The phalanx code, p.13
The Phalanx Code, page 13
I flipped the next page in the scrapbook. I could feel my temperature rising. I rarely displayed a temper and never in the presence of women. There were pictures of Colette and Coop holding the infant, then the infant becoming a toddler and then an adolescent. I flipped more quickly, as if knowing the end would lessen the anger I was feeling. Betrayal. Evelyn had been right to worry about me.
I stood up and walked outside, climbed the hill with the observation pad, and listened to the wind carry the screams of the haunted souls that rested here from so many years ago. Only this time I heard children screaming as they were burning alive right here on this property. Children that couldn’t be saved. I looked at the sky dotted with millions of stars in the blackness, tiny flames dancing in the void. To my left, I noticed a small cross toward the back fence where the land fell away to the ocean.
This was sacred ground.
But what was I to make of this information? What was this child to me? Was he an uncle? A half uncle? Who was he and where was he now, if he was still alive? I had so many questions that were clouded by the anger I felt; not only at myself for minimizing Evelyn’s concerns, but also at my grandfather. His affair started while he was married to my grandmother, his wife. How could he have done this to her? And how could he have had a child that he never let me or Kat meet? What did this say about his character? Who was he, after all?
The door opened thirty meters behind me. The security personnel moved closer toward my location, either concerned about me or for me. Evelyn approached me from behind and this time didn’t touch me.
“Garrett, I understand this is upsetting. This news however does nothing to diminish the accomplishments of a great man. So many people are alive today because of your grandfather. Not just here but all across Europe. He freed us. He was willing to die for us.”
“That doesn’t excuse a lapse in judgment,” I said.
She scoffed. “Is that what you think this is? That Colette was just some fly-by-night hookup? Mon Dieu, I was worried about the wrong thing if that’s what you think.”
“Tell me, Evelyn, what should I think? This is my grandfather, one of the greatest of the greatest generation. A real hero, and you’ve just shown me he was no hero at all.”
“How dare you say that,” she spat. “That man risked his life for all of us in this village and beyond. You heard Colette. We call him Saint Sinclair! You may be disappointed in him but I expected more from you than to discharge his bravery so quickly.”
“Bravery? Is it brave to have a child out of wedlock while he is married to another woman, my grandmother? Is it brave to leave a child fatherless for eleven months out of the year or however often he was involved or wasn’t? I wouldn’t know because I didn’t know about this person. Was it brave to keep the fact that my sister and I had an uncle or a cousin or whatever nomenclature would apply to this situation? Is the child still alive?”
“I understand your questions. They are the right questions, and now is the time to answer them. Your grandfather was human. Colette is a beautiful woman. You can see that for yourself. They were soulmates. I saw them—”
“You saw them, but I didn’t?” I shouted. My anger was all about being left out of this important part of Coop’s life.
“I did, Garrett. This is my mother’s best friend we are talking about. My second mother, if you were paying attention to me. A survivor of the war. A survivor of the very same Germans who killed millions of Jews. I never imagined you for someone who would so blithely toss away the high regard you have for a great man. If you cannot see the flaws in yourself, there is no way you can accept flaws in others. And I’m here to tell you, if that is true, then you are unprepared for the rest of this conversation.”
“There’s more? Twins?”
“Don’t you dare, Garrett Sinclair. You pay proper respects to this man who on this very ground gave everything he had to save my people! I wouldn’t be here right now if it weren’t for him. So don’t you damn dare on my land, in my house, in front of my family, dishonor the great man that I know your grandfather to be. Talk about bravery? Be brave enough to listen and process the information. Be brave enough to accept the truth as it is revealed to you.”
She was angrier than I was, it seemed, and I started to understand.
Saint Sinclair.
He had saved the village, or most of it, anyway. There would be no Marguerite or Colette or Evelyn today if it weren’t for Coop. The high regard I had always held for him was predicated mostly on the things he hadn’t said, not what he had told me. My imagination had run wild with visions of him leading the charge across Europe as a conquering hero. And I wasn’t far off. His courage was beyond comprehension, as it had been for so many of his peers from that generation.
But how was I supposed to reconcile his faults?
“He was a human being, Garrett,” Evelyn said as if reading my mind. “True, we view him as a god, but he was human and everything that implies, from strengths and weaknesses to ego and humility.”
She placed her hand lightly on my chest.
“He was every bit the hero you imagine him to be.”
“But why keep this a secret?”
“You know the answer to that better than anyone. Look at how your army and your government treated you until the very end. Do you think that rumor of a French lover would have been good for his career? There was no doubt he loved Colette. And I’m sure he loved your grandmother, also.”
“But did he love his son, who I guess would be my uncle?”
“I know in his heart he did but there were issues with the time and distance. Why don’t we go back inside so that Colette can answer your questions more fully?”
I pulled her close to me and kissed her. I was angry but also felt an inexplicable bond to this woman who had just walked me back from the ledge.
“Thank you,” I said.
She pulled away and shook her head.
“Don’t thank me yet.”
We walked back into the house where Marguerite and Colette were whispering in hushed voices. They looked up at me and then looked at Evelyn, who shrugged and said, “We expected this, no?”
The women nodded. Colette motioned to me to have a seat.
“How do you say the phrase ‘to pull off the bandage?’” she asked.
“Rip the Band-Aid off. It’s another way of saying, let’s get it over with, yes,” I replied.
“Yes, let’s,” she said, showing some steel that I hadn’t noticed earlier.
She flipped a page, and there was Coop and his mistress, Colette, and their love child, whatever his name was. He was about five, I guessed, and had brown hair with a pageboy haircut and was wearing a blue-and-yellow AS Cherbourg football jersey, which must have been the team nearest to Sainte-Mère-Église. Perhaps it had been taken on one of his frequent business trips when he was consulting and speaking. As a legitimate World War II hero, Coop was in high demand in Europe and the United States to discuss leadership and team building, eventually branching into technology that could inform real-time battlefield decision making.
Regardless, in the photo Coop, Colette, and their son were standing on a field and the boy was holding a soccer ball tucked under his right arm. He had piercing eyes, even at that age. It struck me that my grandfather had traveled to see this boy play a game in the same fashion as he had attended dozens of my baseball games in high school and at West Point. A pang of jealousy shot through me, but I stifled it. My sense was that there was something more important here, and I was right.
She flipped another page without saying a word and now the picture was of my grandfather attending a graduation, perhaps high school or even university. The boy’s hair had grown long, hanging around his ears and neck above the green-and-gold graduation gown he and the other students wore. Most of the pictures were from a distance but the next page showed more detail, and it was the Sorbonne, not high school, from which he was graduating. He looked way too young to be a college student, much less a graduate, unless he was a prodigy of some type. He appeared to be about fifteen years old in these pictures.
No one said a word.
She flipped another page.
The picture was of a young man who looked vaguely familiar to me. I had been in prison for a year and didn’t follow Hollywood much, but my first thought was that he was some B-list actor that I might have seen in a low-budget film the DB showed on Thursday nights. I usually attended—it was something to do—but rarely paid attention.
I flipped another page and instantly recognized the man who these women claimed Coop had fathered. My jaw hung open. Evelyn’s hand came onto my back again. This time I let it stay there because I would need all the strength I could muster to process this.
“Is this true?” I croaked.
The three women nodded. There was no denying it.
I looked at Evelyn and understood the caution she had exercised and the determination she had demonstrated in making sure we came to the source instead of just telling me. I looked at Colette.
“What is your maiden name?” I asked.
“To protect Garrett, I always kept my family name,” she said.
“Which is?”
“Blanc,” she whispered, looking away.
“Aurelius Blanc is my half uncle, if that’s even a thing?”
“Yes,” Evelyn said. “Which explains a lot of what’s happening.”
I glanced at the pictures of Evelyn and Aurelius Blanc, their arms around each other. The photo showed two teens, with the beach in the background. Both were smiling, though Blanc’s grin was subdued, as if he was embarrassed. They appeared to be friends, not lovers. Blanc’s head was cocked away from her, twisting his body in an attempt to separate himself. The next picture was of Blanc much older, maybe in his thirties, with the large red TED Talk logo behind him. He was wearing a sleek black microphone juxtaposed to his white beard and matching his black hair. He looked similar to the video Misha had shown me just a couple of days ago where he projected an alternating monochromatic presence.
Without warning, the hired guards rushed into the room, forming a tight protective diamond around us when gunfire sang out across the windswept bluffs of Normandy.
14
ONE OF THE BYPRODUCTS of World War II and the French Resistance had been a series of underground tunnels that led to typically safe escape routes. Evelyn’s security team led us down a hatch into the basement, which led to a rectangular tunnel with sturdy four-by-four beams.
“This way,” Evelyn said, taking the lead from the armed scout.
Because Colette was struggling to keep up, I cradled her in my arms and carried her, ducking my head to miss the crossbeams and swiveling Colette’s to miss the side beams. Marguerite was more fit and maintained the pace as we hustled along the tunnel. Faded black rhombus symbols were visible on the cross beams—a path the French resistance had marked for the D-Day Rangers. The three men from the security team followed and provided protection to our rear to stop any threat from that direction.
The tunnel was musty and dark, but the high-powered flashlight Evelyn shined to the front helped light our way. After fifteen minutes of rapid movement, we turned in to a small cubby and climbed a ladder, which opened into the church rectory in the center of town.
The lead French guard assisted Marguerite, and then Colette as I lifted her through the hatch. The three rear guards assumed kneeling positions scanning in both directions as I exited. Evelyn led us through the rectory into a garage connected to the church. In it was a Land Rover Defender that we piled into. I buckled Marguerite and Colette into their seats, then jumped into the shotgun seat when I saw Evelyn was already cranking the engine and putting the vehicle into drive as the security huddled into the extended personnel carrier in the back. Evelyn shot out of the garage like a rocket as soon as the automatic door elevated high enough. She turned south toward Caen and muscled her way through the traffic, passing other cars at over one hundred miles per hour. The monstrosity eyesore of a manufacturing plant near Carentan-les-Marais loomed in the distance, its glowing floodlights burning as workers plied whatever trade was required. A crane swiveled and turned, lifting heavy crates of equipment or machines. Evelyn was weaving through heavy traffic. Her driving distracted me as something about what I had learned today scratched at my brain.
“Lots of precious cargo in here, Evelyn. It’s going to be okay. You can slow down,” I said.
She didn’t respond but backed off the accelerator. Her mother and Colette were speaking in French. I understood most of their conversation though some of it was lost in the local Norman dialect. They weren’t surprised by my reaction to the information about Blanc, evidently, and thought I handled the information better than they expected. That remained to be seen, but I was seasoned enough to be able to put aside personal angst to focus on mission accomplishment. The mission presently was to usher these women to safety, then find Blanc to stop his headlong drive to global hegemony.
“Who are these guys?” I asked, pointing at the men in the rear of the Defender.
“My security guys,” she said, nodding toward the rear. “All part of the same thing. Even the ones in Bordeaux.”
“How were you captured by Blanc if your security is so tight?” I asked.
“The threat in the US seemed remote. They stayed in Manhattan where I keep a place. And you know, General, even I shake my security at times. I was flying from the private terminal at the Denver airport. When Blair didn’t show, I decided to board, anyway. I realized too late that one of the Phalanx squads had already hijacked the airplane, and they took me to Biarritz where they held me in that god-awful chamber.”
That all tracked with what I knew and what Drewson and Misha had told me. Blanc had put a lot of effort into kidnapping her, but why? Also, I had rescued her rather easily. Not that I was itching for a bigger fight, but something didn’t ring true about the entire scenario. This action, though, had distracted me from the real issue at hand, which was that Blanc was my relative and he wanted me dead.
“What does Blanc want with me?”
“I’m not sure, Garrett. Honestly.”
“He must know that Drewson is trying to enlist me to stop Phalanx from achieving its global security state, at least more so than exists today,” I said.
“Maybe,” she replied. “But I think it’s more personal than that. According to Colette, he did feel lost without his father. She tried to explain the situation, but you know a child has no concept or understanding of why a parent can’t be there. Maybe since your grandfather has passed, you’re the only valid target. My efforts to reach Aurelius lately have been unsuccessful.”
Homes ticked by as the headlights punched into the night along dark stretches of poorly lit highway. Evelyn found the Caen airport and pulled to a stop at the private terminal building. Her Hawker jet was sitting on the ramp, stairway down and awaiting our arrival. We transitioned quickly to the plane with two of the security team members joining us and two remaining with the Defender. I buckled the ladies into their seats and joined Evelyn in the cockpit as one of the security team pulled the stairway up. Evelyn taxied the aircraft and spoke some technical French into the headset, and soon we lifted into the night. To the east, the lights of Paris shone bright as we banked over the ocean and drilled to the south.
I looked over my shoulder and saw Marguerite holding hands with Colette and conversing with her about Evelyn and Blanc, which made me think of Brad and Reagan. With Blanc pursuing me, it made sense he would come after my kids if I proved too elusive. Retrieving my phone, I called Jeremy West.
“Falcon Six here, boss,” West said.
“Where are you?”
“Where you left me. Ain’t none of us quitting on you, boss. That departure speech was a good act, though.”
“Wasn’t an act but it doesn’t matter. Can you get one of Drewson’s jets and fly to Charlottesville to pick up my kids? Blanc is turning up the heat, and I’m concerned he’s going after them. Parizad went after Brad and put him in a suicide vest. I don’t want a repeat of that.” Two years ago the Iranian Quds Force commander had kidnapped my son and strapped a booby-trapped suicide bomber vest on him moments before he attempted to attack President Campbell’s inauguration.
“Let me talk to the big guy. Might help if you called him.”
“I’ll merge him in right now.”
I used my OptiPhone to put West on hold while I called Drewson.
“General. Great job on snatching Evelyn. The world is back in balance,” he said when he answered.
“Nothing’s in balance, Mitch. Blanc has turned up the heat and we are on the run.”
“I have full confidence in both of you to evade that bastard. Kids okay?”
“That’s why I’m calling. It’s not us I’m worried about. It’s my kids.”
“How can I help?”
“I need an airplane. Jeremy can fly it.”
“Nonsense. The one that flew you to France is sitting in a hangar at my factory in North Carolina. Pilots are doing crew rest and were preparing to head back to Wyoming in a few hours. They can be there in an hour.”
“Send them. I’ll call and get them moving.”
“You got it, General,” Drewson said.
“Stay safe, boss,” West said.
“Roger that,” I replied to both. I hung up and immediately dialed Reagan, who was the more reliable one to answer her phone, especially a call from me.
“Dad, you okay? Did Laurent ever make contact?” Reagan said.
“Yes, I’m okay, but I need you to find Brad and get to the airport. Something is going down and I don’t want a repeat of the Parizad incident. Can you merge Brad in?”
“You’re scaring me, Dad, but sure.”
After a second, I heard Brad’s grouchy voice on the phone.
“Reags what’s going on?”
“Shut up, Brad. Dad’s on the phone.”
“Hey Brad, Reagan, I need to get you guys to Wyoming. Blair is there along with the Garretts and Jake, Joe, and Randy and the others.”
