Chapter 55
SATURDAY 7:42 a.m.
Stenness Basecamp
Orkney Island, Scotland
The elevator was in terrible shape. Thatcher held the rails as the floor shuddered under her feet. Years ago, she’d conquered a fear of heights rock climbing with Hummer, anchored to ropes belayed by her uncle. This was a totally different experience, a rickety boxcar attached to a compromised foundation. The only barrier between her and the basecamp floor was cracked translucent plastic. Slowly, the car wobbled toward the surface. She focused on the light above. Anything to take her mind off the teetering death trap.
Marek busied himself with diagnostic equipment
trying to hide his own apprehension.
T
he elevator came to a stop topside. The door slid open half a foot and then stuck. Thatcher slid through sideways, and Marek behind her. He whistled at the devastation. They got a glimpse of the Stenness remains from a surviving camera, but to see it in person was devastating.
Maeshowe’s
destruction spread far beyond the village. In perverse dichotomy, the pleasant morning sun shone down on flattened buildings, wreckage of NCEC tents, overturned vehicles, and thousands of decomposing sheep. In between mounds of decaying wool, the emerald grassland sparkled with dew.
T
hatcher felt her stomach churn. Eating one of the prepackaged nutriment meals that morning had been a mistake. The stench of putrefaction and morning mist was nauseating.
Marek
set his diagnostic gear beside the elevator. “You okay?” he asked.
Thatcher swallowed. “I just need to sit
a minute.”
He took a seat on the remains of a building and patted t
he wood beside him.
Thatcher leaned back against the rubble. The crisp morning air stung her lungs, but it felt better than the stale,
recycled air of the bunker.
Marek pointed at the
partially open elevator door. “I’m sure Lee will want us to fix that, too.”
“That’s your job.” Thatcher held up a new
video lens. “I’m on camera duty.”
Marek
smirked. He pulled a Twinkie from his pocket.
Thatcher did a double take.
“Is that from the bottom of the bird cadaver cooler?”
He shrugged
and opened the package, offering her one of the Twinkies.
“Thanks, but no thanks.”
“It may be the last opportunity you get.” He waved the cake under her nose. “Sealed for freshness. No bird guts.”
She took th
e Twinkie from him. What if he was right?
Marek unwrapped the other portion and studied the pastry.
He divided the oblong cake at its horizontal midpoint, dipped his pinky finger into the first hole, and scooped out white foam.
“You’ve got this down to an art.” Thatcher took a
small bite.
“Yes, I do.” He dipped his pinky into the next hole and
then looked out over Stenness. “So, is this how we’re gonna die?”
“What, this
isn’t the Armageddon you envisioned?”
“I figured we’d
get blown to hell or we’d blow ourselves to hell, but not both at the same time.”
Thatcher looked out over the flattened buildings, barely
recognizing the remains of McLeod’s Bed & Breakfast. “It’s so quiet afterwards.”
“
It’s surreal, sitting and waiting while northern Scotland is evacuated.”
Thatcher took another bite. “We
’ll start leaving an hour before detonation. Slowly de-man basecamp.”
“‘De-man basecamp’?” Marek said
sarcastically. “Look around. Everybody’s already dead.”
She took another bite. “These things taste better than I remember.”
Marek dipped his finger into the last cream-filled hole and then ate the entire cake in one monster-sized bite. He spoke with his mouth full. “I guess that means we won’t be here for the AVX show. I’ll miss fallout. The whole glowing or growing a third eye thing.”
“T
hat doesn’t really happen until a few days later anyway.”
He nudged her knee
with his. “You’d look nice with a third eye.”
“Is that right?”
A snort escaped her nose.
Marek looked at her sidew
ays. “Was that a snort?”
She covered her face and accidentally let out another. She was
punchy, too tired to care.
“Good Lord!” Marek yelled
out at the town. “This woman’s snortin’!”
They laughed until their sides grew t
ired, then both let out a sigh.
“Now I have seen it all.” He
looked over at her, admiringly. “Are you worried about him?”
S
he wasn’t expecting David to come into their conversation.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” he said.
Thatcher crossed her arms self-consciously. She returned her gaze to the distant passage grave.
“He’s
all right, I guess,” he said. “Nice, intelligent, respectable…white…”
She rolled her eyes.
“It’ll never work out between the two of you, though,” he said with a sideways smile. “I mean other than the fact that we’re all gonna die.” He leaned into her and whispered. “He’s an atheist.”
“How would you know that?”
she asked, her cheeks red.
“A guy can tell.” Marek wiggled his eyebrows.
Thatcher folded her arms more tightly, feeling the morning chill. “And what about you, Marek? Do you believe in God?”
He pulled a crucifix nec
klace out from under his shirt. “Damn straight.”
“Damn straight,” T
hatcher repeated. She stood and dusted off her pants. “Thanks for the Twinkie, Dr. Marek.”
“My pleasure.”
She picked up the video equipment and walked to the west end of Stenness, leaving Marek to fix the elevator. She knew where that conversation was headed. Definitely in a direction she wasn’t ready for.
She
reviewed Lee’s map and spotted a shattered lens underneath the flattened fence of their helicopter landing pad. The pad was still intact, but the camera was pulverized. Unscrewing the old lens from the base, she set it aside, brushed debris away from the metal foundation, and fastened the new camera in its place.
Her cell phone vibrated against her hip.
She didn’t recognize the number. “This is Thatcher.”
“He’s dead.” David’s sombe
r voice cut in and out.
Her heart stopped. “David, where are you?”
“Vanderkam is dead, Dr. Thatcher. That’s everyone in that picture except the old man.”
“Where are you?” she asked again.
“I just landed in Edinburgh. I need your help.”
Thatcher looked back
at basecamp. Marek had put on headphones and was rocking out while fixing the elevator. She moved the cell phone to her left ear and pushed her hair away from her face. “More passage graves are exuding lethal noise. It’s no longer just Maeshowe and Isbister.”
“I need your help.”
“We’re evacuating northern Scotland,” she tried to explain. “There’s no way I can—”
“I have a lead,” he interrupted. “I received a letter a few days ago…an answer, maybe. It’s missing the sender’s address
. I need to figure out who sent it.”
“There’s an American consulate in Edinburgh.
My friend, Brimley, works there. She’s American, CIA.”
“Can I
meet you there?”
Thatcher felt her chest sink
. “David…”
There was no answer.
“You’ve got to hurry,” she said. “You have less than four days before the passage graves are destroyed. If there was any way that I could…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
There was another long s
ilence.
“
Are you there?” she asked.
“How much time do I have?”
Looking down at her watch, she estimated. “Fifty-six hours.”
“I’m going to find the old man in the photograph.”
She could hear the crowd in the airport behind him.
“If he’s alive, his life is in danger. When I find him, we’ll need your help.”
Thatcher could hardly breathe.
“I’m sorry,” she
said, telling herself it was the right thing. “I’ll call my contact at the consulate. She’ll give you the information you need.”
As he hung up, s
he lowered the cell phone from her ear and placed it against her forehead. She couldn’t help but feel this was the last time they’d ever speak. Everything within her screamed she’d made the biggest mistake of her life. But there was nothing she could do.
She bent over the ground
camera and switched it on. She paused, looking over at Marek. He was singing at the top of his lungs, working at the broken elevator door.
What if she ran for it?
Marek wouldn’t stop her. If he knew half of what was goi
ng on, he’d probably run, too.
Who
was she kidding?
She’d made her choice.
The nation depended on her. Millions of lives were at stake.
Chapter 56
SATURDAY 2:20 p.m.
Edinburgh, Scotland
Agent Brimley brushed a layer of ninhydrin over the manila envelope. She looked up at David with an attractive sm
ile. “How do you know Brynne?”
He pulled nervously at the trench coat conceal
ing Vanderkam’s bloodstains on his clothes. “We are investigating a murder.”
“You
’re with NATO, then?”
David nodded. The less he said, the easier things would be.
Brimley moved the envelope under a black light. The ninhydrin quickly dissolved, coloring trace amino acids violet-blue and making visible an array of fingerprints. “It takes a minute. The scanner bulb has to warm up.” She pulled the latex gloves from her hands, and twisted a long strand of blonde hair through her fingers. “Brynne was my forensic pathology professor at the British Military Academy. It was the only forensics class I could stomach—well, almost stomach—I dropped out mid-semester.”
The scanner bulb warmed.
She looked closely at the envelope. “The center of these prints is pretty blurry. We’ll see what the magnifier can do.”
David nodded, keeping his hands in his pockets.
Brimley put on a pair of astute-looking glasses and typed modifications into the computer. “We’ve got several partials here. Let’s hope there’s enough for a match.”
A
n enlarged digital image of one of the prints formed on the monitor.
“The
CIA has been collecting fingerprints since 1924,” she said. “You can imagine the size of our collection. There are well over 200 million entries.”
“The world’s finest
,” he said.
She laughed.
The fingerprint finished uploading.
It
was barely legible with three distinct swirls at the edge.
“This
is interesting.” She slid her chair closer to the scanner, removed the envelope, and placed it under a magnifying glass.
David roll
ed his chair beside hers. Silky strands of her blonde hair blocked his view.
She bit her lip. “This is
way more challenging than I expected.”
“What do you mean?”
She leaned back in her chair and let David take a look through the magnifying glass. “These prints lack normal identifying features like friction ridges, whorls, and tetrarchs. They just look like—”
“S
mears,” he finished her sentence. The prints were mostly smudges with a few lines on the perimeter. He sat back with a sigh. Why was nothing ever simple?
Brimley searched the envelope for a better sample
. “‘Come, thou art Chosen?’” she read the words hidden beneath the spiral scribbles. “Does it mean something?”
He shrugged.
“Here’s one!” She focused the lens over the light purple impression. “This one has a little more detail. We’ve got something we can work with…” She pinned the envelope in place.
The scanner hummed to life.
An image formed on screen.
She zoomed in o
n the portion of the image. “Every time a line stops or splits, that’s called typica or bifurcation. These marks are unique to each person. They allow us to pinpoint a match if the person is in our database.”
David pointed at the screen. “Why are there no lines
in the center?”
“
That’s what makes your guy so interesting.” She seemed impressed that he noticed. She pointed to where swirling lines abruptly ended and the texture flattened into nothing. “See how the typica just stops?”
He nodded.
“That blurred area is probably scar tissue.”
“
Really?”
“My guess is self-inflicted.”
“That further narrows the field. Our man is a masochist.”
She
smiled and uploaded the print into the database. “Soviet spies during WWII would burn the skin off their fingers to protect their identity.”
As the computer processed the print, she removed the letter from th
e scanner. “By the look of your friend’s artwork here, I’d say he’s a lefty, mid-to-late eighties, severely near-sighted, arthritic, and possibly Parkinson’s symptomatic.”
Now she was just showing off.
“You can tell all that just by looking at his writing?” he asked.
“
The writer dragged his palm across the page from left to right. The angle of his print implies his writing arm was turned outward. That demonstrates myopia, or nearsightedness. The spirals are intricate, but a complete jumble.” She placed the envelope under the desk lamp. “See how the lines are jagged? He has an unsteady hand. In most places, they run together. He lacks muscular control.”
“S
how me how he’s lactose intolerant and obsessed with his mother, and then I’ll be impressed,” he joked.
Brimley
smiled. “Heavy compression marks mean he exerted an unusual amount of pressure. Add the thickness and weight of the pencil lead, and we know he’s serious about his cause. Crazy serious. It’s the same type of pressure we see in bomb threats.”
“
Sounds like a winner,” David said. Who the hell was trying to communicate with him?
The computer
finished processing the sample through the database.
NO MATCHES FOUND.
Disappointed, David reached for the manila envelope under the desk lamp.
“Let me try one more thing.”
Brimley accessed the CIA Employees Database. “You didn’t see this.”
“See what?”
“Exactly.” She uploaded the fingerprint into the system and initiated the check. Within seconds, the computer made a match.
“He’s Intelligence,” she said. “Or
at least he used to be.”
A
photograph and bio appeared on screen. It was the old man in Brenton’s Polaroid. The picture was a black and white image from the 1950s. His body slumped unnaturally to the left. His obsidian eyes, like dark whirlpools of black, made him look crazed. He was just as old as he appeared in the picture from Brenton’s office.
“That’s from the 1950s?” he asked, confused by the lack of age difference.
“1952,” she said.
The
y skimmed down the identification column.
“Azore, Anzorare, Asseyev, Askar…God,
he’s got fourteen aliases,” she said. “The most recent is Azores.”
“Azores
?” David finally had a name.
“He is Russian—
or, Russia is listed as his country of origin in 1936, but there’s no birthdate.” Brimley shook her head in astonishment. “He fought in both world wars, was enlisted with Russia in WWI and then Nazi Germany in WWII. He served in the CIA from the 60’s to 1980. There’s nothing here about his current residence.”
It was the right man, but another dead end.
Brimley forced an uncomfortable smile. “Wow, this guy is sending you fan mail?”
David swiped the envelope off the scanner. “Thanks, Agent Brimley.”
“It’s Diane,” she said.
He headed to the door.
“Dr. Hyden?” She nodded at the letter. “I’m no genius, but if there is a postal code in the upper right hand corner of that envelope, can’t you trace him that way?”
He turned the letter right side up and noticed it.
Why hadn’t he thought of that? He studied the postal code:
Lothian 1152
. That was somewhere on the northwestern seaboard of Scotland. He looked at his watch. If he got a car, he could get to Lothian in a few hours.
“You
better hurry,” she said. “They’ve started evacuating everything north of Aberdeen.”