by Steve Berry
Why wasn’t he surprised.
“A few hundred people do not make a revolution,” his father said. “Whether any significant constitutional changes could ever be implemented is a huge question. There would be conventions, debates, then any amendments would have to be ratified by three-fourths of the states. That takes time and an enormous amount of resources. The Order’s wealth was hidden away for a second civil war. A revival that, hopefully, this time we’d get right. We would dishonor the legacy of all the men who made that possible by squandering it.”
Now he understood. “That’s why you want the stones. So no one can find the vault.”
“They must be secured. The Heart Stone, there in your lap, is the most vital.”
He was puzzled. “Why not just leave it where it was? Nobody knew.”
“Because eventually that tomb might have been reopened and the stone discovered by people with enough information to find the vault. Better we take advantage of the current opportunity and destroy it. That way there’s no risk at all.”
“But how would anyone ever find the vault?”
“They won’t.”
He was shocked. “You mean all that gold will just stay buried?”
“It’s not mine or yours to have. It belongs to posterity.”
“And how will the future know it even exists?”
“I’ll make sure there’s a path. And I understand, you were in this for a payout. I can provide one. I have one of our larger caches outside the vault secured in Arkansas. I have a substantial amount of gold, some of which can be yours. More than enough for you to live comfortably.”
But it wasn’t the vault.
They rode in silence for a few minutes, and he considered his options.
“You do realize I did you a favor,” his father said.
No, he did not.
“Our commander has made a move on both Diane and Kenneth Layne. You would have been next, if I had not intervened.” His father paused. “Did you know Diane Sherwood murdered her husband?”
He was shocked and it must have shown.
“I didn’t think so.”
“What are they doing to her?”
“Simple blackmail to quell her interest in looking for the vault. Her brother, on the other hand, did the unthinkable and violated our secrecy by involving Senator Sherwood in the first place. I would imagine his punishment will be more painful.”
“Like what you did to my men in Arkansas.”
“Violence is no stranger to me, or to those who work with me. There were two federal agents in Arkansas, whom the men you hired encountered. I knew all about Terry Morse and what he guarded. So I dispatched knights to handle the situation, and they did. While there, they also retrieved that gold cache. It’s much larger than the one you located in Kentucky. The Sherwood woman pointed the way, but I made sure there were no impediments to your search. I assumed you needed the money, and I needed you to keep doing what I wanted.”
“Surely you didn’t retrieve the cache in Arkansas just for me.”
“I was hoping it would be a peace offering, one that would satisfy our commander. I’m not unsympathetic to his goals, I just don’t see the need to violate the vault to accomplish them. Thankfully I have both the Witch’s and Heart Stones, so all is secure.”
He decided to poke a stick in the spokes of his father’s wheel. “You do realize that the other side doesn’t actually have to have the stones. This isn’t the 1800s. Computer imagery can put them together. The two men in Smithson’s crypt took pictures of this Heart Stone before the lights went off.”
But his father seemed unconcerned. “They have a bigger problem.”
He waited.
“The starting point. They have no clue. And this is a big country.”
“And you know it?”
“I told you about Angus Adams and his visit to the Smithsonian in 1877, when he returned the key and his field journal. Adams was the knight who created both the vault and the stones.”
Now he understood. “His journal? It has the starting point?”
His father nodded.
“I have it hidden away.”
* * *
Cotton was concerned about Cassiopeia.
Hopefully the GPS tracker would lead them to her. He hadn’t heard anything back from Billet headquarters, but he was sure things were being handled. His problem was still on the computer screen.
A car traveling on a dark highway.
He made a decision and told Stamm, “They’re definitely leaving.”
The car was off the main highway, headed south on a two-lane state road. He grabbed the radio and ordered the agent on the ground to head for the Manassas Regional Airport. He also told the helicopter to fall back but not lose the car.
Angus Adams’s field journal lay on the table beside the Trail Stone. He grabbed the book and examined its handwritten pages. Frank Breckinridge had kept it close for a reason. He faced Stamm. “I’m assuming we can merge the Heart and Trail Stones by computer?”
“We have some of the best digital imagery on the planet here. I’ve already sent the images downstairs to our lab. They’re working on it, sizing everything, getting it ready. The question is, where does the trail start?”
He pointed at the computer. “I’m hoping they’re going to supply that answer.”
He still held the journal.
And wondered.
What was so important about it?
* * *
Grant saw they were turning into a small regional airport outside Manassas labeled HARRY P. DAVIS FIELD. Only a few lights burned in the small terminal building.
“One of the knights owns a Gulfstream that we’ll be using,” his father said.
He was still stinging from his father’s insults. He’d done well tonight and did not deserve to be put down. But he wanted to know, “What happened to the two federal agents in Arkansas?”
“One left. The other I have in custody.”
“For what?”
“We might need some insurance.”
The car stopped and his father stepped out into the night. He followed. Beyond the terminal he heard the rev of jet engines.
“Our plane is ready to go,” his father said.
“You don’t think taking a federal agent hostage could be a problem?”
“As far as we know she was alone, with no opportunity to report in. My man was able to capture her neatly. And people left on the ground report that the local authorities have no idea where she went. So no, it’s not a problem.”
He could not believe what he was hearing.
“And you call me reckless.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Danny stepped back into the diner, the lights once again off.
“You should not have done that,” Frizzell said. “He came in good faith.”
But his mind was racing, that video still replaying over and over. “This is bullshit, Paul. You should go to the police and have Diane Sherwood arrested for murder.”
“It’s more complicated than that, Danny. She’s after something, and we have to make sure we have it before she’s taken down.”
“The vault?”
“That’s right. The knights are in a state of chaos at the moment, busted into two factions. It’s a mess. I stand with our commander who wants to work for peaceful, legal, constitutional change. We also want the vault. It was hidden away for just this use.”
“So what does the other side want?”
“They advocate doing nothing. Holding our resources for another day.”
“And Lucius Vance is about to throw a monkey wrench into both sides of the fight.”
“That’s an understatement. If he succeeds, we’re afraid public opinion might sour on more meaningful constitutional change. We actually like the Senate just as it is—a check and balance on the House. What we don’t like is Congress as a whole and, as the commander noted earlier, there are things from the Confederate constitution that would fit quit
e nicely with our own. Ideas that would improve things, ones we think the people will embrace. But they may not after a taste of Emperor Lucius Vance.”
He got it. “Nothing sours a revolution more than a greedy revolutionary.”
“Something like that.”
“Paul, this is more complicated than you know.”
He told his friend what Cotton had reported, adding, “Malone’s working an angle right now at the Smithsonian. We think the guy who shot Stephanie Nelle is a man named Grant Breckinridge.”
“It was him.”
“You people were watching that, too?”
“We weren’t there for the shooting of Ms. Nelle, but it wasn’t hard to surmise who did it.”
“I want that SOB.”
“So do we, Danny. But as you’ve seen, the elder Breckinridge and his son have teamed together, which is a problem for us all.”
He wondered why that was the case for them. Only one explanation made sense. “You have no idea where the vault is, do you?”
“Unfortunately, no. Commanders once knew some of the clues, but that information was lost to time. Frank Breckinridge, though, is its self-appointed sentinel. He assumed that job back in the 1970s when he sparred with Davis Layne. The Order was much weaker then, so a zealot like Breckinridge could easily dominate. But a new commander assumed power in the late 1970s and reorganized everything. You just spoke with him. To his credit, Breckinridge kept the vault away from treasure hunters, but he also refused to share anything he knew with the Order. That’s been a sore spot ever since.”
“So much for all-for-one-and-one-for-all.”
“Actually, Breckinridge would say he is being loyal to the Order. He disagrees that now is the time for us to act. Especially if that revolution is led by the man you just spoke with. He and Breckenridge do not get along. Unfortunately, it’s going to take a lot of money to influence not only that second constitutional convention, but the thirty-eight states needed to ratify whatever is adopted. So we have to allow Breckinridge to lead us to the vault, or at least to the stones. Thankfully, at the moment he seems to be doing that.”
“Am I to assume that your knights in Congress are few and far between?”
“Just me and two others, all in the House. I have ranking seniority. But there’s nothing we can do. If I raise one iota of objection, even privately, Vance will remove me from Rules. The Order doesn’t want that to occur.”
“What happens with Kenneth Layne?”
“We still need him. He has a lot of contacts and influence with state legislators around the country. I don’t know the details, nor do I want to know, but he’s currently learning the price to be paid for disloyalty.”
“And what about Diane Sherwood?”
“We’ve already dealt with her. She’s been shown the video, so she knows that we know. She’s also lost Grant Breckinridge and, if we’re successful, Vance too. Once all that happens, and we learn about the stones or the vault, we turn her in to the police. I agree with you, she’s a murderess who must be punished.”
He was glad to hear that.
“You came back to the Senate because of what Vance is planning,” Paul said. “I know you, Danny. Tell me what you have in mind for him.”
Earlier, he’d explained to Teddy Solomon how he thought Vance might be stopped. But the video had added a new dimension.
So he told his friend what he now had in mind.
* * *
Diane stood outside the World War II Memorial and considered everything that had just happened. She cleared the east end of the Reflecting Pool and entered the solemn site, its plaza and fountain lit to the night.
Her entire world had crumbled.
The messenger was gone, the final few minutes of another Wednesday ebbing away as midnight approached.
Everything was over.
Her marriage. The relationship with Vance. Grant. The gold. All of it. Gone. Where before she was at least the wife of a U.S. senator, now she was nothing but his widow. Even worse, somebody knew she’d killed Alex. They’d simply watched, filmed, and waited. They could not care less about Alex’s life.
But she got the message.
Back off or go to jail.
She strolled among the granite pillars, standing at attention like sentries. She knew she should feel some sort of emotion being here, but nothing registered. She was numb. And afraid. Even if she backed off, at any moment people could destroy her life. And that cloud would never blow over.
They’d own her.
Forever.
And Grant?
He’d abandoned her, taking the key, saying nothing, just disappearing.
With “a new benefactor,” the messenger had said.
With all these horrific turns of events she’d have been better off staying married to Alex, existing in a passionless relationship with a man she’d neither respected nor liked.
What would she do with the rest of her life?
She could no longer fulfill her father’s dream and find the vault. She had some money and could sell the house to acquire more. There’d be a pension from Congress and dependent’s Social Security payments. Income, for sure. Together, more than 99% of what the average American made. But nothing like billions of dollars in lost gold.
She stopped before words etched into the granite above her.
A quote from Eisenhower made on June 6, 1944.
D-Day.
YOU ARE ABOUT TO EMBARK UPON THE GREAT CRUSADE TOWARD WHICH WE HAVE STRIVEN THESE MANY MONTHS. THE EYES OF THE WORLD ARE UPON YOU. I HAVE FULL CONFIDENCE IN YOUR COURAGE, DEVOTION TO DUTY AND SKILL IN BATTLE
She’d also been on a great crusade that was now over.
Yet one last thread remained.
Danny Daniels.
The bastard had come into her home, stolen the notebook, somehow managed to spy on her and Vance, then interjected himself into her business. The thought of his succeeding turned her stomach. And he was still standing, going strong, a sitting U.S. senator. He had stature, respectability, and a future.
All thanks to her.
That bastard she could do something about.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
Cassiopeia sat in the passenger seat of the car being driven by James Proctor. Six hours had elapsed since they left Arkansas. They’d traversed the entire state of Oklahoma, staying on a four-laned superhighway, and were now in Texas, about thirty kilometers from a town called Amarillo. Her hands remained bound behind her back, Proctor not making good on his pledge to free them. They’d caught up with the panel truck, staying a couple of miles behind it, both vehicles maintaining a steady course due west.
“Do you plan to tell me where we’re going?” she asked for the third time.
He hadn’t been talkative, which was why she’d dozed off to sleep for a little while. Strange, but she did not feel threatened. At least not until they reached their destination. Proctor had brought her along for a reason. If he’d wanted her dead, he would have shot her back at the mine. Instead he seemed to enjoy toying with her. She assumed her status as a federal agent played into his decision. Was she insurance?
For what?
“We’re headed to the great state of New Mexico,” he said.
Another place she’d never visited.
“You kill people with great ease,” she said.
“Only those who need to die.”
“Spoken like a true sociopath.”
He laughed. “I’m just a guy who does his job.”
“For money? Or something else?”
“Mainly for money. The Order is generous. Ten bars of that gold ahead of us is mine.”
“And the men who came with you?”
“They’ll all be well paid, too.”
“Except the dead one.”
“Whom Morse killed. You think he’s a sociopath, too?”
“No. Just an old man holding on to something that connects him to his past. But your man threatened his granddaughter and he reacted as any grand
father would.”
“I underestimated him.”
“You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?”
“That’s not my decision to make.”
“Back in the mine you talked about the Golden Circle as though it were a religion. You don’t really buy into all that, do you?”
He kept his attention on the dark highway, sparse with cars but heavy with truckers pushing their rigs hard.
“My father thought it was all nonsense,” he said. “But my grandfather—he was a believer. He hated the way this country was run. He served in Congress back in the 1940s and was never a fan of FDR. He loved Truman, though. My grandfather told me about the Order, and introduced me to men who, later in life, allowed me to become part of it. I’ve made a good living doing what they need done.”
“Aren’t you the good little soldier.”
“Every army needs them. The knights once numbered in the tens of thousands. They were everywhere, but history books never mention them. Which is a travesty. They were a clever bunch.”
“How proud you must be.”
“Actually, I am proud. The South had no chance of winning that war, but it fought hard with what it had.”
“How about untying me. My arms hurt. I already promised to be a good girl.”
“But you and I know that won’t happen.”
“Are we going to stop at any point? Some food and water would be great. Not to mention a bathroom.”
“Do I look that stupid?”
Her gun and cell phone were gone. Proctor had both. And she had no idea of the surrounding geography.
Lights began to strobe inside the car.
She turned her head and saw police cars approaching from the rear.
In both lanes.
Proctor saw them, too, and she caught a moment of indecision as he assessed the situation. He reached beneath his jacket and laid his pistol in his lap. She wondered how messy this might get. So she told herself to be ready to act. Luckily, her legs were not bound.
Sirens now blared.
Close.
They were driving in the right-hand lane. She looked back again and saw the lights directly behind them shift to the left lane, then four police cars, labeled TEXAS HIGHWAY PATROL, roared by. Brake lights glowed as traffic began to slow.