Professional Documents
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Dark Matter Book 04 - of Aged Angels - Monte Cook (2001)
Dark Matter Book 04 - of Aged Angels - Monte Cook (2001)
In Hollow Houses
Gaiy A. Braunbeck
('!too)
If Whispers Call
Don Bassingthwaite
- ~J. .
In Amd Silence ·
G.W Tirpa
Of Agmi"Angets
Monte Cook
••
Dark•Matter
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Thm are things knolOll, and there are things unknown. And in between
are the doors.
- Jim Morrison
Thm exists in our nation today a powerful and dangerous secret cult
the Cult ofIntelligence.
-WctorMarchetti
i:
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been Art Bell. Listening to him always gave her the creeps. They
started walking to the terminal entrance, but Jeane stopped.
It all seemed so familiar. A strange, nagging feeling of
something indefinable . . . her partner assuring her that what
seemed like a strange mission was actually nothing. Just for a
moment, she thought about how easy it was to dismiss feelings
of dread. No, not dread ... just something unknown. The mind
didn't seem to deal with the unknown very well-or perhaps it
dealt with it just fine by avoiding it all together.
"Coming? Or should I call you a cab?" McCain looked at her
with that damned cocked-head look that was so annoyingly
endearing. She rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, I'm-" She stopped. "No, I'm not coming."
Could she admit to him that her instincts were telling her
that something was wrong? No. She knew that "instinct" really
wasn't the right word-perhaps "inclination" was more accu
rate. No, not even that.She was Agent Jeane Meara. She didn't
operate on instinct or inclination.
"What?" McCain looked around, bis blue eyes suddenly
becoming sharper and more intense."What's going on? Where?"
"You go in and get this guy.I'm going to wait out here."
"Why?"
"Just because, all right?" Because something keeps telling
me not to. To ignore it and move on.
McCain stared at her. ·"Are you all right?"·
"Yes," she answered. "Just go."
This was weird. Doubly weird because she was the one
feeling it. It just wasn't like her. But the fact of it was, she'd
seen some strange things over the last few months since she'd
joined the Hoffmann Institute. Aliens, ghosts . . . she wasn't
sure if she really believed it all, but it had certainly been
strange. Perhaps instead of denying it all, however, she could
learn something from what she'd seen. Hone her instiµcts to a
new level. (There was that word again.) She didn't know. Per
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self. Ngan didn't know why. but he seemed to think the Institute
wouldn't be the only people interested in what Luther knew.
·1 guess it's late because of the snow."
•Huh?" McCain turned to look at the portly, greasy-suit
clad businessman ne� to him.
The man held his too-large carry-on garment bag in one
hand and a chili dog half-wrapped in foil in the other. His ugly
tie was tied badly.
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"The snow. The plane. It's late." The man gestured with his
chilidog to the window beyond the gate desk.
Snow fell across the tarmac, though it hadn't yet begun to
accumulate.
"It's the middle of May," McCain whispered.
"Damnedest thing, huh?"
"It was clear just a few minutes-uh, you've got some mus·
tard . " McCain motioned to the man's stubble-covered chin,
. .
Damnedest thing.
Finally, through the snow-filled sky, McCain saw a plane's
lights grow brighter. By the time the plane landed, the fat man
was standing next to him again. The chili dog lingered in an
unpleasant way. The jetway connected to the plane, and even·
tually the passengers began to get off the small aircraft.
"The one you're waiting for's always the last one off, huh?"
the man said.
McCain nodded. He moved closer to the gate door, mostly
to get away from the man.
A tall, square jawed man in a trench coat passed into the
terminal through the jetway door. He looked around, deep con·
cern in his eyes. Immediately behind him a pierced, wiry
young man clutched his bag tightly. His skin was a rich brown,
his features suggesting Native American-though the black
leather jacket, shaved head, and eyebrow ring were far from
stereotypical. To McCain, he looked like someone more com·
fortable spray painting graffiti or stealing a car than hunting
buffalo. The man in the trench coat carried no baggage. The
only thing the two passengers had in common was the look of
expectation and dread in their eyes. Clearly, however, they
were together-they stood closer together than men who
were strangers ever would. .
McCain approached these two with his Hoffmann Institute ID
out. The shaven-headed short guy matched the picture Ngan bad
shown him. The man in the trench coat must be his Institute eseort.
"I'm Michael McCain."
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mDlte cook
The man in the trench coat looked at him squarely, and his
jaw unclenched slightly. "Good. Take him.•
The man in the trench coat backed away, and the leather
clad Luther Blisset stood exposed, looking up at McCain with
a look o f confused near-recognition.
Blisset produced a cigarette and a gunmetal lighter with
quick, jerky motions and asked, "Do I know you, dude?"
He lit the cigarette and buried the lighter somewhere in his
jacket.
"You do now, Mr. Blisset,• McCain responded. "Do you have
luggage that we need to worry about?"
"Nope." Luther brandished a duffel bag strapped over his
shoulder and underneath it a notebook computer in a carrying
case, also slung over his shoulder.
"Need any help with that stuff?"
Luther turned away, putting his body between McCain and
his possessions. "Nope.•
McCain raised a brow. "Okay .. ." He looked around for the
man in the trench coat, but he was already gone. "Let's go, then."
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pocket, she strode toward the man i n black. Her focused gaze,
as powerful as any weapon, already attacked him, yet he didn't
seem to notice her until she was right behind him.
Fingers still wrapped around the pistol in her coat Jeane
,
firm and bony. He stopped and turned fully to face her. She could
see his face. Jeane made out deathly pale flesh that made her
think of cottage cheese, an angular jaw, and dark, narrow eyes.
"We have questions . . ." The man's voice rose and fell
unnaturally.
"Who are you?" Jeane demanded. His use of the word «we"
worried her, and she reflexively glanced around, but only once.
She saw no one near them.
"We work for the government," he said with no expression
in his face or voice. "We have questions."
"Questions for who? Let's see some ID."
The man turned his back to her. Jeane could see over his
shoulder that McCain had seen her and the man in black. He
put himself between the stranger and his own frightened-look·
ing charge. The man walked straight for them both.
"No, no, no, no. Let's see some ID. Now!" Jeane's hand
trembled in readiness to draw her weapon, but she thought
better of it. Instead, she bounded after him and in three strides
caught up. When he didn't turn, she shoved him again, this
time adding her weight and momentum.
The man didn't miss a step, didn't break his own stride. It
was as though he didn't even notice her.
"Fitz! Go!" she shouted.
Grabbing the little bald guy, McCain raced for their parked car.
"No," the man stated. "We have questions."
"So you said," Jeane said behind him.
She threw her shoulder into his back. He stopped. After a
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· a ell yes, I've seen him before. Or someone like him.
I don't know who he is, though.•
Blisset sipped from a Styrofoam cup of lukewarm
coffee McCain had handed him. The team's office, as
always, was comfortably lit. Blisset sat in front of Ngan's
desk, while Jeane and McCain stood sipping from Styro·
foam cups of their own. Luther reeked of cigarettes.
Jeane took a step backward and said, "He was com·
pletely stoned. I hit him-hard. He hardly flinched. I've
seen it before in the ATF. Probably Methcathinone or
Phencyclidine.•
Ngan nodded behind his desk. His frame, though
lean, seemed somehow confined by the dark blue suit
he wore. His face remained gentle, and the soft light
created a soothing glow about his smooth, bald head.
"Where have you seen him before, Mr. Blisset?"
"Look, call me Luther, right?" Luther took out a
cigarette. "Anyway, I saw him before. He's a Man·in
Black. MIB."
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even know it was going on until I showed up and the place was
burned to the ground. When I heard that crap about the sui
cide, I knew that somebody had ... taken them out. I didn't
stick around.I got the hell outta there.•
Luther gripped the chair's arms tightly, and he leaned back
hard, the exertion against the chair steadying him.
"I didn't know who did it at that point, but I was sure that
they'd come after me next. I was right. I tried to lay low, but it
didn't work. They found me. One of those creatures-"
"Creatures?" Jeane interrupted.
"Yeah. The Man in Black."
"You think the man was not human?" Ngan asked.
"Look, all these questions're throwing me off. I just know
what I know, all right? That thing wasn't human. Anyway. !t
or something just like it-came to my house. It was all 'we
have questions,' and I was all 'get outta here, dude.' "
McCain rubbed his hand slowly over his face. "Look, it's
late, I know. But if we could just get some better idea of who
or what the man was .. . "
When the door closed, Ngan pulled out a file. folder from his
desk and handed it to McCain. It was labeled "Blisset." Before
opening it, McCain said to Ngan, "I didn't get a good look at the
guy like Jeane did, so I don't know about this whole 'creature'
business. Luther's probably just shook up."
There was something, however, that had set his teeth on
edge. A strange feeling more than just brought on by inclement
snow. It had been a weird night.
McCain opened the file. The first item was a newspaper
clipping. "23 Die in Cult Suicide,• the headline read.
"Oh yeah,• McCain said. "I remember this. This was the
group Luther was talking about?"
"Yes," Ngan answered, "but I'm afraid the file has little
more than that. You'll see he's got an arrest record for some
minor infringements. Luther Blisset is almost certainly not his
real name. What do you think of him?"
"Well, he's an annoying little prick, if you ask me. I doubt
we can trust him, though I couldn't tell you at this point if he's
lying or just whacko. And that story ... I don't know.There's
something he's not telling us."
"There are many things he's not telling us yet, I'm sure.
You can help with that." Ngan shook his head. "We're in a bit
of a quandary, here, Michael. Luther has information important
enough to the Institute that we've been assigned to watch over
him until his meeting with Director Nakami in a few days.
Obviously, someone else finds the information that Luther has
quite valuable as well. I don't know if we can do our job very
well without finding out more of what he knows, so that we
can determine who is after him."
"So can't you contact Nakami and ask him?"
"No, Nakami has disappeared on one of his sabbaticals. No
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one without proper clearance can know where he's gone or con
tact him in any way. That's whyhe can't meet with Luther now.•
Ngan lowered his head slightly and looked at McCain with
his deep blue eyes. He passed McCain a folded slip of paper.
McCain took it and opened it slowly, though his gaze never left
his old friend. McCain knew better than to question Ngan and
realized that whatever was written in this note was written
before the conversation-before they had returned with Luther.
The note said: "I think there might be a leak in the Hoff
mann Institute. I don't know who we can trust Even Nakami
him.self.•
McCain bit down on his lower lip. Ngan obviously thought
his office might be bugged. Damn. This was serious. He nod
ded at Ngan but attempted to give him a "what the hell?" look
with his eyes.
Ngan just grimaced. "So, then, we'll just keep watching
over Luther and see what happens."
"Yeah."
. is
.
.. t, e tea was warm, light, and crisp. Ngan savored
the texture and feeling more than the flavor. It
relaxed him. When he was much yotmger, still liv
ing in Tibet, Ngan had developed a taste for British tea.
It was less bitter than the tea most people in his coun
try drank, but foreign tea was difficult to obtain there.
It seemed odd to him now that when he was in Tibet it
was the mediocre, bland British tea fua:t was so rare,
but now that he was in the States, it was the pungent
Tibetan tea that was all but impossible to get.
The motel caie wasn't busy. It smelled of strong,
stale coffee and acrid chemical cleansers. The waitress
looked as though she'd just woke up. Ngan checked his
pocket watch and saw that it was just a few minutes
before Jeane was to relieve Michael. The three of them
were going to watch over Luther's room in shifts, at
least at night. The plan was that around noon, all of
them would have lunch and perhaps learn a little more
from Luther. Ngan had finished his shift four hours
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"So, Luther, did you take any time out from smoking to get a
little sleep?" Mee.am wrinkled his nose as he walked into the room.
Jeane pushed in past him and sat down in the chair near the
window. McCain shut the door behind them. He took off his
sports coat, under w:hich he wore a long-sleeve green shirt and
dark jeans. He hadn't shaved and wore the same clothes from
the night before.
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L. Ron Hubbard."
Jeane's brow raised. "You mean as in 'Scientology?' The
'lravolta movie? That Hubbard?"
"Oh, yeah." Luther nodded. "Mr. Sci Fi religion hisself. See,
Hubbard was assigned by military intelligence to scope out the
OTO, but in hanging around with them he learned some truths.
He got into what they were doing. Next thing you know, he's a
major class sorcerer and Parsons's best friend. This is all
before Dianetics and whatever.•
"Military intelligence?" McCain asked. "I've never heard
that before."
"Yeah," Luther replied thoughtfully. "Naval intelligence, I
think."
"So Parsons and Crowley go out into the desert and start
this big ritual-we call that a 'working.' That's what Babalon
Working means-like a spell, you might say. The whole thing
takes months. They're out there in the desert, summoning up
the energies to create the Moonchild. Toward the end, they
involve this woman, and the whole thing becomes a big
Tantric, sex magi.ck thing. But it's really powerful. It's unlike
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Roswell-"
The door opened, and Ngan entered the room, though it
seemed to Jeane as if those two events actually happened in
reverse order. "We have to leave. One of the men you descn"bed
is in a car in front of the motel, and another is most likely just
now walking around back.n
"Damn.• Jeane was on her feet and at the window.
"I have the van," Ngan said. "Michael, will you drive?"
"Sure," McCain said as he grabbed his jacket.
"No," Jeane said. "Fitz and I will take the car and try to lead
them off-make them think we've got Luther. We'll dawdle to
make sure that both of them are after us. Ngan, you slip out
with Luther to the van after a few minutes." It still felt odd to
be telling Ngan what to do. Not long ago, he'd been her supe
rior in the Institute. Now they were peers.
"Good idea," Ngan said. .
McCain nodded as well. He turned to Luther and said, "You
go with Ngan, okay?"
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Garden."
"The Thai place in Crestwood?" McCain asked.
"Exactly."
Why there? Jeane wondered. She looked to McCain.
"They probably know about the office," he offered with a
shrug. "And they're probably monitoring cell phone transmis
sions, so we shouldn't call in." McCain looked at Ngan, who
met his gaze in a meaningfui way but didn't speak.
Jeane knew something was going on, but there was no
time.
"Okay," she said. "Let's go."
Jeane looked back once more at Ngan, who watched as
Luther quickly shoved his things into his bag. She opened the
door and was at the car in four paces. McCain followed closely
behind.
Across the parking lot, she saw a large black sedan idling
with a single occupant. That must be the tail. From this dis
tance, she couldn't see if it was the man from the previous
night, but she shuddered involuntarily anyway.
The key went into the ignition. Music blaring from the radio
filled the car, and McCain snapped it off and buckled himself in.
Exhaust from their car spat from the tail pipe, and they
were gone.
�t tlte subject's name is Luther Blisset, AKA Martin
Roundtree. Changed his name to Blisset when he
left home at age sixteen, three years ago, reasons
unknown. Native American descent. Worked at the
casino on the Cabazon Indian Reservation in California
where he met an occultist named Richard Dallas."
"Of course he did. Cabazon is a conspiratorial cross·
roads. Your own government uses its special status to
conduct illegal weapons research. The CIA meets with
representatives of various governments and groups. In
turn, those groups-the Masons, the Final Church,
Skull and Bones-they use it as a sort of neutral zone
in the California desert. Cabazon's secretly crawling
with government operatives, occult experts, UFO
abductees. Security is supplied by a private firm known
as Wackenhut-<>wned and operated by ex-CIA men.
It's the same firm that provides security for Area 51.�
"Wow. Amazing. I wish I'd known about that place."
"Why? You never leave this apartment. You'd never
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go there. You sit here amid your newspapers piled to the ceil
ing with your conspiracy Internet sites and your triple locks on
the door. You never go out into the world.•
"Hey, look. You don't have to be so harsh. I'.m helping you,
remember? If I didn't frequent alt.conspiracy you wouldn't
have known to make contact with me. Besides, I stay in here
for my own protection. When your own government turns
against you, what can you do?"
"Turn to mine?"
"Yeah, right. Wipe that sinister grin off your face. I don't
trust yours any more than mine. It's just that yours is more up
front about it. You don't pretend like we do. It's the hypocrisy
of it all that I bate. Don't shake your head at me. It's true."
"It's all a matter of perspective. But it doesn't matter.
You're providing us with information and a safe house, so I
won't criticize anymore. Back to what we have on Blisset,
my friend."
"Right. This Dallas fellow hooked him up with an organi
zation called the Novo Ordo Diana. Occult-based free-thinkers.
Kaos-magick-practicing backers. Kids into whatever was new
and forbidden. They lived communally in a big house in San
Francisco, spending all their money on technology and drugs.
Patterned after the quasi-Masonic orders like the OTO or the
Solar Temple, they pooled their resources of money and knowl
edge. Apparently anarchists, these kids were an off-shoot of a
small group of non-conformist oddballs called the Cacophony
Society, whose traditions go all the way back to the Merry
Pranksters. They took magick very seriously, though. Blisset
almost certainly learned a great deal about the occult as well
as computers and encryption there. This wasn't some Fate
magazine inspired group of New Agers. Dark, real-they were
serious. They all eventually killed themselves in some sort of
ceremony and burned down their house.•
"Not all of them.•
"Right. Obviously, Blisset survived.•
"Right."
"Is there something that you're not telling me?"
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"Of course."
•All right, fine. Then Blisset hooked up with the Hoffmann
Institute. He found their website and contacted them. I've been
there, but there's something more going on with them, clearly.
From what I understand, they have all sorts of teams investi
gating paranormal events and interfering with the activities of
different groups."
"Yes, the Hoffmann Institute is an annoying and resource
ful opponent, but they're hopefully unaware of all the psionic
technological advances that our group has made."
"sO they don'teven knowto suspect thatyou planted a psy-
chic linking device on their man."
"Exactly. "
"You, um. You still have mustard on your chin."
"He never suspected a thing. I had feared more from him.
The Hoffmann Institute has a reputation."
"So it really worked. The psychic tracer."
"There was some strange interference while they were still
at the airport, but it works well now."
"So Psychotech wasn't kidding around."
"God, no. I mean-yes, it worked. But no, -the PTD doesn't
'kid.' "
"I know, I know. It's a figure of speech."
"You and your figures of speech. It's like a defense mecha
nism you Americans have implemented into your society to
help keep out non-English speakers."
"You mean spies, like you? Your English is better than
mine."
"Spy si a stupid word. It's a 1960s word."
"More like 1950s."
"James Bond was 1960s."
"Yeah, but that's fiction. I mean in real life. People talked
about spies in the 1950s. Everyone was afraid of �ussian
spies. They'd onlyjust got done being afraid of Nazi spies.''
"They should have been more afraid than they were. Your
own government let them in. The Nazi spies in the 1950s were
your spies."
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"Who said that? Shit! They're coming in! We've got to go,
Sergei!
"Sergei?"
Sergei lay on the floor, doubled over in pain. White foam
bubbled up from his convulsing mouth. His toupee fell off his
head, exposing the extensive scarring around the trepanned
hole in his skull, courtesy of his government's secret Psy
chotech Department. Black blood dribbled out of the hole, and
the flow increased. Jerry stared at the blood and listened to the
voices on the other side of the iron door. He grabbed the keys
to Sergei's car, which he'd left on the table, muttering "fire
escape" to himself like a mantra. He'd reviewed this eventual
ity a thousand times in his head-some sort of government
agents busting in. He had a plan. As he made his way toward
his escape route, he never saw the thin, mucus-covered tendril
slip through the ancient iron grating of the heatingvent. Jerry's
paranoia hadn't prepared him to suspect intrusion by some
thing nonhuman-something that could draw the life-force out
of each of his cells, draining the pan-human akashic memory
implanted within his DNA as well as the surface and short·
term memory in his primitive neural net.
Jerry always assumed his enemies were human-from this
planet, at least from this universe.
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�� d so these . . ." Ngan gripped the wheel of the Ply
mouth Voyager and threaded his way through the
traffic on the Stevenson Expressway. Luther bad just
finished telling him about the Babalon Working and the
recent visit by a Man in Black.
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Working I told your friends about in the motel, and now you.
And eventually, I guess, your boss next week. If that makes me
important enough in your eyes to help protect me, then I guess
that's one more I owe Dallas." Luther ran a finger along the
dashboard. "Except that he's dead."
"I'm sorry, Luther. I really am. He died in the fire?"
"He was killed. Suicided. He-and the others-they would
never kill themselves. It was those freaks who said they were
from the government. The Men in Black. When the guy found
me later, he threatened me. I know this is no joke."
"What did he say?"
"He asked me why I would tell anyone about Babalon when
I knew that people died when they talked about it. The thing
was, I hadn't talked about it. Not yet. I didn't even know it was
this important secret."
Perhaps, Ngan thought, there was more to these Men in
Black than he had believed. But what was their connection to
the Babalon Working? He nodded at Luther. Perhaps there was
more to what the stranger had said-
"So, do you people think you know who these Men in Black
are or what?"
The traffic grew thicker, but Ngan all but ignored it. Was
Luther attempting to redirect the topic slightly? No need to
press it now.
"Well, that's an interesting question, Luther," Ngan said
evenly. "Many people think they work for the government. It's
true that the United States government employs so-called 'black
agencies' that cany out covert operations. The Hoffmann Insti
tute has dealt firsthand with agents in dark suits and cars that
work for such agencies. But there's actually a more interesting
theory regarding your Men in Black. You see, Luther, there are
stories dating back literally thousands of years dealing with
mysterious personages that seem interested in what we now
refer to as paranormal phenomena. These were people in black
cloaks or robes appearing to others, inquiring about what they
had seen. Sometimes these strangers shared advice or imparted
secret knowledge. Many philosophers and scientists describe
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"What color was the hair on the guy from last night?"
"I don't know. His hat hid most of his head the whole time.
It never so much as slipped."
"Wait a minute," he said. "Then how do you know it wasn't
one of those guys in the car back there?�
"I . . . I don't know. They just seem different."
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about fifteen feet back. The long doors were open, blocking off
all access that direction. A person crouched behind each wide
door. McCain doubted whether his rounds could penetrate
those sturdy doors, but perhaps it was worth a try.
Suddenly, like a blur, Jeane gracefully leaped feet first into
the short space between the vehicles. McCain saw the person on
the side of the Oldsmobile nearest him rise up behind the door
to take a shot. But Jeane was fast. She sprang toward the other
side ofthe blue car and threw her body into the door. The person
behind t i was caught as the heavy door closed, and a loud thump
sounded like a skull pounding against a car door frame. At least,
what McCain assumed such a thing would sound like.
But without dwelling on that, he didn't want to miss his
opportunity. He stood and leveled his pistol. A single shot sent
the man-he could see t i was a man now-spinning in a circle.
He must have hit the guy's right shoulder. The man went down,
and as if that was a stage cue, McCain vaulted over the trunk
of the Contour toward the Oldsmobile.
"Got this one," Jeane said from the other side of the car .
McCain bent over the open door to get a look at the man he
shot and got a face full ofpistol instead. He reeled back in surprise
and pain, almost losing his feet. The car door slammed shut, and
as he gainedhisbalance McCain saw a hulking man in a grey suit,
with dark hair, a thick beard trimmed close to his face, and dark
sunglasses. His right shoulderwas covered with a dark, wet stain,
and he held what looked like a .45 in his left hand like a club.
McCain lunged forward, trying to knock the man off balance.
It didn't work, and the two ofthem ended up in a messy grapple.
He felt like a real jerk-if it was one of those old Warner Broth
ers cartoons he literally would turn into a big heel-but he freed
one arm and pounded on the man's wounded shoulder.
His opponent cried in pain, though he tried to mufile it. "Der'mor
Russian? McCain recognized the word. Back in college,
he'd learned to swear in eight different languages. These guys
were Russian?
· "Fitz? You okay? You got yours?" Jeane made it sound like
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McCain smashed his gun into the large man's face. "Yeah,"
he breathed out quietly.
The man droppe4. to his knees. He was clearly losing a lot
of blood. McCain's own clothes would attest to that.
"But he's pretty badly hurt: McCain added.
"We don't have much time," Jeane shot back. "Look for ID.
Let's figure out who these people are."
McCain reached into the man's coat pocket and pulled out
a wallet. Keeping his eye on his prisoner, he flipped it open.
Within it he saw a credit card and driver's license, both bear
ing the name Theodore Blevins. McCain had enough experi
ence to pick out the phony DMV photo and the not-quite-right
printing. The license was obviously fake. The picture was
really of Mr. Der'mo, however, so he would hang onto it.
A noise from the other side of the car attracted his atten
tion. A quick glance revealed that Jeane was forcingher charge
back in the car.
"Get up," he said to Mr. Der'mo.
He waved the gun upward and toward the car. As the man
struggled unsteadily to his feet, McCain reached in and took
the car keys from the ignition.
He motioned again toward the car and said, "Get in."
The man climbed into the driver's seat. McCain picked up
his gun from the ground so that he was holding a pistol in each
hand. Then, as the car doors slammed, the two of them backed
toward their car.
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ister. Dallas once told him, late one night after he was coming
down from an ecstasy high, already half-unconscious, that he
believed there were two forces in the world that influenced
everything. He said there was the White Lodge, a group of
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. - · -.... : _ _
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it from where it lay draped over a chair. "I brought it in. It'll
probably cover up the . . . "
She saw something clinging to the back of his jacket.
McCain shut off the water and was drying his hands with a
wad of paper towels when he turned around.
Jeane put a finger to her lips and motioned for him to come
to where she stood. He did. She held up the jacket and pointed
to what she'd seen. They both looked at it very closely and saw
that it was metallic. It appeared to be some sort of sophisti
cated chip in a thin metal housing with some barbs to get it to
stick to the fabric of the garment.
McCain mouthed the word: "Bug?"
Jeane shrugged. She mouthed the word: "Tracer?"
He made an exaggerated expression of deep thought and
shrugged. Carefully, he removed it from his jacket and set it on
the kitchen counter. He took a knife from a wooden block and
pried the casing open. After a moment of looking at it, he said
in a normal tone, "It doesn't look like a listening device to me.n
Jeane leaned in close to look at it.
McCain continued, "It doesn't seem to have any input capa
bilities, so I'm guessing it's only a transmitter-a tracer of
some kind. It's like nothing I've ever seen, though."
He paused for a moment. Jeane stood up straight.
"It just looks like a processor chip to me," McCain said.
"We should probably assume that it transmits a signal some
how, though, just to be safe."
Jeane nodded though1fully and said, "Yeah, you're probably
right."
"Which, if true, means thatsomeone still knows where we are."
"Look," Jeane said, "I was wanting to go back to the office
to try to find out something from those IDs anyway. Now I
want to go back to see if I can find out anything regarding this
chip, as well. I'll get it transferred over to CSC and get them to
look into it. It makes sense for me to take it there while you
join Ngan and Luther and make sure they're all right. H this is
a tracer, it'll go with me back to the office, where they're prob-
·
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"I wore that jacket last when we were at the airport. It's
been laying in the back seat of the car since then.·
"So somebody put it on eitherwhen you were in the airport
or while your jacket was in the car."
"The airport seems more likely."
"Unless Luther did it," Jeane said.
"That would be weird."
"Well, he's into tech, and we really don't know that much
about him. Maybe he's working for someone."
"But Dr. Nakami himself wanted us to watch over him.
Luther might not be telling us the entire truth, but I don't think
he's a player."
"But remember, you just said Ngan figures there's some
double-cl'06S going on in the Institute. Maybe bringing Luther
in is a part of that-m.a.ybe the leak's not looking for Luther,
maybe he'a workinc with him.·
"This ia makin{ my head hurt.•
19
.
.
.l ust for a moment, let's play a game. Are you up for it?
...
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She picks up a game piece on the board that looks like a tiny
pyramid with an eye at the top. She moves it five spaces and
reads aloud what the space says: "Luther mixes the old (rituals,
chants, and equating signs and what they signify) with the new
(cycling probability generators and multidimensional virtual
constructs) to manipulate reality in small ways. This s i an inter
esting factor, but it's not why so many people are after him."
She looks up at you and the man with the goatee, her face
a void of expression. The man simply nods and scoops the dice
into his hand. Cupping his hands together, he rattles the dice
around in them for a while.
"Who are the people after Luther?" he says in a monotone
but continues to shake the dice.
The woman looks irritated, but the man just looks at you.
Finally, he lets the dice drop to the table. The dice show a three
and a four.
"Lucky seven!" the man shouts.
"Cabalist," the woman says, her head shaking in disdain.
The man slides his piece, a miniature fifties-era flying saucer,
seven spaces. He reads what the space says, but only to· himself.
"Out loud," the woman demands.
"It's confusing." The man looks up at both of you, then
reads, "It says that there are two groups, though it seems like
three. But then one of the groups of people aren't really people."
"So, basically," the woman says, "you asked the wrong
question."
The man sheepishly looks back down at the board .
The woman pushes the dice across the board toward you
and says, "Your turn."
It seems clear that you have to ask a question and roll the
dice. But what question? Apparently, there are good and bad ques·
tions, as the man just proved. At this point, you begin to wonder
if you're just a construct in Ngan's mind-a tool for him to visual
ize the complex threads of realitythat were coming together. That
may be the case, but it doesn't help you formulate a question.
Or does it?
You pick up the dice in your hand and hold them tightly. You
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look to the other two to see if they're willing to offer any guid
ance, but they stare at you with expectant faces, as if you
should already know what you're doing.
"Is Ngan . . . and Luther, um." You cough. "Are Ngan and
Luther in any danger right now?"
Both of them stare at you, dumbfounded. The woman
begins to speak, but the clatter of the dice as you let them fall
on the board cuts her off. The dice reveal double ones.
The man laughs. "You crapped out."
"What does that mean?" you ask.
"It means you move two spaces," the woman says. "Unless
you're some kind of Vegas numerologist."
Is that a joke? It's tough to tell. You look down at the board,
and the only other piece is a horse with two knights riding it
at the same time. You pick it up to look at it a little closer and
see that large crosses are emblazoned on their shields.
"It's just two spaces,• the woman says, exasperated.
You move your piece two spaces ahead of where it was.
The space reads: "Draw a card." There is a small stack of
orange cards laying facedown in the middle of the board. You
look at the other players, but they're exchanging glances.
With a little hesitation, you draw a card. The card reads:
"Not now."
Not now? Does that mean they're not in dangernow or that
you shouldn't ask that question now? That's irritating.
"What does-" you begin to ask, butthewoman interrupts you.
"You rolled doubles," she says. "You get to roll again.•
She picks up the dice and hands them to you. Great.
You drop the dice with a ·sigh. You really don't know what
you're doing or what's going on.
"What's going on here?" you ask.
The man and woman don't react to your question, and
instead look down at the dice. Both show blank faces.
"You don't get to move," the man says "Draw another
card-you're still on a 'draw a card' space."
"But how can there be no . . ." you stammer. "How can I
roll a zero?"
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back in her chair. The light from the windows was glaring on
her screen, so she was going to get up and shut the blinds
when she noticed that in the comer of her screen a small enve
lope icon indicated she had email.
Jeane clicked on her email program and called up the new
message. It was from Dennis Carter, an Institute agent she'd
seen in the office a few hours earlier. Apparently, someone else
had been working Saturday after all. It was a general alert
addressed to her, Ngan, and Fitz. Apparently, the Chicago
police, investigating a disturbance earlier that day had found
two dead bodies in an apartment downtown. One of the corpses
was a Russian in the country illegally named Sergei Volostok.
Cause of death was unknown but appeared to be some sort of
brain hemorrhage. The email didn't mention what happened to
the other person or who he or she was .
Nothing.
She looked out the window and into the parking lot.
Besides her own vehicle, a large black Cadillac gleamed in the
sunlight She didn't recognize it-it certainly wasn't Carter's.
Another noise. This time, it sounded like something heavy
striking metal. It had a long, deep reverberation. She walked
out of her office and down toward reception.
Before even entering, she could see into the room. The light
was on, flickering. The door between the lobby and the inner
office area hung wide open, which shouldn't have even been
possible-it closed automatically and could only be opened by
a key card. She stepped cautiously into the room and up to the
receptionist's desk. She felt under the desk until she found a
plastic button. She pressed it in and held it for a few seconds.
That was supposed to activate the silent alarm.
She heard a noise behind her. She drewher gun and turned.
Nothing.
"You have entered this building illegally,• she said in her
most authoritative tone. "The police are on their way.•
A loud crash came from the direction of the office she
shared with Fitz and Ngan. She bit her lower lip, steeled her
self, and ran down the hallway, even though her instincts told
her to get out.
Inside her office, Jeane saw her computer lying on the floor,
the monitor smashed. Holding the gun with both hands, arms
taut in front of her, she used the barrel to direct her gaze
around the room. The perpetrator was nowhere in sight.
"All right,• she said forcefully. "I'm armed. Coine out right
now."
She stepped into the middle of the room and slowly spun
around, securing the perimeter in sight.
The door suddenly slammed shut.
She lowered the gun and ran to the door, grasping the
handle and wrenching it.
It didn't budge.
"Hey!" she yelled, ineffectually.
Panting, she paused for a moment to figure out what was
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going on. As she did, she heard a noise in the room. It sounded like
something thick boiling on a stove. With the sound came a foul
odor, like spoiled milk mixed with something sickeningly sweet
Jeane scanned the room. She saw nothing out of the ordi
nary other than her computer in disarray. Nothing until the
stutlight splashed a strange shadow on the wall behind her.
She whirled, .380 at the ready.
Drooping down from the ceiling vent was a long, snakelike
tendril. While most of it was green like stewed peas, some yel
low mucus bubbled on its surface, seeming to boil in contact
with the air. ·
It reached for her.
She fired her gun at it. Missed.
The bullet shattered the window across the room. Glass
cascaded out of the building and into the parking lot.
The tendril slapped across her chest and shoulder. The
force knocked her off her feet. She looked up at the thing and
saw the light fixtures explode in a shower of sparks-but they
had been off. The tendril stretched farther out of the air vent,
coming toward her like a long, accusatory finger.
She struck it with the pistol with all the force she could
muster. As it flopped aside with her blow, she dived past it and
scrambled out of its reach. She pulled herself up using the
edge of the large meeting table and moved around it toward the
broken window. Her chest and shoulder burned where the ten
dril had touched her.
Crawling out the window, not looking back, she cut her
hands on the remaining glass in the frame. Suddenly, it was as
if she couldn't move.
A moment later, she realized that she was moving-her
hands pushed against the window, and her legs flailed in the air
behind her, but she didn't move out of the room. Though she felt
nothing, something must have grabbed her. Letting go of the
window, Jeane hung in place. She floated in the air. Her shirtbil
lowed around her. She tried to wrench around to see what held
her, but she saw nothing. Waving her gun behind her accom
plished nothing-she had no idea whatwas holding her in place.
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Jeane pushed Luther over and climbed into the back seat As
she put on her lap-belt she said, "I took the bus here. I don't think
I was followed. If you guys are tail-free, we should be goodto go."
"Protecting Luther is our foremost concern," Ngan said. "If
we have eluded our enemie�. we probably shouldn't return to
our residences or the office.•
"In fact,• Jeane said, "I can almost guarantee it Maybe we
should just {Ct a couple rooma at a motel.•
"Good ide&," McCain &aid. "That'll &Ne ua all a chance to talk.•
Ngan started the engine. "Yes, Jeane can becin by tellin' ua
what happened to her.•
"Yeah, you don't look � �.• Luther said to her.
Her face in the rearview mirror suggested to Ngan �t she
didn't care for Luther and statements like that were only exac
erbating the situation.
Ngan drove while Jeane spoke. "The office is compromised.
After I called Fitz, since I'd already given away my position to
anyone scanning for my phone's signal anyway, I phoned
Hunter and left a message on his voice mail instructing him to
get a security and containment unit sent in right away. I'd have
liked to have been a part of that, but we have other concerns."
"Compromised?" McCain exclaimed. "What happened?"
"I'm not exactly sure. There was an MIB like I saw at the
airport-pretty different than the operatives you and I encoun
tered earlier today, Fitz. By the way, there's every reason to
believe the more human agents work for Pyschotech."
"The old Soviet military outfit?" McCain asked.
"Right. Seems one of their agents was found dead down
town early today. I wasn't able to make a match on the data
base, but two and two equals four."
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remember this when you need to, and other memories may
come as they are needed, but only when they are needed."
The girl behind the counter pushed a slip of paper at Ngan
for him to sign. With a start, he looked at her, then at the credit
card slip. He signed it with the name Xing Mengrui, though he
wasn't conscious of the act. The clerk pulled the receipt back,
not bothering to check the signature, and pushed forward a
key attached to a red plastic "23."
Ngan smiled and walked out.
Inside the shabby motel room, Luther set his bag and computer
down on one of the two beds, which was covered in a threadbare
bedspread. Jeane walked into the bathroom and clicked on the
light, looking around like she expected something nasty to jump
out Nothing did. McCain smiled at the thought of the poor rat on
the wrong end of Jeane's temper. This place didn't really seem bad
enough for rats, though, he thought-well, not many anyway.
Ngan was the last to come in, clutching the key.
"You only got one room?" Luther asked no one in particu
lar. "I mean, I've crashedin worse places, but I figured you
guys could afford more than one room. I thought the Hoffmann
Institute was big time."
"It's not a matter of expense," Ngan told him. "It's a matter
of security. Not all of us will be sleeping at any one time," Ngan
said. "At least one person is going to be on surveillance duty
watching for our enemies."
"Whoever they are," McCain added, helpless to keep his
brow from rising as he did.
"I've got another idea," Jeane said. "Another explanation
for what I saw and experienced."
"All right," Ngan said, locking the door.
"Low-frequency sound waves."
McCain noticed that Luther looked uncomfortable. He won
dered why.
Jeane continued, "There might have been low-frequency
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we can tonight."
"Good. I gotta take a piss,• Luther said.
He got up from the bed, walked into the bathroom, and
closed the door. McCain heard the fan start up.
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laptop and bis fingers clicked atop the keys with furious, obvi·
ously often-used strokes.
An expression of interest and surprise was clearly betrayed
in the computer's light as Luther suddenly stopped typing. He
stared at the screen, only occasionally stroking the touch-pad
on the keyboard.
Ngan sat on the same bed as Luther, speaking softly. "Did
you get the email you expected from Michelle?"
Luther looked up, startled. "What? How did you know?"
"I am sorry if this is harsh, Luther, but who else is there
you would be getting mail from?"
Luther bit bis lips together. He looked away for a moment,
into the dark part of the room. McCain feigned sleep.
"Yeah, okay," Luther said. "But don't worry. Not onlywasn't I
on long, but Michelle uses an incredible encryption program." His
face suddenly softened, and bis eyes shined in the dim light "See,
there's combinations of words, sounds and images that together
. . . well, they create a sum much greater than their parts because
of the way the information altogether processes in the human
brain. It becomes a new language based on primal brain functions
rather than higher language-processing functions. It's like, you
type in various words that conjure up specific images, and it
transfers different words in the reader's mind. They'll see words
on the screen that aren't really there. Of course, you need the
right software to decode the images in the first place."
"Fascinating," Ngan said.
McCain could tell Ngan was sincerely impressed. Come to
think of it, if what Luther just said was true, McCain was
impressed too. It sounded increchbly advanced.
"Yeah, I don't know exactly how she did it. I mean, it's like
magick, and in fact that may be how it really works, to be hon·
est-depending on yolll' point ofview-but even if it is, it's not
really her kind of magick. I don't know . . ."
"Is your friend all right?" Ngan asked.
"Yeah, I guess so. She's scared for me. She'd like me to
come to Edinburgh." Luther frowned.
"Well, I can understand her feelings, but that obviously
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. 93
� ;k any member of the Ordo Templi Orientis, and
she'll tell you that the organization can trace its
roots back directly to the Bavarian lliuminati-a
group some say is the ultimate in evil, manipulative
conspiracies and others say was interested in trans
forming humanity through illumination. Either, way,
the OTO members like the implication. It makes them
seem edgy-dangerous.
What mayvery well be the truth is this: The original
organization was a splinter Masonic lodge called the
Bavarian illuminati, founded in 1776 and led by Adam
Weishaupt Since you had to be a Mason to join, it was
effectively a secret society within a secret society. Its
leaders had· some high ideals-they wanted to change
the world by supporting democratic movements and
being generally anti-royalists and anti-papists. They
believed in the freedom and power of the individual
such belief was the beginning of true illumination, they
thought. The order was declared dangerous and illegal by
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ing all the time. Perhaps he could come back later and talk to
their director, whose name he could never remember.
From Jeane's soft snoring she was clearly asleep. McCain
had been pretending to sleep, but now he too was snoring.
Even Ngan had nodded off after his conversation with Luther,
his head resting on the headboard.
Luther's long, bony fingers began to carefully play across
the keyboard of his laptop. He called up a new file, then began
to copy various bits of code, routines, and image-generating
bits of software into that file. The idea that formed in his mind
was something he'd never tried before but had long thought
possible. Now was as good a time as any to find out.
Ironically, Jeane had given him the idea. All her talk about
sound waves affecting consciousness was exactly one of the
things he and his friend Dallas had been exploring right before
NOD was suicided. In fact, he suspected that somehow Jeane
and the others had found out and she was eventually going to
confront him about it.
He called up a text file named Erotomancy. The name
always made him laugh-he couldn't help i . It sounded like
t
the magick of pornography. Instead, however, it was something
entirely different Erotomancy centered around a concept that
Luther could never remember the name of if it didn't appear at
the top of his screen when he opened the program: "anacoustic
dendroptotic allophony." Luther thought it worked something
like this:
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J� uther was gone.
Ngan awoke to find both Jeane and McCain
asleep and Luther, his luggage, and his computer
gone. While waking the others Ngan forced himself to
remain calm. McCain was apologetic-he said he'd
tried to stay awake but failed. Ngan, however, knew it
was he who was supposed to stay awake with Luther
and said as much.
"Oh, Luther," Ngan whispered to himself. "What
have you done?"
About ten minutes later, McCain discovered that his
passport and credit cards were missing.
"That little bastard," McCain said.
Somehow, Luther must be planning on using the
passport, thought Ngan, though he couldn't imagine
how. Luther and McCain were hardly look·alikes.·
"A passport," Jeane said, "means he's headed out of the
counby. England. He's goingto find his friend Michelle."·
"I have to agree, Jeane. With Michael's passport,
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she hadn't slept much on the plane, and barely grabbed a few
moments of sleep on the train. The jet lag drained her muscles
of energy-adrenaline was a dist.ant memory.
They stopped briefly on Bridge Street to buy "breakfast."
Jeane didn't want to know whatmeal it really should be according
to her internal clock, still set on Chicago time. Even in early sum
mer, the morning air was chill and a little damp. They went into a
store to buy a change of clothes. Jeane bought only a long-sleeved
shirt that she put on with her leather pants and boots, zipping up
the light leatherjacket she broughtfrom home overit. McCain got
one too and put it on over a T-shirt he wore with jeans, canying
the sport coat he'd brought. Ngan bought a long-sleeve, white
shirt, some lightweight pants, and some different brown leather
shoes. The blue suit he'd been wearing was thoroughly crumpled.
Jeane wished she could remove the bandages that covered
her hands. The cuts were healing, and the bandages were
annoying. Still, it was a little too early. The burn on her chest
still hurt, but it was easy enough not to think about it with
everything else that was going on.
The Institute database had come up with one serious line
of inquiry using the keywords McCain had given them-a place
relating heavily to Templar history: Rosslyn Chapel. This was
a fourteenth-century church located near Roslin, a tiny com
munity near Edinburgh. The agent had told McCain that some
of the Knights Templar, after being excommunicated and out
lawed in France, fled to Scotland and settled in this area. Leg
end had it that they'd brought some secret treasure with them.
Jeane pointed out that Roslin was the village where Dolly
the sheep was cloned-the first successful cloning experi
ment. When she did, McCain and Ngan exchanged meaningful
looks but said nothing. An interesting coincidence considering
how small Roslin was.
Rosslyn Chapel was a long shot, but at this point they were
desperate.
Still early in the morning, they entered a thick, wooded
area far different from the urban landscape they'd just left.·An
old winding road up a massive hill had signs for Roslin, and
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they followed them into the tiny village. Little stirred in the
town, and they followed another sign that led them to Rosslyn
Chapel.
McCain parked the car in a small lot next to a handful of
other cars, though the chapel was nowhere in sight-the
woods were too thick. A stone path suggested their next step.
A thin mist clung to the ground, the trees, and the old stone
buildings. Jeane had heard about Scottish mists, and now she
saw them in person. You could easily get lost in such a mist
and it was said they came and went seemingly without warn
ing. Memories of a cemetery south of Chicago came to mind,
and she shuddered. If there were any real haunted spots on
Earth, surely this, like that cemetery, was one of them.
But then, maybe that was the whole point Was that why
Luther-and Michelle before him-had come? For a moment,
Jeane imagined finding Luther with some woman, in a circle of
candles, chanting in Latin. Though that wasn't the sort of thing
Luther was interested in. At least that's what he said.
Moss, more black than green, coated the stones of the
buildings like splotches of paint. The carpark was lost to them
now in the trees and the mist. The path led them to a wall,
about five feet tall, which joined two buildings-<me of which
had two stories. Nothing moved or suggested inhabitation.
Then, through the green leaves and the white fog, they saw
thatbeyond the wall was a tall, ornate building of considerable
age. The top was covered in some modem canopy of glass and
metal, and the whole supported by a complex lattice of scaf
folding. On the whole, it appeared that Rossyln Chapel might
be closed for repairs.
"Well," McCain said, "do you think we can get in?"
"The sign by the parking lot gave times for worship serv
ices," Jeane said. "Do people ever visit this place? Maybe we
need an appointment. n
Ngan walked up to the door of the two-story building. It
was unmarked. He paused in front of it, obviously a little
unsure of what to do. Jeane and McCain caught up to- him
just as he opened the old wooden door-and they all found
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The lower half of the building was visible through the sup
ports of the construction and displayed the heavy hand of
medieval stonework-the exterior was alive with gargoyles,
angels, and crosses. The crosses all had a unique scalloped
edge that Jeane had never seen before.
Inside the chapel, however, was a clear step beyond the
outside-it was a symphony of stonework from floor to high,
arched ceiling. Angels and people of stone cavorted about the
pillars, the ceilings, and around the stained glass windows,
carrying various objects whose significance was almost in
every case beyond Jeane. Scalloped crosses, roses, and sym
bols she didn't recognize were everywhere.
Ngan, who had purchased a guidebook, began pointing out
various bits of the carvings and reading descriptions of them.
A few other people wandered through the large sanctuary and
did the same. It appeared that virtually the entire buildin' was
this single room. It was unlike anything she'd ever seen.
Jcane learned more of the place from what N�an read. Built
in 1446, the chapel was meant to be part of a larger structure
that would serve as a center for learning as well as spiritual
ity. The peculiar crosses were a symbol of the St. Clair, or Sin
clair family, who had traditionally supported the chapel and
had sponsored its creation. Master masons, the Sinclairs'
influence showed in the Masonic symbols seen throughout the
stonework.
Legend had it that the chapel was built to resemble Herod's
Palace in Jerusalem, an important structure to both cru
saders-like the Templars-and to Freemasons, due to its
location, its architecture, and its history. According to some,
the carvings meant many things-most of them pertaining to
Freemasonry, the Knights Templar, Rosicrusians, the Sinclair
family, and of course Christianity, but others pertained, oddly,
to pagan beliefs like the Green Man and the Tarot. All ofit was
supposed to lead the viewer to one conclusion-that.this was
the resting place of something, perhaps an object, or perhaps
simply knowledge, of great importance. In Gaelic the name
Rosslyn, apparently, had connotations of "ancient knowledge
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She glanced over her shoulder and saw Ngan and McCain
trying to act inconspicuous, but perhaps it was for nothing. The
man seemed not to register any of them and instead stepped
into the place and walked purposefully toward the front of the
chapel-what was known as the Lady Chapel. He paused at a
carving on a wooden chair that read "Into Arcadia."
Jeane grabbed McCain's sleeve and gently pulled him back
ward. Ngan was out of reach but came as if tugged. Together,
they watched the man look intently at the three altars in the
Lady Chapel.
"Is that the same guy, Jeane?" McCain whispered.
"Yes," she said, though honestly, she knew that she'd never
actually got a good look at the MIB's face. "Or someone very
much like him. From the airport and outside the office."
"What's he doing here?" McCain asked.
"Perhaps the same thing we're doing," Ngan replied.
"Looking for Luther," Jeane said.
"Or Michelle," McCain added.
"We should watch him," Jeane said. "Follow him."
The Man in Black suddenly moved toward the steps that
led down into the sacristy. He navigated the old steps slowly.
Jeane watched his hat bob down the stairwell.
"I'm going to watch what he does," she announced, moving
forward.
The stairs were poorly lit and worn by years of footsteps.
The man was already out of view. She stuck to one side and
descended. Ngan had read to her that this was the oldest por
tion of the church. It seemed so. The small room at the bottom
of the steps had fewer stone carvings than the chapel above,
but the Sinclair cross was still prominent. Daylight came
through a single stained glass window. Tombstones lined one
wall, each bearing what she now knew were Templar swords
and stars, as well as Rosicrucian roses. A small altar was near
the far wall. The man ignored those and looked through a door
way into a tiny alcove now used for storage.
"It was here," he said in a loud monotone that startled her.
Jeane stuck to the stairs, retreating back up a few. The man
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side with the entrance and the two-story building with the gift
shop. A few tourists stood looking at the chapel or reading a
guidebook. None of them spoke. For a moment, Jeane thought
about how this was the sort of place that instilled reverence in
people, even those who weren't religious. The stillness, the
lush growth, the ancient structure, and the intricate stonework
all melded together to make a place truly worthy of the words
"holy ground." Yet, none of it had really had any effect on her.
Why was that? ·
She realized she didn't have time to think about that now
she had a job to do, and perhaps, she thought, that was also
the answer to her question.
Ngan came around the other side of the chapel and walked
carefully toward Jeane. She met him halfway, shaking her
head.
"I have not seen him ," Ngan said quietly once they were
together. "Where is Michael?"
"Back on the other side, keeping an eye out."
"I will check the carpark. Why don't you get Michael and
meet me there?"
"Right."
Jeane turned and went back the way she came. McCain
stood where she left him. He shrugged and she shook her head.
Where did he go? Jeane thought.
She looked at the wall that surrounded the churchyard. It
was about five, maybe six feet high. Could the MIB have leaped
the wall? It seemed hard to believe. He didn't look that agile,
and the black suit certainly didn't seem like it would help him
move quickly or with much flexibility, and he would have had
to get over the wall fast.
"Come on, Fitz. We're meeting Ngan by the car. Let's
regroup and figure out where we lost this guy."
The two of them walked out of the churchyard, Jeane giv
ing one last glance at the remarkable stone chapel. They went
up the path and toward the carpark. Ahead, Jeane saw two fig
ures standing near the car. She hurried her steps.
In the center of the carpark, amid a van, their rented Ford
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.M e was the kind of man who would put his packages
into the trunk when driving home from the store,
even if all he bought was a greeting card. Careful,
quiet, reserved, Nicolas-never Nick--Oarret looked
forward to only a handful of things in life. Nicolas
enjoyed the daily paper, which he read dutifully each
night; he anticipated every Tuesday, which was
spaghetti night at the Lodge; and he loved the extra
affection he got every third night, when he treated
Samantha his cat to the brand name can of cat food as
opposed to the cheaper store brand.
More than any of that, however, Nicolas loved the
library. He looked forward to every Saturday afternoon
when he would walk up and down the stacks like a
policeman in a black-and-white movie walking his beat.
The library was his territory-his domain. Perhaps
even more than his own apartment, he felt perfectly at
home there, perfectly relaxed and· perfectly confident.
He was the master of every shelf-he'd seen every
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book in the library, and taken it off the shelf. He'd caressed its
cover, usually in its hard, smooth plastic jacket. He'd flipped
through its pages and, in many cases, read some or all of it.
Nicolas had spent every Saturday afternoon in the Water·
town, South Dakota, library for the last twenty-fiye years
except when a holiday distracted him or the time back in 1985
when he had a particularly bad case of the flu. It was a small
library, started on the Carnegie Library program in the late
1800s, and it had been a lot of Saturdays. He knew the vol·
umes on those shelves better than any of the lil>rarians he'd
seen come and go. And they knew him, referring to him by
name when he checked out books, though he never took such
overly familiar steps with them.
When Nicolas saw a newbook onthe shelf, he wasn't surprised.
Surprised would be the wrong word. Distressed would be
more accurate. Buried back in the science section, between geol·
ogy and physics, a new book stared out from the shelf, its gleam·
ing yellowish-brown cover mocking him. This wasn't the new
book shelf. New additions to the library were always shelved on
the new shelf near the middle of the library in the main aisle
between fiction and periodicals, in front of the reading carrels.
The new books remained there for exactly three weeks before
being shelved on the regular shelves. He acquainted himself
with the new books on the new book shelf every week so he
could slowly acclimate himself to their presence.
The sudden appearance of a brand new book, bypassing the
new book shelf . . . well, that just never happened. Perhaps
long ago, maybe-once when a new librarian tried out a dif.
ferent system back in the late seventies when he was still get·
ting to know the place. Maybe, but he doubted it.
He stared at the book for at least a full minute before he
even thought to look at its title. He walked forward two cau
tious steps and tilted his head to read the printing on the spine.
It read: Nicolas, take me.
Nicolas stood and blinked. He read it again. He breathed.
He read it again. Nicolas blinked twice and read it again. How
could that be?
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"Look, what's all this about, anyway? When did you talk to
her? How do you know her?"
The pale faced man ripped the book from Nicolas's hands.
Nicolas was totally unprepared, and it slipped right through his
fingers.
"Hey, what about the secre.t? The coming changes?"
"Thank you, Nicolas." The man turned away and walked
between the towering shelves of books. Nicolas followed.
"I don't understand. What about the secrets I needed to
know? Come back!."
The man rounded the corner into the main aisle that led
past the new books to the door. Nicolas followed, shouting
"Come back!"
Heads peered out from carrels and from behind book
shelves. A librarian, one whose name Nicolas knew was Nancy
(though he would never call her that) walked sternly toward
him, her face smothered with angry concern. Nicolas froze.
Shouting in the horary. Evezyone was looking at him. This
was the sort of nightmare he had on nights with little sleep.
But this felt more like waking up from a dream than a dream
itself. He stopped and shook his head at the charging librarian,
mouthing a fumbling apology, but no actual words came out.
She stood within two feet and whispered sternly that he
would have to leave. He looked away from the storm that was
her face toward the man in the black coat. Was he also in
trouble?
The man was nowhere in sight.
Nicolas was kicked out of the library. He had no secrets.
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The still air, damp with the morning mist was shattered by the
sound of Jeane's .380 exploding to life. The strange man's body
jerked as if shoved, but he didn't fall-nor did he make a sound.
"Ngan, get down!" Jeane shouted.
Onlyth�n did McCain notice his old friend. Ngan stood motion·
less in front of the mysterious stranger: His body was tense but
not rigid. his bands aloft in a position that McCain had seen before
when Ngan practiced his rather unique style of martial art.
The thing. on the man's hand fired, or rather spat, some
thing at Ngan. McCain reached instinctively for his weapon but
it was in his briefcase in the car, and the car was on the other
side of the Man in Black. Ngan's body fl.owed like water, and
bent like a blade of grass in the wind. Some small dark
object-much larger than a bullet-flew past him and landed
with a metal-tearing thud in the side of a car in the lot. Still,
Jeane leaped at Ngan to push him out of the way of the projec
tile, acting a little too slow to have saved him if he'd not
already saved himself. She knocked him two steps to the side
and held her gun in front of her. She fired directly into the
man's chest from four feet away.
He recoiled but didn't so much as step backward. His white
shirt was torn open by the blast, and McCain saw a thick
bluish-white fluid spurt out from the hole. Ngan had been right.
This man wasn't human.
The thick Scottish mist that had hid ancient Pictish shamen,
rebellious Highlanders, and who knows what sort ofloch-dwelling
beasts, rolled in at that moment like white fingers to grab them
all. McCain knew he had to do something. He ran forward toward
their foe. &. he did, he saw.the black mouth of the insect thing
vomit forth something new. Blue fire-like a thousand discreet
bolts of lightning entwined and writhing around each other
reached forth and connected the insect thing and the projectile
that still clutched at the side of the car. This arc of energy swung
around, flailing like a whip. Jeane ducked down, but Ngan held his
ground and his position, staring intently at the man.
McCain reached down and grabbed a rock from the gravel of
the carpark, silently reminding himself to ask Jeane how she
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got that damn gun on the plane, let alone into the UK. He threw
the rock at the man's head but it arced over and to one side. His
target didn't seem to even notice. Instead he stared intently at
the whipping energy that came closer and closer to Jeane and
Ngan. If the mist got any thicker, he wouldn't be. able to see
them, despite the fact that less than ten feet separated them.
McCain threw another rock. He felt powerless and pitiful,
like a child or perhaps even a Neanderthal meeting some
advanced being whose powers it could only explain bythinking
it some angel or demon. He missed again.
The car door, impaled with the insect thing's projectile and
now subjected to these blasts of searing current, blackened
and melted. The metal would clearly soon begin to burn.
Jeane rolled across the ground, under the whipping energy
stream. Ngan kept motionless. When Jeane slammed into the
man's legs, the energy abruptly disappeared. He looked down
· at Jeane. She looked back up and pushed herself backward
into a sitting position. Holding the pistol with both hands she
fired directly into the man's face. She fired again and again,
without stopping, until she was out of ammunition and the
man's face was nothing but a milky, bluish-white mass of
shredded flesh. Except that it didn't look like flesh-it looked
like tom plastic, the way plastic stretches and grows thin
before actually tearing.
His sunglasses shattered and fell to the ground. There was
no sign of eyes or nose any longer, but the man's mouth hung
open, spurting out liquid. His head fell backward as if his once
rigid neck had finally snapped. His black, wide-brimmed hat
fell off revealing extremely short blond-white hair.
Wobbly but still standing, the man-the thing-took two
steps backward. McCain ran forward. As Jeane struggled to
wrest a new clip from her jacket, McCain charged into the man
with his shoulder. White liquid spattered over McCain's jacket,
but his foe was unmoved. Instead, the thing took its free hand
and smashed it into McCain's face, knocking him off his feet
and onto his backside next to Jeane. Then it moved its other
hand, the one still bound within the insect thing, and pointed
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Alive.
McCain lifted Ngan's unconscious body but was barely able
to do so without falling over.
"Open the car door, Jeane. We've got to get him to a
hospital!"
But how would a hospital, he wondered, deal with wounds
from a weapon McCain could hardly grasp the existence of, let
alone explain?
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the doctors that you were electrocuted, and they seemed to buy
it. Apparently, it's pretty close to the truth. Whatever that
thing was, the energy it produced was at least a little like high·
voltage electricity."
"What became of the weapon, Michael? And the body?"
"Well, the body started collapsing and disintegrating right
away. It was like nothing I've ever seen. By the time we got
you in the car it was practically a puddle. Even the milky stuff
all over our clothes was completely gone by the time we found
this hospital.•
"And the weapon? It disintegrated too?"
"Um, well . . . no.•
"Where is it?"
"We got a couple of hotel rooms in Edinburgh, and-"
"You took t
i with you?" Ngan was shocked. The danger of
such a thing-they knew nothing about it.
"Yeah, Jeane insisted. We wrapped it up in my jacket,
bought a suitcase, and . . . It hasn't done anything since we've
had it, though we're pretty sure it's alive on some level. It
·
seems to be breathing.•
Edinburgh s
i a city full of ghosts and black magic-signs
fill the streets telling you so. "Ghost Tours,• "Witchery Tours,"
and various tours describing medieval torture techniques
abound. In these tours, a guide takes you around the city,
almost exclusively at night, to tell you tales of the supernatu·
ral in graveyards, spooky alleyways, and old vaults under
bridges for five pounds fifty (or thereabouts).
If he and Jeane hadn't spent all their waking time looking
for Luther, McCain might have been tempted to take one of the
tours, but eventually he decided he wouldn't be able to stom
ach it anyway. After the things he'd actually experienced, the
idea of a spook tour seemed ultimately foolish. He imagined a
stunt pilot probably didn't think much of roller coasters for the
same reason.
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"And you haven't told anyone about this because you're not
sure who you can tell and who you can't.n
"Correct, I am afraid." Ngan's voice was quiet, tinged with
sadness.
"So you suspect a leak-not a sinister aspect of the Insti
tute as a whole," McCain said, hoping that such was the case.
"Well, there seems to be some sort of secret allegiance
between the Hoffmann Institute and one or more other groups,
Michael, but I don't know how far up this affiliation goes."
"What groups?"
McCain liked the Hoffmann Institute. He liked his job and
he liked being a part of the organization. He hated to hear
these things. It was necessary, he knew, but on some level, he
really didn't want to know. Even in an organization like the
Hoffmann Institute, which was supposed to be about intelli·
gence and the truth, ignorance could sometimes be bliss.
"Secret groups that we're supposed to oppose," Ngan said
after a moment. "The Final Church. Aquarius. Perhaps others."
"Damn. They're the worst of the worst."
"Exactly."
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of a g ed an ge I s
friend and they were laying low somewhere, or the people after
him had nabbed him. After their encounter with the thing at
Rosslyn Chapel, it seemed unlikely that the alien beings had
him since the MIB had been asking about Luther.
,
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Hey dudes,
Bet you 're wondering where I am. Well, I'm going to tell you
because I want you to come here. Really big stuffgoing on. I'm in
a little backwater place called Renne le Chateau in France.
Michelle's here, but I didn 't tell her I'm sending this to you. No
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sign of the big bad Men in Black, but I get the feeling I'm being
watched orfollowed here. You gotta see what we've found. This s l
amazing shit.
Luther Blisset.
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..t
. tltey didn't book any flights ahead of time-it was
standard procedure under security protocols to buy
tickets at the airport, using cash. This resulted in air
port security suspicions, but as long as one didn't mind
having one's checked luggage X-rayed, it really caused no
problems. It turned out that Jeane still had a friend or two
at the ATF and wasn't stupid enough to have turned in her
ID. It wasn't easy, but theygot the weapons through. Noth
ing to worry about, though someone at the ATF might
eventually wonder why ex-Agent Meara needed to carry a
gun from Scotland to France. This was goingto cost her at
least a pair of basketball tickets.
Unfortunately, there were no convenient flights
from Edinburgh to Paris anytime soon. Instead, they
would have to fly to London, then on to Paris.
Ngan wished there was some other way, but a train
or car-even using the Chunnel-would take a great
deal longer than they wanted. Once again, he worild
defy nature and fly.
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4 �d suddenly you're back playing the game.
And you're losing.
It's still not clear how the game actually works,
but the young woman with very short brown hair and
large earrings is exclaiining that she's winning, and the
man with the goatee and glasses isn't contradicting
her. Instead, he seems to be re-adding the point tally on
a small scorecard.
You didn't even know they were keeping score. Nei
ther of them is paying attention to you, so you look
around the room. The three ofyou are playing in small
room, on what appears to be a dining room table. The
chairs are comfortable, and there are only three. The
walls are white, though light wood paneling runs up
halfway from the floor. The paneling matches the trim
on the window. Through the window, you see Ngan,
who's placed himself in a trance on the plane as he flies
from London to Paris.
"It'll keep his mind offflying," you whisper to yourself.
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"I think that's right," the man says, pushing his glasses up
on his nose. He turns to the woman and says, •Ask about
Rennes-le·Chateau again. Let's focus and get some real
answers."
"But I want to win," she says.
"Getting answers is why we're here," he replies.
"Fine." She sighs with forced exasperation and takes the
dice in her hand. "What's in Rennes-le-Ch.iteau?"
She drops the dice on the table. 1\vo sixes makes twelve.
"1\velve, for the apostles," the man says.
She counts out twelve spaces. Her pyramid lands right in
front of you, and so you look down at the space. It says to draw
a card. She does and reads it aloud.
"The Templars knew, and now Psychotech knows, and
that's really all that matters."
"See, it's not any better," she says, rolling her eyes.
"You rolled doubles," you say.
She picks up the dice again. "Okay, how about this: What is
the Man in Black?"
Her toss si a six: a four and a two.
"The number of man," the man says.
"Enough Biblical crap, all rightr the woman complains.
She moves her pyramid six spaces and draws yet another
card. She slaps the card on the board and crosses her arms in
front of her as she falls back into her chair.
The man picks up and reads the card. "The yeti already told
you what they are. Go back to start."
The man laughs as he picks up the dice. "That pretty much
puts you out of the game. All right, my tum." He thinks for a
moment. "It seems like whatever it s i in that place keeps push·
ing us away. It keeps dancing away from our questions."
"Keep trying," you tell him.
The woman glares at you.
"How can the secrets of Rennes-le-Ch.iteau be discovered?"
He rolls the dice and counts the spaces. He reads, "The
woman in the church can tell you what you need to know."
"The church?" you ask. "Does that mean Rosslyn Chapel?"
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from?
"It's a sort of . . . hunch.•
McCain smiled. "Okay. Whatever. See you in a little while.•
Jeane held up the suitcase with the insect thing inside.
McCain had almost forgotten about that. "I'll keep this safe,·
she said.
"Good luck," Ngan said. They both headed away.
McCain walked to the exit, looking to hail a cab. He had to
wait in a line, as plenty of people ahead of him had the same
idea. The street was crowded. The last bit of afternoon sun
was beginning to fade. When he finally got in a cab, he asked
to be taken someplace where he could access the Internet.
Luckily, the cab driver seemed to understand the request and
tore off into dusky Paris.
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Philip rv. After a few secret meetings, the Pope denounced the
Templars, charging them with heresy and devil worship. Many
of the knights were arrested when the order to do so was
issued by Philip on Friday, the thirteenth of October, 1307.
Their lands and wealth were seized.
The charges of heresy came from some rather odd rituals
and behaviors exhibited by the Knights Templar. The Templars,
according to some reports, placed a great deal of importance
upon the image of a head known as Baphomet. The kindest
tales said that the head represented wisdom. Others said that
it represented the head of John the Baptist, a figure whom they
revered greatly. A few said it was a devil they prayed to. What
ever the truth, Pope Clement called it idolatry.
Another of the charges was that a part of the Templar ini
tiation was to deny Christ and to defile a crucifix. Difficult to
believe of a highly religious order-yet shreds of evidence did
exist to at least suggest that their views of Christianity dif
fered substantially from the Church and in particular, the
Holy See.
Even one of their most common symbols, two knights on a
single horse (which was intended to represent the vow of
poverty taken by the knights), was said to be a symbol,
instead, of homosexuality. The trials tainted everything the
order used or claimed as their own. Confessions of heresy and
even witchcraft were tortured out of captured knights using
gruesome and inhuman methods. Many, including Jaques de
Molay, the Grand Master of the knighthood at the time, were
burned at the stake or otherwise put to death.
Of course, not all the Templarswere caught. Many, it's said,
fled to countries not so interested in following the lead of King
Philip or the Pope. One such place was Scotland. Rumor has it
that the Order existed in secret in Scotland for manyyears after
that, and that they passed on their secrets to those who would
form the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, including Henry Sinclair,
the Templar Grand Master and Master Mason who supposedly
sailed from Scotland to Orkney and eventually to North America
with twelve ships and two Italian navigator brothers named Zeno.
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But some tales went further. Some said the Templars pos
sessed more than simply the secrets of their own order, but
some grand secrets as well-some that would shake all of
Christendom. Secret scrolls with lost gospels, lost teachings,
or suppressed doctrines. But perhaps not all the order's
secrets were even Christian in nature. Their dealings with Ara
bic groups, including the infamous Assassins, might very well
have made them privy to knowledge that other Europeans
hadn't. Such secrets, it's said, could have come from the
ancient Phoenicians originally, the Babylonians, or from times
even more ancient.
In some versions of these tales, however, the secrets the
Templars brought with them to Scotland weren't secrets at
all-but secret treasures, long since thought lost. Holy relics
of importance, ancient maps or simply vast caches of gold
from the crusades. The truth is, no one knew for sure.
McCain sipped some coffee, staring at the screen in the
little Parisian Internet cafe. So many unanswered questions.
Next, he chose to look for any references to the Priory of
Zion, assuming that he probably wouldn't find anything. He
was surprised when he came upon the text of an old French
magazine that someone had placed online.
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J �·.was difficult-no, impossible-for Ngan to look
at the village of Rennes-le-Chateau, shrouded in
twilight, bathed in history, and entwined amid
secrets, and not be moved. The whole mountainous area
was only lightly wooded with oak, mostly covered in
rough scrub brush, leaving plenty of bare, jagged rock
to claw upward toward the twilit sky. The place seemed
dangerous, as if one wrong move could send one
hurtling toward sharp stones and sure death. A single
winding road climbed steadily up the side of a steep hill.
They had taken the train south out of Paris to a
town called Carcassonne. There, they rented a car to
take them the rest of the way. Rennes-le-Chateau was
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"Which would the two be, then?" she asked. "We know the
are after him. Whatever they are, they got
'ultraterrestrials'
to him before we did, and the MIB at Rosslyn Chapel asked
about him."
Ngan nodded.
"And we know those people we presume are with Psy
chotech were after him, since they followed us in the car and
were staking out wherever we took him. Even, t
i seems, our
homes." She remembered one more thing. "And the Psy
chotech chip planted on Fitz. Yes . . . they're definitely after
him. Thatjust leaves the Priory of Zion.•
Ngan nodded again, this time more thoughtfully.
"But,• Jeane continued, "if they're not after Luther, then
their involvement must be centered around . . .•
"Michelle," they both said atthe same time.
"Perhaps," Ngan said, "we should be looking for her rather
than him."
Easier said than done. "We don't know anything about her.•
"Luther said she was interested in the Templars, 'old
school' magic, and other medieval things."
Jeane looked around. "She came to the right place. I see where
you're going, though. Let's see if there are any places around here
with Templar connections. It worked for finding Rosslyn.•
Of course, she reminded herself, they had no actual proof
that Michelle had been there, only that it was the most obvious
place in Scotland for them to look. On the other hand, the MIB
certainly seemed to believe that Luther would be there.
She remembered something else. He'd said something else
while in the chapel. It was here, or something like that. Unless
he had a very strange way of referring to Luther as an "it,"
which she supposed was possible, but unlikely.
The whole thing made her remember something more. Fitz
was supposed to have arrived by now.
"Do you think Fitz is all right?" Jeane asked as she sipped
her coffee.
"I expected Michael to arrive some time last night, but I'm
not sure we should start to worry just yet.•
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J
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l t didn> feel like a church. Jeane expected the
church of St. Mary Magdalene to remind her of
Rosslyn Chapel. It didn't. The feel was very differ
ent-it seemed almost a mockery of the religion it was
supposed to represent.
The church was small, but full of various ornate
i onography. A great deal of money and effort wentinto its
c
creation. Just inside the door, Ngan and Jeane were greeted
with the sight of a demon painted dark red. The lµdeous,
hunched creature was waist-high and held up the holy
water stoup. Jeane caught her breath, which only seived to
remind her of still-present pain from the welt on her chest
Fortunately, the cuts on her hands no longer hurt at all.
Like Rosslyn Chapel, everywhere Jeane looked
there was ornamentation. Unlike that other. chapel,
however, this place was covered in paint and gilding.
The interior was cramped and crowded. Statues and
paintings were everywhere, flamboyantly-even ·vul
garly-decorating the tiny place.
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Her eyelids began to sink low, and Ngan could see that
she'd not actually finished that last sentence. Lily finished it
for her in the translation. She caressed her mothers arm, and
smiled at Ngan and Jeane. Suddenly, however, Cendrine's eyes
came open again, and she continued.
"Eventually, with all of this strange behavior, the cure was
dismissed by the bishop in Carcassonne.• Cendrine shook her
head, and lowered it-but then raised it back up. "But, then
something very strange happened. Father Sauniere was imme
diately reinstated by an order straight from the Vatican.•
"Does she know why?" Jeane asked.
Cendrine shook her head.
Her reply was: "When he lay dying, the priest who heard
his final confession-my uncle-refused him absolution. I do
not know what he said in that confession. Of course my uncle
would not tell me, but it must have been something very, very
bad. It saddened him for months afterward. He never spoke
Father Sauniere's name again. They had been good friends.•
Ngan began to wonder if they had outstayed their welcome.
"I am a simple woman. I always have been. I spoke with
Marie Denarnaud, the cure's housekeeper, but when I did I was
but a simple girl. I don't have the answers to all of these mys
teries. I have lived among them for eighty years. I do not know
what Father Sauniere found, but I know he found something.
Something that frightened him, but nevertheless he used it, or
the threat of it, to further himself.•
Cendrine said something more, sothat Lilyhadto translate fur
ther. "Do not think him a bad man, for I don't believe that is true.
He was simply a man put in vezy, very strange circumstances."
"What did the housekeeper say when you spoke with her?"
Jeane asked.
Lily translated, but Cendrine didn't answer right away. She
closed her weary eyes and sank even deeper into the bed. Ngan
looked at Jeane, who stared at Cendrine, still waiting for an
answer. He looked to Lily, who silently shrugged. .
F'mally, Cendrine spoke in a weak, halting voice. The transla
tion was this: "She was a closemouthed woman-very protective
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of her employer. Even after his death, she said nothing. After I
moved to Rennes-le-Ch.ateau, I attempted to talk with her on a
number of occasions. She promised to reveal his secrets only on
her deathbed. However, she fell victim to a stroke and was unable
to communicate until she, too, died."
Ngan stood, and smiled. Lily gently kissed her mother on
the forehead and also stood.
Jeane didn't stand. "Please, if you could ask her if she
knows anything about the Priozy of Zion? That's it."
Cendrine didn't wait for a translation. "Preure de Sion? Non.•
She widened her eyes and shook her head a bit, pursingher lips.
"Perhaps we should go," Ngan said.
Lily nodded. Jeane chewed her lip but didn't argue. They
stood and thanked Cendrine, who only smiled. Lily showed
them out. Ngan thanked her as well.
Once outside, Ngan said, "It was interesting that all of the
religious decor was outside, and none of it was in Cen�e's
room. I wonder if she-"
"Ngan, that woman clearly knew something about the Pri
ozy of Zion. You could tell by her answer."
"Yes, I agree, but I suspect finding them, or information about
them, will become a moot point if we discover what Sauniere was
up to. I think if we did that, we would bring the Priozy to us."
"Maybe, but how do we do that?"
Ngan began to walk down the street, and Jeane followed,
obviously frustrated and a little angry. "We should look at the
painting she mentioned. The Shepherds of Arcadia. She said it
was in the tower-the Tower of the Magdalene."
The two of them walked down the village street, past the
beautiful garden in the village square. They came to the edge
of the village, where an old stone wall, now mostly collapsed,
once protected the town. The slope going down into the valley
was vezy steep, covered in patches of long pale green grass
amid jagged rocks.
The tower, known as the Tour Magdala, was square with a
wide, crenellated top and two small round turrets. Gothic Win
dows were on all four sides, and a single door led inside. Like
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�t ilt.e smell of dust and mold stirred McCain slowly to
wakefulness. There was no pain that he would
normally associate with a gunshot wound, though
there was pain. Most of all, he clearly wasn't dead.
When he opened his eyes, the light was dim, and it took
him a few moments to adjust He blinked to try to make
the process go faster, but it didn't help. For a moment,
he expected to see Marilyn Monroe standing over him
with a smoking gun, but really, that seemed more like
a dream now.
He felt firm, coarse fabric under him-it was a cot,
and by the smell of it, it was very old.
"Hey, there," a voice said. It was a deep voice, and
yet it seemed soft with a touch of playfulness. It
sounded American.
McCain forced himself to look around. There was
another cot in the room, though it wasn't much of.a
room. The walls and floor were stone, and one wall
was taken up mostly by an archway. The arch was
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again. "So have you. Can't you people leave me alone? I'm tired
of these head games. Of course, that's the whole point. right?
Wear me down? Get me to talk?"
"Take it easy, Michael," Morrison said. "I'm not trying to
wear you down." He backed up to his own cot, where he was
just a little more than a silhouette. "Your interrogation is over.
I'm not with them."
"RightWhat.ever." Mee.am rolled over, away from bis cellmate.
"Maybe they'll let you go soon," Morrison said.
McCain craned his neck around to look at him. "Is that an
enticement to get me to talk?"
"Nope." the large man shook his head. "It's a lie to make
you feel better."
"Great."
McCain remained on the cot for what could have been days.
The only sound was the heavy breathing of his cellmate. Each
movement equated with pain, even breathing-he was jealous of
each breath he heard Morrison take. The drugs must have
messed him up, and-the car crash. He remembered the crash
now, when the Priory drove him off the road. That was why he
hurt so badly. He reached around slowly and poked himself as
firmlyas he dared into his guts in various places. Nothingfelt too
tem'ble. He wasn't seriously injured-just banged up and sore.
The only exchange for at least an hour (McCain's time per
ception was becoming clearer) was when Morrison said he was
dyingfor a cigarette. McCain replied softly that he didn't have �y.
"That's all right, the need for a smoke keeps my mind off
my need for a drink."
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real.
Finally, still on the cot, still facing the wall, he asked, "So
where are we?"
There was a moment of silence, then Morrison answered,
"Le Chateau de Blanchefort."
McCain had no idea what that meant "Sounds French," he said.
"Yep. That surprise you?"
"No, not really. I was grabbed out of my car in France."
•Anyone ever tell you you look like someone famous,
Michael?"
"Don't change the subject. That's not funny. . . . "
McCain started to laugh. He couldn't help it, even though it
hurt a little. Trapped in a cell in France with Jim Morrison and
he points out that McCain looks like someone famous. If that
wasn't the height of absurdity, he didn't know what was.
Morrison joined him, and their laughter echoed against the
stone.
When they stopped, Morrison said. "That's why they used
Marilyn, huh-you've got some connection with JFK. I mean,
it's pretty clear."
McCain sat up and faced him. It was easier this time. "I
don't want to talk about it."
"Okay. Well, what do you want to talk about?" Morrison
looked around. "I think we've got a little time."
"Um." McCain sighed more than said, "I'm not hallucinat-
ing anymore, which means you're a real person.•
"Thanks very much," Morrison said with a smile.
"So who are you . . . really?"
"Look, if it helps you, just call me James. Don't think about
the rest It doesn't matter. Not here." .
"It's not that easy. I mean, you look and sound just like
him-except that you're older. But Morrison died a long
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you here?"
"Well, I . . . " McCain was still reluctant to talk. He really
had no idea who it was he was talking to, and he didn't like
how "Morrison" twisted words.
"It's okay, Michael. Don't say anything. You don't have to.
See, there's this really amazing thing that happened in 1947."
"1947?" McCain was startled.
"There's an other side to the world, Michael. Did you know
that? There's an other side that no one sees-hidden from our
eyes by some barrier of consciousness. But sometimes doors
open between here and there. As near as the ONI can deter
mine, a door like that opened in 1947, and somebody came
through. I once thought it was all about us going through to
the other side, but it's just the opposite. They came to us.
"They've been here for fifty-four years, but they were here
before, too. Long ago, down the bottomless throat of time, they
came to the world and they walked as gods through its forests.
The people of that time had no name for these ancient angels,
but they saw their effects. The caress of these gods put ripples
in the world like a child's light touch on the surface of a pool."
For a moment-just for a moment-McCain was caught up
in his poetry. For that moment, he believed that this really was
Jim Morrison.
"But then they left, for there was war in heaven," Morrison
said, looking at the ceiling. "Dark were the skies, heavy with
the conflict of birds as seen by a snake. When they fled back
through the doors, they left behind something cherished
among them-and among us since then.
"At least, those few who knew it truly existed."
"What was it?" McCain asked, his voice barely a whisper
amid the darkness and stone.
Without a pause, Morrison told him, "The Holy Grail.. "
McCain was speechless for a moment. "The . . . Holy Grail.
As in Monty Python and the Questfor the . . . that Holy Grail?"
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'alive.' It's been worth it. To see what I've seen, it was easy to
give up what I had before. Is that what it s i with you-are you
in this for the truth?"
Morrison had a way of turning things around very quickly.
The question made McCain more than a little uncomfortable,
because it was one for which he knew he didn't have an
answer. He liked his job because he felt like he was hefping
people and contributing to a worthwhile cause, but to say he
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AI OR tl CO D k
were afraid when we talked about the Grail falling into various
hands. You've mentioned 'we' at least twice now. Who else is
involved in this? You're right that there's people I wouldn't
want to see get this thing. You're going to have to tell me who
else is involved. n
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.• t '1e sky threatened violence with low rumbles that
echoed across the Pyrenees. Ngan, Jeane, Luther,
and Michelle stood on the street under an awning
in front of a motorbike rental and repair shop. No one
else was around.
"So tell me again," Michelle said with a conde
scending tone, "who you are?"
She wore a lot of makeup on her eyes and lips but
little on the rest of her face. Both were an unnatural
orange color. Her hair was long, loose, and a black
blue color that didn't occur in nature. Her voice was
deep and powerful. Both she and Luther drew desper
ately on cigarettes.
"They're friends of mine, 'Chell, like I just said."
Luther wore a denim jacket, faded and ragged, with a
patch on the right shoulderthatJeane knewwas supposed
to be an alien Grey's head-even though it was gree�.
Michelle looked skeptically at Ngan and Jeane.
"And who are you?" Jeane asked her, knowing full
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well who she was. The young woman's superior attitude wasn't
winning her any points with Jeane.
"My name is Michelle. Ryan," she replied. "I've known
Luther for quite a while now."
"And what brings you to southern France?" Ngan asked.
"Let's cut the crap," Michelle said, stomping her cigarette
on the sidewalk. "What are you two? CIA? UN? Interpol?"
Jeane shook herhead. "Not even close. But it doesn't matter.
We're going." She grabbed Luther by the arm. "You've caused us
a lot of trouble, Luther. Did you forget your appointment?"
"Nah, but other things have come up," Luther said. "I'm not
trying to totally dis you guys, but you know-priorities."
"What are you talking about, Luther?" Ngan asked.
"He's talking about nothing," Michelle said, taking another
i
cgarette out of her purse.
"No, Michelle," Luther said. "I asked them to come here. I
wanna tell them about what we've found. They're into this sort
of thing, you know? They know their shit.•
Michelle stared at them. Her eyes smoldered.
Jeane let go of Luther. She wasn't sure what the next step
should be. They came here to get him, but there was clearly
something going on-something, it was safe to say, that the
Institute would almost certainly be interested in. Something
involving a secret society, the ancient Templars, a priest with
a secret hanging out with occultists and possessing influence
among political figures and over on the Vatican . . . the secret
of Rennes-le-Chateau couldn't be discounted. Not to mention
the strange figure in black and the insect thing in her suitcase.
Maybe it would be smart to find out what this Michelle was up
to before bringing Luther back to the States.
Michelle seemed to be thinking the same thing about them.
She asked them, "Well, do you know anything about Rennes
le-Chateau?"
"We know about the church, and we know about Father
Sauniere," Ngan said. .
Jeane folded her arms in front of her. Rain began to patter
on the awning and in the street.
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Luther said.
"But I figured they were just CIA or Aquarius or some
thing," Michelle said.
.
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"A little."
She certainly knows a lot of things, Jeane thought.
Ngan pondered a moment, then said, "Our first duty is to
protect Luther, and I think, by extension, Michelle. But if the
ultraterrestrials have any chance of getting to . . whatever it
.
194
.. t
_ '7enty-three Skidoo.
"Watch a movie,• Carrie said. "Practically any
movie. They'll go up to an apartment door, or
there'll be some number on a jersey, or it'll be in an
address.• She drove up to a red light and stopped. The
city streets were fairly deserted, but it was three in the
morning, after all.
"What will?" Brad asked.
"TWenty-three.•
"What are you talking about?"
He shook his head. His long blond hair was pulled
back, but an hour ago a long strand of it had fallen out
of place and now just dangled beside his face. Carrie
was certain he dido't realize it.
"It'll be twenty-three more often than not-the
apartment number, or on a license plate, or in a
phone number, or someone's age. It's someone's .age
a lot.•
"You keep track of these things?" He laughed.
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"No, not really. I've just noticed it. But see, twenty-three si
an important number."
"Why?"
"Because it keeps coming up. It's like moviemakers are
sending us-those of us who've noticed-a signal. It's like
they're saying 'yeah, we're in on it, too.' "
"In on what, Carrie? I still have no idea what you're talking
about."
The light turned green. Carrie stepped on the gas of her
Honda Civic. A Doors songplayed on the car radio. Halifax slept.
"It's like this . . . I don't know. Like a conspiracy of coinci·
dence. Like this number keeps showing up, and it means some·
thing. What if it's a signal? What if we should be getting some
message from it that we're missing?"
"I don't get it," he said, shaking his head.
Carrie remained quiet. She pulled her sweater closer
around her shoulders. The night's chill had sneaked up on her.
"Break on through to the other side . . ." the radio played,
then it faded into static. Carrie reached down and fiddled with
the tuning knob, but she couldn't get anything to come in.
"Damn," she breathed.
"Maybe t i just keeps showing up," Brad said, "because you're
looking for it Like when you're driving and it seems like all the
lights you hit are red, but it's really only because you're thinking
about it so you don't notice the green lights . . . only the red."
"But it's more than that. It's not just me that's noticed this.
I've read about it. Maybe they've chosen twenty-three because
of some numerological reason. Maybe it's . . ." She grasped for
something-anything. "It's the number of chromosomes each
parent devotes to their offspring."
"That's weird. I mean, who's 'they'?"
"And oh, yeah-in the I Ching, it means 'Everything falls
apart.' I read that."
"What's the I Ching'?" He shook ·his head and looked at
'
her, exasperated.
"Never mind," she said, then shrugged and scowled.
"Look, I said, never mind,� Carrie said, getting angry.
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"But . . •
.
She didn't finish. She turned the car around and headed in
the direction of the house Brad shared with his two room·
mates. Carrie and Brad had been dating on again and off again
for the entirety of their first two semesters at Dalhousie Uni
versity. She figured they would probably be off again. after
tonight, but at the moment that seemed inconsequential.
The radio was still filled with static.
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behind him, but he stood where the road went over a hill, and
she couldn't see the source of the light. The trees on either
side of the road were illuminated as well and created a million
swaying shadows all around the car .
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Now that she saw him closer she saw his cream-cheese skin, his
rumpled white shirt, and his unnaturally perfect black suit.
Canie stopped. The man just stood there.
She got ready to use her handbag as a weapon. Then she
reached inside and pulled from it her small canister of mace.
She held it forth, threateningly. The man didn't react.
Setting her legs in a defiant stance, she squeezed her
thumb down on the button with all her might. The man didn't
react.
He held out his hands in an almost comical gesture, made
all the more absurd as mace dripped down his face and off the
end of his nose. He stood as if he was in some Abbot and
Costello movie supposedly sleepwalking. But it wasn't funny.
His outstretched hands came for her slowly.
Canie's last thought, for reasons she still didn't under
stand, was 1Wenty-Three Skidoo. The last thing she saw was
the street sign that couldn't possibly be right.
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that at least on some level, his life had been a lie. Worse,
he still didn't know how, exactly, he was created or why. All
his life, people had jokingly called him "Fitz,• and talked
about his extraordinary resemblance to President Kennedy.
But now he knew there were reasons for that. Of course
there were.
Morrison interrupted his silent reverie. •And how do we
convince them to open the doorr
What? Oh. We . . . just play it by ear. In my experience, you
can convince anyone of practically anything if you don't give
them time to think about it too much.•
•And we overpower him.•
"Right."
McCain got up and examined the grate. The bars were
new and sturdy, bolted efficiently to the wall. There was a
door n
i the middle of the grate, locked with a heavy padlock.
"That's not the trip I'm on," Morrison said carefully.
"I don't understand."
"I'm not a violent individual, Michael. I've done some
things I'm not proud of in the past, and I don't do that any
more."
McCain nodded. He ran his hands along the cold bars.
Pushing against them, they felt vezy sturdy.
McCain realized he'd never asked Morrison much about
himself. He'd been too consumed with the question of whether
or not this really was the rock star.
"You never told me how you wound up here . . . James."
The name felt awkward. At some point-preferably once he
was free-McCain knew he'd have to devote a fair amount of
thought to deciding if he believed this was the Jim Morrison.
For now, it would just have to be awkward.
"I was on my way to finally poke around Rennes-le
Ch.iteau on my own. I needed to fmd out what was going on
there. The Priozy, of course, doesn't like people poking
around. Interesting, since I don't think the Holy Grail is ·
there anymore."
"Really? Why?" McCain asked, turning back to his cellmate.
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Morrison shook his head and wiped his hand over his
brown beard and up into his hair. "You don't want to
know."
Actually, from what little McCain knew about Jim Morri
son-assuming this really was Jim Morrison-he probably
didn't want to know.
"Is it always the same guard?"
"What?" Morrison asked as he sat down on his cot.
"Is it always the same guard who brings the food?"
"Um, no. It's not. I've seen at least three different people."
"Okay. So we wait, and we get whoever brings us our food
to open this door. After that, we improvise. You . . . don't have
to do anything you don't want to. But I've got to get out. of
here."
"So," McCain said to him, "can you just open this door for
a moment?"
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• • ti co o •
McCain waited and ate a little ofthe food. It wasfoul, but Mor
rison at.e all of his in silence, scooping it up with his fingers. The
Prioiy didn't provide silverware. It tasted like they had intention
allyused spoiled meat and vegetables. McCain left most of it on his
plate, letting t
i cool and diy, until there was a thick skin over it
He asked Morrison to tell him about his career and what he
was tiyingto accomplish with his music. Morrison looked con
fused, but McCain nodded and smiled.
"Let's just say I was testing the bounds of reality," Morri
son said. "I was curious to see what would happen. That's all
it was: curiosity."
Meanwhile, McCain motioned for his cellmate to come
close. When he did he whispered, "Keep talking."
McCain began to write with his index finger in the cold
stew.
"I was very good at manipulating publicity with a few little
phrases like 'erotic politicians,' " Morrison continued. "Having
grown up with 1V and mass magazines, I knew instinctively
what people would catch on to, so I dropped those little jewels
here and there, seemingly very innocently; of course, I was just
calling signals.•
HI
or a g ed a n ge r s
ioe
J � uther's fingers played like a pianist's over the
keyboard of his laptop computer. They weren't
just quick and nimble. Luther seemed to. impart
the emotion and passion of any good musician into
each keystroke. But then, this was no ordinary pro
gram. This was magick.
A printer clattered and droned as it spat out sheet
after sheet. Each was covered in a strange combination
of symbols.
"It's ASCII code," Luther said.
"All right, I give up," Jeane said. "What are we look
ing at?"
She clutched a suitcase she'd retrieved from the
hotel. Jeane had been adamant about not leaving it
unattended for too long. The suitcase held the ultrater
restrial insect-thing.
Ngan looked around. The three of them were
crammed into the back of the grey van that Michelle
and Luther had been living in for the past few days.
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Ngan knew she was having trouble accepting that Luther was
talking about creating a magickal working the way some people
would talk about cleaning their kitchen. As for himself, he had
i . It was
no trouble believing t clear to him, having spent time
with Luther, that the boy's talentswere extensive and important.
"So, while that's printing out," Jeane said, "mind filling us
in on your little getaway?"
"Oh, you mean this?" Luther reached into his jacket pocket
and pulled out a jumbled mass of francs, pounds, and a few dol
lars. At the center was a credit card. He slid that out of the rest
and handed it to her. "Where is McCain, anyway?"
"He'll be along," Jeane said. "He was doing some research
on some other potential leads to find you."
"Like what?" Luther asked.
"Never mind. You've caused us a lot of trouble, you know.
We've flown half way around the world for you."
"Yeah, sony 'bout that. I didn't want you to follow me, but
when I sent McCain that email, it was because I knew you guys
would want in on this." Luther motioned to his computer and the
accumulated pages that had come out of the still-working printer.
"What are these?" Ngan asked, indicating the printouts.
"These'll form, like, a map grid," Luther said, laying three
of them on the floor of the van, matching them up end to end.
"See, the ASCII is just a simple way of generatingthe graphic.
Once we lay these out, it'll show us the area and answer our
questions. Each sheet's only showing a 1:100 scale area, so
we're going to have to print out a lot of sheets. I hope we have
enough paper. What do you think, 'Chell?"
"Huh?" Michelle responded, obviously shaken out of a deep
thought. "Oh, I think there'll be enough." She flicked the accu
mulated ashes away from her cigarette into an overflowing
ashtray in the dash of the van.
"We're going to have to find someplace to spread 'em all
out, though," Luther said.
"You may use my room at the hotel," Ngan said. .
Time passed slowly as the four of them sat amid the noise
of the printer and the fumes of Michelle's cigarettes.
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Michelle brought a fierce blow from her palm into the man's
nose, but he kept trying to grab her.
Ngan heard more weapons being fired back toward the van.
He got to his feet and moved towardthe sound, but by the time
he stood the man had Michelle in a hold again and rolled to one
side, putting her between himself and Ngan.
Ngan hesitated. The man struggled to his feet, still holding
the squirming woman.
"Get her gun," Michelle said. "Shoot him!"
More gunfire over the wall.
Ngan stepped forward and slid to the ground, his legs slic
ing both the man's and Michelle's footing out from underneath
them. He applied his force so they fell forward on top of him.
They were a mass of flailing arms and kicking legs. Ngan
grabbed Michelle's arms and rolled, throwing the man off her.
Michelle scrambled away, and Ngan got to his feet The other
man did likewise.
The groundskeeper threw a wild punch toward Ngan, who
ducked backward. Ngan shot a fist at the man's abdomen. His foe
was quicker than Ngan had assumed, however, for he blocked
Ngan's blow with his arm and took a step back. Ngan punched at
his face but missed, barely clipping the man's ear as he moved
aside. The man kicked Ngan in the hip, spinning him a quarter of
the way around. Ngan almost lost his footing. The man followed
up with a punch to Ngan's jaw that sent him reeling backward.
Ngan caught himself and tensed for a flying kick he was
sure the man could neither dodge nor withstand. He was sur
prised to see the man suddenly convulse, his body riddled with
tiny red explosions. The air was filled with the sound of gunfire.
Behind him, Michelle stood with a machine pistol, obvi
ously pulled from the woman's bag. The man was clearly dead.
Ngan grabbed Michelle by the arm and pulled her away and out
of the carport, around toward the van. He had to get them both
back to the van and get away. Behind them, down the street, a
woman screamed.
The rear door of the van was open. The side of the vehicle
was pricked with dozens of little black holes and dents.
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J� ook, I don't believe you're Jim Morrison. I think
you're a plant put in here by the Priory to see if
you can get me to talk. Well it won't work. I won't
be fooled. You can just go to hell.•
McCain looked around the cell and wondered where
the bugs were.
"Shut up,• Morrison shouted. "I've had enough of
you and your self-centered delusions. This isn't about
you. You're nobody, okay?"
Ouch. That one hit home.
"Look, maybe the Priory put us in here to kill each
other,• McCain said. "Well, maybe I ought to just do
them a favor.•
The two of them had started the staged argument
quite a while ago.. McCain was beginning to wonder if
it was going to work at all.
"Better men than you have med-including me,• Mor
rison said.
That was when McCain caught a glimpse of the
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11f a g ed a n ge l a
grabbed the smashed-face man by his tie and pulled. The man's
head crashed into the bars and his body went limp.
"Que?" the guard shouted in surprise.
Still clutching the man's tie, McCain immediately began
patting the man's pockets, hoping he'd brought the key. If he
didn't, they were in a lot of trouble.
"Cessez!" the guard shouted.
"Little help, here?" he said.
Morrison stepped forward and began pulling at the man's
coat, looking in the inside pockets. Blood ran down the man's
forehead onto the silk shirt.
"f'utiliserai ceci, the guard said, holding up his 9mm
"
Baretta threateningly.
Morrison pulled the smashed-face man's body to one side,
interposing it between the guard and them.
The guard began yelling something in French. McCain paid
no attention. He had to find that key.
"On his belt!" cried Morrison.
McCain felt around and found a key ring attached to the
man's belt. He tried to pull it off, but it held fast. He fumbled
with it, trying to figure out how it came off. The guard was
shouting something at them in French.
"Just leave it on, use the key," Morrison said, trying to keep
behind the man's body as the guard moved to one side.
McCain knelt down and saw that there were three keys on
the ring. Which one? One was obviously a car key. The other two
looked identical to each other. He would just try one. Maybe
there would be time to try them both. He tried to keep calm.
There was a gunshot, and McCain felt the man's body
shudder and felt blood spatter down on him. The guard had
shot the smashed-face man. McCain could hear the young
man's gasp of terror and surprise. Now, however, there was
no time. The guard would know that it was safe to fire indis·
criminately into the cell now that he'd already come this far.
There would be no second chance. McCain chose a key and
thrust it toward the lock, hanging onto the man's tie with
one hand and the key with the other. He had to put his hand
!19
m ente co o �
through the bars and angle it around so the key would slide
in straight and-
It was the wrong key. .
He heard a gunshot. Can you prepare yourself .for getting
shot? He didn't know, but he tried. McCain waited for the pain
and the impact, but it didn't come.
He looked back, expe<:ting the worst. If he wasn't hit, it
must be Morrison.
Morrison stood behind him, a pistol in his hands, pointed
outside the cell. McCain's mouth dropped open.
"Where'd you get a gun?"
Morrison pointed it at the smashed-face man and said, "He
wasn't using it."
McCain peered around the man's body and through the bars
of the cage. No one was in the hall.
"My shot scared him off," Morrison said. "How about that
key, now?"
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of a g ed an ge I s
Neither of the two Priory guards were hit, but both of them
leaped for cover.
The engine rumbled to life.
"Go!" McCain yelled.
Morrison straightened up but kept his head low. McCain
couldn't see him but heard the guard with the gun fire twice.
T\vo thuds echoed throughout the car as the bullets hit the
side. These car doors couldn't be counted on to stop 9mm
rounds every time, though.
"Go!" McCain yelled again.
Morrison threw the car into gear. There was a sudden
thump on the roof. McCain looked around as Morrison stepped
on the gas.
There was an explosion off to the side of the car opposite
the castle. McCain's window shattered, covering him with
glass. He could feel cuts on one side of his face. Considering
that they seemed to be minor cuts from glass and not bits of
shrapnel lodged in his head, he assumed it was a concussion
grenade and not a frag. Too far away to do them any real dam
age, too.
The tires squealed, and they were gone before the guard
had a chance to toss another grenade.
:. N gan's cuts weren't too bad. He wrapped them with
a clean rag Michelle kept in the glove compart
ment of the van. After the way he recovered from
the last fight, Jeane almost found it hard to be con
cerned at all. Luther was rattled, but she knew he
would be okay. Michelle certainly seemed to take the
attack in stride.
From where she was in the back, Jeane had no idea
where they were going. Getting out of the general area
was a good idea, though, so she didn't concern herself
.
with that for the mome
n t.
MJesus," Luther said. "I hope that's over Who was
.
shooting at us?"
·1 don't know," Jeane said.
MPriory bastards,• Michelle yelled over her shoulder.
·How can you be so sure?" Jeane asked.
MWho else would attack us?"
Us? Jeane questioned her use of the word. It was true
that Clarisse bad been following them in the airport and.
!H
of a g ed a n ge l s
that she worked for the Priory of Zion, but Jeane was fairly certain
they'd not been followed recently. No one should have known to
look for them in this grey van-unless the Priory had greater con
trol over the village than she'd ever dreamed, which was certainly
a possibility. Jeane couldn't help but wonder if they were, in fact,
after Michelle and Luther andweren't expecting herandNgan at all.
"I've been through a lot of weird shit," Luther said, "but no
one's ever shot at my ass."
"Technically, no one was shooting at you," Jeane told him.
"They seemed to be just shooting at the van in general. Maybe
the people outside the van. n
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monte co o k
It may have seemed like you did something, but how do you
know? That was one helluva day, you know. We were tired.•
"You be all skeptical if you want, I know what works.
You're just afraid of what you can't understand, while I'm free
to embrace it.•
Jeane glared at him. The truth was, it was getting more and
more diliicult to deny the possibility of things she would have
never accepted a year previous. Yet, that didn't mean she was
going to accept every crackpot theory and bogus claim of
magic that came along.
"And what do your printouts tell us, Luther?" Ngan asked.
"I don't know. I need to, you know, spread them out. Com
pare them to the map we have of the area. It's going to take
some time, and like I said, some room.•
Jeane could feel that they were headed down the hill. The
angle was steep, and Michelle accelerated now that they were
out of the village.
"Is the road clear?" Jeane asked through the mesh to the
two in the front.
"It looks clear,· Ngan said. "Why?"
"If I were them, I'd have blocked the road."
"I don't think they did," Michelle said.
Jeane could see that Michelle was craning her neck all
around to see down the hill. The road, always turning back on
itself amid the rocks and trees, made it difficult to see too far
ahead. Jeane could see nothing, herself.
She began to wonder. Clearly, this was an old conspiracy. Hid
den in the shadows for centuries, keeping guard over a secret
How do you keep a group like that going? It seemed to her it
might very well be the case that the Priory of Zion might simply
be low on manpower, funds, experien�r all of the above.
Maybe things wouldn't be so bad. All she knew about them so far
was that they monitored email (and thus, probably phone calls)
out of the village. Considering its size, probably not a monumen
tal task. They had a few agents who weren't afraid to use force
not to mention automatic weapons. Again, she didn't see a small
army. Just a couple of agents. For all they knew, those people
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of a g ed a n ge l s
230
:�Cain assumed that the car they'd stolen belonged
to the smashed-face man. It was small, boxlike,
and probably about eight or ten years old at least,
but he wasn't sure of the make. It was well cared for,
however, which didn't surprise him. Smashed-Face had
seemed like the sort of man who took good care of his
things, and put on airs to impress people. McCain's
own short interaction with him was nothing less than
annoying. He wondered if Smashed-Face Man had been
a part of his interrogation.
Not that it mattered, now, of course. Obviously, McCain
had played no small role in his death, but-as always-he
preferred not to dwell on that fact too much. What seemed
true was that he wasn't exactly a major player in the Pri
ory of Zion, and the castle was no big secret base. It was,
however, according to Morrison, extremely close to
Rennes-le-Ch.lteau. Clearly, that's why they were there.
Both he and Morrison were on their way to the village
when they were nabbed and brought to Blanchefort.
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the sting. He could feel that the cuts were still bleeding a little.
"Security protocols, huh?" Morrison said. "So you think
you're being monitored?"
McCain didn't answer.
"By who?" Morrison pressed.
"Maybe by the ultraterrestrials," McCain said.
" Nah Morrison replied. "They don't work that way. They
,"
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23(
of a a ed an ge I a
them there."
"Sounds good," McCain said.
235
I ·
1
.·
eane could see the driver of the first car-a large,
hairy fellow. There was someone in the passenger
seat as well, but she didn't get a good look at him.
They were going fast, but they didn't seem to pay any
attention to her.
The second vehicle was a pickup truck. It had only
one occupant, and it was also moving veiy quickly; flying
by her as she sat on a bench on the street in Rennes-les
Bains. She sipped espresso just around the comer from
where Ngan and the others studied the results of Luther's
so-called "working." She just could not see a single rea
son to believe it was going to help them at all, and felt it
better to give herself a few moments of distance.
The fading afternoon sun was pleasant and warm,
having finally burned away the haze that had filled the
sky for most of the day. The espresso was strong, and
she sipped it veiy slowly.
The third car spoiled the mood entirely. It was a long, ·
238
ef a g ed a n ge I s
trained eye observed, was Clarisse, the Priory of Zion woman from
the London airport. Jeane hadn't been expecting to see her again.
Clearly, these speeding cars were looking for them. Fortu
nately, they'd turned down a narrow side street rather than
heading into the square where the others were. Jeane tossed
down the cup and bolted across and down the street. As she
rounded the corner, she saw the van but not her companions.
She yelled "Run!" as loudly as she could, hoping to prepare
them for action and get them alert. A few steps later, she yelled
it again. She knew Ngan would assess the situation quickly and
get the other two into the van, if that route of escape seemed
possible and if he didn't see an immediate threat. Otherwise
he'd have them scatter into the village on foot if need be.
Jeane vaulted over a hedge and landed running. She was
very happy to see exhaust coming out of the back of the van.
The rear door was open as she approached, and Luther looked
out, clutching a crumpled sheet of paper. ·
237
monte co o k
around her. It threatened to occupy all her senses if she let it. As
much as it seemed to bother her, however, she saw that it both·
ered Ngan more. Though most of him was blocked from view, he
was clearly doubled over in his seat. Even overthe vibration and
electronic hum, she could hear him groan in pain.
"Shut this thing off!" Jeane yelled.
Luther looked at her, and Ngan. "What's up with him?"
"Ngan is pretty . . . sensitive,• Jeane said. "The low-frequency
transmission must be affecting him somehow.•
When Jeane was a little girl, her parents always made her
sit in the back of their large, American car. Even when it wa.S
just her mom or just her dad, she sat in the back. She hated it
then, and she hated it now. It was bad enough not to be the
driver in a situation like this, but to not even be able to see
what was going on was terrible. And now, it seemed, Ngan and
Michelle either couldn't hear her over the tempest cage, or
they were ignoring her.
Michelle screamed a curse. There was an impact along the
left side of the car and a scraping sound. Jeane could see just
enough of the windshield to make out a car passing them. As
she watched, she saw Ngan bolt upright.
He looked straight ahead and shouted, "Michael!"
McCain? In the car? "Where?" Jeane shouted, to no avail.
She got no response from either of them-Ngan crumpled
again in what looked like pain.
Jeane would be damned if she was going to sit in the back
of this van and do nothing. She pulled out her pistol and slid in
her last remaining clip.
"What the hell are you going to do?" Luther asked.
She ignored him, took '!- deep breath, and got a firm grip on
a metal bar that was a part of the electronic array over her
head. With the muzzle of the gun, she pushed on the latch of
the door, and the door flew open with its own weight.
"Holy crap!" Luther cried as he pulled himself farther from
the door.
The pickup truck was directly behind them and accelerat·
ing-probably in an attempt to get around them. Jeane lowered
f38
of a g ed a n ge l a
the .380 automatic and fired three rounds at the driver. The
windshield shattered, and the car decelerated.
"The cage doesn't work with the door open!" Michelle
yelled back.
Jeane took another deep breath and tucked the pistol into her
pants. Ignoring the truck and its fate, she turned around so her
backwas to them and she hung slightly out through the door.
"I don't think she gives a damn!" Luther shouted.
Using all her strength, Jeane pulled herself up so that her
upper torso was on top of the van, where she saw a metal lug·
gage rack and some things she couldn't identify-though they
probably had something to do with the electronics inside the
van. Steadying her left foot on something-she hoped it was
sturdy-she reached out with her right hand and grabbed the
luggage rack. With a good grip there, she pulled herself for·
ward, reaching up to grab it with the other hand as well. Even
tually, she got to where she was lying on top of the van, on top
of the luggage rack, to be precise. She hoped Luther would
have the brains to close the door-assuming he could.
Jeane looked ahead and saw the small, tan car in front ofthem.
That was the car Ngan had looked at when he shouted McCain's
name. She pulled herself a little fartherup alongthe roof ofthevan
and waved at the car ahead. Maybe McCain bruin't realized that t i
was them-maybe he had. In any event, she wanted to make sure
McCain saw her and knew for sure that they were in the van.
Unfortunately, as she tried to raise her body up and wave,
she accomplished two things she'd not intended. First, she got a
good look at the road they were on-narrow, winding, and on
the side of a steep hillwith a frightening drop-off to the left. Sec
ond, she lost her balance and slipped, just barely catching on
again. She was unsteady and heard a noise behind her. She
wanted to take the time to get a better grip on the luggage rack,
but instead instinct dragged her body around to see what was
going on behind her. The blue sedan, the one she'd seen Clarisse
in, was still behind them. The truck was moving up and around
on their right with great speed. The windshield was gone, and it
appeared that her gunfire had taken out the passenger, but the
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m onte co o k
driver was all right. The inside of the cab was covered with blood.
Jeane estimated that the van was traveling at about sixty
miles per hour-and up this hill, that might be as fast as
Michelle could get it to go. The truck, however, had some good
acceleration. Was it just trying to get around them, or was it
going to tzy to push them off the cliff? Jeane had no idea.
Michelle allowed it to get to one side. Damn, Jeane thought,
if only I were driving. That wouldn't have happened.
The van moved to the right. No, not now! It's too late to cut
him off.
The van collided with the truck as the two rubbed sides.
Jeane, already off-balance, lost her grip with one hand. The
other was slipping. She looked around her for something to
grab onto quickly and looked behind to see Clarisse leaning out
of the sedan with a pistol pointed in her direction.
Jeane yelled and rolled to the right, flinging her body into
the bed of the pickup truck.
HI
of a g ed an ge I a
241
mente co o �
ally, the pickup slid over to the right side of the road.
"Good," Morrison said. "Now getthem to pass us."
He slowed the car down a bit and McCain waved them
ahead. Jeane got the message. The truck went past them.
. McCain gave Jeane a huge grin as the truck drove by.
"Okay, now-• Morrison started, but then interrupted
himself when he checked in the rearview mirror. "Uh oh."
The sedan was pulled up to the side of the van now, and a
woman was reaching out of the passenger side with a pistol,
taking wild shots. At the same time, though, the driver of the
blue sedan was effectively maneuvering the van off the road.
McCain fired his Beretta twice in the direction ofthe sedan.
Was that Clarisse? It was hard to tell. Whoever it was, his
shots missed.
"Your friends in the van are in trouble. Get back in the car .
!4�
of a g ed an ge I 1
"Jim," he said, pulling the large man away from the steer
ing wheel.
Monison's metallic eyes were open, though one appeared full
of blood. The bullet had struck him in the lower neck. McCain
was no medical expert, but he couldn't imagine Monison could
last long with a wound ofthat nature. Blood was everywhere.
"Michael," Morrison whispered hoarsely. He acted as
though all his remaining strength was being converted directly
into words.
"I lied," Morrison said. "I wasn't here looking forthe Holy Grail
. . . and I'm not really fun Morrison . I'm a clone. Just like . . . you."
McCain stared at him dumbfounded-and skeptical.
Monison continued •And I was looking for you. You're my
Holy Grail, Michael. With you . . . Just like me. Just like you.
We're the same, created for the same thing. Like I said
you're better at it than I ever was."
"You're delirious," McCain said halfheartedly. "Don't worry.
I'll get you help."
"So this is the other side of the door," Morrison said, staring
off above him. "The end . . . it's not what I expected it to be."
"Everything's gonna be okay," McCain said, not even hearing
himself.
"Tomorrowwe enter the city of mybirth. I want to be ready: . . ."
Jim Monison was dead.
!43
i
.
!44
of a g ed a n ge I s
in halting English, "and you were just there in the van. It was
. . ." He shook his head.
She had to get back and talk to McCain. And who was that
with him in the car? Her mind reeled with other questions for
the driver, but she doubted he would have much in-depth info
on the secret society he worked for.
"Okay," she said, "so you work for the Priory of Zion, and-"
He shook his head. "Who?"
She was puzzled. "Who do you work for?"
"I was hired by Georges Joannie to be the . . . to help him
with rough problems. He had two men in the chateau. And a few
more in the village. There were others, but I did not know them."
This guy was just a hired goon.
"Do you have a gun?" Jeane asked him.
He pointed at the machine pistol on the other man's lap.
Jeane grabbed the weapon and tossed it in the grass by the
road. Painfully, she put her pistol in her other hand so she
could use her good arm to climb over the side of the truck.
Once on the ground, the man cranked the car into gear and
stepped on the accelerator.
Jeane put her pistol in her right hand. She had a clear shot
at the driver as he drove away.
"Good," she whispered. "Go."
Once the truck was out of sight, she walked back to find
the others.
zu
m onte co o k
the door and stepped gingerly out. About thirty yards down the
road behind the van, he saw McCain looking over the edge of the
road down the incline. Ngan followed his gaze and saw the blue
sedan that. had been following them upside down, smashed and
wrecked. Michelle and Luther stood staring at the small car that
McCain had been in, embedded into the side of the hill, its rear
end crunched and twisted. The passenger side door hung open.
McCain looked up and saw Ngan. He walked quickly
toward him, though Ngan could see he was a little banged up.
"Michael," Ngan shouted. "I am so glad to see you!"
McCain smiled. "You don't look so good," he said once he
finally reached Ngan and clasped his shoulder-the one that
wasn't still a little bloody. McCain looked equally unwell. His
face was cut and bruised. His clothes were torn and dirty.
"Glad to see you found the kid and t.he girl." McCain
motioned toward Luther and Michelle.
"Why are they staring at that car, Michael?"
McCain looked at his feet. "I told them the name of the
dead man in the driver's seat.n
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The sun was setting as they reached the spot, over ten
miles from Rennes-le-Chateau. By that time, Ngan had used
Michelle's first aid kit to deal with Jeane's arm, McCain's cuts,
and some rather nasty cuts on his own arm. The trip in the
now-crowded van was just long enough for McCain to explain
that he'd been captured by Clarisse and some thugs, dragged
to some castle, interrogated and plied with drugs, and thrown
into a cell with Jim Monison, an intelligence agent with his
own agenda. He chose not to say anything about the Holy Grail
or the information Monison had given him-not yet. Anyway,
they seemed to be fairly well informed about the whole
Rennes-le-Cha.teau thing already. In fact they knew a lot more
than he did, talking about some priest named Sauniere who
first revealed that there was a secret hidden there.
With the aid of some flashlights, they left their vehicle and
traveled on foot, following a stream.
"This will be hard to find in the dark," Ngan said.
"Let's, like, at least give it a shot," Luther said, staring at
a sheet of paper. "It should be pretty close to this river and just
up ahead somewhere."
"The old tomb was around here, according to the guide
book, until it disappeared mysteriously," Michelle said.
"Apparently, the owner of the land had something to do with it,
but he wouldn't talk."
"If I worked for the Priory of Zion," Jeane said, "and I was
trying to safeguard a secret that had something to do with that
old tomb, I'd get rid of it too."
McCain wasn't sure what they expected to find. Could this
be the resting spot of the Grail?
"Look over here," Luther's voice carried across the dark
evening.
The moon had yet to rise, but the stars were coming out,
only a few hiding behind wispy clouds. They followed his voice
and saw an open area only a few dozen feet from the edge of
the stream. The grass was clearly newer and the soil slightly
different. An old stone was visible jutting up out of the dirt.
"Even in the dark," Ngan said, "you can imagine that the
247
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249
monte co o k
speak for Luther, but he suspected strongly that this was all
pretty new to him, too. Nevertheless, i� was invigorating. He'd
never had the chance to look for buried treasure before.
Jeane pulled McCain a few steps away from the others and
said, "Fitz, you're goingto have to be the one who goes down."
He looked at her with upraised brows. "What?"
"Ngan's injury is worse than he'll let on. My arm's not going
to let me maneuver well, and-" her voice became a whisper
"! don't want either of them going down there alone.� She
pointed her chin to where Luther stood talking with Michelle.
"Okay." 'lhlth was, he didn't mind all that much.
"I'm going down," McCain said, walking over to Ngan with
his hand out for the torch.
"We'll hand it to you when you're down," Ngan said. "The
water does not appear to be more than sixteen inches deep or
so, Michael, but be careful."
"I'll go down too," Luther said, joining them.
"There probably isn't room for two people down there,"
McCain said. "If I can't find anything, you can go down after I
come back up."
Jeane scowled at that, but McCain shrugged it off. Luther
seemed to accept it.
Ngan and Luther helped lower McCain, but he still had to
drop down about two feet onto unsure footing. He slipped and
fell immediately upon touching the ground, dunking all of him
but his head into near freezing water.
"Shit!" he yelled.
He yelled some more and used the wall to brace himself so
he could stand.
McCain stood in a natural cave, long and thin, extending down
toward the river. In the other direction, the tunnel narrowed
quickly-4here was only one wayto go. Thewallswere about three
feetapart and about five feet high. The water up to his mid·tbigh. He
could feel that his feet rested on solid rock-the light current prob
ably kept any buildup from forming. Still, the rock was very slick.
He sighed and held up his hand through the hole. "All right,
gimme."
250
of a g ad a n ge t s
Luther lit the torch with his lighter and handed it down to
McCain.
"You've only got a few minutes with that, most likely,"
Ngan said.
Still hanging onto the wall, McCain carefully brought the
torch down and thrust it ahead of him. The cave widened
slightly toward the river. Ducking down-knowing full well he
would be lucky to get out of there without hitting his head on
the low ceiling less than three or four times-he moved care
fully forward.
After about a dozen slow, careful steps, he saw something
ahead.
A few more steps.
It was a rock thrust up from the floor, the water going
around it. The cave widened to about eight feet across, and
narrowed again, making sort of a circular chamber. The walls
were covered with symbols engraved into the rock--<:rosses,
ankhs, a Star of David, and many more that McCain didn't rec
ognize. Holy symbols. Religious symbols. The rock in the cen
ter had a small hollowed spot where something once rested,
but now it was empty. The ceiling rose a little so he didn't have
to hunch over.
He moved all around the strange chamber, searching for
anything informative. The rock pedestal in the center was obvi
ously the key feature, but whatever it held was gone. Since he
was wet anyway, he felt around on the floor as best he could
with his free hand to see if anything had fallen off the rock, but
he found nothing.
Only after he went back to the symbols did he find some-
thing interesting.
"Michael, are you all right?" It was Ngan's voice.
"Hang on, I'll come back in a minute," he shouted back.
On the wall, away from the other symbols, McCain saw a
cruder scrawl carved into the dark, wet rock. It clearly showed
a boat of some kind and a line that ended at a figure. In the
middle of the figure, which didn't mean anything to him at first,
was a cross with scalloped edges. He harl seen that sort of cross
251
monte co 11 k
only once before-in Rosslyn Chapel. The figure it was in, McCain
decided, could pass for a crude representation of S�d. The
carver didn't exactly have a delicate medium in which to work.
McCain's legs were already beginning to numb from the
cold, but there was more. Another line went from the "Scot
land" figure farther along (west?) to another figure, perhaps a
land mass. This one seemed more carefully drawn, but McCain
didn't recognize it. In the middle of ·that figure was another
symbol McCain didn't recognize. It wasn't a scalloped cross or
anything like it. He studied it and tried to make sense of it.
Then his torch went out.
"Damn," McCain snorted.
In his fascination with the symbol, he hadn't even noticed
that the light was dying.
"What is it?" Jeane's voice came from down the tunnel.
"Get something for me to write on when I get up and out
I've got to get it down quickly.n
He threw the torch into the water and put one hand on the
wall. The other he held out in front of him to feel and to help
him balance. McCain slowly made his way along the wall, one
step at a time.
It was much more difficult towalk against the current, even
though it wasn't that strong. He slipped and banged his right
knee on the rock. Wmcing quietly, he tried to stand, fighting
against his body's urge to curl up into a ball to fight offthe cold.
Once on his feet again, he took a few more steps-
-and fell another time. When he tried to pull himself up,
he could see the daylight and the hole ahead of him. It gave
him the strength to stand, whereupon he immediately bashed
his head against the stone above him.
"Michael, are you all right?" Ngan shouted down.
"I'm coming," he said. Even to his own ears, his voice was
shaky and coarse.
He tried to keep his head down and struggled a few more
steps before bumping his head again. He felt the urge to close
his eyes. Between bumping his head and the cold, he would ·
soon be unconscious. He wished he hadn't thrown away the
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. 253
:. N gan stood next to a table and three chairs, all
knocked over and in disarray. A board game, with
lots of playing pieces, dice, and fake money lay
scattered about the floor. He recognized the place.
He was in his own mind.
This wasn't his secret spring, but a new place. A
place created by his interaction and empathic connec
tion with Luther, he assumed. He wouldn't have cre·
ated such a place on his own. It was outside his
experience. But now it was practically destroyed and
the people were gone.
There was a buzzing sound in the background,
which reminded him of something he couldn't quite put
his finger on. He wandered around, looking at the walls
that once surrounded the table, now smashed and
destroyed, pieces of drywall and paneling lying all
around. Beyond that, evecything was white.
That droning noise caught his attention again,
though it seemed like it shouldn't. Was s'Omething
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van. She was still unconscious in the back, but Jeane bound
her tightly anyway, using the bandages that Ngan had fash
ioned into a sling for her. It was more important to her to make
sure that bitch was out of commission than her arm was kept
steady. She rode in the passenger side with McCain and Ngan
in the back.
"Right," Luther said. "She mentioned that more than once
to me."
"Which ties in with our own research at the chapel, regard
ing Hemy Sinclair and his naval voyage to the New World,"
Jeane said.
"My drawing's not the best," McCain said, "but the shape I
saw wasn't Nova Scotia."
"What if it's an island?" Ngan said.
"Geography's not my strong suit," Jeane said, "but I think
there's thousands of islands along the east coast of Canada
there."
"The lnstitute's database has a geographic location search
engine," McCain said. "If we scanned that image, we could use
it to find a match."
"Wow," Luther said, nodding, "that's pretty cool."
"We can't access the Institute database," Ngan said. "If there
is even a chance of a leak or a double agent watching for us, the
Priory of Zion or Psychotech could be upon us in short order."
"Ngan, how long is this going to go on?" Jeane asked. "We
can't remain incommunicado forever.•
"Just until we get Luther back safely."
"And I'm not going anywhere until we find the treasure,"
Luther said. "We're close. C'mon.•
"But we can't use the lnstitute's resources . . ." Jeane
shook her head. It seemed foolish to even consider.
"Haven't I proven anything to you by now?" Luther
smacked a hand on the dashboard. "I know a few things
about computers. With help from you guys, I could get in
and out of the Hoffmann Institute system without anyone
·
ever knowing."
·�h, that is so many kinds of wrong," Jeane said.
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lay at the bottom of the pit, but it could never be reached with
out flooding whatever pit was dug. To date, no one had ever
reached the bottom of the Money Pit. Truly, Nova Scotia was
the Arcadia that the Templars sought.
McCain told them about what Morrison said. He told them
that the treasure was nothing less than the object known in
myth as the Holy Grail.
"You've got to be joking," Jeane said.
"Nope. I mean, at least he wasn't joking. I don't know if he
was right. He made a convincing argument, though."
"The Holy freakin' Grail," Luther said, shaking his head.
"Too cool."
Luther also found a reference to a secret society in Canada
that the Institute had almost no information on. In fact, they
were written off as fable at best and crackpots at worst. They
called themselves, apparently, the Guardians of the Grail.
Though the Hoffmann Institute files made no reference to Oak
Island, McCain could o�y come to the conclusion that the Pri·
ory of Zion had influence in Canada as well. Of course they did.
If the Grail was there, so were they-watching over it.
On Jeane's insistence, he even put work orders n
i for a con
tainment team to be sent to the airport in the French city of
Carcassonne to find a grey van and a woman within it. They
had left her there, after inflicting a fair amount of damage on
the electronic devices in the van-just in case.
After purchasing some new clothes and taking an opportu
nity to get cleaned up and have a meal in Carcassonne, they
managed to get a flight to London, and from there they flew to
Halifax, Nova Scotia. Even Ngan slept on the plane, after all
they'd been through.
280
� ;d you thought you were finished (or did you see
this coming?).
You stand next to the overturned table and the scat
tered bits ofthe game. The walls ofthe room are destroyed,
and there is only a calm, white area beyond. Ngan stands
next to you.
"Who are you?" he asks.
"That's a good question," you reply with a half
hearted smile. "See, I was reading this book . ." Your
.
and cards.
"Oh, ah, sure,• you reply.
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You can't bring yourself to say it. How would he react? It's
better not to say anything. Maybe you'll be able to go back to
reading your book soon.
"Never mind," you say instead. "I get it."
You notice, as you pick up the last of the cards, that the
table is gone, as are the walls. Only one chair remains.
"Where is everything going?"
"This device has worked pretty well," Ngan says, "but it's
time to try something else. It's not really, as they say, me. This
was once a beautiful, secluded spring in a forest with a gentle
breeze." Ngan looks off, somewhat wistfully.
"But my experience with the Psychotech device and fight
ing against it . . changed me, somehow,• Ngan continues. "I
.
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of a g ed a n ge I a
that was right on the waterfront. The clientele was small, and
·
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. 287
Wbile we were on the plane you guys were all sleep
ing, but I wasn't," Luther said. "I was like, 'Hey
stewardess, keep the caffeine train running up to
my seat,' and I worked. I took that symbol McCain saw
in the middle of what turned out to be Oak Island, and
I coded a quick program that would draw that symbol.
Kaos magick often, like, relies on glyphs and symbols
to enable focus. A particular symbol goes with a par·
ticular end. That symbol, I think, is the key to the spell
that keeps the Grail secure."
"But Luther, Kaos magick wasn't even a concept
backwhenthat symbol was created, right?" Jeane asked.
McCain was surprised to hear this. Jeane, with a
relevant question about magickal techniques? Maybe
this was the end of the world after all.
"Kaos magick is about whatever works. I think this
might work."
"So what do you do with the program?" McCain
asked.
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recoil and little sound. She couldn't tell if it hit her target or
not. This was followed with a blast of energy, arcing out
toward the helicopter, striking it. The helicopter lit up with
energy and for a moment almost looked like it lost its shape
and became a blur.
Then it flew over her.
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f75
1-:� be the one who tells Dr. Nakami that we lost
Luther."
"You bet you will," Jeane said, smiling.
"It's not going to look good in our personal files,"
McCain said. "Another failure."
"And insubordination," Ngan said. "We avoided
messages and instructions from up the chain of
command."
The Chicago office had already been repaired.
Crews had searched the air ducts and every other part
of the building and found no creature like the one Jeane
had described, but they had found some strange acidic
residue that was immediately shipped off to the
Chicago Specimen Collection for testing.
McCain and Ngan sat in the office all three shared.
Jeane set a large specimen case on the floor next to her
desk and sat down as well. She made out a label for it,
and wrote: "Insectoid energy projecting weapon: ultra
terrestrial origin," dated it, and placed it on the side.
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She almost forgot to give it the case number. She wrote "23"
on the label.
"I wrote up my own field test report for this thing," she
said, patting the case. "I'm calling it a success.•
"Maybe they'll be standard field issue one day," McCain said.
"Well, I'm glad we had it,• Jeane said.
"So am I," Ngan said.
Jeane lowered her voice and asked, "What about the secu
rity breach? Are you still worried that we can't completely .
trustthe Institute?"
"More than ever, in fact,• Ngan answered in his normal voice.
"No matter what happens, we should always be on our guard.•
"It's nice knowing there's always a couple people I can
trust," McCain said with his biggest put-on grin. "And of
course there's you two."
"What about Nakami?" Jeane asked, still serious.
"I've been thinking about that. I do believe Dr. Nakami
knew more about Luther, the ultraterrestrials, and even the
Grail. He is extremely insightful and privy to knowledge I can
not begin to guess the origin of. But if Nakami did know about
Luther's special nature and his lifelong connection with some
thing I believe was the Grail, then perhaps we ended up doing
exactly what he wanted.•
"So then maybe we won't be in such hot water,• McCain
said hopefully.
"No, I think we'll be all right."
Jeane asked, "Why wouldn't he just tell us all that in the
first place?"
"I suspect he also knows about the information leaks,"
Ngan said.
He got up and poured himself another cup of coffee.
"So you file your report?" Jeane asked McCain.
"You mean about the . . .•
"The flying saucer, yeah."
"I just called it an unidentifiable anomaly.•
"Good one,• she said. "Maybe I'll use that too.•
"For the helicopter?"
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"Right."
"What do you think happened to all of . . .whatever they
were?" Jeane asked Ngan. •After Luther disappeared, and they
disappeared, and . . . then what?"
"I believe," Ngan said, "that once their goal was unattain
able, they left."
"Back to . . . wherever?" McCain said.
"Whoknows? Almost by definition, we can not know. It will
do us no good to speculate further."
"And Luther?" McCain asked.
"The Grail has a new guardian," Ngan said.
"An anarchist, smart-mouthed, disrespectful punk
guardian with delusions of grandeur," Jeane said, grimacing to
hide her own smile.
McCain laughed. "Yeah, and that's pretty cool."
Ngan nodded. "Pretty cool."
278
•
{fivt)
BY IUIT CDllUMED
Don Bassingthwaite
January 2002
Coming as an electronic download on www.wizards.com
FORGOTTEN REALMS, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, and the Wizards of the Coast logo are
registered trademarks owned by \V"tzards of the Coast, Inc. DARK•MATTER is a
trademark owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
02001 \V"tzards of the Coast. lnc.