William Tyree - The Fellowship

He went to the balcony for some fresh air. A few street vendors were sleeping on the Spanish Steps in the very spots where, a few short hours from now, they would sell knockoff designer sunglasses, handbags and other wares. In the Piazza di Spagna he could see the illuminated Fountain of the Barcaccia , which had been created by Bernini’s father, Pietro. The 400-year-old public artwork was such a kid magnet — they were always leaping on and off the thing, drinking from it, throwing stuff into it — that Carver had never seen it unobstructed. Here, stripped down to its core, it was shockingly plain. A partially submerged boat that seemed to be sinking fast.

He spun around, detecting movement behind him. It was Nico, dressed in a fuzzy white hotel robe. He opened the balcony door.

“Can’t sleep?”

Nico shook his head. “I think Wolf is in Rome.”

Excitement stirred within Carver. “Say more about that.”

“A private Learjet owned by the World Fellowship Initiative landed at Ciampino Airport last week. There’s a good chance that Wolf was on it.”

Carver felt as if he had known it all along. Despite the killings in London, Washington, Seattle and Geneva, Wolf’s past and present always seemed to point to the Eternal city.

He put his hands in his pockets and held Nico’s gaze. “A lot of people would have given up after what you went through tonight.”

Nico seemed stunned by the lack of irony in Carver’s sentiment. “Well, out of the frying pan and into the fire, as they say.”

“I won’t let you down when this is over. I want you to know that.”

Nico held his gaze for a moment before gathering himself. “This sincerity stuff is a little awkward coming from you.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I was about to look at the stuff we took from the crypt. Care to join?”

Nico went to the little kitchenette and found the manila envelope next to the toaster. He dumped its contents out onto the Formica countertop. It was a hasty assembly of loose notes, receipts and documents.

The two men quickly rifled through the mess. It hit Carver that this collection of ordinary items could easily have been a collection from his own desk in D.C. Were they somehow tracking expenses for reimbursement, or was one of them simply fastidious about his own personal finances?

Among the many incidental receipts for fuel and food, were two punched airline tickets from Rome to London.

Nico examined the dates. “The arrival date at Heathrow was three days prior to Sir Gish’s assassination.”

Carver nodded. “Good. Upload them to the mission cloud.”

“Will do. And one other thing. While you were sleeping, I managed to hack into one of the creep’s phones. There were no messages stored on the device, but I did uncover these.”

Carver took the phone and flipped through a series of candid photos of Sir Gish. In each he was dressed in a suit and was clearly on a subway car of some type.

“They were following him,” Carver observed. “Look at this one. You can see a station ad for the London Eye behind him. That’s right on Gish’s daily routine to parliament.”

Had they indeed gotten lucky and killed Gish’s assassins last night? He hoped so. It would make Prichard’s death a little easier to stomach.

Carver kept flipping. There were hundreds of pictures. Some looked as if they had been taken on a different device and simply downloaded to the phone.

One such image compelled him to pause. “The Council on Faith luncheon in Washington D.C.,” he said, reading the image tag.

“Looks like it was taken on 35 mil,” Nico added.

“For sure. It was taken in 2001. You couldn’t get this kind of definition on digital back then.”

Several young congressmen were pictured with a white-haired man whom, judging by the way they all deferred to him with their body language, they obviously regarded as a patriarch.

“This might be the last public snapshot of Sebastian Wolf,” Carver said.

“Check out that hair. What’s that gel he’s using? Liquefied horse cartilage?”

“Tag it and upload to the mission cloud.”

The final image was the one that really made Carver’s heart race. The subject was thin, with neck-length black hair, an Anglo nose and Asian eyes behind black-framed Armani eyeglasses.

“Adrian Zhu.”

It was all starting to add up. The Fellowship’s investment in LifeEmberz. Zhu’s disappearance in Rome. And now this confirmation that Zhu himself was on the Black Order hit list. There was no question about it. Zhu wasn’t merely associated with Wolf’s organization. He was critical to its success.

And if Wolf was in Rome, Carver was willing to bet everything that Zhu was still here too.

*

Carver rubbed his eyes and yawned into his hand. Nico had finally gone to bed, but he had continued working. The sun was coming in through the balcony glass now, the light warming his back. In the last hour he had organized the items they had taken from the church crypt into three piles. One pile pointed at evidence that seemed to confirm that the Black Order operatives they had killed were likely responsible for the death of Sir Gish. Another pile pointed to a hunt for Adrian Zhu. And yet another contained the lone photograph of Sebastian Wolf. All were Black Order targets.

He called Dr. Charlotte Calipari, a molecular geneticist Speers had introduced him to at a State Department event the previous year. Although it had been some time since they had connected, and it was nearly 10 p.m. back in D.C., he took a chance. Calipari was the only person he had ever met who had supervised the creation of a paleo-DNA lab.

“If you had to build such a lab today,” Carver asked, “and you wanted to also clone from dead tissue, where would you find the equipment?”

There was a long pause before her response. “Well that’s not the sort of question I hear every day.”

Carver was acutely aware of the strangeness of the question. The fact was that Calipari owed him no favors. The only tool at his disposal was flattery. “When we met, I was impressed by you. I thought if there was anyone in the world qualified to answer this, it would be you.”

“You’re too kind. Fortunately, the answer to your question is simple. Short of creating your own machines, there would be only a couple of places where you could turn to get what you needed. The community is very small. There are just two providers in the entire world that are really considered state-of-the-art right now.”

Carver smiled. “And those would be?”

Psychiatric Office

Washington D.C.

Ellis wore oversized sunglasses to mask the facial bruises she’d sustained in Seattle. She eased down on the couch, her demeanor cool and distant behind the big black lenses. The doctor had said she’d be a little foggy for the next few days. Her memories were coming back to her, but not quickly enough to be of much use.

The shrink was in her mid-40s, with long brown hair tied in a ponytail and expensive eyeglasses. She sat across from Ellis in an armchair that looked comfortable enough to nap in.

“So,” she said after some cursory introductions. “You want to tell me what’s on your mind?”

Ellis shook her head. “Honestly, I don’t even know why I’m here. It’s not my choice.”

Speers had personally insisted that she come. Some agency rule about preventing post-traumatic stress.

The shrink nodded sympathetically. “I understand they gave you something out in Seattle to calm your nerves.”

“Well I’m not taking it.”

“And why is that?”

“My job requires that my thoughts be as clear as possible.”

The shrink scanned the notes in her lap. “I was told you’re not on active duty right now. That you’d been granted some recovery time.”