Chapter Twenty-four.

Aaron looked at the many piles of paper in front of him and yawned. He needed sleep badly, but he settled for sipping from a mug of lukewarm coffee instead.

He was standing in the main conference room in headquarters. The papers from Harbinger's office were spread out across the huge conference table. About half the material was written in plain English, but the other half was in a code comprised of astrological symbols. Edward had cracked the code, and some translations were stapled to the originals, but many doc.u.ments still needed to be decoded. Even with most of the team working around the clock, the job would take another full day at least. There were thousands of pages.

Still, Aaron had more than enough material to keep him busy. His job was to sort the doc.u.ments into categories and hopefully discover patterns. It wasn't an easy task. The huge collection included bank statements, philosophical rants, manuals, recruitment lists, handwritten notes, historical doc.u.ments, and even some original poetry. Harbinger had led an eclectic intellectual life.

Marina walked into the conference room. She wore a baggy, gray sweat suit chosen for comfort rather than looks. Dark circles under her eyes detracted from her beautiful face.

"Any progress?" she asked.

"Not really," Aaron said. "This puzzle has too many pieces."

"I wish I could help but I'm terrible at puzzles."

"I'll figure it out. You should get some sleep."

"Ethel is sleeping. I'll take my turn when she's done. I'm just taking a break.'"

He picked up a sheet of paper from the pile of doc.u.ments that still needed to be categorized. It was a photocopy of a shipping manifest. The list of items included bulk quant.i.ties of hops, barley, and corn syrup. Food for animals? He placed the sheet onto the pile that he had created for farming supplies.

Marina looked at the sheet. "Hops and barley? That reminds me. There is a new pub that just opened around the corner. When we're done with this mission, I'll take you there. They have some great, exotic beers."

"That won't be soon. These Eternals are like c.o.c.kroaches. No matter how many we squash, we never seem to get them all."

"Yeah." Her face sagged.

His eyes widened. "Did you say beer?"

"Yes. A brown liquid. You drink it."

"They make Mooseland beer in Milwaukee."

"That's correct." She gave him a funny look.

He went to another pile. After some digging he found the roster for the company baseball team of the Mooseland Beverage Corporation in Milwaukee. Several names on the roster were circled in black pen.

"This is odd," he said.

"What?"

"The first time I saw this, I thought the Eternals were trying to recruit these people, but I was wrong."

"Why?" Marina said.

"Cults recruit young, desperate men on the periphery of society. But see how the captain of the baseball team is circled? I'm sure he doesn't fit that profile. I'd bet he's an old timer with a union pension and a beer gut. He wouldn't be interested in a death cult."

He shoved all the papers in one, messy pile to the end of the table.

"What are you doing?"

"Starting over," he said. "Help me create two stacks. One stack is for anything related to beer. Equipment, ingredients, companies, whatever. The other stack is for everything else."

With such a simple rule to follow, the work went quickly. When they were done, about a third of the doc.u.ments were in the "beer" stack, even more than he had expected. One page was a detailed description of the traditional beer making process. The name "Mooseland Beverage Corporation" appeared more than once.

"We found a pattern," Aaron said.

"A beer factory is the perfect way to distribute poison," Marina said. "Just put a drop in every bottle, and weeks later people start dying. The authorities would never figure out the cause. Everybody drinks beer."

"Mooseland is shipped all over the country."

"Let's tell Ethel!"

They hurried to the door of Ethel's private suite. She was the only person who actually lived in headquarters. Everybody else had apartments in the city within walking distance.

Aaron knocked on the door and it immediately opened. Ethel stood there in a pink, quilted nightgown.

"Were you awake?" he said.

She shook her head. "I was in bed, asleep."

"You opened the door really fast, ma'am."

"Yes. What's up?"

"The Mooseland Beverage Corporation has a brewery in Milwaukee. We believe that is where the Eternals will strike."

Ethel furrowed her brow. "Hmm." She opened the door fully.

Aaron followed her into her bedroom. It was the only place where she allowed herself to keep mementos of her former life before she had joined the Gray Spear Society. There was a picture of her wearing an Army uniform from when she had served as a medic. A black and white photo showed her as a young girl, standing between an older man and woman. Aaron a.s.sumed they were her parents. Seeing that picture reminded him he had unfinished business with his own mother.

In the center of the room on a pedestal, there was a gold locket shaped like a heart. He had wondered about it since the first time he had seen it.

He reached for the locket. "May I, ma'am?"

"If you must," Ethel said.

He opened it and discovered two tiny pictures, one on each side. The left one showed her as a tall teenager, and the right one was a picture of an infant. Aaron looked up at Ethel.

"Don't ask," she said, "ever."

"Yes, ma'am." He put the locket down.

"If you're done sticking your nose into my private life, we can get back to business. The three of us will go to this brewery after we sleep. We're too exhausted now to do our job properly." She glanced at a clock. "Let's plan on being at the brewery at dawn tomorrow morning. We'll go as county health officials, making a surprise inspection. We'll try to get a tour of the entire facility."

Marina nodded. "We should wear disguises. Some of the Eternals know our faces."

"Yes. Now go. I want to get back in my bed while it's still warm."

"Yes, ma'am."

Aaron and Marina left.

Smythe was watching television from his hospital bed when Detective McQueen walked into the room. His bushy, red eyebrows were pressed close together in an expression of displeasure. He carried a paper shopping bag, which he tossed onto the bed.

Smythe looked in the bag and found clothes.

"I stopped by Goodwill," McQueen said. "The clothes have a few holes but they're clean, I think."

"Good enough," Smythe said. "Thanks." He began to remove the IV from his arm.

"Hey! What are you doing?"

"Leaving. I have to get back to work."

"Did you clear that with a doctor?" the detective said. "You should stay in bed. You're not well."

"I'm well enough. You can walk me out."

After the IV was pulled out, Smythe wriggled into the clothes while lying in bed. The fit was very loose.

"I wasn't sure about your size," McQueen said.

"I noticed."

Smythe tried to get out of bed. His knees buckled, but he managed to fall on the soft mattress instead of the hard floor.

"See?" McQueen said.

"Just give me a second." Smythe very carefully tried to stand again. This time his knees held and he straightened up. "No problem."

"You'd better start talking. I want to get your story before you pa.s.s out."

"I'm Fred Allen, from the Federal Office of Domestic Counterterrorism."

"Never heard of it."

"That's because its existence is a secret," Smythe said.

"Then why are you telling me?" McQueen said.

"Because I need your help and you need mine." Smythe shuffled slowly towards the door. The tile felt cold against his bare feet. "Did you bring shoes for me?"

"I didn't think about it."

"Oh, well." I'll survive.

Smythe reached the hallway and looked around. He saw an elevator but it seemed very far away. He headed in that direction.

"Help with what?" McQueen said.

"There was some trouble last night. A bunch of people died on a farm."

The detective's eyes grew wide. "That information is not public."

"I was there." Smythe forced himself to move a little quicker even though he was dizzy. He didn't feel the warm tingling sensation that he had felt last night, and he missed it.

McQueen took out a notepad and pen. "Tell me everything." He walked very close to Smythe.

"Not if you write it down. This conversation is just between you and me, off the record and absolutely deniable. It's bad enough I'm talking to you at all. Do you want both of us to get into trouble?"

After a long hesitation, McQueen put the notepad back in his jacket. "Go on."

"The dead men were members of an extremely violent, religious cult. They called themselves the Zoro-Calvanists. My office has been watching them for months. Last night we made our move."

"You killed them?"

"It was a fight to the death," Smythe said. "They refused to surrender, and we couldn't let them escape. They were planning to blow up the FBI office in Chicago."

"So, you admit you killed them."

"I admit nothing. Actually, I was being held captive at the time. The Zoro-Calvanists were torturing me."

McQueen pursed his lips. "There is a problem with your story. Most of the victims were killed with a large knife or some kind of sword. They were butchered. Federal agents use guns."

"We were trying to be quiet."

"I doubt it."

"Then what's your explanation?" Smythe raised his eyebrows.

"I don't have one, yet. The murder investigation just began. You still haven't told me what kind of 'help' you want."

"Nothing dangerous or immoral. My office needs regular reports on the progress of your investigation. If you uncover cla.s.sified information, we need to intervene. Just call me on the phone once a day and tell me exactly what's going on. You'll be our eyes and ears inside the sherriff's department."

McQueen shook his head. "You must be joking."

"Think of it as a professional courtesy between different kinds of cops. I can be just as courteous with you."