The Lightning Stones

10

Mercer was at Jordan’s bedside when she woke the following morning. Her eyes expressed the full gamut of emotions in a fleeting second, before drooping in abject misery. Mercer pulled a moist compress from her forehead and resoaked it in a bowl of cool water. He wrung it over the bowl so the clear water dripped musically and placed the towel on her fevered brow.

“You’re going to a doc-in-a-box if your fever doesn’t break in the next hour,” he told her.

Jordan struggled up against the headboard so that she was slightly elevated. Her hair looked brittle against the pillows, and she shivered. He held a glass of water with a flex straw to her lips, and she drank greedily. He pulled it away before she took in too much too quickly.

She coughed, and when she spoke her voice rasped like Harry’s after a three-day bender in an Atlantic City casino. “For once in my life, I am not going to argue.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Like chilled death. Why am I so feverish?”

“Trauma and shock,” he explained. “Your body doesn’t know how to fight either, so its default response is a fever. I’ve seen this a few times. It’ll break eventually, but you’d be more comfortable if we can get you something stronger than over-the-counter meds. How’s your arm?”

She moved it without thinking and winced. “Sore, but not as bad as it could be. Why are you being so nice to me? You don’t even know me.”

He smiled down at her. “For one thing, you needed help and no one else was volunteering for the job, so it fell on me. Also you were a friend of Abe…and that makes you one of the good guys, so I’d help you no matter what. And finally I am helping you because Abe and I hadn’t seen each other in too long, and I hope that you have some idea what he’d been up to lately. I need to figure out what put him in the crosshairs of a group of trained killers.”

He could see her cloud over with confusion and a lack of anything concrete to provide him. “Don’t worry about it now,” he said. “We can talk when you’re feeling better. And I don’t want to heap anything more onto your plate, but an Agent Hepburn of the FBI is here and wants to talk to you too.”

“The FBI?” It was clear she had no recollection of their visit the night before. “What do they want me for?”

Kelly Hepburn had been just outside the bedroom listening to make sure Mercer didn’t try to coach her or influence anything Jordan might say. She came around the corner and said, “I need you to corroborate the statement Dr. Mercer provided last night, Jordan. I’m Special Agent Kelly Hepburn.”

She flashed her badge and entered the guest bedroom. Mercer had to hand it to her. Harry had just told him that Jordan was coming around less than two minutes earlier. The tac guy, Simmons, who had spent the night sitting at the bar in the rec room, had radioed that information to whoever was outside, and Kelly Hepburn had knocked on the front door twenty seconds afterward. She was making certain her witnesses spent as little time together as possible without making it seem they were under suspicion.

Mercer had already noted when he’d let Hepburn into his house that she was wearing a more flattering suit than the night before, and a silk rather than cotton blouse. She wasn’t so obvious as to use more makeup, but her jewelry was better and he guessed her shoes were the best her closet had to offer. Despite this, her handshake had been cool and professional, like the night before, and her eyes hadn’t lingered on his any longer than was polite. He was left to assume that she was dressing for someone back at headquarters or one of the tac-team guys in the van outside. Since there was no sign of no-neck Nate Lowell, he could at least cross her partner off the list.

Jordan glanced quickly at Mercer, unsure. And then she found a little of the strength she had so ably demonstrated the day before. “My dad was our family’s big disappointment,” she said, helping herself to another sip of water. “He became a scientist while his two brothers both went into law. One is a senior partner in Pittsburgh, and the other is a municipal judge in Philadelphia. I’ve learned enough from them to know not to talk to the authorities, especially the FBI, without a lawyer present.”

“As is your right, Miss Weismann,” Kelly Hepburn agreed. “However neither you nor Dr. Mercer are under suspicion at this time, and I will not make any notes or recordings of this conversation. How about that? All I want is to verify what Dr. Mercer told me last night and I will be on my way.” She was hit by a sudden thought and turned to Mercer. “I was going over my notes this morning, and I can’t believe I didn’t ask you what happened to the automatic pistol you took from Abraham Jacobs’s house. Where is the Walther P-38?”

Mercer looked at Jordan, not correcting Hepburn’s mistake as to the gun’s manufacturer. “Tell her where, and it should mostly satisfy her that we aren’t the second coming of Bonnie and Clyde.” He saw Agent Hepburn stiffen. “I said mostly satisfy.”

The woman from the FBI relaxed.

Jordan said, “Mercer hid the gun in the ceiling of one of the second-floor classrooms. I think it was either 212 or 214.”

“Room 214,” Mercer verified. “I didn’t know what the police outside the building were doing, so I thought it best not to walk out armed to the teeth.”

“Prudent,” Hepburn remarked casually. “And, Jordan, why exactly were you at Hardt College and, more specifically, at Abraham Jacobs’s house?”

She looked a little sheepish. “I was being a bum, really. I, oh hell. Okay, I lost my job about five months ago and my savings ran out and I was just evicted from my apartment. I asked my dad if I could move back in with him, but he said no. Quelle surprise. He and I are no longer close since my mom died. He buried himself in work and I…had other distractions.”

Neither Mercer nor Agent Hepburn needed her to elaborate on the point.

Jordan continued, “Abe and my dad worked together back when they both taught at Carnegie Mellon, and he was always like another uncle to me, so when Dad told me I had to make it on my own, I copped out and begged a bed from Abe until I can figure out what I am going to do next. Abe was only supposed to be in Minnesota for a few days, and he hinted he might be able to get me something at Hardt when he came back.”

“What did you do for work?” Hepburn asked.

“I was a planning and zoning researcher for the city of Scranton. Budget cuts killed my position.”

“Is that what you studied in school?”

“Not exactly. I was an environmental studies major.” She gave a wan smile of unrealized dreams. “I had planned on saving the world, but that didn’t work out either.”

In mock horror Mercer said, “Dear God, a tree hugger.”

Jordan laughed until she coughed. “Sorry. And don’t worry. Two years working for a crumbling municipality has crushed any youthful optimism out of me. I haven’t hugged a tree in a long time.”

“What is your father’s phone number?” Kelly Hepburn asked.

“You said you weren’t going to take any notes,” Jordan pointed out.

“I’m not, but I have a pretty good memory for numbers and I just want to verify your story.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call him,” Jordan said, not exactly pleading but uncomfortable with the idea. “He doesn’t know I went to Abe’s, and I’m afraid with Abe’s death and me being at his house, my dad might, I don’t know, like hold me responsible or something. I know it sounds crazy, but he would jump to a conclusion like that.”

“I will be circumspect, Miss Weismann,” Agent Hepburn assured her. “Why don’t you try describing the men who attacked you.”

Jordan immediately looked to Mercer for help. Hepburn was seasoned enough to know that now was the time to separate the two of them. Under the best of circumstances, witness testimony was notoriously unreliable, and Jordan’s could be influenced by Mercer’s body language and micro-expressions. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Dr. Mercer, would you be so kind as to give us a few minutes alone?”

He immediately understood the reason behind her request. He also recognized how adroitly the agent had gotten Jordan talking. He gave Jordan’s good shoulder a squeeze. “You’ll be all right. Just tell her everything you remember, and if it gets too much for you, you can stop at any time.” Mercer glanced at Hepburn for confirmation, and the attractive agent nodded. “See you in a few minutes.”

Mercer burned the time sitting at the bar in the rec room with Harry, who was three-quarters of the way through the Washington Post crossword. Mercer decided against another cup of coffee. He hated waiting but knew there was no other choice. It would take hours before the FBI had anything preliminary from the trash and perhaps longer still to garner any information about the nature of Susan Tunis’s research project. Mercer had developed the habit of polishing lengths of old railroad track as a way of freeing his mind so he could think clearly, but right now even that distraction seemed frivolous.

He had to admit that for the first time in a long time he was an outsider. Since the last national election he had lost his role as special science adviser to the president of the United States, a job that required very little of him but opened doors all over Washington and beyond. Now he was just another citizen, and even though his friendship with Dick Henna had bought him a little professional courtesy, he held no illusions that Agent Hepburn was obligated to keep him in the loop. She needn’t share anything with him about her investigation even though he desperately wanted in on this. He wanted justice for Abe’s murder but just as badly he wanted to understand the bigger picture. There were other layers to this crime, shadows lurking deeper in the background. Someone had paid a great deal of money to get at whatever Abe had brought to that subterranean chamber, and they didn’t care who died in their quest to possess it.

The civilian death toll so far was limited to Abe, Dr. Tunis, and her people, and the hoist operator but it was a miracle that the only fatality at Hardt College had been one of the gunmen. Still, there were dozens injured, some critically, and until Mercer unraveled the mystery he felt certain the butcher’s bill would continue to rise.

Thirty minutes later, Kelly Hepburn backed out of the guest bedroom and softly closed the door. She came into the rec room just as Harry pushed the completed puzzle away from himself and stood. It was noon and time for the first drink of the day.

“Can I get you anything, sweetheart?” White asked as he stepped around the mahogany bar to prepare his drink. Behind the rows of liquor bottles on the back bar was an antique-looking world map stuck with pins of various colors. It was a map of the places Mercer had traveled, and it looked like with the exception of Antarctica there weren’t many corners of the earth he hadn’t visited.

“A Diet Coke, if you have one,” she said and took a seat next to Mercer, “and the understanding that if you ever call me ‘sweetheart’ again, Mr. White, I will shoot you.”

“We only have regular Coke,” Harry fired back, peering into the refurbished fifties-style lock-lever fridge, “and I suppose calling you ‘honey’ is out too.”

“Regular is fine, and you’re very perceptive for a guy with one foot firmly in the past and the other inching toward the grave.”

Mercer nearly choked on his laughter, and even Harry, the butt of one of the better zingers either had heard in a while, had to laugh.

“I thought FBI training was supposed to remove any vestiges of humor,” Mercer finally said, still chuckling.

Kelly Hepburn shrugged out of her suit coat and hung it from the back of her bar stool. “That’s usually the case, but I was absent that day.”

Harry placed an ice-filled glass in front of her and a can of soda. “Touché,” he said and tossed her a wink.

“Is Jordan asleep?” Mercer asked.

“Her fever is starting to break, so she’s drifting in and out. I was done questioning her anyway.” She poured cola into the glass, the ice popping and crackling as it chilled the beverage, and then she took a long swallow, wincing slightly as the carbonation hit her nose. “Dr. Mercer—”

“It’s just Mercer,” he told her. “I only use my title to impress girls and maître d’s.”

She arched an eyebrow. “I don’t count?”

“Only if you can get us good tables,” Harry muttered without looking up from his drink.

Hepburn smiled. “Okay, Harry. We’re even. Mercer, I think by now you can tell that this is no longer an FBI priority.”

“I figured that would happen sooner or later. This isn’t terrorism in the traditional sense, so the urgency faded as soon as the shooters vanished again.”

“Afraid so. I even requested a doctor come with me this morning to see Jordan and was turned down. Your and Harry’s friendship with higher-ups aside, I can only get a preliminary examination of the trash you recovered. Any detailed analysis will have to wait. Same thing with the computer servers at Hardt College and Northwestern. If we can’t get anything about Dr. Tunis’s work within a day, it gets dropped down the urgency list for a couple of weeks. I know this is personal for you, and I wanted to be honest, if nothing else.”

Mercer nodded. “I appreciate that and I know you’re doing your best.”

“There isn’t a whole lot to go on, not unless these screws strike again.”

“And because they got what they needed from Abe and erased all the evidence from the two colleges, they’re long gone.”

“Yup.” She took another long sip.

“I assume this also means the case isn’t doing your career much good,” Mercer pointed out.

“That shit hit the fan when your buddy, former director Henna, rained down on my boss four times removed.”

“Sorry about that,” Mercer said. “I was trying to prevent a misunderstanding from turning into my public lynching.”

“You were just trying to protect yourself and Jordan. Can’t blame you for that.” Agent Hepburn took another mouthful of soda and stood. She shrugged her jacket over her shoulders and fitted it around the Glock in its flat kidney holster. “Before I forget, I need a few hundred bucks.”

“Excuse me?”

“This isn’t a shakedown. Jordan is in no condition to travel, and she needs some stuff. Unless you want to comparison shop in the feminine hygiene aisle at Walgreens, I advise you pony up the cash and don’t ask any more questions.”

Mercer hastily peeled two hundred-dollar bills from his wallet and handed them over.

She reached across and took another. “I should get the prelim from forensics about the trash this afternoon. I’ll be back then with whatever news they have and the stuff Jordan asked for.”

While Harry and Drag watched NCIS reruns in the bar and Jordan fought her fever in the guest bedroom, Mercer spent the rest of the day in his downstairs office, first contacting the owners of the Leister Deep Mine. He needed to tie up loose ends pertaining to the mine rescue class he had taught, ensuring final payment for renting part of the mine was sent and insurance coverage canceled. Then he wrote up the performance reviews for each member of the class, which occupied most of the afternoon.

Jordan woke in the early evening, her fever broken but more exhausted than before. She managed a quick shower while Mercer and Harry changed her sweaty sheets, and she ate a few mouthfuls of soup before drifting off into a deep trouble-free sleep.

Agent Hepburn called at around six and asked if it was too late for her to come over and review some of what she’d discovered. She arrived a half hour later just as Mercer was returning with bags of takeout food.

Hepburn set several shopping bags on the floor near the hallway to the back bedrooms, a large one from CVS and the others from the Nordstrom at the Pentagon City Mall. It appeared that Jordan Weismann planned on being here for a while, which Mercer didn’t mind at all.

“Can I offer you something stronger than a Coke this time?” Harry asked.

“Is that Johnnie Blue?” she asked, eyeing the distinctive bottle amid lesser brands of Scotch on the back bar.

“Aye, lassie,” Harry said in an atrocious brogue.

Knowing how expensive it was, she asked Mercer if he minded. “Not in the slightest,” he assured her. “If you ask me, Scotch tastes like a blend of…” He was going to say “yak urine and iodine” but held his tongue. “Let’s leave it that I don’t drink the stuff and you’re welcome to all you want. Harry, get me a gimlet while you’re back there, will ya?”

“On it.”

Mercer pulled sandwiches, salads, and soups from the takeout bags and even conjured real silverware from a drawer behind the bar. He gave Agent Hepburn the latest on Jordan’s condition and said that he felt she would be up and around the following day. For her part she told Mercer and Harry that Jordan’s father confirmed he had once worked with Abe Jacobs but questioned why his name came up in the course of investigating the retired metallurgist’s murder. Hepburn told him it was routine, but the man became even more suspicious when asked about his estranged daughter. He did say that Jordan and Abe had been friendly when she was younger, but neither had seen Jacobs in years. When he pressed Hepburn about how and why this was pertinent, she hid behind national security and quickly ended the telephone interview.

“So her story checks out,” Kelly Hepburn concluded. “You both are clear as far as the Bureau is concerned. Like you in Minnesota, she really was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Didn’t think it was otherwise,” Mercer said, “but it’s good to know. What else have you found out?”

“Everything I didn’t need to know about wax paper, for one thing.”

“Come again?”

“Wax paper. The tech guys went through all the garbage you recovered from Abe Jacobs’s office. Everything was pretty standard — basic computer paper, candy wrappers, an empty apple sauce container, opened envelopes with addresses that all check out as legit, paper coffee cups, junk mail, broken rubber bands, as well as a large square of wax paper that according to the nerds is yellowed enough and shows enough signs of the paraffin’s degenerative long-chain molecular blah blah blah so it is at least fifty years old, possibly much older.”

Mercer stopped chewing his roast beef. “That might mean something.”

“Thought you’d think so.” Amid the shopping bags was a slim leather case, almost like a laptop bag but smaller and much more stylish. Agent Hepburn grabbed it and brought it to her place at the bar. From it came a notebook stuffed with photographs and a tablet computer. She fired up the tablet, flicked her finger through a few apps and a few screens, and presented it to Mercer.

It was a picture of wax paper all right, dingy yellow compared to the fresh milky sheets he doubtless had in his kitchen and had never used. The paper was crinkled and curled like it had been wrapped around something irregular and maybe the size and shape of a carrot. He could see there was faded printing on one part of the paper, and try as he might he couldn’t make it out, even by tightening in on it using the tablet’s zoom.

“Any idea what it says?” he asked.

She took the computer back, flicked through a couple of other pictures, and presented it to him once again. It was a close-up and digitally enhanced image of the faint writing. “Best they could do.”

It read:

“Any idea what it means?” Kelly asked when Mercer had been studying it for nearly thirty seconds, his brow tight over his gray eyes and his mouth held firm.

“Could your people make anything out of it?” he asked back.

“No. Nothing. As a favor — remember this is now low priority — one of the lab rats sent it through a decryption program and some handwriting analysis logarithms but got nowhere. And that is about all the tech support I’m going to get unless we can find some definitive link to international terrorism. And don’t bother with Google, Bing, or Yahoo. I spent a couple hours on them and turned up all kinds of crap but nothing relevant.”

Harry had shrugged a pale blue windbreaker over his oft-laundered white button-down and was just unfurling Drag’s leash when he walked behind Mercer and Kelly and looked at the tablet’s screen. “Did you look up ‘sample six eight one’ instead of ‘camole’?”

“What are you talking about?” Agent Hepburn asked.

“When the paper creased through the first line it cut off the bottom curve of an S and the bottom tail of the letter p. It’s not ‘camole 681.’ It’s ‘Sample 681.’ And in the second line, the letters o-o-r-e-r are rarely ever seen in sequence except in proper names like Moorer.”

It took Harry nearly fifteen minutes to get Drag out of the house and to a spot in the neighborhood he deemed worthy to soil and finally back indoors. By then, Mercer and Kelly had checked out several dozen people with last names ending in oorer online. The only one that seemed a remote possibility was the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Thomas Moorer, even though he’d been dead for more than a decade.

Harry laboriously shucked his coat and settled back onto his bar stool. Kelly wrinkled her nose at the smell of Chesterfield cigarettes clinging to him. “Any luck?” he asked, sipping at the watery remnants of his third Jack and ginger of the day.

“Not much,” Mercer admitted.

“Figured you wouldn’t. Names ending in oorer aren’t that common. That’s why I think the first r isn’t an r at all.”

Mercer groaned. He should have known Harry would have figured something out. The octogenarian had been doing crosswords for over sixty years and any number of other word games as well. He had once seen Harry guess a Wheel of Fortune puzzle with only a single letter showing and only three others eliminated from play. Where the FBI’s brain trust and computer logic failed, good old-fashioned experience could prove invaluable.

“I think that first r is a v. It’s oover, not oorer.”

“Okay,” Hepburn said. “That leaves us with Nebl Oover.” She typed quickly. “And it’s meaningless.”

Mercer finally saw the pattern that Harry must have picked up on. “The first letter isn’t n. Remember how the bottom of the S got cut off in ‘Sample.’ Same thing here. The top of the first letter is missing. I think it’s an H.” Mercer’s eyes suddenly widened as everything came home in a clarifying rush. He knew the name written on the paper, and it made perfect sense even if he didn’t yet know why it was there. “Cross the l so it’s a t and then tell me what you get.

She typed “Hebt oover” into a search engine, and the tablet kicked back the answer that had eluded her best nerds for most of the afternoon — Herbert Hoover.