White Diamonds (Capitol Chronicles Book 2)

by Shirley Hailstock

  ***

  Lance studied the report on his desk. So they had been to Mrs. Richards'. She'd decoded the information on the stones. He didn't have to take three guesses to figure out what they'd found. They probably knew about the configuration, found the symbols, but they couldn't know about the last one. Even if they did, what could they do with it? Nothing. They were amateurs playing with professionals. The net was closing and soon they'd be caught like fish.

  Sandra should have taken his offer when he gave it. She could have walked away scot-free, but she chose to band together with Wyatt Randolph. He might be a Boy Scout, but that didn't mean he could get away with what he'd done and been accused of doing. Lance would make sure of that. It was Lance's turn to pitch, and everything that could be thrown at Wyatt Randolph would be.

  If Lance had learned nothing else since coming to Washington, he'd learned how to play the game. He was a master at it and he could see his reward just ahead. He was close to it, so close it was almost in his hand. Senator Randolph. He smiled. Senator Randolph would be the person who handed him the brass ring.

  Lance closed the report and locked it in his safe. It was time to go get the distinguished senator from the state of Pennsylvania.

  ***

  Colonel Sam Parker's hideout would rival any of America's castles. Set in the sprawling countryside of Reston, Virginia, it was a twenty-thousand-square-foot country home. From the look of it, someone had disassembled an English manor house and rebuilt it on a thousand-acre tract in the shadow of the nation's capital. Entrance to the estate was through a wrought-iron gate mounted with closed-circuit cameras. A three-mile leisurely drive on a narrow paved road led to the door of the gray stone house. He should feel secure here, but he didn't.

  His access was legitimate and above board. The house was owned by Wagner Van Zee. Wag owned an electronics company that had been in on the ground level when personal computers were first being born. His parts supply company had grown to be a major contributor to the industry. Sam could shoot himself every time he thought of Wag's efforts to get him to join in his budding company. Sam had opted for the service and it had led him here, AWOL and hiding from the very people he'd worked with.

  "Wow!" Wyatt whistled, getting out of the car. Sam ran down the front steps and shook hands with him. He nodded at Sandra Rutledge.

  "We should all go into hiding in a place like this." Wyatt looked around the house and grounds.

  "It belongs to a buddy of mine," Sam explained. "We went to school together."

  Inside, Sandra found the furnishings elegant enough to grace any museum.

  "He's away in Europe and 'loaned' me the use of this," Sam scanned the huge room, "whenever I needed it."

  He watched Sandra as she looked around nervously. "Sam, places like this have their own security staff. This house alone would take a staff of fifty to maintain it."

  "Fifty-three, actually," he said. "Since it's winter and unoccupied, it gets by with a skeleton crew of seven. They're loyal and completely trustworthy." Before Wag left, he'd told them Sam was an eccentric writer working on a book and needed peace and quiet. They were to disturb him as little as possible and to do anything he asked. So far he'd had no problems.

  "Where are they now?" Wyatt asked.

  "I gave them the day off. They won't be back before night-fell."

  "That's good," Sandra muttered. He knew he wasn't supposed to hear her, but his sense of hearing had always been keen. She didn't trust him. He couldn't blame her, but he wanted her to know he was doing nothing to hurt her or Wyatt. His own life was in danger, he'd thrown away his career, and there was nothing left for him but to work with Wyatt and Sandra and hope against hope the somehow there was a solution to this crisis. He hadn't known how much he believed in the Constitution until its basic rights and freedoms came into jeopardy. Now he was willing to do anything to help restore it to the place it had been intended. Wyatt and Sandra wanted the same thing. They only had each other.

  Sam gave them a tour of the house on the way to the office. Wyatt was clearly impressed when they entered Wagner Van Zee’s home office. The place could be the corporate headquarters of a major industrial company. The room was huge. A conference table sat in front of a large window. Fresh flowers graced a crystal bowl in the center of it. The desk took up so much room he'd wondered on first seeing it if it had been built inside the room. Computers, telephones, even a small television were built into the work-center.

  Taking the chair behind the desk, Sam went right to work. "I take it you've discovered the secret of the fifteenth stone." The look that passed between Randolph and Sandra told him he'd guessed right. "If you hadn't, there would be no need for you to call me," he explained. "I know you don't quite trust me." He let his gaze settle on Randolph, then move piercingly to Sandra. "I'm not the enemy. I want what you want. So let me help. It's why you came here."

  Wyatt looked at Sandra. He'd looked around the grounds as they drove up the long driveway. If Sam had wanted to turn them in to the military, this was the perfect place. They had the stones with them, the iron gate had locked them in as if this country-club setting were a prison. The deserted place had no telephone lines to prevent anything, even helicopters, from landing right next to the house. There would be no escape if Sam was playing for the other side.

  Sandra must have felt the same way. She returned Sam's stare without the trace of a flicker. She got up and walked around the desk. Standing close to Sam, she had the advantage with him seated.

  "We don't have much time," she said. "We've got to end this running. If we don't, the government only has to wait for us to make a mistake, run out of money, or be identified by some good citizen who happens to see us in a convenience store."

  Sam stared quietly at her.

  "Wyatt has a plan and we need you to help execute it. When it's done there's no guarantee that any of us will get off scot-free, but at least we'll be alive and no longer a target for some unknown assassin."

  Sam stood up. His demeanor portrayed him every bit the colonel, sure, confident and alert. "I have nothing to lose, Sandra," he said. "My career ended the moment I left the Pentagon and never returned. I never knew how much I wanted that menial job until it was no longer mine, but I would like my dignity intact. Whatever I can do, I'm willing."

  Wyatt watched the two of them. The tension was almost palpable. He stood, but to them he wasn't even in the room. Sandra searched Sam's face for any sign of insincerity. She gave no indication that she agreed or disagreed with Sam, but a moment later she opened the backpack that was their constant companion and pulled out the jewelry case.

  Sam gasped when she opened the velvet case and he saw the fifteen stones, brightly polished and connected by a delicate, braided gold chain. He recognized the configuration: two strands equal in length holding several stones. The others, including the one solitary and deadly fifteenth stone, was connected to a chain. He wondered how they'd found out so much in only a few days.

  "Did Taylor tell you this?" He took the case from her hands and turned toward the lighted windows.

  "He left us a disk. The configuration and information were on it."

  "Sam," Wyatt began. "You worked with Chip on this system. Can you take that fifteenth stone and defuse it?"

  Sam turned back to them. "This stone," he looked down at it. "This was the most important part of the configuration. The system cannot be activated without the stone. It was the fail-safe chip. If it were set in the wrong configuration, the program would execute the explosion routine. Conversely, the chip itself is expecting to find certain instructions. If these are not found, then the connector links will cause the explosion. It's a bit complicated, but the answer to your questions is, tampering with the chip will cause it to detonate."

  A tremor ran through Wyatt. Thank God they hadn't let Brooke Richards try to do anything with it. He shuddered at the mental picture of her and her family being blown to bits before his very eyes. His knees weakened and he sat
down.

  "What about changing it?" Sandra suggested.

  "What do you mean?" Sam asked.

  "If we can't remove it, is it possible to have the chip issue an instruction other than detonation?"

  Wyatt sat up. He hoped Sam was about to say yes, but he was already shaking his head.

  "Jackson had been working on something like that. He'd only mentioned it to me the day before he died."

  "Do you know how he planned to get it done?"

  "He showed me the programs, but I didn't have time to study them before I had to go to a staff meeting. By the time I thought about it again, Jackson had been found dead and the stones were missing."

  Sandra dropped down in a chair. "Well, I guess that's that."

  "Not quite," Sam said, taking a seat himself. Wyatt and Sandra stared at him, waiting for him to continue. "Where are the disks you copied from Jackson's computer?"

  "In the backpack." Wyatt looked at the navy-blue LL Bean bag they'd been carrying ever since they escaped the mountain in Pennsylvania. Sandra had had little time to work on her thesis, yet she kept the bag close to her.

  "The plans are in there," Sam said.

  "They're still encrypted," Sandra pointed out.

  "Not to me," Sam smiled.

  Wyatt and Sandra both came forward in their chairs as if they were puppets and someone had just pulled their strings. When he'd devised this plan, he didn't think it could possibly work, but as he got nearer and nearer to the end his confidence built. Now all they had to do was slip undetected into a government military installation, find Project Eagle, set the stones and activate the program, then locate the second machine, get access to it and deactivate it. Impossible. The word flashed in his mind like a danger sign. Large red pulsating capital letters.

  ***

  "Good news or bad?" Casey asked Everett as soon as they were out of earshot of anyone near them. They walked through the White House toward the upstairs study. There he could have privacy and speak freely.

  Everett smiled at her. "Didn't you see us shaking hands in front of the White House press corps? The President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Japan both smiled and said the negotiations were going well."

  "Yes," she said drily, preceding her husband into the study. "I did see that, and I'll see it again and again on the nightly news and probably plastered on the front page of the Post in the morning."

  "The truth is, I'm getting nowhere, Casey. The man is a rock. I have the impression that he doesn't have all his cards on the table, that there is something else they want and they're stalling for time until they get it."

  "What could that be?"

  "I don't know. Are there any other dignitaries due to arrive from Japan?"

  "Not to my knowledge. I'll have it checked," she said.

  "Any word from our wayward senator?" Everett asked with another sigh. He dropped down onto the sofa and slipped his feet out of his shoes.

  "As a matter of fact, there is."

  "There is." Everett stopped in the act of reaching for his shoes to place them out of the way. "Good news or bad?"

  "He didn't say. Apparently, the junior senator wants to speak to the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces."

  "Oh, God!" Everett said. "I'm not going to like this."

  ***

  The number of miles they had driven in the last few days could rival the Daytona 500. Sandra and Wyatt were back in the car racing toward the capital. Sandra was glad they weren't in her home state where they'd have many toll roads to travel and more opportunities for people to recognize them.

  Sam had the stones and was busy trying to accomplish- what Chip had begun. He'd ask them to leave the house. If anything went wrong and the bomb detonated, the beautiful stone building would be a small pile of rubble. They'd walked in the gardens, explored the stables, passed the tennis courts and pool, and set out along a jogging trail when they saw Sam waving them back toward the house. Sandra thought he'd finished, but when they arrived back it was to look at a file Sam had printed. It was a correspondence file with letters to Lance Desque and notes chronicling various meetings between Lance and Chip.

  Lance knew everything about Project Eagle. He might be able to help them. He was the undersecretary. He had access to any military installation including the Pentagon. If she could get to him, convince him their plan was the best thing to do with the stones, he might help them.

  It was worth a try. Lance had been a friend of the family since she was a child. He'd want to help her and her father get out of this mess. She'd called his office only to be told he'd left for the day. Then Sandra knew she had to see him. If she was going to enlist his help she'd have to do it in person.

  "I don't like this," Wyatt said as they headed back toward Washington. "That guy wants the stones only to further his own career. He'll never help us."

  "Wyatt, I know Lance is ambitious, but after I explain how his helping us can net him the same results, why wouldn't he help?"

  "It sounds good, but I . . ."

  He left the sentence hanging. Sandra knew he just couldn't say his intuition told him. Men didn't say those kind of things. They avoided the words, even the existence of such a feeling. She knew he was concerned for her.

  "Wyatt, you'll be close by," she reminded him. "If anything happens, I'll scream and you can come running; like my knight in shining armor." She laughed, hoping to lift the mood in the car. Wyatt smiled, but it did nothing to change the heavy atmosphere.

  They reached Lance's house. Wyatt parked on the street. "Well, it looks as if he's home," Sandra said. His car, with a personalized Maryland plate reading DESQUE, was parked in the driveway.

  "Wish me luck," Sandra said as she unlocked the door. Wyatt grabbed her arm.

  "You've got fifteen minutes. If you're not out by then, I'm coming in."

  She nodded. She wanted to laugh. He sounded like some TV cop who only gave his female partner a few minutes to handle the bad guys. Then he'd come barreling through the door, guns drawn and blazing. The credits would roll while the entire police department came and the hero and heroine kissed, having finally saved the day. She didn't think that would be her fate, but she'd go for the final kiss and the saving of the day bit.

  Her heels clicked on the driveway, then on the inlaid brick walkway that led to the front door.

  ***

  The day was finally over. It had been long and trying and Lance Desque couldn't wait to get to his gym and work the kinks out of his muscles. Later, he had an invitation to an embassy party. He had stacks of invitations. Someone always had something to celebrate. Lance attended as many as he could. Being known in the world community could only help him when it was his turn to shape world power.

  Tonight he would be dining with the ambassador of Finland. Tomorrow it would be the Japanese, then the French and the Pakistanis.

  He fingered the imperial jade carving of a dragon that sat on the foyer table in his hall. Green fire extended from the open mouth of the three-foot-tall piece of Japanese civilization. It had been a gift from the Prime Minister of Japan.

  Most people thought the dragon represented evil, but evil and good were often misunderstood. To him it meant strength and power, a power that would soon be in his hands. All he had to do was find Senator Randolph and Sandra Rutledge.

  Lance was thinking of the two people who could derail his plans for power when the doorbell rang. He went to it and peeped through the beveled glass. With a wide smile on his face, he swung it open.

  "Sandra, what a surprise. Come in, come in." He greeted her like a friend he hadn't seen in years instead of the woman who had been uppermost in his thoughts. Sandra stepped across the threshold into the white colonial house on a quiet cul-de-sac in Chevy Chase. Lance glanced around outside, wondering if his luck was good enough to include the senator, too. He saw nothing, no cars parked at the curb or in driveways he didn't recognize.

  Closing the door, he turned back to Sandra. He hadn't seen her in nea
rly a week and needed to know what she and Randolph had found out. They, neither of them, were the kind of people to sit around and twiddle their thumbs. They would have been busy trying to find out what they had and what it was used for. He needed to know what they had learned.

  Wyatt Randolph was a Boy Scout, fine, upstanding, and honest. How he ever got elected to Congress was a mystery.

  He was sure Chip Jackson had sent him the part because of his honesty. And that was what had caused him to lose control of the project. Jackson was livid when he discovered a second system had been built without his knowledge. Lance had managed to placate him on that, but he insisted on seeing it and being involved in its installation. It was Jackson who discovered the discrepancy in the inventory records.

  It was up to Lance to recover the stones. He'd been working with Senator Rutledge, and everything appeared to be under control until the senator's daughter had joined forces with Randolph.

  Then Everett Horton had stuck his hands into the pie and control was slipping. Lance had to get it back.

  "What brings you up here?" he asked when she was seated in the living room. "I didn't expect to see you," he explained honestly.

  Lance went to the bar and poured himself a drink. He took a gulp of it before offering to make her one. Sandra refused anything more than bottled water.

  "I need your help, Lance," she began when he'd handed her the glass and seated himself across from her. "I know you have your hands in every aspect of Defense. That you know everything there is to know about what goes on in the DOD."

  Lance waited. It was a technique he'd learned from Sandra's father. He'd wait a moment and see if she continued. He almost smiled when she did.

  "Wyatt. . .Senator Randolph and I have been looking at some files we found on Chip Jackson's computer in the Pentagon."