Authors: Al Ruksenas
“
Maybe so,” a technician muttered, a little irritated at being second guessed by this stranger with credentials. “We’ll know after a complete forensic analysis.”
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Any idea who she might be?” Colonel Jones asked impulsively.
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No. You?” the technician replied coldly.
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No. Poor thing.” Colonel Jones didn’t feel right to tell him he was relieved the victim was not Jeannie McConnell.
He stepped back towards Rawlins who was a few feet up the ravine. The Colonel patted the dogs, thinking of the two burly ones lunging at him and Colonel Caine during the firefight in Beirut. “Thanks for the call.”
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I wish I didn’t have to make it.”
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I know.”
They bade good
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bye as a police officer cautiously approached Rawlins, wary of the two bulldogs. Colonel Jones nodded to the officer, pushed aside some brush and made his way back towards official vehicles lined up along the isolated park road.
Chapter 35
The two operatives of the Omega Group were already in General William Bradley’s Pentagon office in the pre
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dawn hours, when Colonel Jones received the urgent call from the retired professor.
The looks of General Bradley and Colonel Caine posed the same question as they listened: Could the victim be Jeannie McConnell?
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Head out there,” Bradley ordered when Jones hung up. “Make sure of an ID. This could change the tone of the whole investigation.”
He rose from his leather armchair and went to his desk, instructing an aide through the intercom. “Call the park rangers and metro police. Colonel Jones will give you details. He’s just leaving.”
Bradley returned to the armchair opposite Colonel Caine, who was sitting on the studded leather sofa along the office wall. Between them was a glass coffee table with sweet rolls and coffee as fuel for the debriefing the General had been conducting.
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Well, Chris, if your speculation about Sherwyck is anywhere near correct, then that victim in the park can no way be Jeannie McConnell.”
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I agree, sir.”
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Too bad, though, whoever she is. It’s not the first body found in that reserve.”
A thoughtful silence ensued. Both officers drank their coffee and sampled the continental breakfast.
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You think there’s any connection?” General Bradley eventually asked.
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When there’s a deadly pattern, I always do, sir. Only innocent things can be coincidences. Evil is typically repetitive, even cumulative.”
General Bradley nodded slightly.
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So, you think that bullet hole you found in the van at Sherwyck’s has some connection to something.”
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It’s the van that picked up the thugs who attacked us outside the museum that night.”
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Because you marked it with a bullet? For identification?”
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The only option, sir. It was speeding away in the dark.”
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You did the right thing under the circumstances, but do you have any idea how many vans around Washington could have bullet holes in them? Look at any dented street sign in parts of town, or along the highways.”
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True, sir. But things tie in here. There’s something going on. Who’d have an armed gang outside the museum at night? In fact, it reminds me that the waiters at the official reception that night were out of place. Carruthers tells me it’s a union contract provision: only their members attend to the museum at night. Sherwyck shepherded that contract as a museum trustee. Something ties in with that whole diamond business.”
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When people talk about the curse of the Hope Diamond, they do it with a smile, Chris. Like I said before, I don’t think you’d want to present a fairy tale at a strategy session of the Omega Group.”
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Circumstantial evidence suggests it might not be a fairy tale,” Colonel Caine said unshakably. “What’s scary, General, is that Laura Mitchell, the woman demonstrating her uncle’s pentagram theory for me, predicted something was likely to happen at the Cathedral during Stack’s funeral.”
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I’ll grant you that, Chris, but we can’t act unless we have something air tight. Something that practically hits us in the face.”
Caine sat back cradling his cup of coffee and prepared himself again to hear caution.
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This is not some neighborhood roust of a burglar. We’re talking about accusations against a renowned national icon. And let me remind you,” the General emphasized, “you haven’t even seen Sherwyck, let alone speak with him. You’re tying together a series of tragic accidents and implying conspiracy. The only thing right now that even remotely connects them are some coincidences. And not logically related at that. We’re speculating here about esoteric theories. The occult.”
General Bradley took a deep breath. “You know, even my suspicion of Senator Dunne as the leak that got you attacked in the Mediterranean was smoothed over by the Vice President—God rest his soul—during our Omega Group meeting. A plausible coincidence, he said, given all the violence going on over there.”
Colonel Caine raised an eyebrow as he slowly took another sip of his coffee. The General no longer implied treachery by Senator Dunne, but used the defensible, even innocent word “leak.”
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And the black stallion in Sherwyck’s barn? General Starr?”
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Don’t get me wrong, Chris. I’m with you on this. We can draw a very connected picture. But is it actionable? I’m hearing bizarre theories. Who do we accuse? Of what? And how? That some tragic accidents happened? That there were some animals nearby? That some cabal is working black magic with their gibberish?”
General Bradley leaned back in his armchair, frustrated at his own words.
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If the various accidents were evil acts, Chris. In your own words. How do we connect them? How are they cumulative? Where’s the evil hand guiding them?”
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Well, sir. There is one clincher that could hit us in the face. But I hope to heaven it doesn’t happen.”
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I know, Chris. I know. Your theory would be proven if some accident befell the President.”
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Right, sir,” Caine emphasized. “If our speculation is correct. That’s where all these events are leading. Like we discussed at the Army and Navy Club.”
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Michelle McConnell assumes the Presidency and she’s automatically ripe for blackmail by whoever has her daughter.”
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Right, sir. And Philip Taylor simultaneously has authority over the nuclear button.”
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But there’s nothing against Taylor,” General Bradley noted.
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True, sir. Except that the President was dead set against him to take Ron Stack’s place as Secretary of Defense.”
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As far as we know that’s just political gamesmanship,” General Bradley countered. “One party versus the other in the perpetual race for the White House. Taylor has a reputation as a professional bureaucrat.”
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The only thing that’s against him right now, is that Sherwyck insisted upon his appointment when Defense Secretary Stack died.”
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That’s just it, Chris. You and I are holding that connection against him. No one else is. He’s an upstanding public servant who’s been in the government who knows how many years.”
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All that aside, sir,” Caine said to shift emphasis. “We have the potential of Michelle McConnell suddenly becoming President of the United States. Her daughter is missing and presumed kidnapped. I think the Middle East lead was a stall for time. The attack on Arie and me in the ocean was meant for us not to reach our contact. Why? Because our contact, Hammad, would tell us that terrorists had nothing to do with Jeannie’s disappearance. When they couldn’t kill us in the ocean, they attacked Hammad too. And it all looks like just another day of factional fighting in the Middle East.”
General Bradley shifted his weight onto his elbow on the arm rest. His eyes fixed on his operative as he listened.
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I think that the ultimate blackmail scenario is being worked on by someone right now!” Caine asserted.
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You’re suggesting somehow by means of that legend? The curse of the Hope Diamond?”
Colonel Caine leaned back in the sofa looking resolutely at the General across from him. He didn’t answer.
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You know how far we can go with this, don’t you?” Bradley continued.
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Obviously, sir. We couldn’t present this to the Omega Group.”
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Obviously! Can you imagine the public reaction if word ever leaked out that high level government officials were dabbling in the occult? Entertaining sorcery as the cause of a major crisis?”
Colonel Caine lowered his eyes and focused on a glazed donut on the coffee table. His face took on a distant look.
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Although, General, someone in the Omega Group knows exactly what we’re talking about,” he added cryptically.
A voice on the intercom announced that Colonel Jones had returned.
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Send him right in,” General Bradley answered without hesitation.
Colonel Jones hurried into the office announcing, “It’s not her!” even before he sat down in another armchair around the coffee table.
When he settled into where he had been an hour earlier, he looked to General Bradley and his fellow commando. “From her clothes, it appears like another jogger. They’ll be doing further analysis. The lucky thing is, the body was hidden there recently. Todd Rawlin’s dogs discovered her while roaming their usual haunts.”
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Good old, Rawlins,” General Bradley interjected. “We should bring him in for another seminar. He deserves some appreciation after the rotten deal he got at the university.”
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True, sir,” Colonel Jones said. “You can never be too eccentric.”
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Too bad he found a body,” Bradley lamented with morbid humor. “Maybe someday his dogs will spot a camped
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out terrorist shitting in the woods.”
The three grinned at the visual image.
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Victims in the past were too far gone,” Colonel Jones continued.
Bradley and Caine nodded concurrence.
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They had just enough from the bones to prove foul play. This poor thing was only there for days—no one’s sure exactly how many—there were strange blue markings on her torso.” “Blue markings?” Caine suddenly lurched forward on the sofa. “From the part I saw, it looked like some kind of design.” “Draw it, before you forget!” Caine urged as he stood up. “With your permission, sir.” Colonel Jones left his armchair and went to the General’s desk. He grabbed a legal pad and an ink pen from a commemorative stand. The General and Colonel Caine were already hovering over him when he started to trace a shield
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like design with an X through the middle.
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That’s the part I saw,” Jones noted. “What the hell is that?” General Bradley asked for all three. “I don’t know, but it sure looks purposeful,” Colonel Jones replied.
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Why else trace it on a body?” “I might have a witness,” Caine declared.
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What are you saying, Chris?” General Bradley inquired. “Two workers gave Laura threatening looks in an elevator.” “And?” “She told one of them he had a blue streak on his neck. Might smear his collar.” General Bradley and Colonel Jones stared at Caine expectantly. “Didn’t you tell me she heard a women screaming inside the museum?” Colonel Jones added. “I’m beginning to think she was right!” “When? The night you were attacked?” General Bradley pressed. Colonel Caine nodded. The three officers peered with grim curiosity at the design Jones had drawn. “There’s someone who could help us with this,” Caine said tearing the illustrated sheet off the pad.” “Sir?” He looked to the General. “Carry on!” Colonel Caine saluted and hurried out of the office.
Chapter 36
Laura Mitchell was discussing with her students the impact of Napoleon Bonaparte on early 19th Century Europe. She smiled to herself when she heard the loud rumble of a car’s engine outside a window of her seminar room. She recognized it as Colonel Caine’s roadster. The rumble faded in and out several times.
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Can’t find a parking space,” she thought, then after a mirthful pause, continued.