Big Bob glanced down at the orange smudge on his tie and swore. He dabbed it with his napkin as the train took another curve.
Conrad went with it, swaying enough to spill his coffee on Big Bob. The guy bolted in his seat, knocking the tray table up and hitting his head on the overhead bin.
“Gosh, I’m sorry,” said Conrad, steadying Big Bob as he slipped his hand inside the guy’s suit and lifted his wallet.
Big Bob said, “What’s the matter with you?”
“Let me get something from the snack car for you,” Conrad said, slipping the wallet into his own pocket and walking away. “My apologies.”
Conrad approached two pneumatically operated sliding glass doors. They whooshed aside like the deck of the Starship Enterprise, and he passed through the spacious and quiet intercar passageway into business class.
Both business cars were half full, maybe forty passengers each, most busying themselves with their newspapers, laptops, and iPods when they weren’t cursing at their BlackBerries and mobile phones for cutting out in the middle of conversations.
He passed through two more sliding doors to reach the snack car. About a dozen patrons were in the lounge area, perched uncomfortably on the high and low stool seating. A plasma TV on the wall flashed highlights of the weekend in sports.
At the far end of the snack car was a business center with a fax machine, copier, and two onboard Railfones, one of them in an enclosed booth. Conrad stepped inside. The Railfone didn’t accept coins or bills and required payment by a major credit card. Fortunately, Conrad had a Visa card with the name Derrick Kopinski, Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, aka “Big Bob.”
Conrad dialed Serena’s number and looked at Kopinski’s ID card while the other end rang. The driver’s license had him in Oceanside, CA. That meant Kopinski had until recently been stationed out of Camp Pendleton. Kopinski was a Marine. Probably green at the Pentagon. Definitely DOD, one of SecDef Packard’s men. An E-9 Special pay grade.
Besides forty dollars in cash, Kopinski’s wallet included a picture of his wife and kids in a Sears portrait, for sure. She looked like Goose’s wife from Top Gun, a young Meg Ryan. Very nice. Same with the kids, who fortunately looked more like their mother. Even a little baby baptism card. Eastern Orthodox. And coupons for Starbucks coffee, McDonald’s Extra Value meals, and Dunkin’ Donuts. Lots of Dunkin’ Donuts coupons. Jeez, they didn’t pay this guy enough.
The call finally connected and Conrad got a voicemail from Serena speaking French that asked him to leave a voice or text message. Before he could punch in anything the signal cut out and the call was dropped.
Conrad hung up and paused for a moment. He removed the envelope from his body and taped it to the underside of the shelf beneath the phone. Then he buttoned up and stepped out of the booth.
Back in first class, Sergeant Major Kopinski was waiting for him. As soon as the glass doors opened, Conrad saw him standing there, jacket open to reveal a shoulder-holstered gun. The stain on his tie looked even bigger.
“I want my wallet, Dr. Yeats.”
“Yes, sir.” Conrad handed it over and looked back to make sure they were out of view of the business car and alone in first class. They were.
“This mission can’t be what you intended for your life when you enlisted in the Marines, Sergeant Major,” Conrad said. “You tell Packard to give you a real assignment.”
Kopinski nodded, then to Conrad’s dismay started convulsing. Kopinski’s eyes rolled back in their sockets and something green began to leak out his nostrils.
Then he saw a tiny dart in the Marine’s neck as the head tilted to the side unnaturally and the heavy body crumpled to the floor with a thud. He was dead. Conrad spun around to see the glass doors into first class wide open and the attendant pointing some sort of dart gun at him.
“You just killed a federal agent,” Conrad said.
“Hand it over,” the assassin said. “Slowly.”
Conrad reached into his pocket and pulled out Kopinski’s wallet.
“Forget the wallet.” The assassin stepped forward, still pointing the gun.
“Who are you?” Conrad asked.
“The Grim Reaper, as far as you’re concerned.” The assassin waved the dart gun at him. “Turn around.”
Conrad turned to face the picture window. More bland pastures passing by. He felt the assassin pat him down.
“Take off your boots.”
Conrad removed his boots.
The assassin looked at them and then back at him. “Unbutton your shirt.”
“I’m not that kind of guy.”
The assassin tapped the point of his dart gun on Conrad’s chest. “Open your damn shirt.”
Conrad could see the guy’s eyes were on fire, meaning business. He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it open to show nothing but his chest. “I work out, as you can see.”
“Where is it?”
“Where is what?”
“Whatever you took from that little book of yours.”
Conrad said, “If you people did anything to hurt Brooke, I’ll kill you.”
“You should be worried about what we’re going to do to you.”
The assassin whipped the butt of the gun against the side of Conrad’s head, and lightning flashed across Conrad’s field of vision. The searing pain made it a struggle for him to stay standing.
“Give it to me,” the assassin ordered, “or I’ll open your ass to look for it.”
“You know, that’s just where I’ve got it.” Conrad, his head throbbing, began to unbuckle his belt. “You look like the kind of guy who’d like to search for it there.”
Conrad bent over, his butt up to the assassin’s face, his own face inches over poor Kopinski on the floor, the guy’s Egg Scramble and Tabasco sauce all over his shirt. He thought of the guy’s wife and kids. A Marine, for Christ’s sake. And this little shit behind him killed him.
“Now take a good, hard look,” Conrad said. “You don’t want to miss anything.”
Conrad dropped his pants with one hand and reached into Kopinski’s jacket with the other. He suddenly straightened up and turned around, his pants around his ankles. The assassin’s eyes were looking down where they shouldn’t, missing Conrad’s arm swinging up with Kopinski’s gun.
“Surprise,” said Conrad, and shot him in the stomach.
The bullet blew the assassin against the wall, and he crumpled to the floor in a fetal position.
After pulling up his pants, Conrad looked back through both sets of glass doors into the other car to make sure nobody heard the shot, then leaned over and dug the pistol into the guy’s neck. “Who are you people?”
The assassin’s mouth broke into a wide, wicked grin. Conrad saw the cyanide capsule between his teeth. But before he could bite down on the suicide pill, Conrad smashed his front teeth with the butt of the pistol. The assassin started choking on his teeth and swallowed the capsule.
“Gonna take you a little longer to die now,” Conrad told him. “And you don’t have to. You can still get some medical help. But only if you tell me who you people are.”
The assassin only glared at him.
“I see you still have a few teeth left.” Conrad held up the pistol for another blow. “I think I can fix that.”
The assassin didn’t flinch, even as he coughed up some blood. “You’ll be dead by sunset.”
Conrad bent closer. “Says who?”
“The Alignment,” the assassin gasped through his bloody teeth, and then slumped over, dead.
Conrad ripped open the man’s uniform and found a BlackBerry device. There was nothing else on him except the strange dart gun on the floor. Conrad took the BlackBerry and tucked Kopinski’s gun behind his back.
He dragged both corpses to the port galley in the first-class car, where he found the body of the real attendant. He stood and looked at all three bodies and shook his head. He’d have all of twenty minutes tops before they were found after they pulled into New York.
He looked at his watch. It was 10:30. They were due in Penn Station in a half hour.
Back in the snack car, he had to wait five minutes to use the Railfone booth. He slid inside, felt beneath the metal shelf counter and pulled out the envelope with the map inside that he had taped to the underside. Then he called Serena.
7
UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS
NEW YORK CITY
IN THE PANTHEON of modern megalithic architecture, China’s new 25-kilometer-long venue for the 2008 Olympic Games—humbly dubbed the “Axis of Human Civilization”—was a sure bet to join America’s interstate highway system, Central America’s Panama Canal, and Europe’s Chunnel as one of the great wonders of the modern world.
But to Serena Serghetti, now standing before the General Assembly, it was an environmental disaster, a state-run catastrophe that was endangering animals, destroying ancient temples, and driving more than a million people from their homes. All because China wanted to show the world that it had come of age.
“Now we have reports of avian influenza—or ‘bird flu’—spreading in the squalor of the countryside where the homeless have been exiled,” she said. “But the government has refused to even acknowledge the threat of a global health pandemic, let alone help the poorest of its own people.”
Naturally, the Chinese ambassador to the United Nations didn’t see it that way and seemed visibly annoyed. This morning alone he had been forced to deny accusations that his country actively suppressed free speech and systematically imprisoned and executed people to harvest their organs. Now he had to contend with reports of avian flu just weeks before the Olympic Games in Beijing.
“We beg to differ,” was all he said through a translator. “The industrialization and development of Beijing has created a rising standard of living for our people and better health care.”
“At least allow us to help your needy, Mr. Ambassador.”
Serena cited a report on relief efforts following the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia and the 2005 hurricane that wiped out New Orleans, events that also displaced more than a million people.
“As the head of FEMA has stated, some of the world’s problems are just too big for governments,” she said. “But the global church—Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox together—is present in more than a million distribution plants worldwide. For food, shelter, vaccines, relief supplies, and helping hands, there’s a local church on the ground wherever disaster strikes. And we’re ready to help you.”
“I am sure you are, Sister Serghetti, but we can take care of our own people,” said the Chinese ambassador, and further discussion was tabled.
As Serena returned to her seat, she could think of at least one other person who would beg to differ: Conrad Yeats. She had left him for the work of the Church, the very hope of the world she was proclaiming in this chamber. But in Conrad’s mind it was the Church that had denied him her love.
She picked up her bulky but lightweight white earpiece and sat down. Most delegates needed translators from the interpreter booths overhead to follow along. But not Serena, who was fluent in many of the world’s languages. She used the earpiece to pick up messages unobtrusively and write them down. Now a voice in Italian told her that the media room said that “Carlton Yardley” from The New Atlantis magazine was there for his scheduled interview with her.
Her heart skipped a beat.
He must have found something, she thought, although she was embarrassed to realize she didn’t care if he had nothing to show her but his face. His unshaven, stubbled face.
As soon as she could step outside the chamber and into the crowded visitors’ lobby, Serena pulled out her iPhone and called Benito to bring the car out from the private garage. She scanned the cavernous glass atrium. The media line was at the entrance, behind the blue velvet rope. She started walking in that direction when Max Seavers stepped into view, blocking her path to Conrad.
“Serena!” Max said, smiling.
Serena stopped in her tracks.
Before he was tapped by the American president to help with the Department of Defense, Max Seavers had helped her humanitarian efforts in Africa and Asia on a number of occasions by donating vaccines. She couldn’t just blow him off now.
“Déjà vu, Max. Weren’t we standing here just a few days ago with you showing me some rather unusual photographs? What brings you back?”
“Sounding the alarm here and on Capitol Hill about the coming flu pandemic. What about you? I hear you were telling the Chinese where to stick their new dam.”
Serena couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder toward the media line, where various cameras were set up to catch the comings and goings of dignitaries. She spotted Conrad, and he saw her and motioned.
“I suppose you have an opinion on the new Beijing?” she said as she started walking away from the entrance and toward the delegates lounge.
“A technological marvel,” Max said, keeping pace with her. “You’ve got to give the Chinese credit for that. They’ve left nothing to chance. Even the date of the opening ceremonies on August eighth was chosen because the number 8 represents good fortune to the Chinese.”
“I see: That’s the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year of the new millennium,” Serena said, pretending to marvel. “And I used to think three sixes in a row was the devil’s number. Tell me, Max, what about the million souls the Olympics are displacing?”
“You mean driving from their homes which had no running water or electricity in the first place?” he said. “Sounds like progress to me.”
Serena glanced sideways at him as she walked. “And the destruction of the ancient temples, their history?”
“Obviously the Chinese don’t care about their ancient temples as much as you do, Serena. That’s because the Chinese are looking to the future. They know that in time some other civilization is going to do the same thing to their Olympic Park that they’re doing to those ancient temples.”
She came to a halt. “I wonder if you’d feel the same way if these temples were the ones about to be destroyed?” She pointed out toward the Manhattan skyline—away from Conrad in the media area.
Max Seavers followed her finger and smiled. “If it was some act of God—like the tsunami, I’d be devastated. But if it was our government doing the submerging, for the betterment of the country, like the Chinese, then yes. Have you seen this?”
Serena realized he was referring to the nearby display of a model city in the lobby. It was the official Olympic Venue Construction Plan for Beijing. A nameplate read “Axis of Human Civilization.” More PR.
“Impressive, Serena, isn’t it?”
Serena looked at the model of the city’s new Central Axis. The Chinese had successfully constructed a 25-kilometer-long boulevard connecting the new Olympic Park in the north with the Imperial Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square in the city center. She noted a stretch of avenue labeled “thousand-year path.”
“It’s certainly audacious, Max,” she said. “This Beijing axis looks like the New Berlin that Hitler never got to build.”
Max chuckled. “Funny you should say that. Because it was designed by Albert Speer Jr., the son of the architect who designed the New Berlin for Hitler’s grandiose empire, the ‘world capital Germania,’ the capital of the so-called Thousand Year Reich.”
Serena said, “You’re joking.”
“No.” Max shook his head. “Charming old man, incredibly gifted. Tried to hire him myself for SeaGen’s corporate headquarters in La Jolla, but the Chinese outbid me.”
Serena stared at the model city. “Is Speer trying to copy his father or outdo him?”
“That’s what the German news magazine Die Welt asked when the plan was unveiled,” he said. “But it’s all nonsense, of course. The Chinese insist Speer’s design simply fulfills their own intentions of creating a central axis, and that the idea was laid out in the planning of the imperial capital centuries ago. I think the real point of interest is where the elder Speer fou
nd his inspiration for the New Berlin in the first place.”
Serena shrugged. “You’ve got me, Max.”
“Pierre L’Enfant’s design for the National Mall in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “What’s more, Speer maintained that L’Enfant’s plan was itself based on earlier source maps going back to ancient Egypt and Atlantis. That’s Doctor Yeats’s specialty, isn’t it?”
Serena wasn’t going to bite. Nothing good could come out of lingering here even a moment longer.
“Atlantis?” she asked, giving him a dubious look. “Now don’t get all mystic on me, Max. We need you to keep those vaccines coming.”
With that, she turned and briskly walked away, exhaling slowly. As she approached the media line by the entrance, she was aware of Conrad in the pack. She walked right past him without a glance to the waiting limousine and got in. Benito closed the door, slid behind the wheel and drove away.
8
FURIOUS TO SEE SERENA pressing the flesh with none other than that pseudo-philanthropist-billionaire Max Seavers, and feeling helpless because he couldn’t risk being seen, Conrad walked out of the U.N., weaving between the flagpoles in front until he was far enough away to hail a cab and climb inside.
“Christie’s,” he said as the driver pulled away from the curb and into the lunch-hour traffic. The driver glanced at him in the mirror and asked where Christie lived. “Rockefeller Center. She’s an auction house.”
Conrad didn’t know where else to go until he could reach Serena, and he didn’t want to tell the driver to just “drive.” Worst case, there was a cute assistant curator at Christie’s that he had seen off and on whenever he was in New York. Ironically enough, her name was Kristy. Maybe she could make some sense of the map, or at least its monetary value, and refer him to somebody outside the federal government who could help him decode the text.
Conrad took out the cell phone he had lifted off the body of the assassin aboard the Acela. He had tossed his own phone under the tracks before leaving the platform at Penn Station. The question was whether anybody had found the bodies yet and been sharp enough to start tracking this phone. Probably not. Hopefully not.
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