The Death Relic (33 page)

‘Speaking of his team, did you have any luck running down their names?’

Ulster shook his head. ‘I made a number of calls yesterday evening to colleagues who know Hamilton a lot better than I, and all of them said the same thing. He was working on a passion project that he refused to talk about. As for possible names, no one was forthcoming. Either they didn’t know, or they weren’t willing to tell me.’

‘If you had to guess, which one was it?’

Ulster puffed out his chest. ‘I’d say they didn’t know who he was working with. As you know, I am pretty good at sniffing out the truth.’

‘Really?’ Jones said. ‘Because we lie to you
all
the time.’

‘You do?’

‘No,’ he said, laughing, ‘but I think I just proved a point.’

Payne rolled his eyes. It wasn’t the time for jokes. ‘Petr, do me a favour. Keep looking through the artefacts. The more we know about Hamilton’s project, the better.’

‘No problem.’

‘And Maria, if it’s OK with you, please give him a hand.’

‘Of course,’ she said.

‘What about me?’ Jones asked.

‘Inspect Hamilton’s weapons and make sure they’re in working order. If push comes to shove, I want to know what we can count on.’

He smiled at the possibilities. ‘Gladly.’

Nearly twenty hours had passed since he had spoken to Randy Raskin. In the real world, that wasn’t a lot of time. During a mission, it was an eternity. Although he knew his friend was constantly busy, it was unlike Raskin to take so long on such a simple request. Payne decided to call him at the Pentagon to find out why.

Raskin answered his office line. ‘Research.’

‘Hey, Randy, it’s Jon. Do you have a minute?’

Raskin paused momentarily. Then he cleared his throat as if making a point. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Payne, I can’t assist you today. Perhaps I can transfer your call to another extension.’

Payne froze. Something was wrong. In all their time working together, Raskin had never referred to him as ‘Mr Payne’ or acted in such a professional manner. Normally, Raskin greeted him with an insult or threatened to hang up on him. He certainly never asked to transfer his call. To Payne, it meant one of two things: either a superior was standing in Raskin’s office, or Payne’s request had infringed upon an active mission of the US Government – in which case, a superior was monitoring Raskin’s calls. Either way, Big Brother was definitely listening in. With that in mind, Payne decided to fish for information without getting Raskin in any additional trouble.

‘No problem, Randy. Unfortunately, I’m on the road right now, so I don’t have a list of extensions in front of me. Do me a favour and transfer me to the correct department.’

‘Sure thing, Mr Payne.’

Raskin punched a few keys on his computer and the call was rerouted to a female operator at the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Fairfax County, Virginia. It was only a few miles from Arlington, but a completely different world. One filled with spooks and deceit.

She answered in a monotone. ‘ID number, please.’

‘ID?’ he said, confused. ‘Who am I speaking to?’

‘ID number, please.’

‘Sorry, ma’am, I’m kind of at a loss right now. I was transferred from a research analyst at the Pentagon to this extension. What department is this?’

She paused a few seconds before answering. ‘Langley.’

‘Langley?’ he said surprised. He had been in Langley, Virginia, twice in the past ten years, and on both occasions it was to visit the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency. The thought of those trips made him squirm. Although he’d worked with a number of operatives over the years – the ‘I’ in MANIACs stood for Intelligence – he found the executive office way too political for his tastes. Based on his experience, they cared more about covering their asses in the media than covering their assets in the field. ‘Is this the CIA?’

‘ID number, please.’

‘Ma’am, I just told you, I was transferred to this extension by the Pentagon. How do I know what number to give you if I don’t know what department this is?’

Click
. She hung up.

‘Thanks, sweetie. You’ve been a big help.’

Afterwards, he stared at his phone for several seconds. He hoped Raskin would send him a text message to apologize for his professionalism or, better yet, to explain the situation they had stumbled into. But after a minute of nothing, he gave up hope and went to discuss things with Jones. He ducked his head into the garage and said, ‘Hey, DJ, do you have a second?’

‘Sure,’ said Jones, who had just started to inspect Hamilton’s weapons. He wiped his hands on a rag as he walked past Maria and Ulster. ‘We’ll be outside. Scream if you need us.’

Lost in a world of artefacts, they barely noticed his departure.

Payne waited for him in the driveway. He tried to play it cool by leaning against a stone wall that defined the rear of the property, but his stress level was obvious. Jones could see it on his face and in his posture. Something had happened.

‘What’s wrong?’ Jones demanded.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You came out here to talk to Randy. Five minutes later, you’re talking to me. Obviously, something’s wrong.’

‘You’re right. Something
is
wrong, but I don’t know what it is.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Randy wouldn’t talk to me.’

‘What’s he pouting about now?’

‘He wasn’t pouting. He wasn’t
allowed
to talk to me.’

‘Why not?’ Jones asked.

‘I don’t know. But he called me “Mr Payne”.’

‘He did
what
?’

‘Then he transferred my call to Langley.’

‘Langley?’

‘Yes, Langley.’

‘Shit.’

Payne nodded. ‘Yeah. That pretty much sums it up.’

Jones paused in thought. It took a moment for everything to sink in. Even then, the picture in his head was still fuzzy. ‘What triggered their interest?’

‘Could’ve been anything: Hamilton’s financials, the serial numbers on the rifles, his disappearance. For all we know, the Agency grabbed Hamilton.’

‘Not a chance in hell. The
CIA
would
never
abduct an American on foreign soil.’ Jones kept a straight face for less than three seconds before he cracked up. ‘Damn! I thought I could say that without laughing.’

‘Come on, DJ,
focus
. We need to figure out our next step.’

Jones shook his head. ‘No, we need to figure out his
last
step.’

‘Whose last step? Hamilton’s?’

‘No. Randy’s.’

Payne was confused by Jones’s comment about Raskin. ‘What good will that do?’

‘You know how the Agency works. They have ten thousand analysts whose sole job is to search data streams for red flags. As soon as one pops up, they make a call and their supervisors intervene. Obviously Randy did something to get noticed. If we can figure out what he did, maybe we can figure out why the
CIA
is interested in this mess.’

‘Why don’t we just call one of our contacts at Langley?’

Jones shook his head. ‘Randy has higher security clearance than anyone we know at the Agency. Hell,
we
have higher security clearance than anyone we know at the Agency. If he wasn’t allowed to tell us, then we’re on our own when it comes to Hamilton.’

‘Wait. Should we stop looking for him?’

‘That depends. Did Randy tell you to stop?’

‘No.’

‘Did anyone at the CIA?’

‘Not really. They hung up on me.’

Jones laughed. ‘In that case, fuck ’em! No one told us to stand down, so we have every right to look for Hamilton.’

‘Yeah, you’re probably right. But …’

‘But, what?’

Payne pointed at the garage. ‘I don’t think we should tell Petr and Maria.’

‘Why not?’

‘Technically speaking, we wouldn’t be violating any laws by mentioning the Agency’s interest – especially since we don’t know what their interest is – but I doubt they’d want two foreign nationals to know anything about their involvement.’

‘That’s too bad.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Petr would get a boner if he knew the
CIA
was involved.’

Payne grimaced. ‘Why are you obsessed with that?’

‘With what?’

‘Petr’s groin. That’s the second time you’ve used that joke in the last twenty-four hours.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, really. Maria yelled at you the last time. She called you
crass
.’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘that explains it. I tend to block out things when she starts yelling.’

Payne smiled. ‘I guess that means you have no idea why we’re in Mexico, because she’s been yelling since we got here.’

Jones stared at him. ‘We’re in
Mexico
?’

Payne laughed. ‘Anyway, let’s get back to Randy. How do we figure out what got him noticed?’

Jones scratched his head in thought. ‘I wasn’t privy to any of your calls, so I don’t know what was said. How many were there?’

‘Three, counting today.’

‘Forget about today. Whatever got him flagged happened before today. What did you ask him to do first?’

Payne tried to remember the details of their first conversation. ‘I asked him to run a background search on Hamilton. Personal, criminal, financial, the works.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Not in the first call, but …’ Payne paused for a moment. ‘Actually, I take that back. I also asked him to run the serial number on Hamilton’s gun. You know, the Mexican Special from his briefcase. Because of its age, he told me not to get my hopes up.’

‘What about the second call?’

Payne closed his eyes in thought. ‘I asked him to run the serial numbers on the AKs. After that, we discussed the blacked-out security feed from the hotel. He wasn’t sure how it was done, but he promised to look into it.’

‘Randy didn’t know how it was done?’

‘No, but he was fairly confident he could catch the hacker.’

‘Just a second. What if it was the other way around?’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘What if Randy
tried
to trace the hacker, and traced it right back to the CIA? I’m sure that would have set off all kinds of bells and whistles at the Agency.’

Payne considered the theory. ‘I don’t know. Randy’s a sneaky son of a bitch. Do you really think they would have caught him?’

‘Good point. Then how about this? Randy traced it back to the
CIA
and was legally obligated to get clearance before he could tell us anything. They told him to fuck off, and he had no choice but to deny our request for assistance.’

Payne nodded. ‘Now
that
sounds more realistic.’

‘OK, let’s assume that’s what happened. If so, there’s a very good chance that he ran background on Hamilton before he was cockblocked by the
CIA
. Same thing with his weapons search. He would have done those first because they aren’t labour-intensive. Punch in some names and numbers and his computer would have done the rest.’

‘So, what are you saying?’

‘I’m saying there’s a damn good chance he compiled our data before the
CIA
got involved. If so, that’s very good news.’

‘Good? How can that be good? If he can’t send it, we can’t use it.’

Jones smiled. ‘Who said he didn’t send it?’

In recent years, Payne’s knowledge of computers and gadgets had increased exponentially, mostly because Jones had given him so much crap about being the
CEO
and majority owner of a technology-based company and having less computer ability than the average third grader. With a lot of hard work, Payne’s expertise would now rival most college students, which was an amazing leap in such a short time. Unfortunately, that meant his comprehension was still
way
behind Jones, who actually built computers in his workshop for fun. Jones wasn’t as skilled as Raskin – then again, who was? – but he had enough know-how to develop a backdoor file-sharing system that allowed him to access encrypted documents from anywhere in the world.

Payne said, ‘I checked my inbox. Nothing from Randy.’

‘Does that surprise you? He was probably afraid you were going to accidentally forward it to everyone on your contact list. Again.’

‘That happened
once
. Can you please let it die?’

‘Not while I’m alive.’

‘
That
can be arranged.’

Jones dismissed the threat as he pulled out his phone. He punched in his password, then opened the programme that allowed him to view all the files that had been transferred to his computer system in Pittsburgh. ‘I got something.’

‘From Randy?’

He nodded. ‘Came in late last night. I’m downloading it now.’

‘What is it?’

He glanced at Payne. ‘I don’t know. I’m downloading it now.’

‘Sorry. I’m anxious.’

Jones laughed as he waited. ‘OK, I got it. Let’s take a look.’

He hit a few keys and opened the file on his phone. As suspected, it was a comprehensive background report on Hamilton. It included personal data (addresses, phone numbers, etc.), criminal records (nothing but a few traffic citations) and a financial profile (he was practically broke). For the most part, nothing helped Payne and Jones with their search until they came across a credit card, which Raskin had highlighted. It showed several minor purchases in recent weeks, including one at a gas station in Piste, Mexico.

Jones pointed at the screen. ‘Will you look at that?’

Payne nodded, intrigued. ‘Piste? What’s near Piste?’

‘I don’t know. Let’s go ask.’

The two of them ducked inside the garage, where Maria and Ulster were still hard at work on the artefacts. She glanced back when they heard the door open.

‘Where have you two been?’ she asked.

‘Outside,’ Jones said. ‘Are either of you familiar with Piste, Mexico?’

Ulster turned and nodded. ‘It’s a dusty little town a few hours west of here. Nothing more than a speck on the map. Why do you ask?’

‘If it’s just a speck, why do you know it?’

‘Why? Because it’s the closest town to a famous Mayan site called Chichén Itzá. It’s less than a mile away.’

Maria stared at Jones. ‘Why? What’s going on?’