The first crow had followed the armored limousine from the Naval Observatory, tracking it to central Washington, where the second crow had picked it up and trailed it to the J. Edgar Hoover Building. Both now rested, awaiting new orders.
Three miles away, a man and a woman sitting in a silver Tesla were arguing about what orders to issue. The woman occupied the driver’s seat while the man was in the back, surrounded by multiple video screens and a pair of lighted keyboards.
He was dressed in dirty clothing and thin enough to be called emaciated. His jet-black hair was fixed in a wild pattern, his ears, eyebrows and nose adorned with stainless steel piercings. The impression he gave was that of a starving tattoo artist.
“The situation is no good,” he said with an Eastern European accent. “It’s gone from bad to worse and now to impossible. We should have taken Austin out on the way over. Before he met with the Vice President. And definitely before they drove to the FBI building.” His voice peaking as he finished the tirade.
The woman scoffed. Her hair was long, straight and dyed from the same bottle as his. She wore a gray hoodie and black stretch pants and running shoes. Physically more fit than he was and free of piercings, she looked like an urban housewife ready to go for a jog.
“It was too soon,” she told him, her voice as flat and unemotional as his was expressive. “The money hadn’t hit our account yet. And we don’t do charity work.”
“You might as well send the money back,” he replied. “We can’t get at Austin in the FBI building.”
“Open your eyes, little brother,” she said. “What do you see?”
“I see the end of a failed experiment.”
“They’re wearing tuxedos,” she pointed out. “They have other places to be. They’ll be back out soon enough.”
“And right back into a limousine you’d need an antitank missile to obliterate.”
Fydor and Xandra were brother and sister. They argued incessantly but stuck together. Working as a team, they had entered the assassination game operating under the name the Toymaker. They were known for their use of intricate devices to deliver poisons, bombs or even pull the trigger remotely on an old-fashioned kill.
She gazed at him. “You’re cute when you’re angry, Fydor, but you’re so timid. You know better than I how far away we’ll be when your machines take action. We just have to wait until they come out.”
Fydor stared at her in shock. “You want to kill Austin in front of the FBI building? With the Vice President at his side and Secret Service agents all around?”
“No,” she said. “I want you to kill them all.”
Fydor looked as if he was going to lose his mind, but Xandra just smiled.
“You see things myopically, little brother. The setup is perfect. If we take them both out and claim the attack in the name of an infamous terrorist organization, everyone will assume it was an attack on the Vice President instead of Austin. The heat will go elsewhere and we’ll be able to walk away without having to break a sweat.”
Fydor shook his head meekly and mumbled something, though he didn’t have it in him to challenge her.
She flicked on her own screen to admire the bird’s-eye view. “Get your other little toys ready to go. We’re not passing up a million dollars just because the level of difficulty has increased.”
CHAPTER 48
J. Edgar Hoover Building, Archives, Sub-Level 4, Washington, D.C.
Deep beneath the J. Edgar Hoover Building, Kurt, Sandecker and Ms. Curtis discussed the files that Kurt wanted to see. Despite the initial tussling between them, Ms. Curtis quickly warmed to Kurt, especially as he explained the historical quest they were on.
“History’s always been my favorite subject,” she said. “That’s what led me into this job. Down here, I’ve learned all kinds of things you’ll never read about in any book.”
Kurt raised an eyebrow. “Such as?”
“You want to know about Roswell?” she asked. “Want to know what really happened out there?”
“I’d be interested,” Kurt admitted with a grin.
Sandecker cleared his throat purposefully, putting a stop to the fun. “Maybe some other time, Ms. Curtis. We’re here for the information on the Granzini crime family, specifically the classified files related to their activities in 1926 and 1927.”
“All business, this one,” she said. Swiveling in her seat and waking up her computer, she entered in a password and began tapping away at the console. It wasn’t long before she had a list of file numbers and locations. “We have forty-three classified files,” she said. “None of them have been digitized, so I’ll have to go get the dead-tree copies.”
Kurt wouldn’t hear of letting her carry them back on her own and went into the maze with her. They started off in the main aisle, branched off three times and eventually stopped beside a set of gunmetal gray filing cabinets that looked as old as the reports themselves.
“Second level,” Ms. Curtis said, pointing. “Right up there.”
Kurt slid a ladder into place, climbed up and opened the drawer. He checked the numbers she’d given him against the files inside and began pulling out the selected folders. They were yellowed and brittle with age.
One by one, he handed them down. Ms. Curtis kept them organized by placing them in bins on a cart on wheels. When the last was loaded, Kurt climbed back down and pushed the cart toward a reading room, where Sandecker was already waiting.
“I’ll leave you two for an hour,” she said. “Just press the intercom button if you need anything.”
Diving into the paperwork, Kurt and Sandecker soon had the background on the Granzini family.
“Two branches of the family came here in the 1880s. One from Sicily and one from Salerno,” Kurt said.
Sandecker was reading a different set of files. “According to the Treasury Department, they were more a group of smugglers than a true crime family. Specializing in gemstones from Africa, Italian art and sculpture, also silk from China.”
“Those sound like perfectly legitimate businesses to me,” Kurt said.
“Sure,” Sandecker replied, “as long as you pay the import duties, which ran as high as fifty percent back then. Apparently, the Granzini family considered that an optional expense.”
“It does cut into the profit margin,” Kurt said.
“Treasury agents busted them in 1908 and 1913,” Sandecker said. “The New York Attorney General investigated them from 1915 through 1922. The Bureau of Investigation was looking into their activities as early as 1923. By my count, at least five members of the family served time in jail. Several others went overseas during World War One, choosing induction into the Army instead of facing incarceration.”
Kurt was finding similar details in his stack of files. He undid his bow tie, allowing it to hang loose, and undid the top button of his shirt. “This is all very interesting,” he said. “But unless you’ve found something that says they were related to the Roosevelts, I can’t see any reason why these files were classified in the first place, let alone under some obscure Act related to national heritage.”
“You didn’t hear it from me,” Sandecker replied, “but the government does make a mistake every once in a while.”
“You don’t say.”
Kurt put down the report he’d been reading and leafed through the box, studying the names of various agencies as they appeared on the labels of the files’ tabs. “Treasury Department, Bureau of Investigation, IRS, Army Intelligence—there are files from a dozen different agencies here. Seems like overkill for a minor family of smugglers.”
“And a complicated situation to piece together,” Sandecker said. “It’ll take the rest of the night to read through all this.”
Kurt figured half of the next day would be spent on it as well. “There is someone who might be able to help us cut to the chase here. She loves history, she’s spent forty years working with these files and I have a feeling she might be listening at the door.”
Sandecker laughed. “Just don’t ask her about Roswell or the moon landing.”
Kurt pressed the INTERCOM button and asked Ms. Curtis to join them. She arrived moments later.
“Happy to help,” she told them. With Ms. Curtis guiding them, their progress accelerated rapidly. She cut through all the clutter and got them into the files that mattered. “Now, I don’t know what’s in them,” she insisted, smiling as she spoke, “but based on the coding numbers these files were the first to be classified under that National Heritage Act.”
She gave a handful of files to each of them. To Kurt’s surprise, the dossiers came from the State Department. Even more shocking, they spoke of the Granzini family in glowing terms.
“This is interesting,” Kurt said. “Under Calvin Coolidge, the State Department had begun setting up a network of informants. They chose to use crime families with links to Europe. They were trying to keep tabs on the Communists, the Fascists and several other radical groups operating in the postwar landscape. The Granzinis were connected to powerful families in Europe by their smuggling operations and had access to information no journalist or Army Intelligence agent could find.”
“Sounds like Kennedy asking the mob to bump off Castro,” Sandecker said.
“This was a lot more intricate,” Kurt said.
Kurt read on, summarizing what he was learning. “By the time the Roaring Twenties kicked in and everybody was flush with cash, these crime families had become an effective, pre-CIA spy network.”
“That explains why this stuff is classified,” Sandecker said.
“Spend enough time down here, you’ll find all kinds of strange bedfellows,” Ms. Curtis said.
Sandecker was leafing through a different file. Having read acres of government paper during his lifetime, he knew how to skip past the filler and get right to the heart of the matter. Sandecker’s file was from the Bureau of Investigation. It had a very different take on the Granzini family. “Strong-arm robberies, extortion, tax evasion—the Bureau has the Granzinis pegged as street thugs and gangsters. They were stealing art and antiquities as early as the mid-twenties and smuggling it all out to Europe. Hoover himself made stopping the Granzinis a priority.”
“Sounds like one hand doesn’t know what the other hand is doing,” Ms. Curtis said slyly.
Sandecker nodded. “In 1926 they were suspected of arson, setting a fire in which several people died. A short time later, the leader of the family shot several known associates whom they’d previously worked with. During the getaway, they killed an agent working for the Bureau of Investigation and were briefly listed as Public Enemy Number One.”
“When was that?” Kurt asked.
“March 17th, 1927.”
“That’s only two months before Jake Melbourne made his flight,” Kurt replied. “Or should I say failed to make his flight? Who’d they shoot and what did they steal?”
Sandecker read off a list of names, none of which rang a bell. “It says the victims were archeologists whom the Granzinis had worked with before as part of their theft and antique smuggling ring.”
He found a list of stolen items along with several photographs. “The loot consisted of ancient Egyptian antiquities uncovered in”—Sandecker paused before reading the location, finally spiting it out—“northern Arizona.”
“You mean owned by someone in Arizona?” Kurt asked.
“No,” Sandecker said. “According to this, the artifacts were pulled from a cave in a remote part of the Grand Canyon.”
Kurt put his file down and leaned over to see what Sandecker was looking at. Half the file was dedicated to the discovery of these items in the Grand Canyon. It included photographs, crude maps and descriptions. There was a letter from the archeologists sent to the Granzinis that listed rumors they were following up on, including a famous article in the Phoenix Gazette that insisted members of a Smithsonian-funded expedition had found Egyptian treasure in the Grand Canyon as early as 1909 and then covered the discovery up. There were topographical maps with areas previously searched marked. And there was a recounting of a Native American legend that talked about People of the Sun who’d come to the Southwest thousands of years before carrying golden coffins and statues of animals.
Sandecker summarized. “It says they came in the time of the forefathers. They broke through the walls of the narrow canyon and burrowed into the cliffs, hollowed out the mountain and dragged cartloads of the rubble to the riverside to build a tomb for their ancestors. According to the legend, they sealed up the tomb when they were finished and left to follow the setting sun.”
The next page contained a set of poorly lit photographs that hadn’t aged well since they were taken. Holding them to the light revealed a cave filled with treasures, including statues of Anubis and Horus, mummified bodies stacked like cordwood and at least one gleaming—and possibly gold-plated—sarcophagus.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Sandecker said.
“It certainly looks impressive,” Kurt replied. “But the English professor, who’s now been kidnapped, insisted we’d be looking at the combined treasure of at least fifteen Pharaohs collected together. There should be more than one sarcophagus.”
“According to this, it’s a large cave with many chambers,” Sandecker said. “No telling what else is in there.”
Kurt nodded. “What else does it say?”
Sandecker continued. “Upon word of the discovery, the Granzinis started talking with several of their favorite contacts in Europe. A French family in particular. A deal had been worked out where the Granzinis would sell some of the artifacts to the buyers in Europe and the archeologists would take a portion of the money. But first they had to convince the prospective buyers that the cache was real. They planned to do that by smuggling small items, along with these photographs and a series of hieroglyphics tablets. They took a picture of themselves standing at the rim of the canyon with the items to prove they had come from America. Take a look.”
Kurt glanced at the photograph and saw flat stones laying on the ground in front of the people. Placed together, they were as large as a sheet of drywall. The photo was in black and white, so he couldn’t tell what color the tablets were, but they were clearly covered in hieroglyphics. “Looks a lot like the Writings of Qsn.”
“The Granzinis must have thought they were about to change their address and move in next door to the Rockefellers,” Sandecker said. “The question is, what went wrong?”
“The same thing that always goes wrong when you have criminals with a large amount of money to split,” Ms. Curtis said. “Greed took over.”
They looked at her.
“That’s just a guess.”
Sandecker looked back to the report and found that guess to be more than accurate. “According to this, the Granzinis killed the archeologists to keep the discovery a secret.”
Kurt sat back for a moment. Something was off. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “If the plan was to establish the legitimacy of the find—reaping gains from the notoriety of the discovery being on American soil—they needed their friends the archeologists. More to the point, keeping it a secret doesn’t help drive up the price.”
“You’re looking for logical thinking among dishonest minds,” Sandecker said.
“They might not be honest,” Kurt said, “but they can add and subtract.”
“Maybe this will explain it,” Ms. Curtis said. She handed them a file from the bottom of the stack. It came from the Office of the President and had the signature of Calvin Coolidge and the Executive Seal on it.
Sandecker opened the folder and read through it, a scowl growing on his face by the time he finished.
Ms. Curtis raised an eyebrow. She knew what was in the file. “Truth is stranger than fiction.”
“It’s almost too impossible to believe,” Sandecker said.
“What is?” Kurt asked.
“See for yourself.”
Sandecker passed the dossier to Kurt but said no
thing. He obviously wanted Kurt to see for himself.
Kurt scanned down from the top, slowing as he reached the new information. He read the section twice just to make sure he wasn’t missing anything. The details clarified the situation instantly. They explained why the Granzinis had killed the archeologists and why they hadn’t left anyone alive to talk about the treasure.
Kurt closed the file. “Well,” he said, “this changes everything.”
Sandecker nodded slowly. “It certainly does.”
CHAPTER 49
J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington, D.C.
Kurt and Sandecker bid Ms. Curtis good-bye, with Sandecker suggesting NUMA could use someone with her curiosity and memory, should she ever tire of her role at the Bureau.
She promised to think about it, before retreating to the subterranean file room.
“I can just imagine her and Perlmutter working together,” Sandecker said.
They met Agent Morris in the outer foyer and he radioed the driver to bring the limo around. The three of them left the building together and took the stairs down toward a wide sidewalk in front of 10th Street.
A temporary guardhouse and a collection of concrete planters lined the sidewalk so that no car or truck could drive between them and into the FBI building. Beyond the sidewalk was a yellow-striped section of 10th Street separated by orange traffic cones. It served as a pickup and drop-off lane for important personnel and guests. The Vice President certainly qualified.
Alerted by Agent Morris, a uniformed officer stepped out of the guard shack and moved the cones on the street side so the limo could approach the curb. Kurt and Sandecker stood silently by as the big vehicle came down 10th.
Journey of the Pharaohs - NUMA Files Series 17 (2020) Page 24
