The first group of leaves Smith added to his bowl was fairly small - almost a pinch of tobacco between his thumb and forefinger. The next pinch was larger and he forced it down into the bowl with a little more of a push. The third, and final pinch, was larger still and he pushed it hard into the bowl - not quite packing it.
He lit a match, inhaled, and his suction pulled the flame of the match head down into the bowl. Smoke wafted upward after a few seconds and Smith leaned back on the couch - ruminating.
"Smith," I said after a few minutes of watching the wispy smoke curl around his head. "How did you say the hackers got people's information again?" An idea was forming in my head, watching Smith's smoke twirl and twist back around itself.
"They intercept the data stream coming from these damnable implants in all our hands," he said, exhaling circles in the air. "Why?"
"Why didn't our assailant use that same technique - or even that same website - to find my grandfather's binoculars, then?" I asked. "Surely he was tech savvy enough to defeat my dad's security system and then obliterate the surveillance video. That requires serious skills."
Smith stroked his goatee thoughtfully.
"Seems like a much simpler way to get the information," he said. "Plus, he could've just gotten it from the transmissions earlier in your grandfather's life. Unless..."
His voice trailed off.
"Unless for some reason Jason Bonadventure never had the implant!" I finished Smith's thought for him.
"Impossible," Smith said. "How did the hackers for my favorite website get all the information about him later if he never had the implant surgery? No, he had one alright. But it's as if before his 60th birthday - before that moment..."
We looked back at the computer screen and I pulled up a photo of Jason Bonadventure as an old man.
"Before that moment, my grandfather didn't exist," I said.
The words hung in the air, thick like the smoke from Smith's pipe. Could such a thing be possible? Were we getting too tired to think straight? Was I getting a contact high from Smith's tobacco?
"That's crazy talk," I finally said. "This is impossible."
"It isn't impossible," Smith said. "I've heard of stranger tales. What if Jason Bonadveture was an assumed name? Maybe your grandfather had some reason to take on a new identity. Besides, as one of my favorite old detectives is fond of saying, when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains - no matter how improbable - must be the truth. And it isn't impossible that your grandfather would have an assumed name."
It was nuts, but yet, Smith made it seem like it could possibly be the right answer.
"Okay, let's entertain that notion for just a few minutes," I said. "What would prevent your hacker buds, or the assassin from finding my grandfather's previous implant and hacking the data from that? He had to be someone before he became Jason Bonadventure, right?"
Smith took another toke.
"Maybe...Maybe he was really committed to this plan and destroyed his old implant," I said.
"Your ignorance is showing, son," Smith said with a smile. "If anyone tries to blank their implant an emergency data dump is sent to the mainframes. It could've easily been intercepted by the hackers or your mystery man."
We locked eyes again as a new idea seemed to pop into existence in the space right between us.
"Unless," I gasped. "Unless Jason Bonadventure cut off his own thumb and destroyed it to prevent anyone from finding out his secret!"
Smith made the next leap of logic a few seconds before I could. I think maybe my grieving mind wouldn't let me get there with him.
"Adrien, did you look at your mother's hands back at your house?" Smith said gravely.
"Yes," I choked out as the horrible realization dawned on me. "He cut off her thumb that has her implant and her QR code tattoo. With that, he can access all kinds of information about me, my father, my mother and - Oh God! April!"
Smith was already out the door and the Mustang roaring to life as I jumped into the passenger seat, barely closing the door in time before we barreled out onto the street.
I just hoped we weren't too late.
CHAPTER FOUR:
Flights of fancy
April's house was about 30 minutes south of Smith's office - but that was 30 minutes on a day when there was normal traffic and with a normal man driving the average car. None of those things were true at this moment.
Smith nimbly swerved around various traffic hazards and tie-ups as he maneuvered the Mustang like a crusading knight would his charger. I suddenly realized why someone at the Ford Motor Company had decided to name this car after a horse all those years ago.
We tore through the city like we were on a mission from God - and I suppose in some respects we were. Smith pushed the car hard, forcing every ounce of speed from the thing he possibly could until at long last we arrived at April's parents' house. It took us all of 15 minutes to cover the distance, but it was still too late.
April's parents were standing in the doorway talking to the cops when Smith and I rumbled to a stop.
"Oh, Adrien," April's mom rushed toward me and embraced me. "I've just heard about your mother and your father and now this. What an awful, awful day!" She buried her face in my shoulder and wept softly.
I looked to April's dad.
"Is April?" I started to ask.
"No, she's not dead," he said with a sigh of relief. "We went to look for her about supper time when she didn't come downstairs to eat. We found..." his voice trailed off.
Lt. Yelton turned to look at me again.
"Well, Mr. Faulk, your story from earlier this evening is starting to add up," Yelton said. I couldn't tell if he was surprised or relieved, but either way I didn't like his tone. "My boys are just about done up in Ms. Grant's room so you and your hired gumshoe can go check it out if you want."
"Mrs. Grant, I'm so sorry," I said, trying to console April's mom. "I have a feeling this is all my fault."
She looked up at me with tears streaming down her face.
"What?" she said. "How can it be your fault that some madman has kidnapped April?"
"I'll have to explain later," I said. "Right now my friend Mr. Smith and I are going to need you to try and remember if you saw anything strange earlier tonight."
"I'm sorry, Adrien," she said between her sobs. "I just, I just can't go over this again right now." She wandered off back into the house.
April's parents lived a bit more modestly than my folks and I did. I was starting to realize that this was true for almost everyone. I stepped back and took in their home. It was a nice enough house for parents who were both teachers. Her mom taught vidschool from her home studio, while her dad actually was a hands-on instructor at a community college for medical techs. It's true, most of the surgery was done by robots these days, but there still needed to be some humans controlling and maintaining them. It wouldn't surprise me if someday soon the medical robots came to be advanced enough they could get by without any human intervention, but they weren't quite there yet.
"We didn't notice anything unusual at all," April's dad said as he put his arm around me. "I'm sorry, who are you?" he added as he looked over at Smith.
"Oh, that's John Smith, a detective I hired," I said.
"You've already hired a private investigator? Wow, you must work fast," Mr. Grant said as he shook hands with Smith.
"No, no, I didn't hire him because of mom or this," I said. "I hired him to help me find my grandfather's binoculars. I lost them when April and I were in Central America. You know, when I proposed."
"That seems like a lifetime ago now," Mr. Grant said. "Of course you can come in and look around. I don't know that you'll find anything the police haven't but you're more than welcome to check." He walked back into the house as Smith and I followed. Smith scanned the room - visually.
"I still can't get over how you do all this without a microscanner or, well, something," I said.
"If you use your intuition and engage y
our senses, you can generally find enough evidence to make educated guesses about what other human beings have done," he said. I'm not sure, but I think he was sniffing the air while he said that.
There were hardly any signs of struggle in the hallway leading to April's room. And her bedroom door hadn't been forced open. The only hint that something was amiss was her window was open. Her drapes, pink with white stars, flapped gently in the breeze as the storm clouds rolled across the city skyline in the distance. April was always a fan of the color pink and stars. She would sometimes look up at them and say, "Think of all the stories on the planets orbiting those bright dots in our sky."
I plopped into the chair that sat in front of April's desk. The room belonged to a 21-year-old woman, but you'd never be able to guess that from the stuffed unicorns, sports team posters and stacks of historical books everywhere.
"She seems kind of low tech for a microchip man such as yourself," Smith said over his shoulder as he checked out the ceiling.
"Oh, she's a sociology major at NYU," I said. "She wants to teach someday, like her mom and her old man. She has this one professor that insists his students read some of the historical texts in the same way the original people read them. So, yeah, they had to hunt down physical, bound copies of the Bible, Mein Kampf and The Prince - among other books. That was one of the things she enjoyed the most about our trip to Central America, actually. She got to visit so many ruins and places important to the indigenous peoples. I thought I was never going to be able to get her to agree to take that canoe trip. She wanted to go back to one particular site that archaeologists theorize was the meeting place of a tribal council of sorts. April spent a whole day there talking with the archaeologists and students that were excavating and studying artifacts. It was weird, though, because part of the site was likely used for human sacrifice. It was a strange, offshoot of the Aztec or maybe Mayan civilization. The scientist in charge said very few sites from the group survived to present day."
Smith pulled out a paper note book - of course - and began taking notes, jotting down his observations. He came over by the desk and picked up a drawing April had made on our trip to Central America. It was a snake, with wings.
"This offshoot, they still worshiped a winged-snake god?" he asked.
I picked up the drawing. Touching something that April's hands had not only touched, but created, flooded me with emotion. I wept. I couldn't keep it together any longer. My tears didn't roll down my face with dramatic poignancy like some movie star. I cried. I sobbed. I struggled to find a tissue on April's desk and tried to wipe not just my cheeks, but my nose as well as I slobbered everywhere and made a snotty mess. At first, Smith put a comforting hand on my shoulder, but as he realized I was going to be crying for some time, he wandered off and started taking notes about a windowsill that was suddenly very interesting.
Finally, I came to grips with what had all happened and steeled myself with the knowledge that both April and my dad needed our help if they were to survive. I put the drawing down, it was now soaked with my tears.
"Smith, I'm sorry, I -"
He cut me off, "Don't mention it, you had good reasons, now what were you going to say about the drawing?"
"It isn't just a winged-snake god, like Quetzalcoatl or something, it is specifically a boa constrictor type snake with wings that the people worshiped," I said. "The scientist and his students were adamant that it was a previously unknown god for societies in that area of the world," I said. "Notice in April's copy of the drawing here - she basically drew what we saw painted on the side of a pyramid - she made sure to include the snake coiling its tail around the head of a man. I guess it was to show the snake god crushing an enemy of the people? I don't really know."
Smith suddenly grabbed my hand and pulled me over toward the window. Smashed on the floor was a small pot. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief - a cloth handkerchief! He gingerly picked up the shard of pot.
"I found this shoved under a blanket under the bed," he said. "Those cops couldn't find a clue if it fell out of the sky and landed on their heads. Anyway, look at this drawing."
He laid the shard on the bed on the back of his handkerchief. It was a chunk of a pot that April had brought back from our trip. There was the tail end of the boa god drawing on this one, showing a man being strangled by the snake.
"Yeah, that is very similar to the drawings and carvings we saw," I shrugged.
"Look closer," Smith said. "Look at the bottom of the piece."
I leaned over. There were smaller, black silhouettes around the base of the snake.
"People are watching the guy get strangled," I said. "And their faces are covered in...some kind of...tattoos?"
Smith nodded slowly.
"Have you seen that design anywhere else tonight?" Smith said quietly.
I racked my brain, so many horrible things had happened. Had I seen the design somewhere else? I played back the night's climactic events. My mother's death, my father's disappearance and Smith's driving a gasoline powered car and smoking a real wooden pipe all rushed through my mind. My recollection train stopped at a dark and scary station when I recalled being almost choked to death by the mysterious assassin. I could clearly see his face - one that I'm sure will haunt my nightmares - and was nearly knocked over when I came to the realization that the tattoos and tribal markings on his mask matched the ones in the ancient drawing perfectly!
"You think the assailant has something to do with this ancient civilization?" I asked Smith incredulously.
"What I think is that we need to head to Central America," Smith replied. "If we can get to those ruins where you proposed to April, we might find your grandfather's binoculars and hopefully your dad and fiancé."
We headed downstairs and I bid goodbye to April's mom and dad.
"Did you find anything useful up there?" Mr. Grant asked hopefully. "I have faith in the NYPD, but it is still nice to know we have someone like Mr. Smith working with you."
Smith nodded appreciatively and turned toward the door.
"Mr. Grant, I'll do everything I can to find your daughter," he said. "But right now, Adrien and I need to get to Central America."
"Central America?" Mr. Grant echoed. "What on earth do you expect to find there?"
"Clues," Smith said.
"April and my dad," I added. "It would take too long to explain but we found something in April's room that makes us think she's gone back to the same ruins where I proposed. Or, more likely, someone took her there. My dad might be there, too."
Smith and I headed out the door before the dumbfounded Mr. Grant could say much more. Besides, I knew he was just going to try and talk us out of it. Maybe I should take the time to talk us out of it, now that I thought about it.
"Smith, I don't know if this is exactly the best course of action," I said as the car rumbled its way toward Smith's office. "That could just be a weird coincidence that the guy had the same tattoos and similar markings on his face."
I watched the shadows from the streetlights play across Smith's face as he drove. They were a rhythmic flashing of darkness and light as he kept his face straight ahead and completely focused on the road. I didn't know if it was literally the road ahead, or the course we seemed to be taking toward Central America. He was stoic and finally his lips parted so he could reply.
"It wasn't just a similar group of markings or tattoos," he said. "The man who killed your mother had the exact same markings on his face as the 15,000 year old civilization that your girlfriend was studying in Central America. This is not a coincidence. This is not happenstance, this is a clue. In fact, this is a flashing, neon light sign of a clue and if we ignore it or chicken out of this course of action, we are personally signing the death warrants of your dad and girlfriend."
It was hard to argue with conviction like that, so I slumped back down into the seat. Exhaustion was taking its toll on me. I casually glanced at the clock on the dash board and saw it was nearly 3
a.m. I yawned. And then I yawned again.
Smith didn't bother to look over at me as he said, "Get some shuteye, I'll get supplies at my place and then we'll head toward the airport."
I was starting to doze, but remembered enough to say, "Wait, what about my clothes? My luggage? I don't have any kind of supplies or anything."
"I'll take care of all that," Smith said. "You need to sleep."
I barely remember making our way to get supplies and through the security gates at the airport. Smith paid for everything using his thumb implant. He might have been one of the biggest critics of the system, but it made our trip in the wee hours of the morning a lot easier. I stumbled to my seat on the plane and dozed off again.
The next thing I knew I awoke on the plane somewhere in the air between New York and Guatemala. Smith slumped over in the chair to my left and was sawing logs while he got some much needed shuteye himself. It was a commercial plane - one with the new solar-powered props - and at that point in time was whisper quiet. There were hardly any people in the cabin. Smith and I were joined on our Central American excursion by a family of five - a husband, wife and three daughters - and about a dozen businessmen, most of whom looked like they were originally from the continent and were on their way back home. I was going to try and figure out more by doing a little people watching, but gave up after about five minutes due to a combination of factors. Chief among them was the fact that I was bored with it and secondly, what could I possible deduce about someone who seemed desperate enough to catch a plane to Central America at about 3:30 a.m.?
Smith stirred for a moment. I leaned across him and raised the shade on the window to see sunlight creeping across some fluffy white clouds. I pulled my smartphone out of my pocket and cued up the homescreen. It was 7:30 a.m. The phone interfaced with the onboard Wi-Fi for the plane and I pulled up a map showing our flight path and relative location. We were somewhere over Guatemala at the moment. We'd be landing at the airport in about 30 minutes.
As I tried to bone up on my Spanish, Smith opened his eyes.
The Dragon Writers Collection Page 123