McCracken made sure to announce his presence on Johnny Wareagle’s land by breaking selected trip wires in a pattern that could only be purposeful. The last thing he wanted to chance after coming this far was an arrow from one of Johnny’s many bows.
“How unnecessary, Blainey,” Wareagle said after McCracken stepped through a door that had already been opened for him.
“Good evening to you, too, Indian. Suppose you were expecting me.”
“For several days now. The disruption of your manitou is brighter than a beacon. I could feel you drawing closer and closer, almost since the very time we parted ten days ago.”
“I’ve seen plenty of the world,” Blaine told him, “some of which hasn’t been seen by anyone for over forty-five years.”
Wareagle looked at him more closely.
“It’s a long story, Indian. And right now I’ve got to tell the last part of it to someone else. Let’s take a ride.”
McCracken filled Johnny in on everything that had occurred over the past ten days, from the details of Matthew’s kidnapping to his travels to Japan by way of Israel and then, literally, into the Pacific Ocean. The Indian had been concerned by the cryptic message received the week before with instructions of what to do in the event of Blaine’s death. He claimed he paid it little heed since he knew McCracken would be returning.
“I guess what it comes down to, Indian,” Blaine said at the end, “is that the world has never mattered less to me. It’s just one life I’m out to save this time, and if I can’t get the boy out of this alive, then stopping Rasin won’t mean shit.”
“But you would try anyway, even if not for the boy.”
“A couple of years ago for sure. Today I don’t know. What all this has shown me is whatever I’ve felt I’ve been lacking these last few months is purely a state of mind.”
“Everything is a state of mind, Blainey, and that state of mind affects our state of being as well. When there is harmony between them, we are content with our lives. When one is out of balance, we search blindly for that which can be found only inside ourselves.”
“Should I take that to heart?”
“The boy became the stitching which rejoined your two states together. That is what has changed in you these past months, but even I did not realize it clearly until now.”
Blaine felt himself nodding. “It was like an emptiness. I felt it go away that day I spent with him in London, and even when those women kidnapped him the emptiness didn’t return.”
“Because in either case the boy supplied you with purpose. Through all our years in the hellfire and beyond, purpose is what maintained harmony in the triangle of your mind, body, and spirit. The betrayals — and your acceptance of them — stole that purpose away and cast you on your own, where you had to create your own purpose. Sometimes the justifications came up short. You became an orphan of your own lost emotions. But then you saw yourself in the boy and that changed everything.”
“He’s mine, Johnny. In this whole crazy life I’ve led he’s all I’ve got that’s really mine.”
Wareagle looked at him from the driver’s seat of the Jeep slicing through the night. “No, Blainey, he is but another object to pursue in striving to find meaning and purpose in your life. You said so yourself. Think of the original hellfire that first brought us together. We were not concerned with victory as much as continuation. One mission mattered most in that it set the stage for another. They called it the Phoenix Project after a bird who rose from its own ashes, in the hope that our war effort could do the same. But as we strove toward this end, our own spirits were being reduced to ashes.”
“So what are you telling me, to stop reaching, to stop striving?”
“I am telling you nothing, Blainey, except that if it hadn’t been the boy, it would have been something else. That is neither good nor bad, just what is necessary for your existence. That is what you must understand.”
“Let’s make a phone call,” McCracken said as a gas station appeared before them.
Hank Belgrade was less than happy to hear from him. “My phone may be tapped,” the State and Defense Department liaison told him. “Keep talking at your own risk.”
“Now that’s no way to greet an old friend, Hank.”
“Look who’s talking. When we met in Washington, you could have told me you’d been flagged.”
“Flagged? Again? What color this time?”
“You mean you didn’t know? Christ … The code is blue.”
“Well, that’s something to be thankful for. I’m used to red.”
“Wait a minute, you really didn’t know about this?”
“First I’ve heard of it. Who’s after me?”
“Can’t tell for sure but I’m proceeding on the notion that they know about our meeting and are just playing it cool in the hope that we do lunch in the near future.”
“Only if you’re buying.”
“They don’t know about the material I furnished you on the Indianapolis. That’s something anyway.”
“Do they know about Boston, Hank?”
“What about Boston?”
“I met with Bart Joyce, who had a chance to be most enlightening before a pair of ladies eliminated his need for a government pension.”
“What in hell are you talking about?”
“Watch “Headline News” at the top of the hour to hear all about it.”
Belgrade hesitated. “You didn’t call me to discuss my viewing habits.”
“Nope. See, there’s another favor I need….”
“You gonna put my kids through college if they boot me out of government service?”
“By the time they find out they’ll be patting me on the back again and you, too.”
“What is it this time?”
“An extension of our original discussion. Something else was indeed loaded on board the Indianapolis, cannisters marked with the Greek letter gamma. Bart Joyce saw them being loaded. A rather interesting gent was supervising the work who happened to be an ex-Nazi scientist named Bechman.”
“Wait a minute, MacNuts, you’re talking way out of my league now. Ex-Nazis working for our government? Why don’t you call your friends at the Gap?”
“I don’t have their number handy. Besides, I don’t feel like breaking anyone new into this story. Somebody’s after me, remember?”
“But you don’t know who or why.”
“Well, I’ve got a couple ideas….”
“You want me to find out what happened to Bechman?”
“At least what he may have been working on in our behalf during those last days of the war.”
“This stuff may be buried too deep for me to dig up.”
“I’ve got faith in your ability to shovel.”
“Yeah, well, you never were much of a judge of character.” Belgrade paused. “I know you’re on the trail of something big here, MacNuts, and that’s good enough for me. But it would make my life a little easier if you gave me some reason to share your concern.”
“No sweat, Hank. See, it goes like this. If what Joyce said is true, then I’ve got to figure we loaded this gamma secret weapon with the full intention of using it on the Japanese either in addition to or instead of the A-bombs. Only something stopped us. And something led to a decision to sink the Indianapolis and cut our losses.”
“What?”
“Joyce saw the sub that did it. The story about the Japs being responsible was a cover. It explains why no escort was ordered, why the distress signal was ignored, why everything possible was done to make sure the survivors weren’t rescued.”
“Holy shit …”
“Now Yosef Rasin is in possession of the superweapon we sunk the Indianapolis to keep secret, and I’ve got to ask myself what happens if he doesn’t know what stopped us from using it when we had the chance. That clear enough for ya, Hank?”