Chapter 6
Reggie doesn’t share intel until he’s ready (and I love flinging around the word “intel”).
He texted me and Brock to show up at headquarters and meet with Marcus, who’s the Tuxes’ online genius.
(Dr. Huron’s more an inventor and equipment mastermind.) Marcus is my age and was seated before a wall of twelve screens that could link to things like classified documents and live surveillance feeds from anywhere around the world.
Marcus’s fingers were skittering across a keyboard much faster than I can think.
He could talk and snack on trail mix (which I nibble when hiking to the subway) while pulling up hacked emails and blueprints for vaults; if he wasn’t attached to a device he’d seem incomplete.
Reggie introduced him to me with “This is Marcus Fenders, who already has everyone’s PIN numbers and SAT scores.
Marcus was one of the few Black, queer security engineers at Google, until I lured him away. ”
“Google hired me to break into their systems and find the flaws,” said Marcus, “which took me the better part of my first day. I got bored. Andrew, were you really in a TikTok dressed as Papa Smurf?”
This image was already filling every screen as I protested, “I was getting paid to promote one of the Smurf movies! And I gave Papa Smurf a hidden heartbreak, because I decided he was secretly in love with the Smurfs’ nemesis, Gargamel. You can see the sadness in my eyes.”
“Are you spray-painted blue?” asked Timothy, who’d joined us. I had been and I didn’t want to talk about it.
Marcus was trans, and he later told me he’d been kicked out of the army after a previous administration had instituted a trans ban.
President Pershing had reversed this cruelty, but Marcus had been more attracted to the Tuxes: “It’s a combination of revenge and excitement.
I was one of the Pentagon’s most valuable IT specialists, but then overnight I became ‘a threat to unit cohesion.’ Which was horseshit. ”
Like Reggie, Marcus is impressive. They both have every right to disdain serving a country that’s treated them so vindictively, but they’ve chosen another route.
“Here’s what I’ve got so far,” said Marcus, blessedly archiving my Smurf footage.
“Parnassus is huge and completely unregulated. It’s run by a French family called the LeMotes—there’s a father, a hot son, and a super-capable daughter who’s pregnant.
They’ve got financial interests everywhere, but the father is crazed for acquiring priceless antiquities for his personal gallery.
Which is one of the reasons he hates Reata, because she’s overseen the repatriation of so many artworks to the countries they were looted from.
It was her mission in the private sector, and it’s one of her core issues as First Lady.
But Pierre LeMote doesn’t understand why he can’t own, for example, this statue of Apollo he had stolen from a museum in Berlin. ”
The screens featured a rotating image of a gorgeous, life-sized marble rendering of this exceptionally hunky god, causing Brock to say, “I snubbed him in Provincetown.”
“Is it just overall greed, or is LeMote after something specific?” asked Reggie.
“Both,” said Marcus. “And although he exists in a world without receipts, I’ve tracked objects being sent to a network of private warehouses all around the world, where pieces can be stored under hyper-secure, climate-controlled conditions for indefinite periods of time. They’re always near airports.”
“Is there a recent artifact?” asked Reggie.
“Maybe,” said Marcus. “He was making dark web inquiries about something called the Clotho Diamond.”
“Clotho was one of the three Fates in Greek mythology,” said Timothy.
“I went out with this Classics professor from NYU. I’d sit in the back at his lectures and play Kitty Konquest XII, which is this totally cool game about cat pirates who use starcruisers to steal gourmet cat food and attack aliens with fur and dander allergies on other planets.
But I was still listening to the lecture. ”
“Here’s the weird thing about this particular diamond,” said Marcus.
“No one’s sure if it actually exists. It’s referred to in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Louis XVI supposedly gave it to Marie Antoinette right before the birth of their son.
Then it was listed in J. P. Morgan’s will as a bequest to a hospital, but it was never received. ”
“Why would Reata be interested?” I asked.
“First of all, as an archaeologist, she’d love to take a look and get it documented,” Reggie guessed. “And maybe she wants it returned to Greece.”
“Or as a brooch for state dinners,” said Brock. “I mean, that’s what I’d do.”
“There’s a consortium that claims to have bought the diamond two years ago at a private sale here in the States,” said Marcus.
“LeMote just transferred three hundred million dollars to a numbered Swiss account. But none of this is legal, and I can’t find any details of an actual exchange, so I don’t think LeMote has the goods. Not yet.”
“Usually a courier would transport any artwork or jewelry on a private jet,” said Reggie. “But the government’s been cracking down and X-raying everything. Reata’s been rigorous about trafficking.”
“Would LeMote really try to have Reata killed or at least threatened?” I asked. “Over a diamond?”
“Maybe,” said Marcus. “If she’s blocking the sale or the delivery.”
“And there’s probably more going on,” said Reggie, “at this level of infighting. If we find the diamond, we’ll have leverage. And we can ask Reata what she’d like us to do with it.”
“Hold on,” said Marcus, “there’s a Zoom.”
The screens combined to transmit Reata’s face, as she said, “First, I’d like to thank all of you so much, for saving my life yesterday. You do excellent work.”
Everyone was stunned and flabbergasted by Reata’s gratitude and her presence. Brock fanned himself discreetly while Timothy mouthed, “OMG.”
As Reata continued, I scanned the room behind her, which I assumed was her office.
But instead of any White House formality, a wall of mahogany shelving overflowed with well-worn books, globes of varying vintages, antique magnifying glasses, an astrolabe, and stacks of overstuffed notebooks.
Reata’s background in excavations and scholarship was everywhere.
Most people go for blank white-wall backdrops, or virtual panoramas of forests and mountaintops, but this was more revealing, maybe deliberately: Reata was making her priorities clear.
“I’m sorry I can’t be more specific,” she said. “Not yet and not online. But please find the item in question, as a matter of national security. Do whatever you have to, within reason. It’s that important. It’s not just a diamond. More later.”
She was gone, and we looked at each other, weighing the impact of Reata’s request. Reggie was especially intent, and I was tingling, as if a recording had just intoned, “Your mission, should you choose to accept it,” and then self-destructed in a whoosh of haze and sparks.
“Wait,” said Marcus, pulling up a limousine reservation. “In two days, Parnassus is picking up someone at Charles de Gaulle airport. I can’t identify the passenger or a seat number. But whoever it is, they’re on the Delta nonstop from Kennedy to Paris on Thursday, Flight A-43 leaving at seven a.m.”
“That’s our courier,” said Reggie. “Flying commercial, to attract less attention.”