“He’s missing. We’ve lost him.”
Grant pursed his lips and gave the soldier a long, steady stare. He finally said, “Okay, Colonel. Now tell me how you pulled off this amazing feat.”
“Sir, I don’t know how. He’s just disappeared.”
The President let a full minute pass while Noordhof prayed for a great earthquake to swallow him up.
“We lost a strategic H-bomb in Alaska once, a B-43 as I recall,” Grant reminisced. “And it wasn’t inventory shrinkage either. Turned out some Alaskan Command Air Defense guys thought they’d found a way round the Permissive Action Links. They tried to blackmail Uncle Sam with it. Not that the Great Unwashed ever got to hear about that little escapade.”
“What happened, sir?”
“We couldn’t go through the courts with a thing like that, of course. There was an unfortunate air crash. But you, Colonel, you do things on the grand scale; you’re on course to lose the planet. We face annihilation if we don’t find this frigging asteroid and nuclear holocaust if we’re seen looking. And so far you’ve managed to spring a leak and lose half your team in four days. Magnificent.”
A red blush spread over Noordhof’s face. The President turned to the CIA Director. “You got light to throw on this farce, Rich?”
The CIA Director stuffed tobacco into his pipe from an old black pouch on his lap. “Nope.”
“But someone knows about your team,” said the President.
“That’s impossible. These are just accidents,” said Heilbron unconvincingly.
“This is beginning to sound like the last message from the Titanic,” the President said.
“You can’t scare me, Mister President, I’m too old. We’re doing our human best.”
“If that’s your best, I’d hate to see you people on a bad day.”
They drove out of Casa Pacifica in a cramped little Fiat with tinted windows, and joined Interstate Five heading south. The Stars and Stripes fluttered over Pendleton Marine Corps base to the left; to the right, half-naked bodies lay sprawled out on Red Beach or splashed in the Pacific shimmering beyond. Late-afternoon traffic was pouring up from San Diego. The Secret Service man drove carefully, watching the ebb and flow of traffic around him, searching with practised eyes for the anomaly in the pattern, the car which lingered too long, the strangeness in the proportion. But there was only the Buick in the rear mirror, a steady forty yards behind.
“Okay, Colonel, fill me in. What’s the word on your team?” asked Bellarmine, removing his dark glasses.
“We have more on the Leclerc — Webb thing,” said Noordhof. “I’ve had Nicholson from our Rome Embassy nosing around. This is weird, sir, but it seems the story starts in a monastery, in some mountain area south of Rome. It’s run by monks.”
“A monastery run by monks?” Bellarmine asked sarcastically.
“Yes, sir. It seems they have this famous library of old books, called the Helinandus Collection or something. All very securely held, fire-proofed, steel doors, smart electronics and so on. Local rumour has it that they are holding loot which was taken from the Germans at the end of the War, including a lot of books. One of them might be a manuscript written by an Italian called Vincenzo. But it’s just local folklore.”
“Do I know this guy Vincenzo?”
“I doubt it, sir, he’s been dead three hundred and fifty years.”
The Secretary of Defense sounded perplexed. “How does this connect with anything whatsoever?”
“This Webb guy gets it into his head that there’s something in this missing ancient tome that will let him identify Nemesis. Naturally everybody assumes he’s just flipped.”
The driver was looking at something in his rear mirror.
“Well, has he or hasn’t he?”
“That’s the thing, Mister Secretary. We tell the Brits what’s going on, they send out one of their people to nursemaid Webb, and the last thing we hear is that Webb’s minder gets seven rounds from a Beretta 96 pumped into him and is then run over with his own hired car. Now if Webb has been chasing some chimera, how come his minder gets bumped off?”
“Unless he did it himself,” suggested Bellarmine. “What’s the word on him?”
“He’s just disappeared. Nobody knows where he is.”
“And how does that leave the great asteroid hunt?” Bellarmine asked.
A decrepit white car sailed by them, filled with students. A long-haired girl blew a kiss and then the car was past. Bellarmine’s driver blew out his cheeks in relief.
“In chaos.”
The driver slowed down and turned off at a sign saying “Solana Beach”; the Buick followed. He manoeuvred a few turnings and drove along a street with notices on pavements and in windows saying “No Vacancies,” “Real English Beer,” “Debbie’s Delishus Donuts $1.50.” Bellarmine stared out at this other America, at the little holiday groups on the sidewalks eating delishus donuts and wearing kiss-me-quick hats, strange people who were content to stroll aimlessly, without benefit of sharp-eyed protectors or jostling reporters.
Then the driver skimmed past an elderly woman with thick spectacles trying to reverse an orange Beetle, and turned into a quiet row of shabby beach houses. He drove slowly along for fifty yards and pulled to a stop at one of them. The street was absolutely quiet. No signs of life came from within the house. Heavy lace curtains hid its interior. A window shutter was dangling half off; the next storm would finish it. The driver frowned.
“Stay put, sir. That’s an order.” In the driving mirror, he watched the manoeuvrings of the orange Beetle. It eventually kangaroo’d off round the corner. “Okay, sir. Let me check out the house.”
“Clem, it’s okay. You’re strung up like a violin string,” said Bellarmine.
“Sir, this is irregular. I’d be a lot happier if one of us checked it out.” Clem saw waiting assassins, Bellarmine dying in a pool of blood on the sidewalk, terrifying congressional inquisitions.
“Forget it. Come for me in a couple of hours. And cheer up, man. If the golfball buzzes you know where I am.”
The cars drove off and Bellarmine waved Noordhof on into the house. The Secretary of Defense stood on the sidewalk, alone. He felt a strange exhilaration. The second most powerful man in the world had an overwhelming but unfulfillable urge: to go for a stroll.
Bellarmine walked up the concrete driveway and round the side of the house. There was a dirty white side door, half open, facing into a small hallway, cluttered with buckets, sacks of dog meal, logs and boots. A deep-throated baying came from within the house. A voice shouted “In here, Mister Secretary.” Bellarmine, who hated all dogs, stepped into the untidy hallway. A door opened and he froze with fear as the Hound of the Baskervilles rushed for him, baying excitedly.
“Get down, Lift-off! Welcome to my beach house, sir. I’m fixing us up with a royal concubine.”
Solana Beach
Bellarmine followed the ponytailed scientist along the corridor and through slatted swing doors. The kitchen was brightly lit, surgically clean and chaotic. Rows of gleaming sharp knives dangled from hooks on a wall. On a worktop next to a large stove was a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s, a supermarket chicken and a clutter of spices and unopened bottles of wine and liquor. A small balding man of about fifty, wearing an apron which made him look like a big Martini bottle, was chopping spring onions. His movements were slow and deliberate, as if the process was unfamiliar to him.
“Do you guys know each other?” asked Shafer, disappearing through another set of swing doors. The Director of NASA put down the vegetable knife, wiped his hands on the apron and shook hands with the Secretary of Defense. Bellarmine nodded; the NASA Director said I guess we sing for our supper here and Bellarmine said he’d do a fan dance if it got him answers. Then a voice from next door shouted “Help yourself to a drink!” Bellarmine poured two large sherries, emptied one and filled it up again.