The Lost Order_A Novel

by Steve Berry

  He ran.

  A large space loomed before him, thirty feet wide, over twice that long, an interior wall stretching on one side, an exterior one on the other. Surely it had once been filled with dinosaur skeletons and other fossils. Now it was empty, except for debris and three people in hard hats.

  With another man beyond them.

  Racing away.

  * * *

  Grant decided to use the three new people as cover, slowing his pace and passing by them, Thomas’ ID hanging from around his neck. No one would notice the photo, just having the badge was all that mattered. He placed the men squarely between himself and the pursuer. If he could make it to the exit door, he could lose himself within the labyrinth of offices that he knew filled the other side. There would also be no cameras there, as the Smithsonian rarely monitored the staff-only sections of the buildings.

  He readied the swipe card.

  “Get down,” he heard a voice command. “Out of the way.”

  * * *

  Cotton ordered the three workers to hit the floor, waving his arm and signaling for them to move. His target was beyond them, heading for a door lit as an exit. The three looked at him strangely, then apparently noticed the gun and dropped to the concrete.

  He leveled the weapon.

  * * *

  Grant kept his cool, never slowing his approach to the door. He slipped the cell phone into his pocket and slid the card’s magnetic strip through the slot in the reader. The lock immediately released and he yanked open the metal door. He bolted out and helped the hydraulic closer by yanking on the lever, closing it shut behind him.

  Just as a gun fired.

  * * *

  Cotton sent a round straight at the door, where the man had stood one moment, gone the next.

  He’d been an instant too late.

  The bullet pinged off the metal door.

  The three workers were sprawled on the floor, hands covering their heads, clearly in a panic.

  “Get up,” he said. He spotted an electronic reader at the door. “I’m with the Justice Department. Do any of you have a key card to open that door?”

  One of the men said yes and found it.

  He rushed over and grabbed the card.

  * * *

  Grant loved the adrenaline flowing through him. He knew everything that he’d done the past few hours was foolish, but God help him, he loved it. There was something intensely satisfying about defying the odds. He’d even managed by a split second to avoid getting shot, which should have generated fear. But in him it created only resolve.

  And a need for more.

  His mind recalled the details of this part of the museum. It had been a couple of decades since he was last inside, which probably meant that things had changed. But the stairway he recalled was just ahead. He could go up or down. He decided to descend, two steps at a time, slowing near the bottom and opening another metal door that led to more staff space on the ground floor. The museum sat between the Mall and Constitution Avenue, which came with a height difference. So the first-floor entrance opened to the Mall, while the ground-floor entrance led out to the street. Beyond the staff-only portions, where quiet and simplicity reigned, were the busy public areas, the street side particularly so since it contained gift shops, a café, restrooms, and a large auditorium.

  And there’d be cameras.

  He left the stairwell and entered a hallway where more offices opened on either side. He walked slow and confident, his badge dangling from his neck. No one challenged him.

  He found the exit door and slowly opened it.

  With his head down, he stepped out into a busy foyer throbbing with activity and alive with sound.

  And he made a beeline for the street exit.

  * * *

  Cotton realized immediately that he’d lost the man. Before him, past the metal door, was nothing but labs and offices. There were also stairs that led up and down. His target could have gone anywhere. But he wondered. Did the man know his way around? Was he familiar with the building? It seemed possible.

  The door from Fossil Hall opened and Rick Stamm appeared.

  “This way.”

  He followed the curator down the stairs.

  “An exit door opened a couple of minutes after the guy entered using Martin’s key card. He didn’t need the card to get out, so there’s no way to know if it was him. But it had to be.”

  They quickly descended, then left the museum’s back spaces through another metal door. Before them stretched a crowded, noisy public area.

  “Did you get a look at him?” Stamm asked.

  He nodded. “Enough that I won’t forget him. He had brown, curly hair and a port wine stain on the left side of his neck.”

  “That’s the guy who killed Martin Thomas.”

  They searched the crowds.

  But saw nothing.

  The man was gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Diane arrived at Alex’s apartment. She’d taken the first flight of the day from Knoxville to Reagan National, a short one-hour hop. On landing she’d texted Grant and told him that they should meet at the apartment. She hadn’t visited since last summer and the June Smithsonian Libraries Advisory Board meeting. The board tended to vary its meeting locations across the country, returning to DC usually for only one of the three annual gatherings. She liked that habit, as she hated Washington, a city of opportunists filled with people either wanting power or wanting to be close to power, Alex no exception. On the one hand he’d possessed the clout of a U.S. senator. On the other he did little with that power except cling to those who possessed even more, like Danny Daniels. So different from the 19th century, when lone senators faced down both the House and the president, afraid of neither. What a time that must have been. Bitter political battles constantly raging over tariffs, whether new territories would be free or slave, the annexation of Texas, the war with Mexico. At one point a member of the House, Preston Brooks from South Carolina, beat Senator Charles Sumner nearly to death with a walking stick right on the Senate floor.

  Talk about passion.

  That was a time when opinions mattered.

  And people were not afraid to express them.

  Political warfare today had turned entirely guerrilla, the assaults all coming from the shadows, making it hard to ever identify the culprit.

  Especially in the Senate.

  “Alexander Stephens’ plan is not workable,” Alex had said to her that last day. “The Founders never intended for Congress to work that way. If they had, they would have written Article I differently.”

  Not necessarily.

  What a huge idea from such a small man.

  Stephens had stood barely five and a half feet tall, weighing less than a hundred pounds. He stayed sickly all of his life, many times bedridden, though he lived to be seventy-two. He served nearly twenty-five years as a congressman, off and on both before and after the Civil War, making a name for himself as a skilled orator. During the war he acted as vice president of the Confederacy. He died in 1883, while serving as governor of Georgia. Long before leaving this world, though, he devised a way to make the U.S. Senate irrelevant, just as it had been prior to 1800. Let the blowhards command the Senate floor and talk to their hearts’ content. Filibuster away. Who cared? None of it would matter. The House of Representatives was the true American political body, elected every two years, responsible only to the people. To Stephens it was no accident that the first words of the first article of the Constitution dealt with the House of Representatives. And the first government official mentioned anywhere in the Constitution was the Speaker of the House. To him, those were messages from the Founders he believed the country had come to ignore.

  But thanks to her, Lucius Vance was about to provide a reminder.

  Inside the apartment she noticed its usual order. Alex had never liked things out of place. She was the same, so that was one fault she could not hold against him. She’d never felt comfortable here.
This had been all his place. And something she’d noticed long ago now made much more sense. Nothing personal was displayed anywhere. No photos, accolades, or any mementos from a lifetime of marriage and service. His Senate office was part museum, part hall of fame. Here nothing reminded him, or anyone else, of his life.

  She’d run a bluff that day, long suspecting another woman. What was the cliché? The wife can always tell. That’s provided the wife actually gave a damn enough to pay attention. For her, that had happened only recently. They hadn’t been intimate in years, which partly explained her own infidelity. But sex had never been all that important to Alex. What really hurt was his declaration that he’d not broken his marriage vows.

  Because she believed him.

  Which meant he’d really cared for the other woman.

  Right here.

  In this place.

  The thought turned her stomach.

  “Damn you, Alex,” she whispered to the silence. “Why couldn’t you just walk away and leave it alone? The way you did everything else.”

  For once in his mundane life Alex Sherwood had decided to take a stand and fight the fight. And all because her idiot brother thought they needed help.

  She’d already decided that the lease on the apartment would be allowed to lapse and everything would be donated to the Salvation Army. Nothing would leave with her. She’d come today only to make sure that there was no lingering evidence that pointed toward anything she was doing. That would require a thorough search, which she and Grant would do together. Perhaps she might even learn a clue or two as to Alex’s mysterious woman.

  But what did it matter?

  He was dead, which made her irrelevant.

  She took a quick look around and noticed no accumulated mail, old newspapers, or magazines. Even the refrigerator had been cleared of perishables. Odd, considering that Alex lived here alone. On a whiteboard beside the phone there was no list of groceries, or reminder to pick up the dry cleaning, or anything to indicate an occupant.

  A knock disturbed the silence.

  She walked across and opened the door, which creaked to the sound of dry hinges.

  Grant stood outside.

  He stepped in, took her in his arms, and kissed her. Hard and intense. The way she’d become accustomed to from him.

  “I’ve missed you,” he said.

  “It’s been a tough few days.”

  “Why are you even here?” he asked.

  “We need to make sure there’s nothing left from Kenneth’s mistake.”

  He let her go and closed the door.

  “I also need to hear about your visit to the Castle last night.”

  “You might not like what I have to say. But I did get this.”

  His hand slipped into his jean pocket and came out with the ceremonial key.

  She smiled.

  “And I also found the Trail Stone.”

  All good.

  So she was curious.

  “What is it I don’t want to hear?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Danny entered the Vice President’s Room inside the Capitol, just outside the Senate Chamber. Its official designation was S-214, once the only government space in Washington assigned solely to the vice president. Times had changed, but not this room. The marble mantel, floor tiles, gilded mirror, and matching Victorian cornices all dated to the 19th century. The room’s double-pedestal mahogany desk had certainly made the rounds. Nearly every vice president used it until 1969, when it went to the Oval Office for Nixon and Ford, coming back here with Jimmy Carter. Since the Civil War the room had been a place for work, ceremony, caucuses, press conferences, and private meetings, a few of which altered the course of American history.

  The floor clock sounded 10:00 A.M.

  Vice President Theodore Solomon had been alerted that a new member of the Senate was coming, so he waited behind the desk. Contrary to what people thought, though the Constitution vested the VP as the Senate’s presiding officer, rarely did a vice president ever attend a session, voting only to break a 50-50 tie. Not like the old days, when vice presidents were a constant presence on the Senate floor. Today they came only if the majority leadership sensed that a tie-breaking vote might be required.

  Which was rare.

  The governor had made the official announcement of his Senate appointment thirty minutes ago at a Knoxville press conference. As expected, there’d been some immediate backlash, particularly since no other candidates had been solicited. All had been explained, just as they’d agreed, stressing that it was merely a caretaker appointment until the people could choose their own senator. And who better to keep the seat warm than Tennessee’s favorite son. It sounded so good, even he almost believed it.

  “Mr. President,” Solomon said, standing and offering his hand to shake.

  Danny liked this man.

  Teddy Solomon was old school, a financial conservative but a closet social liberal, most likely brought on by the fact that his eldest son was gay. They’d served together in the Senate, Solomon a straight shooter from Missouri who’d run against Warner Fox in the primaries, coming up short and having to withdraw early. Fox, acting smart like his name, ultimately decided to bring this potential enemy into the fold and offered him the second seat. The surprising thing was that Solomon had agreed to the gig. Danny loved what Woodrow Wilson’s VP once said. Being vice president is comparable to a man in a cataleptic fit. He cannot speak. He cannot move. He suffers no pain. He is perfectly conscious of all that goes on, but has no part in it. Then again, what John Adams said when he served as Washington’s number two made more sense. In this I am nothing, but I may be everything.

  What was it? One heartbeat away?

  Which had happened eight times. Nine, if you counted Ford taking over for Nixon. Death or resignation seemed the only way any vice president ever became president. Only one in the last 125 years had managed to move to the top spot through election.

  The first George Bush.

  And he earned only one term.

  Solomon stood tall, with a wide face to match his size that cast a weary, wary kindness that somehow managed to avoid softness. The jaw had yet to sag, the lips still firm, the features sturdy. He was a few years older than Danny, his hair smoothly brushed and surprisingly dark, occasionally inviting comparisons to Ronald Reagan’s lack of gray. As always, he wore a pressed dark suit with a stiff-collared shirt and a striking silk tie.

  “You sure about this?” Solomon asked.

  He nodded. “Retirement was a bitch.”

  “It’s been only a few months.”

  “Long enough for me to know that I don’t like it.”

  He listened to the basso tick of the clock and knew its story. It arrived during McKinley’s term, but gained prominence during FDR’s time when his vice president used it to time his entrance into the Senate. As the chimes began to ring fifteen seconds before the clock struck twelve, John Garner would stop whatever he was doing and march into the chamber, reaching his seat on the podium precisely at noon.

  “I want to be sworn in here, in private,” he said to Solomon. “Then I want to get to work.”

  “The press is clamoring for us to do this outside for the cameras. After all, it is a bit of history in the making.”

  He knew Solomon felt the way he did about journalists. They were there only to be used. At the moment he had no need for their services. Decades back, when he first served in the Senate, reporters had been some of his closest friends. There was a code then, rules, an honor system, along with a different breed of man and woman who’d reported the news. He’d liked those journalists. Now it was all about money and ratings. Nobody gave a damn about being right. Just be first. Or even better, be controversial. There were so few journalists anymore. Entertainers now dominated the news channels. And he could imagine their present quandary. They’d all received the news of his appointment at the same time from the governor’s announcement. Nobody had any advantage. They’d need an a
ngle, a chance to pepper him with polecat questions about the whats, whens, whys, and hows. Better to let ’em wonder.

  “That’s the great thing about being a seat warmer,” he said. “I won’t be around all that long, so I don’t have to answer a thing.”

  And he added a broad smile.

  Solomon’s gray-to-colorless eyes, ageless as salt water, flashed a boyish glance.

  “What does your boss have to say about my return?”

  “I just got off the phone with him. Shocked is the best way to put it. Fox was hoping to be rid of you. Truth be told I’m sure he’d like to be rid of me, too.”

  The words came in a cultivated, Midwest drawl. Though of opposite parties, he and Solomon had always seen eye-to-eye. This man had been a big assist during his time in the White House. And he’d returned the favor, making sure Missouri was never forgotten in the federal budget.

  “I want to know, Danny, between you and me. Here, with the door closed. What are you doing here?”

  “Making a little history. Me and Andrew Johnson. Two presidents, from Tennessee, who became senators.”

  Solomon perched his lean frame on the edge of the desk, crossing one shiny shoe over another and folding his arms. “It’s just us. What’s going on, Danny?”

  He knew he might need an ally, and what better one than this tall glass of water from Missouri. And though the VP and Lucius Vance were of the same party, he knew there was not a speck of love between them.

  “Vance is up to something.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I don’t know much, just enough that I had to come and find out more. But I might need your help.” He paused. “Before this is through.”

  “Sounds serious.”

  “I’m not sure. But every political alarm inside my brain is screaming trouble.”