Ground Zero Part 46

She shook her head. "Started myself on a low-carb diet. But I'll take a diet anything."

"You got it."

With a fresh brew and a Diet Pepsi in hand, he found her hunched over a keyboard in a small extra room. Jack noticed the Compendium Compendium sitting next to the monitor. What looked like newspaper clippings were flipping across the screen. He pulled up a chair and tried to make sense of them, but they were moving too fast. sitting next to the monitor. What looked like newspaper clippings were flipping across the screen. He pulled up a chair and tried to make sense of them, but they were moving too fast.

"Slow down. I haven't seen these."

"Neither have I," she said, but slowed her progress.

Even then Jack had to struggle to keep up. How she could absorb anything at that speed was beyond him.

"Here," she said, stopping the parade. "A familiar name."

Jack stared at the screen. "Where?"

She moved the mouse pointer to the caption under a photo of a group of stern-looking men. Jack squinted to read the fine print.

" 'The Committee to Save the Hudson Terminal,' " he said, then scanned the names until he got to-"Holy s.h.i.+t!"

Among the committee members shown, the third man from the left was named Ernst Drexler.

Jack searched the photo and zeroed in on that third man. He wore a dark suit and a fedora. He appeared to be in his sixties and had a sharp-featured face that looked vaguely familiar.

"It's not him ... but it's an awful lot like him."

After a series of deaths at the Septimus Order's Lodge in Jack's hometown when he was a teen, a man named Ernst Drexler had arrived and stayed for a few months to get the local chapter back on track-"reorganize" was how he'd put it. Both Jack and Weezy had had contact with him back then.

"It can't be him. How old do you think he was when we knew him?"

Jack shrugged. "Mid-thirties, I'd guess, if that. Certainly no older."

"I agree. Now, that was back in eighty-three. This photo was taken in sixty-five. So, unless he was growing younger, this is probably his father."

Ernst Drexler II flashed through Jack's head. flashed through Jack's head.

"Not probably. Remember I showed you the card he gave me?"

She nodded. " 'Ernst Drexler Two.' "

"Which means his father had the same name."

"I remember it said he was an 'Actuator,' whatever that is."

"I got the impression he was some sort of troubleshooter for the Order. But what was his father doing with this committee? And what's the Hudson Terminal?"

"The long-gone and forgotten terminus of the long-gone and forgotten Hudson and Manhattan Railroad, which was bought out by the Port Authority in the early sixties. It sat under the site where the PA eventually built the World Trade Center."

Pieces were falling together.

"That subway tunnel Goren saw ... it could have been left over from that railroad."

"Except he said it was running in from the east. The Hudson and Manhattan lines came in from the west under the river. More than likely what he saw was an aborted or abandoned link to the Hudson Terminal."

Jack pulled up a chair and sat next to her.

"All right ... we've got the father of the Septimus Order's 'Actuator' trying to stop the PA from digging up the terminal that sat near the spot where Opus Omega needed to plant a pillar. If Ernst Two is in the Order, I think it's safe to a.s.sume that his father was too."

Weezy nodded. "And maybe an 'Actuator' as well." She turned back to the computer. "Let's see if he appears anywhere else."

She began running the scans across her screen. Jack didn't protest this time. No point in slowing her down.

"Here he is again," she said after a while. "Another 'save' committee."

Jack saw the same man pictured with a group of five. In this photo he carried a black cane that Jack recognized. No doubt now about lineage-his son carried one just like it, maybe even the same.

" 'The Save Radio Row Committee.' What's Radio Row?"

"A cl.u.s.ter of stores that sold radio, hi-fi, and stereo equipment. Want to guess where they were located?"

"Right over the Hudson Terminal?"

She nodded. "Right. They were knocked down to dig the Trade Center's foundation. I'll bet if we keep looking we'll find him on the committee to save some of the historic buildings in the thirteen square blocks that were razed along with Radio Row."

Jack leaned back. "So ... according to Veilleur, the Order was originally charged with completing Opus Omega. Since the Dormentalist Church didn't exist in sixty-five, Ernst the First was sent in to keep the PA from interfering with their pillar placement."

"But he failed. The PA broke ground on the project in sixty-six." She swiveled to face Jack. "You can see why they were concerned. The plan was to dig down to bedrock, some seventy feet below. A huge huge hole. They removed a million cubic yards and dumped it in the Hudson. It pushed the river far enough back to create Battery Park City." hole. They removed a million cubic yards and dumped it in the Hudson. It pushed the river far enough back to create Battery Park City."

Jack gave a low whistle. All this was news to him. He hadn't moved to the city till the nineties, long after all this had happened.

"A thirteen-square-block hole, seventy feet down. A lot of dirt-and a lot of new real estate."

Weezy smiled. "Can you imagine how frantic the Order must have been? They'd probably planned to buy one of the buildings in those blocks, one right over the spot where they planned to bury the pillar. But if the Trade Center was built, they'd be locked out."

"But they got their way in the end, didn't they."

Weezy's smile disappeared. "All that destruction, all that loss of life, just to bury one of their obscene pillars. It seems too ... too evil, even for them."

"But they're working for the Otherness, which, I'll bet, has another definition of evil."

"But-"

"Too evil for the Order but not too evil for a bunch of crazy Arabs?" "

" 'Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.' "

"Hey, I like that."

"Not mine-thank Voltaire. But history's proven that a religion can justify pretty much anything in the name of its G.o.d."

"Well, think of the Otherness as the Order's G.o.d. And since Opus Omega is crucial to bringing their G.o.d into this world, they consider themselves to be doing the lord's work."

She shook her head. "Al Qaeda was committing a terrorist act. Attacking the Towers was an end as much as a means. Their lord's work or not, I think the Order could have found another way to bury their pillar. During the excavation phase, or during the very early pouring of the foundation, they could have found a way to sneak in and get their job done."

"A thirteen-foot concrete pillar weighing tons?" Jack shrugged. "Maybe they could have, maybe they tried. whatever, they didn't succeed, so they had to find another way. Ernest Goren and his fellow workers had the misfortune of catching them in the act."

Weezy kept shaking her head. "I don't know."

"One way to know is to learn all there is to know about Opus Omega." He pointed to the Compendium Compendium lying on the desk. "How's it going? Able to make sense out of those pages?" lying on the desk. "How's it going? Able to make sense out of those pages?"

She shrugged. "Some. The picture is piecing together, but it's slow going."

"Well, then, the other option is to identify bin Aswad. If we can connect him to the Order ..." An idea struck like a punch, propelling him from his chair. "Drexler! Could Drexler-our Drexler-be bin Aswad?"

Weezy shook her head. "No. The nose is different. Plus he had blue eyes and bin Aswad's are dark."

"Ever hear of tinted contacts?"

She was still shaking her head. "From what we see above the beard, I say no. As for the rest of his face, who knows?"

"Is there a computer program that'll remove a beard?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Computers were Kevin's department."

Jack thought of Russell Tuit.

"I know a guy who did time for hacking."

Weezy smiled. "You know a criminal? What a surprise."

"Some of my best friends ... well, anyway, he's a guru of sorts. Why don't you print me out-"

"Printing's no good. They'll lose resolution, especially using Eddie's inkjet, and your guy will sacrifice even more scanning them back in. I'll crop and copy any photos I have onto a disk so he can put them directly into whatever software he finds."

"Do it. And then I'm out of here. We both need some sleep."

SAt.u.r.dAY.

1.

After some obligatory small talk, Russ said, "So, what brings you to my humble abode?"

Humble it was, a tiny one-bedroom over a Tex-Mex restaurant on Second Avenue in the East Nineties. The place tended to smell better when the kitchen below was going full blast, but they didn't do breakfast. Russell Tuit-he p.r.o.nounced it like bird talk-didn't have a pocket protector or taped horn-rimmed gla.s.ses, but had the mouse-potato pallor and flabby look of someone whose fingers did all the walking. A certifiable geek; and it seemed a while since he'd had a shower.

Jack pulled out Weezy's disk. "Wondering if you might take a look at this."

Russ took the disk and headed for his computer in the corner of the spa.r.s.ely furnished front room. Barely Barely furnished was more like it, and what he had looked fourth hand. furnished was more like it, and what he had looked fourth hand.

Following him, Jack said, "You still stealing Internet?"

A federal judge had banned Russ from all online activities for twenty-five years. His crime: hacking into a bank and siphoning a fraction of a cent off each transaction. He'd acc.u.mulated a seven-figure haul before he was caught.

"It's not stealing, it's sharing. It's my compensation."

Russ had helped the guy in the neighboring apartment install a Wi-Fi system. He'd made sure to place the access point on the wall they shared.

He thought of Alice Laverty.

"Just met a lady whose life was complicated by someone hacking into her Wi-Fi system."

He slid the disk into a slot in his computer. "Unsecured, right?"

"I suppose so."

"Hardly anyone secures their home network. But no worry here. I insisted that Bill create a pa.s.sword-protected gateway and firewall-for his protection, of course."

"And yours too, maybe?"

"Of course."

"And you know the pa.s.sword?"

"Of course."

"What if he changes it?"

"He already has-twice."

"So ... aren't you locked out?"

He gave Jack a sheepish look over his shoulder. "I installed a keystroke logger when I set up his Wi-Fi."

Again? Jack wondered how many computers were bugged with those things.

"Swell."

"Hey, I don't abuse it, man. I respect his privacy. It just sends me a signal whenever he opens the pa.s.sword manager. That's the only time I peek."

Russ. .h.i.t a few keys and an array of pictures of bin Aswad's face popped onto the screen. He stared at them a moment, scratching his red hair, then swiveled his chair and faced Jack.

"Who's this-a terrorist?"