by Steve Berry
“Could this affect the president?”
“I don’t know that, either. But Vance is no team player, and he did want Fox’s job.”
“Like me, he had no chance. But he sealed his fate a long time ago when he took the Speaker’s job.”
“You and I know that he’s a danger. I hope Fox does, too.”
Solomon chuckled. “Let’s just say that our new president is not as schooled on the lay of the land as you and I.”
“And I doubt he’ll be listening to his seasoned vice president.”
“That’s putting it mildly. Since January 20 I’ve talked with him a grand total of”—Solomon held up a finger—“one time. Just now.”
A huge mistake on Fox’s part. Solomon, like himself, was skilled in deciphering the silences between words, the thoughts obtuse speech many times disguised. From everything Danny had seen and read, the Fox administration seemed a nervous coalition of doves, hawks, and activists, each with their own idea of what might be best for the country. Teddy Solomon was far more pragmatic, a tried-and-true warrior. A man with an encyclopedic knowledge of Washington, DC. Information that a novice in the White House, like Warner Fox, could make good use of. Unfortunately, pride and stupidity usually kept the rookies from asking for help, which ultimately cost them.
One name proved his point.
Jimmy Carter.
“You knew they would ignore you,” he said. “So why take the job?”
“I’m sixty-nine years old, Danny. I could have served in the Senate forever. But I’ve always wanted to be president. You know that. I can’t explain why, I just wanted the job. The people, though, had other ideas.” Solomon shrugged. “This is as close as I can get. So you take the good with the bad.”
This was a smart man, a pro who’d learned long ago, as he had, that the country was only what the people wanted it to be. If they made their decisions in ignorance, or off the cuff, or even in stupidity, so be it, it was their republic. We the people meant just that. His job, and that of everyone else in public office, was to serve the country—not mold it. Clever politicians understood that duty. Great ones, like Teddy Solomon, believed it in their heart.
This man would have made a terrific president.
“Can you snoop around on your side of the aisle and see if anything’s brewing in the House? I’ve got a bad feelin’, Teddy.”
“Bad enough to come back in the line of fire? When you could have been off fishing somewhere?”
“Somethin’ like that. It may be up to two broken-down old geezers like us to stop whatever it is.”
“Sounds awful melodramatic. But I like it.”
“And let’s keep this between us. Just in case I’m totally full of crap.”
“That’s one thing you never were.” Solomon extended his hand again. “Welcome back, Senator.”
They shook.
“It’s time to make you official,” the vice president said.
He’d taken oaths as a city councilman, a governor, senator, and president. All before crowds, part of the spectacle. Now, with just him and a good friend present, he raised his right hand and repeated the words he’d said three times before.
“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same. That I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.
“So help me God.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Cotton was back in the windowless archive at the American history museum, the engraved stone from Fossil Hall lying on the table.
“That guy took a huge chance coming back for this,” he said.
Which meant it was really important. He was hoping that Stamm got the message. Time for more information, especially about Angus Adams. But the curator seemed to be waiting for something.
The silence within the archive was suddenly disturbed by a door opening at the other end, then closing. The rows of track shelves blocked any view, so he waited. And was not surprised when the visitor appeared.
The chief justice of the United States.
Warren Weston.
The jurist introduced himself and they shook hands, their attention immediately drawn to the stone.
“So it really was right here,” Weston muttered. “All this time. Incredible.”
The older man lightly caressed the pale-white limestone surface.
“You knew it might be?” Cotton asked.
“All the information available pointed to one of the museums as the hiding place. We just didn’t know which one. Thankfully, we were led straight to it.”
“With one person dead, and another in the hospital.”
“I’m truly sorry for both of those,” Weston said. “None of that was ever intended, but this whole thing has escalated. We need your help now, more than ever.”
“This isn’t the Supreme Court and I’m not some lawyer standing before you. And I mean no disrespect, but I’m going to ask you a question and you better give me a real good answer.”
“Or what?” Weston asked.
“Or I’m pulling the plug on this entire thing.”
“The attorney general may not like that.”
“I don’t work for him, either. I can do whatever the hell I want. And one call to the DC Police, then another to the Washington Post should do the trick.”
“Ask your question.”
“Why did you involve me in this?”
“Because your ancestor, Angus Adams, is key, and we were hoping you, or your family, might be able to add to our knowledge. The fact that you are a trained intelligence operative—one of the best, I’m told—seemed an added bonus. I considered it a win–win.”
“How is Adams the key?”
“Can I answer that by asking you something?”
He decided to indulge the man and nodded.
“Do you understand what’s depicted there, on that stone?”
To the uneducated it seemed there was little rhyme or reason to the squiggly lines, the dagger, and the numbers.
But not to him.
He nodded. “My granddaddy taught me some of the Order’s hidden language. We used to play coded games with it.”
“I was hoping that was the case. What does it tell you?”
“It seems incomplete. Like it’s only part of something else. Something more. There are too few symbols to gather any meaning.”
“You’re absolutely right. This Trail Stone is part of something else.”
He’d actually cheated a little, since Morse had told him about five stones. But one thing did jump out. The heart-shaped indentation. And something his grandfather taught him. Hearts meant gold to the Spanish, and to the knights.
“I’m assuming there’s another stone,” he said. “Heart-shaped, that fits into that recessed cavity.”
“There is, aptly called the Heart Stone.”
“Which leads to the gold.”
Weston smiled. “I see you do understand the language. There were five stones all totaled. The Witch’s, which I’m told you’ve already seen. The Trail Stone here. The Heart Stone.” Weston turned to Stamm and nodded. The curator worked the keyboard for the computer, then turned the screen Cotton’s way.
“Here’s the fourth,” Weston said. “The Horse Stone.”
“Found sometime near the turn of the 20th century, along with the Trail Stone,” Stamm said. “Both were kept in our collections. Unfortunately, around 1920, the Horse Stone was destroyed in what the records say was an accident at one of the warehouses. But these photos survive.”
He studied the black-and-white images.
A horse faced left, with its tail to the right, but cocked left. Within the torso was what looked like the number 3, or, if viewed at an angle, a double-bump sign, which he knew was the Order’s symbol for a bird, indicating move
ment and direction. Below the tail was what looked like the letter E and another double bump.
He noticed more letters and symbols, their meanings speaking to him. A 5 in the upper left with three equally spaced dots surrounding could be viewed on its side to be an inverted U.
Which meant a mine.
Below that stretched an uneven line with the word rio. Spanish for “river.” Between the line marked rio and the wavy line to the horse’s face were two more circles with dots and another inverted U. Below the wavy midline, near the left edge, was a solitary cross, then a Spanish expression el cobollo de santafe. He knew of no word cobollo. But caballo was a different story, so this might be similar to what was on the Witch’s Stone.
An intentional error.
El caballo de santafe.
The horse of faith.
At the upper right, another expression. Yo pasto al norte del rio. This one was easy. I graze to the north of the river. Below that was what looked like a G or maybe the number 6.
“You understand, don’t you?” Weston said.
He nodded. “It talks about the horse of faith, who grazes or shepherds north of the river.” He pointed to the cross. “That could mark the location of a church, or a mission. There are mine symbols all over it. And that horse wasn’t placed there for decoration. What about the fifth stone?”
He could ask now, without compromising Morse, since Weston had noted there were five.
“It’s said that the head of the Order kept that one for himself. Like a fail-safe. The Alpha Stone. And without it, the map is useless, as that one provides the starting point. Supposedly you need all five stones to form the map. Forty years ago Davis Layne thought he could get around that. In 1973 we knew the world far better than it was known at the turn of the 20th century. Today GPS technology is even better. Layne believed that with only four stones the treasure could be found, omitting the Alpha Stone. I’m thinking that whoever is looking now believes the same thing.”
“Our killer with the curly hair and the port wine stain?”
“That’s right.”
“You know a lot about this subject,” Cotton noted.
“I was a close friend of Davis Layne’s. At the time I served on the DC Court of Appeals, and he and I talked about this subject in detail. The Knights of the Golden Circle may have been the greatest crime syndicate ever formed, though they would have called themselves patriots. During the Civil War they stole countless millions in gold and silver, robbing people, banks, trains, boats, and even a couple of U.S. mints. After the war they stole even more, mainly from Reconstructionists.”
He explained what Terry Morse had told him, then said, “The Witch’s Stone is safe in Arkansas.”
Or at least he still hoped so. He still had not heard a word from Cassiopeia.
“We sent you out there,” the chief justice said, “hoping you could decipher the symbols in the woods and find that cache. I thought you might. Your locating the Witch’s Stone is an added bonus.”
“And we have digital images,” he said.
On Cassiopeia’s phone.
“To answer your original question,” Weston said, “your ancestor, Angus Adams, was the sentinel who both created and guarded the vault. Show him, Rick.”
Stamm found something in the computer data bank and pointed to the screen. The image was of a man in a mid-19th-century dress suit, slender, no more than 150 pounds, standing with his head held high, back straight. Cotton noticed the square jaw, piercing eyes, and light hair.
And in the face he saw himself.
“That was taken in 1877, long after Angus Adams achieved notoriety as a spy,” Weston said. “I found it in the Smithsonian archives. Adams had come here, on a visit to see his friend Joseph Henry, and posed for the picture. A few months ago Rick researched the Adams lineage, which led us to your mother, then to you. Quite to our amazement, we came to learn that you were a former intelligence officer. One of some renown, like Adams. You even have his nickname. Can I ask how that happened?”
Ordinarily he’d be coy but, he had to admit, the photo cast a spell. People liked to ask him about the name Cotton and his answer was always the same. Long story. But not this time.
“When I was seven, my grandfather showed my dad a picture of Adams. Not as crisp as this one, but discernible. In ours he was younger, with a carefree look about him, grinning at the camera. We all noticed that I look just like him.”
“You do,” Stamm said.
“But that’s only partly how I got the nickname.”
So he explained how, shortly after seeing the old photo, he was being babysat by a neighbor he did not like. She had a disgusting habit of heaping cottage cheese over a slice of bread, then dripping honey on top, the sight of which turned his stomach. She also was a hard-ass. To show his displeasure at both her and her eating habits, he spiked her cottage cheese with cotton from his mother’s medicine cabinet, lacing it in so it was hardly noticeable until she tried to swallow. The woman nearly choked. Of course, his father tanned his hide, but the act of defiance cemented his connection to Angus Adams.
“From that day on, my father called me Cotton,” he said. “Three years later he died, but I kept the nickname. And every time I hear it, I think of him.”
“I learned about your father,” Weston said. “A navy submarine commander, lost at sea.”
Which was still the official version, though now he knew better.
“I know about the vault,” he decided to say.
“From Morse?”
He nodded.
“Most of the Order’s hierarchy, Angus Adams included, were dead by the turn of the 20th century. Unfortunately, they died without passing on much in the way of information. Only bits and pieces survived. The Smithsonian made two efforts to find the vault. One around 1909, the other in the 1970s. Both failed.”
He told Weston what Morse had related about Jefferson Davis coming to Arkansas to hide the Witch’s Stone.
“Davis was of the Order,” Weston said. “He was a southerner through and through until the day he died. It’s good to hear that he was the one who helped protect the vault.”
He caught the implacable eye of authority from eyes that were accustomed to exuding power, determination, and purpose.
“Mr. Malone, all of this is far above our expertise. We desperately need your help.”
“To do what?”
“Find the vault.”
“For the government? Or the Smithsonian?”
“Does it matter?”
“That wealth is stolen property.”
Weston shrugged. “With no way to prove a thing.”
He decided to let that one hang and shifted tack. “You realize that Diane Sherwood is more than likely connected to our killer with the port wine stain. A man who probably also shot Stephanie Nelle. Forgive me, but finding him is more important to me than any gold.”
“But I believe that by finding the vault you’ll also be able to solve both of those crimes. I would caution that speaking to Mrs. Sherwood now would be a waste of time. She’ll have a perfect explanation ready, one that leads you nowhere. The better way is to stay quiet and keep digging. Approach her when we know the answers to all of the questions.”
“Spoken like a lawyer.”
“I’m assuming you, too, learned that lesson.”
Absolutely. Never ask a witness a question you did not know the answer to.
“It’s not like she’s going anywhere,” Weston said. “And we have a couple of days, thanks to Ms. Nelle, who secreted Martin Thomas’ body away. Can we use that time wisely?”
He wondered exactly for what, but decided to heed the advice he’d just been given.
And not ask any more questions—until he had the answers.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Danny had slipped out of the Vice President’s Room in the Capitol, ignoring the media that had congregated beyond the restricted area. He further avoided the press by taking the underground subway over to t
he Dirksen Office Building. The tunnels beneath the Capitol were for senators and their staff, the subway just for senators. Seventeen senators worked out of the Dirksen building, including Alex Sherwood, who’d occupied a suite of fourth-floor offices befitting his seniority and influence. The building was named for the long-serving senator from Illinois, Everett Dirksen, who died in the late 1960s when Danny was still a teenager. Dirksen had been noted for his witticisms, one of which had worked its way into Danny’s personal mantra. I’m a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.
Damn right.
Like now.
His swearing-in had probably caught every member of Alex’s staff off guard. They suddenly had a new boss. And not just any boss. An ex-president of the United States, who surely possessed his own inner circle of confidants that did not include them. So as he walked off the elevator on the fourth floor and made his way down the long, gleaming corridor, he told himself to be extra flexible.
He’d made a quick call to the hospital and was told by the Magellan Billet agent that there’d been no change. Stephanie was stable but still out. He’d head back over there in a few hours. But he’d told the agent to call the second anything changed.
At the end of the corridor a simple bronze plaque announced: SENATOR ALEX SHERWOOD—TENNESSEE. Sadly, that would have to be changed. But maybe not. Perhaps he’d leave it right there as a tribute to his friend. That was another thing about being an ex-president.
Accolades mattered little anymore.
He entered through an open door, flanked on either side by flags, one of the United States, the other Tennessee. There was no knob to turn. Instead, the door hung wide open. The message clear. We’re here to serve. Come on in.
Inside opened to a comfortable reception area and he immediately noticed the wall to his left, which displayed from top to bottom tools, fiddles, guitars, and other Tennessee memorabilia, all mounted atop aged pine planks that left no doubt which part of the country this office called home.
A young lady sat at a desk.