quinn. I didn’t mean that.”
“It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not. And honestly, it was total bullshit. I’m just scared.”
Dr. Alpert broke down.
McCauley took her into his arms. Though he didn’t say it, he was actually relieved. Until this moment, he didn’t completely know if he could trust her.
Old Earth Page 20
