White Jade

Chapter Nineteen

"No bodies. Lots of forensics." Harker said. "We've got casings, blood trails, tire impressions, prints and DNA from a wine bottle."

"Selena's and my prints are on that bottle."

"We know that. There are others. Where's the book?"

"In a safe here at my cabin."

"I want you two back here now. I've sent a plane to pick you up at Beale Air Force Base. You know where it is?"

"Yes. It's about an hour from here. When do we leave?"

"1800 hours. An escort will pick you up at your cabin at 1600 and take you to the base. Ronnie will meet you when you get in. It will be late. I want you to stay at the apartment here. We'll meet tomorrow at 0700."

The apartment at the Project building was for keeping out of sight. Carter had never had to use it.

"Anything more from the FBI?"

"Jordan sent over more photos. You can look at them when you get here. Wait for your transport. I'll see you in the morning."

She clicked off.

Selena gestured at the porch, past the screen door. "You have a cat?"

Pawing at the door and looking in through the screen was an enormous, beat-up orange tomcat.

"That's Burps. It's more like he has me. He's a different sort of cat. A neighbor feeds him when I'm away, which is most of the time."

The cat was part Maine Coon, part whatever. He weighed forty pounds at least and had a pair of cojones that would make many a larger animal proud. His ears were notched and scarred, pink scars marred his orange fur and his tail was half as long as it should be. He had one long, sharp front tooth. The other one was missing.

"Big, isn't he?"

"He's a regular tiger. Let's sit outside."

Carter opened two cans of cat food, put it in a dish and took it outside. Burps began chomping it down. They took a seat on the porch. The cat paused mid-chomp and gave out a loud belch.

"UUUURRRPP."

"Did he just do what I think he did?"

"That's why I call him Burps."

"He always does that?"

"All the time."

"I've never heard a cat burp. He's loud."

"Prime TV material. I'm thinking I'll get him on American Idol."

Burps belched again, finished his meal and wandered over to them. He began rubbing his head against Selena's leg and purring. It reminded Carter of a chain saw.

Selena stroked him behind the ears and Burps held up his paw and closed his eyes, arched his neck, purred louder and drooled through his tooth onto the deck.

"He's cute."

Cute wasn't how Carter would describe him, but who was he to argue? He told Selena what the Director had said.

"What did you do to that guy's wall?" he asked.

"Kuk Sool Won. It's a Korean martial art. I've been doing it since the tenth grade."

"What's your rank?"

"Seventh degree black."

"Remind me not to mess with you."

"I think you already did." She scratched Burps on top of his head. He jumped up in her lap and she grunted. He began kneading her leg. She grimaced.

"I've been thinking about the book. The language is archaic but the calligraphy is elegant and I can read it. Whoever copied it took his time, so that's not a problem. The problem is the section in Linear A. I need to compare what's in the book to other examples and to Linear B. We can read some of that variant."

"The Project has some big Cray computers. Steph can help you there."

"Steph?"

"Stephanie Willits. She's Harker's deputy and a genius with computers. We can scan the book into the system."

"That solves some problems. Once it's in the computers, we won't need to lug it around with us. We'd have access anywhere."

She took a sip from a glass of water.

"Tell me about Director Harker."

"She was part of the post nine eleven task force at Justice. She pissed off a lot of big shots by insisting it wouldn't have happened if the right hand had known what the left was doing. No one wanted to hear that, back then. It stalled her career. When Rice got elected he tapped her to head up the Project."

"What is the Project? You've got Crays, then you have resources. What do you do there?"

"It's the President's brainchild, a counterweight to the big intelligence agencies. Project is an acronym. Presidential Official Joint Exercise for Counter Terrorism. The joint part doesn't work too well, though, except for NSA. Harker's job is to cut through the smoke and mirrors tossed out by the big agencies and tell the President what's really going on. She's not afraid to speak her mind and she's a brilliant analyst. The three letter agencies don't like her. She answers only to the President, so they can't control her or tell her what to do. That doesn't stop them from trying."

"You're not an analyst."

"No. Ronnie and I get sent into the field to find things out. Sometimes to clean up messes that wouldn't have happened if CIA and the others had been doing their job."

"That's why you carry the gun?"

He looked out at the coastal range in the distance. The mountains formed blue ridges in the haze.

"Sometimes people shoot at us."

Selena put Burps down and stood up. He meowed loudly, gave her an insulted look and stalked off under the deck.

"Let's look at the book," she said.

They went inside and he got the book from the safe. At the kitchen table Selena began reading.

He got a kit out and began cleaning his pistol. He watched her turn the ancient pages. She was concentrating, the tip of her tongue exposed between her lips.

When Megan died he'd shut down any thoughts of letting someone get close again. Selena brought up old feelings, feelings he'd thought were dead and buried. He wasn't sure it was a good idea to bring those kinds of feelings back to life. He wasn't sure he wanted to let Selena in. You let someone in, it made you vulnerable. You weren't in control anymore.

Selena looked up.

"There's a list of some ingredients for an elixir of immortality, like cinnabar and gold. And there's a map to someplace in Tibet."

"Cinnabar?"

"That's what you make mercury from. Mercury was in a lot of the Chinese immortality formulas. It probably killed most of the people who took them. It might even have killed the Emperor. But China has known high grade deposits of cinnabar. They wouldn't care about that."

He held a bore light in the chamber of the .45, looked down the barrel.

"There's a reference to 'burning silver rocks' in the formula that I don't understand," she said.

He ran a cleaning brush through the bore.

She turned another page, studied it. "Do you think the Chinese government is behind this?"

"No. I think it's Yang acting on his own. Maybe he's just nuts, looking for an elixir of life."

Selena brushed hair back from her forehead and frowned.

"There has to be a rational purpose behind all this. I'll feel a lot better when we know what it is."

Carter watched her studying the text. She had retreated onto familiar ground, the expert linguist.

He'd had his share of beds but he'd never been a woman chaser. Besides, the Corps was hard on relationships. Then he'd met Megan and knew she was the one. It was a miracle to him that she'd felt the same way. When she died it left a hole inside him, big enough to pull him in and cover him up if he let it.

He'd plugged it with war. He was good at war, it was pretty much all he knew how to do. But making love with Selena had changed something. The hole was coming unplugged. It made him nervous, the feeling. It wasn't something he was used to.