The Cosega Sequence: A Techno Thriller

by Brandt Legg

  “No one cares what the NSA does. The Vatican figures the longer it takes for the NSA to get Gaines; the more chance they have at him. Dover and the President are doing what the NSA wants, so if they think it’s best to let him run around loose a little longer . . . ”

  “Just don’t let a lowly Special Agent make a decision.”

  “Something like that. The thing is, Dover wants you off the case.”

  “He’s the boss,” Barbeau said. “I don’t mind getting on with my life.”

  “He may be my boss, but he doesn’t run the Bureau. He may even want the NSA to get the thing, so he doesn’t have to deal with the Vatican. But my guess, is he’d rather get it first, so he can be in the position to demand favors from whomever he wants.”

  “Still, I’m in the way.”

  “Maybe not. You are the agent most familiar with this case. That means you have the best chance to resolve it.”

  “That’s your call. But if I’m continuing, I’ll need some answers; like why is the NSA lying about Gaines’s death?”

  “Probably trying to throw off the Israelis, and any other interested parties.”

  Barbeau was surprised to learn that more groups were coming after the Eysen. “Where is Gaines?”

  “No one is saying. But we’ll get an answer soon. The bigger question is where is Gale Asher?”

  “I assumed the NSA had her,” Barbeau said. “Any idea why she and Gaines split?”

  “No. And Dover just asked me what leads we had on her, so if it’s safe to assume the Vatican is still looking,” the Director said.

  “What about Booker or Senator Monroe? They could be helping her disappear.”

  “DIRT is working both. Booker is damn near impenetrable, but we’re making some progress.”

  “Then our best hope is to get Gale Asher before the NSA does.”

  Chapter 9

  Gale agreed to wait for Booker, mainly because she didn’t have enough money to return to Flagstaff, and she believed Rip was long gone. Even if he were still there, she didn’t know where to look. Any chance she had to find him depended on a man she couldn’t stand, and didn’t trust; Booker Lipton.

  They’d arrived at sunset. The private home was located high in the hills above Taos, in an exclusive area just south of town known as the Stakeout. There had been barely enough room for the large helicopter to land, where would Booker’s set down?, Gale wondered.

  “That’s a million dollar view,” Gale said, standing on the large deck.

  “Closer to four million; I’d guess,” Larsen said, as they looked out across the Rio Grande Gorge, which split the expansive mesa so dramatically that one could almost see the cataclysmic upheaval as the earth tore apart.

  “Booker has been delayed. He’ll be here about six a.m. You might as well settle in for the night,” Harmer said, lighting up a cigarette.

  “What’s more important than this?” Gale asked, annoyed.

  Harmer shrugged.

  Kruse stopped scanning the hills below them through his riflescope. “Listen, Gale, you may not realize it, but we’ve gone to a lot of trouble to find you, get you, and protect you. I have no idea why Booker will be late, but I can tell you this: that was the NSA back there in Flagstaff. They had you under high-surveillance, and the FBI is even more interested in detaining you; now that Rip has vanished. And both of those agencies know Booker has you. He’ll be lucky to avoid arrest himself. So, if it takes him a few more hours to get to this remote corner of the world you chose; then I think you should quit whining, and cut him some slack.”

  She looked to Larsen for some support; he gave her only a slight nod, as if to say he agreed with Kruse. “Forgive me for not having confidence in you,” she said, turning back to Kruse, “but you let Rip get away. You had ten days to get him and you couldn’t do it.”

  “We got you out,” Harmer said.

  “Only because I called.”

  “Look, I’m sure you think you’re smarter than the rest of us,” Kruse said, “but we’re not dealing with the Boy Scouts here. The NSA, the FBI, and the Vatican Secret Service are three of the most advanced agencies in intelligence and law enforcement in the world. You’re damned lucky we got you. Hell, you’re lucky to be alive right now!”

  “Gale, they’re right,” Larsen said. “We’re still in danger.”

  “Yeah, let’s talk about danger,” Kruse snapped. “The Vatican has a kill order on you. That means there are thousands of agents around the world who are searching, and will shoot; to kill you on sight. The NSA hasn’t arrested you because they are still hoping you’ll lead them to the Eysen. And the FBI, under the Attorney General, seems to be working for the Vatican, so you can guess what will happen when they find you.”

  “I know my situation isn’t good,” Gale said. “All I’m asking for is honesty.”

  “I’m happy to give you honesty, honey. All those people I just told you about . . . they are out there, they’re coming. And they may find us tonight.”

  “And until our backup arrives tomorrow,” Harmer said, crushing a cigarette under her foot, “we’re the only thing standing between you, and death, or prison.”

  “I get it,” Gale said, storming into the house. She found a bathroom and locked herself in it.

  She wanted to cry, but couldn’t. All her tears had been used up and wasted on Rip’s death. Gale wasn’t even positive that Booker wasn’t holding her prisoner. What would happen if she demanded to be taken into town? It didn’t matter because she knew there were too many people looking for her; leaving now would be suicide.

  Booker was her only hope. She came back to Taos to finish what she’d started with Rip. Understanding the Cosega Sequence was going to take more than just the Eysen. Clastier knew far more than that the Church was wrong. He’d seen an Eysen; had understood it, and, she suspected, it had been the source for his Divinations. Those prophecies had been too accurate.

  She checked her pack. The Papers were safe. Her journal had many notes about Clastier, everything Rip had ever said. Circled in one of the margins was the thing she was counting on most – the letters to Trampas. Opening her wallet, she counted her remaining cash- eight dollars. Three credit cards would only buy her a one-way ticket to prison.

  If she were going to succeed in filling in the gaps from Clastier’s story, she would need more than Booker’s money and protection; she might have to trust Larsen. She knew he was a good guy; as long as Booker hadn’t corrupted him.

  Chapter 10

  Saturday July 22nd

  Rip hardly remembered crawling into bed the previous night. He opened his eyes, was immediately assaulted with bright sunlight, and reached for his pack next to him. Reaching in, he found the Eysen. It was nearly noon, at least in whatever time zone he’d last adjusted his watch; he didn’t even know where he was. The sun’s warmth made him want to dive right into the Eysen; he could actually do it in bed if he wanted, but it would have to wait.

  Rip had been through too much to be impatient. He needed to know his exact location, and his best escape options; should they be necessary. He looked out of the window, and saw nothing, but trees and a distant ridgeline.

  Slinging his pack over his shoulder, he wandered out into the rest of the single-level house. Saltillo-tiled floors led him into another bright room that was three times the size of his bedroom. Dyce and Elpate were playing poker, and the only smell stronger than marijuana, was coffee. He hoped there was real food somewhere.

  “Hey, man, you were tired, no?” Elpate said. “You slept like three weeks!”

  “Where are we, exactly?”

  “Central Mexico. A little village outside San Miguel de Allende,” Elpate said. “Want a hit?” He held out a joint in Rip’s direction.

  “Does anyone know I’m here?”

  “Your dad doesn’t even know,” Dyce replied.

  “Thanks, guys,” Rip said. “Food?”

  Elpate pointed to the kitchen where Rip found abundant avocados, tomat
oes, peppers, onions, cheese, beans, and tortillas among other fruits, and vegetables. They convinced him to try a drink that was half herbal tea and half cactus and lime-juice; he loved it.

  After his meal, he returned to his bedroom, which opened to a small patio. He now knew the layout of the place, a three-bedroom hacienda. He was in the guest room while Dyce was staying in the room that Elpate used as an office. Rip felt safe here; at least as safe as he’d felt, since leaving the dig site.

  He pulled out the Eysen, and set it in the sunlight. This would be his first solo view, and the excitement of being able to study the artifact, uninterrupted, until sunset made him almost giddy. It was only when he thought about Gale, while the Eysen initiated the Cosega Sequence; that again his mood fell.

  Preparing for a long study session, Rip powered up his laptop, made sure the wireless connection was off, and brought up the photos of the casing. They momentarily sent his mind back to Asheville. Was the house still standing? Were the casing and the original Clastier Papers still hidden in the secret room behind the shelves?

  He pulled out the Odeon and studied it in the sunlight; as he recalled that moment on the trail, when Larsen had handed it to him. It had been the first artifact to come from the cliff; before it, yielded the stone globe casings, that contained the precious Eysen. Ever since, he’d hardly had a chance to consider it. The Odeon seemed static and mute, next to the dynamic Eysen. Still, it must be important. Surely, it hadn’t been inadvertently left there. No doubt remained that the Eysen, protected by the stone casings, and the Odeon, were intentionally preserved. The Eysen might appear to function like a computer, but it was first and foremost a time capsule.

  During that first night, when they had run through the forest from the dig site, he’d briefly thought about the Odeon and wondered if it would light up as well, but the Eysen was too incredible and had demanded all his attention. Now, however, it was a key piece of the puzzle. There was an old Indian saying, “The questions are found in the answers. And until you know what the questions are, you cannot understand the answers.” It meant different things to different people, but he’d adopted it for archaeology, meaning that in order to understand the whole site, each artifact must be studied, until it surrendered not just its answers, but also the questions to ask of the next artifacts.

  Turning the Odeon in his hands, the flat, nearly perfect oval shimmered in the sun. Although only about the size of a bar of soap, the pearly finish made it seem bigger. Nearly translucent, the quartz-like substance had three inlaid gold lines- almost identical to the ones on the casing. Yet its simple elegance reminded him of the Eysen.

  The epiphany hit him-hard. He felt like a fool for not realizing it before. “It must open,” he whispered to himself.

  Chapter 11

  As soon as Pisano, the dapper Vatican representative, learned of Leary’s death and Nanski’s arrest, he demanded a meeting with Attorney General Dover. A high-level Vatican official had already phoned the President, but thus far had not been able to speak with him.

  “We will be lodging a formal complaint,” Pisano said, while trying to understand how the Attorney General could wear that shirt with that tie. He was curious as to what Dover did with his money, because it certainly wasn’t spent on clothes. The man would never be President.

  “I doubt that a formal complaint will be filed,” Dover said. “Seeing how most of the world has no idea our Church employs gentlemen such as yourself, Joe Nanski, and the late Mark Leary, the prudent public relations move would be to let it go.”

  “When will Nanski be released?”

  “Within the hour.”

  “Why is it taking so long?”

  “He was arrested at the scene of a fatal shooting of a federal agent. Do you realize that Leary needlessly killed a decent man, who was just doing his job?”

  “I’m sorry, but he was interfering with our objectives. Leary is in the presence of God now and will be judged by the only One who can make a determination of who and why someone deserves to die. Need I remind you, it is His plan?”

  “I don’t need a lesson in theology from you,” Dover said, wanting Pisano out of his office. “My faith in God and my loyalty to His church are not in question.”

  Pisano found a hair on his pants. He looked around, horrified that someone might have seen it. “Do you have a cat?” he asked, disgusted, while glancing suspiciously under the desk.

  “No, I don’t have a cat,” Dover responded, puzzled. “Now, if there is nothing else, I’m late for a meeting.”

  “Yes, there are two more things. We want Dixon Barbeau taken off the case and charged in the Mark Leary death.”

  “The decision to charge him will be made by an internal investigation. There are procedures for this and I cannot and will not interfere. Whether he will remain on the case or not is under review. I make no promises.”

  Pisano scowled, but decided not to argue. “And the second point is, that we must be allowed to interview Gale Asher as soon as she is apprehended, which I assume is just hours away now.”

  “I’ve just spoken with the FBI Director and she is still at large. Rest assured, she is among our highest priorities, and we have considerable resources throughout the government assigned to the task of finding and arresting Gale Asher.”

  “And we’ll have an opportunity . . . ”

  “I will see to it that you get as much time as you need to question her.”

  “We need to be involved from the beginning. That is to say, we have to be present at the initial, and all subsequent interrogations. We are further requesting that Joe Nanski be allowed to question her, alone, as early as possible.”

  “I’ll consider that request.”

  “Please do. Expect a call from Rome as soon as we get word of her arrest.” Pisano smiled. His hope was that Vatican agents would find her long before the Bureau, but he needed all possible outcomes covered. The Vatican was working diligently to find a solution to its biggest problem, Booker Lipton.

  Chapter 12

  Barbeau had allowed the most sought after fugitive in the world to escape. It had been a spontaneous decision, that he spent surprisingly little time second-guessing. In spite of his differences with Hall, he respected the dead agent so much, that his theories of the bizarre case had crept into his own, and Barbeau could now no longer differentiate them.

  For the moment, Gaines was lost to him, but he expected to get another chance; once he knew more, when it was safer. The three greatest lessons he had learned as an investigator were written on a folded slip of yellow paper in his wallet. He took it out whenever things looked bleak, and invariably he’d see something he had missed. The DIRT team was waiting in the chopper; he had to let them know where he wanted to go. As he prepared to check out of his room, Barbeau read his faded words:

  1. Coincidences are suspicious; find enough of them and you’ll solve any case.

  2. The motive is either: money, power, or passion, but it’s really always money.

  3. Crimes are a conspiracy; in addition to the suspect, there is usually someone else who can be used to unravel them.

  All three rules applied to every investigation, and he had spent considerable time thinking about each of them over the past twelve days; but in this case, at this moment, it was rule number three that demanded his attention – Gale Asher.

  He boarded the FBI chopper, recalling his landing in a similar one in the middle of the Jefferson National Forest, unaware his life was about to be forever changed. He remembered Hall’s tension at having to work with him again. It was mutual, because Hall challenged him and Barbeau didn’t like that; not because he was insecure, on the contrary, he didn’t like to waste his time explaining himself to those he felt had inferior minds, like most of his coworkers.

  “Take me to Taos, New Mexico,” Barbeau told the pilot. As the helicopter rose into the air, Barbeau hardly noticed the view to the south of Sedona’s red rocks bursting out of the surrounding ponderosa pine forest
s.

  An agent handed him a file folder. It was a summary of everything DIRT knew about the Vatican’s interest in the case, and it included every shred of information linking the churches Gaines and Asher had visited. Just as Hall had known Gaines was not the bad guy in this case, Barbeau had thought all along that one of the keys to this mess could be found in the churches of San Francisco de Asís, the Taos Pueblo, and El Santuario de Chimayó. He suspected that if Gale Asher were still in the country, she just might be in Taos. And, if not, at least the answers she and Gaines had sought, and that he desperately needed, would be there.

  Chapter 13

  Rip held the Odeon and carefully twisted. Nothing. Larsen must have inspected the artifact before Rip arrived at the dig site, but he hadn’t mentioned anything. He thought back on the casings- what had made them open? The Eysen had so quickly taken all the attention, that they’d never had a chance to study the mechanism, but he recalled something that was similar to magnets. There hadn’t been latches, but maybe . . . as he manipulated the Odeon, in the way he had done the casings, back and forth between his hands, the center band suddenly split.

  “Eppur si muove,” Rip whispered, quoting Galileo’s purported defiant phrase, “and yet it moves,” against the Church that forced him to recant his belief that the Earth moves around the sun.

  The two halves of the Odeon revealed a small opening. A smooth, round, bluish-black stone, slightly smaller than a poker chip, and nearly as thin, slid into his hand. “And what secrets do you hold, little Odeon Chip?”

  As Rip tested to see if it was pliable, the chip changed color at its center, and left an outline of his thumbprint in yellow. The lines glowed so brightly that, as he held its edges, intense rays of light emanated. He moved the chip toward the wall. and it projected a tiny image of his thumbprint. It could be made bigger when he pulled the chip back, but the room was too bright and the image faded.