There was a long pause and a heavy sigh. “Erik’s dead. He was shot by a Nephilim goon squad while he was trying to escape. I was his lookout, so I saw it all go down with my own eyes.”
“Apparently, your brother Joshua can tell the truth when it suits him,” Chris observed sardonically.
“I’m so sorry,” Daniel told the boy. “So very sorry.”
“We all are,” Zach agreed in a subdued tone.
“I’d like to try to free Hannah again. She may be at risk if she remains in the compound. Is there anybody I can speak to on your end about that? Perhaps you know how I can get in touch with a woman named Cassie.”
“It just so happens I do.” Zach sounded elated. “Hold on a minute. Don’t hang up.”
Chris and Daniel could hear muffled sounds as the phone was stuffed into a pocket. Then they heard running footsteps.
“Cassie!” Zach was shouting. His voice echoed off what sounded like a marble corridor. “Cassie, where are you?” the boy demanded.
From a greater distance, Daniel and Chris could hear a female voice responding. “Jeepers, Zach! What are you bellowing about? I’m in my office. The door’s open. C’mon in.”
There were more running footsteps and then a thud as the phone was slammed onto a hard surface, presumably the woman’s desk.
“Cassie.” Zach was gasping and out of breath. “You’re gonna want to take this call. You won’t believe who’s on the other end of the line.”
Chapter 5—Of Mies and Men (and One Woman)
Cassie and Griffin crossed Dearborn Street in downtown Chicago and advanced warily across the granite flagstones of Federal Plaza. It was too early in May for vendors to have set up their farmer’s market stalls, so the open expanse was empty except for a few stray pedestrians taking a diagonal shortcut. Daniel had agreed to arrange a meeting between his father and the Arkana agents. After some deliberation, all the parties involved had settled on Federal Plaza as their rendezvous point. Cassie and Griffin felt reassured by the fact that the plaza offered 360-degree visibility. There were no dark corners where an attacker might lurk in order to abduct or shoot them should negotiations take a bad turn.
“I don’t see anything that looks like a trap.” Cassie scanned the surrounding high rises. “Unless there’s a sniper on a rooftop somewhere.” She immediately regretted the offhand comment.
“I must say, I’m beginning to appreciate Mies van der Rohe’s fixation on glass curtain walls.” Griffin pointed to the Federal Building to their left. It was a boxy black skyscraper much admired by fans of modernist architecture.
“Yeah, and the fact that the lobby is staffed with armed guards who can peek out the wall-to-wall windows and see everything that’s happening in the plaza,” Cassie added. “I’m finding that level of scrutiny oddly comforting today. Plus, look over there.” She pointed to the one-story, glass-walled Post Office directly ahead of them, also designed by Mies. “Security guards in there too. Not to mention a couple of postal workers who might be packing heat because they’re about to go, you know, postal.”
They both stiffened as they saw a man rounding the corner of the Post Office and heading straight toward them. It was Leroy Hunt dressed in his usual Stetson hat and matching cowboy attire. He had apparently spied them long before they were aware of his presence since he displayed no surprise. Instead, he ambled forward, clearly not in a hurry, a toothpick protruding from the corner of his mouth. Stopping a few feet away from the pair, he removed the toothpick and placed it in his jacket pocket.
Tipping his hat with elaborate mock courtesy, he said, “Miss Cassie. I see you’re still alive... for now.”
“Leroy,” she replied through gritted teeth.
“And you brought the Limey,” he added, transferring his attention to the scrivener.
“As I mentioned during our last unfortunate encounter, my name is Griffin.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right.” Leroy’s eyes narrowed. “Well, Grif, I got a bone to pick with you seein’ as how you’re still holdin’ my piece.”
“I beg your pardon.” Griffin peered at him.
“My piece, boy. My piece. You still got your hands on it.”
“What are you on about? I assure you I have no desire to place my hands on anything of yours.”
“I think he means his gun,” Cassie whispered to her partner.
The scrivener still looked puzzled. “What gun?”
“The one you stole off me in China, that’s what gun!” Leroy muttered indignantly. “My favorite Glock too. I went to a heap of trouble to smuggle that pistol over there.”
“Oh, I see,” said Griffin with dawning recognition. “So, you want me to return a weapon that you’ll most likely use to shoot us at some point in the future?”
“It ain’t like I can’t find another gun to shoot y’all with if I take a mind to.”
“He’s got a point.” Cassie shrugged. “You might as well give it back. Keeping it will just tick him off worse.”
“As if that were possible,” the scrivener murmured. “Very well, Mr. Hunt, I’ll have it sent round to your apartment.”
“That’s more like it.” The cowboy seemed mollified by the concession.
Changing the subject, the pythia asked, “Where’s your boss?”
Hunt cast a glance over his shoulder. “He’ll be along with Brother Dan’l in a minute or two. Now that the old man is gettin’ on in years, it takes some doin’ to pry him out of a car. I came on ahead to make sure you two wasn’t gonna pull any funny business like you usually do.”
“We’ve got no reason to,” Cassie retorted. “Nobody’s trying to kill us today.”
“Nope, not today...” Hunt trailed off, allowing the implication to hit home. He transferred his attention to his surroundings, casually scanning the plaza until his eyes came to rest on the fifty-foot steel sculpture that
