Journey Into the Flame (25 page)

27

There is a difference between being interconnected and being interdependent. The former is based in love; the latter is based in expectations.

—THE CHRONICLES OF SATRAYA

WASHINGTON, D.C., 6:00 P.M. LOCAL TIME,

3 DAYS UNTIL FREEDOM DAY

After leaving the museum, Logan and Valerie returned to her apartment for a respite from the investigation. Logan took a nap; Valerie continued to speak on her PCD with Charlie and other forensic agents.

At dinnertime, Valerie introduced Logan to her favorite restaurant, a small family-run Italian trattoria on Wisconsin Avenue. The motherly woman who owned the place always kept a special table for her in the back, near the kitchen.

“Piera takes good care of me,” Valerie explained with a smile. “I never have to wait, and even if it’s late, she’ll find something good for me to eat.”

The quiet, friendly atmosphere was exactly what Logan needed, along with a good meal, of course. He told Valerie more about his encounter with Randolph Fenquist and gave her more details about the blond-haired stranger who’d been following him in the museum.

“My day was just as crazy,” Valerie said. “The lab was still in chaos
when I returned from the press conference. Then, on top of that, no one knew what happened to you.”

“Sorry about that,” Logan said. “It was one thing to see that DNA collar, but when the rest took place just as I’d seen in my candle vision, it was a bit much. I had to get out of there.” He took a deep breath. “Were they able to preserve the corpses?”

“No. Charlie called while you were resting and said the ice boxes didn’t help. The bodies continued to decompose, and we can’t extract any more DNA samples. Sylvia suspects the victims were exposed to some source of radiation. Oh, and more good news,” Valerie added, as she took off her suit jacket and unclipped her holster. “The security footage from the National Gallery didn’t get a good angle on the blond guy who was talking to you. It’s like he knew where the cameras were.”

“There was something peculiar about that guy,” Logan said.

“Have you gotten any more insight into the whole candle thing?” Valerie continued. “I have to admit your visions have me as stumped as everything else in this case.”

Logan was about to answer when Valerie’s PCD lit up.

She took the call, and an image of Mr. Perrot was projected, hovering just over the table. “Hello, dear!” he shouted. “Can you see me? Jogi, is this working?”

“Yes, Dad, we can see you. Everything is working. You don’t have to shout,” Valerie added, smirking at Logan.

“We have made progress,” Mr. Perrot said, and he went on to recount the success of his efforts in New Chicago. He explained the garden riddle, which he and Jogi had just solved, and told them about the references to the hidden symbols. “So as you can see, even more urgent questions have arisen.”

“Hidden symbols on the blank pages?” Logan said gravely. “And the last symbol grants . . .
immortality
?”

“Yes, the situation is even more perilous than we thought,” Mr. Perrot said. “So, you see, I believe the next step for me is to travel to India and locate Deya’s set of the
Chronicles
before Simon or Andrea does.”

“I’m not sure I like that idea,” Valerie said. “I could have the WCF send a few agents to look for the books just as easily. Where are they?”

“Deya’s message doesn’t provide a great deal to go on,” Mr. Perrot said. “I knew Deya. I believe I stand a better chance of finding the books than your agents do. We cannot allow Simon and Andrea to find all of the original sets.”

Valerie didn’t say anything, but she didn’t look happy.

“Valerie,” Mr. Perrot said in a softer tone, “don’t fight me on this. I know what I need to do.”

She pointed her finger at the image of her father. “All right, but Jogi is going to go with you. And both of you
will
keep us informed every step of the way.”

“Yes, of course, Valerie,” Jogi said, as he entered the projection just behind Mr. Perrot. “Nothing will happen to your father on my watch.”

“Good-bye, dear,” Mr. Perrot said. “And I expect you and Logan to keep me informed, too.”

Logan and Valerie nodded, and the call ended.

“Don’t worry,” Logan said afterward. “After observing your father the last few days, I have to say he’s more capable than we give him credit for. The old guy’s got some moxie.”

Dinner was now arriving. Piera brought out a large family-style salad with an assortment of breads and cheese. She also set down a carafe of red wine. “Don’t worry, dear,” she said in a thick Italian accent. “Drink some wine. No one can see you back here. It is not all the time you bring such a handsome boy to dinner.” Piera winked at Valerie and pinched Logan’s cheek. “
Buon appetito
! More is coming!”

Valerie rolled her eyes as Piera headed back to the kitchen.

Logan grinned. “I guess I should be flattered you brought me here tonight,” he said. “It doesn’t sound like you’ve introduced many of your boyfriends to Piera and her cooking.”

Valerie blushed as she picked up the carafe and poured each of them a glass of wine. “This is a business dinner. Let’s get back to the investigation.”

Logan smiled and acquiesced, taking a sip of wine. “There’s something more about the Hitchlords family. Camden, I mean, my father”—Logan was still getting used to his father’s real identity—“tried to work out some branches of their family tree on the back of one of his journal pages. I can’t help but think it might have to do with the secret my father uncovered about Fendral. And that uncovering the secret ourselves will help us understand what’s going on.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Valerie said. She took a big sip of wine, enjoying it even if it was against regulations. “We could search the old document archives at the Akasha Vault to see if there’s anything there.”

“I thought the Vault only contained post-Disruption documents and records,” Logan said.

“Mostly but not only.” Valerie picked her PCD back up. “There were a great many computer systems and data centers that partially survived the Great Disruption. The WCF put a lot of effort into recovering as much information from those systems as possible. They thought it might prove useful someday. Even today, when they find an old computer system, they send it to Nepal for data retrieval and storage. There’s a dedicated team who does nothing but that.”

“And you think there may be information about Simon’s father in there?” Logan said.

“You never know.” She pushed her plate aside and brought up a WCF interface to the Akasha Vault archive.

Logan leaned forward, as Valerie navigated through many topics and subtopics until she pulled up a file on the Hitchlords family. “Not much of interest about Simon,” she said as she read. “Our current records show that he was about eight at the time of the Great Disruption. His father, Fendral, was thirty-eight.” She continued to navigate rapidly through the archived data.

Logan pulled out a couple of the pages from his father’s journal and handed one to Valerie. “This might help,” he said. “The Hitchlords family tree my father was working on. Simon’s grandmother, Carmella
Snow Hitchlords, had a relationship with a man named ‘Maurice Rc.’ My father didn’t complete Maurice’s last name.”

Valerie read the names on the journal page and started to type them into the Vault interface. “There’s some good stuff on these people. Your father may have been on to something.”

Logan tried to see what Valerie was reading, but he was distracted by the flashing indicators next to some of the files in the archive. “What are all those red marks?”

“They represent missing data,” she explained. “These old archives are incomplete at best. There’s a lot of information they weren’t able to recover. Many times, you have to fill in the blanks. For instance, Simon’s ancestry dates all the way back to 1027 and Conrad II of the Salian dynasty; it might even extend as far back as the fourth century, but there are no complete records to confirm it.” She turned from the projection and looked at the journal page. “What are these names and identifiers your father wrote next to some of the names in the family tree?”

James Rc. (Knights of the Golden Circle 1854)

Maurice Rc. (Thule 1911)

Maurice Rc. (Federal Reserve 1913)

Carmella Hitchlords (Bilderberg 1954)

Edmond Hitchlords (MJ-12 1978)

“When your father and I first saw them in the family-tree diagram, he inferred that they were names of influential clandestine groups throughout history,” Logan answered. “He wasn’t familiar with any of them, except for the middle one, the Federal Reserve.”

Valerie started to enter the names into the Vault computer.

Logan continued, “Apparently, the Federal Reserve was at the center of the financial crisis that was taking place in the United States. Your father said that most people were under the impression that the Federal Reserve was a part of the government. But actually, it was a
privately held bank involved in some pretty shady financial dealings. Bank bailouts earlier this century and the incestuous relationships that Federal Reserve board members had with the very financial institutions they were helping eventually brought it down during the financial reset of 2025. Your father also mentioned its behind-the-scenes involvement in something called a credit default swap that took place in 2010. Whatever that was created financial chaos and brokered a well-orchestrated transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy.”

Valerie kept navigating. “A lot is missing, but all of these groups have one thing in common: they were mired in controversy and conspiracy.”

“Check out this information on the Thule Society,” Logan said. “It was a study group created in 1911 for the appreciation of Germanic antiquity. Adolf Hitler later turned it into the Nazi Party. The group included a man named Hess and another person named Eckart.”

“The family tree suggests that Fendral’s father and grandfather were members of that group,” Valerie observed. “And look at this about the Knights of the Golden Circle. According to this document, the Knights reordered themselves and became the Sons of Liberty in 1865. They were bent on annexing territories in the southern part of the United States and later might have played a part in a group called the Ku Klux Klan. They don’t sound like very nice people.”

One by one, Valerie brought up information on every name in the family tree Camden had somehow put together.

“This is starting to make some sense,” she said, deep in thought. “Prior to the Great Disruption, the Hitchlords family was associated with some of these groups. Then the Disruption hits, and the world falls into chaos. The
Chronicles
are discovered, and the Hitchlords family is unable to reclaim its power and fame. Since Fendral found a set of the books, he ends up on the Council. And after a few years, he wants to transform it into a shadow group just like these other ones.”

“To what end?”

“Well, if history is any indicator, Fendral needed to restore his family’s standing in the world. I wonder if this was the secret your father came across.” Valerie was about to take a sip of wine, but she paused, noticing the solemn look on Logan’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, really. I just don’t understand why the
Chronicles
chose Fendral.”

“What do you mean, they
chose
Fendral?”

“The man who owns the painting I’m restoring came to the auction and told me that the
Chronicles
chose whom they belonged to. But then, why choose Fendral? I understand Deya, Madu, and my father, but why Fendral and the Hitchlords family?” Logan shook his head.

“Put your work away,” a pleasant voice called. Piera appeared, holding two large plates. Valerie shut down the PCD display. “You work too much! Tonight you eat my homemade brasato!” Within moments, a waiter cleared the table, and Piera set down the dinner plates, which were filled with her beef stew, polenta, and steamed carrots and zucchini. “
Buon appetito
! More is coming!” she said once again, before walking back into the kitchen.

“I’m not sure I believe that whole thing about the books choosing where they go,” Valerie continued when Piera had gone. “But if the Hitchlords family has been associated with these groups throughout history, it would be a fair bet that they’re associated with another one now. I think we have to assume that whatever is going on, Simon and Andrea are not acting alone.”

It didn’t take long for Valerie’s detective instincts to kick into full gear again. She pushed her plate aside and reconnected her PCD to the Akasha Vault’s computer system. Information concerning the Hitchlords family was once again being displayed along with flashing indicators.

After a moment, Valerie raised her eyebrows. “Check this out. It looks as though the old WCF—or FBI, as it was called then—was investigating the Hitchlords family before the Great Disruption hit.
Something about gold and precious metal trading just before the financial reset of 2025. The FBI even seized communications data from servers at one of the Hitchlords companies accused of price fixing in the diamond markets. It says here that the e-mail data were encrypted. Before the FBI was able to process the information, the U.S. and South African governments put a halt to the investigation.”

“Well, judging by the family’s connections, I’m not surprised,” Logan said. “What’s e-mail?”

Valerie rolled her eyes. “Don’t you know anything about how people lived before the Great Disruption?”

He shrugged.

She thought for a moment, tapping her fingers on the table. “The FBI never decrypted the data,” she said.

“Can we do it?” Logan asked.

She didn’t answer; with a few quick motions of her hand, she already had the quantum computer deciphering the messages.

After a moment, appearing on the projection were the last few e-mails that Fendral sent in 2024, some forty-five years ago. One in particular caught Valerie’s eye. It was dated January 23, 2024.