“Who are you,” said Porter, not expecting an honest answer.
“Feel free to call me Joseph…Smith.”
Porter growled in his mug. “I don’t find that humorous.”
“But it will be an easy name to remember. You’ll have worse things to worry about in the future. Do you have money?”
“Planning on mugging me?” Porter said, joking, but expecting the cold metal of a barrel in his neck at any moment. Did it matter?
“There is a man I know who has more information on Dr. Ulman’s find than you’ve been able to collect,” said the old voice behind him. The deep falsetto dimmed its power so as not to be overheard.
Click-click.
“What’s that,” Porter said, imagining a gun, but knowing it wasn’t.
“This…is the…address…of the gentleman you need to see.” Smith stood and appeared at Porter’s side.
A napkin fell from his hand, slid over the red-and-white-checkered tablecloth, and folded on Porter’s lap. Porter saw the writing with a glance.
The old man put his gold-lined pen in the inside pocket of his elegant overcoat. “He won’t be interested in sharing with you. In fact, he will soon change his mind about working on the project at all.”
“Pardon me?” Porter said, questions filling his insides enough to spill from his eyes. He didn’t look up at this Mr. Smith.
“Incentives, Mr. Porter. They are already on their way to see him. He will be given two choices: drop it…or die.”
“Who are we talking about,” said Porter, forgetting the hot chocolate.
“Dr. Alexander Peterson of Ohio State University. He’s on sabbatical right now, staying in his summer home in the mountains.” The old man pulled the skin around his eyes into a thousand wrinkles, smashing his pupils, as Porter looked at him at last. “If you intend on continuing this investigation, you will need Peterson’s material. You had better hurry.”
The hot chocolate in the forgotten mug, tilting in shaking hands, spilled onto the table and splattered on Porter’s right wrist. He hissed and looked down to wipe away the burning liquid.
When he glanced up the old man was already outside the door only one booth away.
The glass door slammed into the doorframe like pounding teeth.
CHAPTER TWENTY
4:54 p.m. PST
Polaski wanted to lunge at Peter’s throat, but he only shifted his weight onto his right foot and examined the elderly gentlemen in tight suits sitting around the long redwood table. His eyes jumped to the strangers framed on the wall to his right.
“Nice of you to get here,” said the old man at the far end from behind his raised wristwatch.
“I’ve been busy,” said Polaski. He checked to see if Peter, standing quietly beside the nearest window, was still smiling at his withered hand.
“Working for who, I wonder,” said another old fellow. His hands worked together like a spider climbing a mirror. “Your work has proven unfruitful, Mr. Polaski. The authorities will trace us through you if you remain in the country.”
“Time for retirement,” said another gentleman, his voice old and cracked by too many cigarettes in his younger years.
“I did what you would’a wanted, what you needed!” Polaski said, the only slouching person in the richly laden conference room.
“Peter, would you ask Deseree to come in?”
The youngest member of the committee went to the door and stuck his head out.
A tall woman with strong eyes entered. She wore a royal blue business suit with a short skirt, fake glasses, and a hypnotizing perfume. “Yes sir.”
Raising his voice as if she was hard of hearing or he was too faraway, the man at the end of the table said, “Ms. Russell, this man needs to visit Europe inconspicuously. One way. Will you make the arrangement.”
She nodded.
He raised a hand. “Go, Mr. Polaski. Be a good man…and disappear.”
Polaski’s eyes darkened, his mouth twisting. He knew the policy. He’d heard it before and participated in the exercises. But the last thing he wanted was dismissal. “The carbon dating never happened! I’ve taken care of it!”
“That is hardly relevant anymore, Mr. Polaski. Peter?”
Peter stepped forward with a dry smile and an affirmative nod. He placed his black briefcase on the table. Polaski could smell the well-tended leather.
The codex was tattered and large pieces looked ready to fall off the bark pages. With careful hands, Peter set the ancient manuscript on the glossy cherry wood. Polaski thought he could smell the book’s rotting age. He hadn’t seen it until now, and he hated it more than before. It had already complicated his life. No longer a nuisance, its existence in this room meant all his labors were worthless, resulting only in the end of his career…and a little more.
With the blood slipping from his face, Polaski looked up at all the eyes focused on him. He glanced at the faces on the wall. Even their eyes were alive.
“As you see, the chase is over. The threat has passed,” said Andrews.
Polaski licked the dry insides of his mouth and punched his brain into overdrive. “What about Peterson in Ohio?”
“What do you know about him?” said the gentleman at the end with a start, sharp eyes glancing with untrusting bitterness at Peter. “Put it out of your thoughts, Mr. Polaski. Everything’s taken care of.”
His heart pounding, Polaski looked at one of the gentlemen who sat like a clam-skinned, troubled lawyer in his red leather chair. “Mr. Andrews-!”
Eyes on the table, Andrews waved a quick hand with a minimum of wrist action, brushing Polaski off as if he were an unwelcome fly.
“Have a good vacation,” said the old man at the end. He nudged his forehead in the direction of the door. “We shan’t see you again, I trust.”
Polaski stood in silence as the rest of them waited.
“That’s all,” Peter said, touching Polaski with the tips of his fingers, nudging him toward the exit.
“Don’t push me!”
Peter stepped back and put his hands together at waist level.
Hot breath shooting through his teeth, Polaski looked at all the hard eyes watching him, tracking him like laser sights atop powerful guns.
He pulled at the bottom of his black shirt, drawing it tight around his puffed up chest, then stamped out to the patient secretary.
The man at the end of the table looked to his left at one individual in particular. “See that Polaski is executed immediately. I don’t care who does it. We will not waste our money funding him anymore.”
With a nod, the gentleman on his left stood, buttoned his navy blue blazer, and left the room.
Calm eyes looked on the younger fellow standing over KM-2. “Peter, what is Ms. Alred’s status?”
“She’s finished with the project. After giving up Porter’s codex without resistance earlier this morning, it seems she had an argument with her fellow graduate student resulting in their permanent separation. I have transcripts of their conversation. She appears uninterested in pursuing the matter and rather excited about continuing her doctoral research in a different area.”
“Can you be sure she doesn’t have other reasons for interest. Dr. Ulman was Alred’s most preferred professor.”
