The Golden Path (A Tom Wagner Adventure Book 4)

by M. C. Roberts

  “That’s true, but—”

  “And wasn’t Scott Wagner the go-to guy for the last two presidents’ dirty laundry?” Pitcock continued.

  “Also true. Still, it’s a strange move. And everything comes back to this woman, Yasmine Matthews. Since she came on the scene, the president no longer listens to a word I say.”

  Pitcock thought for a moment. “If that’s the case, then we have to sort this out. If not, he can kiss his presidency goodbye after one term,” he said. He paused for effect, then added, “And we’ll be out, too.”

  “I agree,” Armstrong said. “We have to work together if we want to get Samson back on track. This affair is going to damage him—and by extension, it’s going to damage us. And if wind of Tom Wagner’s involvement hits the media, we’re through.” He was on his feet now, pacing back and forth through his office.

  “Settle down. If we stick together, I’m sure we’ll come up with a solution.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Vice President. I trust we can keep this between us for the time being.”

  “Of course, Mr. Armstrong,” Pitcock said. He smiled to himself and ended the call. Then he dialed an internal number.

  “Rita, would you come into my office for a minute?”

  “Sir?” Rita Sorensen, Pitcock’s chief of staff, said as she entered the office.

  “Let’s get back to that new squeeze you mentioned . . .” Pitcock began. Rita smiled and closed the door behind her.

  28

  Kranichberg Castle, south of Vienna

  “When we slid the bolt across, there was a hollow in the wall behind it, wasn’t there?” Hellen asked, remembering, and she ran into the last chamber without waiting for Cloutard’s answer. She knelt down and shone her flashlight into the space behind the bolt.

  “There’s something inside!” she cried gleefully. She hesitated for a moment, then overcame her aversion and, grimacing, reached in among the cobwebs and spiders. She grabbed the object inside and pulled it out: it was a small metal casket. Sweeping cobwebs and creepy crawlies off her hand, she placed it on the stone floor and squatted in front of it. Cloutard followed her example, his eyes riveted on the casket. Hellen brushed away centuries of accumulated dust, revealing a coat of arms underneath: a shield divided into three horizontal bars of red, white and red.

  “It’s Austria’s old Bindenschild,” she said in awe.

  “And what is that?” Cloutard asked, pointing at the lid. With a little scratching, he loosened more of the old dirt and uncovered a keyhole. Beside it was a combination lock engraved with letters.

  “It’s an old wordlock,” Hellen said, her eyes widening. “So the Habsburgs also used them to protect their documents . . .”

  “Something like Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘cryptex,’ you mean?”

  “I see you’ve read The Da Vinci Code too!” Hellen said with a laugh. “Wordlocks like this date back to an Italian engineer named Giovanni Fontana—in 1420, in fact, more than thirty years before Da Vinci was born. This particular box, obviously, was doubly secured. You need a key and the right combination of letters. And this metal looks solid. If you try to open it by force, you’ll probably damage whatever’s inside.”

  Hellen lifted the small casket up and turned it around several times. She could hear some kind of light object moving inside.

  “We need the key,” she said. “Without that, we can’t even move the letters on the cylinders.”

  Cloutard grinned. “I think I might be able to help with that. I wouldn’t be François Cloutard,” he said, digging into his backpack, “if I didn’t pilfer a little something from every museum I visit.” Triumphantly, he produced an ancient lever-lock key that looked to be made of the same metal as the casket. Hellen grinned from ear to ear.

  “It was just lying around with the documents in the Albertina. I thought it could not hurt to bring it along,” Cloutard said cheerfully.

  Hellen snatched the key from his fingers, inserted it into the keyhole and turned it counter-clockwise. There was a click, and the letter cylinders moved freely.

  “And now? What is the combination?” Cloutard said.

  Hellen frowned intently at the casket. “Strange,” she said. “Normally, wordlocks and cryptexes have six cylinders. This one only has five.”

  Hellen’s mind was working feverishly. Suddenly, her face brightened, and Cloutard watched as she turned the cylinders to read “AEIOU.” The lock sprang open.

  “Austriae Est Imperare Orbi Universo,” said Hellen.

  “Austria Erit In Orbe Ultima,” said Cloutard.

  “And dozens of other interpretations of the Habsburgs’ motto, all saying roughly the same thing: the world belongs to Austria.”

  Cautiously, Hellen opened the lid, and she and Cloutard almost cracked their heads together as they leaned over the casket. Inside was a sealed envelope. Hellen opened it carefully, removed a sheet of paper from inside, and quickly scanned the first lines.

  “François, do you know what this is?” Hellen said. Cloutard could see the excitement in her glowing eyes. “It’s the fifth letter!”

  “But of course, the fifth letter! So . . .” he counted on his fingers. “E?”

  “Hernan Cortés, the conquistador, sent four letters to Charles V, the Habsburg emperor. In the letters, he talked about his experiences in Central America. For hundreds of years, rumors have persisted that a fifth letter must exist, one in which he talks about El Dorado. I think we’ve just found that letter.”

  “Then I suggest that we get out of here before someone also decides to arrest us for ‘urban exploring’ or whatever it is called,” said Cloutard.

  Hellen nodded. She grabbed the letter and the casket, and they ran back to their car the same way they had come. They checked that no one was waiting for them there, and minutes later they were back in the Smart and Cloutard was racing back down the mountain road. Hellen, in the meantime, read the letter more closely.

  “My Spanish is a little rusty, but the letter seems to have been written after Cortés’s last journey, a sea battle where he fought beside Charles V and Andrea Doria off the coast of Algeria. The Knights of Malta and the Knights Templar were also involved.”

  Cloutard looked up. “The Knights of Malta?” he asked. “The ones with the sword?”

  “Yes. But that’s not the exciting part. He writes that he couldn’t even begin to carry back all the treasure he found in El Dorado. What he brought to the Spanish court was just a fraction of the gold he left behind.”

  “Magnifique,” said Cloutard breathlessly.

  “Cortés writes that there is not only immense wealth in El Dorado but also an object of immense power. He tells the emperor that whatever might befall the Habsburgs, with what they find in El Dorado they can rule the world forever.”

  “Austria Est Imperatrix Omnis Universi,” Cloutard murmured.

  “Oh my God!” Hellen suddenly shrieked, giving Cloutard such a shock that he almost drove off the road. “Cortés says he drew a map for the emperor showing the exact location of El Dorado!”

  “With a red ‘X’ to mark the spot? Like with One-Eyed Willy’s treasure in ‘The Goonies’?”

  “So now that Tom’s not here, you start coming at me with movie references? I have no idea if the map has an ‘X’ marking the spot.” She looked across jubilantly at Cloutard. “But I do know where to find the map.”

  “The suspense is killing me. Where?”

  “In Alcazar.”

  “The Spanish royal palace in Seville?”

  “Exactly. According to this letter, Cortés had the plan hidden in the head of the emperor’s bed.”

  Cloutard stomped on the brakes.

  “Then it might as well be in the White House or Buckingham Palace or the Kremlin in Moscow.”

  “You’re right. Alcazar is the summer residence of the Spanish royal family. We can’t just waltz in.”

  Cloutard leaned back in his seat with a self-satisfied smile and began to whistle “La Marse
illaise.”

  “And that is why you have me, French master thief François Cloutard. Because we can just waltz in—and I know how,” he said, smiling across at Hellen.

  “How? Don’t keep it to yourself, François!”

  “First, Geneva,” the Frenchman said, and he stepped on the gas again.

  29

  Genesis Program, Cornwall

  Tom had seen this kind of thing before. Still, he could understand Sienna’s reaction. Rigid with fear, she stood in the center of the office, her arms wrapped tightly around the small case, her fingers clawing at the cold aluminum. Her entire body trembled.

  Tom stepped cautiously around the desk and surveyed the scene. Dr. Emanuel Orlov was dead. He was slumped in his leather chair, head tipped back and mouth open, with a hole in his forehead. His arms hung loosely at his sides. The contents of his skull were splattered across the wall behind him. A damn good Jackson Pollock imitation, Tom thought. The killer had cut out one of Orlov’s eyes. His computer lay on its side on the floor, the hard drives torn out. They were definitely too late, but by how much?

  Rigor mortis had not yet set in, which meant that he had not been dead very long. The killer might still be close by, Tom knew, and he had no desire to find out if that was the case. Sienna’s scream had probably alerted everyone in the building—she was definitely up there with the great big-screen scream queens.

  “Come on, we’ve gotta go,” Tom said. But Sienna didn’t react. She was in shock, staring at her dead boss in horror.

  Tom stood in front of her and grasped her arms gently, looking intently into her eyes. “Sienna,” he said. He knew what she was going through. What she’d experienced in the jungle would have fazed the strongest man. According to her file, she’d been struggling with PTSD ever since, and the sight of her boss had just set her progress back by months.

  “Sienna,” he repeated, louder, shaking her softly. No reaction. With no warning, he slapped her across the face. Sorry, he thought, but it worked: she snapped out of her trance. “Are you with me?” he asked. He looked into her watery eyes. Sniffling, she wiped away her tears.

  She nodded. “Yes. I’m all right.”

  “We need to go. The killer could still be here.” Sienna nodded several times, then pushed Tom aside to take a final look at her boss.

  “He was a back-stabbing bastard, but I would never, ever, have wished this on him.”

  “You’re too nice. In my world, he got off way too easily.”

  Tom took her by the hand and led her to the door. Pistol drawn, he peeked carefully down the corridor.

  “The coast’s clear. Which way to the stairs?” In situations like this, he preferred the stairs. More options. In an elevator, you were trapped.

  “Last door on the left.” Sienna said, nodding in that direction.

  They ran down the corridor and Tom opened the door, keeping Sienna close behind him and making sure she only moved when he told her to. His gun followed his gaze, first up, then down. The stairwell was empty. Sienna stayed near, still hugging the case like a favorite stuffed animal.

  When they reached the ground floor, Tom looked out carefully into the research center lobby. He saw nobody. Everything seemed calm. Too calm, Tom thought. He had to double-check.

  “Wait here,” he said. He settled Sienna into a corner of the stairwell, then dashed out, ducking low, pistol raised, moving silently through the lobby. At reception, he leaned over the counter.

  “Shit.” The security guard lay in a large pool of blood beside his chair. A small TV was tuned silently to a sports channel.

  He heard a ping and spun around. An elevator had just arrived at the ground floor. The door slid open. A man with slightly tousled hair stepped out. He was wearing a white coat and tinted glasses. What’s wrong with this picture? Tom thought. It wasn’t just the military boots and the cargo pants he could see beneath the white coat. The man’s posture and body language looked familiar, but he could not say immediately where he knew them from. He had no time to think about it, because a split second later all hell broke loose. From under his coat, the man whipped out a fully automatic, silenced Glock with a high-capacity magazine and started firing. Tom sprinted back toward the stairwell, ducked low, returning fire without looking back. Bullets zinged overhead and stitched a line into the wall behind him.

  Tom flung himself at the door to the stairs and, with more luck than good aim, managed to dodge the line of fire. He slammed the door behind him, whipped out his knife, and wedged it under the door, jamming it in place with a kick. Sienna was cowering in the corner where Tom had left her, her eyes squeezed shut and hands pressed over her ears. Tom grabbed her and hauled her to her feet, and together they ran as fast as they could down the stairs.

  It was a long way down, the equivalent of descending the stairs of a sixteen-story building, and there was only one exit: through the rainforest dome at the bottom. Above them, the gunman kicked and pounded at the jammed door, the noise reverberating down through the stairwell. When they were a third of the way down, he got through. Sienna screamed as the killer fired down at them, but the bullets flew wide.

  “Almost there,” Tom said. They were taking the stairs two and three at a time, and when they reached the bottom, Tom jerked open the door and they ran into the long corridor leading directly to the biodome. But they came to an abrupt halt at the end: the exit used the same two-factor lock from this side, too.

  “How did you get inside?” Tom asked. He’d been thinking about it the whole time. “I’ve got a card, but the guy who loaned me his eye is lying unconscious in the bushes out there,” he added.

  Shaking, Sienna fumbled out her card and placed her chin on the scanner. The door buzzed and opened. The small success renewed her hope and raised her spirits a little. “Our brilliant security guys literally walked me to my car yesterday, but nobody took my key card and nobody deleted me from the system. They just canceled my access to the lab,” she said.

  “Bureaucracy at its finest,” Tom said. Relieved, he pulled open the door and they stepped out into the biodome. Tom glanced into the bushes, but the hippie had disappeared.

  “He’s coming,” Sienna cried. “He’ll get through the door, too. He’s got Dr. Orlov’s eye. There’s no way to lock it.”

  Tom turned and fired two shots at the retinal scanner and card reader. “That should slow him down.”

  Tom looked through the small window in the door and saw the gunman running toward them. He grinned at the man and raised his pistol, aiming straight at him. The man snarled, tore off the toupee he was wearing, and threw it aside. Now Tom knew who he was dealing with: Friedrich von Falkenhain—the Kahle, or as Tom liked to call him, Mr. Clean. Without the slightest hesitation, Tom pulled the trigger.

  30

  Top floor of NutriAm Towers, Arlington, Virginia

  “Howard, don’t bore me with details. Can we skip the logistics?”

  Yasmine Matthews stood up from her desk and gazed out over the Potomac River and Theodore Roosevelt Island. It was a glorious day, and it occurred to her briefly that she could go for a walk in the sun instead of wasting her time with idiots. Why had she dedicated the last ten years of her life to a job that, she was realizing more and more, meant nothing to her? She was one of the most powerful, most highly paid managers in the United States. She had achieved things most people could only dream of. And yet she felt empty inside.

  “Yes, you understood me correctly. I want to know if it is possible to take every batch we produce in Belize and which we would otherwise sell in Central America, and distribute it all here in the States.”

  Howard launched into his reply, and Yasmine could see instantly where it was going. If she did not stop the man in the next three seconds, he’d lecture her on NutriAm’s entire supply chain. She had no interest in that at all.

  “Howard, stop. I want a simple yes or no.”

  The door opened just then and her assistant entered the office. She had hired him straight o
ut of Harvard, and at his job interview she had thought to herself that he could easily work as a model instead of being stuck here, topping off her coffee and taking the minutes of meetings. But to each his own.

  “Ms. Matthews? The White House is on line two.”

  Yasmine smiled. “Howard, I have to take care of something. Let’s talk later. Between now and then, you have one simple task, which is to prepare a yes or no answer to my question. I’m sure you can guess which answer I want to hear.”

  She had no intention of waiting for Howard’s reaction. She hung up and pressed the button for the incoming call, and her body language changed instantly. The lines of her face softened and she transformed from a hard-as-nails CEO to a tender, adoring woman.

  “Hel-loo,” she purred into the telephone. She was very happy indeed: it was unusual for George to call her at work.

  “Good morning, Ms. Matthews. This is Vice President James Pitcock.”

  Silence. It took a moment for Yasmine to realize it was not her lover on the line. She shook her head as if to shake off the daydream that had formed in her mind and return to dismal reality.

  “Mr. Vice President,” she said, and she swallowed audibly. “To what do I own the honor?”

  Yasmine was once again the sober CEO. The pause at the other end of the line was longer than it needed to be—Pitcock wanted her to know who was in charge. An uncomfortable suspicion rumbled inside her, only to be confirmed an instant later.

  “Some information has come my way, Yasmine, that I would like very much to discuss with you.”

  Yasmine cleared her throat, abashed. “I’d be glad to. May I ask what it’s about?”

  “The matter is . . . sensitive. Too sensitive to discuss on the telephone. I have a secure line, certainly, but after the espionage scandal last year, I have to assume that the NSA are not the only ones listening in on yours.”