Panacea (38 page)

Try as she might, Laura couldn't come up with one.

They were looking at major drudge work, but she realized she didn't care. She was
into
this now—fully invested in the search. Were Rick's loony ideas contagious? She preferred to think her new fierce determination was being fueled by the intellectual challenge of assembling this jumble of disparate pieces into a coherent whole.

“Google Earth, here we come.”

 

12

Sent by Laura Fanning 18:02 GMT/UTC/DST
+
2:00

Tried calling again but keep getting bounced. Can you call ATT and see what's the problem and can they fix? I'd much prefer speech to text. Since I haven't heard to the contrary, I'm assuming and hoping that Marissa is fine. I guess you guys are having lunch around now while I'm looking for a restaurant for dinner. After that we plan to spend the rest of the evening poring over Google Earth. Thanks again for taking care of Marissa. Give her my love.

Received by Steven Gaines 18:09 GMT/UTC/DST
−
4:00

Tried calling again but keep getting bounced. Can you call ATT and see what's the problem and can they fix? I'd much prefer speech to text, especially with Marissa sick. How is she? I'm going absolutely crazy here. I've spent the whole day running from ticket counter to ticket counter and going online. I cannot get a flight out of here today or tonight. I managed to grab a seat on an early am nonstop tomorrow that gets me in to Newark of all places at noon your time. Tell Marissa I love her and I'll see her tomorrow.

Received by Laura Fanning 18:11 GMT/UTC/DST
+
2:00

Hi mommy. It is me marissa. Daddy says to tell you i am feeling great. Natasha is here and we are doing geography. Where are you so I can find you on the map. I miss you. Love marissa

Sent by Laura Fanning 18:14 GMT/UTC/DST
+
2:00

Hi, honeybunch. I'm so glad you're feeling good. You had me worried there for a while. I'm in Paris. When you find it on the map look really close and you'll see me waving at you. Love you. See you soon.

Sent by Steven Gaines 18:22 GMT/UTC/DST
−
4:00

With all the NYC flights out of Paris u cant get a seat? Thats completely crazy. But okay. Ull be here noon tomorrow. Thank god. Dont want to scare u but things not good here. The pcr test u ran came back positive. Shes got cmv. Still dont know what that is but docs say not good. Guess I dont have to tell u that. I wish u had wings. We need u here. Hurry, hurry, hurry.

 

13

Rick entered
E 1°
21
′
36
″
and
N 42°
47
′
38
″
into Google Earth and Laura found herself looking down on an empty mountainside nearly a mile above sea level in the Ari
è
ge department.

“‘Middle of nowhere' … no question about that.”

Professor Duval had directed them to the Hotel Victor Hugo a few towns away—an old-style, four-story structure with cranky plumbing and small rooms, but suitable for their purposes. They ate so-so sushi in Masaki, the Japanese restaurant on the ground floor, then were directed to an Internet caf
é
where they rented the biggest screen in the place and prepared to burn their eyes out of their sockets.

They had an immediate false alarm with a lake just north of the coordinates. The label said
Etang de Lers
.

“What does that mean?” Rick said.

Laura hadn't a clue. “
Etang
is a pond or lake.
Lers
…” She shrugged. “It's not round but let's take a look.”

“I'll be damned,” he said as he zoomed closer. “It's got an island.”

Could it be? Could those crude azimuths have crossed within a mile or two of the Wound? It seemed impossible, too good to be true …

Arranged?

The island sat near the southern shore and supported a stand of trees. It looked nothing like a central peak from an impact. More like a peninsula from the shoreline that had been cut off by rising water. If the water level dropped, it would become a peninsula again.

Plus Etang de Lers had a blacktop road running past it, a snack bar on the north shore, and was surrounded by photo icons.

“Not the Wound, that's for sure,” Rick said. “Looks like a tourist stop. A swimming hole in summer and a snowmobile spot in winter.”

They took turns, searching clockwise in a grid pattern as they moved out from their starting point in an ever-enlarging square. For what seemed to be the longest time they found no lakes. Then, as their search slowly expanded toward the west, they found many, all labeled
etang
instead of
lac
. From the air the lakes stuck out reasonably well, appearing dark blue, almost black against the greens and browns of dry land. Occasionally the white blur of a cloud would be reflected on a surface.

“I never knew lakes came in so many shapes,” Laura said as she relinquished the mouse and rubbed her eyes. Over two hours at this now with nothing to show.

“And how few are round,” Rick said.

True. Most were freeform style, their shape dictated by the terrain surrounding the depression where they'd formed. But not one lake so far, no matter what the shape, had possessed a true island, central or otherwise. Laura was convinced this was a hopeless exercise, but didn't want to say so. She believed in keeping mum unless you had something better to offer. She didn't.

“Hey, here's something,” Rick said.

She leaned in as he zoomed down on a blue-black circle.

She looked for a label. “Where's its name?”

“Doesn't seem to have one. Looks about half a mile across … and … is that an island in the middle?”

She gripped his shoulder and squeezed. “Yes! Smack-dab in the middle!”

He glanced at her hand and she realized what she was doing. She let go.

He zoomed past the limits of the image's resolution, then backed up until it sharpened.

He browsed the shoreline. “No name … no one's posted photos around the edge … no snack bar, no road unless this brown line is what passes for one. Might be a couple of houses here among the trees, but if that's what they are, they're pretty rustic.”

The view moved across the water to the central island. As he moved down on it, the image blurred again.

“We've maxed the resolution,” he said. “And there's only an aerial view. Nothing from the side.”

“If there's anything on that island, it should be trees. But what's that brown splotch?”

He looked at her. “A building of some sort? Holy shit. Could it be?”

Laura was nodding, barely able to contain a surge of excitement and exaltation. “The ‘house of the fallen godmen'! Could be! Could very damn well be!”

She stared at the blurry image as Rick scribbled down the coordinates.

“We started in the middle of Nowhere and now we're in the hinterlands of Nowhere. There's not even a road. How do we get there?”

“No problem. Let's get back to the hotel.”

 

14

Bradsher put down his phone.

“That was our man tailing them. He checked their computer after they left the caf
é
. They cleared their history in Google Earth but—”

Nelson held up a hand. “Let me guess: They've located the Abbey.”

“They might have. He got a few peeks at their screen and they were searching that area of the Pyrenees. Which calls Doctor Fanning's value into question.”

They sat in their makeshift office in the farmhouse. Nelson's head throbbed and his vision had gone blurry. He seemed to be viewing Bradsher through a foggy window.

“What makes you say that?”

“She's headed to the Abbey. We are familiar with every nook and cranny of the Abbey. What can she find there that we don't already know?”

He could see that Brother Bradsher still had a lot to learn. As an agent he was excellent at taking care of the leaves, but in the course of keeping each one shiny and green, he tended to lose sight of the tree.

“First off, she
found
the Abbey. That in itself is an accomplishment.”

“But meaningless to our purposes.”

The tree! Nelson wanted to shout. Look at the
tree
!

“Allow me to finish, please.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“My point is, she found the Abbey without looking for it. She's obviously looking for what the pagans call the Wound.” The idiocy of the name never failed to assail him. Logically consistent with their personification of the Earth as a deity, but a planet couldn't be wounded. “That means she's been following the pagans' mythology, and has found the place where they first conspired with the Serpent to create their hellish potion.”

Even through the Vaseline blur, he could see Bradsher's expression fairly shouting,
So what?

“Tell me, Agent Bradsher, when has anyone else done that? Ever? We've kept it out of the lake directories and off the maps. However, there's only so much we can do about satellite photos. But still, we don't know of anyone outside the Brotherhood, the panaceans, and a few local yokels who know about the lake and the Abbey. And we know of no one who has gone looking for it and found it except … Doctor Fanning. So what does that tell you?”

Bradsher took on a slightly chastened look. “It tells me that she might be on to something … that she might have information we do not.”

Yes, that could be so. But obviously it hadn't occurred to him that an unseen hand might be guiding her. Not the Serpent, for the Serpent's goal was to keep the source of the panacea hidden. That left the Lord.

Nelson wanted to share this with Bradsher, but a full explanation would mean revealing his cancer, and he wasn't ready to do that. Not yet.

“Possibly. We know she was crisscrossing azimuths in Israel and they led her to the Wound. Who knows? She may find another azimuth to follow from the Wound itself.”

“Why don't we simply grab her and find out what she's got?”

The
last
thing Nelson wanted—the Serpent would rejoice if they did that. But he needed a mundane rationale.

He shook his head. “This goose is laying golden eggs. Why kill it?”

“I didn't mean kill—”

“Not literally, no.” At least not yet. “She is following a trail and we are right behind her, step for step. If we interfere, we may compromise her vision, we may interrupt the flow of information someone might be feeding her. Right now she is working for
herself
. In my experience, people expend their best efforts toward their own goals. If we snatch her she will wind up working for
us
—and under duress, for that matter. We will see nowhere near the same level of commitment.”

Bradsher was nodding. “You're saying she's like a hunting dog, and they work best off the leash.”

“Exactly.”

Maybe there was hope for him yet.

Nelson pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and slid it across the table.

“I want you to text this to the good doctor's phone.”

Bradsher read it and frowned. “Aren't you afraid it might throw her off the scent?”

Nelson had to smile. “Sticking with the bloodhound motif, I see. No, I don't see that happening. She is not doing this for him. She'll press on. I'm preparing for the future when we may have to make a move on her.”

“You think she'll be more vulnerable without her guard dog.”

“Immensely so. You read his file. You've seen what he's capable of.”

“Formidable,”
he said, using the French pronunciation.

“Right. So our best course is to divide and conquer.” He waved at the message. “Text that off right away.”

 

15

Laura had her shirt halfway unbuttoned in prep for a shower when her phone emitted its text-message chime.
Phil
lit the screen.

She hesitated. The only reason he'd be messaging her was more info on Rick. Laura didn't want to hear anything negative. She was starting to like him. Not in
that
way. As a companion. They'd progressed from barely speaking to a comfortable camaraderie. Yes, he'd lied about the SEAL thing—and kept on lying about it—but was that such a big deal? He was smart and quick and their backgrounds were different enough so that their knowledge bases complemented each other. He was proving an asset on the search.

Not to mention how he'd saved her from God knows what in Israel.

She sighed and picked up the phone. Whatever. She'd never considered hiding one's head in the sand a viable option.

Hey, Doc. Tried calling but can't get through. And your voice mail is all screwed up. Keeps booting me out. But that's okay. Have I got news for you. Wait till you hear this.

Oh, crap.

My contact with the feds did a little digging and came up with yet another name for this guy. Get this: His real name is Garrick Somers, and he's ex-CIA. He was a suspect in a mass murder but they couldn't pin it on him. They caught him selling classified info to Israel but couldn't make the charges stick so they finally booted him out. He was never Ramiz Haddad, and Rick Hayden is an identity he adopted to allow him to hide in plain sight. Apparently he made his share of enemies while in the CIA. I'd drop this guy, doc. I mean put some real distance between you and him. He sounds like big-time bad news.

Shaken, Laura read it again. And then a third time, stumbling over “suspect in a mass murder” and “selling classified info to Israel.”