“What was she doing in China?” Spencer asked.
“Some kind of spiritual retreat, as far as we know. Yoga, meditation, that kind of thing.”
“Isn’t that usually something kids go to India to practice?” Allie asked.
Collins’ eyes drifted to Allie and then back to Spencer. “Maybe she saw too many reruns of Kung Fu. I honestly have no idea about her motivations. I’m going by what her father has told us.”
Spencer rubbed his hand along his chin. “How about the transponder?”
“For unknown reasons, it was turned off. Possibly because it didn’t want to be tracked. It’s fairly common with drug-running planes along that corridor.” He opened the briefcase and removed a manila folder. Alex took it, quickly scanned the contents, and passed it to Spencer.
“That’s the last snapshot from Thai radar. Laos doesn’t have much reach in that region and it didn’t show up on theirs, and Myanmar…Myanmar doesn’t talk to us,” Alex said.
Spencer put a satellite image on the coffee table and studied the red circle drawn on it. “That looks like it’s partially over Myanmar.”
“That’s part of the challenge. We’re working through a third party to get you permission to cross the border. To look for the temple, of course.”
“Of course,” Spencer said. “But how are we supposed to find a needle in that haystack? Says here that it was a Cessna 172. That’s barely more than a kite.”
“Why not use a drone?” Allie asked. “I see them all over the TV. Isn’t that more efficient than having us go in?”
“Good question. The problem with smaller drones is battery time. Even the military models only go so long, and an hour is the outside max for the little ones. Anything larger tips our hand – both Myanmar and Laos would smell government agency all over it. Finally, the drug cartels that operate in that area would try to shoot down anything suspicious. So it’s a bad idea all around.” Collins frowned. “As to how you’ll search for the plane, we’re arranging for a helicopter. You’ll perform a standard grid search at low altitude. It’s doing it the hard way, but I don’t see any other option.”
“Why don’t you zoom in with a super satellite? Like I’ve seen on the news?” Drake asked.
“Cloud cover, for starters. You can fly beneath it, but a satellite can’t. We’re of course doing exactly that anyway, but so far haven’t turned up anything,” Alex said.
They discussed the ins and outs of the plane search, and then turned to the temple.
“You mentioned you had intelligence for us,” Drake began. “Let’s see it.”
Collins nodded and withdrew another file. “First, you’ll all need to sign this security clearance. The file I’m about to show you is still classified.” He set three forms down on the tabletop and handed Alex a pen.
They read the documents and, after a couple of questions, signed. Collins collected the forms and then set the file on the coffee table. “That’s the transcript of an interrogation of a top Khmer Rouge commander who was operating in Cambodia and Laos. We captured him in 1970. The questioning goes on for hours. This is the relevant part.”
Spencer read the four pages and handed them to Allie, who did the same, wincing in spots. Drake read it last and, when he was finished, set the pages in front of him. “That’s it? A man who was being tortured spun some yarn about twin sisters guarding a hidden temple?”
“It’s a little more than that. He claims to have seen the spot.”
“Right, but it’s gibberish. Twin sisters? What is that, trees? Rock formations? Mountains? Boulders?”
“Our analysts have narrowed it down to three possible locations. We know from him that it was in the western section of Laos or the eastern part of Myanmar. One of the things we did with our satellites was to look for likely suspects.” Collins withdrew another satellite image from his case and laid it on top of the transcript. “The circles mark the three.”
They all leaned in to look. The possible sites were all within the area they were going to be searching for the plane. Alex took over from Collins.
“You can see there are a pair of distinctive karst formations that might fit the description, and a third that’s two conspicuously large boulder outcroppings – big enough that we believe they would have been plainly visible even six centuries ago. All three have valleys that match the legend, with streams, or in that case, a small river, running through them,” Alex said, tapping the photos.
“Why hasn’t anyone gone after the temple if you’ve known this for nearly fifty years?” Allie asked.
Collins smiled sadly. “The CIA isn’t in the treasure-hunting business, young lady. We leave that to private interests like yourself. We’ve got our hands full defending the free world and faking moon landings.”
The discussion went another hour, and when they were finished, Collins and Alex rose. Alex passed out airline tickets and told them to be at the airport by ten p.m. – the flight departed at one in the morning.
Drake eyed the ticket doubtfully. “Why don’t we take Spencer’s plane? He’s got a G5.”
“They’re working on one of the engines,” Spencer said. “Otherwise I’d be game.”
“Give Alex here a list of anything you’ll need, and he’ll source it for you in Thailand,” Collins said.
Allie wrote down some basic expedition requirements, and then passed it to Drake, who added a few items. Spencer read it slowly and then jotted down his own requests. When he was done, he handed it to Alex, who looked it over and stopped at Spencer’s notes. “That’s a lot of firepower,” he said.
“That’s drug-runner territory, right? You seriously expect us to go in with peashooters?” Spencer fired back.
“You could start a war with that.”
Collins sighed impatiently. “Whatever they want, we’ll arrange. Alex, we’re running late. We still have a lot to do before the flight.” He turned to Drake and Allie. “You have your passports? Everything’s current?”
“Of course,” Allie said.
Spencer nodded.
“Then I’ll see you at LAX. Ten sharp,” Alex said.
They watched the two CIA men leave, and Drake turned to Spencer. “What did you think?”
Spencer took a long breath and stood, rolling his head to work out a kink in his neck. “What I think is that Alex might be a problem in the field. He didn’t seem to want us to have guns, or at least not anything worth mentioning. Other than that, I think the odds of us finding either a plane or a green Buddha in that jungle are about as good as my becoming a lingerie model in Milan.”
Drake made a face. “I need eye bleach to erase that from my imagination.”
Allie laughed. “We just might surprise you, Mr. Negative.” She rose and eyed Spencer. “Now, are you going to invite me for a ride in that bumblebee you have sitting outside, or am I going to have to steal the keys?”
“Drake almost wrecked it yesterday. Man’s a menace on the road,” Spencer said.
“I did not,” Drake protested, but he was smiling.
“Then let’s race your FJ against my Lambo and get a decent meal, because once we’re over there, it’s all going to be monkey brains and bugs.”
“I am not dining on monkey brains. Or bugs,” Allie said with a frown of distaste.
“Don’t worry. They won’t tell you what you’re eating. But if you find a carapace in your soup, just smile. It’s considered rude to complain.”
Chapter 8
Chicago, Illinois
Elliot London switched off the drive-time radio program he listened to every evening rush hour as he entered his neighborhood, a collection of single-story Midwestern homes in the sort of middle-class enclave typically given a name like Myrtle Cove or Arlington Ridge. Elliot’s subdivision was Bel Aire Forest, with the closest things to a tree the two struggling spruce that had been planted at the community entrance. He’d lived there for eight years in relative peace and comfort with his wife, Diane, and twin five-year-old daughters.<
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He’d worked his way up at the newspaper from a cub reporter to a seasoned investigative journalist, and was used to irregular hours and constant pressure when running down a story. Elliot had been honored by several professional organizations for his coverage of local and national politics, and had broken stories that had forced a congressman to resign in shame, an attorney general candidate to decline his nomination, a high-profile priest to be charged with pedophilia, and numerous city councilmen to be hauled off in cuffs.
The hate mail came with the territory. As his father, also a journalist, used to say, if you weren’t pissing people off, you weren’t doing your job. Of course, his dad had operated in a different environment from today’s corporate jungle, where only six conglomerates owned all the media outlets. Like it or not, Elliot had to tread carefully lest he be downsized in one of the endless reorganizations or mergers that were a constant in the business – he had a mortgage to pay and private school tuition to cover, as well as one of his daughter’s special education needs and medications, so he tempered his zeal with what he viewed as sensible restraint.
Elliot eased into the driveway of his ranch house and sighed with relief when he shut the engine off. Another brutal day at an end, and his family to look forward to. He caught himself in the rearview mirror and shook his head at the middle-aged man looking back, puffy bags under his eyes, hair so sparse he bore almost no resemblance to his college photos, and jowls beginning to show the effects of time and gravity. Where had the good years gone? he wondered, and then shook off the introspection. No point in beating himself up over what couldn’t be changed.
He walked up the path to his front door and took great pains to make sufficient noise unlocking it so his daughters would hear him. They delighted in greeting him at the end of every workday, and he cherished the experience as much as they did, painfully aware that soon they’d be grown, and he, older still.
The two girls came running down the hall toward the tiny foyer, and he smiled as they neared. “Daddy, Daddy!” they cried in unison, grime smudged on their faces from some unsupervised mischief they’d gotten into while their mother was preparing dinner, no doubt.
“Hailey, Casey, I swear you got more beautiful while I was gone. How is that even possible?” Elliot asked with feigned astonishment as he set his briefcase down and hugged them close.
“Hi, honey. How was your day?” Diane called from the kitchen. Diane was a third grade teacher and finished her workday hours before Elliot got home. It was a good pairing and had withstood the test of time.
“Not bad. Tilting at windmills. Bringing the powerful to their knees. Righting wrongs. The usual,” Elliot said, releasing his offspring and standing.
“Oh, before I forget. Another one of those computer things came through the mail slot today. I’m guessing it’s for you.”
“Where is it?” Elliot asked, waggling his eyebrows at his daughters to delighted giggles.
“On the dinner table.”
“Thanks. Speaking of dinner…”
“It’s lasagna. Be ready in a half hour.”
“Heart healthy, right? Extra cheese and sauce?”
“Why bother making it if you’re going to skimp?”
Elliot entered the dining room and spied the small gray flash drive by his water glass. He was used to such clandestine drops – both here and at the office. For some reason whistleblowers tended to favor searching out his home address, which was readily locatable with even marginal computer skills, and he’d been receiving envelopes, CDs, photos, and now flash drives for most of his career.
He moved into his office and plugged the drive into one of his USB ports and, after scanning it with antivirus software, clicked on the menu and surveyed the contents. A screen popped up informing him that the drive was password protected. He squinted at the message. It made no sense: it asked for the last six digits of his mistress’s phone number.
The only problem was he had no mistress. He’d always been faithful to his wife, and hadn’t even had a flirtation of any note.
He scratched his head, and then an idea occurred to him. He sometimes joked about his boss, Lenny Cox, being his mistress, since work kept him from home so much.
Elliot entered the last six digits and pressed enter. An error message popped up.
“What? But that’s the number!” he said out loud.
Another thought came to him. Lenny’s extension was 408. He entered the last three digits of the phone number and then the extension and hit return.
The drive flashed several times and another screen appeared. He was in.
There was an introductory file in Word labeled “Read First.” He opened it and did as instructed, taking in the contents rapidly, his reading speed triple that of a layman.
Fifteen minutes later he stood and called out to Diane. “Honey, I’ve got a hot one. Really big. I need to go into the office.”
“Elliot! Come on. It’s almost ready.”
“I can’t, sweetheart. I have to go.”
“At least let me put a piece in some Tupperware. How late do you think you’ll be?”
“Don’t wait up. How long will it take for the lasagna?”
Diane appeared in the kitchen doorway thirty seconds later with a container. Elliot kissed her and took it from her. “Thanks. You’re an angel.”
“Remember to chew.”
“Yes, dear.”
Elliot practically ran to his car, so great was his excitement, and failed to notice the sedan parked at the end of his block – a perfectly natural oversight, since it was the first time he’d ever been under surveillance.
The passenger watched Elliot reverse out of his driveway and pull away from the house. He set down the high-power binoculars and turned to the driver. “Looks like it’s game on.”
The driver dropped the transmission into drive and eased from the curb. “I wish we could have intercepted the damned thing.”
“Too many people around, and broad daylight. Not a chance. But we’ll get the bitch’s friend before the night is over. The reporter’s the priority.”
“Yeah. I got that. Let’s just hope he didn’t copy it.”
“We’ll do a break-in tonight. Sanitize his system.”
“At least we know he didn’t send it to anyone.”
“He’s too careful. No way would he share that until he’s able to vet it. That’s why he’s going into the office. As predicted.”
The driver smiled sadly. “It’s good to be right, isn’t it?”
“That’s what we do.”
“Damn straight it is.”
Elliot’s mind was redlining as he traced the familiar route to the paper. The implications of the data he’d received were staggering. It detailed a plot so complex, so Machiavellian and twisted, he could hardly believe it. Or rather, he didn’t want to, because if it was true, everything he had known and believed was a lie.
That it would land on the front page was without question, if the details proved accurate. Elliot’s gut said they would – the files contained detailed financial records with dozens of front companies, including at least ten that were subsidiaries of one of the largest insurers in the world, which had also been the beneficiary of a massive bailout during the financial crisis. He’d always believed it had been the recipient of the taxpayer’s largesse because its largest creditor’s former chairman had been Treasury Secretary at the time; but if the information on the flash drive was accurate, that was only the tip of the iceberg.
Elliot had no problem believing that what he’d just read was possible. He’d studied enough history to know that humans were capable of anything. But the average citizen would go berserk if they knew.
And he had been put in the position of being the one to break the story – for which he had no doubt he’d receive a Pulitzer and be looking at a book deal that would dwarf that of Woodward and Bernstein. That was the positive. The negative was that he’d make powerful enemies in the process and might have to move
to Mongolia to feel safe.
But who was feeding him the gold? Someone had painstakingly obtained, probably illegally and likely in violation of national security, enough proof to cause a seismic schism. It troubled him that he didn’t know who his leak was, but it wasn’t essential to the facts. And he couldn’t entirely blame the whistleblower – one look at how Edward Snowden had been pursued for baring the NSA’s surveillance programs to the world would convince most thinking humans to forego the honor of landing in official crosshairs.
Traffic was light as he neared downtown, and the underground parking garage was almost deserted when he pulled into his usual slot. The paper’s offices would be open, of course – the news never slept, and there would be a crew working to get the next morning’s edition put to bed. Alas, sales were down markedly, as many turned to the Internet for their daily jolt of sensationalism rather than buying dead trees. The way of the world, he thought, as his shoes pounded on the concrete garage floor, echoing in the enclosed space.
The elevators required card keys to activate, and he retrieved his from his wallet and swiped it through the reader. A green LED blinked twice and the steel double doors opened. Elliot stepped inside and swiped his card again, and then punched the button for the seventeenth floor.
He ran a quick calculation as the car rose. It would take him a week, possibly two, to put out soft probes in order to verify the data. He’d need authorization for at least two research assistants, due to the volume of data information that would need to be sifted through. And he would have to swear everyone involved to silence. That the story was volatile was an understatement of epic proportions.
The indicator showed he was at the fourteenth floor when the elevator lurched to a stop.
“What the–”
The lights blinked and then shut off as a sharp metallic clank sounded from beneath the car.
Emerald Buddha (Drake Ramsey Book 2) Page 6