Sins of the Titanic (A James Acton Thriller, #13) (15 page)

“My team
and I are going off duty now, sir,” said Dawson after quickly inspecting the
room.

“Have a
good night, Mr. White.”

“You
too, Mr. Jones.”

Acton & Palmer Residence, St. Paul, Maryland

“This is a good steak,” said Milton, pointing at it with his fork.
“Very tender.”

“The key
is the marinade,” replied Acton as he sliced off a piece then chewed, the steak
melting in his mouth. “Damn, I’m a good cook.”

“If you
do say so yourself,” winked Laura, the rest of their dinner guests chuckling
with the exception of tiny Mai Lien Trinh, she still attempting to learn the household’s
odd combination of American and British humor, her life in Vietnam ending only
months ago. She had been exiled for her part in helping embarrass her country
when she helped Acton, Laura and Niner escape Vietnamese and Russian
authorities. In thanks for doing so, she had been granted asylum in America and
a job at the university where she could earn money and complete her studies.

Acton
smiled with pleasure as he saw young Tommy Granger lean sideways and bump
shoulders with Mai, eliciting flushed cheeks from the shy girl. The two had
been spending a lot of time together, and if they both weren’t so meek, he was
certain they’d be a couple by now.

All
in good time.

Tommy
was a computer whiz that had been instrumental in helping save Laura during the
Blood Relics incident, Mai as well, her aptitude for computers newly discovered
as she finally had access to the tools available to her that Americans took for
granted.

“So when
will we know if the painting is authentic?” asked Milton before shoveling some
garlic mash into his mouth.

Acton
shrugged. “It won’t be soon. I’ve sent some emails out to several art experts
and the chatter has already started. There’s no hiding this now, that’s for
sure.”

Laura
put her fork and knife down, dabbing the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “I’m
arranging to have it sent to the Smithsonian. We’ve got experts there who can’t
wait to get their hands on this thing.”

“Where
is it now?” asked Tommy. “It sounds valuable.”

“Locked
in one of the archeology department vaults,” replied Acton. “It should be safe
there, I can’t see anybody wanting to steal it. Not in the next few days,
anyway. Hardly anybody knows it exists yet.”

“How are
you going to transport it?”

“Armored
car, I think. It’s too valuable to just drop in the mail.”

Laura
picked up her utensils. “I wanted to drive it there, but James wouldn’t let
me.”

“Hey,
you’d be so nervous and distracted driving it, you might get into an accident.
And I’d hate to see anything happen to a work of art.” Laura’s jaw dropped in
mock offense. “A work of art such as yourself, of course.” Acton grinned,
raising his hand..

Milton
high fived him, his wife Sandra snorted. “Nice save, Jim.”

“Good
thing you know how to cook, otherwise such talk might be grounds for divorce,”
said Laura as she took another bite of her steak. She swallowed. “Though it
is
good steak.”

Sandra leaned
forward. “Now Laura, all he did was marinade it—”

“Actually,
I did that,” interrupted Laura.

“Oh,
then all he did was slap it on the grill and flip it once or twice?”

Laura
smiled. “Come to think of it…”

“Hey,
but these mashed potatoes are fantastic. And that garden salad was terrific,”
said Milton, leaping to his friend’s defense.

“Actually,
I made those,” replied Laura, leaning back in her chair and looking at her
husband. “In fact, for about ten minutes you had Greg working the grill while
you did something inside.” Her eyes narrowed. “Did you actually do anything?”

Acton
huffed. “Well, duh, I did the most important thing there is to do.”

“What’s
that?”

“I lit
the barbecue.”

“Ooh,
what a man!”

Mai
snickered.

She
got that one.

Acton
swallowed his last piece of steak, noticing he was the last to finish. He had
been talking a lot, but he had also been given the largest piece at Laura and
Greg’s insistence. He was pretty sure Tommy was a little disappointed but knew
the young man wouldn’t dare object.

Something
twigged as the Sirius XM station they were listening to in the background began
to play Start Me Up, the vocals barely audible, it turned down so low. He
tossed his chin toward the nearest speaker. “So for you Stones fans, I stumbled
upon a little tidbit that you might find interesting.”

“Stones?”

Acton
turned to Mai. “As in the Rolling Stones.”

She
shook her head. “Is this a band?”

Acton’s
jaw dropped. “Only one of the most famous rock and roll bands in history!” He
turned to Tommy. “You need to do a better job at educating her.”

Tommy
shrugged. “I’ve heard of them. Weren’t they named after that magazine.”

Milton
groaned. “I feel so old.”

Acton
shook his head. “The youth of today. We’re doomed.”

“Hey,
I’m sure you had no idea who your parents listened to,” said Tommy defensively.

Acton
laughed. “No, I knew
what
they listened to, I just didn’t
like
what they listened to for the most part at the time. Now I actually like a lot
of the classic rock from the sixties and seventies that my dad listened to.”

“Including
the Stones?”

Acton nodded.
“Including the Stones.” He leaned back in his chair. “Now, first, to correct
one thing, Rolling Stone magazine was named after several things. The Rolling
Stones, which came
before
the magazine, the song Rollin’ Stone by Muddy
Waters—”

“Ooh,
Muddy Waters,” said Sandra, “I love them.”

“Him.”

“Him?”

“Him.”

“Umm,
maybe I’m thinking of the Moody Blues.”

“Maybe.”

“And the
third thing?” asked Milton, patting his wife’s knee.

“The
Dylan song ‘Like a Rolling Stone’.”

Tommy
leaned forward. “Dylan?”

“I give
up.”

Tommy
grinned. “Just kidding.”

Mai
giggled.

Acton
pursed his lips. “I’m not sure you are,” he said, doubt lacing his voice. “But
let’s give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Okay,
you said you had some tidbit?” prompted Laura. “Now, remember, the Stones are
from my side of the pond, so it will take a lot to impress me.”

“Well,
did you know that in high school Mr. Jagger played basketball?”

“No, I did
not,” replied Laura. “And that’s this great big secret you discovered?”

Acton
chuckled. “Patience, my dear, patience. Did you also know that his bandmates at
the time felt his voice sounded too uppity to be singing the blues?”

“Uppity?”
asked Laura. “You mean upper-class?”

“Yes.”

“Odd. I
never got that impression,” said Milton. “Sounds pretty down to earth to me.”

“Well,
there’s a reason for that
now.
”

“Oh, do
enlighten us, oh great one!”

Acton
jabbed a finger at Milton. “Hey, great one is reserved for Gretzky.” He stuck
his tongue out slightly, tapping the tip. “At a basketball game, he ran into
another player and bit the end of his tongue off, and in the confusion,
swallowed it.”

“Eww!”
cried Sandra and Laura together.

“Glad
you waited until after we were done our medium-rare steaks,” said Milton, his
nose turned up.

“I pick
my moments.”

“So what
does this have to do with him no longer sounding uppity?”

“Well,
he wasn’t able to talk for a week, and when he finally did, the shape and size
of his tongue had changed so much that he no longer sounded upper-class, and
his singing voice had completely changed.”

“That’s
incredible!” cried Sandra, her eyes suddenly narrowing. “Wait, is this true, or
are you just pulling our legs?”

Acton
smiled. “Nope, completely true. If Mick hadn’t made a tasty treat of his
tongue, the Rolling Stones may never have been.”

“Cool!” Tommy
stretched and put his arm over the back of Mai’s chair, prompting her to lean
forward. He started to turn a little red and Acton felt sorry for the guy.

Mai
leaned back.

Acton
exchanged a glance with Laura as Tommy let go the breath he was holding.

“So back
to this painting,” said Sandra. “You really think it’s possible that it was
stolen off the Titanic as she sank, by someone who was on board a military
boat?”

“Ship,”
interjected Acton.

“Huh?”

“If a
navy guy caught you calling his ship a boat, he might toss you over.”

“What’s
the difference?”

“Doesn’t
seem to be much agreement though some people say ships can carry boats, boats
can’t carry ships.”

Laura
laughed. “My granddad always said that if your ship is sinking, you get in a
boat. If your boat is sinking, you get in the water.”

“As good
a definition as I’ve heard,” smiled Acton. “Anyway, the theory makes sense,
especially with that security alert.”

“So it’s
not just insurance fraud?” asked Sandra.

“I don’t
think so. If it were fraud, how would some US Navy captain end up with it? It
just doesn’t make sense. What I think the real question is, is if it weren’t
fraud, how
did
a US navy captain end up with it?”

Laura
leaned over, putting an elbow on the back of Acton’s chair. “And if he weren’t
acting under orders, why would the Navy cover it up?”

“What do
you mean?” asked Sandra.

“The
security alert. Clearly they know he was involved. Didn’t Steve Wainwright say
he had his father’s record but part of it was redacted? And it was when they
started asking questions about that portion of the record the Navy shut them
down?”

Acton
nodded. “But do they actively know, or is it just something put in there from
long ago? Classified missions are not unusual, so a redacted personnel record
isn’t anything new and no one would even think about it when printing it off.
It obviously wasn’t Captain Wainwright’s file being watched, otherwise the
security alert would have been triggered when the initial file was printed for
his grandson. It wasn’t until they asked about him in relation to the Titanic
that the alert was tripped.”

Milton
frowned. “Which means somebody absolutely knows why.”

Acton
pursed his lips. “Can we say that? It could be some security alert programmed
in years ago. Just a code on a file that the system says, anytime I see this
code, I trip an alert.”

Tommy
shook his head. “You’re forgetting one thing, Professor.”

The
table turned toward Tommy, the computer expert at the table. “What’s that?”

“Someone
had to choose the keywords that would trigger that alert.”

“Meaning.”

“Meaning
that someone had to program the system, either specifically, or through a
keyword database, to have an alert triggered when someone searched for
Wainwright
and
Titanic together. And those systems are modern. Nobody
involved with the Titanic would probably have been alive when those systems
were programmed.”

“So what
you’re saying is—”

“Somebody
in the past twenty or thirty years programmed the system to make sure if
anybody searched for information on that redacted mission, an alert would be
triggered.”

“But
there’s one thing I don’t understand,” said Sandra. “If it was programmed to
watch for that, then who programmed it? Everyone involved would be dead by now.
Wouldn’t putting a security alert in the system just let people know there was
something they were trying to hide? I mean, I would assume the data isn’t in
the computer if they’re trying to hide it, so if no one knows about this, then
why create an alert in the first place? Aren’t you just waving a big red flag
saying ‘look at me, I’ve got something to hide’?”

Acton
felt his stomach churn a bit. “So what you’re saying is that somebody
today
is actively monitoring that alert.”

Tommy
jabbed a finger in the air at Acton. “Exactly! That’s what I’ve been trying to
say. Somebody, somewhere, received that alert, because they were waiting for
it. And I’m willing to bet you it wasn’t the Navy.”

Laura
squeezed Acton’s hand tightly.

“If not
them, then who?”