Were these two stories speaking of the same family?
Ghent.
Again, Painter might not have attributed much to this code breaking, except for one nagging coincidence. Ghent was a city in Belgium. That country had kept popping up of late: the team who attacked Gray in Iceland had come from there, as had that smaller burst of neutrinos similar to those at Fort Knox.
So Painter had kept on digging. Ghent was a common surname for people from that city. Someone was John of Ghent or Paul of Ghent. But in more modern times you became simply John Ghent or Paul Ghent. And sometimes just the anglicized pronunciation was used, as it was easier to spell phonetically.
And that’s where Painter found the truth—or so he believed.
Not that he could do anything about it.
He stepped farther back from the painting, taking in its entirety. He studied the figures of Jefferson and Franklin, picturing them standing before this same painting, faced with the same challenge and threat. His own hands were tied as surely as the Founding Fathers’ had been.
During Painter’s research concerning the suspected family, he had discovered that they indeed had roots going back to Ghent, had even used that name before extending their reach to America. They’d been in the colonies at the beginning, entrenched in the slave trade to such an extent that any attempt to remove that single family by force could have ripped the new union apart.
They were the weed in the garden that could not be pulled.
And they still were today.
As America grew, so did this family, rooting and entwining into multiple industries, corporations, and yes, even in the halls of government. They were a thread woven throughout the fabric of this country.
So was it any wonder that Sigma could make no headway against them?
Rafael had said this ancient group of families—the secret in secret societies—went by many names, whispers that were only shadows: the Guild, Echelon, familles de l’étoile, the star families. But Painter knew the true name of the enemy—then and now—anglicized for the American tongue.
They were the Kennedys of the South.
But no longer were they called Ghent.
Now they were called Gant.
As in President James T. Gant.