by Steve Berry
The two Danites nodded.
None of what was about to happen was for their eyes.
He turned toward Elder Rowan.
“Please, lead the way.”
ROWAN HAD VISITED HERE BEFORE, ONCE, YEARS AGO. THE prophet who’d served before Charles Snow had held a retreat for the elders. They’d spent three days praying, making decisions that would govern the church for years to come. Since then, he’d heard little about the site, though he knew it was still maintained. The house had been built about fifty years ago, remodeled several times since. Two hundred and forty acres of forest surrounded the building, all owned by the church. As best he could recall a private security firm kept an eye on everything, so at some point he might have to deal with them. Unlikely, though, they would give the second-highest-ranking church official any trouble.
He led the way into the trees, following a defined path that wound through the woods, climbing in elevation. Saints had mainly settled along the western front of the Wasatch Range, where the rivers drained, founding 25 towns against a hundred miles of mountain frontage. Eighty-five percent of Utah’s population still lived within fifteen miles of the Wasatch Range, two million people, on what was simply called the Front. The eastern slopes were gentler, home to ski resorts. Here, on the western edge, the terrain was far more rugged and 5,000 feet higher than in Salt Lake. The idea of Falta Nada had been to fashion something reminiscent of the early days, and through the trees he caught a glimpse of the three-story house. Massive hand-hewn logs had been notched and fitted together, mortar filling the cracks and outlining the aged timber with thick gray lines. Large bay windows dotted the ground floor, more windows above, the house a pleasing mix of wood, stone, and glass. It sat within a hundred yards of a mountain, a zigzag trail winding upward through the trees.
“The house is not Falta Nada,” he told them. “It was built after the refuge was discovered.”
“So where are we headed?” Salazar asked as they kept walking.
He pointed at the mountain. “Inside there.”
SIXTY-THREE
LUKE ROUNDED A CURVE IN THE DIRT ROAD AND SPOTTED TWO cars parked ahead. They’d left the interstate thirty minutes ago and an asphalt road a couple of miles back, following the Navigator’s GPS. Stephanie had sat beside him the whole way and said little. Malone and Snow in the backseat had likewise been quiet for a while. Everyone seemed anxious. He was just ready to get on with it. Ahead he spotted two men standing near vehicles.
“Those are the same two guys from Salzburg,” Malone said. “I doubt they’ll be happy to see me.”
“I can handle them,” Snow said. “Ease close on my side.”
Luke brought the car to a stop, and the prophet lowered his window. Both Danites stood ready, hands beneath their jackets surely on weapons. Luke’s right hand found his own automatic.
“Do you know who I am?” Snow asked.
They nodded.
“Then you will do exactly as I say. Is that clear?”
Both remained silent.
“I am your prophet,” Snow said. “You are sworn to protect me, are you not?”
The men nodded again.
“Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse’s heels so that his rider shall fall backward. You know the significance of those words?”
“From Genesis,” one said. “We are sworn to live by them.”
“Then remove your weapons and drop them to the ground.”
They did as Snow ordered.
“Stand back and wait.”
The window whined closed.
“I shall pray with these poor sinners for forgiveness,” Snow said. “You three have a job to do.”
Luke caught Stephanie’s glare, the first time she’d looked his way. They’d talked on the phone earlier, just after he and Malone had arrived in Utah. She’d told him what had to be done, none of which he particularly liked. Her stare now asked if he understood that—like the Danites outside—he, too, was sworn to duty.
He gave a nod.
“I will pray for your success,” Snow said. Luke turned and faced the prophet.
“Old man, you’re foolin’ no one. You led Rowan and Salazar here because this godforsaken place is in the middle of nowhere. Now you want us to go and do your dirty work. So let’s don’t cast this with any sense of righteousness. There’s nothin’ right or sacred here.”
“I must apologize,” Stephanie said, “for my agent’s rudeness.”
“He’s correct,” Snow said. “There is nothing righteous about this. It is a despicable business. I’ve wondered all night if this is how Brigham Young himself felt when he ordered those wagons taken and the gold returned? He had to have known that men would die. But he had no choice. And neither do I.”
Luke opened his door and stepped out.
Malone and Stephanie followed.
The two Danites reacted to Malone’s appearance, retrieving their weapons.
“He is our enemy,” one of them said.
“No, he’s not,” the prophet said. “Your enemy is far more complex.”
Neither man backed down.
“I will not say it again,” Snow said. “Drop those guns and do as I say. Or pay the price in heaven.”
The two tossed the guns back down.
Snow motioned for them to leave. “Go ahead. I’ll catch up.”
Stephanie led the way toward the trail.
“You’re not going to hurt her,” Malone said.
Stephanie stopped and faced her former employee. “And you think I would?”
“Depends on what happens.”
“I’ve been ordered to make sure that nothing leaves this spot that could jeopardize the future of the United States of America.”
“Fine. Do your job. But you and Frat Boy here better know, right now, nobody is going to hurt her. Period.”
“I also have a job to do,” Luke said.
“Do it. But if you make a move on Cassiopeia I’ll kill you.”
Luke did not like to be threatened. Never had. But Stephanie had also ordered him not to provoke Malone. They would deal with Cassiopeia as the situation developed. She’d warned him that Malone would know the score, better to rock him to sleep than challenge him.
They weren’t here to win battles, only the war.
MALONE MEANT EVERY WORD HE SAID. HE’D SHOOT THE FRAT Boy dead if any harm came to Cassiopeia. He’d sensed the gravity of the situation from Stephanie’s silence, knowing that every loose end of this operation had to be snipped tight. Stephanie, Luke, himself? They were pros. Sworn to secrecy. No danger of them revealing anything. But Rowan, Salazar, and Cassiopeia? They were an entirely different matter. Especially Cassiopeia, who was not thinking like herself. He possessed the greatest respect for Stephanie, even understood her quandary—orders were orders—and the stakes were the highest he could ever remember. But that changed nothing. And if Cassiopeia was too involved to look after herself, he’d do it for her.
She’d many times done it for him.
Time to repay the favor.
Whether she wanted it or not.
STEPHANIE WAS ARMED. UNUSUAL FOR HER. A BERETTA WAS nestled in a shoulder harness beneath her coat. Surely Malone had seen that. Before leaving Blair House, Danny Daniels had taken her aside, outside of Charles Snow’s presence.
“We have no choice,” he said to her. “None at all.”
“There’s always options.”
“Not here. You realize there are a crap load of people in this country who would take secession seriously. And God knows it’s our own fault. I’ve tried for eight years to govern, and it ain’t easy, Stephanie. In fact, it might be damn well impossible. So for a state to opt out? I could understand why it might. And it doesn’t matter if the effort succeeds. The existence of that document alone is enough to jeopardize the future of this nation. Things will never be the same with it around, and I can’t allow that to happen. We’ve managed to maneuver all of our proble
ms to one spot. So you and Luke. Handle it.”
“There’s Cotton.”
“I know. But he’s also a pro.”
“None of us is a murderer.”
“Nobody said you were.”
He gently grasped her arm. A chill shot through her.
“This is exactly what Lincoln faced,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “He had to choose. Only difference is that, for him, the states were already seceded, so he had to fight a war to win them back. It’s no wonder every one of those war casualties took a toll on him. He, and he alone, made that call. He had to ask himself, Do I do what the founders said? Or do I ignore them? It was his choice, right? Damn straight. But America survived and became what we are today.”
“Broken?”
He stared at her with pain in his eyes. “Best damn broken system on the planet. And I’m not going to let it just dissolve away.”
“The founders of this country thought otherwise.”
“Actually, so did Lincoln.”
She waited for more.
“He gave a speech in 1848. Edwin found it. He said that any people, anywhere, have the right to rise up, shake off their government, and form one that suits them better. He called it a valuable and sacred right. Even worse, he said that right wasn’t confined to the whole people of a government. Any portion of those people, like a state or a territory, could make their own way. The son of a bitch said, flat out, that secession was a natural right.
“But then, thirteen years later, as president, when the time came to allow those states to go, he chose the country over states’ rights. I’m making that same call. Every president, in the twilight of his term, thinks of history. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. My legacy, Stephanie, is this. Not a soul will know, besides us, but that’s okay. Like Lincoln, I choose to save the United States of America.”
She’d listened to what Malone had said to Luke and knew the threat was directed her way, too. Malone’s nerves were frayed, his patience at an end.
But he wasn’t in charge.
“Cotton,” she said. “We’re going to do what we have to.”
Malone stopped walking and stepped close. They’d known each other a long time, been through a lot. He’d always helped her when she’d really needed it, and she’d repaid each of those favors as friends do for friends.
“Stephanie, I get it. This fight’s different. But you’re the one who roped Cassiopeia into this, and lied to keep her in it. Then you drew me in. So I’ll tell you again. Leave. Her. Alone. I’ll handle Cassiopeia. She won’t be a problem.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
Malone’s face hardened. “I’m not.”
And he walked off.
SIXTY-FOUR
CASSIOPEIA ADMIRED THE SWEEPING UPLAND SCENERY. Everything seemed so peaceful and pleasant, rather than frightening and foreboding, which was far closer to the truth. They’d rounded the huge house and found a rocky trail that zigzagged upward. Scarlet bunchberry lay scattered over a thick carpet of green moss. Fir, maple, and oak trees engulfed them with a canopy, leaves falling in waves. Two deer emerged from the foliage, then meandered off, seemingly unafraid.
“We don’t allow hunting here,” Rowan said. “We’ve left it all to nature.”
She was trying to assess the senator. He was a handsome, older man with plenty of vigor. He easily handled the inclined trail, barely breaking a sweat or struggling for a breath. He carried himself like a man in charge—which, according to Josepe, fit him, as this was the second-highest-ranking official in the church. The next prophet. She’d caught the wariness in his eyes when they met. She could recall, as a child, many men in dark suits, white shirts, and thin ties coming to their house. She’d always known that her father was a church leader, and her mother had explained that the visitors were other leaders from far and wide. But those men had made her feel uncomfortable.
And now she knew why. They were followers.
Blindly plowing along on a path forged by others, hoping, along the way, to garner some favor for themselves. Never did they decide things for themselves.
Rowan and Josepe were different.
Their path was their own.
And they were nearing its end.
A ten-minute climb up the trail brought them to a black gash in the mountainside. A tin placard warned trespassers not to enter the cavern since it was private property. An iron grille barred entrance, and was secured by a padlock.
A few tugs and Rowan tested the gate.
Secure.
Then the senator motioned to Josepe, who removed his weapon and fired three rounds into the lock.
STEPHANIE HEARD THREE SOUNDS THROUGH THE WOODS.
Gunshots.
Malone and Luke quickened their pace, and she followed suit. Never had she felt so distant from Cotton. But she had no choice. What she’d do once confronted with the problem, she had no idea. This was all being invented as she went along.
But one thing was absolute.
She agreed with Danny Daniels.
The United States had to survive.
SALAZAR FREED THE REMNANT OF THE LOCK AND OPENED THE iron gate. A few feet inside the tunnel he spotted an electrical box with a heavy cable protruding from its bottom, leading down into the ground, then disappearing ahead. Rowan stepped past him and worked the lever on one side upward.
Lights sprang on, dissolving the darkness.
“This is Falta Nada,” Rowan said.
He and Cassiopeia followed the elder into a wide tunnel that led into a small chamber. Stalactites, stalagmites, and flowstones twisted and turned before them, defying gravity, each as delicate and fragile as blown glass. Color abounded from prisms created by the lights through the crystals. A stunning scene, carefully illuminated to maximize the effect.
“It’s breathtaking, isn’t it?” Rowan asked.
Cassiopeia was studying some drawings on the rock wall. Salazar examined them, too, and saw strange pack animals, like llamas, led by a man dressed in what appeared to be armor.
“The Spanish,” Rowan said, noticing their interest. “They found this cave when they came north from Mexico in the 16th century and mined these hills, looking for gold.” Rowan stepped to a pile of white quartz and lifted one of the rocks. Stringers of yellow could be seen. “These were found along with tool marks on the walls from shovels and picks. The Spanish were here long before Saints ever came.”
Rowan motioned to a passageway.
“There’s more.”
ROWAN ALLOWED SALAZAR AND CASSIOPEIA VITT TO GO FIRST, then he laid the quartz back down and followed. He’d been coy when Josepe introduced his companion, feigning ignorance, and ultimately offering his acceptance.
But he knew all about Cassiopeia Vitt.
“She works for the president,” Stephanie Nelle said.
The call had come just before he’d left his house to drive north from Salt Lake City.
“She’s been embedded with Salazar for some time. They were lovers once, in their youth, so it was thought she could make inroads where others couldn’t. And she did. He has no idea.”
He’d listened with a mixture of anxiety and anger. How many times had the federal government interjected itself into church business? How many spies had there been? Too many to count. Everyone said that sort of violation was a thing of the past. How wrong they were.
“She was sent by Daniels. He’s been watching you and Salazar for over a year. Your prophet, Charles Snow, has been working with him, too.”
That he knew.
“I found out about Vitt and Snow a short while ago.”
“Why tell me?”
“Because I need you to succeed in whatever it is you’re doing. That helps me in what I’m doing. So I thought I’d pass this along.”
“I’m glad you did. But what do you expect me to do with it?”
“I don’t give a damn. Just finish whatever it is you’re doing and keep the president occupied. That’s all I need.”
And that’s what would happen today.
Here, at Falta Nada.
The name appropriate.
Missing Nothing.
SIXTY-FIVE
MALONE RACED UP THE TRAIL IN THE DIRECTION OF THE THREE retorts, Luke quick on his heels. Around a bend a huge house came into view. A mixture of timber and stone, three-story, with large-bowed windows and a steep gabled roof. Two stone chimneys stretched skyward. Trees rose on all sides, a mountain behind, a grassy clearing leading up to its front entrance.
Stephanie trotted up behind them.
“That’s it,” she said. “They’re in there.”
“I’ll go in the front,” he said to Luke. “You take the rear.” He stared at Stephanie. “You wait here.”
She nodded.
Luke darted right, gun in hand, and wove a path through the trees.
He kept down and hustled to the base of a redwood staircase that led up ten feet to the front door. He stared back to see Stephanie take cover behind a tree trunk. He started up the stairs, the wooden risers cushy at spots from years in the elements. The house itself appeared in good shape. Somebody had been doing regular maintenance. He made it to the porch, which seemed to wrap itself completely around the exterior.
The door was a solid slab on a wood frame.
He carefully tested the knob.
Locked.
There were more windows and he carefully spied into each one, listening carefully, hearing nothing.
LUKE STOOD OUTSIDE THE REAR DOOR, BENEATH A COVERED terrace. A mountain rose a hundred yards away, dense forest extending upward. He tried the latch and discovered it locked. Windows were adjacent to the rear entrance, and he stared inside to see a great room, the wood unpainted, the tones of pine and spruce blending with the bland columns and beams that supported a high-pitched ceiling. The furniture was simple and functional, a splash of color emerging from the fabrics on sofas and chairs. Another window opened into a kitchen equipped with stone countertops, wooden cupboards, and stainless-steel appliances. From beyond the deck he heard the gurgle of a stream and caught sight of a spinning waterwheel.