From the Ashes (25 page)

Wayne knew what he was about to do would go down in history. Of course, the official story would never include his name. The official story said he had died in Iraq seven months ago. They couldn’t give credit to a dead man for actions that he performed posthumously. But Wayne would know. His involvement would be swept under the rug like the powers-that-be knew how to do so well, but
he
would know that because of him, the country was a better, safer place.

As Wayne read the page again, he felt satisfied that he knew what he needed to know. About the past. About the present. And about the future he was about to shape. It was time to draw in his quarry to usher in Phase Two. He pulled out his cell phone and began to compose a text message.

A message that would, one way or the other, change history forever.

The bright sunlight, now on the other side of high noon, seemed somehow darker than when Jon and Mara had entered the home of Catherine Smith. The hope had died, the lead had dried up. And the worst part was that it was real. The lead was
there,
but they had been beaten to the punch by someone who knew a whole lot more about all of this than they did. Someone who had managed to stay two steps ahead of them this whole time. And now they were left with nothing but a vague description that would match any one of thousands of men in the city. A man who, as keen as he seemed to be thus far, wouldn’t allow himself to be just picked out of a crowd.

The despondent pair didn’t know whether to draw hope or further fear from the fact that Ms. Smith’s description didn’t seem to fit the Latino man who had seemed to make Jon’s demise at his hand his top priority. On one hand, the fact that the pursuer whose eyes had burned at Jon with murderous intent was
not
the one who had snatched their one lead away from them brought
some
comfort; Jon’s previous adversary wasn’t the one anticipating their moves. In fact, it had almost seemed by chance that the black-clad man had found the pair, though the fact that he was in the city at all, ostensibly having tracked Jon here, didn’t bode well for their future. On the other hand, they not only knew that the conspiracy and cover-up was real, but that there were
at least
two of these guys after them – one behind and one ahead. And with no clue as to where to go next, the likelihood that one of them would catch up to them soon was steadily growing.

Despite the relatively pleasant weather, Jon and Mara had opted to eat indoors instead of on the patio of the Green Moon Cafe. Snipers’ bullets had a harder time penetrating – and aiming through – walls than in open air. A New York Giants bobblehead perched atop the cash register across the room seemed to be agreeing with everything Jon and Mara were saying. But their conversation was one that they didn’t want anyone, five inches tall and made of plastic or not, to listen in on.

A basket of chicken fingers and fries lay largely untouched in front of Jon; Mara’s Cobb salad looked just like it had when the waitress had brought it out five minutes earlier.

“There’s
got to
be something else,” Mara was saying.

“We’ve gone through the notebook over and over. It looks like Michael thought Rockefeller entered into this somehow, that he’d hidden something, but, Mara, the man owned, or had dealings with, half of Manhattan. How in the world do we search half of the most populous city in the country without even knowing
what
we’re looking for? We don’t even know
who
we’re going up against here.”

Mara frowned. “Ms. Smith seemed to think it was the government.”

“So did Michael, according to Dr. Leinhart, but
who
in the government? And for what purpose?”

“Jon.” Mara’s voice softened to cool down the conversation’s tone. “Call him.”

“Who? Leinhart?”

Mara nodded. Jon rolled his head back and forth on his shoulders, cracking his neck – an unconscious habit he’d picked up from his brother years back – then pulled out his phone and dialed the number of the prepaid phone he’d given Dr. Leinhart. He didn’t answer. Considering how cheap the phones were – and that they weren’t tied to any account – Jon wasn’t entirely surprised that no voicemail was included. But it was a disappointment. He decided to risk a call to the professor’s office phone.

One ring. Two. Three. Four. “Hello. You’ve reached the mailbox of Dr. Richard Leinhart...”

“Machine,” Jon mouthed to Mara.

“Leave a message,” Mara mouthed back.

“...I’m obviously away from my phone right now, but if you’ll kindly leave a message, I’ll get back to you as soon as I’m able. Thank you.”
Beep.

“Professor, it’s me. We found...” He hesitated, trying to sanitize what he was saying in case someone was listening in, while still providing sufficient info for Leinhart to go on. “... the person we were looking for,” he settled on, “and it’s a dead end. We’re trying to figure out what to do next. Hope you’re having more luck on your end and can give us something to work with. Give me a call back from your other line as soon as possib-”

“Your recording time is up,” an automated female voice chimed in. “To review your message, press—”

Jon punched the End Call button and slammed the phone down. His left elbow on the table, he rubbed the heel of his hand across his eyebrow, fingers dragging through his hair. Mara gently touched her fingertips to his forearm. Jon looked up.

“It’s gonna be alright. We’ll figure something out.”

“How?” Jon asked in a tone harsher than he’d intended. “It’s a dead end. If we hadn’t been so slow, if only—”

“Jon, we can’t do anything about that now. We are where we are. We can’t deal with
what if
s, and
if onlys.
We just have to figure out where to go from here. As Michael would say, the only way now is forward.”

“I know. And I’m trying to figure it out, Mara. I am. I’m sorry for snapping and all. You’re just as frustrated as I am, I’m sure...”

Mara raised her eyebrows knowingly. “I’ve just got a lot of experience dealing with excited Rickner boys.”

Jon looked up at her and caught her comforting, almost motherly smile. “No wonder the ancients attributed the voice of wisdom to their female goddesses,” he said.

“Hey, somebody had to step in to keep all those battle-hungry warriors from killing everybody off.” Her eyes grew serious again. “We’ll figure something out. I have faith in that. You’re Michael’s brother. If he can get this far, I have no doubt we can make it the rest of the way.”

“Wherever that is...”

“Hey, what’s that?” Mara pointed behind him, a shocked expression on her face. Jon turned around and looked toward the entry door at the front of the cafe, half expecting to see Death come to greet him, personified in his tireless Latino pursuer.

“What?” he asked, seeing nothing obvious. “What is it?” He turned around to see Mara stuffing her face with fries from his untended basket. “Hey!”

“Bwhut?” Mara asked through a mouthful of half-chewed spuds, a smile teasing the edges of her bulging cheeks. Jon half-repressed a smile and slowly shook his head back and forth at her.

She swallowed. “That’s what you get for being negative, Mr. Grumpy Gills.”

Jon raised an eyebrow at her, then let it fall. “Eh, you’re right. Sorry. I just can’t figure out where to even start for what we should do next. I feel like we’re about three steps behind the starting line, and we don’t even know where the goal is or how to recognize it when we find it.”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll recognize it when we find it.” She smiled mischievously. “See, you said, ‘when,’ not ‘if.’ My fry-stealing’s already having a positive effect on your thinking.”

“Take a chicken finger. Maybe that’ll trigger some other mental miracle.”

Mara shrugged, and reached for a chicken finger.

“Hey!” Jon said with a laugh, catching her wrist en route back to her mouth. She passed the chicken finger to her other, unimpeded hand, and stuffed it in her mouth whole. Her eyes lit up, eyebrows arched, smiling lips hiding the prize she’d captured. Jon couldn’t help laughing, and Mara almost spit out the chicken finger when laughter seized her.

When he caught his breath, Jon closed one eye and tightened his facial muscles, as though concentrating on some inner thought. Another fit of laughter grabbed Mara, who thankfully had swallowed most of the chicken finger by now.

“Alright then,” Jon said, loosening his face slightly. “Where’s my miracle?”

Beep beep.
Jon’s cell phone, still face down on the table, vibrated as the tone indicated a text message had been received. The only reason he had gotten phones with text messaging capability was so they could be used if and when Jon, Mara, or Leinhart were unable to communicate audibly – such as on a crowded train or while being followed by someone suspicious. But he hadn’t been expecting to actually receive one, especially with Mara sitting right here beside him. Jon looked from the phone to Mara without moving his head. “Tah-dah?” she suggested.

“We’ll see.” He turned the phone over, the illumination from the screen casting its glow on the green Formica of their table.

“One new message,” read the screen. Jon pushed the button for “Show,” and the message appeared.

Sender:
Number Withheld.

Message:
Your brothers death was no suicide. I’ve got the answers you seek. St. John the Divine, St. Saviour Chapel. 4pm. Come alone.

“Holy moley.”

“What, what?” Mara slid her chair closer to Jon so she could read the message. He still stared at the screen, thumbing up and down so he could reread the whole thing. “Um... miracle?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe it’s a trap.”

He started keying in a response. “Who are you? How do you know about my brother?”
Send.
A few seconds passed.
“Message sending failed.”

“What?” He tried again.

“Message sending failed.”

“Crap,” Jon said, bringing up the received message on the screen again. “The line’s blocked or something. Well, what do you think we should do?”

Mara took a deep breath. “It’s all we’ve got, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess it is. Besides, nobody’s gonna knock us off in a church, right?” A pause, as Mara continued to look at the screen. “Right?” Jon repeated.

“What? Oh, yeah, I wasn’t thinking about that. I don’t think it’ll be
us,
though.”

Jon made a face. “What do you mean?”

“Well, it says come alone, right?” Mara pointed to the phone in Jon’s hand. “And it says ‘your brother’ So it’s obviously addressed to you.”

“But we’ve been doing this together from the beginning. Surely, if whoever sent this knows I’m after the truth about Michael’s death, then they know that you’re with me in all of this.”

“I guess so, but he seemed pretty specific about coming alone.” Mara shook her head. “What if he doesn’t show because you’re not alone?”

Beep beep.
The phone buzzed in Jon’s hand. He backtracked to the main menu, which prompted him to see the newly received message.
Show.

Sender:
Number withheld.

Message:
Bring Mara. 4pm.

“Frea-ky...” Mara said after reading the message, eyebrows raised in surprise.

Jon bit his lip. “Yeaahh... So, do you want to come then?”

She nodded. “I’m in if you are.”

He looked at his watch. “Alright, it’s 12:47 now. Three hours and change to get to... that’s up in north Manhattan, right? Up near Harlem?”

“The Cathedral of St. John the Divine? Yeah, I think so. Near Columbia.”

“Well, it won’t take three hours to get there,” he said. “What should we do in the meantime?”

“Well, first, I suggest we finish our lunch. We’ll probably need our energy for whatever happens next.” She paused, looked at Jon, and grabbed another fistful of fries. “Besides, you should probably hurry up and eat. Your food keeps disappearing.”

He laughed and shook his head at her. “Waitress!” he called over his shoulder. “We’re gonna need another basket of chicken fingers over here!”

Even in its unfinished state, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Episcopal Seat of the New York Diocese, was enormous. Composed of stones hewn by hand and built with largely medieval methods of construction, the edifice evoked images of the great churches of Europe. Despite the fact that the towers and transepts had yet to be built, a process that would take yet another 50 years, the 119-year-old building presented an imposing sight. And that was just from the outside.

Inside the nave, the ceiling rose to a height in excess of one-hundred feet, and the distant altar seemed to be leagues away from the western entrance through which Jon and Mara had just passed. Although the slightest sound could undoubtedly echo loud enough for all to hear – one of the reasons behind the use of Gothic architecture in ecclesiastical buildings during the pre-electronic-amplification days of the Middle Ages – the room was quiet, a reverence that worshippers and visitors alike seemed to hold, if not for the God worshipped within these halls then at least for the awe-inspiring artistry and dimensions of the church itself. Even to the unbeliever, the church, like most so-called “great churches,” held an aura to it, a spiritual significance that seemed to resonate from the very stone and glass that had been fashioned and forged into a place of reflection and soul-searching.

The pair of young visitors were not in search of answers for their souls, but for other answers, answers to questions that couldn’t be found in a Bible or book of liturgy, questions that Jon and Mara themselves didn’t even know how to phrase. Jon had to take a moment, a few steps inside the nave, to stop and breathe, letting the ambiance of the church, of the architectural, historical, and spiritual significance that pulsed from the buttresses to the basement, sink in to his being. He’d been to New York plenty of times, but for whatever reason, he had never made it to this grand cathedral before. Eyes closed, mouth shut, he tilted his head back and breathed the charged air into his lungs. He loved churches. Thrived on them. Especially the older, more historic ones. And although this one was relatively young, especially considering how much of the construction was almost brand new, the soaring heights and classically decorated ornamentation would normally have given off an atmosphere that Jon lived for.