The Book of Lies

60

It’s always Nazis, isn’t it?” Naomi asked into her earpiece, lying flat on the gurney and trying hard not to move.

“Ma’am, can you please put down the phone?” the young nurse pleaded as he tugged on the forceps and threaded another stitch through the cut on Naomi’s temple.

“I told you: federal business,” Naomi said.

“They’re not Nazis,” Scotty clarified through the phone. “Back then, they called themselves the Thule Society.”

“But you said they helped bring Hitler to power— Ahh, that stings!”

“Put the phone down,” the nurse again insisted as Naomi made a face.

“I don’t know,” Scotty said. “I think the Thules were after a power that wasn’t necessarily political.”

“You mean this Cain book? What’d the FBI guys call it?”

“A totem,” Scotty said. “And if it weren’t so important, why spend over a century searching for it?”

Naomi closed her eyes as the nurse hooked the curved needle through her skin. “So you think Ellis is part of these Thules as well?” she asked.

“According to the FBI, the Thules haven’t been active since World War II. But that doesn’t mean Ellis isn’t trying to bring the band back together—especially if he thinks there’s some kinda magic power that’ll come from it.”

“Is that what the Bureau guys said? They used the words magic power?”

“To be honest, I don’t think they know what to make of it. This was Germany at the height of occultism. Himmler and the Nazi leaders kept a list of breeding cemeteries because they were convinced that babies who were conceived in graveyards would inherit the attributes and spirits of all the German heroes buried there. Even Hitler supposedly carried around a magical mandrake root to help ward off evil. These Thules were eating a whole lot of crazy. And speaking of which: Any idea where Cal and his father ran off to?”

“Trust me, we’ll get there,” Naomi said as the nurse tugged hard on his final knot. Naomi felt that one, even with the anesthetic. “You still haven’t answered my question, Scotty. What’d the FBI boys say was in Cain’s so-called book?”

“Again, depends what ghost story you want to believe. One theory says that Cain carried a book that contained the location of where Abel’s body is supposedly buried. Another says Adam gave his children a book with all the herbs they should never eat. There’s even a theory at York Minster in northern England in one of the largest pieces of medieval stained glass in the world, where the top panel shows God holding a so-called Book of Creation. In the book it says: Ego sum alpha et omega. That the beginning and end of the world will come via the beginning and end of the Greek alphabet.”

“Okay, good as new,” the nurse announced.

Naomi barely noticed, still focused on Scotty. “And the FBI boys told you all that?”

“Well . . . let’s be honest . . . those requests I sent in were in your name. They were really just helping you.”

“That’s fine,” she said, sitting up straight and letting her legs dangle off the gurney. “What about Timothy? Any word yet?”

“Listen, I didn’t wanna be the one to say it, but—”

“They found the body, didn’t they?”

“They found a leg. Fish and Wildlife guys just called it in. It’s gruesome, Naomi.”

This time, Naomi was silent.

“You okay?” Scotty asked.

“I need to call his family. I don’t want them seeing this on the news. God, his poor twins. . . .”

“Suarez’s already on it. First call he made. Then he called me. You’ve officially got your murder investigation.”

For a moment, Naomi just sat there as the nurse tied the final knot in the stitches and put some ointment on the wound. “Scotty, put a lookout in NCIC for Cal—”

“Already done. NCIC . . . IBIS . . . I listed him as a threat to the homeland just to make sure the other agencies take a long look at his photograph.”

“I also need you to run both Cal’s dad and this woman he was with. Cal called her Serena. Check the airline records. If she’s a novice, maybe she flew under her real name.”

“So you think one of them might be this Prophet?” Scotty asked.

“Where’d you even hear that name—the Prophet? That from the FBI?”

“No, from you—through your earpiece when you were unconscious. Anyway, you think it’s one of them?”

“I have no idea. But I’m telling you right now—to do that to Timothy—to his twins . . . I don’t want these lowlifes anymore. I want chunks of them.”

“I assume that means Cal, too. I assume you got the bug on him?”

“Of course,” Naomi replied, reaching for the tracking device in her front pants pocket. “I slipped it in his jacket back at the—” She patted her front pocket, then her back. The tracking device was gone. But if Cal had that . . . If he’d found the bug . . . “Oh, don’t tell me he—” Cutting herself off, she pulled the earpiece from her ear and unscrewed the small rubber tip by the microphone. No listening device there.

“Ma’am, just give me one more minute to close this,” the nurse pleaded, fighting to cover the wound with a bandage.

Undeterred and already frantic, Naomi reached for her phone.

“Nomi, what’s wrong?” Scotty’s voice echoed distantly from the earpiece that now sat on the gurney.

With her thumb wedged against the back of her phone, she slid open the compartment, revealing the battery, the serial number—and the small round listening device that she’d planted on Cal back at the museum.

“Sonuvabastard!” she shouted, hopping off the gurney and holding the small disk to her lips. “I know you can hear me, Cal! I know you heard it all, you sack of turd! His leg!? You’re letting his twins bury a leg!? Every part they find, Cal—I don’t care if they have to slice open every gator’s stomach—you’re gonna feel the pain of every part they find!”

“Ma’am, if you don’t sit down . . .” the nurse warned.

“Are you done stitching me up?” Naomi shot back as she tossed the listening device into the red biohazard trash can.

“Y-Yes.”

“Good. Thank you. Bye,” Naomi said, whipping the blue curtain sideways and storming out, the bandage barely held in place. The hallway was busy—doctors, nurses, and pushcarts buzzing in every direction—but Naomi stopped.

“Nomi!” Scotty’s tiny voice squeaked from the earpiece in her hand. “Nomi, what happened!?”

“Scotty, stop talking,” she scolded, sliding the earpiece back in place and staring out at the emergency room lobby. A tall doctor was talking to the receptionist. An Arab family was huddled in prayer. An older black woman was either sleeping or unconscious with a half-knit quilt in her lap. “Scotty, y’know that itch in the back of your brain when you feel like you’re being watched?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing. Just get moving,” he said.

“I know, but the—”

“It’s nothing. I understand you were close with Timothy, but don’t let it make you imagine stuff,” Scotty insisted as Naomi took one last scan of the lobby. “The only thing you have to worry about now is finding Cal and— Serena Amend.”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s her name. On the flight that Cal and his dad took to Cleveland, a woman named Serena Amend sat in seat twenty-five C.”

“Thank you,” she said, stepping out into the night and realizing there was no way she’d find a cab in this neighborhood. “Scrub her through the system, then send that name to every Cleveland rental car company. There’s a LoJack tracker in their car. Those companies hate it when their stuff gets lost.”

“It’s nearly ten at night. This is gonna take some time.”

“Scotty, I’ve got fifteen stitches running down my right temple, I feel fishing line tug through my skin every time I move my eyebrow, and I’m now wondering what I’m going to say if they ask me to speak at Timothy’s funeral. Now you find me that LoJack signal, and I’ll find us Cal, and this Prophet, and whatever it is those Nazis wanted in Jerry Siegel’s old comic strip. Oh, and I need a cab to get to my car.”

“Don’t worry, boss. Whatever you want, I’m already on it.”