Live and Let Shop

by Michael P. Spradlin

  We parked the van on the street across from the FBI Building. It was getting close to 10 P.M. but many of the office windows were lit up and it looked like there was still a lot of activity going. Apparently crime fighters never sleep. I had finished everything I could on the laptop, but I needed a place to hook up to the Internet. Alex pulled out and cruised around the blocks near the FBI Building. About three blocks over, we spotted an Internet café. Perfect. I ran into the café and was on the net in about five minutes. A few keystrokes later, I hustled back to the van.

  “What were you doing?” asked Pilar.

  “Just a little insurance to make sure Agent Tyler doesn’t try to freeze us out.”

  We headed back to FBI headquarters, where I jumped out of the van and headed to a bank of pay phones on the corner. I took out Agent Tyler’s business card, dialed his extension, and crossed my fingers. I almost squealed out loud when he answered.

  “Tyler,” he said. His voice was all business.

  I tried to disguise my voice, even though I didn’t think he’d recognize it from our brief encounter in the hallway. “I know about the stolen book. I have information. Come to the all-night coffee shop on Eleventh and Constitution in twenty minutes.” Then I hung up.

  I raced back to the van, and we were seated in a booth at the coffee shop in twelve minutes. We all pretended to look at our menus. In a few minutes a government car pulled up in front of the shop and Agent Tyler and two other guys got out. The other two walked around the back, down the alley beside the coffee shop, and Agent Tyler came through the front door. As he was moving through the restaurant, I got up with my back to him and moved to an empty booth near the end. He strolled by each table, scanning the faces of the patrons. He walked right past Alex, Brent, and Pilar, and was about to pass me by when a spark of recognition entered his eye.

  “I know you,” he said. He didn’t look especially happy about that fact.

  I nodded. “Rachel’s my name, covert operations are my game.” I decided to see if I could disarm him with my cleverness and wit.

  “Are you the one that called me?” He got a really stern look on his face.

  “Yep.”

  He let out an exasperated sigh and said a bunch of stuff into his handheld radio. I wasn’t sure, but it looked like his face was taking on a slight purplish tint. He turned back to me.

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull here, but I do know that you aren’t supposed to be off school property unless your headmaster authorizes it. So however you got here, you better haul butt back to school and hope I don’t turn you in.”

  “You won’t,” I said, sounding as sure of myself as I could. I think I managed to pull it off.

  “Why won’t I?”

  “Two reasons. One, I know you went to Blackthorn too.” His eyes widened, but only for a moment.

  “So?” he said. “A lot of people went to Blackthorn.”

  I interrupted him.

  “Yes, I saw the picture of you in your cute little basketball uniform. Wore those shorts pretty short back then, didn’t they? And that poofy hair. Totally eighties. I don’t think you’d want copies of that picture sent to all of your coworkers, would you?”

  “Okay, we’re done.” He started to turn toward the door. “I’m calling the Academy to have you picked up.”

  “I said two reasons, that’s only one.”

  He stopped and turned.

  “For crying out loud, kid, I’m busy! Tell me the second reason, quick, before I have you hauled out of here.”

  “I know everything.”

  That stopped him for a couple of seconds.

  “Everything about what?”

  “Agent Tyler. Let’s cut the nonsense. I know about the stolen book. I know Mr. Kim is trying to find it and may be in trouble. I know that you spent the whole day at Blackthorn in the Top Floor wing with Mr. Kim and that there is a perfect replica of the Gallery there. What were you doing? Restaging the crime or something?”

  “Never you mind what we were doing. What year are you? You’re not Top Floor, are you?”

  “You know as well as I do that membership in Top Floor is classified,” I said. Actually I had no idea if it was classified or not. I didn’t know much at all really, but I sure didn’t want Agent Tyler to know that I didn’t know what he thought I knew, which I really didn’t. I think.

  “Well, I know that you are not involved in this. And you know you could be thrown out of the school for being off grounds unsupervised.”

  “Where is Mr. Kim?” I said.

  “I have no idea where Mr. Kim is,” he said.

  “Are you looking for him?”

  “No, why would I be looking for him? I’ve got my hands full trying to find a stolen artifact that belongs to another country. I don’t have time to look for Mr. Kim,” he said.

  “Did you know that he has been gone from the school for several days?”

  “He’s a grown man. He can take care of himself. Now, you get back to school. I have work to do,” he said. He turned and started back down the aisle that led to the door.

  “Who is Mithras?” I said. He stopped dead in his tracks. His body tensed and he stormed back to me, and this time he put his face right in mine, giving me the cop look. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Brent and Alex stand up like they were going to come and grab him, but I signaled them to stay back.

  “How do you know about Mithras?” he asked.

  “Why? Who is Mithras?”

  “Listen. This is none of your business. You’re a high school student. You turn around and get your fanny back to that school, or so help me I will arrest you.”

  “Might want to check your e-mail first,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Got a PDA or a Blackberry?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Better check your e-mail before you arrest me.”

  He pulled his Blackberry out of his belt clip and started punching buttons.

  He read the e-mail that I had sent him. His face got a little red, although he was trying hard not to show it.

  “What is this?” he said.

  “It’s a copy of an e-mail. I’ve set it up to be sent out to a forwarding service. In about two hours it’s going to go out to about a hundred newspapers and TV stations all across the country, and it’s going to tell the story of how there’s this boarding school that has all these strange things going on. Maybe even putting its students in danger. Film at eleven. The press will eat it up.”

  He snapped the cover over his Blackberry.

  “Nice try. But you know what, go ahead and send the e-mail. As far as I’m concerned, whatever goes on at the school is your and Mr. Kim’s problem. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but if you contact me again, or interfere in another FBI investigation, I will arrest you and make your life miserable. Am I clear?”

  He didn’t wait for me to answer. He stormed out of the diner, got into the government car, and was gone.

  Pilar, Alex, and Brent joined me in the booth.

  “What did he say?” Alex asked.

  “That he has very strong feelings for me,” I said.

  “Funny. What did he say?”

  I filled them in. When I told them about the e-mail, they all got very angry with me. Alex went off on me again.

  “What is wrong with you? Do you realize what that could do to the school if it got out? Why do you hate Blackthorn so much?”

  “I don’t hate it,” I said. Well, yes I did, but that was beside the point. “I wasn’t really going to send the e-mail. I’m not totally stupid; I just needed some kind of leverage.” I was trying to be angry back, but I had a feeling that he was right to be mad at me and I felt bad about it. I couldn’t even muster a snappy comeback. “Besides, it’s over now, so just lay off.”

  “Yeah, well, what if that thing got sent out by accident? Do you ever think of anybody else before you do something stupid? Maybe you don’t belong at Blackthorn, but fo
r the rest of us it’s the only place we have. You must be the most selfish person I’ve ever met. You need to use your brain before you use your mouth sometimes.” He got up and stormed out of the diner.

  I looked at Pilar and shrugged.

  “What do you see in that guy?” I asked. She got kind of embarrassed and looked down at the table, her cheeks starting to color.

  “He’s not such a bad guy,” Brent said. “He can be a bit of a hothead sometimes, but he loves the school and Mr. Kim is very important to him. To all of us. He’s just worried.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s still acting like a jerk,” I said. Still, I didn’t say it with a lot of emphasis, because part of me thought Alex might have a point.

  We all got up and left the diner. I was out of ideas. We still didn’t know where Mr. Kim was or what was going on. I had thought I could bluff Agent Tyler and get him to tell us, but it didn’t work. All we could do now was go back to the school and wait. I hate waiting.

  We were almost to the van when a rather tall man in a trench coat stepped out of a doorway. I immediately thought he looked familiar.

  “Excuse me. Are you Rachel Buchanan?” he said.

  We all stopped, and then I recognized him as the man from the picture in Mr. Kim’s office. He was a little older now than in the picture, but clearly it was him.

  “Who wants to know?” I asked.

  “My name is Simon Blankenship. I’m a former colleague of Jonathon’s—we were in the Special Forces together. I’ve been retired for some time, but when the book was stolen he called me and asked me to help. But I haven’t been able to reach Jonathon for days now. Did you speak to Agent Tyler?”

  For a moment I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know who this guy was, except that he was definitely in the picture in Mr. Kim’s office. He seemed very competent and he stood and acted like a military person. He was handsome for an old guy, and he had a deep, rich voice that was full of confidence. If Mr. Kim had a picture of him in his office, then they must be good friends. Heck, the only other picture in there had been of him and Jackie Chan, so this Blankenship guy must be pretty special.

  Then, I remembered we had a budding psychic in our group. I looked at Pilar and tried to see how she was reacting to this guy. Maybe she’d be able to warn me if anything was weird. But she just gave me a blank look. No help there. I decided to plunge ahead.

  “Yeah, we just spoke to Agent Tyler. It was a very short conversation, which mainly consisted of him telling us to butt out and go back to school,” I said.

  Blankenship laughed. “That’s Nathan, all right. He’s more worried about Johnny than he lets on. This is dangerous work. I myself am very concerned.” Blankenship got an anxious look on his face. He ran his hands over his silver-flecked hair and sighed. “You haven’t heard from Johnny recently, have you?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “I wonder where he could be. Listen, I know I have no right to ask, but the FBI won’t listen to me, either, and I need your help. The last I heard from Johnny, he was at the docks on the river. He thinks the people who stole the book will try to smuggle it out on a boat to avoid the airports. I’m wondering if you’ll head there with me and help me look for him. He could be in trouble.” I could tell he was very upset. This was exactly the kind of lead we needed.

  I looked at the group. They all nodded.

  “Of course we’ll help. What do we do?” I asked.

  “Let’s take your van and head to the docks. Tyler said his agents searched there earlier and didn’t find anything, but maybe they missed something. It’s all we have to go on at this point.”

  We all climbed into the van. Blankenship drove since he knew the way, and I sat in the front passenger seat, with Pilar and the boys in the back. I took the opportunity to drill him with questions.

  “So you and Mr. Kim were in the Special Forces together?” I asked.

  “Yes. Johnny and I were both military men. Johnny was Air Force and I was Army. We were in a special top-secret group run through the State Department, called the Blackthorn Squad. We extracted defectors and did other deep-cover missions in foreign countries. Johnny is a brave fellow. Quite a brave fellow indeed. I hope nothing untoward has happened to him.” He spoke with a mixture of admiration and concern. Mr. Kim clearly meant a great deal to him. I couldn’t imagine ever calling Mr. Kim “Johnny,” but Blankenship did it with obvious affection.

  The fact that Mr. Kim was a former Special Forces soldier explained a lot. That must be why he had the little hideout below the school. He probably still did some special assignments for the government from time to time. Either that or he was living out his Batman fantasy.

  “Who or what is Mithras?” I asked.

  Blankenship’s head snapped around. For a moment, only a moment, his face took on a strange expression and he squeezed the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. That look was on his face for only a second before he recovered and tried to give me a reassuring smile. But I saw it. It gave me the willies.

  “What do you know about Mithras?” His voice was a little tight.

  “Only that Mr. Kim got this e-mail from somebody who called himself Sam Rith. Which is a telegram for Mithras,” I said.

  “Anagram,” Pilar corrected me from the backseat.

  “Right.” I was never going to get that.

  “He said he had the stolen book and for Mr. Kim not to come looking for him, and when I asked Agent Tyler about Mithras he got really mad. So somehow it’s connected, but all I know is that Mithras was an ancient Roman god of the underworld or something.”

  “I see,” Blankenship said. “It sounds like you know quite a lot indeed. Johnny must be very proud of how smart you are. Mithras. Now, there is a name I haven’t heard in a while. Not in a long while.” He didn’t say anything for a few moments. It was almost like he was summoning up the courage to tell us something that was really painful.

  As we drove he told us this story:

  “Johnny and I were on a special assignment deep undercover in the territory that is now Kuzbekistan. We were camped in the desert, and one night while I patrolled the perimeter of our camp, I fell through the desert floor into an underground cavern. Busted up my knee a little bit, but I wasn’t seriously injured. It turned out I’d fallen into an ancient temple built by the Roman Legions to honor Mithras.”

  “How did you know that?” I asked.

  “Well, I didn’t, at first. Jonathon heard me calling and rappelled down into the cave, and we explored. There was a lot of stuff in there: statues, gold coins, and on a beautiful altar made of gold, there was the Book of Seraphim. I’m the one that found it, you see.”

  “You found it? That’s amazing!” It was amazing.

  “Yep. Johnny and I learned that there are believed to be seven other sacred temples of Mithras. A couple of them have already been found. Each one holds an artifact that the Emperor Flavius hid when the Roman Empire fell. Flavius sent his troops around the world, each with a different item. He told them to build a hidden temple at each location, and that one day Mithras will rise to reclaim the seven artifacts and rule the world.

  “We told the Kuzbekistanis where the temple was, and they took the book and put it in their museum. It’s been there ever since, until this tour. From what I hear, they haven’t completely translated it yet. There’s stuff in that book even the sharpest minds don’t understand completely.

  “It’s funny: I had a sense about that book from the very beginning. I knew we’d discovered something priceless and powerful. I tried to warn Johnny not to give it to the Kuzbekistanis, but he insisted. Now it’s all gone wrong, and I hope it hasn’t gotten him hurt or worse. I couldn’t stand that.” His voice quavered as he spoke, and I felt sorry for him. He was really worried about Mr. Kim.

  “So the very first time the book leaves Kuzbekistan it gets stolen?” Alex asked.

  “Yep. Johnny tried to warn their government that it would be hard to protect such a pric
eless thing as it traveled. But they were offered a huge amount of money by all these galleries and museums, and being a poor country, they couldn’t turn it down. So now Johnny and I have got to get it back.”

  “But how? I mean, who took it?” I asked.

  “Mithras,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Oh, no, lassie, not an ancient Roman god come to life, unless you believe that sort of thing. This Mithras is flesh and blood. See, there is a man out there who thinks he’s Mithras reborn. He’s been stealing Mithrian artifacts for years now, ever since that book was found. A gold medallion from a museum in Greece. Some other things. But the book will be his prize possession. That will get him started on his final ascension,” he said.

  “Final ascension?” I said.

  “Yes. Once it’s been completely translated, the book will reveal the locations of the other temples. And then he’ll have all the artifacts, and according to the book, Mithras will rise and rule the world.”

  “That’s crazy. Who would believe that stuff?” Alex said. Obviously Alex had large amounts of attitude where dreams, psychic ability, and mysticism were concerned.

  “Well, people believe all sorts of things, son. Ghosts and goblins and UFOs and all manner of things. Mithras is just another example.”

  I suppose he was right about that. I mean, people do believe some pretty weird stuff. So if a guy wanted to run around thinking he was a bull, who was I to argue?

  We had reached the port. It was a small harbor as harbors go, in an industrial section of D.C. The ships weren’t small, but they weren’t the giant freighters that you’d see in a deeper port, either.

  There was a large parking lot next to the harbor. At this time of night it was mostly deserted, with only a few cars parked here and there. Blankenship parked the van and we all got out.

  “I think we need to search these ships,” he said, and pointed down to the dock where the ships were berthed. “Time is of the essence, so I suggest we split up. Miss Buchanan and I will start on that ship, the R.A. Smith, and the three of you start on the other end at the B.T. Franklin. There are four ships altogether, so we’ll search each one and work our way back to the middle. Sound good?”