‘What about food?’
Jones shook his head. ‘Nada.’
‘No snacks? Who goes on a road trip without snacks?’
‘I was wondering the same thing myself.’
‘What about a pack of mints?’
‘Jon, what is it about empty that you can’t comprehend?’
‘Sorry. It just seems weird, that’s all.’
They checked the storage compartment under the centre armrest and the pockets mounted behind their leather seats, but they were empty as well. Next Jones flipped down both sun visors, hoping to find something of value. From the driver’s side, a single slip of paper came fluttering out. Payne snatched it in mid-flight and held it up to the window, struggling to read it in the dim light. Slowly, a grimace surfaced on his face.
‘Shit,’ Payne cursed. ‘This isn’t good.’
‘What is it?’
‘A leaflet for Budget Rent-A-Car.’
Jones paused, thinking things through. ‘Well, that would explain the empty glove box. I guess she rented a car for her road trip. What’s the problem?’
‘Look at the business address.’
Jones opened the glove box and used the interior light to read the details. According to the flyer, the car had been rented from Pittsburgh airport. ‘This isn’t good.’
‘I’m pretty sure I just said that.’
‘I know you did. And I’m agreeing with you.’
Payne flipped up both visors and studied the frosty windshield. In the upper-right corner, he noticed a small orange sticker that said Budget. ‘I wish I had seen that before. It would’ve changed my entire line of questioning.’
‘Maybe so, but it was covered with ice and snow. No way it was visible from outside.’
‘I know that, but I should’ve—’
Jones interrupted him. ‘She lied to both of us, and both of us bought it. You weren’t the only one who was fooled.’
Payne nodded reluctantly. ‘So, what do we do now?’
‘Right now, our only goal is to get as much info about this car as possible before the cops show up. With any luck, Budget will have her name and address on file.’
Payne grabbed a pen from his jacket pocket. ‘I’ll start with the registration number.’
‘And I’ll get the licence plate.’
‘While you’re back there,’ Payne said as he hit a button that opened the trunk, ‘check to see if she had any luggage.’
Jones opened his door and walked towards the rear of the car. After brushing away some snow, he wrote the plate number on the back of the Budget leaflet and tucked it into his pocket.
‘Find anything?’ Payne asked.
‘Just getting to that,’ Jones said as he opened the trunk.
The overhead light popped on, revealing a single carry-on item. Made of black leather, the bag was zipped closed and stuffed full. Instead of wasting valuable time to sort through it there, Jones grabbed the strap and slipped it over his shoulder.
Then, without saying a word, he closed the hatch, and they walked away.
15
François Dubois was obsessed with inside information and had been for most of his life. Like most of his criminal rivals — Mafia dons, arms dealers, drug cartels, and so on — Dubois paid top dollar to have well-informed sources at every major lawenforcement agency in the world. He had contacts in the FBI, the CIA, Interpol, MI6, France’s Police Nationale, Belgium’s Police Fédérale, and all the other countries where he conducted business. These sources were expensive, but the information he obtained from them was invaluable. Dubois realized that without their warnings he would have been killed or arrested a long time ago.
But Dubois’s obsession didn’t stop there.
Although he was a highly educated intellectual — the type of man who typically viewed prophets and oracles as scam artists — Dubois fervently believed that some people were blessed with the ability to see the future. This belief stemmed from the fact that he temporarily had the power himself. From the time he was eight until he was nearly eleven, Dubois kept a journal next to his bed where he recorded his most vivid dreams. On several occasions, those visions came true, right down to the smallest of details.
At first his ability frightened him. He was afraid something was wrong, that he was some kind of a freak. But his mother, who had been born in Avignon, France, not far from the birthplace of Nostradamus, explained his talent was a gift that many people would love to have. She insisted his knowledge of the future was a powerful tool that he could use to improve his life, and in certain situations, maybe even save it. Then she took him to the library and showed him all the books and articles written about the most famous prophets of all time. Dubois was intrigued by the work of several prophets, but his fascination with Nostradamus bordered on obsession. Partially because he had come from the same region as Dubois’s mother, but mainly due to the power that the prophet’s name still possessed several centuries after his death.
From that moment on, Dubois was hooked. He read everything he could get his hands on, devouring every last word while trying to determine who had the gift and who was full of shit. Ironically, his interest in clairvoyance grew even stronger once his own dreams had stopped. No longer able to see the future himself, he realized he was lacking information that other people possessed, so he doubled his efforts to find prophecies that had been verified.
Some of the stories he read as a teenager were downright spooky.
One of Dubois’s favourites involved an American author named Morgan Robertson. Born in Oswego, New York, in 1861, Robertson believed he was possessed by a spirit that helped him write. Before he could produce a single sentence, Robertson had to lie completely still for several minutes in a semi-conscious state. Eventually, the entity would dictate stories to him, using vivid images. Then Robertson would translate these visions into words.
Competing with the popular stories of Jules Verne, whose science fiction was filled with an optimistic view of technology and travel, Robertson preferred depressing tales of maritime disasters. This included a novella, published in 1898, entitled The Wreck of the Titan. Like his other stories, Robertson received the plot from his magical entity, although he told many of his closest friends that this particular vision felt stronger than any other.
In his book, he described a majestic ocean liner steaming across the Atlantic on a foggy night. Robertson wrote of a ship that was twice as long as any ever built, powered by three massive propellers that surpassed the technology of the day. The first line of the story was: ‘She was the largest craft afloat and the greatest work of man.’ Over 2,000 passengers filled its decks and luxurious cabins on its April voyage from New York to England, a journey that ended in disaster when the Titan hit an iceberg just before midnight. A long gash, torn below the waterline, allowed flooding to occur in too many of the compartments for the Titan to stay afloat. A short while later, the ‘unsinkable’ ship disappeared into the depths of the cold ocean, and most of its passengers drowned or died of hypothermia due to a severe shortage of lifeboats.
The story made very few waves in the literary scene until the night of 14 April 1912. While travelling between England and New York on its maiden voyage, the Titanic, the largest passenger steamship in the world, hit an iceberg at 11.40 p.m. and sank in the North Atlantic, killing over 1,500 passengers. Although a few of the details were different, there were enough similarities between Robertson’s story and the actual events of the Titanic disaster to capture the world’s attention. Within weeks, The Wreck of the Titan and some of his other tales were serialized in newspapers across America. It brought him a level of fame he never had a chance to enjoy because alcoholism and depression ended his life.