From the Ashes (34 page)

This far north on the island of Manhattan, the terrain grew more hilly, the streets less of the rigid grid of the rest of the borough and more organic, more natural. Jon found the lush greenery and quick-rising topography somehow soothing. It reminded him of the Smoky Mountain retreat that he and his brother had shared a few years back when Michael was finishing up his undergrad at UNC. Peace, solace, no sounds but the twittering of birds eking out their carefree existence, the placid gurgle of a mountain stream meandering down the hillside. Here, it seemed as though the ordered chaos of steel and glass, of gray and grime in Midtown was a world away, a peaceful respite granted not by the closing of a church’s heavy bronze doors, but by the dropping of nature’s curtain to shield this last part of the city from the hubris and avarice of man.

“It’s been a long time since we heard from Dr. Leinhart,” Mara said between the swallow of one chunk of sandwich and the biting of the next. “You left him a message didn’t you?”

“Yeah...” Jon said uncertainly, an unpleasant realization slowly dawning on him as he first patted his pockets, then dug in his backpack until he came up with his cell phone. He pushed a button to light up the display. “Aw, crap.”

“What?” Mara asked, leaning slightly across the table.

“Seven missed calls. Three messages. The first one was yesterday afternoon.” He looked up at Mara apologetically. “It’s been on ‘silent’ ever since we went into St. John’s.”

“Oh, geez.” Mara fished her phone out of her purse. “And I’ve got a few as well. I
never
forget to check my phone. I guess so much has happened and we’ve been so darn busy...”

He nodded. “Yeah, I know. Shoot. Well, at least we have a lot to update him on now.”

Mara pursed her lips, raised and lowered her eyebrows. “Yeah,” she said, seemingly bearing her share of the guilt.

Jon dialed his voicemail and listened to all three of Lein-hart’s messages. The first was a calm, cordial, just-returning-your-call type message. The second, left early that morning, had an audible tinge of fear and worry, was more rushed, felt more nervous. In the third, Jon could hear the shaking in the professor’s voice, the almost stammered voicing of concern and pleading for a prompt return call updating him and letting him know that they were alright. The time stamp on the last message was just forty-five minutes before, so Jon felt there was a reasonable chance that the good professor hadn’t died of a heart attack from worry in the intervening time.

Hanging up on his voicemail, Jon dialed Leinhart’s number, keeping eye contact with Mara as he counted the rings in his ear. One. Two. The professor picked up halfway through the third ring, the sound of the line connecting followed immediately with his voice.

“Jon!” The man sounded like he was out of breath.

“Professor.”

“Oh, thank God, you’re alright,” Leinhart burst in before Jon could say anything else. “I’ve been worried sick about you both.” A brief pause, followed by, “Mara’s still okay, too, right?”

“Yes, yes, Professor, we’re both fine.” Jon raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes slightly at Mara, who giggled despite herself. “I’m afraid our search took us inside a church yesterday and, in all the excitement, I completely forgot to turn my ringer back on. Sorry for making you worry.”

Distortion on the other end as Leinhart exhaled into the mouthpiece. “You don’t know how worried I’ve been, Jon. I’ve discovered some pretty freaky stuff about your Mr. Blumhurst. I called in a favor to an old army buddy of my dad’s. He’s in his eighties now, but he served in the same outfit that Blumhurst did. Told me about the day Blumhurst was supposed to have died, and that something didn’t add up, but every question he and his compatriots asked were stonewalled by their superiors.

“So Blumhurst’s death was faked by the Army?” Jon asked, lowering his voice to a whisper as he glanced around the room for spies that weren’t there.

“That’s the way it looks. And if that’s the kind of firepower you guys are going up against... I’ve been absolutely terrified for you both. For me, too. You realize you just about gave me a coronary?”

“Sorry, Professor. The excitement that distracted me...” Jon caught Mara’s glance. “Distracted both of us. Well, for the most part anyway.”

Jon brought the professor back up to speed – using code and euphemisms when addressing sensitive parts that might make any inquisitive ears in the cafe perk up and pay closer attention – telling him about the missing microfilm at the library, the chase with Ramirez, the meeting with Catherine Smith, the stolen envelope, the meeting with Wilkins, the return of Rockefeller’s journal entry, and all their clue-finding thus far.

“We figure we’ve got about two more clues to go before we find the Dossiers,” Jon said when he had finished the recap. “And then it’s all over.”

“You sound so jovial, Jon. If these guys are backed by the Army – or as this Wayne guy alleges, the CIA – you’d better believe they’re not going to sit idly by while you ruin the grand cover-up they’ve kept going for all these years. I’d watch your backs more than ever, Jon. The closer you get to the Dossiers, the closer you’re probably getting to danger. I’m particularly worried about this Wayne guy. It sounds like some elaborate trap to me. Have you had any contact with him since he gave you the journal?”

Jon paused, furrowing his brow. “No, sir, now that you mention it, we haven’t.”

Leinhart grunted on the other end. “I’d be awfully careful about who you trust Jon. Awfully careful.”

“We will, sir. We’ll keep you updated on anything else we find out.”

“I’ll keep working this end. And keep your phone on vibrate at the very least.”

“Will do, Professor.” Jon grimaced. “Sorry about before, and thanks.”

Enrique Ramirez, wearing a dark green sweatsuit, a matching stocking cap, and black wraparound sunglasses, walked on grass-straddled paths through the park, the birds’ singing and chipmunks’ chattering hardly registering in his ears. He was pretending to shoot photographs of the area with a cheap disposable camera, walking, stopping, looking around like a tourist, walking some more. Pacing himself. Looking inconspicuous. And despite all of this seemingly intricate fakery for the benefit of the other park visitors this afternoon, Enrique’s mind was miles away from the task immediately at hand. He was focusing on the big picture.

He could hardly believe the audacity of Greer’s plan. To get
them
to do the legwork for them, to get
them
to find the unfindable: the Dossiers that Rockefeller had hidden so well. To gain their trust and exploit it for the inexorable gain of the Division. And he could hardly believe he had been sidelined in this, the most important hour of the Division’s seventy-year operation.
He
was the most skilled and experienced agent they had. He couldn’t stop kicking himself for botching the laptop retrieval back in Washington, and yet he realized that, had he succeeded in killing Jonathan Rickner, the Division would be back to Square One in its search for the Dossiers. But despite his inability to be the point man for this mission, Ramirez was still a major player, and he would make sure everything went according to plan.

No more mistakes.

Regardless of what had happened the previous weekend at that apartment, Enrique knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was a high-quality soldier, the kind of combatant that his country would have decorated with medals upon medals – if they had recognized he was still alive and in her service. But he had never done his job, either in the military or for the Division, because of the awards and recognition. Sure it felt good to have one’s accomplishments, one’s selfless service, recognized, but ultimately, it was his unyielding patriotism that carried him through each mission. Like most of the nation’s career soldiers, he believed that his service in defense of his country was the most important thing he could dedicate his life to. And Enrique had dedicated his life to his country twice over.

Yet, at least by his standards, he
had
made a mistake. And that mistake had relegated him to an unofficial observer’s post for the final reclamation of the Operation Phoenix Dossiers. And, in truth, it was as though the fates themselves had conspired to bring him to this point, mistakes and all. For, as Greer observed, he had already encountered Jonathan Rickner in the apartment; thus, he would never work as the agent of subterfuge that this mission called for. Perhaps he wasn’t as subtle as Wilkins. He was a great killing machine, but gaining the trust of someone he would ultimately kill would probably have been a struggle. Yet at the same time, had he not made his mistakes, had he not been given a reprieve from field work in anticipation of the new post-Dossiers regime that he would usher in for the Division once Greer took his retirement, Ramirez would be on another assignment, somewhere, and thus unable to shadow Wilkins and his marks. And thus, he would have been completely unaware of the events that had unfolded in the past twenty-four hours here in New York, and the shocking implications they held for Ramirez, for the Division, and for the integrity of this mission.

He checked the GPS tracking device he’d procured from Division headquarters once more, and shook his head. He would have to call it in. If what he had seen and heard panned out, if what the tracking device was displaying wasn’t a glitch of some sort, then there was a definite threat to the mission that Greer had failed to take into account. An element that could destroy them all. But he couldn’t call prematurely. To make this sort of allegation, then to be proven wrong... No, he wasn’t wrong. But he had to make sure of his proof if Greer were to believe him. And so he found himself here, trailing two very unsuspecting people as they made their way north through the park.

Ramirez moved past a copse of beech and ash trees to see a brown and white edifice, at once imposing and peaceful, rising from the hilltop ahead, perched like a monastery overlooking the surrounding countryside. He glanced to his left, caught sight of the Hudson River shimmering in the sunlight through the trees. He was near the center of Fort Tryon Park, one of the largest and most beautiful parks in Manhattan. Lingering again briefly while he maintained his safe distance, he then followed his quarry up the hillside toward the medieval-looking building, watching Jon and Mara enter one of the side staircases to the entrance to the museum known as The Cloisters.

Climbing the narrow stone stairway that wrapped around The Cloisters complex, Jon felt as though he were climbing to an actual medieval monastery, nestled in the Pyrenees or the Alps, its residents sequestered in time and space for their holy purpose. The surrounding park, like the building itself and much of the collection within, had been donated by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. He had even purchased and preserved a hundred acres of the New Jersey Palisades across the Hudson River, so as to ensure developers would be unable to spoil the pristine view. Rockefeller had commissioned Frederick Law Olmstead, Jr., the landscape architect whose famous father had designed Central Park, to work his magic on the 67-acre plot of land that would become Fort Tryon Park, a private estate that had belonged for decades to various members of the city’s elite, a plot of land that Rockefeller, as a member of the elite himself, was giving back to the American people. Everything about the area – from the architectural beauty to the surrounding greenery to the placid drift of the Hudson – was orchestrated to create an unshakeable feeling of tranquility, a retreat from the world. Yet another location Rockefeller would have felt safe for his secrets to find their final resting place.

The Cloisters was largely constructed from disused monasteries and other ecclesiastical buildings from the twelfth century through the fifteenth, brought over from Europe and reassembled right there in the park, sometimes stone-by-ancient-stone. Even within the building, doorways, stairwells, and frescos from various ruined churches around western and central Europe made appearances, complete with placards identifying their origins, the very bones of the museum as much an exhibit as the tapestries, reliquaries, and manuscripts that it housed. Spanning four centuries and much of Europe’s lands, the medieval-themed collection had a tremendous amount of diversity in medium, artistry, and design. And somewhere in all that vast collection, an artifact from Urgell held the next clue.

After paying their admission fee, Jon and Mara grabbed a guide map apiece, scanned it, and – seeing how relatively undetailed it was with regard to individual pieces of art – headed to the bookshop to pore through the official guidebooks to the museum. There were several different books pertaining to the collection. Jon took one, Mara another, both heading straight to the index.

“Urgell!” Jon exclaimed in a subdued tone, cognizant of the shoppers and staff around the store. Mara looked at his book as he flipped back to the page the index had indicated. When he saw the image on the page, he turned his face to Mara, a triumphant smile in place.

“A tomb,” Mara said, matching his smile as the words of Rockefeller’s last clue clicked in place with the photograph of the medieval tomb from the Catalonian province of Urgell.

“It’s in the Gothic Chapel,” Jon said, already closing the book and hurriedly replacing it on the shelf.

Mara placed her book back in its spot as well. “Another chapel.”

“It’s good for what ails ya,” Jon quipped as he checked his bearings on the map and charted the quickest path to the Gothic Chapel. “This way,” he motioned as they exited the gift shop.

Jon found himself wishing he could spend more time in this building. The sense of peace, of quiet, was insatiably attractive to him right now. The chaos that had gripped his life for the past week was unrelenting, and he longed for the ability to just
be.
He felt sure that soon it would all be over, that the chasing after elusive truths and running from the wraiths of the Division would soon come to a close. If all went according to plan, he would have plenty of time to breathe. And if it didn’t turn out like he hoped... well, having time to breathe easy wouldn’t matter much if he couldn’t breathe at all.