Perfectly Dead by Michael A. Stackpole

Chapter 3

Mansfield showed them out. "Just go north along Cattletrack. At the end you turn west, quarter of a mile up the hotel is on the left. Can't miss it. I'll meet you there inside the hour."

Fyn nodded. "Thanks."

The two HSS agents waited until the door had closed behind the man, then Miracle tossed Fyn the keys. "You drive."

"Because?"

"Because I want to call up the files on Bloodstone." She slipped into the Hummer and used her iPhone to hit secure HSS servers. She typed in her request and got information a lot faster than she expected. "Whoa!"

Gravel pinging from beneath the tires, Fyn turned the vehicle onto the road. "What is it?"

"My nephew Mike-the younger one-has more data attached to him than this guy does." She glanced from the screen to the house and back. "Born in Arkham, Massachusetts in 1949, graduated Harvard in 1967, doctorate in Comparative Religion from Stanford in 1970."

Fyn shrugged. "I wouldn't have made him that old, but okay."

"He's a Patriot. He has a passport but no driver's license. Tax records are clean through three audits."

"The audits legit or reminders?"

"Seem legit. Occupation is listed as consultant, but he's making big bank." Miracle scrolled through the info. "Passport has him all over the world, from Europe to Nepal. Seems to alternate between resorts and hellholes."

"Call logs make that more specific?"

She glanced at her partner as he pulled into the Hilton's back lot and parked. "There aren't any. No cell records. No emails. No web pages. No e-commerce, nothing. He doesn't Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or even surf porn. Google search has three hits. Two cover a legend that Merlin-Arthurian myth Merlin-had a bloodstone ring. The third has some church denouncing Merlin Bloodstone as the spawn of Satan."

Fyn raised an eyebrow. "One legit hit on Google? Is that possible?"

"Again, my nephew has more." Miracle flashed her phone at Fyn. "Internal memos don't have much. McDonald filed one request to develop Bloodstone as a source, but it was denied."

"Huh." Fyn unbuckled his seatbelt. "Go back to his doctorate. What was his thesis?"

"'Making Jesus Palatable: Usurpation of pre-Christian religious legitimacy through the early Church's theft and use of mythic symbology and language in creating the New Testament.'" She whistled. "That's bound not to make him terribly popular."

"There's your legit hit."

Miracle glanced over at Fyn. "What the hell happened back there? He pulled a one-eighty in 1.2 nanoseconds. How did that happen?"

"You have three choices. One, you charmed him." Fyn grinned. "Two, he realized how desperate we were and saw a chance to play with us the way cats play with mice. Third, you mentioned the victim's name and he said he knew him. Probably all of the above."

"I'm not liking number two." Miracle slipped her seatbelt off, got out and pulled her gear from the back end of the Hummer. "I've never taken well to being a puppet."

"I'm sure that's why he'll tie the strings extra tight."

The two of them cut through the hotel's central courtyard. As the entered the tiled lobby, a young, dark-haired woman in a silver blouse and black slacks met them. "You would be Fyn and Dunn? I'm Bree Conti, the concierge." She extended each a small folder with two plastic room keys. "I've already checked you in, adjoining rooms."