Ancient Echoes

Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Washington D.C.

Jianjun stood in the night darkness outside Lionel Rempart’s Georgetown townhouse and worried that breaking into it would be a challenge. Sophisticated electronic locks and security systems came to mind. A street lamp illuminated the front of the home, casting light on the doorway.

Jianjun didn’t like the layout, but he had no choice. He hurried to the front door. Once there, his worries vanished.

In three seconds, he picked the simple lock in the doorknob with a tension wrench. The deadbolt would be more time-consuming, but to Jianjun’s surprise, when he turned the knob, the door opened. The deadbolt had been left off.

It made no sense unless someone was home. Cautiously, he slipped inside, quietly shutting the door behind him.

The security alarm system had been disarmed. He quickly inspected the 1500 square foot home and found it empty.

Something was very wrong here. He couldn’t believe Lionel would go away for months and not check and double-check his security system and locks. Someone must have beaten him here. Apparently, Michael wasn’t the only one curious about what Lionel Rempart was up to. He again locked the deadbolt.

In the den, Jianjun found a number of books and papers on alchemy stacked on a desk. He understood why Lionel would not leave such things in his university office for other professors to see. He would have been a laughingstock.

Included were notes and a list of reference books suggested by someone named Mustafa Al-Dajani. Jianjun tried reading them, but they made his head hurt. He found equally obtuse notes about a book he’d never heard of called The Book of Abraham the Jew and a medieval alchemist, Nicholas Flamel. Finally, a name he’d heard before. He’d read Harry Potter.

Jianjun knew all this alchemy business would interest his boss. Michael had been enthralled by the subject ever since finding Lady Hsieh’s tomb. Jianjun still got cold chills when he remembered how the mummy’s eyes had opened. Man, but they had looked eerily alive. They scared him so badly he nearly flew out of the tomb without using the ladder. He shivered at the memory, then went back to reading Lionel’s dull stash of materials.

A folder labeled Idaho was empty except for two items, a hand-drawn map and a letter from the widow of someone named Professor Thurmon Teasdale. The widow wrote that she was willing to give Lionel a copy of Professor Teasdale’s Idaho map, although to do so troubled her. Jianjun wondered what that was all about.

The map named no cities or towns and gave no longitude or latitude, not even a scale.

Jianjun wondered if it could be a map of the Idaho wilderness area Lionel had gone to. If Michael followed it, would he be able to find his missing brother and the students?

Jianjun used Lionel’s printer-scanner-fax to scan the map and send it to Michael with a short text about where he found it.

To his surprise, he received a text reply almost immediately.

One student found dead. No word on Lionel. Map might help. Pls ck into Charlotte Reed, ICE, and Simon Quade, CIA consultant. Background? Why here? Also rumor 6 paramilitary disappeared here 10+ yrs ago. True?

“No, no, no,” Jianjun muttered as he plugged a thumb drive into Lionel’s computer to copy his files. “I’m just finding answers to the first questions he asked, now he asks a whole bunch more. ICE agents, CIA informants, and paramilitary men. What the hell is going on out there? At this rate, I’ll be stuck in Washington a month.”

As the information downloaded, he went through Lionel’s desk to see if anything interesting jumped out at him.

He heard a car door slam shut. Probably just some neighbor. He looked at the computer.

A key rattled in the door lock.

His hand hovered over the thumb drive to remove it as soon as the download finished when he heard the brush of the door against the carpet as it opened.