CHAPTER 9
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 lay out, 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 door knob 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 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 laughing stock.
Included were notes and reference books suggested by Mustafa Al-Dajani. Jianjun tried reading them, but they made his head hurt. He found equally obtuse notes about The Book of Abraham the Jew and a medieval alchemist, Nicholas Flamel.
Jianjun knew all this alchemy business would interest Michael. He 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 looked 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 to himself 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.
Ancient Echoes
Joanne Pence's books
- A Brand New Ending
- A Cast of Killers
- A Change of Heart
- A Christmas Bride
- A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
- A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked
- A Delicate Truth A Novel
- A Different Blue
- A Firing Offense
- A Killing in China Basin
- A Killing in the Hills
- A Matter of Trust
- A Murder at Rosamund's Gate
- A Nearly Perfect Copy
- A Novel Way to Die
- A Perfect Christmas
- A Perfect Square
- A Pound of Flesh
- A Red Sun Also Rises
- A Rural Affair
- A Spear of Summer Grass
- A Story of God and All of Us
- A Summer to Remember
- A Thousand Pardons
- A Time to Heal
- A Toast to the Good Times
- A Touch Mortal
- A Trick I Learned from Dead Men
- A Vision of Loveliness
- A Whisper of Peace
- A Winter Dream
- Abdication A Novel
- Abigail's New Hope
- Above World
- Accidents Happen A Novel
- Ad Nauseam
- Adrenaline
- Aerogrammes and Other Stories
- Aftershock
- Against the Edge (The Raines of Wind Can)
- All in Good Time (The Gilded Legacy)
- All the Things You Never Knew
- All You Could Ask For A Novel
- Almost Never A Novel
- Already Gone
- American Elsewhere
- American Tropic
- An Order of Coffee and Tears
- Angels at the Table_ A Shirley, Goodness
- Alien Cradle
- All That Is
- Angora Alibi A Seaside Knitters Mystery
- Arcadia's Gift
- Are You Mine
- Armageddon
- As Sweet as Honey
- As the Pig Turns
- Ascendants of Ancients Sovereign
- Ash Return of the Beast
- Away
- $200 and a Cadillac
- Back to Blood
- Back To U
- Bad Games
- Balancing Act
- Bare It All
- Beach Lane
- Because of You
- Before I Met You
- Before the Scarlet Dawn
- Before You Go
- Being Henry David
- Bella Summer Takes a Chance
- Beneath a Midnight Moon
- Beside Two Rivers
- Best Kept Secret
- Betrayal of the Dove
- Betrayed
- Between Friends
- Between the Land and the Sea
- Binding Agreement
- Bite Me, Your Grace
- Black Flagged Apex
- Black Flagged Redux
- Black Oil, Red Blood
- Blackberry Winter
- Blackjack
- Blackmail Earth
- Blackmailed by the Italian Billionaire
- Blackout
- Blind Man's Bluff
- Blindside
- Blood & Beauty The Borgias
- Blood Gorgons
- Blood of the Assassin
- Blood Prophecy
- Blood Twist (The Erris Coven Series)
- Blood, Ash, and Bone
- Bolted (Promise Harbor Wedding)
- Bonnie of Evidence