Finding North (29 page)

Ben looked at Alex for
longer than was comfortable. She knew he deserved for her to hold
his gaze.

“
You’ll put Josh on this,”
Ben said.

“
I will ask Agent
Rasmussen to look into the suicide of Philippe Doucet,” Alex said.
“It may mean exhuming his body. Are you willing to do
that?”

“
Yes,” Ben
said.

“
We’ll take care of it,”
Alex said.

“
I’ve kept all of my
files,” Ben said.

“
You what?” Alex
asked.

“
As a precaution, I
guess,” Ben said. “I don’t remember what I was working on when
Philippe died. Nor do I remember much of the following years. I
stumbled . . . I can tell you the textures and
sounds of the darkness, but I don’t have any idea what exactly I
was up to. Whatever they told me to do, I suppose. I think that’s
why I noticed the oddity of these families. I was in an odd place,
disconnected from anything that could hold my mind. What do my
records say?”

“
Supporting the post-war
effort,” Alex shrugged.

“
That’s got to be a lie,”
Ben said. “I did help find more than a few POWs.”

Ben’s head went up and
down.

“
No, that was after I met
Patrick,” Ben said. “As you know, POWs are kind of his
thing.”

Alex nodded. He shook his
head and shrugged.

“
I look back
and . . .” Ben smiled. “I never would have imagined
getting here — to this age and life. But, wham, your mother and I
got pregnant, I met Patrick, and my life started over.”

“
Sounds like Mom and
everything jump-started your career,” Alex said.

Ben gave her a puzzled
look and drank his cognac.

“
Maybe,” Ben said.
“Anyway, everything is documented in my files.”

He waved his hand toward
the row of filing cabinets along the long wall of his
office.

“
Paper files,” Alex
said.

Ben nodded.

“
I’ll get them ready for
you before you leave for Denver.”

“
I’ll tell you what,” Alex
said. “If it’s all right with you, I’ll send my Sergeant and Royce
to scan and document the files. They’re good, and they’re fast.
It’s the kind of job they love. They can be in and out in a few
hours. They’ll love it down here, too.”

“
Good idea,” Ben
said.

Alex nodded her
thanks.

“
Is there anything else?”
Ben asked.

“
Do you have any old
maps?” Alex asked.

Ben gave her a long
look.

“
You want to know about
Rebecca’s father,” Ben said.

“
I remember an old map,”
Alex said.

“
The one at the
bookstore?” Ben asked.

“
I don’t think so,” Alex
said. “This is something that was . . . around, hung
on a wall somewhere . . . I’m wondering if you have
it.”

“
Rebecca’s father thought
I’d become his son-in-law,” Ben said. “He gifted me four antique
maps. They are in the safe.”

“
May I look at them?” Alex
asked.

“
If I can have them back,
you can have them,” Ben said.

“
Of course,” Alex
said.

“
They mean a great deal to
me,” Ben said.

He got up.

“
We’ll wash our hands,” he
said.

“
Of course,” she
nodded.

They left his office to
use the restroom down the hallway. When she returned, he was
standing in front of his opened safe. He nodded to her and reached
into the bottom shelf, where the antique maps were stored flat. He
carried the maps to a table. Alex got up to look at them. One
glance at the maps, and Alex knew that these were duplicates,
similar to, if not exactly the same, as the four maps she’d
discovered in her office. She turned them over and saw the compass
rose with eight black points, eight shaded points, and the
now-familiar eye in the center.

“
What is it?” Ben
asked.

“
These are copies of
maps,” Alex said. “They were carefully and expensively made but
copies nonetheless.”

“
How do you know?” Ben
asked.

“
I have the same copies in
my office,” Alex said. “Under the world map that hangs on my
wall.”

“
What?” Ben
asked.

“
Patrick gave them to me,”
Alex said. “At the time, he said it was a joke. I haven’t had a
chance to ask him about it. As you know, he’s hot on the Linear A
trail.”

Ben nodded and gave her a
wry look. She smiled.

“
Did Patrick know the
copies were there?” Ben asked.

“
I doubt it,” Alex shook
her head.

Ben’s gaze shifted away
from her.

“
They have a mark on the
back.” Alex pointed to the mark. “Have you seen this mark
before?”

Ben gave a vague nod. He
went to his safe and took out an antique directional compass. The
symbol was on the back.

“
Mom said this was her
father’s symbol,” Alex said. “She said he had a ring and cufflinks
with this symbol on them. Have you seen them?

“
I remember him having
them,” Ben said. “They sat in a little glass case with a pocket
watch. I haven’t seen them since before he died.”

“
These maps appear to have
been created a thousand years before my grandfather,” Alex said.
“The symbol cannot be my grandfather’s personal mark. Any idea what
it means?”

“
None.”

“
I have this feeling that
I’ve seen the mark before . . .
somewhere . . .” Alex nodded.

“
It’s not on the map
that’s hanging in your living room?” Ben asked.

“
No,” Alex said. “Not on
the front or back of that map or the one in Max’s hall.”

She looked at the fire for
a moment before turning back to look at him.

“
I think I was with you,”
Alex said. “You don’t remember seeing it on a map?”

“
No,” Ben shook his head.
“Like Rebecca, I thought it was her father’s mark. He had
this . . . old-world quality. Pocket watches,
fountain-tip pens . . . It wouldn’t surprise me if
he sealed his letters with wax.”

Ben smiled.

“
You should know that
Rebecca’s father recruited me to the CIA.”

“
That was one of my
questions,” Alex said.

“
My father worked for the
French,” Ben said. “Rebecca’s father convinced me to work for the
US.”

“
Why?” Alex
asked.

“
Purity of purpose,” Ben
said. “A lack of colonial baggage. Or some crap like
that.”

“
Where did my family’s
money come from?” Alex asked.

“
Rebecca’s grandmother,”
Ben said. “She was loaded — robber baron money, the railroads, I
think. She was the only heir.”

“
And Mom’s brothers? My
uncles?” Alex asked.

“
They are an interesting
lot,” Ben said. “As far as I know, they weren’t ever involved in
intelligence, and I can’t imagine any of them having the patience
to work on a map. There’s only one left.”

“
Oh?” Alex asked. “They
were all alive when everyone died.”

Ben grimaced at her
insistence in using the phrase “everyone died” to describe the
murder of the Fey Special Forces Team.

“
There comes an age where
hard drinking and foul temper catch up with a man,” Ben said. “In
the last few years, they have passed over that threshold. Your
remaining uncle is in prison and is unlikely to get
out.”

“
But they could have been
involved in this other stuff,” Alex said.

“
And pigs could fly,” Ben
said.

Alex nodded.

“
Anything else?” Ben
asked.

“
Who is Raz’s father?”
Alex asked.

“
That’s the question,
isn’t it?” Ben asked. “His mother took that secret to her
grave.”

“
But you have some
ideas?”

Ben nodded.

“
Will you share
your . . . ideas on this, too?”

“
I don’t see why not,” Ben
said. “Why do you ask?”

“
It would be good to
know,” Alex said.

“
Run his DNA against
CODIS,” Ben said. “Include national security and police. See what
pops up.”

“
You’ve done that,” Alex
said.

“
I have,” Ben
said.

“
And?” Alex
asked.

“
Nothing comes up,” Ben
said. “For the record, I decided it didn’t matter. An unknown
father has no sway over his abandoned son. Plus, Josh doesn’t care
who his father is. He cannot be manipulated that way, so what’s the
point?”

“
Just a feeling,” Alex
said.

“
What kind of
feeling?”

“
That we’re going to find
out that Raz’s father has more to do with all of this than we
think,” Alex said. “I mean, how likely is it that Joshua Peretz’s
old NYPD partner is right in the middle of this ‘burn the world’
mystery, which just happens to be connected to the murder of the
Fey Special Forces Team and something I did during the last six
months of service with them?”

“
That’s a big
coincidence,” Ben said.

“
How did you find Josh?”
Alex asked.

Ben looked at her for a
moment and then finished his cognac.

“
You don’t remember?” Alex
asked.

“
I’m not sure,” Ben said.
“I think you’ll remember that I collected names from everyone. His
name came along with a list of other people. I interviewed thirty
or more people. You met ten of them. If we were manipulated into
hiring him, it’s a big long shot.”

“
Why don’t you send me the
names?” Alex asked. “Maybe we’ll find something they have in
common.”

Ben nodded. Thinking
through his answers to her questions, Alex fell silent and drank
her cognac. When her glass was empty, she looked at him. He was
equally lost in thought. Feeling her gaze, he looked up.

“
Fathers,” he said. He
gestured to her cognac to see if she’d like a refill. She shook her
head. “They seem to be a thread that runs all the way through this
mystery.”

“
They do,” Alex
said.

“
Let me take you back,”
Ben said.

“
Feeling fatherly?” Alex
asked.

“
I guess so,” Ben said.
“You’re staying at the apartment?”

“
All of us,” Alex
nodded.

She picked up the antique
maps.

“
Do you mind?” Alex asked.
“I’d like to check them against my maps. They look similar to me,
but I won’t know if they are exactly the same until I see them side
by side.”

“
The differences may be
enlightening,” Ben said. He looked at the compass in his hand for a
moment. “Why don’t you take this, too?”

“
I couldn’t,” Alex
said.

“
I don’t use it,” Ben
said. “It’s more of a keepsake.”

“
Are you sure?” Alex
asked.

“
Bring it back with the
maps,” Ben said.

Alex nodded.

“
You
will
bring them back?” Ben
asked.

“
Of course,” Alex
said.

Ben gestured toward the
door, and she followed him out of his office.

F

Chapter
Twenty-one

Thursday
morning

May 19 — 6:14 a.m.
CEST
(May 18 — 10:14 p.m. MDT)

Paris, France

“
Whose idea was it to have
all these people from the north of Ireland live with us?” John
asked.

Alex pointed to him, and
he laughed. She was using her laptop for a video call. He was
sitting in the green stuffed chair in their bedroom with Joey and
Máire on his lap. Their babies were sound asleep. She saw the end
of Maggie’s nose poke into the webcam’s view. The dog sniffed a few
times to see if Alex was there.

“
She’s not here, love,”
John said in a soft tone to their puppy.

Alex heard Maggie hop up
onto the bed. John said something else to Maggie before turning
back to their conversation.

“
Those Irish were pretty
funny,” John said. “They insisted on sitting in with
me.”

“
That’s nice,” Alex
said.

John grimaced.

“
That sounds nice,” Alex
said.

“
That’s more like it,”
John said.

“
So what ended up
happening?” Alex asked.

“
We argued for a while,”
John said. “Just as our lawyer was saying the negotiations were
pointless — we have custody by Afghan law and US law, and a whole
bunch of other stuff — Alex ran into the house.”