A fleeting look of panic crossed Erik’s face. Then he shrugged helplessly. “I really can’t say.”
The pythia nodded, inwardly noting his choice of words.
Erik drained the rest of his beer. “I guess we’ll have to take our chances on someday.”
“I guess we will,” she agreed in a half-hearted whisper.
He stood up abruptly. “It’s time I let you get your beauty sleep.”
She didn’t protest. They unplugged the light and carried the lawn chairs back inside. Then she followed him silently to the front door. He stood framed against the night sky looking down at her.
“Whatever happens, I’m glad you told me where you stand,” she said.
He smiled briefly and kissed her on the forehead. “Happy birthday, toots. Stay safe out there.”
She regarded him gravely. “You too, dude.”
Cassie shut the door and leaned her back against it. She listened to his engine growl to life and roar off toward the highway. “Happy birthday to me,” she murmured ruefully.
Chapter 7—Paper, Airplanes
Leroy Hunt entered his apartment around midnight and dropped his duffle bag unceremoniously on the floor. In a fit of peevishness, he gave it a well-aimed kick and sent it flying across the room. He slammed the door behind him, causing it to shudder in reply. He’d just returned from the latest of the many wild goose chases that had occupied his time over the course of the winter. As he well knew, each one had been cooked up by Mr. Big to keep him away from where Hannah Metcalf was actually hiding. This last junket had been the Mother Goose of them all. He’d flown to Minneapolis which still boasted a foot of snow on the ground. The only green things he saw in that Yankee icebox were the decorations for St. Patrick’s Day!
A body would think that at least one of his fake leads would have taken him to Barbados or St. Kitts or even Miami. But no. In the dead of winter, he flew to every snowy hell hole in the sweet land of liberty. First, it was Billings, then Montpellier, then Boise, and finally Minneapolis—the land of ten thousand frozen lakes! Every place he’d visited, the story was the same from some flunky on the payroll of Mr. Big. Yes, Hannah had been there, Yes, Leroy had just missed her. Yes, he could have an address where she might be found.
As if the trips themselves weren’t bad enough, dealing with the preacher afterward was worse. The old coot would work himself up into a lather waiting for Hunt’s report. Once the bad news landed, he’d be madder than a snake on his wedding night who’d just married a garden hose. Metcalf even had the nerve to accuse Hunt of slacking off. If he only knew. The cowboy was pulling double shifts to carry out his own private investigation. While he was busy chasing down bogus leads for the preacher, he was also collecting a paper trail of the corporations that had leased the properties associated with those leads. He felt sure one of those companies would point back to the Somebody who was hiding Metcalf’s lost bride and the trio of relic thieves to boot.
He took off his hat and coat, hanging them on the rack by the door. No sense in calling the old man this late at night to tell him Minneapolis hadn’t panned out. Leroy could easily postpone the wailing and gnashing of teeth til morning. He eyed his computer, sitting on a desk next to the window. He was itching to check out his latest bit of intel. First, he went to the kitchen cabinet and grabbed a bag of pork rinds. Airplane peanuts and tiny bottles of hooch were no substitute for down home comfort food—and drink. He retrieved a bottle of whiskey, poured a glassful and swallowed it down. Then he poured another and carried it back with him to the computer along with the bag of rinds.
Leroy consulted a note in his shirt pocket. Before he’d left Minnesota, he scribbled down the name of the corporation that had leased the property of his last fake lead. He typed it into the file he was keeping of all the shell companies that he’d encountered on his various jaunts. Then he did an online search to see if he could link this latest find to anything he’d come across before. He smiled to himself. The Minnesota lessee was an offshoot of a corporation that had made it onto his master list.
He thought he’d take a wild stab to see if the parent company owned any properties closer to home. He checked the online real estate tax records for Cook County and the counties nearest to the city proper. What he found made him blink. He checked the name twice. Sure enough, the corporation owned a house in McHenry County. That area would hardly count as suburban. It was mainly still rural. Leroy pulled up a map of the address. It looked to be part of a suburban tract housing development. Then he drilled down to a street level photo.
“Well, I’ll be,” he muttered in surprise. Gulping down the last of his whiskey, he went back to the kitchen to fetch the bottle. After pouring another glass, he set the bottle down on his computer desk and resumed his task. For several minutes, this consisted of nothing more than staring at the image on his computer screen. Leroy was in a brown study over that farmhouse sitting in the middle of a subdivision of raised ranches. It must have been the original homestead when that part of the state was all farmland which meant it was about a hundred years old. What would Mr. Big want with a place like that?
A lightbulb went off above Leroy’s head. Maybe that old farm was a base of operations. It was owned outright by the corporation, not leased. Who knew how many burglars were working for Mr. Big besides the trio? Maybe he was running an entire ring. It wasn’t all that far-fetched. Leroy already knew that little Hannah had wandered into this den of thieves when she went looking for Miss Cassie. What if Mr. Big decided to keep the gal as insurance just in case his own people got into trouble? No doubt, he’d heard what store the preacher set by her. She could be swapped for any one of the trio if the Nephilim ever snagged them.
Leroy scratched his head. This problem was taking a powerful lot of concentration, but he figured it might be worth a brain cramp to climb aboard this particular train of thought. Mr. Big had gone to a heap of trouble to send Leroy everyplace but northern Illinois. Maybe it wasn’t simply to keep the cowboy away from Hannah. Who knew what else might be going on in that old farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere?
The cowboy printed out the address and directions to the place. He yawned and thought about hitting the hay. Not quite yet. He had to plan out his next move, and it was important for him to play it just right so as not to alert his quarry. Bright and early next morning, he’d call Metcalf on his bugged phone to tell him Minneapolis had been a wash. Of course, the stooge in the Twin Cities had given him a bum address to follow up in Buffalo. He’d tell the old man that he’d jump right on that lead. Once he was sure Mr. Big had got the message, Leroy figured he’d be watched til he drove to the airport. He’d park his truck in the long-term lot, enter the terminal and wait a couple of hours. Once he was sure nobody was on his tail, he’d change clothes, go to a rental agency and get a ride. Then he’d check out this farmhouse and see who lived there and what they might be up to.
He considered what to do if he found little Hannah. The gal still posed a threat to him. If he brought her back to Abe safe and sound, there was no telling if she’d keep her mouth shut. If Abe or one of his stooges pushed her hard enough, she might blab about who helped her to escape in the first place. She’d point the finger straight at Daniel, and Leroy’s chances of grabbing all the doodads would go up in smoke. No, there was only one way this missing person’s search was going to end. If Leroy found little Hannah at that farmhouse in the sticks, she wouldn’t make it back to the preacher alive.
Chapter 8—Vanishing Point
Chopper Bowdeen walked out to claim his rental car in the lot at the Melbourne Airport. He stopped himself. Force of habit had almost made him climb into the left front seat. Belatedly reminding himself of the right-side steering wheel, he walked to the other side of the car and climbed in. He also made a mental note to remember to drive on the left side of the road. It had been a while since he’d had to do that. Today he was heading to the end of the line, figuratively speaking. This would be hi
s last training gig for the Nephilim. He’d worked his way through all the compounds in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Now he was in Australia driving to the only foothold the brotherhood had been able to establish in the land down under.
The mercenary knew Australia well, so he’d opted to chauffeur himself to the compound, even renting a convertible in order to savor the sunshine which was sadly lacking back home. As he motored out of the metro area and into the countryside, he rubbed a trickle of sweat off his neck. While it was still the blustery tail end of winter in the States, March in Australia meant the end of summer and the beginning of autumn.
He took a brief moment to savor the feeling of fresh air on his skin, knowing the oppressive atmosphere that waited for him at the compound. It was situated in the Yarra Valley—a shrewd choice for a cult as secretive as the Nephilim. Even though the valley was only a short distance from the city of Melbourne, it was agricultural—mainly planted in vineyards. Despite its popularity as a tourist destination, the valley was sparsely populated so that a cinderblock fortress tucked away on a private road wouldn’t attract too much notice.
Chopper headed toward his destination with a mixture of relief and paranoia. On the one hand, he would be glad to be finished with the cult once and for all. On the other hand, he couldn’t help wondering whether the diviner could afford to let him walk away alive. He was one of the “Fallen” as the Nephilim liked to call everybody who wasn’t them. Nobody from the outside world knew as much about the brotherhood’s operation as he did. He’d seen the inside of every compound, trained every marksman and supervised the set-up of every surveillance camera around the globe. As a mercenary, it was his business to do his job and keep his mouth shut about the people he worked for. He hoped Metcalf would remember that when the time came to part ways.
During Chopper’s employment with the Nephilim, he’d tried ten ways from Sunday to find out what they were really up to. He needed to know if his neck was in the noose, but nobody could offer any useful information. His old pal Leroy didn’t sense any danger, and he’d been on the Nephilim’s payroll even longer than Chopper. Then again, Leroy was an idiot when it came to seeing the big picture if it didn’t affect him personally. The cowboy also had some private angle that involved a big payoff, so maybe he had an incentive to hang on.
Joshua, Metcalf’s spymaster son, hadn’t been of much use either in getting to the bottom of things. Bowdeen had put a flea in the kid’s ear about a secret lab near the main compound. Despite digging for months, Joshua hadn’t been able to find out squat about what was going on there.
Chopper knew there was more to Metcalf’s plans than merely beefing up security at the satellite compounds. As far as the mercenary could tell, the diviner was preparing for war. Against whom he didn’t know but he sure as hell didn’t want to be around when it happened.
He only had one card left to play. Joshua was due to arrive in about a month. Before Chopper left Australia, he intended to worm out as much intel as he could from the kid. What he heard would be the deciding factor in whether he caught a plane back to the states to collect his final paycheck or slipped away and vanished himself off the Nephilim’s radar for good. He’d prefer to disappear on his own terms if it came to that. He had a feeling that the disappearing act Metcalf had in mind for him might be a lot more painful.
Chapter 9—Jaded Travelers
Griffin looked anxiously at his watch. “I fear we’ll be dreadfully late.” He quickened his pace.
Cassie could barely keep up with his long stride given her fatigue from the grueling trip they’d just completed. The distance from Chicago to eastern China was 6,500 miles as the crow flies. The pythia doubted that any crow in its right mind would have attempted the journey in thirteen hours. That was how long their nonstop flight from the Windy City to Beijing had taken. Afterward, they’d boarded another plane for the hour and a half flight to Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning Province in northeastern China.
Liaoning skirted a region which bore the romantic name of Inner Mongolia. To Cassie, the phrase “Inner Mongolia” had always connoted the end of the world. Now that she’d personally traveled to Kathmandu and come within spitting distance of the equally exotic Timbuktu, Inner Mongolia didn’t seem all that out-of-the-way anymore.
Feeling chilled, the pythia wrapped her scarf more tightly around her neck. The temperature was about forty degrees and windy. Turning to Griffin, she asked, “Is it my imagination or is the weather here exactly the same as Chicago?”
Never breaking stride, the scrivener replied, “It should be. We’re at approximately the same latitude here as back in the Midwest which means a similar type of spring weather.”
“I think we should have started our search in Cambodia where it’s warm,” Cassie muttered. She struggled to catch her breath while attempting to put on a burst of speed. “Are we there yet?”
They were en route to meet the Hongshan trove keeper at the Provincial Museum. Maddie had wisely booked them into a hotel which was walking distance from their rendezvous point. However, the chatelaine hadn’t factored in Cassie’s disorientation from the thirteen-hour time difference which made even a three-block walk to Government Square an ordeal.
“We’ll be there in a moment.” Griffin pointed directly ahead. “That’s the museum across the street.”
They paused at the curb for a red light. Cassie studied their destination—a massive concrete affair with angled corners and overhanging exposed steel beams surrounding a central glass-clad atrium. The patch of grass and small shrubs bordering the structure did nothing to soften its antiseptic appearance.
It occurred to the pythia that the design seemed consistent with the city’s architecture as a whole. The impression she’d formed of Shenyang was of a bustling megalopolis complete with steel and glass skyscrapers, expressways, traffic lights, and eight million people going about their daily routines in the same way as any urban American. The street signs even bore English captions below the Chinese characters. Cassie thought wistfully of rickshaws and junks—those picture postcard symbols of the colorful Far East, but none were to be found hereabouts. Griffin had already told her that Shenyang was China’s industrial capital. It had been Chairman Mao’s model city of the future, complete with futuristic problems like smog thanks to its steel mills and coal-burning stoves. For decades, the air quality had been so bad that residents sometimes needed to wear face masks. Recognizing the necessity to go green, Shenyang had cleaned up its act about five years earlier by relocating its heavy industry to the outskirts and planting numerous parks within the city limits.
The light changed at last, and the duo hurried across the street and through the doors of the museum.
“Ah, there he is.” The scrivener rushed eagerly toward an elderly man standing in the middle of the entrance hall.
Considering his wizened appearance and the grey streaks in his thinning hair, the trove keeper appeared to be in his late-sixties. The man advanced a few paces to clasp the scrivener’s outstretched hand. Griffin seemed to tower over him, emphasizing the disparity in their heights. Cassie judged their guide to be no more than five-foot four.
“Zhang Jun, it’s good to see you again.” Griffin pumped his hand enthusiastically. “It’s been a long time since you attended a meeting of the Concordance.”
In a barely discernible accent, the old man joked, “It’s a long trip to Chicago. I would need a good reason to fly that far.” He enunciated every word precisely as if he’d taken time to consider the meaning of each. Giving Cassie a welcoming smile, he reached forward to take her hand. “I’m very pleased to meet the new pythia at last.”
“Considering the miles I’ve logged since I started this job, I think the new has worn off,” Cassie demurred. “It’s very nice to meet you too, Mr. Jun.”
In a low voice, Griffin said, “Jun is his first name. In this part of the world, surnames precede given names.”
“Oh...” Cassie fl
ushed at the realization of her gaffe.
The trove keeper waved his hand dismissively. “Please, call me Jun. It’s what my friends call me, and I’d like us to be friends.” His eyes twinkled warmly behind horn-rimmed glasses.
“Absolutely.” Cassie bobbed her head in agreement, relieved that he wasn’t offended.
“Allow me to introduce my granddaughter, Zhang Rou.” The trove keeper turned from side to side as if he’d lost something. “Where did she go?”
A teenage girl hovered behind him. She was about Cassie’s height with straight black hair cut into a short bob. Her jacket collar was zipped up so high that it covered her mouth. She darted an apprehensive glance at the two newcomers.
Jun reached for the girl’s arm and guided her forward. “Rou is a tyro at the Hongshan trove, but her parents urged me to bring her on this field trip. They have great hopes she will follow in their footsteps someday and become a scout for the Arkana.”
Zhang Rou blinked at the visitors. She reminded Cassie of a turtle ready to pull its head inside its shell at the first sign of trouble.
“Do you speak English?” Cassie asked cautiously.
The girl remained silent.
Zhang Jun smiled pointedly at his granddaughter. “She speaks English much better than she thinks she does. I keep telling her she is too self-conscious about her accent.”
“Don’t worry about that,” the pythia reassured her. “Whether your accent is good or bad at least you can speak a second language. I can’t speak Mandarin at all.” She held out her hand to Rou. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
Rou stepped forward unwillingly. A muffled “Hello” emerged from her collar as she shook hands with Cassie and Griffin in turn. Apparently uncomfortable as the focus of everyone’s attention, she immediately slipped back behind her grandfather.
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