“Oh, come along, Jade. You don’t want to spend all night in here, do you?”
Jade had to admit that she did not, but she was still bothered by the almost too-fortuitous appearance of Laertes Doerner. She kept replaying the exchange between Andres, the man who was evidently leading the Norfolk Group band of killers, and Doerner.
You! You betrayed us!
She followed Ophelia through the police station to a waiting car. Ophelia slid behind the wheel and that struck Jade as odd.
Where are the bodyguards? Then she remembered.
A few minutes later, they arrived at the hotel. Ophelia led Jade straight to an upstairs room where she found Dorion and Professor already waiting.
She threw a withering glance at Ophelia. “Chapman, Dorion, Ihara. I guess you played the ‘get out of jail free’ cards in alphabetical order.”
“Actually,” Professor replied, using his best paternal tone, “Laertes just dropped Paul and me off.”
“Ah, yes. Where is the mysterious Mr. Doerner? I’d love to know more about how he just happened to show up in the nick of time to save the day.” She turned on Ophelia. “That seems to be a family gift. Maybe you’ve already got the ability to see into the future.”
“Jade has a point,” Professor said before Ophelia could respond. “There was a perfectly good reason for you to be in the right place at the right time to save our butts in Costa Rica, but Laertes showing up when he did, with the local gendarmes in tow, is just a bit too convenient.”
“They don’t call them gendarmes anymore,” came a smooth voice from the doorway. Jade whirled and saw Ophelia’s brother, leaning against the lintel with a self-satisfied smirk plastered to his face. He too had taken the time to clean up after his helicopter ride. “I would think you, of all people Dr. Chapman, would know that.”
“I was speaking in a general sense.”
“Ah.” Doerner took a step forward and closed the door firmly behind him. “Please, sit down Dr. Ihara. Make yourself comfortable. I’ve got a lot of fires to put out right now, so I’ll have to be brief, but I think you are all owed an explanation. And an apology.”
Jade could not help but notice Doerner’s smooth but folksy manner. He was a born politician, charismatic and oozing with what most people would call charm. Jade sat as directed and braced herself for what she expected to be a veritable downpour of dissembling and double-talk.
“To begin with,” he said, “as you may have surmised, I am a charter member of an organization informally known as the Norfolk Group. I guess you’ve heard a little about us, so I won’t deny that our goal is to prevent religious extremist groups from upsetting the delicate balance of our global economy. Myself and several other very influential men met several weeks ago to talk about exactly how we were going to do that, and we established a series of protocols; concrete steps that we would take to ensure that something like what happened at Norfolk would never be repeated.”
Professor spoke up quickly. “You also recruited a network of spies to infiltrate legitimate organizations — law enforcement, the military. That’s not exactly legal, you realize.”
“Dr. Chapman, the law exists to protect people. The Norfolk Group came together because your so-called legitimate organizations failed to enforce the law and protect our investments.” Doerner stopped abruptly and took a breath as if trying to get back on track. “The point is that even our very well thought out protocols did not anticipate a situation like this arising. Clearly, your work did not represent the kind of threat our group came together to fight. Andres Gutierrez lost sight of that. He was a loose cannon and he nearly caused an international incident.”
“You’re saying it’s over?” Jade said.
“Gutierrez is dead. His accomplices will be dealt with…discreetly. By tomorrow, you should all be free to return home to the States.” He glanced at Dorion. “Or wherever home is.”
The physicist nodded wearily, but then Ophelia spoke up, in her familiar confident tone. “Now we will be able to resume our investigation without having to worry about looking over our shoulder.”
Doerner’s forehead creased in a frown of irritation. “You intend to continue with this fool’s errand?”
“Of course,” Ophelia said as if the question annoyed her. “Especially now. Paul’s discovery at Teotihuacan proves that there’s something to all of this.”
Paul’s discovery? Jade almost said something in reply to that, but Doerner’s intent stare told her that there was a much more immediate problem. “Actually,” she quickly interjected, “we’ve got a lot to talk about, and I don’t think anything has been decided.”
Ophelia looked ready to protest, but Jade shot her a look that said, ‘Shut up!’
Professor seemed to be on Jade’s wavelength. “That’s right. This was supposed to be a scientific endeavor, and so far we haven’t exactly gone about this very scientifically.”
Doerner glanced at each person in turn, and then broke into a big fake smile. “Well, I’m glad we’re all in agreement. Now, as I said, I’ve got some fires to put out, and a few ruffled feathers that need smoothing. Fi, meet me for breakfast at, say nine-thirty?”
Jade realized she had no idea what time it was. Her body had just started getting adjusted to Greenwich Mean Time; Greece was two hours ahead of that. She shot a look at her watch and was dismayed to discover that the crystal had been cracked nearly in two. Must have happened during the wreck. Damn, I loved this watch. Maddock gave me…
She had a mental image of Christmas in Germany, but instead of kissing her while snow fell all around them, Maddock was kissing Angel Bonebrake.
Come to think of it, no great loss.
She slipped it off and shoved it into a pocket.
Doerner didn’t wait for an answer, but turned on his heel and strode confidently from the room. When he was gone, Ophelia rounded on them, focusing most of her ire on Jade. “What the hell was that about? Don’t ever contradict me, especially not in front of my brother.”
Professor stood, raising his hands in a placating gesture. “Ophelia, please take a breath. Jade was right to say something. Your brother just admitted to being part of the organization that tried to kill us, and you as much as said that you’re going to keep stirring that hornets’ nest.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You heard what your brother said,” Jade said. “The Norfolk Group wants to keep the status quo nice and…quo.” She wrinkled her forehead. “That sounded better in my head.”
“Exactly,” Professor said, nodding. “We only have Laertes’ word for it that Gutierrez was a loose cannon. How do we know that your brother isn’t the one who’s gone off the reservation? These guys have enough money and influence to do whatever they want, and right now what they want is to make sure that discoveries like ours vanish into the abyss.”
“So we just give up?” Ophelia shook her head, determined. “I can’t do that. Not now.”
“We aren’t giving up,” Jade said. “But you can’t rub your brother’s nose in it.”
“Maybe giving up is exactly what we need to do,” said Professor. “We’ve hit a dead end. I’m not sure what we’re even trying to find at this point.”
“The Moon stone, of course,” Jade said quickly.
“Why?”
She didn’t have an answer for that. Why do anything? Because it’s there. Because it’s an unsolved mystery. Because doing this is a hell of a lot more fun than lecturing and advising graduate students on their theses. None of those were very good reasons.
Ophelia supplied an answer of her own. “My motives are the same today as they were when I met you all. I want to see into the future. Don’t correct me, Paul. I understand your theories and what they mean, but the distinction is meaningless. If Delphi doesn’t have what I want, then we’ll look elsewhere. If the Moon stone is what I think it is, then just tell me where we need to go.”