Unfortunately, it wasn’t like I could go to the press and clarify details.”
“Atlas?”
The congressman looked over at Carillo. “Do you agencies ever
“You’d be surprised how much we don’t talk.”
“Hell. I really don’t want to end up in jail for breaching national security secrets. I’m sorry, but I can’t discuss any more of this with you. I-I was rattled about Alessandra’s death. I wasn’t thinking.” He looked more than rattled. A sheen of sweat covered his brow and upper lip. A vein pulsed at his temple. He might not be guilty of Alessandra’s death, but he was certainly worried about something more than a simple photo in the paper.
“Look. My partner may be in danger, and it has something to do with whatever Alessandra was working on.”
“I’m sorry. I really need to go.” He stepped to the curb, held up his arm, calling out, “Taxi!”
A cab pulled up, and Congressman Burnett got in, barely sparing a parting glance in Carillo’s direction.
Carillo stood there at the curb, going over the conversation. It wasn’t unusual for politicians to sit on committees that weren’t necessarily common knowledge to the rest of the world, but at least he had one more lead that hadn’t existed a few minutes ago.
He pulled out his phone, called his personal font of knowledge, Doc Schermer. “You ever heard of Atlas?”
“Are we talking cartography or Greek mythology? A map versus the guy who was forced to hold up the sky?”
“I thought he was holding the globe.”
“Common misconception, which may be why a map of the world was called an atlas.”
“Figures you’d know this. But no, I’m referring to an OGA with that name. Just got done talking to Congressman Burnett, who mentioned it in relationship to that other matter I’m not allowed to discuss. The guy froze up on me. Was worried about breaching national security.”
“That’s a whole different ball game,” Doc said. “But it fits with what I found out about the congressman on that background you asked me to do. He was sitting on a national security task force, so…” Carillo could hear him clicking away on his keyboard. “Not Atlas, but ATLAS the acronym.”
“As in…?”
“As in Alliance for Threat Level Assessment and Security. It’s a global task force that assesses terrorist threats, and when necessary deploys a highly trained strike force to eliminate those threats.”
“And why is it no one’s ever heard of it?”
“It wouldn’t be very effective if everyone knew about it, would it?”
“So they’re a covert agency?”
“Extremely covert. Most of their operations are NOC, nonofficial cover. Plausible deniability is standard procedure, if you could even get the government to admit there was such an organization.”
“How come you know about it?”
“Hello? Didn’t you just get done asking me to research the congressman less than a day ago? That and I was able to finally dig up something on this Griffin. He’s running an international paper that’s more than likely a cover for CIA.”
“I’ll keep that in mind should someone mistakenly nominate them for a Pulitzer. Back to the OGA.”
“It’s a multi-agency, multi-country task force, populated by brainiacs in specialized fields, along with your average spies and your not-so-average special ops types on the strike force, of which Griffin is one. From what I’ve been able to deduce, each country involved has their own team, but they work cooperatively. It came about after 9/11.”
“So how much plausible denial are we talking?”
“Remember those CIA agents who were arrested in Italy a few years back for some shady operations?”
“Vaguely.”
“Put it this way. The government will not admit any involvement whatsoever. If Fitzpatrick involves herself in anything not above board and gets caught? Not only is her job at the Bureau history, but she’s probably looking at jail time.”
“That’s assuming she survives whatever it is she’s doing. I’m starting to have a real bad feeling about all this.”
“As well you should. They don’t send out guys like Griffin on the strike force, unless there’s a damned good reason.”
Sydney woke from her nap, wondering if Carillo had gotten ahold of the congressman, and if so, had the man actually been contacted by Xavier Caldwell. She picked up Caldwell’s papers, scanned the last sheet, then found it. World governments all searching for some key that would lead them to the missing Templar treasure. That was enough to make any sane FBI agent realize that the writer of this paper was reading way too much fiction and Internet propaganda. And that’s precisely what she’d thought at first, except for that niggling memory of the latest display on loan to the Smithsonian. Something to do with the Holy Crusades…Templar Knights were involved in the Holy Crusades.
For the second time that day, Sydney called Tony Carillo’s cell phone, having the hotel operator place it on her hotel bill. Italy being six hours ahead, she glanced at the clock to determine what time it would be in Washington, D.C., assuming he’d gotten there by now. It was almost five in the evening, not quite dark here, which would put it almost eleven A.M. there. “Give me good news,” she said.
“I haven’t made it out to the Smithsonian yet, but I did get in touch with the congressman. You ever hear of an agency called ATLAS?”
“No.”
“That’s where your boy Griffin works.”
“What is ATLAS?”
“Alliance for Threat Level Assessment and Security. Griffin’s on the strike force team. As in the special ops guys who go out and deal with the really,
“As it turns out, Griffin is insisting I return home, to keep me from becoming involved, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Tomorrow, in fact. I suppose if necessary, I could leave earlier. He’s all for it, scout’s honor.”
“Where is he now?”
“Making the death notification to the ambassador. Back to the congressman. You asked him about the missing student?”
“I did. He says the kid is a nutcase, talking about how the Freemasons and Propaganda Due are running the U.S. government, and that’s why they manufactured his photo with Alessandra and allowed it to be published. Hard to imagine that lead going anywhere.”
“Except that she is dead and he’s still missing.”
“Maybe he killed her and fled.”
“Or maybe he was killed, too, and we haven’t found his body yet. In a nutshell, I think we need to find out if there’s anything in this conspiracy paper he wrote, and if that’s why this girl was killed.”
“Okay, let’s say it is why she was killed. How the hell’d she and this Xavier stumble across this on some conspiracy Web site, and end up dead? It’s not like other nuts out there haven’t made a similar connection, and yet they’re still walking around searching for the Templar treasure and spouting off that the Illuminati is about ready to take over the world. No one’s killed them.”
“What did she do different, you mean?”
“Exactly.”
“Like I said, her body was found at the Smithsonian, where they recently had a display on loan having something to do with the Holy Crusade.”
“As in the Templars?” Carillo said. “Maybe you shoulda taken this vacation a lot sooner.”
“Bear with me a second. This conspiracy paper I’m holding mentions Templar treasure, and some key that leads to it, which certain world governments are searching for.”
“Does it say why?”
“No. But like you, I’d have dismissed it in a heartbeat, if not for the dead girl with the missing face, whose body
