"Because I know what Seavers is going to do," Conrad said. "He's going to release a weaponized flu virus on the Mall today during the fireworks."
The Marine looked at him in disbelief. "On Americans?"
"On a Chinese delegation watching the fireworks from the Washington Monument. They won't become infectious until the Olympics when it spreads worldwide."
Something in the Marine's eyes told Serena that he knew at least enough about Seavers to consider Conrad's story in the realm of the possible. "And what are we supposed to do? Let you go?"
"No, call the Pentagon. Tell them you have a message from me for Secretary of Defense Packard. My name is Conrad Yeats. And that's Serena Serghetti."
Serena nodded up and down as the Marine walked over to her. He turned her gurney around so that her feet touched the wall and he looked down on her face with amazement. "Holy hell, I think it's Mother Earth!"
The other Marine scowled. "You can't possibly believe him, Hicks."
"No, I really think it's her," Hicks said, and suddenly turned red-faced as he stared at her. "Remember those…pictures…I downloaded from the Internet."
"That was her face on some stick model's body," the other Marine said. "This one's got curves."
Serena felt the bewildered gaze of Hicks. "Look," Hicks said. "It can't hurt to at least call in a potential security threat."
With great relief Serena watched Hicks turn for the door when suddenly the other Marine shot him in the back of the head. Hicks's arms went up in shock, and then he went down with a crash.
Serena stared at the dead Marine sprawled on the floor face down. The other Marine, obviously Alignment, holstered his sidearm and picked up a syringe with a nasty yellow-greenish color to it. Serena started to panic as the Marine took the syringe over to Conrad, who looked at her with determined eyes.
"Good thing the Pentagon ordered up that stockpile of bird flu vaccines," the Marine said and pushed the syringe into the catheter.
Serena watched the yellow-green line of fluid wind its way down the long tube toward Conrad's arm. The Marine watched it, too.
"Say night-night, Yeats," the Marine said when Serena used her feet to push off the wall and launch the gurney into the Marine's back.
The Marine shouted in surprise and turned to strike her.
As he did, Conrad snapped his left hand free from the loosened strap, yanked the catheter out of his right arm and plunged it into the Marine's groin.
"You son of a bitch!" the Marine grunted, eyes wide in shock as he pulled the catheter out. But it was too late. Whatever he had intended for Conrad was in his system now. His eyes glazed over and he collapsed next to his fallen fellow Marine.
"And then some," Conrad said, and began to unfasten the rest of his straps.
Serena's heart leapt as Conrad stood up and wobbled, weak at the knees from the hours in the restraining chair. He staggered to the Marines and lifted their swipe cards and guns. Then he walked over to her and with a quick yank pulled off the duct tape.
"Let's go," he said.
Her lips stung, but finally she could move them as Conrad freed her.
"I can't go, Conrad. If I've got the bird flu, I'm going to infect everybody. I may have already infected you."
"Impossible," he said, and she watched him take a Masonic dagger from the table and put the blade to his forearm. "I'm immune."
"What are you doing?" she cried as he slit his arm. A scarlet line of blood oozed out.
"Brooke said Seavers used my blood for his vaccine."
She stared at him. "And you believe her?"
"You said my double-helix spirals to the left instead of the right." He took an empty syringe and unwrapped a sterile needle and drew his blood out. "Should I believe you?"
He offered her the syringe filled with his blood.
"But it's just your blood, Conrad. It's not the vaccine. We don't know if it will work."
"It can't work if we don't try."
She took the syringe from him and ran the needle along her arm until she found the right spot. She hated getting shots, but her travels throughout the Third World long ago made them a regular part of her life. She had rolling veins but not deep, which meant she wouldn't have to penetrate far beneath the skin.
"Do you want me to do it?" Conrad asked impatiently.
"No, I've got it," she said and stuck herself with the needle.
Slowly she pushed Conrad's blood out of the syringe and into her vein. It felt warm and strange. Then she pulled the needle out, put her thumb on the puncture and held her arm up.
"So how in bloody hell do we get out of here?" she said, standing up. "Those swipe cards can't open every door in this facility."
"No, but I bet this will," Conrad said and held up a finger-Max Seavers's missing finger.
48
CONRAD LED SERENA through the dark corridor to another metal door, the sixth they had encountered. They hadn't seen any more Marines, and security cameras were nowhere to be found. But Conrad was beginning to wonder if they were ever going to get out of there, much less in time to stop Seavers.
He used Seavers's severed finger to open the door and walked into a round conference room dominated by a circular stone table and thirteen white marble busts in alcoves evenly spaced along the wall. In the center of the table was the terrestrial globe.
"The lair of the Alignment," Serena said. "These busts look to be the work of Houdon."
"Who?" Conrad asked, his eyes searching for another way out, but he couldn't find one.
"Houdon," Serena repeated. "A French sculptor during the Enlightenment who made famous busts of Washington and the Founding Fathers. I've seen his work on exhibit at both the Louvre in Paris and at the Getty in Los Angeles. Only these aren't America's Founding Fathers. These faces belong to the other Founders, to the Alignment."
Something about the dimensions of the room struck Conrad as familiar and he felt drawn to an empty section of wall between two of the busts. As he stood there, his eyes adjusted enough to make out the faintest outline of a doorway. He pushed it with his hand and the previously invisible door slid open.
"I'll be damned," he said. "This is just like the shafts in the sublevels of P4 and the Great Pyramid."
"The Great Pyramid?" she repeated.
"When I was under the Library of Congress, I saw a monument the Masons proposed in the same chamber that held the celestial globe," he said. "Some kind of American Memorial, like they feared the worst and wanted to preserve their memory-and America's-through a monument that would stand as long as the pyramids. This is where I think both they and the Alignment knew it would be, wherever we are. So the Alignment basically graded the site. All it's waiting for is the pyramid on the surface."
"And it's going to go up as soon as America falls," Serena said.
"We've got to hurry," he said. "If this is like P4, then I know the way out."
He started for the door but Serena didn't budge.
"I told you, Conrad. I can't go with you. I can't risk spreading bird flu contagion on the surface and doing the Alignment's dirty work."
He stared at her. "But I gave you my homegrown vaccine, Serena. If it didn't work, you'd be showing symptoms by now."
"We don't know that for sure, Conrad. And I can't take that risk. You're going to have to stop Seavers yourself."
"And what are you going to do in the meantime?" he demanded.
"I'm going to stay here and wait for you and the cavalry to come back." She walked up to him, tears streaming down her face, and kissed him. "But if we get out of this alive, I'm going to walk out of here with you and walk away from my life as a nun. If you still want it, we're going to start a new life together."
He looked into her wet eyes. "What about the Church?"
She wiped her eyes. "I was supposed to betray you, Conrad, to use you to find the globes and take them from you. Please forgive me," she begged. "You have to believe I'm sorry."
Conrad could see she was. "But
you always told me you believed that the Church is the hope of the world."
She shook her head. "Jesus is the hope of the world, Conrad. And the hope of the Church. We are called to be the Church and serve people in His name. I don't have to be a nun to do that. And I don't want to go on without you. I told you. I knew it the moment Max took me to your room and I expected to see your body instead of Brooke's."
"You swear to God?" he said.
"You know I don't like those kinds of oaths, Conrad. But, yes, I swear before God." She then threw her arms around him and hugged him tight. "Conrad, go."
He hesitated, then gave her a pistol and swipe card. "In case you change your mind," he said and shut the door, leaving her alone with the globe and the faces of thirteen dead white men.
***
Serena stared at the faces of the thirteen marble Houdon busts. The founding fathers of the Alignment in America. They were so lifelike that she half-expected them to speak to her in the shadowy chamber.
And then one of them did.
It was the second to her right, a face oddly strange and familiar.
When she leaned forward to study the face, she suddenly recognized it.
She gasped. "Oh, my God."
Remembering the names from the Newburgh Charter that she had memorized, she now knew why Cardinal Tucci wanted the globe at the Vatican.
Dear Lord, my promise to Conrad.
She paced before the globe and her jury of the deceased, praying to God for some answer. The shot that Conrad had given her was clearly kicking in, and she was feeling stronger, more alert. So alert that it frightened her.
The Americans already had the celestial globe that the Masons had buried beneath the Library of Congress. If Conrad succeeded in stopping Seavers, as she prayed he would, then the Americans would have both globes. But if he failed, she now realized that the Alignment would control not only America but also the Church.
With a heavy heart she knew what she had to do.
Conrad, forgive me.
***
Conrad ran through a maze of corridors until he reached a door without a biometric keypad that would require the finger from Max Seavers. That suggested he was reaching the outer, less secure perimeter. He only needed to use one of the Marine's swipe cards to unlock it. He cracked the door open and sighed at what he saw: another dark corridor. When he was sure it was clear, he made his way out.
This corridor was different, and he immediately sensed it was some kind of neutral bridge between the Alignment's secret bunker and the larger world. At the end of it was a pinprick of light and a dull roar. He edged cautiously toward the door that emerged in the light when suddenly it was flung open. A Metro engineer stepped in and froze when he saw Conrad.
"Shit, you military people always scare me," the engineer said, "skulking around down here like shadows."
"And because of us you get to celebrate Independence Day," Conrad said and kept walking, without looking back.
Conrad emerged from a utility door onto a lower platform of the L'Enfant Plaza Metro Station. With no less than three Metro lines intersecting here, it now made complete sense why the Alignment chose the bunker below as their place to meet. But he was spotted across the platform by a D.C. police officer instantly, whose hand went to his mouth as he radioed in.
Conrad ran up the escalators to a food court tunnel, where four more policemen were coming toward him.
The underground food court connected him to the Loew's L'Enfant Plaza Hotel, and when he cut across the lobby he emerged into the bright light of day and blinked.
There must have been several thousand motorcycles and leather-clad bikers revving their engines in front of him. Their black leather jackets said Rolling Thunder, and the backs of their bikes boasted American flags.
Conrad caught up to the rear of the group and scanned the nearest tattooed and bearded bikers prepping their machines. He found an old-timer in his sixties with a handlebar mustache and beer gut wearing a black "Ancient Riddles" T-shirt. He was wiping the chrome fork of his BMW chopper.
Conrad stole a helmet on the ground and brazenly walked up to the man. "Hey, partner, my bike's busted and I could use a lift," he said as he offered his hand. "I'm Conrad Yeats."
The rider rose to his surprisingly tall six-foot-four-inch height and looked down at him. "Anything for the Griffter's kid. My name's Marty. Hop on."
Conrad jumped on the chopper as Marty hit the accelerator and they rode off to join the others in the parade.
49
THROUGH THE SIGHT of her sniper rifle atop the National Archives, Sergeant Wanda Randolph watched the tail end of the Independence Day parade march down Constitution Avenue. She scanned the crowds for any sign of Conrad Yeats. America's most wanted criminal was presumably still on the loose after yesterday's Presidential Prayer Breakfast.
More than 22 government agencies, including the U.S. Capitol Police, U.S. Park Police, and Washington Metropolitan Police Department, were coordinating security: There were jets overhead, chemical sensors in the subways, Coast Guard boats on the Potomac, and more than 6,000 cops and troops on the streets.
Members of the 49th Virginia Infantry Regiment Civil War reenactment group now marched below to the cheers of onlookers, from babies to grandparents. It had been a morning of high school and military bands, and the Civil War types prompted as many smiles as the group that usually followed them.
Wanda could hear them now-the roar of thousands of Harley Davidsons revving down Constitution, their riders in jeans and leather jackets. Rolling Thunder was a motorcycling group that supported veterans. Today they had come out in full force, headlights blazing and American flags extending from the back of their bikes.
Her eyes followed them down Pennsylvania as they turned onto Constitution, one oddball biker in sunglasses after another. Several times she had to look away from the glare of the sun bouncing off the medals on their vests and the chrome on their bikes.
One neon yellow-and-chrome chopper with two riders caught her eye, and she followed it to the turn when another glare off the chrome blinded her for a split second. When she caught up with the chopper again on Constitution, it had only one rider.
What happened? Where'd he go?
She jerked her rifle back to the parade turn at Pennsylvania and Constitution and scoped the crowds. Nothing. And then she saw the small pump station building behind the crowd.
Dang, it was him, she thought. It had to be. Conrad Yeats.
She wanted to believe that Yeats was one of the good guys, but regardless of which hat he wore-white or black-he was about to get himself picked off by her or another sniper unless she could bring him in safely.
"Code red," she yelled into her radio. "Pump station."
She scrambled off the roof and out the National Archives, ran a block to the station and burst inside. Two Metro cops were down, knocked out, and a hatch to the sewer was open. Six FBI agents, plainclothes types from the crowd, swarmed in as she pulled out a map.
"The SEAL will pick him up in the sewer," one of the agents said.
But the SEAL swimming up and down beneath Constitution reported nothing. "He may have gone deeper," crackled the radio, the voice of a SEAL breaking up. "Shit, he's in the Tiber."
***
Long after the hill beneath the U.S. Capitol had ceased to be called Rome, the river upon which ships ferried marble from the White House to the Capitol retained the name Tiber Creek. And to this day the Tiber still runs beneath Constitution Avenue along the northern edge of the National Mall.
Conrad sloshed through knee-high water in the ancient sewer built of brick masonry. About 30 feet wide and ten feet high, the old sewer ran along the upper portion of the bed of the old Tiber Creek. Conrad could feel its rotting floor planks give way under his shoes and prayed he wouldn't step into a hole and get sucked into the bog, never to return to the surface.
He remembered the Tiber from a consulting gig when the feds asked him how to preserve downtow
n D.C. as the ancient Egyptians had preserved the pyramids. The Tiber, like the Nile, ran in front of the Capitol and through the Smithsonian.
The whole Mall, in fact, was one giant flood plain. The east wing of the Natural History museum, Conrad had discovered, was already sinking and pulling away from the main building because the Tiber still coursed beneath the Mall. Only a carefully built and even more carefully camouflaged levee kept the Mall from being under water. The feds did a great job planting trees on it to hide it. Only by lying down on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and looking out toward Constitution Avenue could you see the levee with the naked eye.
Inside the old Tiber Creek sewer, however, there was very little to see. Conrad looked around the battered side walls and the stone arch ceiling over the river channel, which had seen better days. The brick was crumbling and refuse from the more modern sewer line-cut in the 1930s-was raining down on him.
The sewer emptied out near the Washington Monument, where the east branch of the Potomac used to be before the feds filled it in. It was here Conrad started his search for a planned tunnel that may or may not have ever been built to the monument.
***
The "Capitol Fourth" concert was just getting underway on the National Mall when Max Seavers arrived at the Washington Monument, which was closed to the public today due to security concerns as well as a very special "private function"-a White House reception for Chinese Olympic officials.
Seavers checked his cell phone GPS, which confirmed that the aerosol canister containing his bird flu was in place and activated. Once everybody was inside the elevator, he'd speed dial the silent detonator and the revolution would be over before anybody even suspected it had started. The very thought that he could kill billions with the push of a button gave him a special kind of thrill, but not nearly as much as the knowledge that his vaccine would make him a savior to the rest of the surviving world.
He slipped the phone back in his pocket, next to the folded Newburgh Treaty.
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