He dropped to the rug, began doing crunches to get his blood flowing. What did they want with me? Nothing good. After fifty, he got up refreshed and punched in a number on his phone.
They answered on the first ring. Mattie was at Barb’s house. They put him on speakerphone.
“I think I may have made things worse for you,” he told them. “I’m sorry but . . .”
He told them everything: The way the other clergy witnesses seemed so ready to acknowledge the Plates as authentic. How he’d accidentally broken the corner off one. The nature of the metal’s edge. And how quickly the church’s lead scientist had shown him the door.
“ . . . and right there behind the lower left corner I found a mark that looked exactly like that tiny C in your photo.”
“Louie’s mark!” Mattie said.
“They’ve got to be fake!” Barb said.
“Unfortunately,” he sighed, “I lost my temper just enough to mention your last names to the project leader, Dr. Millar. I shouldn’t have done it.”
“No, no, I’m glad you did!” Barb said.
“What did he say?” Mattie agreed.
“Nothing verbal. But his blood pressure went up about thirty points.”
“So what do we do now?” Mattie asked.
Franklin thought of things he’d heard about the Mormon church trying to go on promoting the Book of Mormon’s claim that American Indians were descended from Hebrews — when almost every geneticist would tell you the Indians were quite obviously of Asian descent, not Semitic. He thought of the innocent wagon train settlers and children slaughtered in the Mountain Meadows Massacre by Mormons troops — the lack of serous investigation by its then-Prophet-Leader and Utah governor Brigham Young.
“Perhaps we can use my confirmation as leverage to pry information out of somebody. But I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Where’s that number, Mattie?” Barb asked. “That detective with the police?”
“On the island there, under the Arab photo. But do you really think —”
He heard paper shuffling.
“Here,” Barb said. “Let’s just hope they’ll do something about it now.” Sound of a knuckle on a table top.
“There’s nothing the police can act on,” Mattie said.
“I have to agree with Mattie, Barb. I don’t think what we’ve learned is anything like proof.”
He heard Barb’s frustrated sigh over the phone. “I guess they can’t very well claim the Mormons took our husbands or something.”
“Where would they search?” Mattie asked.
“Maybe we don’t have enough for the police but I’ll bet we do for a private detective.”
“Maybe.”
He told them about the men after him at the airport. “I think you really ought to consider staying somewhere else tonight.”
They didn’t say anything.
“Do you have somewhere you can stay — for a few days at least?”
“My sister will have us, Mattie.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
He gave them his home and office numbers.
“Thank you, Reverend.”
“Yes, thank you very much.”
There was no argument. No delay. They were quicker than he was. Accepting facts of reality — about their husbands. But he sensed a rat chewing away in the dark corners of their minds: their gnawing sense of worry.
Not Alone
Before going to bed, Franklin sleepily tried that crazy Long Island phone number again from Cyn’s papers, 516 . . . this time from memory. He was surprised to hear, instead of the dead line he expected, several high-pitched tones, followed by a voice saying, “The number you have reached is not in service.”
He tried it twice more with the same result.
He poured himself a tall glass of water. He went back to his bedroom, sat on the bed, took off his good shoes.
It felt like his head had barely hit the pillow when a bell chimed from the other room, brought him wide awake. Email? It was the sound he’d set for Everon!
He went back out to the kitchen table.
To: Franklin Reveal
From: Everon Student
Subject: Let Me Know If You Get This!
Hey Bro, If you get this, reply right away, will you? I’m testing our reestablished email connection.
I’m still in PA and west NJ. Hardly more than a cat nap in three days. The crew’s totally fried. Busy as hell but things are finally coming together. We’ve already got a bunch of homes and businesses powered up and running. More on the way. If the nutcases don’t grind us down first. Making progress just to spite them.
I know what you said. But Bro, it feels pretty damn good making it possible for people to run their lights and furnaces, and they really seem to appreciate our hard work.
Saw your picture on the local newspaper. You’re famous, Bro! Any problems with Anders?
Later!
E
Franklin typed out a quick response:
To: Everon Student
From: Franklin Reveal
Subject: Wish I Could Talk With You!
Sounds like you’re accomplishing a lot, Everon. I’m glad it’s working out over there! I was just worried about these bombs. Maybe they’re over with now. I’m sure a lot of people are glad you’re there.
I’ve got some really, I guess the word is strange, things going on. Something regarding the so-called recently rediscovered Mormon Plates -- don’t know if you’ve heard about them -- or that big gold tablet found in Saudi Arabia?
I haven’t seen or heard from any military people -- but I got into a little thing tonight. Three guys, I know it sounds paranoid, actually trying to kidnap me or arrest me or something -- at Erie Airport. I don’t know exactly who they were -- or what they wanted. It really scared me though.
Hope to talk to you soon.
Love,
Franklin
When he finished he hit the SEND button. I wish I could just call him. But he knew who he really wanted to talk to. Cynthia.
He remembered the tiny notes Cyn had written. They didn’t make much sense. He pulled her now-dry, rumpled papers across the kitchen table. Why did she pencil in my name on page three?
When did Cyn put my name here? Was it the last thing she ever wrote? He folded back the cover, scanned down the long columns of numbers again.
Moving through the months on pages one and two, there were no dollar signs. No other symbols. Just the column filled with letters: GC on page one. Page two, identical, except for the column filled with SI.
On page three each line began with a date, followed by some amount of money and a long number, each with a hyphen in the middle.
A transaction number, maybe? The amount of money increased as it dropped down the page.
Was it for a house?
He flipped back and forth through the pages. I’ve never been any good with numbers. Why wouldn’t Cyn want to ask Everon about it, whatever it was? Where did all their money go?
He threw the pages back on the table.
He couldn’t call Everon. It was the kind of thing he would have talked about with Cynthia. He thought of Victoria. I wonder if she’s home yet?
He dialed the first number she gave him — 440 — an Ohio area code.
“Hello?” a female voice he didn’t recognize answered.
“May I, uh, speak with Victoria, please? It’s Franklin.”
“Just a moment. Hey Vic!”
“Who is it?”
“It’s him! Franklin! Deep voice. Sounds like somebody from the network!”
The receiver rustled. “Franklin! Hi! We’re — hey, have you seen the news?” she asked suddenly dark. “The network — it’s incredible — unconfirmed reports of Muslim fundamentalists? They’re promoting a link to Pakistan!”
“Muslim fundamentalists? Is there some reason behind it? They think the bomber’s some kind of religious zealot? How does the govern
ment know that?”
“I don’t know. We put some real junk out there,” she said. “But this stuff — it’s — just so irresponsible! They’re talking about Muslim interment —”
“Like they did with Japanese U.S. citizens in World War II.”
“Yeah. I hope they don’t do it. So, hey — how did Utah go?”
“I’m pretty sure the Plates are fakes.”
“What?”
He told her: Mattie and Barb and their missing husbands. Missing clergy people turning up, their wildly positive support for the Plates. The one he broke on the floor. How Hyram Millar had just about pushed him out the door.
“Wow! What are you going to do about it?”
He told her he didn’t know.
“Say, I’ve been trying your crunch thing,” she said. “I like it —”
“How many are you at?”
“Two minutes. You?”
“Two. I just got back.”
“Oh, my stomach muscles. They’re about ready to give out!”
“Use your hands under your thighs to pull yourself up. It’ll get easier.”
“I’d rather you held my thighs for me.”
“Me too,” he laughed.
For some reason he held back mentioning the three guys who came after him at the airport. He didn’t know exactly why. Maybe I don’t want to worry her. He thought of asking what she thought about Cyn’s report but held that back too.
The conversation wound down.
“Is it too soon to say I miss you?” she asked.
“Not at all,” he said. “That must be why I called you too.”
At The Border
One more obstacle. One.
And Ting would be his again.
Zhou had not been certain what precisely Pali Kongju’s second vision meant.
Until now.
Finally, Zhou understood.
Some might have desired a convertible, top down for easy escape. Doors partway open to allow extra time should its wheels crack through.
But Zhou was immune. The Kongju had shown the way.
He accelerated the light-gray sedan down the Chrystal Beach boat ramp. A thump, and the vehicle steadied out. In the early light before sunrise he watched the frozen white sea flow beneath his wheels.
As he roared south.
Always America, Zhou thought grimly, always the sea.
BOOMF!
Like riding Norse Wind’s bow through the crest of an Atlantic wave, Zhou slammed the sedan’s front bumper through another of the foot-high snowdrifts. Tires creaking, ice crackling. Of no concern. Exactly as Pali Kongju had shown: a month’s cold weather had frozen the ice deep enough to take his weight.
Off on his left, men in heavy winter gear followed his progress with odd glances as they walked between holes in the ice and their scattered fishing shacks. He ignored them. Ting was growing closer.
He could see the shore now, feel the rage building inside, the first rays of sunlight cresting off giant wind turbines above the east cliffs.
Minutes later, Pang Zhou powered up Woodlawn Beach onto Lake Erie’s southern shore five miles west of Buffalo. In his mind’s eye, Zhou could see the route he would take as though looking at a map. I-90, the road was called. One-hundred-thirty kilometers. Eighty-five miles straight southwest. Just over an hour to a place called Erie. The place he would find Ting — and a man with startling blue eyes and long dark hair.
And kill him.
Mr. Espy’s Daughter
“Good morning, Reverend,” Marjorie said as Franklin came through the front office door Saturday morning. “Have a good trip out west?”
“Interesting. Strange —”
“Say,” she cut in, “did something happen around here Thursday night? All day yesterday, Reverend Maples seemed pretty upset. Wasn’t anything in particular, just . . . I don’t know, odd . . .”
Her voice trailed off watching him.
Franklin felt his neck and face go hot. There was no way around it. Ralph heard us!
Franklin went back to his office and began two solid hours of helping more sad, desperately worried people.
Marj had given up on her criteria to deny access to Franklin — mention of the TIME article, the television clips — or any other media story about him. It wasn’t working. Everybody had seen the articles, the broadcasts. Church members were no exception. And the ones who hadn’t lost someone were more frightened than those who had. So now she booked them all.
Mark Sojet’s and Jim Rylan’s wives, gone on a girls weekend to the big city. Both women still missing. The Stoberts’ teenage sons, simply freaking, as they put it, over New York. “Will the next bomb be closer?” The Ingersalls’ young daughters. “Could the next bomb go off right here?”
They all needed him.
During a brief break he made a quick try on that Long Island phone number.
It was back to no message. The line was dead again.
With every person he helped he felt the slow return of his own dreary Ash Cave pre-Bomb-Night thoughts of self-destruction. The pain and loss for Cynthia joined in, mutating into something unfamiliar. Dangerous even. Like part of him had receded, a new part coming to the fore.
It wore on him too that he hadn’t been allowed to try to pull Don Marshal’s girls out of the miserable state he’d left them in. Though after such a failure, he couldn’t honestly blame Patricia Marshal for refusing to let her girls talk with him again.
Always on the positive side of things, Marjorie pulled him back.
“I’m amazed at what you’ve done with Charlie!” she said as Franklin waited for his next appointment. “His mother says she’s never seen him so interested in his schoolwork. How did you get him to respond like that?”
Before he could decide how much to tell her, Ben Espy arrived.
An accountant and single father, Ben brought his younger daughter Melissa along with him. The little dark-haired girl wore a fluffy lavender dress, black flat-heeled boots.
Melissa! He wondered if his niece’s hair would stay dark like Steve’s, or lighten like Cyn’s. He wondered if he ought to call Del again.
“Please come in Ben, Melissa. Have you heard anything?”
“No,” was all Ben said as they walked grimly down the hall ahead of him. Ben’s older girl Jane was a student at NYU.
“All I can think about is my sister,” Melissa said. “She hasn’t called! Nobody knows where she is!”
Franklin could picture the campus in downtown Manhattan by Washington Square. Less than two miles from Wall Street. If she was anywhere near her dorm room Monday night, she was gone.
Franklin asked them to take the couch. He pulled one of the padded red chairs around, sat next to them, bowed his head and began a Bible prayer, accentuating the pronoun ambiguity of John 17.
Ben and Melissa rapidly tranced out. He was getting faster.
The presupposition verses of John 9 he’d used with Mrs. Astor took them deeper. Then the hallucinatory stories of Mathew 14 with Mrs. Tavitt — deeper still.
Not fifteen minutes later, Ben and Melissa woke up in far better shape emotionally than when they came in. Not exactly smiling, but not so grim and desperately depressed either. Until they could find out exactly what happened to Jane, there was little more Franklin could do for them.
If they ever find out.
“I’m very sorry about your sister Cynthia,” Ben said, as he stretched his shoulders, rising from his seat. “If there’s anything I can ever do for you.”
“Uh —” Franklin hesitated, “there . . . might be something.”
“Sure,” Ben looked at him. “What is it?”
“In some of my sister’s belongings, I found this report.” He handed Ben the four white pages stapled together. “I’m — I’m not sure, but it seems to say my sister was completely broke.”
“Broke? Your sister was a banker, wasn’t she?” Ben scanned the top sheet and flipped the page.
“That
’s what I don’t understand. I thought maybe she put all her money down on a house, I don’t know. The family’s fine providing for my niece, but it’s been really bugging me and I can’t make any sense out of this stuff. I’ve never been much of a numbers person. That’s always been Cyn — or Everon.”
“Strange looking numbers here,” Ben muttered, scanning down the long columns. “Whoa!”
Ben’s daughter looked over her father’s shoulder. Ben was on page four.
“Lot of money here!” he pointed. “Whose bank accounts are these?”
“Accounts?”
“These are account numbers.” Ben trailed a finger down one page. “This first part here is the bank routing number. If you want to find the account, all you need is a banker. They probably won’t tell you whose account it is, but it’s easy to find out the bank. Even the branch. Any bank can look that up for you. Hmmm — ?”
“What?”
“Well, unless I’m mistaken, this account prefix on the third page — 0433 — is for a local bank here in Erie. Hmmm. Looks like quite a lot of money gets transferred out of this account here on a weekly basis. See? Then — mmm — let’s . . . hmm, a week apart, looks like about every —” Ben scanned the dates. “I think these are Mondays.”
He nodded to himself, “Uh, yup. Looks like every Monday money gets moved to this other out-of-state account, 1024 — if I’m not mistaken that’s Colorado. I think.” He frowned. “Or Utah.” He flipped back to the last page again. Trailed a finger.
“The amounts really climb up there. Then, here, two days later, money’s transferred to some other account. I’m not sure but these might be Swiss. But whatever it’s going into,” Ben flipped back and forth, “it’s the same account as on pages one and two.”
Ben was right. The numbers at the top of Pages one, two and four were all the same: CH11 280 51B1199177.
Ben turned several pages and shrugged. “Hope that helps. Not a lot to go on.”
Search For Reason (State Of Reason Mystery, Book 2) Page 38