Part 40 (1/2)
Chapter Twenty-four.
Aaron looked at the many piles of paper in front of him and yawned. He needed sleep badly, but he settled for sipping from a mug of lukewarm coffee instead.
He was standing in the main conference room in headquarters. The papers from Harbinger's office were spread out across the huge conference table. About half the material was written in plain English, but the other half was in a code comprised of astrological symbols. Edward had cracked the code, and some translations were stapled to the originals, but many doc.u.ments still needed to be decoded. Even with most of the team working around the clock, the job would take another full day at least. There were thousands of pages.
Still, Aaron had more than enough material to keep him busy. His job was to sort the doc.u.ments into categories and hopefully discover patterns. It wasn't an easy task. The huge collection included bank statements, philosophical rants, manuals, recruitment lists, handwritten notes, historical doc.u.ments, and even some original poetry. Harbinger had led an eclectic intellectual life.
Marina walked into the conference room. She wore a baggy, gray sweat suit chosen for comfort rather than looks. Dark circles under her eyes detracted from her beautiful face.
”Any progress?” she asked.
”Not really,” Aaron said. ”This puzzle has too many pieces.”
”I wish I could help but I'm terrible at puzzles.”
”I'll figure it out. You should get some sleep.”
”Ethel is sleeping. I'll take my turn when she's done. I'm just taking a break.'”
He picked up a sheet of paper from the pile of doc.u.ments that still needed to be categorized. It was a photocopy of a s.h.i.+pping manifest. The list of items included bulk quant.i.ties of hops, barley, and corn syrup. Food for animals? He placed the sheet onto the pile that he had created for farming supplies.
Marina looked at the sheet. ”Hops and barley? That reminds me. There is a new pub that just opened around the corner. When we're done with this mission, I'll take you there. They have some great, exotic beers.”
”That won't be soon. These Eternals are like c.o.c.kroaches. No matter how many we squash, we never seem to get them all.”
”Yeah.” Her face sagged.
His eyes widened. ”Did you say beer?”
”Yes. A brown liquid. You drink it.”
”They make Mooseland beer in Milwaukee.”
”That's correct.” She gave him a funny look.
He went to another pile. After some digging he found the roster for the company baseball team of the Mooseland Beverage Corporation in Milwaukee. Several names on the roster were circled in black pen.
”This is odd,” he said.
”What?”
”The first time I saw this, I thought the Eternals were trying to recruit these people, but I was wrong.”
”Why?” Marina said.
”Cults recruit young, desperate men on the periphery of society. But see how the captain of the baseball team is circled? I'm sure he doesn't fit that profile. I'd bet he's an old timer with a union pension and a beer gut. He wouldn't be interested in a death cult.”
He shoved all the papers in one, messy pile to the end of the table.
”What are you doing?”
”Starting over,” he said. ”Help me create two stacks. One stack is for anything related to beer. Equipment, ingredients, companies, whatever. The other stack is for everything else.”
With such a simple rule to follow, the work went quickly. When they were done, about a third of the doc.u.ments were in the ”beer” stack, even more than he had expected. One page was a detailed description of the traditional beer making process. The name ”Mooseland Beverage Corporation” appeared more than once.
”We found a pattern,” Aaron said.
”A beer factory is the perfect way to distribute poison,” Marina said. ”Just put a drop in every bottle, and weeks later people start dying. The authorities would never figure out the cause. Everybody drinks beer.”
”Mooseland is s.h.i.+pped all over the country.”
”Let's tell Ethel!”
They hurried to the door of Ethel's private suite. She was the only person who actually lived in headquarters. Everybody else had apartments in the city within walking distance.
Aaron knocked on the door and it immediately opened. Ethel stood there in a pink, quilted nightgown.
”Were you awake?” he said.
She shook her head. ”I was in bed, asleep.”
”You opened the door really fast, ma'am.”
”Yes. What's up?”
”The Mooseland Beverage Corporation has a brewery in Milwaukee. We believe that is where the Eternals will strike.”
Ethel furrowed her brow. ”Hmm.” She opened the door fully.
Aaron followed her into her bedroom. It was the only place where she allowed herself to keep mementos of her former life before she had joined the Gray Spear Society. There was a picture of her wearing an Army uniform from when she had served as a medic. A black and white photo showed her as a young girl, standing between an older man and woman. Aaron a.s.sumed they were her parents. Seeing that picture reminded him he had unfinished business with his own mother.
In the center of the room on a pedestal, there was a gold locket shaped like a heart. He had wondered about it since the first time he had seen it.
He reached for the locket. ”May I, ma'am?”
”If you must,” Ethel said.
He opened it and discovered two tiny pictures, one on each side. The left one showed her as a tall teenager, and the right one was a picture of an infant. Aaron looked up at Ethel.
”Don't ask,” she said, ”ever.”
”Yes, ma'am.” He put the locket down.
”If you're done sticking your nose into my private life, we can get back to business. The three of us will go to this brewery after we sleep. We're too exhausted now to do our job properly.” She glanced at a clock. ”Let's plan on being at the brewery at dawn tomorrow morning. We'll go as county health officials, making a surprise inspection. We'll try to get a tour of the entire facility.”