“He found something.”
Winters felt his heartbeat quicken. He’d hoped this wasn’t some elaborate hoax by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. He’d prayed that he was right about Meriwether Lewis, that the explorer had found something important, something powerful on his journey to the Pacific. Even with all the evidence, the letters, the things he’d seen, Winters wasn’t sure. Now he knew. Now there was proof.
“What is it?” he asked with suppressed excitement.
“I’m not sure, sir. The guy I put on his tail couldn’t get close enough to get a good view, but it looked like gold.”
“Gold?” That was interesting. Why would Captain Lewis hide a piece of gold out in the middle of the wilderness of North Dakota? And what possible connection could it have to whatever the man had found out west?
“Yes, sir. That’s what my operative said. Not like a chunk, though. It appeared to be honed, crafted into a shape. My guy only caught a short glimpse of it. Then Wyatt looked around. He said he had to stay hidden. Apparently, Wyatt was on edge.”
“For good reason. The entire FBI is looking for him.”
“True.”
“How big was this piece of gold?” Winters pressed the issue, his curiosity spiking.
“Not big,” Boyd answered. “He was able to fit it into his coat pocket.”
This was good news. If Wyatt had found the first key, that meant they were a third of the way there. It was going to be close. The FBI was on Wyatt’s trail, which was part of the plan but also presented another potential issue. If Wyatt were caught and arrested, that would slow things down. Sure, Winters could order his men not to do anything to Dawkins, but what would that accomplish? Winters needed Wyatt in the field.
“Your man with the FBI investigation,” Winters said, diverting the conversation to another concern, “what is he saying?”
“They’re close but not that close. Apparently, Wyatt stopped a robbery at a diner late last night, early this morning.”
“Stopped a robbery?” That was interesting. Winters didn’t see how that had anything to do with trying to find the key.
“Yeah. Seems he was there for a late-night bite to eat and ended up taking down three punks who were trying to knock off the till."
“Do the witnesses know anything?”
“Doesn’t sound like it. The waitress didn’t tell Petty anything helpful, so I doubt any of those people realize who he was.”
“Quite the hero, Sean Wyatt.” Winters let the words hang in his asset’s ear for a moment. He knew very well how much Boyd hated Sean Wyatt.
“He’s no hero,” Boyd said, the venom dripping from his voice. Winters imagined the man clenching his jaw and gritting his teeth at the mere mention of the name. “He’s a suck-up, and he’s going to get what’s coming to him.”
“I know,” Winters said. “Soon. I promise. But we need him alive right now, and we also need him not in jail, so make sure your guy in the agency keeps that hound Petty from getting too close.”
“It’s a tricky game you’re trying to play, Admiral. Lot of moving parts, all dangling from one puppet master.”
Winters didn’t need to be told what he was doing. He knew the risks, knew the difficulty of an operation of this scale. Then again, the cliché claimed that the best things in life weren’t free or easy. He didn’t need stupid sayings to realize that. He’d fashioned himself into one of the most powerful men in the country, a personal adviser to the president and a revered commander in the United States Navy. Winters understood the risks, and he anticipated the rewards that would come from taking them.
“Keep on it,” Winters said.
“Yes, sir.”
Winters was about to end the conversation when another question popped into his mind. “How is the hostage?”
He didn’t dare say the name over the phone. Even though there were no taps connected to his line; he’d checked again earlier that day as he knew that the NSA could always be listening. They had a file on every single citizen in the United States and all of the non-citizens—especially the non-citizens. There were bugs, video feeds, and endless streams of digital information going straight to NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. Winters wasn’t going to give them a layup just in case they happened to be listening to his conversation.
“He’s doing fine,” Boyd said. “Stubborn, wouldn’t eat at first, but I knew the hunger would get him eventually. I tried to tell him this would all be over soon, but he won’t say a word.”
“Good,” Winters said. “Better he keep his mouth shut. He ran it enough when he was in politics. The world could use a little silence out of him.”
Winters harbored resentment toward the former president despite the fact he’d worked for the man for eight years. They’d disagreed on several issues, one being an attack plan Winters had suggested for a situation in Somalia.
The United States had avoided direct conflict with that coastal African nation since the 1990s, but a rise in terrorist activities and a potential cell forming in Mogadishu gave Winters cause for concern. He’d wanted to wipe half the city off the map, citing that most of the people who lived in those parts weren’t innocent and the few that were could be written off as collateral damage. Dawkins had ignored the notion and come up with a more clandestine way to handle the situation.
The president, of course, had been proved correct, but that didn’t stop Winters from believing his plan had been the best path to take.
That was one of several instances where he and the president clashed. Now, the retired politician would have to keep his mouth shut, locked away in the mountains of Washington State until his friend Sean Wyatt either came through and found a relic of immense power—or until he failed and Dawkins had to be executed.
Winters knew that the execution was a foregone conclusion, but Wyatt could prolong his friend’s life for a while by tracking down the artifact.
“Anything else, sir?” Boyd asked, cutting the silence with a razor-sharp tone.
“No, that’s all for now. Carry on and please let me know when you have another update. If Wyatt found the first key, that means he’s on his way to the second, wherever that is.”
“My guy said he’s heading west, sir, which makes sense.”
“He’s taking the route Lewis and Clark took, going toward the Pacific.”
“Looks that way.”
“Excellent. Let me know when he finds the second key.”
“Yes, sir.”
Winters hung up the phone and leaned back in his leather chair. A lamp next to the end table to his right cast a yellowish glow over the room. He stared at the bookshelf across from him, volumes filling every shelf to the point of bursting. His eyes fell to one particular book, an older one with a dusty and worn black cover. It was the book that was responsible for this entire mission, the one that had caused him to believe in the powerful artifact he knew deep down Meriwether Lewis had discovered.
Soon, he thought, he would have the power to command the seas. Then no president or king or prime minister anywhere in the world would be able to stop the might of the United States military.
26
Boise, Idaho
Emily’s phone rang in her SUV. She glanced at the number on the console but didn’t recognize it. That seemed to be the case now and then in her line of work. Her operatives used numerous phones and other mobile devices as a means of contacting her when they were in the field on assignment. Ignoring the call wasn’t an option. It could have been one of her agents in need of help. Besides, no one had that number but people she trusted.
She rubbed her temples with her forefingers and stared at the phone. Next to it was a sheet of paper with a list of two dozen names. She’d marked through most of them, none of the leads coming up with anything useful in her desperate hunt to find the man she loved, John Dawkins.
Emily sighed and picked up the receiver. “Hello. This is Director Starks.”
“Em, don’t say my name.”
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine. And…I’m not alone now.”
“In a good way?”
“With a friend.”
She understood. “Don’t tell me where you are.”
“I wasn’t going to.” She could almost see the wry grin on his face and the twinkle in his eye as he said the words with just enough sass to make her arch an eyebrow. “We’re on the right track, though. What about you? You okay? Any leads?”
“I’m…” Her voice cracked for a moment. Emily Starks was one of the strongest women Sean had ever met. They’d been friends ever since he’d joined Axis, and in the years since he’d left. He trusted her implicitly. And she trusted him. Sean had never really heard her break down, and it made him feel awkward for a moment. She was a rock, and now that rock was crumbling a little.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s just…it’s hard.”
“I know,” Sean said. The smart-aleck nature he clung to nearly all the time was let go, replaced by a deep sincerity few knew he possessed. “But we’re going to find him. You know that, right? He’s fine. I’m sure of it.”
“Have you heard from the people who did this?”
“Not since the other day,” he admitted. “But we…we found something.”
A spear of hope shot up through her chest. “What? What did you find?”
“These guys, they have us searching for something, something they thought Lewis and Clark discovered on their expedition over two hundred years ago. I don’t know what it is or what they’re planning to do with it, but there are three keys according to a letter from James Madison.”
“Madison?” She played along, not letting on that she already knew about the letter. Sean didn’t need to know that she was, as they spoke, on her way to find him.
She was well aware of what his reaction would be. He’d tell her to stay in Atlanta, to do her job, that he and Tommy were on the case, and that they’d figure out where John was and bring him back safely. She was fine letting him think that. Sean was good, but even he needed help now and then, often when he didn’t realize it.
“Yeah. It’s a long story. My point is we’re on the trail. Okay? And when we find this thing, whatever it is, I’m going to use it to get our friend back. Okay?” He was careful not to mention names in their conversation.
Tears blurred her vision, and she fought hard not to let them out. Her right foot slipped off the gas pedal, and she allowed the SUV to slow for a moment. There was no one behind her on the lonely road, no other irritated drivers to honk at her and flash angry gestures her way. One tear managed to slip past her defenses and roll down her cheek. Emily knew Sean was doing his best. He’d been put in a difficult situation with this mess. That reminded her of something she’d been wanting to tell him, but without a way to reach him there was no means.
“Still there?”
“Yeah. I’m still here.” She stepped on the gas again and accelerated, getting the vehicle back up to a couple of miles per hour over the speed limit.
Emily had to give Sean the heads-up about what she’d learned. She always had her ear to the rails, constantly listening for what was going on in her often-corrupt world of government work. Now, instead of corruption, she was doing her best to stay ahead of the storm, a storm by the name of Matthew Petty. She’d heard of Petty, met him once during a briefing. She knew about his slow climb to prominence in the bureau and actually had a great deal of respect for him. He’d done things the right way and, as far as she knew, was a good person. The problem was he was also a bloodhound and would do whatever it took to bring Sean in, whether he was innocent or not. For the time being, Petty didn’t know that Sean was innocent, he—like everyone else—believed Sean Wyatt was the one who’d taken Dawkins and was holding him for an as-yet unrequested ransom.
“There’s a group, an agency. You know who they are. They’re the ones looking for you.”
He knew she was talking about the FBI, though it was possible more organizations had joined what was definitely a nationwide manhunt now.
“They went to the diner.”
The phone went silent for a moment. Emily had no way of knowing where Sean was now, but she took his silence to mean that the Feds were close, maybe closer than he expected.
“Did you take down three kids there?”
“They weren’t kids,” Sean defended. “They were in their twenties, early twenties, I guess. They knew what they were doing.”
“It was a robbery. I know.”
“I couldn’t just let them knock the place off. Not to mention I had a bad feeling about one of them, like he was going to shoot someone just for the fun of it.”
“I understand, I do, but you have to be careful. If you are recognized…you’ll be arrested. Once that happens, especially if it’s the Feds, I don’t know if I can help you.”
“What about…” He hesitated to say it.
“What?”
“What about Gwen? Do you think she could help out?”
Emily had considered calling the current president for help, but she was out of contact at the moment attending a world leadership summit in Belgium. Not that it mattered. Even with all the strings she could pull, Gwen McCarthy was smart enough not to get involved with an ongoing investigation, no matter how much she may have trusted Sean.
Then there was the fact that Emily couldn’t use her position to tamper with a manhunt of this magnitude. She had to play this one very carefully, deploying her talents as best she could while walking a tightrope with the other agencies and the politicians in Washington.
“No,” she admitted. “Not yet. She’s out of the country. Besides, I don’t know what she could do. If she issued some kind of pardon or whatever it would be, that might only make her look suspicious. I’m sorry, but for now it looks like you’re on your own.”
“It’s okay,” Sean said. “I understand.” He did and she knew it. He’d been around long enough to know how things worked, especially in Washington. The way that town operated was one of the reasons she’d requested to move her agency to Atlanta.
“I’ll keep my eyes and ears open. And if there’s a chance to…leak a little information here and there, I’ll see what I can do.”
Sean appreciated the offer. A little misinformation could help them out, but he didn’t want her to risk it. “No. Lie low on this one. I don’t want you to get involved, not to the point where you could get into trouble. I’ll call you again when I have more information. Hopefully, we’ll be at our next destination by tomorrow.”
“Where are you going?” She shifted the phone on her ear. Her face scrunched with a questioning expression.
“We don’t know yet. But we will soon.”
The call went dead, and Emily glanced at the console, wondering if she’d lost connection or if Sean had ended the call on purpose. She figured it was the latter. There were snow flurries fluttering around in the icy air beyond the windshield. Visibility was still decent, but it could get worse at any moment. She glanced down at the speedometer and increased her speed by a few more miles per hour. If the roads ahead got frozen over, she could slow down, but right now it seemed like everything was fine. She’d have to be careful, watchful, but she was making good time and quickly closing the gap.
She stared at the phone sitting in the passenger seat for another couple of seconds before setting her gaze on the road ahead. The dams holding back the tears broke, and Emily wept. She pulled the car over for a moment and lowered her face into her hands, saying a silent prayer that Sean would succeed and that John Dawkins would be okay.
27
Montana
Sean’s eyes remained locked on the road ahead. There was nothing to either side, behind, or in front of them.
Tommy looked over at him for the hundredth time since leaving
Bismarck and asked if his friend was okay.
Sean said that he was. “I’ll let you know when I need a break or when we should stop for the night. I’d like to see how far we can get.”
They’d left Tommy’s vehicle at the University of Mary, a small Catholic college on the outskirts of the city. It was obscure enough that no one would think to look there, but also populated enough that one more car would go unnoticed by any of the student body or campus cops.
The two friends had crossed over the border into Montana earlier that evening. Sean and Tommy both figured that was the correct route, though the destination was still in question, as was the final location they’d have to visit to learn the truth about the Madison letter and what the deceased president, and Meriwether Lewis, were hiding.
They’d analyzed the clue for the last couple of hours but still hadn’t come up with a solution. Cell service was spotty, even with the most reliable carrier in the nation. Tommy had conducted a few internet searches during the fleeting moments when he had service, but nothing had come up. There was one possibility, however, that had continued to linger in his mind.
It was getting close to 9:00 p.m. local time when the two rolled into the city of Billings. Sean rubbed his eyes and refocused.
“Let’s stop here and get something to eat,” Tommy said. “I’m hungry.”
Sean nodded. “Good call.”
He kept driving until he saw an exit with several eatery options on the blue highway sign to the right. Figuring one of those would do, Sean exited the interstate and took a right off-ramp, turning into a burger joint on the side of the road.
He parked the car and the two got out. As they made their way inside, Sean kept a close eye on their surroundings. There were a few other cars getting off the interstate. One went left, and two went right and passed the fast food place, disappearing down the road a few seconds later.
He held the door open for Tommy and, satisfied there was no one watching, followed him in.
The Omega Project Page 21