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

by Lynn Sholes

“Stone stated that although he seemed delirious and barely conscious, the words were clear. If you know the identity of this man or the meaning of his strange message, please contact the Satellite News Network at the toll-free number on your screen or online at w-w-w-dot-satellitenews-dot-org.”

  Sitting on her living room couch, Cotten pressed the pause button on the TiVo remote and froze the image of the sick man’s face. “It was the craziest thing, John,” she said into the speaker phone. “At first, I thought he was a drug addict who wandered into the building after overdosing, but that didn’t explain the blood. I figured he wanted help, and my name was the first one that popped into his head from seeing me on the news, and that’s why he asked for me. And I just assumed he was talking about hypodermic needles.”

  “What was the phrase again?” John asked.

  “You can clearly hear it on the video playback. It was Black Needles.” There was a soft clinking sound as she sipped her Absolut over ice.

  “My first impression is the same as yours—a junkie on his last trip. But like you say, that doesn’t explain the blood. He may have had some other health issues.”

  “Yes, but then you add in the whole issue of his body being taken from the hospital by an unidentified mortuary before the CDC could be alerted and the medical examiner could conduct an autopsy—well, it just struck me as highly suspicious.”

  “What if it’s nothing more than what the ER doctor suggested, a foul-up in the paperwork?”

  “Maybe. But for the heck of it, I had Headline News run the story, asking for the public to help identify the guy.” She drained the glass. “I just finished watching it.”

  “Maybe something will come of it.”

  “These kinds of things always come as a mixed bag. We’ll still have to sift out the wackos from the real leads.”

  There was a pause before John spoke again. “I’m really sorry about tonight. I was looking forward to us having dinner together, but when the United States ambassador to the U.N. requested a private meeting, I had no choice.”

  Cotten sighed. “It would have been nice.” She finger-combed her hair away from her face. “Any idea what the State Department wants?”

  “There are some serious negotiations going on behind the scenes in the Eastern European Republic of Moldova. It involves a border conflict with a narrow breakaway strip of land called Transnistria. The violence is escalating while the formal talks have stalled. My guess is that they want a neutral party involved. Maybe pull the Vatican’s foreign minister into the fray. Right now, your crystal ball is as good as mine.”

  “And you fly back to Rome tomorrow?”

  “Hey, stop trying to hustle me out of the country. I was hoping to at least take you to breakfast. What do you think? Seven-thirty? My flight is at ten.”

  “Sounds like a perfect way to start my day.”

  “Hang on a second.”

  She heard him cover the receiver, followed by muted voices.

  “The Secret Service is here,” John said. “I’ll give you a call later.”

  “Have fun playing diplomat.”

  ___

  At breakfast the next morning, Cotten toyed with her soft-boiled egg. Her appetite dwindled as they talked of John’s leaving and when he might come back to the States.

  “The Grand Hyatt menu is great, but I still think I prefer good old Cracker Barrel,” John said.

  “You know there’s not one anywhere near Manhattan. I guess New Yorkers aren’t into grits, hash browns, buttermilk biscuits, and gravy.”

  “No matter. The company doesn’t get any better,” John said, winking.

  “What was all the hush-hush about last night?”

  He looked at her over the rim of his coffee cup. “Off the record?”

  Cotten nodded.

  He rested the cup with a clink on the saucer. “I’m hand-carrying a letter back to the Holy Father. Although I haven’t read it, I’m guessing it’s a request to get the Holy See involved in the negotiations to stop the Moldovan conflict before it worsens. Officially, everything is completely behind the scenes.”

  “Why would they call upon the Vatican?”

  “That was my first question,” John said. “Truth is, once the Russians finally pulled their Fourteenth Army out, the Transnistrians feel as strongly as ever that they should be independent from Moldova. The hostility is fueled by a burning desire to establish an independent state. This is nothing new to those people, it’s been going on at some level since they were part of the Kingdom of Lithuania in the fifteenth century. Trouble is, the Transnistrians are sitting on a massive stockpile of arms left behind by the Russians, and they’re willing to fight to the last man in order to establish their breakaway republic. The level of frustration is so intense in the region that all parties are grasping at anything that will bring peace, including the obscure fact that the pope’s grandmother was Eastern Orthodox—so is the majority of both Transnistria and Moldova.”

  “Will you be going there if the Vatican gets involved?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s your cover story this time?”

  “An archaeological dig site in Romania that was originally uncovered back in 1971 is turning up some new finds. Mainly the remains of two martyrs who died during the repressions of Emperor Decius. So for all intents and purposes, I’ll be tagging along with the diplomatic contingency before heading off to the dig site. Shouldn’t raise any suspicions as to why I’m there.”

  “Would there be much risk?”

  “Know what?” John smiled and cocked his head. “You’re going to ruin that pretty face with premature wrinkles if you don’t stop worrying so much.” He patted the top of her hand.

  “Then promise me you’ll keep safe.”

  ___

  “How was your breakfast with John?” Ted asked as he sat across from Cotten in her office that afternoon.

  “Too short,” she said. “He had to rush to Kennedy for his flight.”

  “Did he tell you what the big meeting was all about?”

  “Only in general terms.” She stared out her window at Central Park. “Off the record.”

  “Then we have to respect that,” Ted said. “Of course, I expect him to give you the exclusive when it’s time to talk.”

  Cotten nodded reluctantly. “I worry about him, Ted. I wish he just did the priest thing. But his job with the Venatori puts him in danger. There are a lot of people who want to harm him.”

  “Let it go, kiddo. You can’t change anything.”

  “I know, but if something happened to John, I don’t think I could bear it.”

  “He’ll be fine. You just hate to see him leave.”

  “I guess so.” Cotten leaned back in her chair. “So what’s your hot news?”

  “The name of our mystery man is Jeff Calderon,” Ted said. “His aunt called this morning after seeing the story.”

  Cotten turned to look at her boss. “How did he wind up in our lobby?”

  “Mr. Calderon was a pharmaceutical salesman for the last ten years. Apparently he started using more of his samples than his clients did. According to his dear old aunt, he was fired a couple of months back, before dropping off her radar screen about six weeks ago. She hasn’t heard from him since. But she did give us his last known address—a low-rent apartment in Bed Stuy.”

  “I thought that area of Brooklyn was getting cleaned up?”

  “Still some seedy sections,” Ted said. “But it’s a thousand times better than just a few years ago.”

  “Let me see the address.”

  Ted handed her a sheet of paper.

  “This isn’t too far from Tompkins Park.”

  “You know the area?”

  “Only in passing. I went over there one Sunday last summer to attend a baseball game for a charity I was covering.”

&
nbsp; “Let me guess,” Ted said. “Now you want to go back and see where Calderon lived?”

  Cotten shrugged. “It’ll give me something to do this weekend. I need to get out anyway.”

  “Take a walk through Central Park. Go shopping at Bloomies. It’s safer.” Ted rose to leave.

  Cotten smiled as she gathered up her things to go home. “You worry too much.”

  shatter

  The ribbon of the four-lane motorway flowing into Pyongyang was virtually deserted as Moon watched the rolling hills slip past. Like all the motorways around the North Korean capital, this one was beautifully tended by the peasants living nearby. In the mornings on her way to the lab, she would see them dusting out the gutters and pruning the shrubs along the sides of the road. They would bow respectfully as her black limousine raced past on its way to the high security government compound north of the city.

  Tonight, she was exhausted as she absentmindedly watched the farmland sweep by. The long days at the genetics facility wore away at her frail 105-pound frame. And at sixty-four, her body was starting to show its age with an assortment of ailments creeping into her life. Arthritis and hypertension were the latest. But it was the tremor in her hands that reminded her of the Parkinson’s disease that was continually and progressively taking its toll. The substantia nigra, the dopamine cells in her brain, were dying. Without them the messages from the brain telling her body how and when to move were delayed. Parkinson’s wouldn’t kill her, but at some point she would become debilitated. Moon knew that time worked against her. The rigors of aging and the disease would soon make it too hard to maintain her schedule, her stamina, and her drive.

  But she was so close to the final climactic act in the drama of her life’s work. Soon there would be no more awakening in the middle of the night bathed in a sweat of fear and doubt. No more wondering if such a small, frail woman in an obscure, closed society could reach out and strike down so many of her hated enemy.

  Again she pulled the photograph from the pocket of her coat. As she gazed at her mother and father, she trembled with excitement at the thought of what she was about to do. And when her task would finally be over—when she had accomplished her mission to punish those who brought pain and suffering to her parents, her friends, her people—she planned to retire in her adopted homeland with all the benefits and privileges of a native-born North Korean high official. Protected from the retaliation that was sure to come, and secure from the ruthless imperialist aggressors, she would be well taken care of in her final years.

  Moon’s parents had been studying medicine at Kyoto Imperial University during the Sino-Japanese War when they were recruited by the head of the secret Japanese biological warfare center named by Emperor Hirohito as Unit 731.

  Her parents were honorable and noble people who dedicated their lives to defending Japan, but after the war they became outraged as they watched their country get in bed with the Americans. Unlike the Japanese government, which seemed to ignore the catastrophic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the generations that would suffer later, her parents could not forgive America and its allies, nor could they excuse Japanese leaders from such a betrayal. Before many of their colleagues were brought to trial by an Allied war crimes tribunal, Moon’s mother and father escaped to Korea, renouncing their Japanese heritage, even discarding their Japanese surname of Nakamura, and taking on the Korean name of Chung. They were determined to carry on what Unit 731 had started. Shortly after their arrival in Pyongyang, Moon was born.

  At age six, during the last days of the Korean War, Moon witnessed the rape and murder of her mother by the imperialist aggressors. Time had not dimmed that vivid memory, nor did she want it to. That memory was what fed her, what drove her, what gave her purpose. Moon squeezed her eyes shut to ward off the tears as the hatred for the Americans bloomed on her face. She focused on the photograph again—this time studying the face of her beloved father—a brilliant man, loyal husband, loving father. She bit hard on the inside of her cheek to relocate the pain in her heart and squelch the urge to sob aloud. So young then. So vibrant. This was the photograph she preferred to carry with her—when her parents were young, with bright eyes and promise in their smiles.

  Moon’s father was the one who made her understand the importance of her parents’ work and why it was done in secret. Her father had once said, “After all, if germ warfare was so terrible that it had to be banned by the Geneva Protocol, then it had to be a very good weapon. And in war, you must win.” It had not only been biological warfare her parents studied, but also methods to best treat injured soldiers and civilians.

  Small sacrifices were imperative for the validity of the experiments. Most people appreciated the results, but preferred not to know how those results were attained. So few understood how much good had come from their work, like the discovery of how to best treat frostbite, which had saved thousands around the world from amputations.

  It had taken Moon a long time to recover from her father’s death eleven years ago. Staring up from his deathbed, he asked her to look into his eyes. “Do you see, there is no more fire left inside?” he said. “It must now burn within you, Daughter.” Those were his last words. She held his hand until it grew cold, and promised she would avenge her parents. Moon would use the secrets her father revealed to her to punish the imperialist aggressors and their lapdogs, bring them to their knees, and watch them scream in agony as they died a terrible death.

  As Moon put away the photograph, she caught a glimpse of her tired eyes and runaway silver strands of hair in the limousine window’s reflection. She smiled at how ironic it was that those whom she was about to kill already carried the manner of their death inside themselves.

  ___

  “What did they just say?” Moon froze as she stood in the kitchen of her high-rise apartment in the official Communist Party residence section of Pyongyang. Ready for bed, she had just emptied the remaining tea from a china cup into the sink and was about to rinse it.

  Her housekeeper, a tiny woman in her seventies, had stopped wiping the counter to watch a flat-screen plasma TV mounted underneath a cabinet. It was connected to only a handful of government sanctioned satellite dishes and was tuned to an American news broadcast with Korean subtitles. She turned to Moon. “What did who say, Dr. Chung?”

  Moon motioned to the TV. “That person. What did she just say?”

  “Oh. She spoke of a man who died suddenly after walking into the news organization’s New York offices.”

  Moon glared at the image of a woman with light brown hair and dark eyes filling the screen. The woman was being interviewed, and across the bottom of the frame was her title: Cotten Stone, SNN Senior Correspondent.

  As she listened, Moon’s hands clenched, and heat surged up her neck to her face. She felt as if an invisible fist had just struck her in the gut, and she didn’t notice the cup slip from her grasp until she heard it shatter on the floor.

  There was no mistake. Moon had heard the woman utter two words that cut through the air like a blast of winter wind. Two simple words.

  Black Needles.

  deadbolts

  Cotten started up the third flight of steps in the Bedford Stuyvesant tenement, last known residence of Jeff Calderon. The pungent smells of simmering Jamaican jerk spiced meat mixed with the faint odors of urine and mildew hung heavily in the air. A skin of dark-green paint covered the walls, giving the surroundings a feeling of anonymity—a place to hide secrets and identities, Cotten thought. Scars of a slightly darker green revealed where someone had painted over graffiti. The audio of a Saturday morning cartoon seemed out of place.

  Moving along the hallway, she noticed that the cooking odors were stronger on this floor. So was the cartoon soundtrack. Cotten stopped in front of an apartment door and checked the number written on the note Ted gave to her. She knocked, wondering if Calderon had lived alone.

  “You
ain’t gonna get an answer knocking like that, lady.”

  She turned to see a mountain of a black man approaching—easily three hundred pounds and over six feet tall. He wore a long-sleeved shirt under blue coveralls and a hardhat, and carried a lunch pail.

  As he passed, he said, “Stoned most of the time. Won’t hear you unless you pound.”

  “Are you referring to Mr. Calderon?” Cotten asked, feeling slightly on edge by the sheer bulk of the man.

  He stopped and stared at her. “Do I know you?”

  “I’m with SNN,” she said. “You might have seen me on the news.”

  “Thought so.”

  As he turned to leave, Cotten said, “Do you know Mr. Calderon?”

  “Don’t know nobody, news lady.”

  She heard his heavy footfalls fading down the stairs and took the Hulk’s advice, rapping hard on the door. Thirty seconds later, she was about to give up when there came a faint sound from inside the apartment.

  “I ain’t got the rent, okay?” a voice said. “I’m just getting my shit, and I’ll be out of here.”

  “I’m not here to collect rent. I’m Cotten Stone from SNN. May I talk to you?”

  No response, as if the person on the other side of the door was weighing options. Then Cotten heard the clicking of multiple deadbolts. The door opened a few inches, still tethered by a rusty chain. Half a face peered through—one squinting eye and pinched brow, and a turned-down corner of the mouth.

  “You a cop?” the man whispered.

  “No, like I said, I’m from SNN, the cable news channel.” She watched as he opened the door enough to reveal more of his face and a short, scrawny frame. Ruts and pockmarks, evidence of rough mileage over the years, she supposed, crisscrossed his features, making it hard for Cotten to accurately judge his age. But she guessed late forties. The whisker stubble had to be a week’s worth.

  “What you want?” His eyes nervously scanned the hall behind her.

  “Do you know Jeff Calderon?”

  “Shit. I knew it. I friggin’ knew it.”