The Cotten Stone Omnibus: It started with The Grail Conspiracy... (The Cotten Stone Mysteries)

by Lynn Sholes

  “Relax and let me work out some of the tension,” she said, spreading the oil. Her thumbs pressed along either side of his spine as she slid them up his back, stretching out long lines of muscle and tendons. “This will make you feel better, I promise. We’ll order something for dinner later, if you feel like it. For now, let me help you unwind.”

  “That feels great,” Alan said, finally sensing the stress and tension abate beneath her hands. He had worried about Devin to the point of numbness, and his mind couldn’t think any more. He would give in to this moment of reprieve.

  The tingle and warmth, and the firm pressure of Kai’s hands, were a mixed sensation. Alan wasn’t sure which he wanted to respond to—the relaxing of his muscles or the mounting sexual arousal. Whichever, it was total respite from the nightmare of the kidnapping.

  Kai’s magical hands kneaded his shoulders, then down his upper arms, returning to his neck, then across his shoulder blades. Then the heels of her hands found his lower back, flattening out every knot and kink.

  Taking her time, she finished with his back then dragged her fingers through his hair at his temples, working in circles across his scalp. Alan hadn’t noticed how taut his facial muscles had been until he felt them start to relax.

  “Are you an angel?” he whispered.

  “I am whatever you want me to be,” Kai answered.

  God, she was good, Alan thought as she slipped down his legs until she sat on his ankles, her perfect ass on his heels. She dribbled a little more of the oil down each of his thighs and calves. Alan not only felt the oil warming at her touch, but he detected her heat resting on his ankles.

  After massaging his legs, she feathered her fingertips up and down, from calf to upper back, a fine delicate tickle on his skin. She lightly nipped his buttock before urging him to turn over.

  “Mmm, Mr. Olsen,” she said, eyeing his erection. “I was supposed to relax you, not—”

  “You aren’t finished yet,” he said rolling her beneath him.

  Kai smiled and arched her neck as he kissed it. “We can both relax,” he whispered, sitting up. Alan poured a nickel-sized portion of the massage oil in his palm and closed the bottle. Then gently, he eased his hand between her thighs.

  Kai’s breath caught in a gasp, turning into a long, audible, streaming sigh. She pushed her hips up to meet his hand.

  Alan watched her face, her eyes closed, sometimes her teeth biting her bottom lip, her forehead bearing lines of strain. Her head turned from side to side, her hair shiny, sliding on the sheets like black mercury. She swallowed, followed by a low, lingering moan. He loved seeing her like this, beautiful, flushed, so vulnerable in the moment.

  Kai pulled him down on her. She whimpered a cry for him to hurry.

  He entered her, her legs wrapping around him, her hips rocking to his rhythm, rising higher, pressing harder against him with each thrust until finally, Kai’s whole body stiffened. Before she pulsed and shuddered in the last throes of orgasm, Alan matched her ecstasy, and a moment later they lay spent, his face buried in her neck.

  _____

  Alan woke to movement on the bed. He opened one eye and saw Kai climbing in beside him. She was still naked, her hair mussed. He perceived the light scent of soap.

  “I was a little on the greasy side. But, don’t think I’m complaining,” she said, snuggling next to him. “I’m afraid we’ve ruined the sheets. I don’t think the oil stains will come out.”

  “Screw the sheets,” Alan said.

  Kai laughed. “We kind of did.”

  Alan put his arm around her and drew her closer so her head rested on his shoulder.

  “Next time I give you a massage, we’ll spread a beach towel.”

  He kissed her forehead. “I needed that badly. Maybe I can regroup now.”

  “I know you can’t stop thinking about Devin. Taking a minute or two to shut out the world will help you stay sane.” She stroked the soft tuft of hair on his belly.

  “I just don’t get it,” Alan said. “No ransom, nothing. I think I would rather have received some type of demand. At least I’d know what they want, and then I could give it to them. This is more like some pedophile or sicko who hurts kids.”

  “Don’t think like that, Alan.”

  “I try not to, but it is a possibility.”

  “I’ve grown to love him, too,” Kai said. “And his father. So far, the kidnappers don’t want money, so that might eliminate one motive. It could, God forbid, be a pedophile. What else is there?”

  Alan turned and kissed her again. “I haven’t told anyone this, but there is one other possibility that scares the hell out of me. It could put Devin in more harm’s way than he already is.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t tell me, either,” she said.

  “No, I need to talk to somebody who cares about him, who loves him.”

  Kai caressed his jaw.

  “Let me back up so you can see the whole picture. You already know about Devin’s . . . talents. They used to call people like him idiot savants. But there’s nothing idiotic about him. Since he was diagnosed, I’ve spent years studying autism. Most recent theories indicate that in autistic savants that are extreme, like Devin, there is no communication between the left hemisphere of the brain and the right. When normal people, like us, attempt to learn things, our brains are being bombarded with other information, and it searches for connections to past experiences or ways to make generalizations, that kind of thing. So there is a lot of interference. But Devin’s brain doesn’t work like that. It’s pure learning with no interference. That’s why he has a photographic memory. There’s a lot more than that—one of the newest studies also suspects a problem with mirror neurons in autistic children. But the bottom line is that Devin literally remembers everything he sees, hears, and reads.”

  “Interesting,” Kai said. She picked up her head and looked at Alan. “But what has that got to do with what’s scaring you?”

  Alan used his palm to shove his hair back. “You know how Devin memorizes books the first time he reads them?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you know he’s got a thing for numbers.”

  “Right. And dates.”

  Alan continued. “Devin has seen the programming code to the operating system for Destiny, the quantum computer we’re working on. And because he’s seen it, I know he’s memorized it, just like he memorizes all the names and numbers in a hundred telephone books.”

  Kai was silent for a moment. “And?”

  “What if someone wanted to steal that information? You know we have the tightest security possible at CyberSys. No one is ever allowed to bring in or remove any object from the building. You can’t even wear a watch or wedding ring past the detectors. And you can’t remove anything, not even a paper clip or tissue.”

  He stared up at the ceiling. “But every time Devin comes to see me, he walks out of the building with our most valuable data right in his head. Kai, trust me when I say that there are people who would do anything to get the Destiny OS code.”

  “OS?”

  “Operating system. You see, if we have as much success with Destiny as it appears, it will make all current encryption methods instantly archaic.”

  “You’re talking over my head, darling.”

  “Sorry. Encryptions are based on mathematics. The more computational difficulty involved, the more difficult to decrypt. It’s not that they are impossible to break, it’s that they are impossible to break in a reasonable period of time. It would take hundreds, even thousands of years for current computers to decrypt most of the military’s most securely encrypted information. Codes that deal with launching nuclear weapons, for instance. Most of the world’s security networks, from financial institutions to global positioning satellites, depend on encryptions devised in this manner. The CyberSys computer itself is just hardware—a colle
ction of lasers, ion traps, mirrors, lenses, and photodectors, all made from metal, silicone, and plastic. You need an operating program to control the hardware and interpret the computing results, just like a home PC needs Windows to make the hard drive talk to the modem or the DVD player communicate with the sound card. So if someone knows that Devin has memorized the code to the operating system, after they get what they need from him, there’s no reason to keep him alive.” Alan stared at her. “Kai, they’ll kill my son.”

  “But you’re the only one who knows he has memorized the code.”

  “That’s what I hope is the case,” Alan said. “That’s what I pray, because if not, Devin is as good as dead.”

  They held each other for a while in uneasy silence. Finally, Kai scooted out of bed. “Want to order pizza?” she said, moving around to his side of the bed. She looked down on him with a coquettish arch of her brow. “Drink a little wine, watch a movie? Maybe get tipsy, skinny dip, and fuck like rabbits in the hot tub?”

  _____

  Alan pushed the pizza box off the nightstand so he could see the phone and check the caller ID. It was Max Wolf, CyberSys’ director of engineering. He pushed the talk button. “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything, starting with the interaction noise levels.”

  Alan heard the click of a cigarette lighter. “You’re not supposed to be smoking in the lab.”

  “You want this shit to work or not?”

  Alan sat up. “I want you to live long enough to see it work and not blow up my building. Now, what happened?”

  “Your idea of using the nitrogen vacancies in the diamond almost worked,” Wolf said. “Right up until the whole thing crapped out.”

  Alan visualized Wolf with his bushy, walnut-brown hair and wearing one of his hundred Hawaiian shirts, cutoffs, flip-flops, and a perpetual cigarette hanging from his mouth. Alan found it hard sometimes to be in the same room with Max—he was a brilliant scientist, but he reeked of cigarette smoke. Max Wolf had joined CyberSys right out of MIT. Within six years, he was heading up Alan’s quantum computer project code-named Destiny.

  “Suggestions?” Alan asked.

  “It’s the same old shit. Right now our qubits are turning to junk when we probe with the laser. It all boils down to bad spectral-hole-burning material. Your suggestion of diamonds with impurities was the closest we’ve come—but no cigar.”

  “Max, go home. Get some sleep. We’ll all meet tomorrow and regroup. I firmly believe we’ll find the right material. It’s got to be out there somewhere.”

  “Maybe you’re right, Alan,” Max said. “I’ve had it for tonight.”

  “Go home, or you’re fired.”

  “You’d just rehire me tomorrow.”

  Alan pushed the off button and placed the phone back on the nightstand. He turned to see Kai standing naked by the doorway holding a bottle of wine and two glasses.

  She winked and gave him a seductive smile. “I’m feeling more like a devil than an angel.”

  crash

  “Shit!” Ben said, looking up at the motion detector. The LED glowed bright indicating it had sensed his presence. Storm or no storm, it was time to go.

  Pulling on the door, he opened it enough to slip through. The storm had turned the forest into a combat zone with almost constant strobes of lightning and booming thunder. Ben ran along the side of the building and around the corner toward the road leading to the gate.

  “Hey you!” came a yell.

  Ben looked over his shoulder to see the white panel van in front of one of the older wooden buildings. The guy in the red windbreaker had jumped out and was yelling for Ben to stop. The man got back in the van and put it into gear.

  Ben felt his heart slamming against his chest as he ran along the asphalt road. He could see the guardhouse and gate in the distance—sheets of rain rolling across his vision. Over the sound of the storm, he heard the van coming, its engine racing.

  At the gate, Ben pushed through the small opening. A coil of the old Constantine wire hanging down from the top cut across his bald head like a scalpel. The pain was intense as his foot caught in the fence and he fell into the mud. Scrambling to his feet, he jerked open the door to the Jeep and jumped in. His hand twisted the key and the engine cranked. As he turned the Wrangler around, he caught sight of his face in the rearview. Blood ran in rivulets, his head covered in red.

  Ben heard the van slide to a halt behind the gate, its bumper slamming into the chain link and metal frame.

  The forest boomed with thunder, and the wind whipped the trees into swirling madness as Ben raced the Jeep along the logging road. He wiped his face on the sleeve of his jacket and saw it come away bright red.

  “God damn it!” he screamed, pounding the steering wheel. “I knew it, I knew it.” The pressure built in his chest. The deep cut on his head hurt like hell. “This was a God damn mistake!”

  The Jeep swished along the muddy road through the torrents of rain. Ben wiped the blood from his face and gritted his teeth. He felt the pain in his chest worsen. Limbs and branches whipped at the Jeep, the wipers barely keeping up with the downpour.

  He passed the stream, now to his left. It rushed by angrily, swollen with the deluge running off the mountainsides.

  Feeling lightheaded, Ben found it hard to steer. The road seemed to split up ahead. He didn’t remember there being two roads. Which way? He would follow the one . . .

  The airbag blasted Ben back into the seat as the Jeep slid off the road and crashed into the trunk of a huge oak. A second later, it deflated. Ben tried to breathe, his chest burning from the impact of the airbag and the stress on his heart. Through blurry eyes that were dimming, he saw movement in the rearview mirror.

  A white van, a red windbreaker.

  blaze

  The Jordan farm burned—flames shot skyward, jumping to the surrounding trees and fields. The ancient oak that had provided a century of shade had become a ball of fire, a freak sun that blazed in the night sky. The paintings, the poetry—all traces of Lindsay and Tera Jordan were being erased.

  Cotten knew her age-old enemy had just declared war.

  “What should we do?” she said, slowing down as they approached the entrance to the farm.

  “Keep driving,” John said.

  “Do you still have any doubts about who we’re dealing with?” Cotten watched the glow from the fire fade in her rearview mirror.

  “None.” He had turned in his seat to watch out the rear window. “Let’s go a little farther, then double back and make another pass.”

  “Someone sure wants all the evidence gone. Especially the painting of Albrecht. Not very flattering with the wicked red glow around his body.”

  A state police car came from the opposite direction and passed them, lights flashing, siren screaming.

  “What do you make of your friend Caroline’s comment back at the diner? That Tera was an Indigo child?”

  “I’ve heard the term,” Cotten said. “SNN ran a special on gifted children about six months ago. Some of the kids were referred to as Indigos. It has something to do with their auras. Some psychics claim they can see indigo auras surrounding those kids. And it shows up using special photography.”

  “Kirlian photography—I think they call it.”

  “Right, that’s it.”

  “So if Tera has an indigo aura, then Albrecht must have a red one. That’s what she was painting—Albrecht and his aura. That might be how Tera identifies them. A red aura, how appropriate.”

  John’s cell phone rang. “Yes,” he said after flipping it open. “No, that’s quite all right. What have you got?” He listened intently for a few moments. “Can you make flight arrangements for Ms. Cotten Stone and me? Yes, out of Louisville. As soon as possible. We can be at the airport in a couple of hours.” Another pause, then, “Thank you.” He shut the phone.

>   “What did they find out?” Cotten asked.

  “Lindsay purchased gas in Brunswick, Georgia, four days ago. She used her card again at a motel in Orlando the next day.”

  Cotten thought for a minute. “Nothing after that?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe she has headed to Disney. Think about it, John. What a perfect place to hide Tera. There are millions of kids there. She’d be hard to pick out in a crowd like that. Pretty smart, if that’s the case.”

  “It’s going to make it hard for us to find her, too.”

  Another state trooper flew past. Cotten pulled onto the shoulder of the road. “Ready to go back and take one more look?”

  John glanced at the dashboard clock. “I think we got the message. Let’s get on to the Louisville airport. Was your luggage at Lindsay’s?”

  “I didn’t even think about that,” she said, driving back onto the roadway.

  “We’ll pick up whatever you need at the airport or in Orlando.”

  “Oh, shit,” Cotten said.

  “It’s just material things, Cotten.”

  She briefly looked at John. “I was thinking about the mother cat and her kittens. I hope they got away.”

  “I’m sure they did. Animals have an instinct when it comes to fire. They don’t hang around.”

  John’s cell phone rang again. He opened it and stared at the caller ID on the glowing LCD. Then he gave Cotten an expression of bewilderment.

  “What’s wrong? Who’s calling you?” she asked.

  “You are.”

  hades worm

  “The onion routers are in place,” Tor said. “They went online right after the initial flood attack last night.”

  Tor’s face—narrow glasses, short hair, goatee, and pompous smile—filled the video screen as Rizben Mace watched from a windowless, dark-paneled office in the basement of his McLean, Virginia, home. He remembered the first time he met Tor, twenty years ago. Mace was conducting the induction ritual into the Ruby Army of a dozen of the Nephilim, offspring of Fallen Angels and mortal humans, and Tor had been one of the eight-year-olds receiving the honor. In chatting with the boy after the ceremony, Mace quickly realized that Tor stood out as being extremely bright and technically gifted. He had predicted the boy would prove himself a valuable asset sometime in the future.