Ancient Echoes (15 page)

But not one bit of good data came in.

Something told him Charlotte Reed might be able to find the
lost group before anyone else did. He would watch
her,
see if she had any success. Of course, if she gave up and tried to leave the
area, he would be happy to assist in her permanent departure.

One way or the other, once he found the university group,
Charlotte Reed would pay for making him look so bad.

He lifted the binoculars to his eyes once more.

Washington D.C.

LI JIANJUN DIDN’T let cost deter
him as he used the long flight from Beijing to San Francisco and then to
Washington D.C. to hack into George Washington University’s computer system. He
then located Lionel Rempart’s email, and from it sent a message instructing the
anthropology department's office manager to allow “student John Lee” access to
Rempart's office and his Idaho files.

By the time the plane touched down at Reagan National, Jianjun
also managed to request a replacement GWU student body card, and to have it
waiting for him when he reached the school.

A student covered the desk for anthropology’s administrative
office. After Jianjun showed his student body card and explained about Rempart’s
email, she unlocked Rempart’s office door and let Jianjun enter. She then stood
in the doorway to watch.

Michael had told him to find out all he could about Lionel’s
interest in Idaho. So far, everything worked as planned.

Behind Rempart’s desk, he found a box marked as meeting
acid-free, lignin-free, chemically-purified ANSI standards for paper
preservation. Curious, he sank into the desk chair and opened it. The student
heaved a sigh and shut the door behind her as she left the office.

Documents from New Gideon, a tiny Mormon settlement that
existed for one year in Central Idaho filled the box. Not much of interest was
in it, mostly notes about the weather, crops, grains, births, deaths, and lots
and lots about God. A couple of the diaries gave a fascinating picture of how
the small settlement came to exist.

Followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, established in 1830 by Joseph Smith, were led by Brigham Young to the
territory of Utah in 1846 after years of persecution, which included Joseph
Smith's murder. They believed their sacred duty was to spread the word from
The
Book of Mormon.

In May, 1855, twenty-seven missionaries headed north of
their settlement around the Great Salt Lake to establish the Salmon River
Indian Mission. The group averaged thirty-two years in age and came from ten
states and two foreign countries. Most were married, and some were polygamists.

Their leader, a New Yorker named Thomas S. Smith, had no
knowledge of the people they sought to redeem, but his ordination as president
of the mission gave him absolute authority over all actions taken by the group.

The Bannocks gave the missionaries a friendly greeting, and
escorted them to a crossroads and gathering place for many tribes, ones not
always friendly toward each other, near the Salmon River. There, the Saints, as
the Mormons called themselves, established Fort Lemhi, named after a Nephite
king in
The Book of Mormon.

Jianjun paused long enough to ponder why a group who wanted
to be known as Saints would build a place to spread the word of God and called
it a “fort.” Even after all these years, the ways of Americans were still
strange to him.
Very strange.
Peculiar
even.
He continued his reading.

Two years later, Brigham Young visited the fort. What he saw
convinced him that the valley would suit the Saints. He decided to send more
brethren to “have what land they could cultivate.” No one mentioned, however,
purchasing the land from the Indians who considered it theirs.

As the first step in this expansion, after more Saints
arrived at Fort Lemhi, a group of seven missionaries were sent many miles
northwest to establish the community of New Gideon. They were quite alone in
the remote outpost, but the tiny Tukudeka tribe made gestures of friendship by
giving them some exceedingly strange gifts and warning them to stay away from
certain areas.

Unfortunately for the Saints, the rapid colonization of
their land outraged the Bannocks and several other tribes. Thomas Smith's
complete lack of understanding of how to deal with them aggravated an already
bad situation. In February, 1858, the Bannocks and Shoshone attacked Fort
Lemhi. They killed two missionaries, wounded five, and took all their horses
and cattle. The survivors immediately fled back to Salt Lake City.

The diaries stopped there. Jianjun imagined as soon as the
residents of New Gideon heard what
happened,
they also
abandoned everything and returned to Utah. Many years later, according to
Rempart’s notes, gold prospectors stumbled upon the colony’s remains. Its few
surviving materials were eventually sent to the Smithsonian museum for
preservation.

So far, Jianjun had found not one word about alchemy.

He looked around the office. It contained nothing about the
weird science, but he did find a folder marked “Idaho.” Inside he found a paper
with “Smith Inst” and a couple of numbers. He made a note of the numbers.

He also found copies of letters written by a woman named
Susannah Revere to President Thomas Jefferson asking what had happened to her
fiancé, a young writer named Francis Masterson. Masterson had told Susannah he
would be away for one to two years on a secret mission for the President. That
was in 1804. He never returned. Susannah sent her first letter to Jefferson on
December 20, 1806, and the last on May 12, 1824. She never married, and never
gave up hounding Jefferson for some explanation of Francis’s disappearance.

Jianjun couldn’t help but wonder if her fiancé simply
changed his mind about marrying her. Susannah came across as a terrible shrew.
He also wondered why Lionel Rempart cared.

The door to the office burst open. A severe looking middle
aged woman entered. “What are you doing in here?” she demanded.

Jianjun stood and gave a respectful bow of the head.
“Professor Rempart sent an e-mail explaining—”

“Professor Rempart has been missing for three days!”

“Missing?”

Her lips tightened. “Don’t pretend you don’t know. Who sent
that email?”

“I don’t know.
Really.
I mean, I
received one from Dr. Rempart telling me to come here and find”—with relief, he
clutched the letters in front of him and waved them at her—“the Susannah Revere
letters. He said he would let the office know. So, here I am.”

“Leave them!” she ordered. “Someone must be playing a trick
on you. I know you students don’t pay much attention to anything that isn’t on
Facebook or Twitter, but I would have thought you’d have heard about your
professor! Come with me. We’ll let the campus police sort this out.”

Jianjun politely stepped into the hall as the office manager
demanded. As soon as she turned to lock the door, he bolted from the building.

AS DEVLIN LOOKED at the faces of
the professor and his fellow students, he felt sick with the realization that
no one had any idea where they were.

They had no supplies, shelter, food, or means to contact the
outside world.

On the night of Brian’s disappearance, it was too dark by
the time Devlin gathered the group to return to the spot where Brian went
missing. No one slept that night. Devlin told them about the strange sounds he
heard right before Brian vanished. Most feared a grizzly had dragged Brian off
and killed him. Devlin, however, knew that with a bear, some sign would have
been found and Brian would have had time to call out for help.

Whatever lurked out here, it wasn’t a bear.

At dawn, scared, sleepy and cautious, they returned to the
area with the berry bushes. They might not be huckleberries, but they weren’t
poisonous, and were ripe and juicy.

“We’ve got to go right back and report Brian missing so
people can come and help search for him,” Rachel said as she ate. “Hopefully,
he’s alive. We’ve got to get help for him as soon as possible.”

The others agreed.

They pushed forward, and soon noticed the absence of small
forest creatures and birds. They never even heard the sound of a leaf rustling
in the breeze.

And then, to everyone’s amazement, Rempart saw that the
mountains and a nearby creek matched the shape of those on the hand-drawn map
he carried. He insisted they follow the map, and told the students if they did
so, it could be the answer to their hopes and dreams for the future.

Non-stop, exhausted, dehydrated and hungry, they forced
themselves to trudge on as best they could.

A SWARM OF REPORTERS and
photographers stampeded Michael and Charlotte as they left the temporary
sheriff's station. Several called out, “Doctor Rempart! What can you tell us
about your missing brother?” “Doctor Rempart, where did you go on your latest
expedition? Did you have to abandon it to come here?” “Doctor Rempart, any
chance that you'll get back together with Sonia Chavez now that she's won an
Oscar for her role in
Fire Fight?”

Charlotte froze as a flashback of the last time she was in a
crowd overwhelmed her. Her breath came in short, thin pants. She searched the
crowd for the assailant from the Cluny and feared the sound of gunfire.

Michael saw the stricken look on her face. She appeared
close to passing out. “They’re obnoxious, but they won’t hurt you.” He took her
arm and pulled her away from the media toward the edge of the parking lot to
their cars. The reporters swarmed, demanding to know who she was and why she
was with Michael Rempart.

A black Chevy Trailblazer circled the throng and stopped
behind Michael and Charlotte. The passenger door swung open. “Get in!” the
driver ordered.

Michael hesitated. The stranger's appearance was eerie. He
had a youthful yet deathly pale face, with whitish blond hair slicked straight
back, barely visible brows and lashes, and black dots for eyes. Odd,
cupid-shaped lips presented a slash of liver-red when he spoke. “What are you
waiting for?” His voice sounded flat, nasal, yet commanding.

Good question, Michael thought. With his rental car hard to
reach, and the woman beside him nearly hyperventilating, he decided quickly.
“Let’s go.” He pushed Charlotte toward the SUV.

“No!” She pulled back.

“You rather face them?” Michael jerked his head back toward
the reporters.

Her gaze held his a moment, then she got into the vehicle.

The Trailblazer careened out of the parking lot and sped
along the Salmon River Road. The reporters tried to follow, but the driver
extended the distance from the others by paying no attention to ruts in the
dirt road or how badly his passengers were tossed about.

“Who are you?” Michael asked.

“Simon Quade.
Consultant with the CIA.
We’ll talk later.” His oddly hushed tone increased the tension in the SUV.
Everything about him was out of place in this wilderness, from long, soft-looking
hands, to an impeccably tailored charcoal suit, white shirt, black tie, and
black dress shoes.

“You’re right we’ll talk, Mister CIA consultant,” Charlotte
said, breathing hard as if her earlier fear pushed her to a reckless defiance.
“I’ve got questions—”

“I said later.” The order was firm but not threatening.

Michael watched the struggle going on within her, and in
that moment he knew whatever story she’d given the sheriff about U.S. Customs,
and any paranoia he had about the government’s involvement, had nothing to do
with her being here. This was personal for her.

Quade glanced in the rearview mirror and drove even faster.
Before long, he swerved off the main road and onto one that consisted of no
more than two ruts for car or truck tires. Michael studied him. He was trim,
his skin wrinkle-free, yet papery and nearly translucent, much like the skin of
the elderly—perhaps because it was so excessively pale.

A couple of miles into the forest, Quade turned onto a
gravel-covered driveway with a sign that read “U.S. Forest Service.” The road
ended in front of a small log cabin. Quade stopped the SUV beside a gray Ford
F-250 parked to one side. A seething Sheriff Jake Sullivan filled the cabin's
doorway as he stood feet apart, hands on hips. Michael’s gaze met Charlotte's.
Neither relished another confrontation with him.

Quade got out of the SUV and politely introduced himself.

“I was told the CIA wanted me out here immediately, and when
I arrived the place was empty!” Jake’s gaze narrowed with suspicion as he
watched Quade, Michael and Charlotte walk past him into the cabin. He followed.
“First Customs, now the CIA? What’s next?
A Marine Corps
Marching Band?”
He took in Quade’s thin build, his overtly expensive
style of dress. “What the hell is this about?”

“Let’s just say I’m the person they call upon when they
require specialized knowledge,” Quade replied. “There are none who can match
me. That’s not boasting. It’s fact.”

The cabin had a central room with a cheap brown vinyl couch,
a square wooden dining table with four chairs, a kitchen area against one wall,
and a wood-burning stove on the wall opposite. Two tiny bedrooms and a bathroom
completed it.

Simon Quade stood apart from the others, his slender hands
clasped together as he faced them. “I’ve brought you together so I only need to
say this once. We want the same thing, but for different reasons.” His sharp
midnight gaze fixed on each person in turn. “You, Doctor Rempart, want to learn
the story behind the Chinese tomb and the special being found there. You, Ms.
Reed, must discover the truth about the past so that you will have a future.
And you, Sheriff Sullivan, have a job to do, one you must succeed in for very
personal reasons.”