Changeling (7 page)

“Even if you’re right, and there is some kind of conspiracy at work, why go to the trouble of taking out a whole plane just to kill one guy? They could have just popped him on a street corner, made it look like a mugging. Or simply walked up and shot him, like Rafi did. And for that matter, how did our intern get mixed up in this?”

“Maybe this Parrott guy wasn’t the only target on that plane. As for Rafi, I have no idea, but you’re right. It doesn’t make any sense. That’s why we have to go to London. We have to figure out what Roche’s big secret is.”

Professor sighed. “You’re insufferable when you’re right. You know that, don’t you?”

Jade just grinned.

New York City

Atash Shah opened
his front door before the visitor could knock. “Gabrielle. Thank you for coming so quickly.”

“Of course. I was still at the office when I heard. I came straight away.” Gabrielle Greene gripped Shah’s hand, not shaking but clasping it in both of hers. Her dark eyes, framed by even darker hair, a stark contrast with her pale skin, probed the interior of the apartment.

“Raina is already in bed,” Shah said, answering the unasked question.

He thought he saw something like a smile flicker across her face. It was probably his imagination.

Wishful thinking.

Even now, facing this unprecedented crisis, he could scarcely contain his longing for her. Just being around her was intoxicating. Working with her day in and day out at the Crescent Defense League home office was enough to make him perpetually giddy, but having her here, in his home, with his wife sleeping so close…that made the forbidden fruit of their unconsummated love seem all the sweeter.

Gabrielle’s dark serious gaze fell squarely on him. “How bad is it?”

Shah allowed the fantasy to slip away, and looked around furtively. He had it on reliable authority that he was the subject of a secretly sworn and executed FISA warrant. His telephone calls and emails were being screened and he was certain that both his apartment and office were bugged.

Ordinarily, the watching eyes and listening ears did not concern him. He scrupulously avoided doing or saying anything that might even be faintly construed as illegal. As both a Muslim and a journalist who frequently exposed the government’s illegal excesses and abuses of power, there were many—both in government circles and in the mainstream news media—who considered him far more dangerous than any terrorist, and rightly so. The old saying was true after all; the pen was mightier than the sword. Tonight however, was a different matter. Tonight, the distinction between pen and sword had become very blurry indeed. He touched a finger to his lips and stepped out of the apartment, closing the door behind him. He led Gabrielle to the stairwell and up to the roof where, hopefully, they would be able to converse without being overheard by federally sanctioned eavesdroppers.

Gabrielle understood the need for discretion. Thought she was not a Muslim, her hard-hitting investigative reporting, which often made use of highly-placed informants—men and women who were legally and technically committing treason by sharing what they knew with a journalist—had put her on the government’s radar as well. The fact that she worked closely with Shah, co-founding the Crescent Defense League with him, as well as using him as a source for her freelance articles, surely had not improved her reputation, but that was the price both of them were willing to pay to see a world free from tyranny and intolerance.

It was their holy crusade. A
jihad
, not for Islam—Shah’s faith was a complicated thing, informed more by science than the words of the Prophet—but for the truth.

With more than 1.6 billion adherents—twenty-three percent of the global population—the world’s fastest growing religion was also arguably the world’s dominant religious belief system, regaining a status it had once held for more than four hundred years, from the 8
th
to 13
th
centuries. That time, still remembered as the Golden Age of Islam, had been a period of unparalleled scientific, intellectual and cultural achievements, made possible by the unifying power of the Prophet’s writings. Shah, like many modern thinkers who shared his culture and faith, was skeptical when it came to matters of divine revelation, but he was a believer in the power of a united purpose. A second Golden Age of Islam
was
possible, but only if Muslims everywhere recognized and lived up to their potential for greatness.

Shah’s mission in life was to make sure that happened. He would be the Mahdi, the last imam, who would reunite Sunni and Shia, and all the fractured sects of the faith and lead them to a greatness surpassing even the days of the Prophet. Truth was his weapon, a fire that burned through the endless storm of lies and prejudices. The articles he posted on the Crescent Defense League website not only exposed the agenda of Islam’s enemies, who sought always to characterize Islam as a violent faith, filled with radicals and terrorists, but dug deeper, revealing more subtle forms of intolerance, such as unflattering portrayals of Muslims in movies and television shows, which all too often conflated “Muslim” with “terrorists.”

Unfortunately, like fire, the truth was sometimes difficult to control, and letting it loose could have unpredictable consequences.

“Roche is dead,” Shah said.

Something like relief or satisfaction spread across Gabrielle’s countenance. “How?”

“That’s the problem.” He briefly related what his sources had told him about Rafi Massoud and the brutal murder the young student had committed. “They’re going to try to put this on us,” he continued. “They’ll say that I incited this young man to commit murder.”

Gabrielle made a cutting gesture with her hand. “Let them.”

Shah swallowed nervously. Gabrielle may have shared Shah’s mission, but her motives were more complex.

“This is what we do, Atash,” Gabrielle went on. “Turn their attacks against them. If you distance yourself from this, you’ll appear weak. Apologize and they win. You have to own this.”

“I don’t think that will work this time. They want to paint us as a religion of violent extremists and terrorists. You would have me admit they’re right?”

Gabrielle reached out and took his hand again. Shah felt an electric tingle at the touch. “This is how the world works now, Atash. A lunatic shoots a school full of children. What does the gun lobby do? Do they apologize for the behavior of one crazy person and admit that maybe some common sense regulations might be a good idea? Not a chance. They double down and turn the tables, blame the victims for not having guns of their own and paint everyone who says otherwise as the real extremists.”

Shah stared back dumbfounded. “You can’t be serious. We created the CDL to fight that kind of echo chamber mentality.”

“We created the CDL to defend Islam. Our enemies will try to use this against this. We have to make it work to our advantage.”

Her passion radiated through her hand into his, burning through his reflexive opposition. “How exactly do we do that? Do we say it’s Roche’s fault for not being Muslim?”

He said it half-jokingly but to his astonishment, Gabrielle nodded. “Just like we did after the Charlie Hebdo shootings. We’ll release a statement saying that, while we do not condone what happened, we strongly condemn the sort of blasphemy that prompted a young man to martyr himself.”

Shah’s forehead creased in a frown. “The cable news outlets will make hay out of rhetoric like that.”

“It doesn’t matter what they do with it.” She squeezed his hand again. “All that matters is that your people—our people—will recognize your strong and decisive leadership.

Shah felt his resistance crumbling. “You’re very persuasive.”

“Only because I’m right about this. Trust me. And don’t worry. We’ll run the statement past legal to make sure it’s airtight.” She paused a beat. “You said this happened in Peru? What was Roche doing down there?”

“I have no idea. He’s been hiding out ever since…that thing with his publisher.”

“The shooter, he was a student, right?” Gabrielle pressed. “An archaeologist? We need to know how he came to cross paths with Roche. The old crank might be dead, but he can still hurt us if he told someone what he knows or gave them his book.”

“I’m not sure there’s much we could do about it if he did.”

Gabrielle’s expression hardened abruptly, her dark eyes boring into him. “Atash, I don’t think you fully appreciate just how serious this situation is.”

Shah gaped at her. “How can you say that? I’ve been in damage control mode ever since I heard about the shooting.”

“I’m not talking about Roche’s death. I’m talking about his secret. It must stay buried. At all costs. If he’s shared this knowledge with anyone we have to find out. And we have to silence them.”

“Silence them?” The question came out much louder than Shah intended. He imagined the government surveillance team hastily sweeping his building with parabolic microphones, trying to reacquire him. In a more subdued voice, he continued. “We’re journalists, Gabrielle, not killers.”

Gabrielle regarded him with a cool gaze. “You’re right, Atash. We’re not killers. But this is a war and whether you intended to or not, you have built an army. There are a lot of young men like this Rafi Massoud out there just waiting for someone to tell them what to do. The only question is whether you have to courage to be their leader.”

Shah swallowed. He did not feel very courageous, but he knew he would never be able to say ‘no’ to her.

London

As Jade stared
at the queue of black TX4 Hackney cabs lined up outside the arrivals gate at London’s Heathrow Airport—all facing the wrong direction, or so it seemed to her—she could not help but think back to her last visit to the city and her first meeting with Gerald Roche. Although that trip had been a net success, it had not gone smoothly and she had left believing that she had made an enemy in Roche. Now, Roche was dead and she was back in London, hoping to solve the mystery behind his murder and possibly fulfill his last request.

“Truth is the only protection,” Roche had said just before his death. “But knowing the truth is not the same as proving it.”

Proving Roche’s pet theory was not her objective. The only truth that she cared about right now was the truth about why Roche had been killed, and why Rafi, without any apparent provocation, had pulled the trigger and subsequently immolated himself. She did not know if there was a connection to Phantom Time, or one of Roche’s other wild conspiracy theories—her instincts told her there was—but it was a starting point.

Professor selected the third taxi in the line and waved for Jade to join him. She shouldered her backpack, the only piece of luggage she had brought along and crossed to the waiting cab where he was holding the door open for her. It was early afternoon but the gray sky seemed unusually dark and depressing after the sunny equatorial clime of Peru. Nevertheless, despite the fact that she was exhausted from the trip—long flights and even longer layovers—Jade was eager to get started, and couldn’t resist tapping her foot and shifting in her seat throughout the forty-five minute ride from the airport to Bedford Square in the Borough of Camden, where Chameleon Press International’s offices were located.

The idyllic setting, nestled amid garden squares and elegant historical buildings that dated back as early as the 17
th
century, seemed wholly inappropriate for a publisher who dealt primarily with sensational speculative topics, but like its namesake, Chameleon seemed to blend right in, occupying a small corner of the Bloomsbury district, a place synonymous with London’s historic literary culture.

The office was little more than a room with two cluttered desks and a handful of chairs, occupied solely by a handsome if a bit harried-looking man, about her age, with light brown hair and blue eyes that peered out through tortoiseshell framed spectacles.

As Professor opened the door and stepped aside to allow Jade to enter, the man at the desk looked up from his computer screen, then jumped to his feet and rushed over the greet his visitors. “Hello. You must be Dr. Ihara.”

Though she had never seen him before, Jade recognized the friendly voice and understated accent from their earlier phone conversation. She put on her most winning smile and extended her hand. “And you must be Mr. Kellogg.”

“Please, it’s just Jordan.” After introducing himself to Professor, he gestured toward the chairs positioned in front of his desk. “I am sorry that I wasn’t more help over the telephone. Things have been a bit chaotic of late. Recent events…” He shrugged. “I’m the…well, I used to be the assistant editor and vice-president, but that’s not as impressive as it must sound. There was only ever just Mr. Parrott and myself, and since his disappearance, it’s essentially a one-man show, and I’m the one man.”

Jade heard no trace of lingering grief in Kellogg’s tone at the mention of Parrott’s fate. Maybe three weeks had taken the edge off the tragedy. She decided to probe a little deeper. “How will Roche’s death affect the business?”

“Well this may sound a bit ghoulish, but business has never been better. As soon as word of his death hit the news, the booksellers started calling. I’ve emptied the warehouse and I’m going to have to order print runs of several backlisted titles. Tricky business, that. It’s impossible to predict how long we’ll be able to capitalize on public interest. If the buzz fades away too quickly, I’ll be stuck with a warehouse full of unsold books.”

“Must be tough,” Professor muttered, and Jade had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Kellogg however seemed immune to sarcasm.

“You have no idea. Thank goodness for e-books. That’s where most of our money is made anyway. Instant gratification.” He tapped the side of his nose in a gesture that meant absolutely nothing to Jade.

“Roche told me that he was working on a new book,” she said. “Will you be able to release that?”

“Sadly, no. I know that’s what you’ve come here for, but Mr. Roche shared the manuscript with Mr. Parrott in electronic format and I haven’t been able to locate the file just yet. As I said, things have been chaotic.”

“Even so,” Professor said, “I would think you’d want to strike while the iron was hot, so to speak.”

Kellogg spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “As soon as it turns up, I’ll publish it.”

Jade decided to push a little harder. “Roche believed that Parrott was murdered to keep the book from being published. What do you think about that?” The man’s eyes widened in dismay, but Jade pressed ahead. “And now Roche is dead too. Do you think he was right?”

Kellogg spent several seconds shaping his answer. “I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead, but…Mr. Roche was right bloody-minded about these theories”

“So you don’t believe any of it?” Professor said. “It’s all just grist for the mill, right?”

The other man answered with a guilty shrug.

“Could the manuscript be at Roche’s home?” Jade asked.

Kellogg raised an eyebrow as if he found the possibility intriguing. “Why, I don’t know. I would have to get permission to search the premises.”

“Mr. Roche gave me permission,” Jade said quickly. “Not in so many words of course, but he told me about the book and wanted me to look for more supporting evidence. I think finding the manuscript is the obvious first step, don’t you? Here’s an idea. Why don’t you come with us to Roche’s place? Once we’ve had a look at the manuscript, you can take it and do with it what Roche intended.”

She almost said “cash in,” but decided not to push that particular button too hard.

“Can’t argue with that,” Professor added quickly before the other man could reply.

Kellogg frowned as if the logic of the statement troubled him. “How would we get in?”

“Don’t worry about that,” Professor said. “We have a key.”

An avaricious gleam appeared in Kellogg’s eyes. “Well, what are we waiting for?”

Professor’s “key” was
a set of lock-picking tools which, in his expert hands, would be able to defeat the lock securing the door of Roche’s Mortlake townhouse almost as quickly as if he possessed an actual key. Breaking into Roche’s home had been their plan all along, but enlisting Kellogg’s assistance was necessary to give their illicit intrusion a veneer of authenticity. A pair of foreigners lurking about the dead man’s front door might arouse the suspicion of locals. This way, if the police did come to investigate, Kellogg would be able to explain that they were there on official business.

It was a fragile illusion, and as it turned out, an unnecessary one. When they arrived at Roche’s residence on the south bank of the River Thames, they found the door standing slightly ajar.

Jade’s breath caught in her throat.
We’re too late. Someone beat us to the punch.

Someone wants that book.

It was an enormous leap of logic, but Jade knew it was true. And when taken with what had happened in Paracas, and the disappearance of Ian Parrott, the conclusion was inescapable.

Roche had been right about everything.

Professor raised a hand, warning them to freeze, and then touched a finger to his lips. Jade dragged Kellogg a few steps back, while Professor crept forward and pushed the door open a little more.

“What’s going on?” Kellogg whispered the question, but it sounded as loud as a shout to Jade, who immediately shushed him. She tensed, half-expecting the intruder to burst through the doorway like a homicidal jack-in-the-box, but nothing happened. Professor moved inside and then, after a full two minutes, came out and signaled for them to join him. She could tell by the look on his face that her earlier assumption was spot-on, and as soon as she stepped inside, she got final confirmation.

The tastefully decorated sitting room—where just eight months earlier, Jade had sipped tea with Roche, blissfully unaware of the trap he had laid for her—was a shambles. Every stick of furniture had been overturned, every seat cushion slashed with a razor. The content of drawers and cabinets lay strewn haphazardly on the floor amid piles of furniture stuffing. The intruder had even knocked holes in the wall plaster in an evidently futile search for a wall safe or some other secret compartment.

“The whole place is trashed,” Professor said, breaking the ominous silence. “But if it’s any consolation, I don’t think they found what they were looking for.”

“How can you know that?” asked an aghast Kellogg.

Professor waved his hand in an expansive gesture. “Look at this place. This kind of overkill is the result of frustration.”

Jade did not find this the least bit consoling. “Roche kept his collection of Dee memorabilia in a basement room. Maybe there’s something down there. Something the burglar missed.”

“I saw the room you’re talking about. It’s been completely ransacked, but I guess since we’re here, we might as well take another look.”

Kellogg found his voice again. “I say, shouldn’t we call the police before tramping around and destroying the evidence?”

Jade ignored him and headed for the stairs, descending the familiar route to the basement. She had last trod these steps eight month earlier, racing up them with a gun-wielding Roche chasing after her. The memory haunted her until she reached the bottom step, whereupon the scope of the damage wrought to the collection of unique artifacts and books snapped her back to the present.

The room was unrecognizable. All of the bookshelves that had once lined the walls had been toppled, and now lay atop their scattered contents. The glass display cases which had held remarkable clockwork devices from the Elizabethan era, as well as exotic occult items of dubious provenance, were smashed apart, their contents scattered. Jade stared in disbelief at the ruined collection, feeling both angry and helpless. “Looks like we’re back to square one.”

“This was always a long shot, Jade,” Professor said from behind her. “It’s the 21
st
century. The manuscript, if it even exists, is probably a computer file stored on a secure Cloud server.”

Jade knew he was right but that didn’t make the pill any easier to swallow.

“There’s a line from an old James Bond novel,” Professor went on. “‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time, it’s enemy action.’”

Jade tore her gaze from the wreckage and stared at him. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Rafi didn’t do this. And I doubt very much that he was involved in the disappearance of Flight 815. I could almost believe that Roche’s death and Parrott’s disappearance on that plane were coincidences, but this…” He waved to the room. “Strike three. Enemy action.”

“But who? Who’s the enemy?”

“That’s what I intend to find out.” He took out his phone and began tapping the screen, scrolling through his contacts list. “The disappearance of the plane is the piece that doesn’t fit. Roche’s murder and this break-in both could be the work of disorganized Muslim extremists, but making a plane vanish completely requires planning and sophistication on a different order of magnitude.”

He held the phone to his ear and was silent for a moment until the connection was established. “Tam, it’s me.”

Jade returned her attention to the wreckage while Professor updated Tamara Broderick on what had happened and what he intended to do about it. Broderick was the director of a special CIA cell—code-named “Myrmidons”—primarily tasked with battling the Dominion. She was, technically speaking, Professor’s boss, though the arrangement was a little more complicated than employee-employer. Professor had a great deal of latitude when it came to operations, as long as he kept Jade safe and occasionally saved the world. Jade had briefly worked with the Myrmidons as a contractor, which was how she and Professor had initially became acquainted, though at the time, he had been working directly for her as a researcher, and international intrigue had been the last thing on either of their minds.

She knelt over a pile of books, scanning the titles. Some were leather-bound gilt-edged tomes—collectible books, not meant to be read, but one overturned shelf had contained a number of perfect-bound trade paperbacks, ranging in subject from geography and history to political science to UFO encounters. Most of the titles on the more speculative end of the spectrum sported amateurish and often lurid cover art. She opened one and idly thumbed through it, noting pages that had been marked with sticky notes and entire paragraphs highlighted in fluorescent yellow.

She realized that she was looking at Roche’s research library, the garden where he had gathered the raw ingredients to brew up his outrageous conspiracy concoctions. It was an apt metaphor. The pieces to Roche’s Phantom Time theory were lying scattered before her, but the exact recipe—the specific ingredients and proportions—had died with the man.