5

EVERY CITY CAME WITH ITS OWN SMELL, a blended aroma influenced by region, infrastructure, and the culinary sensibilities of its residents. And so, while it had been years since Jack had walked the streets of Caracas, the smell of it, enhanced by a recent rain, made him feel as if barely a week had passed. Espy felt the same way; he could tell just by looking at her. Despite what had happened over the last twenty-four hours, she was smiling. It was a sad smile, but it was also one that only coming home could evoke.

An enormous city, Caracas lay sprawled along a valley floor like a grand spill, its size and din at the center slowly giving way to smaller, poorer sections that spread out past the city’s outskirts. Yet in the affluent neighborhood of Chacao, where Espy’s brother kept his place of business, there might as well have been a curtain veiling the undesirable periphery from view.

Jack and Espy walked along Avenida Libertador, the street congested with traffic, the city around them filled with a level of noise and spectacle unique to this part of the world. They were heading uphill, the angle of ascent bothering Jack’s bad knee, but Romero’s shop was close by, its dark doorway a sliver toward the end of a long, nondescript white wall.

When they reached it and Espy stepped through, Jack couldn’t shake the impression that he’d just watched his wife jump down a rabbit hole. At the top of a narrow, dimly lit flight of stairs stood a large, brown metal door that Espy pushed open, flooding the corridor with light.

Romero didn’t know they were in the country. Jack had thought about calling while in transit, but considering the resources McKeller had at his disposal, Jack had decided against it. And while the flight from North Carolina to Caracas meant they probably knew where he was, he had no desire to assist them by engaging his brother-in-law via a technology susceptible to prying ears.

He closed the door behind them and then turned to survey a place where he’d spent a good deal of time during his younger days, taking it in with a glance that told him little had changed in the passing years. Not long after retiring from a more adventurous—and dangerous—life and opening a place where he could sell things that others took the risks to procure, Romero had discovered the necessary elements to a successful high-end retail establishment: refinement and austerity. It was a combination that had served him well, making him more comfortable than Jack suspected he ever thought possible when a younger man.

The retail floor was empty. Jack looked toward Romero’s office, the glass wall revealing his absence. He frowned. He knew the place almost as well as he knew his office back at the university. There were few places to hide, and Romero would never leave without locking the door. It was a mystery that immediately set him on edge, even as his physical self seemed to decide on its own course of action. Before he even realized he’d moved, he was halfway across the room, standing in front of a display of ancient weapons, a pair of impressive stone axes framing several smaller knives that, if his guess was correct, were copper alloy. As his hand reached for one of the axes, his mind continuing to puzzle over Romero’s absence, it occurred to him that his attraction to aged things was a force he couldn’t control, something that compelled him regardless of external influences. Yet it was one such external influence that stayed his hand—a good-natured oath coming from behind him.

Jack turned to see Espy’s brother, a hand on the top of his head, absently rubbing it as he processed the sight of his sister and closest friend unexpectedly standing in his store. Then the Venezuelan’s mouth split into a grin and he was moving forward. In the hugs that followed, most of them reserved for his sister, Jack allowed himself a respite from the cares that had forced them to take this trip.

The reprieve proved to be short-lived. Before long, even as he wrapped his sister in another embrace, Romero’s eyes moved past her, taking in Jack with a look that suggested an understanding that something beyond a simple visit had brought them to Caracas.

Before Jack could say anything, he saw Romero glance around, his face assuming a puzzled expression. “Where are my nephews?” he asked in his deep baritone voice.

Jack reached over and took Espy’s hand, then refocused his attention on his brother-in-law. “We need your help.”

In the span of a few seconds, Romero’s face darkened, concern leaching away the joy of the unexpected visit. He locked eyes with Jack, then moved his gaze to take in his sister. “What has happened?”

Jack released a heavy sigh, wondering where to begin. “Let’s go to your office.”

Romero nodded and started to lead the way, Espy following. Jack started after them, but then he paused to return to its case the beautifully wrought pre-Columbian ax that had somehow managed to appear in his hand. When he looked up, he found Romero staring back at him, wearing a frown.

“Old habit,” Jack said with a shrug.

Romero sat at his desk, his hands entwined on its wooden surface, a thoughtful look on his face. He hadn’t said anything for several moments, although the longer the tale went, the more he leaned his large frame toward Espy’s chair, as if in some unconscious protective gesture.

While he considered what Jack had told him, it struck Jack how silent it was in the store. Knowing his boys, he knew they would be out on the sales floor, two thousand square feet of near-priceless objects their playground. Romero would have been a nervous wreck. At the moment, though, he imagined Romero wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Jack shook that thought away and returned his attention to Romero, who had been silent for some time. Jack had watched a range of emotions play out across his brother-in-law’s face, notably fear and a growing anger at the fate that had befallen his nephews.

“So you must do everything in your power to get your sons back,” Romero concluded.

“The problem is figuring out the best way to do that,” Jack said.

“Duckey says the boys will be safe for now,” Espy added.

“And do you believe that?” Romero asked.

“I believe Duckey,” Jack was quick to say. “Besides, McKeller needs something from me. It wouldn’t make sense for him to hurt the boys.”

Romero looked less than sure, but he let the matter drop. He leaned back, his large frame eliciting a groan from the chair. “Let me make certain I understand. Gordon Reese, the man you were afraid would have you killed while he still lived, decided to wait until he was dead before trying to accomplish the deed.”

“In a nutshell,” Jack said. He looked over at Espy and saw the beginnings of a frown.

“For the record,” she said, “no one’s said anything about wanting us dead.”

Despite the circumstances, a smirk curled Romero’s lip. Jack knew what he was thinking. Over the years, there had been a number of people who would have paid to see Jack dead. Reese was simply the one best positioned to make that happen. Except, even as he thought that, he knew it wasn’t entirely true. There was another entity with the resources to see to his demise, and unlike Reese, they had the benefit of a shroud of secrecy. When Jack and Espy buried the bones of the prophet Elisha, they weren’t just keeping them out of Reese’s hands, they were removing them from the care of an ancient organization that had safeguarded them for millennia. Ever since that day, he’d wondered when they would come looking.

Espy, who’d lived through those events with him, was the one who could best understand his train of thought. “They’re not involved,” she said. “If they were going to come after us, they would have done so a long time ago.”

Jack nodded in agreement, suspecting that if the original guardians of the bones were to ever come looking for them, he doubted they would go through the trouble of infiltrating the CIA.

“So now that you’re in something of a holding pattern, what will you do?” Romero asked.

The question hung in the room, and the absence of an immediate answer told all three of them how few options they seemed to have.

“The one thing that keeps rolling around in my head is that this is a government agent we’re dealing with,” Jack finally said. “I mean, this isn’t Reese. Even if it’s an off-the-books operation, like Duckey says, McKeller will follow Company protocol.”

Romero grunted. “From what you’ve told me, it would appear he is operating under a single directive: acquire the bones through whatever means necessary. And the very fact that it’s an ‘off-the-books operation,’ as you say, means there are no rules. You’re also speaking of a man driven by grief and fear.”

“Which brings us back to me calling McKeller and making a trade—myself for Jim and Alex,” Jack said.

Romero’s head was shaking before Jack had finished. “You said Duckey considers this to be a rogue agent within your CIA. To me, that suggests a person who would leave no witnesses once he gets what he wants.”

Jack had always appreciated Romero’s ability to frame any situation within the confines of dispassionate truth. In this case, though, the potential collateral damage was too much to consider without it sending a shiver up his back. He saw those words have a similar effect on Espy.

“It’s a risk I’m going to have to take,” Jack said.

“If there is a rogue element within the CIA, then maybe there are factions that would like to know what this rogue element is doing?” Espy ventured.

Romero nodded. “Right. Have one set of dogs call off another.”

“Or get this so out in the open that they can’t do anything to us, regardless of whether or not they get the bones,” Espy said.

Both of them turned to Jack.

“If doing something like that would help, Duckey would have suggested it,” Jack said. “But he said the exact opposite. He thinks putting this out in the open is more dangerous for the boys. What it comes down to is that Ducks told us to run, to get as far away as we could. And I can’t believe he would have done that if he thought there was any chance of us talking our way out of this mess.”

Jack saw that both of them—especially Espy—would have liked to argue the point, but he knew neither of them would. When it came to dealing with the CIA, all of them knew only one man who qualified as an expert, and that man was Duckey.

Espy, who had again lapsed into silence, rose from the leather chair next to her husband and began to walk around her brother’s office, reaching out a hand to run it along the smooth wood of his desk. After a few moments, she turned to the others.

“We had a chance to destroy them years ago and we didn’t,” she said. “I mean, we certainly should have for all the trouble they’ve brought us.”

“Are you suggesting this man will believe you if you tell him the bones are gone?” Romero asked.

Espy shook her head. “What I’m saying is that instead of destroying them, we buried them in the desert. There was no reason to do that. Too many people died so that we could find them. We should have ground them to dust. But we didn’t.” She looked to Jack. “I think, maybe even subconsciously, we knew we’d have to find them again. We kept them around just in case. And the way I see it, this is the just in case.”

What Espy was suggesting was obvious enough that Jack mentally kicked himself for not thinking of it. “You want to go and dig them up?” he asked her.

“I don’t see any other way around it.”

Though it was her idea, Espy’s face was inscrutable. Jack traded a look with her that seemed to last a long while. What it came down to was that, ultimately, everything now happening to them was his fault. All of it stemmed from his decision to take a job more than a decade ago, a simple yes that had altered the course of many lives. To return to Australia was to revisit events and remember the people they were before having children, before getting married, and to become those people again, if only for a short time.

“Okay,” he said.

She gave him a half smile. “As much as the idea of flying to Australia so that we can dig for bones in the desert doesn’t appeal to me, what it comes down to is that if this man is as dangerous as Duckey says he is, our only chance of getting through this is if we have something to trade.”

“So our next trick,” Jack said, “is to figure out how to get me to Australia without buying a ticket on a commercial airline or showing my passport to anyone.”

“If there’s one person I’d trust to figure out how to travel a few thousand miles without spending a dime, and sneaking into a place you don’t belong, I’d put all my money on you. Except there’s just one thing wrong.”

Jack raised an eyebrow.

“There’s no way I’m staying behind,” she said.

She delivered the message in a tone Jack knew well—one he’d never successfully argued against in the almost two decades of their relationship. So he didn’t even bother trying. Instead he turned to Romero. “Think you can help facilitate travel arrangements?”

Even before he finished the question, he could tell something was wrong. Romero was sitting more upright in his chair than normal, his hands in front of him on the desk, one with a strong grip on the other. In all the time Jack had known Romero, he’d never seen him nervous, excepting those occasions in their younger days when Jack may or may not have gotten him into a sticky situation or two. What Jack was witnessing now, though, was a different sort of nervousness, one he couldn’t decipher.

Espy frowned, which told Jack he wasn’t imagining things.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked. He could feel his stomach tightening, almost as if he knew what his friend was going to say.

The Venezuelan shopkeeper didn’t answer right away. It was all he could do to meet Jack’s eyes.

“I don’t think you’ll find them,” Romero said, the words coming grudgingly.

“Won’t find what?” Jack asked, despite already knowing the answer.

Romero released a heavy sigh, after which he stilled his hands and leveled his gaze. “I went looking for them. A few months after you returned from Australia.”

“You did what?” Espy asked.

The steel in her voice made her brother wince. “I didn’t find them,” he said. He was speaking to Jack rather than to his sister, perhaps assuming a more sympathetic ear.

Espy stood, placed both her hands on the desk, and leaned in closer to her brother, looking him in the eyes. “Why would you go looking for them?”

“Because they’re worth a fortune,” Jack answered for him. And then he did the only thing that seemed appropriate: he started to laugh. It was a thin, sardonic laugh.

To his credit, Romero didn’t flinch beneath his sister’s glare. “Because they’re worth a fortune,” he affirmed. “I thought I would recover the bones and market them to a select list of my former clients.”

Espy’s shoulders tensed and her back went rigid. Her small fist came down hard on the wood of her brother’s desk, causing both men to nearly jump from their chairs.

“What were you thinking?” she asked. “After what we went through to find them, do you think anyone had a stronger claim?” She paused, as if waiting for an answer—one that didn’t come. “But we decided no one should ever use them again. Then you come along and think to dig them up and sell them?” Her fist came down a second time, causing Romero’s phone to rattle.

As Jack watched the scene play out, he found it odd that he wasn’t angrier than he was, even as he suspected the reasons for his calm. The first was that Espy was doing a better job of verbally eviscerating her brother than Jack could ever have hoped to. The second was that, if he was going to be honest with himself, what Romero had done wasn’t a complete surprise.

In some ways, Romero and Jack were cut from the same cloth. Jack could picture himself in his brother-in-law’s shoes. If he knew that something priceless was out there, something not just valuable but also vested with the very power of God, he doubted he could avoid seeking it out. He knew Romero well enough to understand the battle he’d fought—and ultimately lost.

“As I said, I didn’t find them,” Romero said.

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “It’s a big desert. So if you didn’t find them, what makes you think they’re gone?”

“Because before I made the attempt, I chanced a few inquiries to gauge the interest of some of my wealthier clients,” Romero explained. “At the time, none of them seemed willing to part with the sort of money I thought the find warranted.”

“But you went anyway,” Jack said.

“I just had to,” he said with a sigh. “But while I’m convinced I was in the right area, I couldn’t locate them. After a week had passed, and after missing a few sales here, I gave up the search.”

“But someone else didn’t,” Jack guessed.

“Perhaps a week after I returned, I received an inquiry from a man who had never purchased anything from me but whose name I knew from the London circle.”

“So the feelers you put out spread a bit further than you’d intended,” Jack chided.

“As I expected they would. Yet I considered the story fantastic enough to discourage anyone who heard it secondhand from believing it to be anything other than fiction.”

Jack granted him that with a nod.

“But someone believed it,” Espy said.

Jack straightened in his chair, an ominous idea forming. But before he could put voice to it, Romero responded to his sister.

“His name is Quinn Chambers,” Romero said. “He’s a member of the House of Lords, and a major player in the aerospace industry. He comes from some of the oldest money in Britain.”

Espy looked between Jack and Romero, as if suspecting that something had passed between them. She adopted a puzzled look.

“It’s them,” Jack said. “This Quinn Chambers is one of them.”

The them was the nameless, faceless organization that had watched over Elisha’s bones for thousands of years. Jack had met one of them in Australia: George Manheim, a man he’d watched die at the hand of Manheim’s own son. A member of a secret fraternity charged with protecting the prophet’s remains. Jack had always known they were the ones who got him and Espy sprung from an Australian holding cell, and who had all records of what happened there either sealed or erased. He’d never known why; he still didn’t.

“That was my thought as well, though not immediately,” Romero said. “At first, I thought he was simply a very wealthy man with a desire to own something extraordinary. Only later did I begin to suspect something else, and then only after some surreptitious research.”

“But you couldn’t find the bones,” Jack said. “What good, then, could you have been to this guy?”

“That was what I told him. But he still promised half of my original asking price simply for telling him the general location of my search area.” Romero looked up, and while there was no pleading in his eyes, there was something close to it. “Half of what I was asking just to point to a spot on the map. For items I’d given up on finding.”

Jack was forced to admit that it would be a difficult deal to pass up. He was tempted to ask how much Romero got for the information but let the urge pass.

“What makes you think he would have been any more successful than you were?” Espy asked. She pushed away from the desk, and her body language showed she wasn’t yet ready to release her anger, although she didn’t look as driven to hit her brother.

Jack was the one who answered. “Because if the man belongs to this organization, he has all the resources he needs to comb every square inch of that desert until he finds them.”

“So they got the bones,” Espy said slowly. “Alex . . . Jim . . .”

A heaviness settled over the room as all of them considered the implications of Espy’s words.

Having established that their only chance of getting out of their predicament involved retrieving the bones and trading them to McKeller for the boys, and then discovering the bones had likely been reclaimed by their caretakers—thus putting them out of reach—left Jack feeling more weary than he had in a long while. “Right now, we can only act on what we know for sure,” he said. “Thirteen years ago, we buried the bones in the Australian desert. Until we find out otherwise, we have to assume they’re still there.”

He looked for a glimmer of hope in Espy’s eyes but didn’t see any. What he did see was the strength that Espy had carried through all of their past trials.

Jack turned to Romero. “Now, about those travel arrangements. I’m thinking you’ll want to cover the cost of that?” He gave his brother-in-law a shrewd smile.