The Windchime Legacy

by A. W. Mykel

  They had stopped for some groceries just about a mile away and had everything that they needed for the next few days. They had even bought some spare clothing and other necessities. They were good at traveling light, having had plenty of practice in Europe.

  “This’ll be the last time we can risk using the credit cards,” he told her. “We’ll have to go cash the rest of the way.”

  “Three thousand dollars won’t last long,” Barbara said.

  “It’ll do,” Justin returned. “We’ll need most of it to get new transportation. We can’t keep this car too much longer, and stealing cars will catch up to us soon.”

  “Well, what do we do now?” Barbara asked.

  “Eat a good lunch, and wait for bad weather,” he said.

  “Bad weather?”

  “A day or two of rain or snow is all I’ll need,” he said.

  SENTINEL wouldn’t be able to track visibly in that kind of weather. They would be safe until he got the journal, he reckoned. After that, the shit would fly. The bad weather would also help cover their escaping movements.

  As if on special order, the following day was miserable. The sky was dark, and heavy rains fell. The forecast was for continued bad weather for the next three days.

  At about three in the afternoon, Justin dressed and put his coat on.

  “Where are we going?” Barbara said, going for her coat.

  “We’re not going anywhere. I am,” he told her.

  “No, Justin. I want to be with you,” she insisted.

  “It’s all right. Nothing will happen, yet,” he said. “I should be back by late this evening. If you haven’t heard from me by morning, get a cab and get out of here,” he told her.

  Her face filled with the sudden realization of what he meant.

  “Please, take me with you?” she implored.

  “No. You’ll be safer here. You don’t know anything that can hurt them, not even who they are,” he said.

  “Please?”

  “No.”

  He held her and kissed her. “I love you,” he said. He held her for several long moments.

  She was crying when he left.

  Justin walked to an area of the post office where he could privately examine the letter that Priest had mailed to him. He opened the envelope and read it.

  Mr. Chaple,

  I’ve decided to give you the journal. I’ll need three days of continuous work to finish transcribing it. It takes considerable time to remove the information from the books.

  I’ll contact you when it’s finished and arrange a meeting. At that time, I’ll give you the completed journal.

  Thank you, from myself and Billy.

  Jack Priest

  It didn’t tell him where the journal was, as Honeycut had expected it to. Justin was confused and disappointed by the development.

  He thought for a moment about what Priest had said on the phone.

  “I…I just called to ask you something,” Justin remembered. “I…I just wondered, if you were such a good friend of Billy’s, why didn’t you visit his grave?” Priest had asked, his voice nervous and trembling.

  Then he had hung up.

  Justin thought.

  He replayed it in his head, trying to remember everything.

  Wait! Priest didn’t hang up right away, Justin remembered. The phone sounded as if it had fallen from his hand. Then it was hung up. And Priest hadn’t called him by his name.

  That was it! Priest had tried to tell him where the journal was.

  The grave!

  Priest had said that he went to the grave often to put flowers there—and probably to deposit finished sheets of the journal.

  Justin walked quickly back to the postal clerk. He had all of the papers he had found at Bridges’s apartment weighed, along with the complete account of the events that he had written. He checked postage rates and bought a safe surplus of stamps. Then he left the post office.

  He made one stop and bought two large manila envelopes and a flashlight. Thirty minutes later, he was on the New Jersey Turnpike pointed for Hightstown again, safely concealed in a growing rush-hour traffic that was being slashed by the now-freezing rain and sleet.

  Justin made slow progress getting to Hightstown. He had difficulty after getting off the turnpike, making a wrong turn, but a little good guesswork put him back on the right course.

  Justin couldn’t see well in the stormy pitch-black with just one eye. He hadn’t yet come to Priest’s house. It seemed much further than he remembered it being from the actual center of town. He slowed to a crawl, looking for a recognizable landmark.

  Coming upon an intersection, he stopped the Camaro and stared at the sign post. Windsor-Perrinville Road—he recognized it. Priest’s house was just straight ahead, about a quarter of a mile up.

  There were no other intersections between this one and Priest’s place, so Justin reasoned that the cemetery must be off this road. He turned left, hoping that the entrance would be easy to spot. It was—about half a mile from the intersection.

  Turning off the lights, he headed up the narrow road, running about a hundred yards, to where it split into an elongated oval. He turned the car around, facing out, just in case a fast getaway was required.

  He got out of the car, carrying the small flashlight. He began checking the stones.

  The rain began to make its drenching presence felt as he got to the cover of the big leafless trees. They offered some small protection, as the rising wind was broken in the numerous, thickly patterned branches overhead.

  Justin was about a hundred feet from the tower. There weren’t many graves in the small cemetery, but the bad weather made it seem a bigger task than it was.

  He continued moving up the right side of the cemetery. At the crest of the gentle incline, about even with the tower, he found the first stone.

  It belonged to Jack Priest, MD. He had died the same day that Justin had been called to St. Simon’s. Justin had figured as much, from the dropping of the phone.

  That meant that Honeycut already had the complete journal from Spartan’s books. The partially transcribed copy was the last surviving trace of it now.

  Next to Jack Priest’s grave, Justin found the stone for William Priest. Spartan.

  His hands and face were growing stiff from the freezing cold. He turned off the light, to reduce any further risk of being seen. He looked carefully around the grave.

  Near the foot of the stone was a sunken receptacle, still holding a metallic cup with the stiff, brown remains of flowers left in the fall. After several tugs to loosen the frozen cup, Justin pulled it out. It was too small to hold so many sheets.

  He felt inside the receptacle. The nearly frozen water made moving his numbing fingers more difficult. There was nothing there.

  He looked around, still squatting at the grave. There was nowhere else Priest could have deposited the sheets quickly without being too obvious.

  Justin knelt on the wet ground, the freezing blades of brown grass crackling softly under him. He pulled and twisted strenuously at the receptacle. After considerable effort, it budged. More twisting and tugging. Finally, it came free, making a loud scraping noise.

  Lifting it out, Justin thrust his hand into the hole. It was deep. He had to reach well down before feeling the metallic cylinder.

  He pulled it out. It was the kind that glass pipettes were sterilized and stored in. The rolled papers inside would be dry and in good condition.

  Justin heard the soft crunch of frozen grass behind him. He spun on his knees, the Mauser instantly ready.

  CRACK! CRACK! Into the howling wind.

  The figure fell stiffly backward, landing with a crunching thud, rock still.

  He looked around for more potential attackers.

  The man had come from the direction of the tower.

  Justin quickly moved across the open expanse to the tower. He had good relative visibility from that high point.

  He could see nothing to indicate th
e presence of another agent.

  In the distance, Priest’s house was lit up. That was probably being watched, too. They would be coming soon.

  He went quickly back to the body. He looked into the lifeless face. No one he knew. He began a quick search of the body, looking for the usual agency identifications. There were none. No weapons, either.

  Shit.

  He searched more carefully. No weapons on the ground around the body, either.

  Had he reacted too fast, too instinctively, and killed an innocent person? Who in the hell in his right mind would be out visiting a cemetery on a night like this?

  He went back over the hill on which the tower stood, to the opposite declining slope. There he saw a grave still bearing the piles of flowers of a recent burial. He checked the temporary marker. It was a child of five, dead but seven days.

  “Oh, Christ,” he let out softly.

  Next to the child’s grave was the stone of a young mother, dead only six months.

  Had he not reacted so quickly, the man would be alive. But had he hesitated, and had it been an agent after him, he’d be the dead meat now.

  Too bad, but that’s the way it went.

  He moved as quickly as he could back down to the Camaro. In a moment he was gone, only a grim reminder of what he had become left behind.

  The Camaro pulled into the first available service area on the turnpike. Justin parked the car and went into the cafeteria.

  He got a cup of coffee and two glazed donuts and went to a corner table that gave him a clear vantage point of the entire room, while affording good protection to his back.

  He unwrapped one of the donuts and then twisted the snug top off the stainless-steel cylinder. He pulled out the neatly rolled pages and began reading.

  There were about eighty pages in all, sixty-four journal entries, just as Priest had said. The entries were not numbered one through sixty-four, but were scattered evenly from the beginning, middle, and end sections of the journal.

  Even with the missing entries, the picture was unmistakable. The twenty-fifth page found at Bridges’s apartment fit perfectly with the facts revealed in the entries. All of Justin’s questions were finally answered.

  He took the manila envelopes from the blue flight bag and laid all of his papers on the table.

  He wrote a quick note and, after some careful thought, distributed the papers. He put the note, along with the journal, his written account, and the twenty-fifth page, into one envelope. The remaining sheets that he had found at Bridges’s apartment were put into the other envelope.

  He sealed the envelopes and addressed them, putting more than sufficient postage on each.

  He dropped them into the mail box, went back out to the Camaro, and headed back to Barbara.

  There was little more that he could do now. It was out of his hands and into the hands of someone whom he could trust to do the only thing possible. As with Spartan, then his brother, and now Justin, the trust was being handed down. But they would never find this one until it was too late.

  “It’s all over now,” Elizabeth said bitterly. “He’s gone now. Your gamble failed.”

  “No it hasn’t,” Honeycut said calmly.

  “We don’t know where he is now,” she spat out at him. “He could have the journal already and be anywhere with it by now. He’s been gone for nine hours. We’ll never—”

  “He’ll go back for the girl,” Honeycut insisted softly, confidence in his tone. “When he does, we’ll get everything. Gemini has everything ready,” he said.

  “You’ve been wrong right down the line about him. ‘Expect the unexpected,’ you said. What if he doesn’t go back for her? Then what?”

  “He’ll go back. It’s almost over now,” Honeycut said.

  “You’re not always as right as you think you are, Irv,” Elizabeth said, acidly.

  “Why don’t we just wait and see about that,” Honeycut retorted calmly.

  There was a gentle tapping on the door. Barbara rushed to it immediately. She quickly unlocked it and opened it.

  Justin walked in.

  She threw her arms around his neck.

  “Oh, Justin, I was so scared,” she sobbed.

  “It’s all right, I’m here now,” he comforted her.

  “You’re freezing,” she said. “Hurry up, get inside and into something dry.”

  Justin walked in, and Barbara closed the door behind him.

  “Did you find it? Did you get what you were after?” she rushed out excitedly.

  “Yeah, I found it, all right,” he said dryly.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?” he said.

  “Where is it?” she asked impatiently.

  “I don’t have it,” he answered.

  “You…I don’t understand,” she said, puzzled.

  “I found it. But I don’t have it anymore,” he explained. “Bringing it here wouldn’t do any good.”

  “Then where is it?” she poked.

  “Where it will do the most good,” he replied. “It’s out of our hands.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “Don’t worry about understanding it. The less you know, the better off you’ll be,” he told her.

  “I’m tired of you telling me that,” she said angrily. “I’m in this, too. What happens to you happens to me from this point on. I’d say that I have a fair stake in this, too. Don’t you think I deserve to know why someone is trying to kill us?”

  Justin began taking off his wet clothes.

  Barbara watched him, her face reddening.

  “You’re not going to tell me, are you?” she said heatedly.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Justin, I—”

  “I’ve given you my reasons. Now that’s all there is to say about it,” he said, with a finality in his tone.

  She looked at him angrily for several long moments, as he climbed into warm clothing.

  “I’ll make you some hot chocolate,” she said, walking into the small kitchenette.

  “Thanks, I could really use some.”

  Nothing more was said.

  A little while later Barbara walked over to the bed carrying two cups of rich, piping hot chocolate. She handed a cup to Justin, who was now on the bed.

  He took a short sip, blew on it several times, and took another longer sip.

  “Oh, boy, does that ever hit the spot.”

  Barbara stared at him in hurt silence.

  Justin sipped a few more times, avoiding eye contact.

  “Cold as a witch’s tit out there tonight,” he said. “We’ll have to be moving out of here in the morning.”

  “Where to?” she asked.

  “Haven’t made up my mind yet,” he said.

  He fought back a yawn.

  “God, I’m tired. All that driving is catching up to me now,” he said, taking another sip of his hot chocolate.

  His face felt strange, stiff, almost numb. He opened his mouth as wide as he could, trying to flex his facial muscles.

  His left eyelid grew heavy. He felt his arms and legs begin to tingle slightly.

  “Jesus…” he said, with a confused expression.

  Barbara sat watching him nervously.

  Justin’s head bobbed for a second, but he snapped it up, almost spilling his hot chocolate.

  “I don’t feel well,” he said, just above a whisper.

  “Give them back their journal, Justin,” Barbara said finally.

  Justin shook his head, trying to clear it. He looked up at her.

  “Give them the journal, Justin,” she repeated.

  He squinted strangely at her, then looked quickly at the cup, then back to Barbara. Sudden shock registered on his face. “Jour…journal?” he said, his eyes widening.

  “Where is the journal, Justin?” she asked, sitting on the bed beside him.

  The cup fell from his hand, spilling on the bed. He fell back against the pillows, looking up at her, bewildered, dropping awa
y into sleep.

  “You…you…” he slurred.

  “Just give it to them,” she pleaded. “Don’t you understand? They’ll let us go. Just tell me where the journal is. Justin…Justin,” she said, bringing her face closer to his, shaking him to keep him coherent.

  With his last remaining strength, Justin threw out a vicious slap, catching Barbara squarely on the cheek. Its force knocked her off the bed and onto the floor.

  She got up quickly, her eyes filled with tears of hurt, not from the pain of his blow, but from the fact of it.

  The sudden rush of hate on his face made her feel terribly small and alone, helpless.

  “You’re such a fool,” she cried. “Why couldn’t you have just given it to them when they asked for it? Didn’t you know that there could be no other way? It was the only chance that we ever really had.”

  Justin tried to speak, but it was an indistinguishable mumble.

  “Haven’t you learned by now that their way is the only way? That nothing is real?” she said. “Just like your stupid windchimes. It was all for your benefit. Never really there. All make believe,” she said, tears flooding her eyes.

  The room was becoming an eerie, floating blur to him. Only light and shadows. Then a tunnel of blackness. No sound.

  BLEEP!

  BEEP! “Yes, Gemini,” SENTINEL’s soft voice acknowledged.

  “You heard it all?” Barbara asked.

  “Yes.”

  She looked at Justin with a deep, heavy pain in her heart, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “You can come for him now.”

  FORTY

  Irwin Honeycut walked briskly into the control center at Sigma. He looked at the I-told-you-so expression on Elizabeth Ryerson’s face.

  “Save it,” he snapped, before she could get it out.

  “It’s gone—all of it,” she began anyway. “The journal, the twenty-fifth page, the written account—all of it. Gone. If you had stopped him back when I told you to, this whole thing would have been avoided,” she went on. “The partially completed translation may never have been found. It certainly wouldn’t have made sense to anyone if it were. But now…a schoolboy could figure it out.”

  “There’s still a chance,” Honeycut persisted, more out of defensive pride than actual belief. “We’ll get it back,” he said, in his most confident-sounding voice. “It’s just hidden somewhere else. We’ll get him to tell us where it is.”