by Brandt Legg
“Check the body again, very carefully. If he’s in that house, where Rip’s been for two days, then his death is suspect. Remember the medical examiner falsely ruled the photographer Stadler’s death as heart failure,” Booker said. “Someone may have beat you there.”
After taking a couple of minutes to study the body more closely, Kruse picked up his phone. “I’m no medical examiner, but I don’t see anything unusual. The guy was old, he’s at the top of a staircase. It seems pretty logical, at least under normal circumstances. Want me to try to get a blood sample?”
“Nothing normal about any of this. Forget the blood; no doubt you’ll have company any minute. Is there any sign of Rip or the woman? Any clue as to where they went?”
“Nothing. Maybe the feds got them.”
“I’ve got a pretty good source. If they’d been arrested, I’d know.”
“Asheville is like an ant hill filled with cops and feds,” Kruse said. “And the Vatican guys can’t be far behind.”
“I think the Vatican guys beat the FBI again.”
“You think they killed this old man?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he’d seen the artifacts.”
“It must be some treasure,” Kruse said, holstering his gun.
“It is.”
“Gaines better call in soon. You’re his only hope of avoiding the FBI, and the Vatican Secret Service.”
“He’ll call.”
“You want me to do anything else while I’m here?”
“No. Get out of there before the FBI shows up. Trying to explain why you, and a dead body, are at the hideout of the number one fugitive in the world isn’t very appealing.”
“Gaines and his friend are sitting ducks out there.”
“Get a room outside of town and I’ll be in touch as soon as we hear from him.”
Barbeau left the meeting with the Director shaken. He now knew that this case would likely destroy his career, even if he captured Gaines. But that was the only certainty he could wring out of the ever more bizarre investigation.
The President’s involvement was baffling. The Director talked of evidence that the Attorney General had compromised national security on numerous occasions by providing sensitive information to the Vatican Secret Service. Although the average citizen knew nothing about the VSS, within the intelligence community, the elite agency was respected and often utilized. But the VSS was also feared – the world’s oldest, and some said largest, spy network, might not enjoy the enormous budgets that the US, China, Russia and England spent on espionage, but none of the other agencies could match the Vatican’s contacts and access to power. The Church had infiltrated every single government in the world and some, as in the case of most western countries, with a stunning degree of influence.
Barbeau recalled more of the conversation.
“I’m not trying to save my job,” the Director had told him. “I’m trying to do my job.”
“Then if I’m understanding what you’ve been telling me, the Attorney General might be corrupt?”
“Yes. That’s a possible explanation, or the Gaines theft could be a case of astonishing historic consequence . . . or both could be true.”
“How big is this thing? How deep does it go?”
“I don’t know yet. But, for whatever reason, I’m being kept out of the loop and yet allowed to keep my job. It could be to simply preserve me as a scapegoat. It could be because Attorney General Dover wanted to fire me, but the President decided against it.”
“But don’t you assume Dover was the one who called the President, when he changed his mind?”
“No. It could have been anyone.”
“But who has that kind of influence?”
“Several members of the cabinet, any number of billionaires, the Pope.”
“The Pope? But the President isn’t Catholic.”
“You don’t have to be Catholic to feel the Pope’s influence or his wrath.”
“Why would he want to stop the President from firing you?”
“Because the Vatican doesn’t want this case to go public. They want Gaines and the artifacts to never have existed. And if I get fired, or resign, then it is news and, as good as the Vatican is at controlling many things, the media is not their strong suit.”
“It’s not easy to investigate your boss,” Barbeau said, motioning to the portrait of the Attorney General that hung beside that of the President’s next to the door.
“No, but there are ways. Remember, the Bureau was designed by J. Edgar Hoover. And there are secrets and departments within the Bureau that the Attorney General knows nothing about. Hoover created ‘DIRT’ within the Bureau, originally the acronym stood for Director’s Internal Research Trust. Through the years, several of my predecessors expanded and renamed DIRT. Today it stands for Director’s Internal Recon Team. It is a completely covert unit that appears on no budgets and operates without even the President’s knowledge. The keys pass from Director to Director in a protected tradition.”
“Incredible. But why are you telling me?”
“Because DIRT is the only hope we have.” The Director’s pained expression made Barbeau wonder how much ‘hope’ there was.
“So, whom do I trust?” Bearbeau asked.
“You trust me, and who I tell you to trust, and no one else.”
“Okay,” Barbeau nodded.
“Going forward, you should assume that nothing is what it seems. You already know Josh Stadler didn’t die of heart failure, although we are not allowed to release that information, even to his family. DIRT has confirmed that Vatican agents murdered him using an advanced chemical compound that appears even to most medical professionals as a heart attack. And you know about Atlanta?”
“Dover told me.”
“I don’t think he told you the whole story, because he doesn’t know the whole story. Lambert, the man who was trying to help Larsen Fretwell escape, and died along with everyone else on the catwalk, had an interesting background. His employer is someone you may be familiar with.”
Nanski and Leary left Rip’s cousin’s house about twenty minutes before Kruse arrived. They had stayed long enough only to interrogate Topper. Then Leary said, “Time to send this old man to God for judgment.” He used the same method and drug employed on Josh Stadler. Pisano had wanted them to explore the house thoroughly to locate the papers, but it couldn’t be risked. And it had been searched three times before with no luck. The Eysen, obviously still with Gaines, was their singular focus. The hierarchy in Rome suspected Gaines was likely now in possession of the Clastier Papers as well – a greater enemy of the Church could not be imagined, at least not in the earthly realm.
From the house, the helicopter had taken them to a church in Asheville where a car waited. They headed west on I-40 because that’s what they expected Gaines to do. The Vatican quietly alerted hundreds of their people to patrol I-40 and nearby secondary roads between North Carolina and Arizona. “Surely one of the faithful will spot them,” Pisano told Nanski. “And then, Gaines and Asher must be apprehended and dealt with. However, let me be clear: there is no greater cause in your life than recovering those ungodly objects and getting them to Rome.”
Ultimately, finding them along the highways would be a long shot, but the Vatican had a good idea where Gale and Rip might be heading . . .
Chapter 37
Saturday evening, a man boarded the Greyhound Bus in Greensboro, North Carolina, and asked the old woman sitting next to Sean if she would mind moving. “I haven’t seen my nephew in such a long time,” he told her.
As the bus wound through the countryside, the two FBI agents who’d boarded at the stop before, tried to determine the identity of the man now sitting next to Sean. Hall relayed the text messages coming in from the agents, who had managed to get a partial photograph of the guy.
“Who the hell is he?” Barbeau fumed.
“Nothing’s coming up in our facial recognitio
n system.”
“Do they think Sean Stadler knows the man?”
“Just what I told you; he got on the bus in Greensboro, asked a woman to move and sat down next to Stadler. They’ve been talking ever since. Wait a minute . . . “ Hall read a message off his phone. “The man has given Stadler earbuds and an iPad. He’s showing him something. Our agents can’t see what it is.”
“Unbelievable!” Barbeau said, as he paced to the window of the Asheville Federal Building, looking out into the dimming light as if he might be able to see the bus, and determine whom the man was. “Arrest them!”
“Sir, that isn’t wise. Stadler is our only –“
“I know. Damn it! This joker is interfering with a federal investigation. Get someone in Greensboro to find out where he came from. Run the credit cards; pull surveillance video. Figure this out!” Barbeau stormed out of the room to phone the Director.
“I don’t know who is on that bus. But are we ready to grab him without Sean Stadler knowing?” The Director asked, frustrated.
“Our two agents on the bus have orders. If he gets off alone, along the way, we won’t have a problem. If they get off together in Asheville, or anywhere else, we’ll have to let it play out in order for Stadler to lead us to Gaines.”
“The man on the bus could be with the Vatican.”
“That’s my best guess. And if that’s true, then we know your boss, the Attorney General, is working on their behalf. No one outside the Bureau knows Sean Stadler is on that bus.”
“More bad news. The Governor of North Carolina has called out the National Guard to aid in the search for Gaines.”
“Oh, that’s going to kill us. Who let that idiot make such a stupid move?”
“I spoke with the Governor a few minutes ago, and he claims the request came from the White House.”
“What the hell? Why didn’t they consult with us?”
“I’ve got a call in to the Attorney General’s office, but he’s at the White House.”
“Don’t you have Dover’s cell number?”
“It went to voicemail.”
“Something is so wrong with this picture,” Barbeau said.
Sean stared at the iPad in disbelief. For forty minutes the stranger had tried in vain to convince him of something that Sean knew couldn’t be true. But now, he watched and listened to irrefutable proof of unfathomable crimes and conspiracies. When the video ended, Sean pulled out the earbuds and turned to face the man. The only thing stopping him from crying over what he’d seen was his seething anger.
“What do I need to do?” Sean asked in a gravely whisper.
Rip, agitated, kept checking behind them. “We’re too exposed out on the road like this.”
“At least this time we’re well rested and better equipped,” Gale said, as rain pounded the windshield of their rental car.
“And we’ve left an ever-widening trail of destruction behind us. Sean may well have been arrested by now . . . or worse.”
They were silent for a few miles. The car was loaded with camping gear, but just after Knoxville, the rain came in torrents.
“Do you really believe it’s the Vatican doing all this?” Gale asked.
“They are the only other group who could have known about Clastier’s prophecies. They’ve been waiting centuries for this. Who else would know how important the Eysen is? Who else would have enough at stake to kill so easily? Damn them, Larsen was like a brother to me. I can’t believe he’s . . . ” the words came haltingly, “ . . . dead.” Rip groaned. “He wanted me to report the find. If I’d done that, a dozen people would still be alive. Those cops in Atlanta had families. They were just doing their job.”
“And if you had reported it? Who would have it now?”
“I’m not sure the Eysen even works anymore. It’s eleven million years old; I don’t know how it worked in the first place. But I can tell you that the world has been going along fine for all these years until I dug that thing up.”
“Really? Everything’s been fine? Humans have been in a constant state of war and genocide. Five hundred million people have died in wars, another hundred million killed in mass genocides throughout history. Yeah, it’s all been fine. Don’t even bring up: poverty, human-caused disease, slavery, racism, rape, violence, and I could go on and on.”
“That justifies my stealing an artifact?” He knew the importance of the Eysen, but the guilt gnawed at him.
“You stealing it is nothing; compared to whoever is killing for it. And did you really steal it? Does the US Government own it? Their official version of history makes it impossible for the Eysen to exist. The Eysen doesn’t belong to anyone, except maybe you.”
“Me?”
“Clastier sent you a message through his writings to look for it, and you did that, and you found it. It belongs to you.”
Rip was quiet. He stared out the window a long time, watching tractor trailers pass, as Gale kept close to the speed limit.
“Let’s not call Booker,” she said, breaking the silence.
“So we can go to Taos, to look for some trace of a long-dead priest?”
“A defrocked priest,” she reminded. “A man who has guided every step of your adult life.”
“Damn it, Gale, that’s not true. The Clastier Papers are an artifact, like any other. Thousands of artifacts have guided my path, as have any number of other events, which have shaped my life – the death of my mother, my failed marriage, meeting – ”
“Meeting me?”
“I was going to say meeting Booker Lipton.”
“I didn’t know your mother was dead.”
“Well, she is!” he said, fighting back emotion.
“When did she die?”
“Are you writing a book?” he asked sarcastically.
“Sorry, I can’t help it. I’m a reporter.”
“No comment.”
“So where’s your dad?”
Rip sighed. “He’s a deejay in Flagstaff.”
“On the radio?
“Yeah. What is your problem?”
“Music or talk?”
“Do you ever stop? He’s a conservative talk show host. He also does some regular deejay work on an oldies station owned by the same group.”
“He’s your deceased Asheville uncle’s brother?”
“No. My father is an only child.”
“So your mother was the descendent.”
“Yeah.”
Chapter 38
“No one killed her, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Rip said. “She had cancer, a very aggressive type. I was fifteen when they diagnosed her. Six months later, she died at home, while my father and I held her hands.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What about your parents?”
“Artists. They run a little gallery in Stowe, Vermont.”
“Are you close?”
“Pretty close.”
“The FBI has likely visited them. They’re probably worried,” Rip said.
“Maybe they haven’t. Don’t you wonder why the media isn’t covering our story?”
“They covered Atlanta.”
“But we weren’t mentioned. No one knows a thing about us.”
“That’s because they don’t want word about the artifacts getting out.”
“Exactly,” Gale said. “Because someone knows what they are. All the resources they’re using to capture us, the Catholic Church, and the silence in the media . . . they know.”
“We dug it out of the ground less than a week ago, and it’s been in our hands ever since. How could they?”
“I don’t know. Maybe there’s a record of it somewhere.”
“An eleven-million-year-old-record?”
“Maybe it’s not eleven million years old. Maybe it’s not the first one that’s been found.” Her remark stopped Rip cold.
“Wow. I’ll have to think about that. One thing’s for sure, we need to spend some time with this Eysen, and figure out why it’s caused all
this trouble. Booker will have a plan. We have to call him; he’s our lifeline.” They didn’t talk much after that, and drove into the night, switching drivers several times. Rip had borrowed some cash from Topper, but it wouldn’t last long, they needed to get to Booker.
Whenever she wasn’t driving, Gale read the Clastier Papers. They were a combination of his story, a spiritual guidebook, and predictions for the future. The writings were addictive. She understood how they had captured Rip. He’d been raised on Clastier’s words, had much of them memorized, they were an obsession, one he didn’t always understand. “These are pretty esoteric ideas for the 1800s. His philosophies predate even the earliest spiritual, or New Age movements, by decades. I can see why the Church leaders of his day were annoyed, but why were they so threatened as to hunt him down to destroy his work?”
“It was The Divinations. They were afraid of his predictions for the future.”
“Why? Why couldn’t they just dismiss him as a heretic? There had to be something else.”
“You’ve read enough of his writings to know he was extremely persuasive and eloquent in his arguments, and yet, at the same time he was a priest and a common man. Quite the force to be reckoned with.”
“He says, ‘nature is the true church.’ Can you imagine? That probably pissed off the Pope,” Gale said.
“What about where he claims that the devil exists only in the hearts of me; that the Church just creates external distractions that prevent us from finding the true God within ourselves?”
“Wow. I haven’t reached there yet. I guess that’s reason enough for a bishop to raise a posse to find him.”
“It always struck me that The Divinations were written as fact; as if Clastier had proof these things would happen,” Rip said.
“Even the philosophies he espouses are like he positively knew.” Gale absently flipped through the pages. “How could he know all this? And about what you would find?”