American Heroes Series - 01 - Resurrection (21 page)

By this time, Cydney was watching him with tears in her eyes. “But she’s okay?”

J.D. nodded, a twinkle in his dark eyes. “She’s fine. The police have her in a safe location and a couple of agents from the Washington Bureau are just a few hours away. She’ll be in our hands very soon, so don’t worry. She’s fine.”

Cydney couldn’t stop the tears that flowed freely down her cheeks. She put her hand over her mouth as she spoke. “Can I speak to her? Can we call her?”

J.D. nodded. “Sure.”

He picked up the roam phone on the kitchen counter and dialed.  After a few words, he paused as if waiting to be transferred and smiled at Cydney.  By now, Ethan had come up behind her and wrapped his big arms around her.  J.D. tried not to stare as Ethan buried his face in the side of her head, murmuring soft words to comfort her.  He was, frankly, astonished. He would have never guessed such a surly and bitter man towards the opposite sex could be so sweet and gentle.  He was distracted from his observations when another voice came over the line.  After a few short words, J.D. waved Ethan over.

“Come here,” he held out the phone. “I don’t think the guy speaks English and my French isn’t good enough. Tell him what we want.”

Ethan took the phone and put it up to his ear. “Ceci est Serreaux Spécial d'Agent avec le Bureau Fédéral d'Investigation,” he said in perfect French. “Peux-je parler avec Dulay d'Inspecteur, s'il vous plaît?”

Cydney, very impressed that he was fluent in French, watched him carefully as he spoke to the person on the other end of the line.   After a couple of seconds, it was evident that someone else came on the phone.

“Ceci est Serreaux Spécial d'Agent,” he repeated. “Qui est ceci?”

Cydney came closer, listening to the male voice on the other line. The words were English; Cydney could hear a few she recognized.  Their eyes met as Ethan spoke.

“Inspector Dulay,” he said. “Very nice to meet you. I have Olivia Hetherington’s mother with me and she would like to speak to Olivia if she’s available.”

After a pause, Ethan handed the phone to Cydney.  The next voice she heard was Olivia’s.

“Mom?”

Cydney broke down. “Hi, baby,” she wept. “How are you? Are you all right?”

Olivia began to cry, too. “I’m fine,” she sobbed. “I want to come home.”

“I know, sweetheart,” Cydney could feel Ethan’s arm go around her shoulders comfortingly. “Ethan and I are getting a flight to Paris as soon as we can. Meanwhile, a couple of FBI agents are going to be there soon and stay with you until we arrive.”

Olivia wiped her cheeks. “You know,” she chuckled through her tears. “I’ve always wanted to come to Paris. Now they won’t let me go to the Louvre.”

Cydney laughed, wiping away her own tears. “I promise we’ll go when I get there.”

“Good,” Olivia was calming now that the emotions of the initial reunion were fading. “I’ve been eating since this morning. You wouldn’t believe the food they have here. The restaurant in the hotel had thirty different kinds of goose liver.”

Cydney launched into a conversation with her daughter about the French foods she would, and would not, eat as Ethan leaned back against the kitchen counter and listened to the happy chatter.  Every once in a while he’d look over at J.D. as the man stood aside and sipped his coffee, gazing into his onyx eyes and suspecting that there was more on J.D.’s mind than just this happy reunion. It was enough to get him off the counter and motion to J.D. with a discreet nod of the head.   J.D. followed him into the living room.

“What’s up?” he asked the man.

J.D. shook his head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I’ve seen that look on you before. What else is there that you haven’t told Cydney?”

J.D. wriggled his eyebrows. “Nothing, really, but we asked Olivia about the Robe,” he said quietly. “She doesn’t know anything about it. They never showed it to her, which makes me wonder if they even have it. But she did confirm that Coral Chastity Aames was with her the entire time. We traced the cell phone call Olivia originally made to us and the number comes back registered to Aames’ company, Izan Enterprises.”

Ethan stared at him a moment before his dark eyes widened. “Jesus,” he hissed, smacking himself on the forehead. “I don’t know why this never occurred to us before. Think about this, J.D.; Izan Enterprises?”

“What?” J.D. wasn’t following him.

Ethan shook his head ominously. “I’ve spent a lot of time on airplanes and, consequently, a lot of time doing crossword puzzles. I remember seeing this once in puzzle.  Izan is ‘Nazi’ spelled backwards.”

J.D.’s eyes bugged as the full impact of Ethan’s statement hit him. He made the connection immediately. “The Fourth Reich of Enlightenment.”

“She’s been linked to this all along and we never realized it,” Ethan said. “Who’s going to pay attention to a televangelist that no one takes seriously anyway? She’d be the last person suspected of being linked to a radical sect.”

J.D. nodded, blowing out his cheeks as the realization settled. “Why didn’t I see that before?” he demanded to no one in particular.  Then he looked at Ethan. “We’ve moved the IRS in to audit her companies since yesterday. Maybe that will bring up some kind of shady dealings, like monies deposited to individuals or other companies that can be traced to support this radical sect.”

Ethan opened his mouth but J.D.’s smart phone rang and he answered.  As Ethan listened to Cydney on the phone with Olivia in the kitchen and J.D. on the phone to someone he couldn’t identify, he went back into the bedroom and put on his dress shirt.

He had just finished securing his tie when J.D. wandered back into the bedroom.  The man was so preoccupied he couldn’t even make a comment about the fact that all of the covers were off the bed and the mattress was askew. He looked straight at Ethan.

“You’re not going to believe this,” he said.

Ethan wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “What?”

“That was the IRS,” he said. “I talked to an auditor named Ruddins and she has spent the better part of twenty four hours auditing Izan’s international capital accounts. She had a little question.”

“What question was that?”

“Under the 2001 Banks and Companies Trust Law, Cayman accounts aren’t as private as they once were. You can find out certain information under the right circumstances,” he lifted his eyebrows. “Ruddins wanted to know if we know why Izan is depositing huge amounts of money into a Cayman Islands account with a Vatican City address.”

Ethan just stared at him, torn between confusion and surprise. “What?” he finally blurted.

J.D. nodded his head in a knowing gesture. “That’s exactly what I said. What in the world would a deeply religious corporation that adheres to the strict Southern Baptist Admission of Faith doctrine be doing depositing money into an account controlled by the Roman Catholic Church?”

Ethan continued to stare at the man as a feeling of tremendous foreboding closed in around him. “With everything we’ve learned about Die Auhänger over the past few years, with all of the evidence about it, I have a couple of questions for you,” his quiet tone took on a tinge of irony. “Remember when we were speculating where they get all of their financial support from?”

“Looks like we’re finally figuring it out.”

“And historically, who crowns the new Holy Roman Emperor?”

J.D. just shook his head. “The Pope.”

“So she’s depositing money into an account with a Vatican City address?”

“Is it possible this sect has bigger ties than we could have imagined?”

“Like, all the way to the top of the Catholic Church?”

“How do we fight the Pope?”

J.D. didn’t know. At the moment, he realized he didn’t know nearly as much as he should have. He saw some Bailey’s liqueur on the dining room sideboard and poured a couple of ounces into his morning coffee in the hopes it would either help him think or dull the sense of dread he was feeling.

The mystery was deepening.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Inspector Dulay of the Paris Prefecture of Police was a man in his mid-forties, tall and lanky, with dark hair and big brown eyes.  He lived on the Rue de Navarin on the north end of Paris in a five story apartment building that had been built in the early eighteen hundreds.  It was everything a Paris apartment building should be with its distinct provincial architecture and sharply angled roof.   He lived in his six room flat with his wife, an interior designer, and their twins who had just celebrated their fourth birthday.  His wife was German and the toddlers spent all day at the German school that sat along side the picturesque St. Martin canal that ran through the Paris suburbs.

The young American kidnap victim had been assigned to Dulay. Two agents from the Washington D.C. Federal Bureau of Investigation had come to take custody of her until her mother arrived, but Olivia was still very upset and the introduction two new strangers wasn’t helping her anxiety.  She clung to Dulay because he had been one of the first officers on the scene at the Hyatt when the police had been called. Because of that, she was very attached to him and the American agents, after calling their field supervisor with the news that Olivia cried every time they came around her, were sent back home. Dulay was officially put in charge of her.

She became his responsibility until the Los Angeles agents, along with the mother, arrived. Other that put Olivia up at a hotel for a couple of days, Christophe wasn’t quite sure what to do with her. She was a sweet, intelligent girl and he felt rather bad at the ordeal she had endured. It was a harrowing, and somewhat crazy, tale. Putting her up in a hotel seemed so cold but, more than that, he would have to provide around the clock protection for her which could get expensive.

 After some deliberation, he thought it best to bring her home with him so he could keep a constant eye on her.  There was something about this whole case that seemed very strange and he wanted to keep her close.

His wife, Elise, was thrilled with the visitor and went out of her way to be extremely gracious even though she didn’t speak a word of English. Olivia had taken French for two years and knew some conversational French, so there was some amount of communication going on. 

The twins, Arthur and Vivienne, were enamored with their American visitor.  Because of American cartoons, they spoke better English than their mother. The afternoon that Christophe brought Olivia home, she lay on the floor with the twins and drew pictures with them for hourse. It was a normal, safe place for the teenager and she was desperate for something safe and normal.  Christophe and Elise thought it was one of the sweeter things in life that they had witnessed.  Beyond being a girl in trouble, or a guest, Olivia Hetherington was an average young lady and they naturally felt protective over her.

That night, after speaking with her mother, was particularly difficult for Olivia. She lay on the leather couch in the living room, the large French doors open to let some air in, listening to the unfamiliar sounds outside the window. She couldn’t sleep even though she was exhausted. Finally, she got up and stood in the open doorway, feeling the spring breeze on her face and experiencing some of the fascination that was Paris.  Christophe, getting up after midnight to check on the twins, found her standing in the open doorway.

He came up behind her, listening to the faded sounds of night and feeling the soft breeze on his face.  Olivia noticed him and smiled sheepishly.

“I can’t sleep,” she said. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

Christophe shook his head. “Not at all,” he replied. “Would you like some hot chocolate? Tea, perhaps?”

Olivia shook her head. She gazed across the rooftops, up to the moonlit sky. “Have you been a cop a long time?” she asked softly.

He stood next to her in the doorway, looking at the street below as she looked up at the sky. “A long time,” he murmured. “Almost twenty five years.”

“Have you seen a lot of kidnap victims?”

Christophe shrugged his lanky shoulders. “I’ve seen enough,” he replied. “It is one of the aspects of my job.”

“Do people ever feel safe again?”

He looked at her. “They do,” he replied. “From what I understand about your kidnapping, you were not the true target. You were a victim of convenience.”

Olivia gazed up and him and cocked her head. “La victime de convenance,” she grinned when he nodded his approval. “Je suis le président Du Club français de mon école. J'aime pratiquer mon français.”

“You are doing a very good job.”

She wriggled her eyebrows. “I’m trying. You speak much better English than I speak French.”

He smiled. “I have had more years of practice than you have.”

“Très vrai.”

He laughed softly at her attempts to speak his language. But Olivia’s smile faded as her gaze turned to the street below, now still and quiet in the dark.

“Do you think they’re still out there?” she asked softly. “The people who kidnapped me, I mean. Is that why you brought me here? So they couldn’t find me?”

He lifted a dark eyebrow. “Would you have rather stayed at the police station?”

“No. But you didn’t answer my question. Do you think they’re looking for me?”

He gazed steadily at her. “I think you need to go to bed.”

All warmth faded from her features. “I know,” she sighed. “But I’m kind of scared right now. It’s hard for me to sleep.”

He put his hand on her shoulder and turned her around for the couch. “I understand,” he said softly. “But you are safe here, I promise. I won’t let anyone get you.”

Olivia let him steer her towards the couch and she sat down, laying down when he practically shoved her onto her back. He pulled up the sheet.

“Pretend I’m your father and do what I say,” he commanded softly. “Go to sleep now. You will have a busy day tomorrow.”

She gazed up at him with her big hazel eyes, so reminiscent of her mother. “My father died eight years ago,” she said. “It’s just me and my mother.”

A ripple of sorrow crossed Christophe’s features. “I am sorry to hear that,” he said softly. “Then pretend I am your uncle and do as I say.
Sleep
.”