Search: A Novel of Forbidden History (29 page)

Ironwood looked happier. “Okay . . . okay . . . that sounds doable.” He nodded as he worked something out. “I own an oil company over there. Royal Sovereign. I’ll get them to send some geologists.”

Ironwood turned to Merrit. “I’m going to need a team in Cornwall by next week, and then—” He broke off. “Keisha, how long to restore the full database from the backup?”

“If you’d let us connect over a network, I could do it in less than a day.”

Ironwood frowned. “No transmissions. The government can’t find it if we keep it off anything they can intercept.”

“Okay. How about I make a list of the subsets that were erased. You can give that to whoever it is that knows where the backup is. They can load those subsets onto spare components and bring them back here to swap for the blank ones.”

“How long would they take to do that?”

The woman paused, considering. “For copying the subsets and swapping out the components? No more than a day. Add to that whatever time you need for transportation.”

“Say two days.”

“Then we’ll be back in business in three.”

Ironwood turned to Merrit again. “It’s not as bad as I thought. We should be okay.”

“What do we do about Weir?”

“He’ll be back. He still needs my money.”

“Don’t be so sure. Remember what I told you—there’s a good chance the MacCleirighs got to him.”

“You have any proof of that yet?”

“I’m working on it,” Merrit lied, “but, to be safe, I think it’s a good bet that whatever data he gave you, he’ll give it to them.”

“So? Won’t do their Foundation a spit’s worth of good. We’re talking a thousand square miles of England. How’re they going to search that? It’d take them years.”

“Maybe not.” All eyes turned to Keisha. “That hard drive’s gone. The one J.R. brought down. It was plugged into my workstation.”

“What kind of damage we looking at here?” Ironwood asked.

“Enough,” she said. “He could’ve done a screen capture and copied the final search coordinates to that drive.”

Merrit ran with the gift she’d given him. “He can sell that to the MacCleirighs.”

Ironwood’s face flushed red. “They’ll get to the outpost before we do! They don’t care about history. The way they steal and hide and lie . . .” He shook his head in disgust. “They’re part of the conspiracy to withhold the truth. Probably in bed with the government.

“Merrit, you get yourself to Cornwall ASAP. I want you to follow whoever those people send in, let them lead you to the outpost, and then you do whatever it takes to keep them out until we have everything we need from it. Understood?”

Whatever it takes.

Merrit finally had the orders he’d been waiting for.

David had been driving for five hours, hadn’t slept for almost twenty-four. He felt rumpled, sticky, and ravenous. Even so, as instructed, he had reached Faneuil Hall in Boston at 10:00
A.M.

A week ago, mixed in with his other equipment deliveries arriving at the casino, he’d received a prepaid phone he hadn’t ordered. He’d called the number on a note included with the phone, and Jess MacClary had answered. She told him to call again the moment he isolated the fourth cluster, and she’d tell him how to get the information to her. She wanted her specialists to start working with it the same time as Ironwood.

David had called her yesterday, only minutes before Merrit’s surprise visit to the high-roller suite. She’d told him where to pick up a rental car and where to meet with her. They hadn’t spoken since, so Jess didn’t know what he was bringing her: not a general region, but the precise location of another temple.

He’d more than delivered on his promise to her. Now it was her turn.

He pulled the Caddy into the lot close by the hall, grabbed his knapsack, and got out. The morning air was surprisingly crisp after the heat of Atlantic City. The sky here was brilliant blue. He saw the first tinge of gold and red in the leaves of the city trees that edged the parking lot.

Why she’d told him to meet her here, he didn’t know. Faneuil Hall, which she’d pronounced to sound like Daniel with an
F
, was a weathered redbrick building. Four stories tall, with rows of arched and multipaned windows, the structure was crowned by a white wooden bell tower. It was also, oddly, faced with redbrick versions of Greek pillars.

Now that he was here, the request that he go to the building’s east side made more sense, because that side faced a market area, its walkways already crowded with shoppers. It was busy and therefore safe.

Hands in his pockets, knapsack over his shoulder, David walked along a pedestrian-only street toward the hall, past vendors’ carts cluttered with impulse items for tourists, from leather cell phone cases and healing crystals to small framed photographs of local attractions.

The rising and falling murmur of carefree voices was a welcome distraction
after the monotonous soundscape of the long drive from Atlantic City. Until a gun pressed into his ribs and a calm voice said, “You run, you die.”

Another name for Faneuil Hall was the Cradle of Liberty. The original structure on its site had been built in 1742. Samuel Adams and other firebrands of the era had given speeches here, urging the American colonies to declare their independence. None of which had anything to do with the MacCleirighs.

The original hall burned down in 1761 and was rebuilt in 1762. Fourteen years later, in 1776, the American colonies succeeded in winning their independence. Yet, it wasn’t until 1806, when it was clear the winner of that war would survive and a new current of history could be charted, that the MacCleirighs put their stamp upon Faneuil Hall through the efforts of Charles Bulfinch, Line McRory.

Bulfinch was not a defender, but one of the 144 possessing knowledge of the twelve lines of descent. He was also one of the first native-born citizens of the new country to become a professional architect. Echoing the deep MacCleirigh history that only he and a handful of others in the Family knew, he’d added to his 1806 redesign and reconstruction of the hall a decorative redbrick façade suggestive of Greek pillars—Doric on the first and second floors, Ionic on the third.

Eight years later, the Family’s invisible hand moved from Boston to the heart of the new country as Bulfinch was appointed Architect of the Capitol by President James Monroe and placed in charge of rebuilding the structures burned by British forces. Benefiting from a Family education, Bulfinch helped usher in the Federal style of architecture, inspired by the Greek Revival movement that found expression in the signature, temple-like designs of the capital’s government buildings, as well as in Boston’s Cathedral Church of St. Paul.

Jess had chosen Faneuil Hall not because it was a monument to commerce but because she knew it well. The east façade’s main entrance with its impressive three-story, domed ceiling and encircling balustrade for shoppers was too open for her assignation, but in the building’s opposite end was a large auditorium, complete with a white-column-flanked raised stage. Behind that stage was a small anteroom, out of the way and seldom used when there was nothing scheduled for the stage. Perfect for a private meeting.

The narrow anteroom was windowed on one side with a single row of vintage, bubbled panes that looked out onto Quincy Market. Beneath the windows was a row of straight-backed chairs. Dusty white file boxes,
sealed with tape, were stacked against one wall. Beside them, an empty wheeled coat rack listed. Overall, the space had the feel of an unused storeroom, not much of anything.

David arrived in the strong grip of Jess’s new bodyguard, Nils Behren, a hulking figure with long blond hair who towered over him. Nils also carried something silver, the size and shape of a small book.

“David,” Jess said. “I—”

Nils waved the metal case, interrupting. “We might have to move locations. His phone was rigged to transmit its location, and he had two transponders in his bag. One in a music player, another in an audio recorder.”

“Did you know about this?” Jess asked David.

David shook his head. Strands of black hair fell across his face. His eyes were deeply shadowed as if he hadn’t slept. Despite the cool fall air, he wore only a thin black T-shirt and jeans.

Jess looked to Nils. “Where’re the transponders now?”

“Simon’s taken them on the subway. He’s wearing Weir’s jacket and cap.”

She had another question for David. “Is Ironwood tracking you?”

“Maybe, but it could also be the air force . . . the Office of Special Investigations. Espionage cases.”

Jess didn’t understand, but didn’t let it show. Not with Nils as a witness.

“Let him go, Nils.” She gestured for David to take one of the chairs. She sat close to him and had Nils move across the room for privacy.

She lowered her voice. “You’d better tell me everything.”

David did. Leaving her with even more questions.

“That’s how Ironwood’s finding the temples? He’s using something he took from the air force to analyze your genetic data?”

“From what I saw, I think he’s tying into air force spy satellites. However he’s doing it, it requires a huge computer installation. The air force agent—”

“Jack Lyle?”

“Yeah. Lyle. He wants Ironwood more than he wants me. That’s why he tagged the hard drive—the one your guy took from me. Lyle wanted to see where Ironwood took it, but I changed the tag’s operating frequency so I could track it and the air force couldn’t.”

“Where did Ironwood take it?”

“A secure room in his casino.”

“And the air force still doesn’t know?”

“They will.”

“When?”

“When I tell them.”

“Why would you do that?”

David hesitated, as if he had been about to say one thing and decided on another. “So I won’t get locked up for fifty years.”

“You can’t,” she said. He didn’t, couldn’t, know the stakes.

Something flickered in his dark eyes, but David’s next words made Jess forget all else. “Look, that hard drive your guy’s holding? It’s got an image file on it. It’s from my latest cluster—it shows the location of another site. Another of your temples.”

A fourth one! I have to tell Willem . . .
Jess struggled to conceal her elation.

“This time,
you
can get there first,” David said. “Before I left, I started an erase program in Ironwood’s system—he can’t rerun his search for a couple of days at least. So if you just tell me how you know there’re twelve clusters out there, we’re done. And I can go see Agent Lyle.”

Jess shook her head at his naïveté. “How do you know Lyle won’t raid Ironwood’s casino, confiscate the computer, and find out what he was using it for? That would mean the air force would find out about our temples.”

“Why would that matter? You think the government is interested in—” David stopped. “Does this have anything to do with aliens?”

“That’s Ironwood’s fairy tale. Not ours.”

“Ours? Who are you working for?”

Jess was skirting the very limits of what was permissible to share with outsiders. Nils was here to protect her, but he was also here for the Family.

“I’m . . . part of a nonprofit group doing scholarly research. Ironwood’s been looting important sites we believe should be preserved. If the air force goes public . . .”

“What’s the harm in that?”

“Considerable.”

“From archaeological ruins? How important are they?”

“If you want to know why I believe there’re twelve genetic clusters”—there, she’d successfully distracted him—“then you can’t tell the air force about Ironwood’s computer system.”

“Then they’ll lock me up and . . .” David hesitated, looked at Nils, who stared back at him. “Great incentive.”

Jess took another risk. “Maybe there’s another way. What if I can make it so the air force still gets Ironwood but drops its charges against you?”

“I’m listening.”

“If we can’t clear you, we could set you up in almost any research position you’re qualified to hold. In any country you like. Under your own name, or a new one, if it comes to that.”

“Who did you say you were working for?”

“My research group?” Jess asked innocently. “We don’t exactly have a—”

“No. I mean, which country?”

“No country. We’re a . . . family business.”

“Family. This interest you have in the geographic clusters I’ve been finding . . . any specific connections between those temples and your ‘family’?”

Instinctively, Jess looked to Nils, far enough away that he couldn’t hear this forbidden conversation. She turned back to David. “Yes, we believe so.”

“Tell me about the number twelve.”

Jess’s phone vibrated. She read the display and walked away from David, careful to keep her back to both him and Nils.

“Willem, where are you?”

“The temple at Havi Atoll is gone.”

Jess had never heard Willem sound afraid before. “Gone? How?”

“Demolition charges.”

“Ironwood?” Jess felt the rush of a terrible, overwhelming anger.

“No. The team . . . I don’t know how it’s come to this—they were sent by Su-Lin and Andrew.”

Jess’s voice rose in shock. “What?”