Cobb turned his eyes on Garcia. ‘What about on the Web?’
‘
‘That’s disquieting in and of itself. The only things not on the Web are things that don’t exist,’ Cobb remarked.
‘Or things that cover their tracks faster than I can follow them,’ Garcia suggested. The concept didn’t sit well with him. He prided himself on his knowledge of technology. ‘What about you? Did you learn anything from the guy? Anything at all?’
Cobb thought about it, and his expression did nothing to settle Garcia. ‘All I know is that they’re tough to kill. So when we step on them, we’d better step hard.’ He held Garcia’s gaze. ‘Check the entire train, inside and out, for anything he might have left behind. And get some security cams on the undercarriages. We’re vulnerable there.’
Cobb started toward the door, then stopped. He hadn’t forgotten his confrontation with Papineau. He had merely benched it for the moment.
‘And Papi,’ he said, ‘you’re with me.’
As Cobb and Papineau made their exit, Garcia ran another search on the Black Robes. His results were varied and irrelevant — with no mention of covert ops.
Digging deeper, Garcia accessed a handful of ‘off-the-grid’ bulletin boards — websites on hidden networks that weren’t accessible to most. These sites allowed hackers to carry on discussion under the cloak of anonymity. It took several refinements to narrow his search and translation software to decipher the answers, but Garcia found what he was looking for.
After scanning the information, he realized that Sarah was lucky to be alive.
‘What’s up?’ Jasmine asked as he entered the command center.
‘I was just doing a little research on the Black Robes,’ Garcia answered. ‘We think they’re responsible for Sarah’s attack.’
‘I know,’ Jasmine said, pointing to her earpiece. ‘I meant, did you find anything interesting?’
‘More like terrifying.’
‘How so?’
Garcia summed up everything he had read. ‘If you believe the rumors, the Black Robes have been around for over a hundred years. And during that time, they’ve been growing in prominence throughout Eastern Europe. No one knows exactly when the cult took shape, but-’
‘They’re a cult?’ she interrupted.
‘Well, they certainly fit the description. Not that they’re overly religious — ‘cause they’re not. It’s more of a spiritual bent. Revelation through suffering, that sort of thing. The punishment for one’s sins serves to heighten one’s understanding of the world.’
‘What kind of sins?’
‘Judging from the accounts of rape and violence, I’d say they’re particularly fond of lust and wrath.’ He paused, but Jasmine said nothing in reply. ‘I know what you’re thinking: why couldn’t it have been sloth and gluttony? We could handle a bunch of lazy, fat guys.’
Jasmine was suddenly thankful for their lethal supplies.
‘No,’ Garcia continued. ‘We get stuck with the guys who think the path to enlightenment is found through murder.’
35
Cobb entered the freight car with Papineau close behind. McNutt was in the far corner, going over the last of the equipment.
The freight car’s walls, floor, and ceiling were armored, but with several sliding and slatted windows and doors so the gear could be moved, used, or launched in a thousand different ways. Along the west wall was an array of firearms of every shape and size, from handguns and sniper’s rifles to automatic weapons. Cobb noticed the Mark III back in its place between a Kel-Tec P32 and a Springfield Armory XD9 Sub-Compact.
At Cobb’s insistence, McNutt had supplied everyone on the team with a sidearm that best fit their size, weight, and temperament, along with intensive training during their weeks together in Fort Lauderdale.
Garcia got a Walther PPK or, as he called it, the James Bond gun. It was the one 007 used in most books and movies. McNutt chose it for him because it had good firepower in a nerd-friendly, twenty-ounce, six-inch package.
Jasmine had grudgingly accepted a Ruger LCR.38 Special revolver. Light, sleek, hammerless, and practically unjammable, it was a perfect point-and-pull weapon for their pacifist-leaning, but obviously eminently attackable, historian.
McNutt had wanted to give the similar Charter Arms.38 Special Undercover Model 13820 revolver to Sarah, but he knew she would balk at what she considered its traditional clunkiness. It was clear to him that she was ready to reject anything he offered, lest it weigh her down or hold her back. So he presented her with the Kimber Micro Custom Defense Package.380 automatic. At thirteen ounces and hardly bigger than her hand, she had almost grabbed it from his grasp before he could hand it to her.
‘Find anything?’ Papineau asked.
McNutt looked up from the polymer crates and canvas containers that lined the east wall, then shook his head. ‘I checked every inch of this place for holes or punctures, even pinpricks. The only thing missing is some backup gear that would have been way too big to steal. My guess is it never made the original shipment.’
‘Anything essential?’
‘Nope. Just redundancies.’
Cobb didn’t ask if the Black Robe could’ve slipped something through the slatted windows or rolling doors. They were created to both men’s specifications. Nothing would get in or out without their say-so. ‘Out of curiosity, how’d you get all this stuff in here?’
‘What do you mean?’ McNutt asked.
‘Not you, McNutt.’ Cobb turned toward the Frenchman. ‘Getting us supplies in Florida is one thing, but smuggling an armory into Russia is quite another.’
McNutt furrowed his brow, perplexed, but Papineau just waved it aside. ‘Don’t worry, Joshua. This is just part two of something we started in the command center.’
‘You got that right,’ Cobb said. He began to walk around the compartment, taking in all the cutting-edge weapon technology that filled the car. ‘I can’t help feeling that we’re moving faster and faster toward a collision with something that only
‘Hold up!’ McNutt said, as if a light bulb had just popped on above his head. ‘I think I know how the Black Robe got in here.’
‘Me, too,’ Cobb assured him.
‘Yeah, right,’ McNutt scoffed. ‘You’re just trying to steal my thunder.’
Cobb pointed to the empty crate where the missing gear would have been stored — if it had made the shipment. ‘The Black Robe hid in the crate. One of our workers carried him in.’
McNutt nodded his approval. ‘Shit, chief. That’s
Cobb ignored him and focused on Papineau. ‘Finding and refitting these train cars is one thing, since all of them came from Russia. But this?’ He pointed at everything around them. ‘By all rights, Russian customs should have been on this like beef on stroganoff. Alarms should have sounded if they even caught a whiff of this stuff!’ He marched up to Papineau and placed his face a few inches away. ‘How did you do it?’
‘Why do you assume that someone at Russian customs
