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  He scanned the area for Mickles and Herman. Seeing no one, he circled to the side. Something sharp stung his face. His hand flew to his cheek and came away bloody. Grunting in frustration, he backed up a few steps. The explosion had sent smaller pieces of glass and metal airborne, adding a new element of danger to the dust storm.

  Kneeling in the dirt, he studied the wreckage from a safe distance. The force of the explosion had caused a small hill of dirt to collapse. It partially covered the SUV’s metal remains. Several fires raged inside the vehicle, crackling loudly.

  Farther to the north, he noticed a medium-duty truck, half buried under a mound of dirt. He figured it belonged to the salvage team.

  Peering through his binoculars, he noticed the truck’s front left tire was flat. A large piece of cargo, shaped like a box, was lashed securely to the flatbed. He was pleased to see the explosion hadn’t damaged it.

  He waited for the wind to die down. Then he inched forward. Something crunched under his boot. It felt hard, yet soft. Glancing down, he noticed a bloody, dirt-covered object.

  It was part of a hand.

  Looking around, he saw other bits of flesh lying on the ground. Quickly, he put the pieces together. Mickles and Herman must’ve confronted Reed’s salvage team. A fight had raged between the two sides, largely drowned out by the heavy wind.

  During the battle, someone had accidentally shot the gas tank. The fuel had ignited. The truck had exploded. Everyone, from the looks of it, had died.

  Pascal strode forward, ignoring the spinning glass shards as they carved thin lines across his body. Upon reaching the SUV, he saw part of a charred corpse lying on the ground, smeared with blood and dirt.

  Using his boot, he nudged the body, turning it over. The face had melted away, but Pascal recognized enough to know it was Mickles.

  Pascal swung his long knife over his head. The blade slammed into the melted roof and cut through it easily. His throat opened.

  And he shouted a primal scream.

  Chapter 28

  “Mr. President.” The unwelcome voice was loud and grating. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

  President Walters’ blood boiled. Hank Gar was an old colleague from his days in the Senate. They’d been at each other’s throats from the beginning, taking opposite sides on every major political issue. The president didn’t mind opinions that differed from his own. After all, that was the nature of politics. But he didn’t like snakes.

  And Senator Gar was a snake.

  The senator had achieved his position through ruthless means, engaging in fear mongering, false rumors, and lies. After joining the Senate, he’d only gotten worse. It was widely suspected among Washington insiders that Gar participated in all sorts of questionable activities. But reporters, who appreciated his boisterous personality and colorful sound bites, generally gave him a pass.

  “How are you, Hank?” The president offered his hand. “And how’s Lizzie?”

  Senator Gar strolled forward. He was a political cartoonist’s dream come true. A thick, bulbous head rested comically on his short, stocky frame. He’d combed his wispy white hair backward, in a vain attempt to obscure a small balding patch on his crown. His exaggerated facial features consisted of bulging eyes, a skinny nose, floppy ears, and a big, round mouth.

  The senator pressed President Walters’ hand. “I’m fine, Mr. President. And Lizzie’s well, too. She’s a busy woman, juggling all those nonprofits of hers.”

  “I bet.” The president studied the senator’s appearance, noting the man wore an expensive black suit, a white collared shirt, and a red power tie. Clearly, he had something important to discuss. “What can I do for you?”

  “I don’t want to waste your time, so I’ll cut to the chase. Recently, my staff came across some disturbing information. It seems some taxpayer dollars have gone missing.”

  The president’s heart iced over. “Oh?”

  “They were taken from the Columbus Project.”

  “Let me explain—”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. President. But I can’t just gloss over this. Your administration has lost hard-earned American money.” Senator Gar cocked his head. “Unless, of course, you took it for yourself.”

  The president steeled his backbone. “How dare you.”

  Senator Gar shrugged. “Regardless, someone took it.”

  “So, is that why you’re here? To give me a heads-up before the press conference?”

  “Who said anything about a press conference?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ll level with you,” Senator Gar continued. “America doesn’t need another scandal, especially of this magnitude. Polls show the public’s faith in the presidency is already at an all-time low. The last thing I want to do is add fuel to the fire.”

  The president frowned.

  “Face it. This scandal will destroy you, now and in the history books. You’ll be remembered as the most crooked leader in our nation’s history. But I can give you a way out.”

  “Is that so?”

  The senator nodded. “All I want is a little favor.”

  “What kind of favor?”

  “Your endorsement.” Senator Gar smiled. “I’m running for president in the next election. And you’ll be supporting my candidacy.”

  Chapter 29

  The cottage house, although tiny, promised big things. Ed Hooper’s eyes shifted across it, taking in the peeling siding, the filthy windows, and the lopsided roof. The paint, once a vibrant red, had dulled to crimson. Modest was too kind a word to describe the dwelling.

  It was a dump.

  Opening his car door, he stepped outside. The evening air reeked of urine and garbage. Twisting his neck, he took in the other nearby single-family homes. He stood in the middle of Washington Highlands, one of Washington D.C.’s poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods. It was a far cry from Spring Valley. And yet, a small connection existed between the two worlds.

  After leaving the Samuels’ residence, he’d taken a few minutes to search the Internet for information on the various people depicted in the old photograph. Since they were all part of the same administration, he’d initially received millions of hits. But when he’d added the search term, Separative, the hits had diminished to just a handful. One of those hits led him to a three-year old article from the Washington Chronicle. It was entitled, “The Separative Takes Over the World.” The article was archived, so he’d been forced to purchase it. But it had been well worth the cost. In fact, it had been so helpful he’d decided to seek out the author herself for a little extra information.

  Hooper trudged up a dilapidated staircase and rapped on the door. Footsteps pitter-pattered toward him. A deadbolt shifted. The door inched open. “May I help you?” a woman asked with perfect enunciation.

  She was short and middle-aged. Her eyes were laser bright. Her hair was poofed up and pushed backward, drawing attention to her high forehead. She wore a black sweater and black pants. Her quiet, confident demeanor hinted at a high degree of intelligence.

  Hooper smiled. “Are you Ms. Zora Zubin?”

  “That depends. Who are you?”

  “Ed Hooper.” He showed his credentials. “I need to ask you a few questions.”

  “Secret Service?” Her face twisted in suspicion. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “We should talk inside.” Hooper tried to walk through the doorway. But Zora stood her ground. With a shrug, he backed up a few inches. He wasn’t particularly surprised. Most reporters knew better than to let authority figures into their homes without a warrant. “Or we can talk here.”

  Zora stepped outside and closed the door behind her. “I don’t know what this is about, but you’ve got the wrong person. I don’t care for President Walters, but I’d never try to hurt him.”

  “I’m not here about the president. I’m here about an article you wrote three years ago for the Washington Chronicle.”

  The corners of her mout
h twitched. “You’ll have to do better than that. Three years is a lifetime in my business.”

  “It was called, ‘The Separative Takes Over the World.’” He brought up the article on his smartphone and passed it to her.

  “Oh, yes.” She fished a pack of cigarettes out of her back pocket. “Mind if I smoke?”

  “Not at all.” Hooper tilted his head. “How long have you been a smoker?”

  “Ever since I came to this godforsaken city.” She slid a cigarette between her lips and lit it. “So, why do you care about my article?”

  “It might have something to do with a case I’m working on.” Hooper gave her a reassuring smile. “So, why’d you write it?”

  “Because it was—is—an amazing story. Five members of the cabinet are longtime friends? And they used to meet together, in secret, to discuss intellectual matters? That’s the stuff Pulitzers are made of.”

  “Then how come you never published any follow-up pieces?”

  “Ask my editor.”

  Hooper arched an eyebrow.

  “That first story was going to be part of a series,” she said. “But shortly after it appeared, my editor killed the whole thing. He claimed it was due to lack of interest.”

  “You don’t believe that?”

  “I’ve been in this town long enough to know when pressure is being applied.”

  Hooper nodded. “Okay. Well, how’d you first learn about the Separative?”

  She blew out a ring of smoke. “Through Simona Wolcott. She was their ringleader. I met her years ago, right here in D.C. We became good friends. Every Sunday night, she hosted informal gatherings in her parlor. They weren’t very large, just ten people in total. But what they lacked in numbers, they made up for in intellectual heft. They’d debate philosophy, literature, mathematics, politics, and pretty much anything else into the wee hours of the night. They called themselves the Separative.”

  “Do you know why?” Hooper asked.

  “It was an inside joke. You see, they considered themselves collectivists.”

  “Ahh, I see. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

  “Something like that.” She paused to blow out another ring of smoke. “Anyway it sounded interesting so I begged her to let me sit in on a meeting. Boy, was that a long night.”

  “It was boring?”

  “Try humiliating. It was like playing a game of chess with a Grand Master. One moment you think you’re winning, the next moment you realize you’ve been set up for checkmate since the first move.”

  “Were they all that smart?”

  Exhaling another puff, she stared off into space. “Oh, yeah. But Simona? She was in a league of her own.”

  Hooper consulted his notes. “Your article mentioned ten members, but only discussed those with cabinet positions. Who else was in the Separative?”

  “I’ll have to get out my old notebooks. Wait here.” She tossed the butt onto her porch and stamped it out with her shoe. Then she walked into her house. Ten minutes later, she reemerged, clutching a couple of spiral notebooks.

  Flipping through the books, she recited some basic information. Hooper scribbled down names and titles. Before long, he’d compiled a complete roster of the Separative.

  George Kaiser: Secretary of Transportation, U.S. Government

  Kate Roost: Secretary of the Interior, U.S. Government

  Barney Samuels: Secretary of Energy, U.S. Government

  Patricia Samuels: Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO, Fizzter Computers

  Janet Baker: Secretary of Agriculture, U.S. Government

  Bert Bane: Secretary of Defense, U.S. Government

  Mary Jordan: Executive Director, Forestry Club

  Carly Nadas: Executive Director, PlanetSavers

  John Tipper: Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme

  Simona Wolcott: ?, ?

  Hooper’s brain worked in overdrive. Some of the world’s most prominent people had refined their philosophies within the Separative. “It’s like a Who’s Who of bureaucrats and environmentalists.”

  “I know, right? That’s why I wrote my article.”

  Hooper checked his notes. “What about Simona? Where did she work?”

  “She worked as an independent consultant. But she was more than that. I’m not lying when I say she was the smartest person I’ve ever known. Even then I knew she possessed the type of mind that only comes along every few centuries.”

  Hooper sensed something in her voice. “It sounds like you were more than friends.”

  “Just for a while.” She bit her lip. “I fell hard for her. Really, really hard. But she might as well have been on a different plane of existence. She was so full of passion, but she just couldn’t transfer it to her personal life. She truly lived for her work.”

  “What can you tell me about her work?”

  “Her expertise lay in geocybernetics. In other words, she studied the relationship between people and nature. She also loved to model incredibly complex systems. In fact, she spent several years trying to model humanity as a self-stabilizing cybernetic system.”

  “People as nodes in a network?” Hooper shuddered. “That’s a pretty depressing view of the world.”

  “And unrealistic too, as it turns out. Before we met, she’d tried to build a comprehensive model of a small community. She gathered tons of data. Then she attempted to put it together, to model connections between the pieces. Her goal was to establish predictive power. But her model just wouldn’t reflect reality. So, she gathered more data. And oddly enough, the model became even more screwed up. Eventually, she was forced to abandon the project.” Zora smiled wistfully. “Of course, she never admitted it was a failure. She just said she lacked the computing power to make it work.”

  Hooper glanced at his notebook. Simona’s background was interesting, but not particularly useful. Still, the conversation had proven helpful to his cause.

  He was beginning to suspect the Separative wasn’t just some defunct social club. It was a living, breathing organization. Its members had risen in the ranks and now occupied some of the world’s most powerful positions. With Patricia Samuels handling the computer end of things, it seemed possible they’d used their newfound authority to siphon massive amounts of money away from the Columbus Project.

  But to what end?

  Thirty-two billion dollars had vanished over the last eighteen months. What could they possibly do with that much money? It boggled Hooper’s mind just to think about it.

  Hooper decided to move on to the other members. But first, he had one more question to ask. “Do you still keep in touch with Simona?” he asked. “Maybe you have an address or a phone number?”

  “It wouldn’t matter if I did.”

  “Why not?”

  Zora’s face crumbled. “I don’t know what happened to her.”

  “She disappeared?”

  Zora nodded.

  “When?”

  “About eighteen months ago.”

  Chapter 30

  Disbelief welled within me as I watched a group of armed personnel direct our vehicle, reliquary and all, toward a large box truck.

  What the hell?

  My plan had been relatively straightforward. Fake our deaths. Hide. Watch the arriving forces from a safe distance. Wait for them to leave and for the storm to pass. Fix the flat tire. Drive the reliquary to Jerusalem. But now, I saw the fatal flaw in my plan.

  Where are they taking it?

  Leaning over the dune, I adjusted my goggles. After staging the explosion, we’d slipped away from the area. We’d taken cover and proceeded to watch as the newcomers swarmed the scene. We’d held our collective breath. Fortunately, our charade seemed to have fooled them.

  The dirt shifted beneath my fingertips as I studied the barren land. Over the last four hours, a remarkable change had taken place. The small inferno engulfing the SUV had been extinguished. Jagged car parts and grisly chunks of flesh had been carefully gathered a
nd stowed in plastic boxes. Meanwhile, workers had dug our vehicle out of the dirt and fixed its flat tire. Now, they were in the process of loading it into the first box truck. But the drone, well, that was the most incredible change of all.

  In record time, a group of workers had dismantled the aircraft. They’d gathered the parts and stored them in the second box truck. Now, all that was left were some sections of the fuselage as well as the giant cylinder.

  “I don’t get it,” Graham whispered. “Why are they taking our truck?”

  “Because they’re cleaning the scene.” Beverly took a deep breath. “Also, they might’ve been after the reliquary all along.”

  My fingers tightened around the dirt as I recalled the hollow look in Lila’s eyes when she’d first seen the drone. She’d been petrified of it as well as of a mysterious woman who controlled it.

  My fingers tightened a bit more as I remembered her fears about the reliquary and about a woman being after it. Presumably, it was the same woman who controlled the drone.

  Had Lila been right all along? Was the reliquary truly dangerous? Had the drone been sent to kill us with its strange chemtrails? Was the reliquary the real target? If so, why?

  The dust storm continued to rage, albeit at a reduced level. I shifted my gaze to a short, dark-skinned man. He was clearly in charge of the workers. Despite the flying dirt, I got a good look at his face. He looked to be of Polynesian descent.

  The man walked to the first box truck. Waving his hands, he directed his workers to cover the reliquary with additional padding and chains. Then one of the workers carefully backed our truck up a ramp and into the cargo area. Other workers clambered into the box truck. They spent a few minutes securing the vehicle. Then they stowed the exterior ramp.

  A sense of dread filled my chest as the box truck’s rear door slid shut. The workers secured the latch and moved toward the giant cylinder.

  Why didn’t I listen to her?

  “Pagan,” Graham whispered.

  I kept my gaze locked on the Polynesian man, memorizing his features. “What?”

  “I’m reading lips,” he replied. “The workers keep saying Pagan. I think it’s their destination.”