• Married Diana
Their daughter
• b. 1965 Helen Kohath
• Married David Maynes
Their twins
• b. 1986 Cassandra and Ajax Kohath-Maynes
Nicholas sat back, closed his eyes. Five generations of Kohaths in on this scheme. No wonder Cassandra and Ajax went over the edge when their father handed over the family letters and journals to Elizabeth St. Germaine. The family secrets were worth killing for.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Another ding on his cell phone. Nicholas looked down to see more texted information from Ben:
Jason Kohath, born in 1941, the Kohath twins’ grandfather, is supposed to be some sort of über genius. He didn’t go into archaeology, instead got a degree in mechanical engineering from Imperial College London, then went to MIT for grad work. The man had serious schooling. He even applied to NASA at one point but was turned down because he wasn’t American. He worked for the European Space Agency for a bit, and then he disappeared. Went underground, according to the journals David Maynes gave to St. Germaine. All sorts of rumors about his having agoraphobia, but no verification. He simply disappeared.
I believe he’s the one who’s taken control of the Coil and is running the storms. Since they were involved in Cuba, that would be a good guess for their center of operation.
Ben, it’s all coming clear now, the connection between Cuba and Italy. The storm hasn’t hit Washington, D.C. because the twins don’t know how to make the Coil do it. Is Jason Kohath refusing to level the U.S. capital? They’re headed to this island to talk him into it? Or is it a confrontation? We’ll be in Cuba in an hour. Do you have anything useful on David Maynes?
Hold your horses, Nicholas. Let me upload my notes on him. A minute . . . Here we go. David Maynes never got along with Helen’s father, Jason Kohath, who was adamantly against his daughter marrying him. After Helen’s death, in the Gobi in 2006, word was Maynes went bonkers. And then his children, Cassandra and Ajax Kohath, kicked him out of the Genesis Group. He slunk back to England, pissed off, one imagines, and that’s a good reason why he so joyfully gave over the Kohath papers to Elizabeth St. Germaine. Good old-fashioned revenge.
You’re right, Ben, and it got him dead, about the same time as Elizabeth St. Germaine. The Kohath twins were behind it, of course, using their own private assassin, Lilith Forrester-Clarke. I sent Penderley all the info. He’ll deal with it.
Nicholas looked out the window, down thirty-five thousand feet, clouds mostly, but every once in a while, a glimpse of the ocean. And he thought, If Kitsune hadn’t called, all the storms, all the decades of indiscriminate killing and destruction, would have continued indefinitely.
Nicholas couldn’t wait to learn more. Finally, he got another ding on his mobile with more text from Ben:
When Helen Kohath went missing in the Gobi Desert, the twins were already in their third year at Oxford, in the same college as their father and mother. They were very advanced, very intelligent, very driven. They were devastated by her disappearance, and by her being presumed dead. Maynes was devastated as well, by all accounts, and took a leave of absence from his job. He spiraled for a while, then pulled himself together and got back to work. He never said anything about the situation until he met recently with St. Germaine. And the biggest question St. Germaine had was: How could the Ark get in the Gobi Desert?
According to Kohath family lore, Pope Gregory X was the last known possessor of the Ark of the Covenant. The Kohaths have his secret papers in their possession, letters from the pope himself to a man named Evid Dupuy, a Templar master, and a spy for the Vatican. The letters detail how the Church came into possession of the Ark in 1060, when the Templars took back Jerusalem for the Church. The Templars brought the Ark to Rome, where it was hidden in the Vatican for two hundred years. Gregory X learned word had gotten out about the Ark being in the Vatican vaults and so he had it sent to a secret Templar stronghold, Castel Rigone, which was Dupuy’s wife’s family home. And yes, it is also the current home of the Kohaths. And this is why they bought the palazzo, realizing what they could have. After all, the palazzo was the perfect hiding place, what with all the Templar tunnels beneath the mountain.
Again, according to Kohath lore, Gregory was betrayed, and the Polo brothers, the father and uncle of the infamous Marco Polo, were on their way to open relations with Genghis Khan and apparently stole the Ark from its hiding place in Castel Rigone, took it with them to China. The Kohaths believe one of the Polo brothers got the bright idea to try and open it. Apparently the Ark doesn’t like to be opened by anyone but Levites, direct descendants of Moses, which the Kohaths are, and God sent a huge storm in the desert and the Ark disappeared.
Now, coming along to nearly present day: Helen Kohath found letters hidden in a secret compartment in a wall at the palazzo, letters Gregory had sent to Dupuy. She became completely convinced the Ark was still in the Gobi, lost in a biblical sandstorm that magically appeared to punish the non-Levites who tried to open it. And then she herself was lost in another sandstorm.
These people might be jacked-up crazy, particularly the twins, but it’s true—everything the Kohaths have done for a century has been to find the Ark.
And that, Nicholas knew, explained exactly why Cassandra and Ajax had been focusing their weather storms in the Gobi, and after this last one, he’d bet they’d found their mother’s site.
Nicholas looked over at Mike, saw she was awake. He got himself a bottle of water and orange juice for her, and sat beside her. “When you’re up for it, Ben has texted me fascinating reading about the Kohaths. Explains just about everything.”
She was wrapped in a blanket, snug in her seat, and she reached out her hand. “Now, I want to read it now.”
He handed her the orange juice. “Drink first.”
She did and he handed her his cell phone. When she finished, she said, “The reason Lilith didn’t take all the papers from St. Germaine’s shed or destroy them was because Cassandra and Ajax wanted everyone to believe she’d died of natural causes. To rob the place would invite suspicion. Same with their father. They should have waited a week, then burned the place down. I wonder why they didn’t.”
“I guess since they’d already filed the injunction to get the papers back, they assumed the moment she was dead the courts would comply and give them the material.”
“Or maybe Lilith was supposed to stay in London, and after a suitable amount of time, get those papers out of there. But maybe something happened, and she had to go back to Italy when Kitsune turned up with the staff of Moses.”
Nicholas said, “The exact date Lilith left England for Istanbul corresponds with Kitsune’s grand theft. And then she flew to Italy.”
Mike drank the rest of the orange juice, closed her eyes.
He studied her face. Her hair was in a straggly ponytail, she wore no makeup, there was a bruise on her jaw and stitches in her forehead, and she looked beautiful. He leaned in, kissed her, then, when she opened her eyes, he crossed his finger over his chest. “I solemnly swear I will never again drive a motorcycle through a wall and fly out of a tunnel over a lake.” He paused. He wanted to simply say the words, but his voice shook. “I tried to grab you, but I was jerked away.”
She saw the fear in his eyes, saw his hands clenching. Mike leaned into him, breathed him in. She said against his neck, “You know what? I’m grateful the lake was there, and not the ground. I don’t think either of us would have survived that. We were lucky.”
“That’s one way of looking at it. I’m getting you more orange juice.”
She’d made light of it, let him off the hook. He didn’t come back until he had himself in control again. “Here, you need this, drink it down.”
“You’re right, I don’t want to get a cold.” She grinned as she drank the juice, wiped her hand over her mouth, and that made him smile. She said, “I think you and Ben are right. This frigging weather machine and Jason Kohath—they’re
both somewhere in or near Cuba, it only makes sense. Now, when do we land?”
“Soon, an hour at the most. What are you doing?”
“Texting Ben to tell him he’s a genius.”
When she’d finished, he took her hand, sat back, looked out the window. Then he looked over at Adam’s laptop, saw Kitsune’s tracker hadn’t moved, the storm still hovered. Then he couldn’t believe it.
“It’s gotten stronger, Mike.”
Mike said, “But it hasn’t turned toward Washington yet. Nicholas, we have time, we’ll stop it.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
The Caribbean, off of Cuba
After disembarking their plane at the Preston airfield, Alfredo, an airport maintenance worker, drove Cassandra, Ajax, and their prisoners the short distance to the dock to board the Atlantis, a sixty-six-foot motor yacht originally owned by Jason Kohath’s father, Alexander, now used primarily for ferrying larger supplies to and from the island.
Old Ramos, called that since before the twins had been born, was captain of the Atlantis. Weather-beaten and gnarly, he was the patriarch of a huge family, and completely immoral. He welcomed them with a bow and a gap-toothed grin, nodded to three young men. “These three are family, of course, my brother’s sons, and each is as tough as leather. As ordered, they will attend to your two prisoners.”
Cassandra turned to the three young men, none of them more than twenty years old, all trying their best to look vicious. She pointed to Kitsune and Grant, both unmoving, both silent, both, she knew, assessing their situation, planning how to escape. She said, “They might not look like much right now, but they are dangerous. Put them down in the salon, and keep a sharp eye on them.”
She turned back to Ramos. “An hour to the island?”
Old Ramos patted the Atlantis’s wheel. “She’s in top-flight shape, as always, señorita. One of my sons now oversees her maintenance, so no more than an hour.”
Ajax nodded to Old Ramos’s sailors, two of his own sons. This was a family enterprise as well as a family secret. One they were paid an enormous sum each year to keep.
Five minutes later, Old Ramos eased the Atlantis away from the dock and headed north.
Ramos steered, as was his wont. “It is better I take you to the island today, and not Rafael. His floatplane is too small for all of you and the supplies. I believe he flew to Havana, but he will be back soon, and available, if he is needed.”
Cassandra didn’t mind the extra time it took to go by boat to the island. Both she and her brother loved this lovely old yacht her great-grandfather had originally had built in Holland. She also loved the sea wind on her face.
Today the ocean was slate gray and cold, unusual for this area and this time of year. She breathed in, turned to her brother. “You said you managed to intensify the storm even more?”
“Yes, I told you. I hacked into grandfather’s precious computer to intensify the storm, but who cares? I tell you, Cassandra, I’ve tried everything I know to make it move on Washington, but I still can’t figure out how to make it go where I want it to go. Once I have Grandfather’s directionality instructions, then it will be over very fast.”
Cassandra said, “I can imagine how it will be when it lands—hurricane-force winds slamming into the Potomac. I can see the whole city underwater. Then we’ll be home free, Ajax.”
“Yes, home free.” Ajax raised his face into the wind. He loved the feel of it, the power of it, as much as his twin. Soon now he would know exactly how the Coil worked from storm inception to devastation. He would be a god. He looked at his sister, standing beside him, the wind blowing her hair. She was smiling.
“With all the intensity I’ve added, the storm surge is going to be historic. Cassandra, the winds should reach one hundred fifty miles per hour. They’ll never have a storm like it.” He pumped his fist. “My first storm.”
Old Ramos said, “I can have one of my nephews bring you some coffee if you’re chilled. The weather is not nice today. We may hit some waves as we get closer, though your grandfather will do his best to keep them controlled. We’re coming the southerly route. It won’t be too bad but I’d feel better if you and the prisoners below put on life vests.”
“Why? You’re not going to capsize us, are you, Ramos, in this magnificent yacht?”
“Oh no, señor, never that, I just do not wish either of you to get tossed about.”
Ajax only shook his head. Cassandra touched his billowing sleeve. “If Grandfather refuses to give you the formula, I know the thief will be able to open the vault. And then”—she snapped his fingers—“then we will finish things. Both she and her husband will feed the fishes. Isn’t that what the Mafia dons say?”
He said, “In the movies, anyway. Lilith told me stories about the Fox, how she was one of the best art thieves in the world. If you needed to steal a Rembrandt from a museum or a private collection, she’d do it. Actually, she could steal anything, Lilith said.”
Cassandra hugged him, shouted to the skies, “Soon this Fox will be as dead as Lilith. Ajax, look around you, it’s only us in the empty sea—miles and miles of empty sea. Absolutely nothing in sight. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing there.” She threw back her head and laughed, and Captain Ramos looked over at her, wondering what the joke was. Whatever she was laughing about, though, he didn’t want to know. He was thankful he didn’t have to see these two very often, there was something about the two of them that made his blood run cold. He saw the señorita lean back against her brother. He clamped down on his cigar and turned all his attention back to the heaving seas.
Cassandra said to Ajax, in a dreamy voice, “When I was a child I remember Grandfather telling Mother he kept part of his formula in his vault. And I remember Mother thanking him. And I wondered, Why? For what? I asked him several times but he’d always shake his head, pat me on my head, and tell me to be patient.” She snorted. “We’ve been more than patient. You and I are thirty our next birthday. Soon, Ajax, we’ll know if Mother left anything in the vault. I’m hoping she did, with all my heart, something for me, just for me.”
“But what could it be? Certainly not treasure. Maybe papers on our great-grandfather’s theories about Atlantis being in the Bermuda Triangle? He used this boat, you know, to explore this area.” He shrugged and wrapped his arms around her when the boat dove from the top of a wave into a trough. He said against her cheek, “As you said, he would never tell you. I asked, too, of course, but he never told me anything, either.”
“You know he always hated our father, hated that we carried his blood. I think he decided a long time ago not to trust us.” She shouted into the wind, “You were right, old man! And now the end is coming for you.”
She looked over at the box that held the cherubim’s wing and her mother’s map, both covered with a tarp and secured. “Maybe we won’t need the thief—the Fox—to open the vault, maybe we can trade the cherubim’s wing for the combination. You think Grandfather will agree?”
She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Do you know what I’m hoping, Ajax? That there’ll be proof in his vault that Mother is somehow still alive.” Just saying the words aloud made her heart begin to pound faster. “That makes sense, doesn’t it? Mother alive, somewhere, in hiding, with the Ark?”
“What, and the old man never told us? Could he distrust us that much?”
She turned and smiled up at her brother. “If he does distrust us that much, he certainly deserves to have us kill him. I can’t wait to prove the old man right.”
“We’re nearly there,” Old Ramos shouted over the wind. “I’m calling in.” The transmitter hissed and barked. Ramos said, “This is Atlantis to Base One. We’re approaching on the southerly route.”
A British voice came back through the radio. “Roger, Atlantis, Base One confirming. Bear ten degrees to your northeast, we’ll have the field down and ready for you in five.”
Ramos turned the wheel a fraction to the right, moving the boat into position, and be
gan to slow.
The sky ahead was clear and empty. There was nothing in front of them but water.
Absolutely nothing.
Then suddenly there it was—massive, rising out of the sea—the island. It always thrilled Cassandra to see it, magic, absolute magic, that’s what they’d believed as children, and on the island dwelled the Wizard of Oz. Soon they would take his place. They would be the wizards. And they would have absolute power.
Old Ramos shook his head. “I never get used to it. One minute, blue air and endless empty sea, then the next, a massive dormant volcano reaches into the sky, is in front of you.”
And it was beautiful, this island of theirs, covered in green jungle. It was their home, the heart of the Genesis Group, their greatest secret.
Soon, it would be their island. There would be no one to tell them what to do ever again.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Nicholas was putting together the gear they’d need when Adam said, “What is this? Wait, wait—” And he began banging his palm against the side of his laptop.
Nicholas was at his side in an instant. “What is it?”
“Kitsune’s tracker just went down. Caput. Nothing. I had her, it’s been a great signal, nice and strong, and then it disappeared.”
Nicholas looked down at Adam’s laptop. “How many hours has it been since we gave it to her? Could it have expired?”
Adam looked at his watch. “We’re at seventy hours and ten minutes since she ingested the tracker. We should have at least another two hours.”
“Are they that accurate?”
“In testing, yes. If anything, the signal will linger on for another two to three hours after the planned seventy-two. I’ve never seen one stop early.”
Louisa hovered over Adam. “Guys, she’s been through a lot. Her adrenaline levels are probably through the roof, maybe that made her system metabolize the tracker faster than normal.”
Adam chewed his lip. “It’s a good theory, but the tracker shouldn’t be affected by her body chemistry. The designer made allowances—Wait, give me a minute. I want to look at something. I’m playing with an idea of why right now.”