He’s obsessive and paranoid, but that’s not what worries me most.” Jack’s eyes looked to the west again.
“Go on,” Sailor said.
“I don’t think Valery showing me the photograph of Ray and the others was coincidence. I think he suspects something. Exactly what he suspects, I’m not sure. The problem is that Valery is a double agent. He works for us and guess who his controller is?” Jack paused a moment. “Valery’s controller is Captain Blaine Harrington.”
“I have yet to see the threat in this, Jack,” Sailor said. “A photograph or two from two distant countries should not lead anyone anywhere, even if they find our presence there ‘unusual.’ But more important, how many more in the military or government have knowledge of us?”
“None.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I can’t, but Cardinal can. That is what he does, Sailor. He told me he is ‘home base’ in a plan Solomon had all along, a plan to prevent any government from ever learning about you … about the Meq. He called the plan his ‘Diamond plan.’ Basically, it was a vision of an independent intelligence organization with connections inside as many governments as possible. Solomon thought the world of men was not yet ready for the reality of the Meq. His assessment is, unfortunately, truer today than it ever was. The Russians, the Chinese, and especially the Americans would hunt you down like animals to gain your secrets and the power that’s in the blood flowing through your veins. They would exploit all of you like lab rats to get access to that power. Cardinal says we must never let this happen, and I agree.” Jack stopped and looked directly at me. “So does my mother.”
For the first time in a long time my thoughts went to Carolina. She would be a much older woman now. My eyes drifted out across Pearl Harbor and followed a passing ship for a moment or two. “How is she, Jack? Is she well?”
Jack smiled wide. “My mother is the smartest, prettiest, feistiest seventy-five-year-old woman in St. Louis, Z. Yeah, she’s doing just fine. She misses you. She told me if I ever saw you, I should tell you she wishes she was kicking leaves again, whatever that means.”
I laughed to myself and remembered. I was twelve years old in actual years and Carolina was only slightly younger. We became lifelong friends that fall, kicking leaves as we walked through Forest Park. “Don’t worry, Jack. I know what she means.”
Jack rubbed the stubble on his chin. “You know, Z, she never has told me how you two met in the first place.”
“I’ll tell you on the way home, Jack.”
“Is that where the three of you want to go? St. Louis?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“No,” Sailor interjected.
I turned to Sailor. I had made the assumption we were all going to the same destination. He saw the surprise in my eyes.
“I forgot to tell you, Zianno. While I was in the Fleur-du-Mal’s
“No problem,” Jack said. “That is, if you don’t mind starting in Mexico City. I’ve got a man there right now who handles all of Latin America … and you can trust him completely, Sailor.”
“Are you quite sure?”
“Maybe you should ask Z,” Jack said, looking at me with a grin. “His name is Oliver ‘Biscuit’ Bookbinder.”
Sailor turned to me and raised one eyebrow.
“I know him well,” I said, then paused. “Biscuit was the orphan boy who witnessed Unai’s and Usoa’s murders. Opari and I found him, but Carolina saved him, named him, and raised him in her home as one of her own. He was a good boy and I’m sure he is a good man.”
“He is also a baseball legend throughout Latin America,” Jack said. “It’s the perfect cover for him. Biscuit is welcomed with open arms by everyone and given access to almost anything. He can get both of you into South America legally and without suspicion, but … uh … I wouldn’t advise wearing that little blue beauty on your finger, Sailor.”
Sailor laughed louder than I’d heard him laugh in weeks. He said, “Do not be alarmed, Jack. I shall keep it safely tucked away.”
We flew out of Hawaii in two similar but separate directions. Jack and I left for San Francisco, while Sheela and Sailor left for Los Angeles, along with a Navy lieutenant assigned by Jack. Once there they would transfer aircraft and the lieutenant himself would fly them to Mexico City, where Biscuit would meet them and take care of everything, including proper paperwork and money.
Shortly before we took off, Sailor pulled me aside. “Be vigilant,” he said. “The Remembering occurs in a mere seventy years, Zianno. We must not let the Giza detour us from being there.” He paused, looking around the terminal at passing faces. “I believe Jack could be right in his assessment of this new age.”
“What do you mean, ‘new age’?”
“I mean the one we now inhabit since the Americans have invented and used that godforsaken bomb. I am not so worried of anyone discovering our existence as I am of the newfound ability of the Giza to annihilate each other and poison the entire planet in the process. Do you understand the implications?”
I watched Sailor carefully. He gave nothing away, as usual. I know the Meq, particularly the old ones, are often nonchalant about comings and goings, arrivals and departures, but Sailor and I had spent the last eight years traveling together every day and I would miss him. I smiled when Sailor asked if I understood the implications. After a moment or two, he smiled back. “I understand,” I said.
His “ghost eye” was cloudless and bright. “
Ten minutes after landing and gathering our gear, Jack and I made a spur-of-the-moment decision. We had planned on taking the train to St. Louis, but Jack came up with another idea.
“How quick do you want to get home, Z?”
“I don’t know, Jack, what do you have in mind?”
“What if we drove?”
I laughed and said, “Why not?”
It took us half a day to find a vehicle Jack deemed appropriate for the journey. Eventually, he settled on a 1941 Ford Deluxe station wagon with wood paneling on the sides. The car was a beauty, and Jack paid cash for it. We headed east to Reno, then on through Nevada and Utah, crossing into Wyoming and Nebraska. It was wonderful to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel America again. I had missed it more than I thought. The weather was good the entire trip, and Jack drove at a leisurely pace. He talked most of the way about the war and what he’d seen and learned while leading refugees, spies, British and American pilots, Jewish artists, and others out of France and across the Pyrenees with Koldo and his Basque compatriots. Most of it sounded like one long, grand adventure, only filled with very real threats and dangers. Jack had been lucky to live on more than one occasion. Others had not been so lucky. Somewhere in northwestern Missouri, Jack finally got around to telling me about Emme Ya Ambala and Antoine Boutrain. His eyes darkened and his voice cracked slightly as he began. “It was a crazed act, Z … by a crazed Nazi … and completely unnecessary … the goddamn war was nearly over when it happened.”
As Jack told me the story, my heart felt pierced with every word and sentence. On March 22, 1945, a Gestapo agent who had been disgraced in Paris two years earlier in his pursuit of the Russian revolutionary Voline was trying to escape Europe through Marseille. His hatred and obsession with Voline had been well known among the underground in occupied France. Purely as a final, mad act of revenge, he decided to blow up the house where Voline had once held court, the same address where Antoine, Emme, and Antoinette now lived, along with Mitch Coates and Mercy Whitney. It was the second day of spring and the sky was a soft, light blue. Mitch and Mercy were out of town visiting friends in Paris. Antoinette was in her last year of school just a mile away. At ten after ten in the morning, she and each of her classmates heard the explosion and ran to the window. For a full thirty seconds,
