"Uh-oh," Joseph said, "sounds like the cereologist-baiters have found a new game."
"The what?" Laika asked.
"The folks who made the crop circles in England. Some here in the States, too. The people who went for it called themselves cereologists—"
"After Ceres, goddess of grain and the harvest." Tony grinned. "I just want to make sure you know you're not the only college graduate in the car."
"
Touché
," Joseph said. "And do you also know that they were, and are, all fakes?"
"So I've been told. Seems natural to me."
"These designs in the sand are probably the same kind of thing," Joseph said. "Fakes."
"Maybe," said Laika. "But they sure weren't made the same way. As I recall, the crop circle people used wooden contraptions that they pushed in front of them, and grain, if it isn't pressed down hard, will spring back up again, so that you can walk through it and leave no trace. But these sand circles were fairly deep—up to eight inches where the sand was softest—and there were no prints of feet or vehicles approaching the area."
"Ah, aliens coming down from the sky, no doubt," Joseph said. "And what were the designs anyway?"
"There were two. A stepped pyramid and a triangle."
For a moment, they all were silent. "A triangle, huh?" Joseph said thoughtfully. "Those things get around."
Tony knew they were all remembering the triangle of sculpted iron that had led them to the hiding place of the prisoner in New York City, and, most of all, the isosceles triangle drawn in Peder Holberg's dried blood that had pointed west-southwest, the precise location of Arizona from New York City.
"These symbols were used by the ancient Anasazi," Laika said quietly.
"An Indian tribe?" Tony asked.
"Yes. Vanished centuries ago. But they left a lot of ruins behind. Mesa Verde's the biggest, but there are also sites at Chaco, Navajo National Monument, Canyon de Chelly—all over the southwest."
"How come you're up on all this?" Joseph asked.
"I had two courses in native American cultures in college. I enjoyed it, so it stuck."
"You know what the symbols mean?" Tony asked.
"Well, the triangle is associated with the sun and with corn, and can be a fertility symbol. If it points up, it stands for fire and the male sex. Down is for water and the female sex."
"And which way is this one pointing?" Tony asked. "That is, if it's isosceles and has a short point."
"It is and it does," Laika said, referring to the dossier. "And if north is up and south is down, the short end is pointing up."
"Fire," said Joseph. "And the male sex." Tony knew what he was thinking: the prisoner was male.
"What about this pyramid?" Tony asked. "So what's the difference between a pyramid and a triangle on a flat plane?"
"A
stepped
pyramid," Laika explained. "It's a common Indian symbol. It can mean rain clouds, or . . . a stairway to heaven, the steps to the next world."
"So we've got a stairway to the next world," said Tony, "and another triangle. That's triangle number three, in fact, if you count the one in Peder Holberg's sculpture and the one back at the warehouse pointing . . . here. Three triangles, three sides . . . a male symbol, and the prisoner was male. . . ."
"Don't let your imagination run wild," said Laika. "To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a triangle is just a triangle."
"Laika's right," Joseph said. "There are more coincidences in life than there are synergies. After all, triangles abound."
"'Triangles abound,'" Tony repeated. "Sounds like a new-age gift shop." He looked back at Laika. "So what do we do first, boss?"
"We get through Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. Then we'll see the medical examiner, talk to the police, and view the body, after which we'll no doubt come up with a brilliant solution. Or not."
Tony's smile faded as they continued to drive. He thought about a desiccated, mummified body, then about Peder Holberg, the sculptor, and his apparent apport, when he was swept from his midtown studio in an instant to the warehouse in the Bronx, smashing into and becoming one with his sculpture, fragments of bone and blood and muscle blending into the iron, then finally dropping from it weeks later, as shards of yellow bone and powdery dry blood, forming the pattern of the triangle.
"There wasn't much moisture left in Peder Holberg, either, was there?" he said, almost to himself, but the others heard.
"There's no connection," Joseph said flatly, his hands on the wheel, eyes on the road.
"No? What happened to Holberg—and his body—was inexplicable. Same with this Lynch."
"It's only inexplicable because we haven't explained it yet," Joseph said wearily. "There is no connection with the prisoner here."
"You don't know that," Tony said. "Maybe you hope there's not, but you can't know that."
F
ather Alexander sat and watched the desert night come slowly. The air was cool on the portico of the Mission of San Pedro, and a breeze was rising, blowing strongly enough that he was at last relieved of the musty smell of the mission's rotting interior.
He shivered, partly from the chill of the air and partly from the knowledge of what was going to come to this place in a few days. He wasn't sure when. He had been called from the Tegakwitha Mission at Houck, one of the few missions flourishing in these days of pagan returns. Even the whites were learning the Indian lore now, looking into the ceremonials as though these foolish practices would give them a glimpse into the beyond that they were incapable of finding in the true faith.
They needed him there, and he had been happy and full of purpose, feeling as though he were the last holdout against the Indians, like the Kit Carson of the stories his father had told him in Ganado when he lived there as a boy. His grandfather had been in the U. S. Cavalry and had filled his father's head with his exploits, and his father, a mostly unemployed house painter, had passed them on to young Alex.
He had quickly become infatuated with the idea of battling Indians, but he knew those days were over. Besides, he was a spindly boy who fared poorly at sports. But he learned there was another way to carry out his grandfather's work, and that was to change the Indians' souls, turn them from their dark gods, their peyote ceremonies, their kivas and their sweat lodges, to the living Christ, through whom even they could be saved.
He brought light to the heathens, but he brought more than that. The church brought education and cleanliness and warm clothing and blankets, taught the Navajo and the Hopi, who were his wards, how to care for themselves and let Jesus care for them. His grandfather, he thought, would be proud of him. While the old man had killed the Indians, his grandson had killed the Indian gods, the things that made them strong. Now they were little more than white men with brown skins, all brothers in Christ.
At the thought of Christ, he remembered what was coming, and he closed his eyes and prayed, asking for the strength to deal with it. The creature had touched him before, nearly seduced him to do its evil bidding, although he had struggled and won through, and no one ever knew how close he had come to sinning. No one ever knew that he had nearly been a murderer.
And now he waited again, here among the steep canyons of southern Utah, for his nemesis to return. He prayed that his years would not tell against him. The first time, he had been young and strong, but now he was old and bent with age. Still, his faith was that much stronger, and that was what was needed to keep the enemy at bay.
That, and prayer.
"W
est," Quentin McIntyre said thoughtfully. "Well, that certainly offers a lot of possibilities, doesn't it?"
Alan Phillips, assistant to the FBI deputy director, did not respond, knowing the question was rhetorical. Phillips had just performed the unpleasant task of telling his boss that the three CIA operatives had evaded their surveillance, thanks to a dumbass rookie screwing up royally what should have been as easy a piece of tail as a two-dollar whore, though Phillips hadn't used those particular words. This was, after all, the FBI.
"Skye's running them, damn it," McIntyre went on. "This isn't a rogue operation, at least to the extent that these operatives are on their own. Skye's behind it, steering all the way, but what the hell that bastard's up to I can't begin to guess." McIntyre took a sip from his coffee mug, then made a face.
"Cold, sir?" Phillips said, and, at McIntyre's nod, took the mug, went down the hall, and refilled it with hot coffee. If he was going to be McIntyre's lackey, he'd be a good one. It was one way to rise in the ranks.
"I'd be willing to bet, though," said McIntyre, when Phillips returned, "that it's got some of that psychic crap mixed up in it. Skye's had a hard-on for that ever since that thing with the Russian psychics the sonofabitch disappeared."
"How deep do you want to go looking for them now?" Phillips asked. "They could be anywhere in the States, or out of it."
"Did our people get any photos before they lost them?"
"No. No sooner found than lost."
"And we can't get them from the CIA, that would tip off Skye. So all we've got is that shot of Luciano from the tabloid, that
Inner Eye
rag. Well, it'll have to do. Have it reproduced and sent to every field agent, along with descriptions of Laika Harris and Joseph Stein. Let's see if we can't get better pictures of the three somewhere—put an agent on that exclusively, but very low profile. I don't want anybody knowing we're looking for these people. And when you send out the data, tell the field to keep on the lookout. Maybe we'll get lucky, maybe not. And tell them to pay particular attention if they're in the vicinity of vaguely so-called paranormal occurrences."
McIntyre grabbed another newspaper off the pile sitting on his desk and began to go through it, looking for any small item that would trigger his deep database of a memory. His glimpse of the photograph of Anthony Luciano had led to the current investigation, and Phillips had seen McIntyre perform even more wondrous leaps from the most seemingly innocent mentions.
Phillips turned and left the office without another word. His boss was at work. There was something deep between McIntyre and Richard Skye of the CIA, but Phillips had no idea what it could be. There had always been a rivalry between the two agencies, and although the CIA had run plenty of operations inside the country, the feds had never liked it, even on the rare occasion when they were informed.
But this thing between McIntyre and Skye seemed to be more than mere professional jealousy. Phillips had the feeling that the deputy director hated Richard Skye. Whenever the FBI became aware of a domestic operation by the Company, they were always interested, since it was possible that it could be a rogue op, run for a traitor's own good. So it was possible that Skye had sent out a team of cps on his own, though Phillips doubted it.
There were too many ways that such an operation could be discovered. He had never heard of anyone successfully covering all the many clandestine bases. There was always something they had missed. From the intelligence that the bureau had gathered on Skye and his operation, it seemed to be sanctioned by everyone it needed to be sanctioned by. At least the cover did.
As for the
deep
cover, the actual operation within the United States, breaking that Company ice was nearly impossible for the bureau. Phillips could only hope that the king spooks knew what was wiggling in their own drawers.
In the meantime, he would do what he could to satisfy Quentin McIntyre. The odds of a field agent stumbling across these three ops were about as long as winning the Virginia state lottery, but hell, Phillips still bought an occasional ticket. So he'd do what McIntyre told him and more. If his number hit and the agents turned up, it would be one hell of a payday for him. McIntyre might not have been the kind of guy who thanked you for schlepping him coffee, but he knew how to recognize performance above and beyond, and that was precisely where Phillips intended to go.
T
hey were close now. They had been scheduled to stop outside of Albuquerque for the night, but had made good enough time through the day that Laika had decided to push on. She was driving now, and Joseph was dozing in the backseat. Laika had loaded the CD changer with all three discs of Birgit Nilsson's 1966 Bayreuth recording of
Tristan und Isolde
, and while listening to it kept her alert, it had been an effective soporific for Joseph.