He picked up her gun and pointed it at her head as she slowly rose on all fours.
"You broke my fucking wrist, Conrad," she said.
He dug the barrel of the gun into her temple. "Why do the monuments line up with the stars tomorrow, Brooke? Why now? Why 2008?"
"Something about the transit of Venus or something."
Conrad knew the transit of Venus-when Venus crossed the path of the sun to the naked eye on Earth-came once every couple of hundred years. But when the transit came, it came in pairs-eight years apart. As it happened, the world was in the middle of such a transit. The first crossed the sun in 2004, the year he and Serena had their adventure in Antarctica. The next transit was due in 2012. There wasn't anything scientifically significant about such a conjunction, but it held great meaning to the ancients.
"We're between the two transits, Brooke. Why 2008?"
"Something about solar years and the number 225. It's all Alignment esoterica. I'm not at that level."
But Conrad was. The planet Venus takes about 225 Earth days, or about 7Ѕ months, to go around the sun. At the same time, Venus took more than 243 Earth days to turn on its own axis, making its days longer than its years. Conrad subtracted 225 from the current year, 2008, and came up with 1783.
"Newburgh," he said, recalling the coup attempt Washington allegedly quelled in 1783 at his final winter encampment. "It has something to do with Newburgh."
"I don't know!" Brooke screamed.
He kept pressing her. "What's the connection to my family, Brooke? What did Robert Yates have to do with it? Was he responsible for this?"
Brooke bared her teeth. "He was nobody, Conrad, a side note to history like you want to be. He was the goddamn lawyer."
Conrad paused. "For what?"
Brooke rammed her head into his, and with a scream lunged for the gun in his hand. Caught off-balance, Conrad fell back and brought the butt of the gun down on the back of Brooke's head, knocking her out.
With a heave he pushed her body off him and dragged it to the bed. He then tied her hands to the posts, spread-eagled, as she came to.
"What's going to happen tomorrow, Brooke?"
"I don't know," she moaned. "Only that the Alignment is going to make it happen."
"Not good enough." He tightened the knot around her broken wrist until she winced in agony.
"I'm just trying to save your life!" she cried.
"Funny way of showing it," he said, waving her gun in her face. "Now, for the last time, what's going down tomorrow?"
Her voice, when she finally spoke, had a dead tone. "Max is going to release a weaponized bird flu contagion."
Conrad stared at her. "Where?"
"Somewhere on the Mall, I don't know. But it's got a 28-day incubation inhibitor so that it won't jump human-to-human until August 1. Everyone will assume it originated at the Olympic Games in Beijing."
"So Seavers kills a billion Chinese," Conrad said. "What happens to all the Americans who get saved with his vaccine?"
"You know that, thanks to Congressional gerrymandering, there are only seventeen competitive districts left in America that can swing a national election. Undesirables, including representatives, get their vaccines turned off and die. By the time the voters elect replacement officials-Alignment types-it's too late. A democratically elected coup."
"And this thing from Newburgh is their moral, if not legal justification."
"Oh, God, I loved you, Conrad."
He gagged Brooke and left her writhing on the bed as he placed the gun on the dresser and walked to the door. He slowly opened it and looked down the hallway just as the ding of the elevator sounded.
He quickly walked across the hall and knocked on the second door to the right. It was Meredith from Texas who answered. "Harold, it's Pastor Jim!"
Harold was in the bathroom, vomiting up his dinner.
"May I come in?" Conrad said, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. As he did, he looked out the peephole and saw Max Seavers walking toward his room.
37
THE ELITE CLUB ROOM on the tenth floor of the Hilton was on the same level as Conrad's room, but Serena felt a world away. What she had hoped to be a brief meet-and-greet after the media dinner had stretched into the early hours of the next morning. It was against her nature to not sympathize with and pray for those in need, whatever their station in life. And it was also the perfect alibi for her whereabouts during those hours between the media dinner and the prayer breakfast.
A Hollywood producer was confessing to her that his reason for attending the Presidential Prayer Breakfast was to meet well-heeled "Christian coin" to fund "family movies" to cover his alimony payments and cocaine habits. As he spoke in hushed tones, she couldn't help but steal glances at the large flat-panel TV screen on the wall flashing pictures of Conrad and the swarm of police outside the Library of Congress. The dateline flashed July 3, 2008, across the screen, and it was clear the story was going to dominate the morning news shows in an hour or so. This was what America was going to wake up to.
Dear Lord, she prayed, I hope he's OK.
Her iPhone vibrated and she looked down to see a text message from Benito that Conrad had made it to his room and had called the hotel's room service. Serena let out a low sigh of relief. She wanted to bolt right then, and struggled to maintain a calm expression before this reprobate of a producer who saw American Christians not as a flock to be fed but a market demographic to be fleeced. His "career," it seemed, consisted almost entirely of living off other people while he indulged his talent for making box office flops.
That moment a concierge walked over to tell her that there was a gentleman outside the club lounge who would like to see her. Could Conrad really be that stupid and have left his room? She casually stood up and politely excused herself, pausing only to shake a few hands on her way out.
Max Seavers was waiting for her in the foyer, along with two Secret Service agents.
"What did you do to your finger, Max?" she said, trying to hide her alarm. "And is that a gash on your forehead?"
"Follow me," he said sternly.
He led her down the hallway to the third door on the left-the room she had reserved for Conrad. She tensed up.
The game's up, girl.
The door was open and two more Secret Service agents were inside. But she couldn't see Conrad.
Only Brooke Scarborough, tied to the bed, spread-eagled, a bullet hole in her head.
Oh, my God, she thought with a shudder. Conrad, what have you done?
"I'm sorry you had to see this, Sister Serghetti, but I need to ask you if you've seen Conrad Yeats at the hotel."
"No," she said, still staring at Brooke. "What does he have to do with this?"
"He's a wanted man," Seavers said. "This was his room. He checked in under the alias Carl Anderson. I thought you might know something."
"I don't."
Seavers turned to the Secret Service agents. "Not a word to Senator Scarborough or anybody until after the prayer breakfast," he ordered. "We have a killer on the loose. We don't want to give him a heads-up that we're onto him by creating any unusual disruptions. Seal off the room and post two security guards outside the door. I want room-to-room sweeps during the breakfast while everybody is downstairs in the ballroom. This killer isn't getting out of this building."
The lead special agent nodded. "Yes, sir."
Seavers took her by the arm and escorted her out the door.
"Where are you taking me, Max?"
"Somewhere safe," he told her. "There's no telling what this maniac might do."
He led her down the hallway to a service closet that turned out to be an express service elevator. It linked the small kitchen of the 10th-floor club room to the hotel's main kitchen on the ballroom level. They took it all the way down and emerged in the service corridor between the back of the ballroom stage and the main kitchen.
Waiting for them were six Secret Service agents, who instantly form
ed a protective ring around them.
They turned down another hallway behind the back of the ballroom, a curving corridor with wood-paneled walls and portraits of every president and first lady since George Washington. Step by step they passed through succeeding epochs of administrations until they came to the portraits of the sitting American president and his wife and then a small, unmarked door.
Inside was a special VIP room with red carpets and gold walls that reminded Serena of a funeral parlor. The president's advance Secret Service detail was there. So, too, were Secretary Packard, Senator Scarborough, and several Chinese officials, all awaiting the president.
"Sister Serghetti," said Packard. "You know Senator Scarborough."
She was caught off guard but smiled and shook the hand of the father of the dead woman she had just seen. "How are you, Senator?"
"On behalf of the Presidential Prayer Breakfast, I'd like to personally thank you for offering up the opening prayer."
"The honor is mine, Mr. Senator."
"And this is Mr. Ling, China's top Olympics ambassador. Max Seavers is going to show him and all the Olympics delegates some real fireworks tomorrow on the Fourth."
Mr. Ling was all smiles. "I told my wife I was going to see the Fourth of July from the ultimate skybox-the observation deck of the Washington Monument. She didn't believe me."
Senator Scarborough looked at his watch. "Well, Mr. Ling and I have to get backstage. Sister Serghetti, you simply walk out when Bono is finished performing and open the breakfast in prayer. The rest of the program will take care of itself."
Serena nodded. "Yes, Mr. Senator, thank you."
She watched Scarborough leave with Ling and two Secret Service agents. It was just her, Seavers, and a glaring Packard in the room now, along with the president's personal advance team.
"What the hell is going on, Seavers?" Packard burst out.
"We found the body of Senator Scarborough's daughter in a room checked out to Yeats. Yeats murdered her."
"God Almighty!" Packard said. "This is a nightmare!"
"I don't believe Dr. Yeats murdered Ms. Scarborough," Serena said quickly. "Not for one second. Dr. Yeats is an American patriot of the first order and comes from a family of patriots. I also know he had feelings for her and would never kill without just cause."
Packard looked at Max Seavers. "What's Yeats doing here at the Washington Hilton of all places, anyway?"
Seavers said, "We believe his primary target is the president, sir."
"What!" Serena cried. "You can't be serious."
She was astounded, considering his relationship with Conrad, that Packard seemed to think it plausible.
"I suggest you mass e-mail a photo of Yeats to all agents on the premises immediately, Mr. Secretary," Seavers pressed. "He's wanted not only for the death of a security guard and an attack on the Library of Congress, but now the slaying of a U.S. senator's daughter. And the senator will have all our heads if we fail to apprehend Yeats."
That was enough for Packard, whose purse strings were controlled by Scarborough as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"OK, do it."
Max Seavers nodded, clearly proud of himself.
Serena realized that Seavers had cleverly managed to turn the one person she and Conrad needed to reach-the president of the United States-into the one person he would never be able to get close to.
"What about Sister Serghetti, sir?" Seavers asked. "She has a history with Yeats and might pass along intel to him. Or some key or means to escape."
"That's absurd, Mr. Secretary." She then looked at Seavers. "You want to frisk me, Max?"
Seavers motioned to a couple of the stone-faced Secret Service agents but was cut off by Packard.
"This is the Presidential Prayer Breakfast, goddammit," Packard said. "Sister Serghetti is in the program for the opening prayer. We can't hold her, Seavers. We'll just watch her."
A Secret Service agent walked up and said, "Mr. Secretary, the presidential motorcade is two minutes away."
"I'll be back in a minute to walk with the President to the ballroom." Then Packard offered her his arm. "Ladies first."
"Thank you, Mr. Secretary."
Packard looked back at Max Seavers and the security detail. "After the breakfast we'll meet here with the president and break the news of his daughter's slaying to Senator Scarborough," Packard barked. "By then you better pray that you've got Yeats in custody. Now go find that goddamn bastard."
38
IF CONRAD had his way, right now he'd be digging for the second globe beneath the Sarah Rittenhouse armillary in Montrose Park. He had already figured out that the secret access tunnel had to be the cave that his father had shown him as a child, and that the globe was probably at the bottom of that old Algonquin well in the back. It all made sense now, every wacky thing his crazy ass father had put him through.
But by 5 a.m. all entrances and exits to the Hilton had been sealed off in anticipation of the president's arrival. He was trapped in a hotel room with Harold and Meredith from Highland Park, Texas.
The most he could hope for now was to warn Serena and the president about the second globe and Seavers's plan to release a bird flu contagion. His best shot at reaching them was the prayer breakfast. And thanks to some bad blowfish the night before, Harold was going to be saying his prayers in the toilet while Conrad-or rather "Pastor Jim"-escorted Meredith to the breakfast.
Together they stood in the long line of thousands of prayer breakfast attendees who had emerged from packed elevators and stairwells to follow the directions of young ushers in blue blazers down two escalators to the ballroom level for the 57th Annual Presidential Prayer Breakfast. And dead ahead, just before the ballroom's open doors, the Secret Service had set up an elaborate and impenetrable security checkpoint.
"This is just like the end of time when God's angels will separate the sheep from the goats," Meredith joked.
Conrad chuckled nervously. He had pulled a switch with the tickets back in Harold and Meredith's room, taking Harold's ticket and leaving him his own. But he also had the silver cornerstone plate. Whatever hope he had of slipping through the checkpoint would vanish as soon as he tripped the metal detectors and drew unwanted attention.
Meredith slipped her arm under Conrad's and looked up at him starry-eyed. "Ooh, I feel so dangerous, Pastor Jim!"
As the metal detection gates at the checkpoint began to loom larger, Conrad felt his chest tighten. There was no way the trained agents were going to miss the fact he looked nothing like Harold's picture unless Meredith distracted them first.
"Hey, Meredith," he said, and removed the silver cornerstone plate from his inside breast pocket. "This souvenir I bought from Mount Vernon. I want you to have it."
"Why, thank you, Pastor Jim!" she said and took it from his hand and ran a perfectly manicured fingernail across the surface. "How pretty! I'll treasure it," she cooed and slipped it into her little pink purse.
When they reached the security gates a few moments later, Conrad could see there were checkpoints about ten feet apart. Armed agents in windbreakers stood at one table next to the first gate.
"Please empty your pockets and place any metal objects on the table," said a young female officer. "Thank you."
Beyond the gate an impossibly large black agent stood with a wand in his hand for full body scans.
"Oooh, this is so exciting," she said to the officer as she emptied her purse. "Oh, wait, hon, you go through first, I better turn this over," she said and pulled out the cornerstone plate from her purse. "Don't want to set off any alarms with my souvenir."
Conrad presented his ticket, walked through the metal detector, and looked back to see the officer return the cornerstone plate to Meredith.
"Please move on, ma'am."
Conrad let out a low breath as Meredith bounced over to him with a smile. He calmly led them away from the security checkpoint and toward the open doors of the giant ballroom. Soon as they
crossed the threshold, he tried to ditch her.
"I'm at table 232," he told her. "Where are you?"
She had trouble letting go of his arm. "I'm over in the 700s."
"I just realized something," he said. "That souvenir I gave you-I had promised it to someone else. I feel horrible."
"Oh, now don't you worry about a thing, Pastor Jim." She looked disappointed, but gave it back without a second thought. "You gotta be a man of your word."
Conrad smiled at her as they parted ways. "You're a saint."
***
Seavers left the gold room with a couple of Secret Service agents and marched toward the security checkpoint outside the ballroom. He showed the agents on duty Yeats's picture. None of them had seen him.
"Are you sure?" Seavers pressed one young man, who had hesitated.
"I'm almost positive," he swore, though Seavers could see the doubt in his eyes.
"Almost?" Seavers seethed.
Just before he killed her, Brooke had told him that Yeats had discovered the existence of a second globe. Seavers knew he had to find out what Yeats knew and stop him before he told the good sister or the feds.
Seavers then heard some kind of row and turned to a man being frisked at the metal detection gate by two agents.
Seavers hurried over. "What's going on?"
"We flagged his ticket-Carl Anderson."
Seavers looked at the man. He obviously wasn't Conrad Yeats, but the man must have had contact with him. "I take it your name's not Carl?"
"My name's Harold," the red-faced man said. "I don't know how I got that ticket. Look, my wife is already inside with Pastor Jim Lee. You know, the bestselling author?"
"Does Pastor Jim look like this?" Seavers held up the photo of Yeats, which looked familiar enough to startle Harold.
"That's him!"
"Not quite," Seavers said. "You just handed off your wife to a terrorist wanted for the slaying of law enforcement agents and attacks on America's most sacred landmarks."
"Dear God!" Harold cried. "I didn't know! You have to believe me!"
The Atlantis Prophecy a-2 Page 18