The Joshua Stone

by James Barney

  Malachi lit a cigarette and looked around in all directions. Vehicular traffic on Constitution Avenue was extremely light, and the sidewalks on both sides of the wide avenue were entirely empty. Across Constitution Avenue, the Washington Monument rose high into the sky, nearly poking into the swirling storm clouds overhead. Malachi considered the monument for a moment, intrigued by its pagan significance. A white Egyptianesque obelisk keeping constant watch over the nation’s capital. Then he turned his attention back to the wide expanse of grass to his right: the Ellipse—formally called President’s Park—a large, oval park situated between the south side of the White House and Constitution Avenue. He took a long drag of his cigarette and held the smoke in his lungs. This felt right. The Ellipse, the White House, the flaming sword.

  Finally, it was all coming together.

  Malachi blew out a stream of smoke and tossed his cigarette to the ground. Then, looking all around and seeing no one on the sidewalk or in the park, he quickly made his way to the granite memorial that housed the giant, flaming sword of gold that had caught his attention from the road. Below the sword were three large words, deeply inscribed in granite and highlighted in gold leaf:

  To Our Dead

  Malachi recognized this as the Second Division Memorial, honoring members of the Second U.S. Infantry Division who died in World War I, World War II, and Korea.

  He’d been here before.

  Standing alone a few feet from the steps of the memorial, he carefully studied its unusual layout. The main portion of the monument was constructed of thick granite slabs, arranged so as to leave a large rectangular opening resembling a doorway in the middle. Beyond this open doorway were the manicured grounds of the Ellipse and the White House. But the doorway itself was blocked . . . by the giant, flaming sword held aloft by a disembodied hand. The sword and the hand were covered in bright gold leaf, making them stand out brilliantly against the somber granite backdrop of the memorial. It was a stunning visual effect, meant to reflect the Second Division’s bravery in repelling the German army during World War I. Yet Malachi knew there was a deeper significance to this flaming sword. It took a few minutes, but it finally came to him in the form of a Bible verse:

  So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

  This verse was from the book of Genesis, just after Adam and Eve had been cast out of the Garden of Eden for eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge. As Malachi now recalled, the flaming sword was put in place by God to protect the Garden of Eden from further trespass by man.

  Man had taken enough from the garden.

  Malachi now gazed north beyond the flaming sword. He could just barely see the top of the White House in the distance. An American flag on the roof was waving furiously in the stiff morning breeze. Was that his destination?

  Still uncertain about his final plan, Malachi ventured onward toward the White House. He walked with both hands in his pockets, chin down against the wind, virtually alone on the Ellipse at this early hour. Gradually, he followed the Ellipse road to the right until he found himself on Fifteenth Street, heading north. This street was a bit busier than the Ellipse, though still generally free of pedestrian traffic. As he walked, Malachi thought about the note that had been left for him in Thurmond, which he still had not entirely solved. Go to the “Third Church,” it had instructed. And ask for “Qaset.”

  Malachi mulled over these instructions as he walked steadily up Fifteenth Street. Was the White House the Third Church? And if so, who was Qaset?

  Malachi still had not solved these questions when he passed by a guard shack at Fifteenth and Pennsylvania Avenue, one of the main access points to the White House grounds. On instinct, he stopped and stared. He was now under the watchful gaze of two armed Secret Service agents inside the guard shack, just a few feet away. Malachi turned and approached the men.

  “Can I help you?” asked one of the armed guards, a tall man in a white-and-black uniform.

  Malachi became acutely aware of the pistol in his coat pocket. This will end badly if I make a mistake, he realized. He was also keenly aware that his appearance probably made him seem very suspicious to these guards. He was a middle-aged man in filthy clothes, with a three-day-old beard and badly trimmed hair. And this was the White House—home of the most powerful man in the world. Be careful, he told himself.

  “Sir?” said the guard with growing concern in his voice.

  “Um, yes,” Malachi replied. “Could you tell me where I can find Qaset?”

  The guard looked confused. “Cassette? Is that what you said?”

  “No. Qaset with a Q.” Malachi spelled the word out: “Q-A-S-E-T.”

  The two guards looked at each other and shrugged. “Sir, I suggest you try the White House Visitor Center.” The tall guard pointed to his right. “It’s at Fifteenth and E, and it opens at seven thirty. They should be able to answer all your questions.”

  Malachi thanked the guard and quickly turned away. He’d pushed his luck far enough with these men. As he started to stroll in the direction of the visitor center, however, something suddenly clicked in his mind. Something the guard had said. He immediately stopped in this tracks, paused, and reversed direction.

  He’d been wrong all along. The Third Church was not the White House. But now he knew exactly where it was.

  “Where’s he going?” asked Mike Califano over the wireless radio. He was standing half a block away, in front of the Willard Hotel, watching every move Malachi made.

  “The guards just directed him south,” said Ana through her concealed microphone. “Probably to the visitor center.” She was standing about fifty yards south on Fifteenth Street, between Pennsylvania and H. “Wait,” she said. “He just turned around. Now he’s heading north on Fifteenth. Mike, you got him?”

  “I see him,” said Califano.

  Suddenly, Bill McCreary’s voice came on the line. He was monitoring the entire operation from his office in Langley. “Stay with him,” he warned. “But don’t engage just yet. Let’s see where he goes.”

  Malachi walked briskly north on Fifteenth Street, then turned left onto the wide walking street that runs behind the White House. When he reached a point adjacent to the north lawn of the White House, he quickly turned right and entered Lafayette Square Park.

  “Got him?” asked Califano over the radio.

  “Yep,” replied Ana. She was about thirty yards behind Malachi, walking nonchalantly and gazing in all directions like a tourist on an early morning stroll to see the White House. “He’s in the park now,” she said quietly over the radio. “Heading north.”

  Malachi picked up his pace as he followed the redbrick walkways through Lafayette Park. He rounded the circular fence surrounding the Jackson memorial and paused for a moment, taking in the sight of General Andrew Jackson in full military regalia striking a majestic pose atop a rearing warhorse during the Battle of New Orleans. Magnificent, he thought. He was just about to turn when he noticed a woman at the edge of the park near the White House. Was that the same woman he’d seen back on Fifteenth Street? He considered that possibility for a few seconds, carefully studying her clothes and body type. Finally, he dismissed it. The Third Church beckoned.

  And he was close.

  “Shit, I think he saw me,” said Ana in a hushed tone over the radio. “He’s out of the park now. Just crossed H Street, and he’s heading north on Sixteenth.”

  “Yeah, I see him,” said Califano, who had just arrived at the northeast corner of Lafayette Square. “Fall back so he doesn’t spot you again. I’ll close in from here.” Califano picked up his pace and walked briskly toward the corner of Sixteenth and H. To a casual observer, he looked like a lobbyist or diplomat, perhaps late for a Sunday power breakfast at the Hay-Adams. “Where the hell’s he going?” he whispered into his microphone.

  “I don’t know,” said Ana, who was still linge
ring at the south end of the park.

  McCreary’s voice cut in again. “Remember, stay close. But don’t engage until we see where he’s going.”

  Malachi walked by the pale yellow church on the corner of Sixteenth and H and paused for a moment to admire its simple, Greek Revivalist design. He recognized this as St. John’s Episcopal Church, where every U.S. president since James Madison had attended services at least once. At the front of the church, six white columns supported an exquisitely proportioned triangular pediment. The steeple consisted of a three-tiered angular structure culminating in a gold-leafed dome topped by a weather vane. There was no cross atop this “church of presidents.”

  Malachi turned and continued northward on Sixteenth Street. Past the Hay-Adams hotel with its stately columns and ornate Renaissance architecture. Past the AFL-CIO headquarters—a sleek, modern study in limestone and rectangles. Past the pricey apartments at the corner of Sixteenth and I Streets, a frequent home away from home for diplomats and powerful lobbyists.

  Malachi stopped abruptly on the southwest corner of Sixteenth and I Streets and glanced quickly behind him. Was he being followed? He scanned the entire block that he’d just traveled, searching especially for the blond woman he’d seen in the park a few minutes earlier. But she was gone. He spotted a man in a tan overcoat who appeared to be making his way hastily toward the Hay-Adams hotel. Two doormen in top hats and tails in front of the hotel were preparing to greet him. Nothing out of the ordinary, Malachi decided.

  He now turned his gaze across the intersection, and his pulse suddenly quickened.

  He had arrived.

  In a flurry, he reached into his pocket and extracted the cream-colored sheet of stationery that he’d retrieved from the buried canister in Thurmond. He unfolded it and reviewed the unusal cryptogram that had been baffling him for days:

  This was it. He looked across the street at the building that was located precisely between Sixteenth and Seventeenth Streets and K and I Streets. He now recalled that Washington, D.C., has no J Street because, in the eighteenth century, the letters I and J were considered redundant, or at least confusingly similar. In any event, the building he was now staring at was located almost precisely where the octagon was on his sheet of stationery. He looked down again at the cryptogram, marveling at its clever simplicity. Then, once again, he looked up and gazed upon what was arguably the most controversial and enigmatic building in the entire city of Washington, D.C. An octagonal concrete bunker with no apparent windows or doors.

  “The Third Church,” he said quietly to himself.

  35

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Malachi carefully studied the iconic building at 910 Sixteenth Street, just two blocks from the White House. The unusual building was constructed entirely of exposed concrete and was shaped like a tall, octagonal prism, with a flat roof and no windows or doors facing the street. From Malachi’s vantage point at the corner of Sixteenth and I, the building looked like a bunker from the Cold War era—drab and imposing, almost menacing in its appearance.

  And this was not by accident.

  The octagonal building at 910 Sixteenth Street was, in fact, a veritable monument to the Brutalist school of architecture, a harsh style that had flourished in this city in the late 1960s before dying a quick, and largely unmourned, death. As an architectural philosophy, Brutalism sprang from a socialist, utopian view of the world. Regimented, domineering, downright totalitarian in form, Brutalism envisioned an urban society of complacent workers and residents, all neatly compartmentalized into low-cost, über-efficient fabrications of unadorned functionality. The concept of Brutalism was to dominate the urban landscape, forcing residents to conform to a new, progressive way of living: modern, functional, supremely efficient, and, above all, intelligently designed.

  The result of this style, however, was anything but utopian. The naked concrete exteriors weathered poorly, turning ugly over time. The tall, fortresslike walls attracted graffiti, and their shadowy angles provided sanctuary for junkies, vagabonds, and criminals, eventually transforming many Brutalist-inspired neighborhoods into urban combat zones.

  As Malachi knew, the Brutalist prism at 910 Sixteenth Street was not an apartment building or a residential project of any kind. Nor was it an office building, a library, a post office, or any other sort of government building. Instead, this structure had a much different purpose—one that most people found astonishing given the building’s stolid appearance.

  On one side of the octagonal structure, a large square slab of concrete jutted out perpendicularly about ten feet, as if an entire piece of the building had been pulled out by force and left to dangle precariously above the brick walkway below, supported only by one vertical edge. Affixed to this giant slab of concrete were twenty bronze bells.

  Malachi crossed the intersection at Sixteenth and K and continued north on Sixteenth Street until he could read the full message that was written along the east side of the building. The words were formed by large black metal letters, bolted directly to the building’s concrete facade. They read:

  Third Church of Christ, Scientist

  “The Third Church,” Malachi whispered. His heart began racing as he realized, without a doubt, that this was his destination. Here he would fulfill his destiny.

  He also knew that he’d been here before . . . with her. Although, judging from the condition of the building, his last visit must have been many, many years ago. He gazed up at the building’s windowless facade, which loomed high above Sixteenth Street, and noted that the concrete was badly stained at the top. Long, triangular splotches streaked down like tears along the sides of the building, the result of decades of dirty storm runoff from the building’s flat, and poorly conceived, octagonal roof. Malachi could remember distinctly when the concrete walls of this building were sleek and clean, its walkways flat and weed free, its twenty bronze bells gleaming brilliantly in the sun. Now, those same bells were black with grime, and the entire building seemed dingy and neglected. What happened to this place?

  Malachi continued farther up Sixteenth Street until he was able to turn left into the church’s courtyard. Like the rest of this austere building, the courtyard was stark and angular, paved nearly entirely with bricks except for a few soft planting areas along the sides and a single leafless tree in the middle. The landscape was minimalist to the extreme, bordering on harsh.

  Malachi passed through the courtyard and slowly approached the wide, rectangular entryway adjoining the courtyard, on the east side of the building. Above the entryway was the building’s sole window, with nearly the same rectangular dimensions as the entryway. He glanced all around the courtyard and confirmed that he was still alone. Then, just as he was about to enter the building, he paused and took note of the date that was pressed deeply into the concrete wall near the entryway: 1970. The year of the building’s completion.

  Malachi repeated this in his mind, 1970. When everything was new. He took one last look around the courtyard. Then he quickly entered the building through one of the tinted glass doors and disappeared inside.

  “He’s inside the building,” said Mike Califano, who had been observing Malachi from across Sixteenth Street. His words were broadcast via secure satellite radio to Ana Thorne, who was a few blocks south, and to Bill McCreary at CIA headquarters.

  “What building?” asked McCreary, who was still struggling to keep track of this operation from his office.

  “Nine ten Sixteenth Street, Northwest,” said Califano quickly. “It’s the Third Church of Christ, Scientist. Can you tell us anything about it?”

  “Stand by,” said McCreary. Back at CIA headquarters, he and Steve Goodwin began furiously looking up information about the address.

  “Mike, where are you?” asked Ana over the radio.

  “Just crossing Sixteenth Street, heading into the courtyard behind the building. Where are you?”

  “Southwest corner of Seventeenth and I,” said Ana. She paused for a moment. “
Hey, I think I can get to the courtyard from here. I see an alleyway across the street. I’m heading there now.” Ana terminated her transmission and quickly crossed over I Street and made her way to what appeared to be a narrow passage that ran along the west side of the octagonal church.

  “You’re correct,” said McCreary a few seconds later, his voice crackling over the radio. In his office at Langley, he was already looking at a detailed satellite image of the church on his computer screen. “The alleyway goes straight through to the courtyard.”

  Ana entered the dark alleyway on I Street and was immediately struck by the smell of urine and human filth. “Jesus,” she whispered, shaking her head. Apparently, this alley was popular with the homeless. And she could see why. It was nearly covered along its entire length by a concrete overhang with long strands of vegetation hanging down from above. Perfect shelter. Because of this odd feature, the gray sky was visible only through a narrow slit between the overhanging planter and the west side of the octagonal building. Strange design, Ana thought as she quickly made her way through the tunnel-like passage toward the courtyard on the other side.

  As she neared the end of the passageway, she could see more of the sparse courtyard as it gradually came into view. She saw a leafless tree in the center, surrounded by a large expanse of uneven brick pavers. She saw several concrete benches near the planting areas. But one thing she did not see was Mike Califano.

  “Hey, I’m coming up on the courtyard now,” said Ana through her concealed microphone. “Where are you?” Those words had no sooner left her lips than she sensed a commotion in the vegetation above her head. At first, she thought it was a rat or some other urban animal. But it wasn’t.

  A man dropped through the narrow opening above the alleyway without warning, landing a few feet in front of her with impressive acrobatic skill. He wore a black ski mask pulled over his face and carried a suppressor-enhanced pistol in one hand, which he was now leveling at her chest.