The Archangel Project Read online

  “You want to know about Dr. Youngblood, you’ve come to the right place,” she said, leaning forward and dropping her voice.

  Jax settled himself in the chair beside her desk. “You know about the project he was working on?”

  She huffed a laugh. “’Course I know. Who you think typed up all them funding proposals?”

  “He was having a hard time finding funding?”

  “Wasn’t he just. He got a bit of money from the university, but that ran out months ago.” She dropped her voice even lower. “They didn’t believe none of it.”

  “Really?”

  “Nope. Called it voodoo and hoodoo and just plain hooey.”

  Jax laughed. “In those words?”

  She grinned. “Not exactly. But it’s what they think, believe me.”

  “Yet he did get funding from someone.”

  She shook her head, the big hoops swinging. “Lately, he was paying people outta his own pocket.”

  “Where was he applying for funding?”

  Chantal’s face fell and she glanced away. “I don’t know. He always did the cover letters himself.”

  “Was there anyone in the department here working with him?”

  “Are you kidding? He got a few undergraduates through work study and by offering them credit, but no one in the department here would touch that stuff—not even the grad students. I think the only reason he got Dr. Vu to agree to help him was because she was kinda sweet on him.”

  “Dr. Vu?”

  “Elizabeth Vu. She’s a statistician with the math department. Their offices are in Gibson Hall.”

  Tobie sat in her car with the windows down and the sunroof open, letting out some of the heat. She wanted to call her next door neighbor and ask him to lock up her house and check on Beauregard, but when she glanced at her watch, it was barely eleven. Ambrose King never got up before noon. He could be really, really cranky if anyone woke him before that.

  She called the Colonel instead.

  His voice was reassuringly calm. “Tobie. You’re not using your cell phone, are you?”

  She stared off across the heat-shimmered, black-topped parking lot to where a tour bus was disgorging a load of middle-aged women all wearing identical bright yellow fanny packs. “No.”

  “Good. I’ve been worried about you. Remember anything yet?”

  “A little. I need to talk to you.”

  “I’m just getting ready to take Whiskey for a walk along St. Charles.” Whiskey was the McClintocks’ arthritic old yellow lab. “Why don’t you come join me?”

  She turned the ignition and rolled up the windows. “I’ll be right there.”

  By the time Tobie pulled in next to the curb on St. Charles and parked, the morning’s blue sky had faded to a white heat haze, and puffs of clouds were beginning to appear on the horizon.

  After Katrina, the floodwaters from the collapsed levees had reached as far as St. Charles. She’d seen pictures of survivors paddling pirogues down the venerable avenue. But unlike some sections of the city where the water had reached depths of twelve feet and more, the ground here was higher; the gracious old mansions that stood on brick piers on either side of the street were little touched.

  As she got out of her VW, a streetcar clanged past on its newly rebuilt tracks, the green metal of its side dull in the heat. She could see the Colonel coming up the neutral ground toward her, the old yellow dog padding happily at his heels. Tobie waited for a lull in the traffic, then crossed over to meet them.

  “I’ve been thinking about your visitors,” he said as she fell into step beside him. “I still have a few friends in Washington. If you like, I could give them a call. Put out a few feelers and see what I touch.”

  Whiskey came up to sniff Tobie’s hand, and she stooped to pet the old dog. “You think those men really are linked to the government in some way?”

  “FBI badges are one thing; IDs are something else. I think we might be looking at some kind of a linkage, yes. But not necessarily. All you need is an organization with good graphics capability.”

  “I’ve remembered the viewing session they were interested in.”

  He glanced over at her. “And?”

  “The target was an office in some large modern building. I’m not sure exactly where, but it didn’t look like anything in New Orleans. There was a file on the desk, labeled the Archangel Project. It contained photographs, including one of an old airplane. I recognized the logo on the file. It was the Keefe Corporation.”

  He was silent for a moment, his lips pursed. “This isn’t good, Tobie. Keefe has a lot of ties to the Administration. To everything. Hell, they’re in something like two hundred countries. They’re everywhere.”

  “My friend Gunner says the President’s brother sits on their board of directors.”

  “Your friend Gunner is right.”

  They watched Whiskey frisk on ahead, his tail wagging, his nose to the grass, sniffing. McClintock said, “There was a time when the lines between business and government were clearly drawn. That’s not true anymore. Now we have a vice president meeting with energy representatives to help draft the Administration’s energy program, and pharmaceutical companies helping draft legislation for prescription drug benefits. The military doesn’t even have its own mess halls and laundries and motor pools anymore; all that’s let out to private contractors for big bucks. Hell, we even hire private companies to come into our prisons and torture people.”

  “You’re starting to sound like Gunner.”

  McClintock didn’t smile. “The way I see it, either you know something these men want to know, or you know something they don’t want anyone else to find out about. They took the time to talk to you, which means they want something from you, some kind of information. But I suspect they’re willing not to get it in order to shut you up.” He glanced over at her. His gray eyes were hard. “You need to figure out what that something is.”

  “I’ve tried. I can’t.”

  “Until you do, Tobie, you can’t trust anyone. Anyone. If you let these people get you boxed in, you’re dead.”

  Tobie felt a chill tingle around the juncture of her shoulder blades. “What do you mean, ‘boxed in’?”

  “I mean you can’t let the police bring you in. Even just for questioning.”

  A BMW convertible overflowing with college students cruised by, the top down, music blaring, a blond girl in a halter top hanging out the back and laughing. A shriveled black man with a plastic bag bulging with aluminum cans was working the trash receptacles in the neutral ground. As they drove past, the girl lobbed her beer can at him and shouted something.

  “Could they do that?” Tobie asked. “Take me away from the police?”

  “With FBI credentials? In a heartbeat.”

  McClintock watched the old man stoop to pick up the girl’s beer can. “I think maybe you should consider getting out of town. Finding someplace to hide.”

  “With my mother?”

  “No. Not there. Not anyplace familiar.”

  “For how long?”

  He gazed off across the broad, leafy avenue.

  “You mean forever, don’t you?” She swung to face him. “I’m not doing that.”

  “October—”

  “No. I’m just starting to get my life back together. I’m not going to let some jerks with guns and ties to a bunch of money-grubbing politicians come along and destroy it. These people think I know something that can hurt them. Well, you know what? I’m going to remember what that something is, and I am going to hurt them. I’m going to destroy them, before they can hurt me or anyone else again.”

  28

  Arlington, Virginia: 5 June, 1:20 P.M. Eastern time

  Bob Randolph was the kind of man who was born to be president. Tall, athletic, and good-looking, with a shock of gently graying blond hair and a boyish smile, he came from a family that had already produced one president, some half a dozen U.S. senators, and a raft of governors, representatives, and fed
eral judges. True, he’d never done anything productive in his life, but he’d managed to steer clear of any scandals that couldn’t be either covered up or just flatly denied.

  He also played a mean game of golf. T. J. Beckham had grown up hunting coons and fishing for bass rather than playing tennis at the club, sailing off Cape Cod, and dallying with pretty girls on all the most prestigious golf courses in the country. But everyone who was anyone in Washington played golf, so he had set himself to learn, and succeeded pretty darn well. T. J. Beckham tried not to be a prideful man, but he did pride himself on his determination, just as he prided himself on his loyalty. When he was selected as vice president after the death of Chuck Devine, Beckham set himself to be a faithful veep. He knew the office of vice president carried no authority and that his role was to serve. Yet his role was to serve not only his president and his party, but also his country. And lately he’d begun to realize that there were times when a man had to choose where his ultimate loyalty lay.

  Trailed by a gaggle of Secret Service men, they were walking toward the third green of the Army and Navy Country Club when Beckham said suddenly, “I’ve tried, Mr. President, but I just can’t keep my mouth shut any longer on how I feel about what you’re doing.”

  Bob Randolph glanced over at him. Randolph was neither the most brilliant nor the best educated man to sit in the White House, but he was an expert on reading and manipulating people. He was also sly and self-centered to the point of being amoral—a combination Beckham had always found both vicious and dangerous. “What’s the matter, T.J.? You don’t like the way I’m swinging my nine iron?”

  Randolph’s smile was a winning one, and he used it now. Beckham resisted the urge to smile back and simply let the moment slip away. He shook his head. “It’s my job to support you, and I have tried. But I don’t think what you’re doing is right. and I’m being pushed real hard by my conscience to stand up and speak out before it’s too late.”

  “You going to join the long list of people telling me how not to fight the war in the Middle East, T.J.? Is that it?”

  “No, Mr. President. I think you’re trying to manipulate this country into another war. You’ve moved a second carrier group into the Persian Gulf. You’ve got the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense out there rattling their sabers on everything from Fox News to Larry King Live, and it seems like every time I pick up the Wall Street Journal or turn on the TV, there’s some hysterical new piece about Iran. Now, I may be from Kentucky, but I’m not naive enough to think all these people aren’t pushing your agenda.”

  Bob Randolph kept his smile in place, but his blue eyes were snapping. “What do you want me to do, T.J.? Let those crazy mullahs go nuclear?”

  “The Iranians haven’t done anything they’re not allowed to do under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty,” Beckham reminded him. “At least they signed the treaty—unlike some of our allies. And if they wanted to, they could back out of it. Just like we backed out of the ABM Treaty.”

  Randolph thrust his head forward in a way that made him look considerably less presidential. “What? You saying you trust them? We’re talking about Arabs here, T.J. Those people learn to lie and cheat before they learn to walk.”

  “Actually, Mr. President, the Iranians are Persians, not Arabs. And after spending thirty years on the Hill, I’d say neither the Arabs nor the Persians have cornered the market on lying and cheating.”

  “I’m afraid you’re forgetting what’s at stake here, T.J. I’m not going to have another 9/11. Not on my watch. These are evil men we’re talking about, and if we don’t fight them over there, we’re going to be fighting them here. Better Tehran than Topeka, I say.”

  “Mr. President, Iran had nothing to do with 9/11. It’s been thirty years since the Iranian Republic came into being after the fall of the Shah, and they’ve never attacked anyone. How many countries have we attacked in the last thirty years?”

  Randolph swung to face him. “What’s that supposed to mean, T.J.? It’s a heavy responsibility this country bears, and I’ll be the first to admit it. But we bear it with pride. It’s our moral obligation to keep the light of freedom alive—not just for ourselves, but for the world. We can’t turn our backs on the struggles of the people in the Middle East, just like we can’t ignore the threat these mullahs pose to us. And we certainly can’t show weakness by backing down from evil regimes that—”

  Beckham swiped one hand through the air with a grunt of disgust. “For Pete’s sake, Bob. You’re not on a stump making a speech. This is me you’re talking to, and you won’t get me to shut up by mouthing the same old easy platitudes about freedom and democracy. I’ve seen those two words used to justify the killing of far too many innocent people in my life. Freedom and democracy have nothing to do with your plans for Iran and we both know it.”

  The President’s affable charm slipped away, leaving in its place something that was no longer genial and no longer attractive. “You want reality, T.J.? I’ll tell you what’s reality. Twenty years ago this world was divided between us and the Soviets. Well, we whipped their sorry Commie asses, and now we’re not just top dog, we’re the only dog on the block. The world is ours. Ours, and ours alone. The empires of the past were nothing compared to what we have. The United States was ordained by God to rule the world, and I’m not about to let Him down.”

  T.J. studied the younger man’s face. “God told you that, did he?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. He did.”

  “You scare me,” said Beckham, and he turned and walked off the green without looking back.

  29

  New Orleans: 5 June 12:25 P.M. Central time

  Paul Fitzgerald walked out of the New Orleans Armstrong Airport into a blast of muggy heat. He was wearing a leather-banded Stetson and a custom-made pair of alligator boots, and within ten seconds of stepping into the muggy heat, he could already feel himself start to sweat.

  New Orleans was not one of his favorite places. It was a great town for partying, for getting drunk and getting some ass. But the place had been a mess even before Katrina, full of homosexuals and liberals and welfare cheats with way too much ’tude. Now the people in this place were just plain nuts. He supposed watching your house, your friends and family, your entire city drown, could do that to you. They were putting the place back together, slowly. But Fitzgerald knew from the trips he’d made down here recently that huge swaths of the city were still virtual ghost towns, full of stray dogs and cats and eerily dark at night. He would be glad when this assignment was finished.

  “Hey, man,” said Michael Hadley, popping the hatch on the dark Suburban.

  The guy was a mess, the side of his face swollen and discolored. “What the hell happened to you?” said Fitzgerald. He tossed his bag in the back, slammed the hatch, and slid into the front seat. “What’s going on down here?”

  Hadley hit the gas. “I’m going to let Palmer explain that to you.”

  Jax thumbed through his various forms of credentials and decided to approach Dr. Elizabeth Vu with a version of the truth. He told her that he worked for the U.S. government and was looking into Youngblood’s murder.

  She stared at him for a moment with the slow, silent assessment of an intelligent woman. “What can I do for you, Mr. Alexander?” she said, settling back in her desk chair and inviting him to sit.

  Jax took the seat opposite hers. “We’re investigating the possibility that Dr. Youngblood’s project on remote viewing might have had something to do with his death.”

  She was an attractive woman in her late thirties or early forties: small and fine-boned and slim, with long black hair and striking Asian features. But her face was pale, her eyes swollen and red. Jax remembered what Chantal over at the psych department had said about Dr. Vu being “sweet” on Youngblood.

  “How much do you know about remote viewing, Mr. Alexander?”

  “I’ve read some of the literature.”

  “And you think it’s all either a del
usion or one big fraud. Don’t you?”

  Jax smiled. “And you don’t?”

  “I was skeptical, at first. Who wouldn’t be? I was sure the stats would prove Henry wrong, that the results of what he called ‘successful viewing’ were no more accurate than random coincidence.”

  “And?”

  “The stats proved me wrong.” She brought up her hands to lace them together before her. “I know why you’re smiling. You think the experimental procedure must be sloppy. That it’s all pseudoscience. It’s not. It’s a carefully defined technique. Some of the first people who worked on this for the government were a couple of physicists. Physicists. How much more scientific can you get than that? One was a specialist in nanotechnology, the other in lasers and infrared. Remote viewing works. I don’t know how or why, but it does.”

  “Have you ever tried it?”

  She leaned forward. “As a matter of fact, yes. When Henry’s research funding started running low, I volunteered to do some sessions with him.”

  “And?”

  “For his training sessions, Henry used the standard technique with a pool of local sites—things like the Superdome, the Huey P. Long Bridge, the sea lions at Audubon Zoo—specific, easily identifiable sites each written down on a separate five-by-seven-inch card and sealed inside double envelopes. One person would be designated the target, a second person the viewer.”

  Jax nodded. He’d glanced through some of the books Matt had given him.

  “Henry and the viewer would go into his soundproofed room, while the person selected as the target would randomly pick one of the sealed envelopes, open it, and drive out to the designated site. At a prearranged time, the viewer would start the session.”

  She paused, a faint tinge of color touching her pale cheeks. “I know what you’re imagining. Crystal balls and Ouija boards and all that nonsense. But it wasn’t like that at all. I simply sat in that room, went through a series of relaxation techniques, and then closed my eyes and let the images come.”