Ancient Echoes

CHAPTER 55



New York City

JIANJUN PACED BACK and forth in his bedroom. He was quickly running out of time and patience, but didn’t know what to do next. He checked on the spy monitor to see if Vandenburg made or received any interesting calls. He was stunned to see that she had phoned Calvin Phaylor the day before. They talked for three minutes. Next, she made and accepted no calls for over an hour, followed by a five-minute call to Milton Zonovich at 6:30 p.m. He wondered what had happened in that interval.

He used his laptop to access Calvin Phaylor’s phone log and saw that Zonovich called Phaylor at 6:35 p.m., right after he talked to Vandenburg. Jianjun wondered if Zonovich called to report on Vandenburg.

It didn’t take long for him to tap into Zonovich’s phone records, to see who else the man talked to. He never expected what he found.

If the calls meant what he thought, he needed to quickly set several complex steps in motion.

He worked on his plan for the next two hours, careful to cover his trail. If he was wrong, his actions would leave a lot of people plenty pissed off.

Then he left the house.

He went to the Starbucks next door to Vandenburg’s apartment building, and with a grande breve in front of him, he set up his laptop. Using the spy monitor to clone Vandenburg’s phone, he synced it to her computer via Wi-Fi. As he suspected, she hadn’t bothered to password protect it.

Such a trusting soul, he thought, and proceeded to download her computer files to his hard drive. Most of her files, including emails, were remarkably short. He opened the files, one by one, then scratched his head.

What had happened to all the information that should have been there? All the stuff about Idaho and alchemy?

Some information was there, but not in nearly enough detail. He missed something important. Could she have a second computer? One his cell phone couldn’t locate?

He needed to go to her home, scout around, tap into her personal home wireless system and see everything she had available.

He gulped down the rest of his breve and went into the men’s room of the coffee shop. He was thin enough that he could fit through the window. He found himself in an alley behind Vandenburg’s apartment building, the exit for its parking garage. He waited until someone drove out of the garage distracted. An older woman on a cell phone provided his opportunity. As the garage door opened for her, he snuck past her into the parking facility, then got on an elevator with another patron. She started to complain, but he smiled, bowed, and acted very foreign. That went a long way with certain overly politically correct types who tried hard not to offend.

He got off on Vandenburg’s floor and rang the doorbell. She would be upset that he had gotten past the doorman, but he had a speech ready.

No answer.

He rang again. From what he’d read, her daughter had a full-time nurse. Someone should be home.

After another ring and a longer wait, he took out his lockset and picked the front door lock. The deadbolt wasn’t on, and neither was the alarm system.

He told himself he shouldn’t be nervous about it. He could search for another computer, go through her files, do whatever it took to discover how much she knew, then leave.

He walked into the plush living room and froze.

There, on the floor, lay Jennifer Vandenburg. The marks on her throat, bulging of her eyes, and still-wet foam on her lips told him she had been strangled…and not very long ago.

He backed away, ready to turn and run. But before he could, he felt something hard jab into his back. He didn’t need to see it to know it was a gun.