“Maybe not,” Dave said, scratching Max behind her ears. “A dear old friend of mine, a professor of America history at the University of Florida, is meeting with Laura to examine the document. I suspect he’ll probably borrow it for further study at the university’s lab. The Civil War is his specialty. He’s written many books on the subject. His name is Professor Ike Kirby. I’ll give you his contact information. As far as the document’s next destination, I suppose that will be up to Mrs. Jordan. Let’s hope she is benevolent and willing to part with it.”
Wilson smiled. “Indeed. Let us hope. In the meantime, I’d like to chat with the men on Jack Jordan’s documentary crew. Perhaps one of them has an insight.”
O’Brien reached in his wallet and removed a business card. “This is the contact information for Detective Dan Grant. He’s a friend of mine and is one of the lead investigators on the case. He has all the names, players and maybe suspects. He’s investigating a Civil War re-enactor named Silas Jackson. Tell Dan that I referred you to him, and he may be generous and share what he has thus far.”
Wilson took the card. “Thank you. However, since he’s a friend of yours, I can assume that he’s shared some, if not all, of this information with you. Is there anything more that you can tell me?”
“No.”
“All right. I’ll write my mobile number down. Should you or Dave think of something more, please ring me up.” Wilson looked around, spotting an all-weather plastic container mounted to the pier railing in front of a docked and tied-down charter fishing boat. He lifted one of the brochures from the box and wrote his number on the back of it, handing the brochure to Dave.
O’Brien said, “There is something I’d like to ask you.”
“Absolutely. Give it a go.”
“Is the diamond in the Crown Jewels the real one? I assume you’ve looked.”
Wilson said nothing for a moment, his eyes following a sailboat entering the pass. He glanced over to O’Brien. “Of course. The Koh-i-Noor has been in the same spot for one hundred and seventy years. It’s not going anywhere, especially back to India.”
“Then the only issue is the unproven Civil War contract. If the diamond Jack Jordan found in the river is a fake, not the legendary Koh-i-Noor, then the contract is presumably bogus as well. And if that’s the case, there’s nothing real and tangible the blackmailer has to use against the prime minister and the Royal Family.”
“Perhaps, however, it doesn’t work that way. Even a replica diamond, one so close in size and quality of the Koh-i-Noor, couldn’t have been proven, considering the Confederate resources during the time of the Civil War. So the unflattering contract may still have been written on that pretense. It’s my job to find it. The stone, even though it’s a replica, would simply be an added bonus.”
Dave set Max down and asked, “What’s your intel pointing toward?”
“The perpetrator may be a British agent who breached, and we haven’t discovered it yet. Or he could be an American who somehow managed to secure the prime minister’s private line and hack his phone too. Regardless, he’s fearless, devious and very dangerous. All of this is creating storm clouds over the UK and India, potentially causing a major rift and fallout between the two nations. The additional salt in a newly opened wound is that Civil War document. If it’s certified real, it means England provided financial support to the Confederate States of America during what was always believed to have been a uniquely American Civil War with no backing or funding from other nations.”
Dave said, “And all of this is happening while Prime Minister Hannes conducts a fierce campaign for reelection.”
“Indeed. Hence the added haste to make it all go away. Sean, you mentioned one name, the name of Silas Jackson. Contingent on what Detective Grant shares with me, perhaps this gent, Jackson, would be a good fellow to have a dialogue with as well.”
O’Brien said nothing for a few seconds. A sunburned fisherman, barefoot and in a baggy, wet swimsuit, scurried by carrying two large red snappers in either hand. He walked to a fish-cleaning station. O’Brien said, “You might want to speak with investigators before tracking down Jackson or any of the men in his group.”
“And why is that?”
“Because they’re more recidivists than re-enactors — meaning they still fight the Civil War and the War of Independence. They’re modern day militia with a grudge. If, by some very remote chance, the diamond is the real deal, and if Jackson has it, the money from a sale could help him finance a sizeable cache.”
“I doubt if he would have the means to orchestrate a blackmail essentially on the UK as a whole.”
Dave said, “But he could be working with someone who does.”
O’Brien nodded. “Find that person and you’ll most like find the blackmailer…and maybe the diamond. But I wouldn’t begin your hunt deep in the national forest.”
“In this job, Mr. O’Brien, I go wherever that hunt takes me. I follow the quarry. And I’ve done it all over the world.”
“Just make sure the quarry isn’t leading you into a world you can never leave.”
FORTY-SIX
Laura Jordan thought she heard the sound somewhere in her dreams. They were hostile dreams — nightmares. Images of her dead husband in the casket right before it was closed, his once handsome face vacant and gaunt, despite the black magic of the mortician. She could smell the flowers on both sides of the casket and hear the subdued sounds of weeping coming from behind her. Then there was the sound of someone scratching — a clawing noise — as if an animal was trapped inside her bedroom wall. Maybe Jack’s alive. Let him out!
“Jack!” she blurted in her sleep. Laura opened her eyes. She glanced at the red digital numbers on the bedside clock. 2:42 a.m. Her breathing was fast. Heart racing. She looked across the bedroom to the window. The full moon shown through the branches of a live oak tree in her back yard, shadows dancing from the moss-covered limbs moving behind the white drapes, like stick figure marionettes in the night breeze.
Laura heard her neighbor’s beagle bark three times. She sat up in bed, her sleep deprived mind feeling drugged from exhaustion. She stepped over to the drapes, slowly parted them less than two inches and looked out and across her back yard. The white moonlight turned her yard into a backdrop of grays and blacks, a moonscape devoid of colors lit by the sun. She saw a nighthawk dart over the tree line, and then a cloud rolled in front of the moon, casting the yard into black.
Laura crawled back into bed, pulling the blankets up to her chin. God, how I miss Jack, miss so many things I took for granted about him — the way he squeezed my hand before we fell asleep — times I’d reach over and touch him as he slept. I must get some rest.
She adjusted her pillow, turned away from the shadows pirouetting on the curtains, and closed her eyes. Laura felt lethargic from nights of sleep deprivation. The threats she had received, the feeling she was being followed, the questions Paula was asking — questions which had no rational answers that a child could understand. As her thoughts drifted like a boat without an anchor on a dark sea, the fog of sleep moved in on her perception. She thought she heard the neighbor’s beagle bark once more. A sharp, clipped bark. And then silence.
Somewhere in the darkness of a 4:00 a.m. morning, she felt the mattress move, slightly, as if Paula had crawled into bed. Laura reached for the opposite side of the bed, the side where Jack always slept. She touched the mattress, expecting to feel Paula’s small body. Nothing. Only the flat surface of her blanket and comforter. She slowly opened her eyes, her mind waterlogged in fatigue, unable to fully comprehend what she saw. Must be a bad dream.