“I came back with this,” he said, pushing the folder of papers forward. “From the records of The Vongraf Foundation.”
Several of the men showed their scorn for the rival organization. Almost from the founding of America the two factions had vied for control of the same targets. These wooden boxes were only part of the long line of items with purported mystical qualities. OSM wished to get these artifacts out of the hands of ordinary people. As for Vongraf—their goals were not clear to the men here. It seemed each time a potentially heretical item could be taken out, these scientists would study it briefly and then give it back to its owner. Back to wreak its havoc in the world.
“In short, we know one of the boxes to be here in the United States, most likely with this woman named Samantha Sweet in New Mexico.”
“And we already ascertained a couple of years ago that the other, shall we say, loose cannon is somewhere in Ireland,” said the Congressman from the Midwest. “We tracked the movements of a man named Terrance O’Shaughnessy who purchased it from an estate sale and then kept it in his possession. But then two years ago it vanished, just as we were close to finding and taking it from the Irishman.”
“We recently learned that O’Shaughnessy was the uncle of this Samantha Sweet,” Elias Swift said, dropping the new information like a kiloton bomb on the unsuspecting Marcus Fitch.
Marcus seethed, sucking air through his clenched teeth. A glance around the table told him that none of the others were particularly shocked by this news. No one had thought to tell him this before he went to New Mexico?
“Our problem,” said another of the members, “is that none of the boxes has ever gone on public display. Those who hold them in ownership do not flaunt the fact. They keep very quiet about it.”
Faces were solemn around the table. What could they report to Rome to help solve the problem?
Marcus glanced at the men who appeared to be deep in thought, his mind racing. Screw the rest of them. If bringing all three boxes together increased their power exponentially—oh, what he could do with that, on his own! He excused himself from the meeting and fled to the nearest Metro station.
* * *
Isobel tamped a stack of papers into a folder and hurriedly stuck them into her bottom desk drawer, reaching into the antique safe for her purse. She’d spent so much time talking with her boss this morning that she’d nearly spaced out her dental appointment. Two Metro stops away and only thirty minutes to get there. She rushed to the station, ignoring the first fat raindrops to hit her on the head. Forgot my umbrella, she berated herself. Oh, well, the dentist doesn’t care how my hair looks.
The lighted board overhead showed her train arriving in one minute. She huddled near the covered bank of benches and watched it roar to a stop with a whoosh of air. Doors slid open, people pushed out, Isobel edged her way inside the crowded late-day car. A man who’d seemed intent on getting off the train backed inside again, letting Isobel pass him. It was only after the doors closed behind her that she realized he was staring intently at her. Marcus Fitch.
Her pulse thrummed, pounding in her ears. What was he doing here in Alexandria?
“Ms. St. Clair,” he said, his voice low, almost seductive. Those pale blue eyes never wavered.
She inhaled. “Mr. Fitch.”
“I was on my way to your office. I’m glad I caught you,” he said.
Like a rabbit in a trap?
“I wanted to apologize for that silly accident a few weeks ago.”
Silly? Accident? The man had deliberately rammed her rental car, searched her possessions while she was trapped, and eluded the police. She tried to move away from him but the car was packed with people and there was simply no place to go.
“I have a peace offering,” he said.
“I’m not—”
“The whereabouts of the other wooden box. I know exactly where you can find it.”
She stopped edging away.
His gaze took in the nearby passengers. “We need to talk privately.”
The train was slowing. People began pushing toward the doors, easing Isobel along into their tide. She needed to move aside, to stay aboard until the next stop. Fitch pressed against her, touching her elbow. When the door slid open his grip tightened and he steered her onto the platform.
“This way,” he said, “there’s a coffee house that will be quiet right now.”
“What about this other box? Where is it?” Her appointment would have to be rescheduled.
“You know enough of my organization to be aware that we are associated with the Vatican.”
He said it as though he were the head of the entire OSM, and she strongly doubted this was the case. Even more doubtful was that this man had access to the Vatican. Still, she might learn something valuable.
The rain had not materialized this far north yet although the air smelled of ozone and the clouds were darker than ever, giving a twilight feel to the late-afternoon summer sky. His hand touched her elbow once again and she found herself walking beside him down a set of stairs to street level. He tilted his head to the left and she followed.
“That woman in New Mexico,” he said. “She owns one of the boxes, doesn’t she?”
Isobel hoped her stare did not convey what she was thinking. You know she does.
“We at OSM would like to examine that box, just as your staff at Vongraf was able to do.” But his expression showed nothing but raw greed. This man wanted the power of the boxes, not their potential for advancing science.
“The Vongraf Foundation has only examined one box of this sort in our entire history, and that was in 1910.”
“Don’t play games with me, Ms. St. Clair. I’m not the type.” The soft tone he had used on the train was gone. A steely glint shone in his stare. His jaw clenched.
She had a brief, sickening thought that she might have just revealed new information to him. Then decided she hadn’t. Somehow, he’d known of their earlier work.
“How did you know I would be going to New Mexico?” she asked.
His expression turned colder yet. In a split second he gripped her arm and shoved her into the recess of a doorway. A shop, she saw, that had been boarded up for a long time. Suddenly she realized they had walked into a derelict neighborhood with few people around.
“I’m not here to answer your questions,” he hissed. “You will answer mine. Did you bring that box back from New Mexico to study? You have it in your lab, don’t you?”
“No! I left—”
“I want that box.” His voice went quiet, deadly. “I will have it. Together with the other, their power will be incredible.”
The blue eyes were glacial ice now. Isobel felt her first real shot of fear.
“Move aside,” she demanded. “I have an appointment.”
“Your only appointment is with me. We’ll go to your office, you will escort me inside, and you will give up the box and any notes you have about the locations of others.”
She thought of The Vongraf’s security measures—the scanners, the military-trained guards, the impenetrable vault where her research notes were kept—and she nearly laughed in Fitch’s face. The icy eyes stopped her. They bored into her with a no-nonsense intensity.
He gripped her arm again and this time she flinched as his fingers dug into a muscle that still ached from the car crash.
“That’s better,” he said, his tone almost crooning now. “Let’s find a car. Much less crowded than the Metro.”
He yanked her from the doorway where any observer might have thought them lovers who were pressed against each other. She felt her resolve harden. There was no way she would get into a car with him. The man was mentally on the very edge. He said he wanted to get into the Foundation’s vault, but he would not hesitate to kill her. She knew this, right to her core.
“The train is fine,” she said, matching his pace and working to keep her tone cooperative. “I won’t try to get away. After all, you’ve offered to share information on th
e other box with us, right?”
“Facinor,” he said. “It’s the name of the box in Rome.” He slowed his pace slightly but the grip on her arm was still quite firm.
Up the stairs at the Metro station once more. Onto the train returning to King Street. Pressed into the rush-hour crowd. Isobel looked at the bored faces for one that might help her escape Fitch, but people on their way home from work tend to operate in their own little worlds. At the station she might have the chance to run from him. She knew the area and had friends among nearby shop owners and restaurateurs. Mentally planning the steps (swing purse at his head, dump the high heels, run to the sports bar at the corner—it will be crowded this time of day) got her through the short ride. But when the doors opened, Fitch took her hand and entwined his fingers so that he could easily break hers if she made any sudden move away from him.
All right, she thought. Plan B. It was the better one anyway.
Rain fell steadily, soaking her thin blouse, drenching her hair. Somewhere near the river, lightning cracked, shuddering the leaves on the trees. Her nerves felt raw, her skin prickling as if all the tiny hairs on her arms were standing on end.
Fitch seemed unaffected by the storm and he was familiar with the route, which didn’t calm Isobel’s anxiety at all. Obviously, he had been watching her much longer than she’d ever suspected. He dropped her hand only after she inserted her key card at the outer door. At the fingerprint scanner in the vestibule, she felt Fitch tensing up.
“This is as far as you’d ever get on your own, you know,” she told him, “even if you managed to steal or duplicate my key.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” he said under his breath. “A thumb is pretty easy to remove.”
A shiver coursed down her spine. The man truly was ruthless.
Beyond the second door, when the two armed guards came into sight, Isobel sneaked another glance at Fitch’s face. This time the security measures surprised him. However, if he ever decided to break in here on his own, he would come prepared. Anyone willing to chop off a woman’s finger probably wouldn’t hesitate to arrive armed and ready to take out two guards. Today’s visit was a test—surely he knew that she did not actually have the carved box on the premises.
“Afternoon, Ms. St. Clair.” Tom, the larger of the two guards, raised one eyebrow. “Your dental appointment went quickly.”
This was her moment. “It was devil-dog excruciating.”
An AK-47 appeared from behind the long desk, barrel pointed directly at Fitch’s chest. Mack shouted an order for the stranger to put his hands on his head. Tom’s Glock was out of its holster, the guard circling the desk, telling Isobel to step out of his line of fire. Fitch sent her a glare of pure malice but slowly raised his hands.
Their code word had worked. Each Vongraf employee had one, just another part of the heightened security measures. Isobel silently thanked the board of directors who had insisted upon them.
She watched as Tom snapped handcuffs on Marcus Fitch, marching him to a special room where she had a feeling he would be interrogated far beyond what the police would then do when they came for him. As the door closed on Fitch, she remembered to breathe.
She’d barely had time to retreat to her office and exchange her soaked blouse for a dry lab coat before the police arrived. Fitch, who now sported a red knot on his left temple, was taken away and two officers stayed behind to get Isobel’s version of the story. It took far longer to repeat the details of her abduction and forced return to the office than for the events themselves to unfold earlier.
Eventually, there were no more questions. Thankful for the reprieve, Isobel returned to her own office. There stood the framed photo of her predecessor, Aurora Potts. The woman in the Edwardian-era dress and hat looked out at Isobel with a great deal of wisdom. Outside, the lightning receded into the distance and eventually the rain slowed to a gentle patter as nightfall came on.
For now, Aurora seemed to say, we can only proceed with our own investigations, apply scientific tests to prove or disprove the claims presented to us. One day, Isobel felt sure, a lead would come that would take them to the box currently somewhere in Ireland, and maybe another lead would take them to Rome. Or beyond.
The world was becoming a much smaller place. Facts, suppositions and stories that once required journeys of thousands of miles, weeks or months of time—now they could be found with a few keystrokes on the Internet. She thought of the box she had so recently seen in New Mexico. Right now they could only guess at its history; perhaps it had originated continents away from where it sat now.
Of one thing she felt certain—if there were three boxes in existence they had most likely come from the same source, that same woodcarver whose secret had remained enigmatic for centuries. Part of the thrill of discovery was the way in which those secrets tended to unfold.
Excitement grew in her belly. To one day have all three of the boxes in one place, to study them, take the necessary samples to prove their origin, it would be a scientist’s dream. She stared at Aurora again and the eagerness intensified.
She could feel it, deep inside, the anticipation that they were nearing a pinnacle of some type. Call it the end of days, call it a zenith of sorts. She envisioned a time when humans would be able to learn unlimited amounts, to explore beyond the physical realm, to have knowledge of both the scientific and the spiritual without restraints from the established scions of either. Knowledge, rather than greed or misplaced hero worship, would become the hope for mankind.
Isobel walked through the lab admiring its polished steel tables, the gleaming glass containers and whirring machines. Out into a night that seemed filled with stars and hope all at once.
A full moon broke through the remaining ragged bits of cloud, bathing Vongraf’s brick walls in light, illuminating treetops in a nearby park, creating a shimmering stripe of silver on the river, blocks away. She sighed, releasing the last of her tension. Her mission would continue but the storm was gone.
Author Notes:
Readers who have followed my Samantha Sweet mystery series have been treated to many inside experiences with one of the three boxes, the one passed along to Samantha by Bertha Martinez in the latter chapters of The Woodcarver’s Secret.
In crafting this story I have blended real places with fictional events and placed some real events in fictional places. The actions and words of actual historical persons have been fictionalized here. A few highlights:
The Spanish Armada’s plan to invade England was practically doomed from the start, the leaders being outnumbered and acting upon bad advice about the weather. I could only imagine what one lone Spanish patriot might have attempted in the effort to assist his king.
The port city of Vera Cruz was once the largest city in Mexico, the landing point for nearly all Spanish trade ships during a time when the king of Spain issued decrees regarding the New World. The raw materials of Mexico, especially gold and silver, were taken to Spain in huge quantities, with all resulting manufactured goods being made only in Spain. Throughout the 14th century, even simple goods such as rope, cloth and paper had to be brought to Mexico by ship. We know from historical accounts that many of these ships and huge amounts of treasure went down in stormy seas.
The trade routes along El Camino Real have a long and fascinating history spanning three centuries and two countries. In a time when many Europeans ventured no farther than a few miles from their home cities, ordinary people in the North American southwest became traders and regularly made the year-long round trip of 1,600 miles from what is now northern New Mexico to Mexico City. Today, a visitor’s center south of Socorro, New Mexico, houses interesting displays and the largely unchanged landscape gives a very accurate picture of the Jornada del Muerto, the Dead Man’s Journey, where water was scarce and hostile Indian tribes were not.
The wine cellar described in this story exists today in Bernkastel, Germany, in the wine region along the Mosel River. According to the stories, a small side room
actually was bricked up during World War II to hide the rare wines; the room’s existence was revealed long after the war by a former winery employee before his death. Other landmarks in Bernkastel include the ‘Pointed House’, the Doktor Fountain, and the statue of the bears who in folklore so famously saved the lost woman and her children.
This book was many years in the making as I have incorporated locations and tales from my own travels over the past two decades. In addition to my home region in northern New Mexico, I offer my thanks to those places I have visited: Galway, Ireland; the cities of Seville and Cordoba in Spain; the Forbidden City in China; the coastal areas and beautiful Caribbean waters of Belize (subsequent to the timeframe of this story it was known as British Honduras for a little over a hundred years) and Panama; the cities of San Antonio and Galveston, Texas, where the Republic of Texas was born; many Rhine and Mosel river cities in Germany including Bernkastel/Kues; poignant and emotional visits to the battlefields and cemeteries of Germany, France and Luxembourg; the city of Nuremburg with its infamous courtroom and Nazi parade ground; the Caribbean coast of Mexico; Rome and Vatican City; and to dear friends Jim and Debbie Pawlik who introduced us to Alexandria, Virginia. Many guides walked with me through these places, during many trips, over many years. You answered my countless questions, despite the fact that neither of us knew at the time exactly how the information would eventually come forth in a story. Thank you, all. You have my undying gratitude.
Connie Shelton, February, 2015
* * *
As always, a huge thank you goes to those who help make my books a reality: Dan Shelton, my partner in all adventures who is always there for me, working to keep the place running efficiently while I am locked away at my keyboard. My fantastic editing team—Susan Slater, Shirley Shaw, and proofreader Kim Clark—each of you has suggested things that help me see something new in my writing.
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