Bones of Angels by Christopher Forrest

ma’am,” said Hawkeye. “Send us a pair of wings, and we’ll find our way back.”
    A moment passed.
    “By the way,” added Hawkeye. “Tell Archbishop Donovan that Beta Team was killed by Reynard.”
    Whittington Manor, Main Lab
    Long Island, New York
     
    * Here we go again. You’re smitten with the grad student. I can tell. *
    I must admit that she’s quite attractive.
    *Come, come, dear boy. Attractive? *
    Okay. She’s a knockout. And her name is Angela. An angel.
    * And? *
    She’s very intellectual. That’s a big turn-on.
    * What about DJ? *
    DJ?  Well, it’s not like we’re married or anything.
    * That may be your perspective, but it will be interesting to see what DJ thinks of Ms. Marshall. *
    Hey, Angela’s just a curator for my grandfather.
    * I warned you that there was going to be trouble in the manor, but you paid no heed. Now you’re ignoring my psychological insights. *
    You’re making too much over nothing. If I didn’t notice Angela’s beauty, I wouldn’t be human.
    * Neither would DJ. *
    Ops Center
    Aboard the Alamiranta
     
    DJ studied the feed from Hawkeye’s helmet cam. Angela Marshall was quite attractive. Too attractive. And she was very good with a computer — Quiz’s specialty. DJ had definitely noticed how her young lover had gazed at Marshall’s every move. She imagined herself in hand-to-hand combat with the grad student.
    Archbishop Donovan interrupted DJ’s reverie as he addressed the staff in the Ops Center.
    “I think your team should retrieve what is in a safe deposit box in Chase Manhattan,” said Donovan. “Before Beta Team was captured, they told me they had found an important manuscript, although they never had time to examine it or tell me what it was. They feared our communications had been compromised. But since they were willing to be murdered rather than speak of their find, I can only guess that the manuscript is crucial to our mission.”
    “Of course,” said Caine. “I’ll call the president of Chase myself and make sure that Hawkeye is granted access to the safe deposit box. And my condolences on the loss of your team, Archbishop.”
    Donovan lowered his head. “Thank you, Catherine. Let’s hope they didn’t die in vain.”
    Titan Global Lear Jet
    35,000 Feet above the Atlantic Ocean
     
    Having retrieved a carefully wrapped package from the safe deposit box at Chase Manhattan, Hawkeye, Quiz, and Angela had boarded one of Catherine’s private jets, which was en route to an airbase in Portugal. From there, the trio would be ferried by helicopter to the Alamiranta, which was reversing course and sailing back into the Mediterranean.
    “So what did you think of the Confederate soldier?” Quiz asked a pensive Hawkeye.
    “Probably a holographic projection,” Hawkeye answered. “Your grandfather is a scientist and a scholar. I’m sure he knows how to create a hologram.”
    “I’ll personally vouch for the fact that the manor is haunted,” asserted Quiz.
    Hawkeye grinned thinly. “We all see what we want — or expect — to see.”
    “Then how do you explain all those electromagnetic signatures Touchdown saw?  And those shrieks?”
    “Anomalous energy readings from your grandfather’s equipment perhaps,” said Hawkeye. “As for the shrieks, they were the cries of Reynard’s acolytes.”
    Hawkeye retuned his gaze to the sky beyond the cabin window. The wings of the Lear jet maintained enough uplift to keep the jet in the sky. That’s how things flew. Things. Not people, not angels, not ghosts.
    He then gazed at the white cumulus clouds and the blue sky through which the plane was flying. He thought of many great works of art that depicted angels hovering in azure skies, or cute cherubim sitting harmlessly on white, fluffy clouds.
    Hawkeye was a true-blue American, but he thought Karl Marx had gotten at least one thing right: Religion was an opiate for the masses.
     

Chapter 15
     
    Crew Quarters
    Aboard the Alamiranta
     
    DJ sat next