by Steve Berry
Edward Savage Eleanor Custis
Martha Washington 16
Hopefully, while she and Joe Levy finished their performance on the Mall, Carol had solved the riddle. Like Danny had said a few hours ago outside the White House, as he exited her car, Remember, the second mouse to the trap is the one who always gets the cheese.
Carol Williams entered the Founders Room. Visitors wandered in and out too, the building’s coat check located just beyond. They drifted near the fireplace, among a cluster of comfortable upholstered chairs, beneath Mellon’s portrait. Chick-fil-A Man stood at the doorway to keep watch, but little danger existed anymore. The turkeys were long gone.
“It was easy,” Carol said. “I didn’t even need the Internet. This one I know.”
Stephanie’s phone vibrated, the caller unknown.
She decided to answer.
“Ms. Nelle, this call is a courtesy, ordered by my superiors,” said the male voice, which she recognized.
The Chinese ambassador.
“Our friends to the south were not happy with what I secured from you. It was not as … substantial as they’d hoped. Whether it be true or false matters not to us. Regardless of what you think, we are simply trying to keep two allies happy. But being in the middle of this fight has proven most unpleasant. We are done. It is over, as far as we are concerned. But I cannot say the same for our friends to the south. They are the ones currently handling the operation overseas and they have decided to eliminate all remnants of the problem. I pass the message on as a show of good faith that we are not your enemy.”
She sucked a deep breath.
“They have trained personnel on the ground in Croatia,” the ambassador said. “They made a move on Kim, which failed. They now have sent their assets to finish the task. They have orders to kill Kim, his daughter, Howell, and anyone else who may be on that train, which includes any American assets. As I said, they are angry.”
This man was clearly informed.
“Thanks for the warning.”
“Not at all. It is, after all, what friends do for one another.”
She ended the call.
It’s a two-front war, Cotton had told her.
And he was right.
She quickly sent one more text.
SIXTY-ONE
CROATIA
Malone heard the train approaching, maybe a mile down the tracks. He’d checked the schedule board and saw that this was the last one due here for the night. Only a handful of people were around, the station nearly empty. Inside the station was a cavernous hall with a lofty ceiling supported by iron beams. The remaining Korean stood on the loading platform, off to the side, near one of the iron supports that held up an overhang. Both of the man’s hands rested inside his coat pockets, one of them probably holding a weapon. Malone’s gun was just beneath his leather jacket. What was their plan? Were there assets on the train to secure Kim and then these two would be waiting to take him away? Or were these two the only ones involved, here to claim Kim as he disembarked? He’d done his part to make things difficult here. But what were Luke and Isabella facing?
His phone vibrated.
He’d been waiting for the text.
Under control here. All done. Worked perfectly. No Chinese on your end. It’s NK. They are greenlighted to move on all of you.
He knew what that meant. There was no way Kim Yong Jin would be allowed to just walk away. For good measure, they’d also take out anyone else who happened to be nearby.
And he’d provided them the perfect venue.
This Croatian isolation worked both ways.
Which meant things were about to get messy.
* * *
Isabella kept moving forward, advancing to the connecting space between the cars. There were still passengers in some of the seats ahead of her, the bodies and commotion now behind them. Farther on, in the next car, began the first-class compartments.
The train was slowing.
Luke stood to her left, she to the right of the door into the next car, both of them with guns drawn. She ventured a quick look and saw Kim moving down the center aisle, still holding the black satchel, which surely contained a gun.
“We need to stop him,” Luke said.
She nodded her understanding.
“Let’s do it,” he said.
* * *
Kim was looking for his adversary, intent on killing the final obstacle to his success. The man had fled toward where Hana and Howell waited among the first-class compartments. One more car and he’d be there. His left arm held the satchel while his right hand was inside, wrapped around the gun. None of the passengers here seemed concerned, as they surely had no idea what had happened behind them. The clank of wheels to rails seemed more than enough noise to mask the suppressed shots. He glanced out the exterior windows and saw lights. That and the ever-slowing speed indicated they’d arrived in Solaris.
“Kim Yong Jin.”
He stopped and turned.
A man and woman stood at the far end of the car, guns pointed toward him.
* * *
Hana sensed that something had gone wrong. She lowered her gun, grabbed the clipped stacked of papers, and stood from her seat.
“Where are you going?” Howell asked.
She ignored him and slid open the compartment door, stealing a quick look into the car behind her. Through the glass in the doors she saw her father, facing away, a man and woman at the car’s rear with guns aimed at him.
Then another man.
The first Korean who’d boarded the train.
He was standing in the space between her exit door and the entrance for the next car. He held a gun and was carefully peering around the window’s edge toward her father, his back to her.
She aimed at the door two meters away and fired.
* * *
Kim heard glass break behind him.
He whirled and dropped down at the same time, expecting to see the last Korean bearing down on him. Instead he caught sight of Hana through the now obliterated half of the door to the next car.
Then the Korean appeared, coming to his feet.
The squeal of brakes to wheels, then wheels to rails signaled the train was stopping. He saw the man dart left and disappear. The two problems behind him had also sought cover. He decided to give them more reason to stay down. He tossed the satchel aside and fired three shots in their direction, then rushed the door and slipped out.
The Korean was gone.
Hana emerged from the car ahead.
“Get Howell.”
The train was fully stopped.
They had to leave.
Now.
* * *
Malone timed his move to coincide with the torrent of noise that accompanied the train’s arrival, assuming that would be the moment of maximum distraction. Hopefully, his target would not expect an attack from the platform, the focus on the train and what may have happened there. So far he’d stayed back, out of sight, using another of the iron supports for cover. The platform itself was dimly lit, which helped. Several workers busied themselves in preparing for the arrival, the train easing to a full stop.
A man leaped from one of the lead cars while the wheels were still moving. Asian. Holding a gun. The man on the platform yelled something not in English, the first whirling around and realizing that he now had an ally. He pointed up to the train and signaled for them to retreat.
Three more people emerged to the station.
Kim and his daughter, both toting guns, and Howell.
What the hell happened?
* * *
Isabella knew instantly what they had to do, as apparently did Luke. Kim had fled ahead so they needed to exit the train from the doors just behind them. The few passengers in the car slowly rose from the floor, where they’d all plunged when Kim starting shooting.
Everyone appeared okay.
They slid open the door and hopped down to the station.
She immediately spotted
Kim, Hana Sung, and Howell.
And the shooting started.
SIXTY-TWO
WASHINGTON, DC
Stephanie and Joe Levy followed Carol Williams out of the Founders Room then into the rotunda with the fountain that she’d visited earlier. They turned right and walked down the same long sculpture hall that led to the garden court—except this time they veered into a series of exhibition rooms. The first displayed French canvases, the next British artists. A few visitors loitered here and there, admiring the works. It was approaching 4:00 P.M., closing time a little more than an hour away. In a gallery labeled 62 she noticed that the two open doorways were blocked. NO ADMITTANCE signs were posted at each.
“The American rooms are being renovated,” Carol said. “They’ve been closed for a month, but follow me.”
They bypassed the barricades and entered a set of galleries where the canvases were gone, the bare walls and hardwood floors being repaired. on. Workers milled about with paint and stain and the air smelled of varnish.
“We took down most of the canvases,” Carol said.
They entered a rectangular room with pale-blue walls and cream-colored trim. Its ceiling was backlit glass panels dotted with floodlights angled down at canvases that remained hung, but covered in white cloth. The floor was the same hardwood planks, which had yet to be refurbished.
“They’re working their way here,” Carol said. “But what I think you’re after is right there. I had the sheet removed.”
The exposed image was substantial, around ten feet long and eight feet high, framed in heavy gilded wood the color of burnished gold.
Carol stepped toward the painting and pointed to its left side.
“The little boy is George Washington Parke Custis. He was Martha’s grandson by her first husband, but after his parents died he came to live with Martha and George. Of course, that’s George Washington sitting beside his namesake. Martha is across from her husband. Her granddaughter, Eleanor Parke Custis, stands beside her. She and George adopted both children as their own, so this is the actual First Family. The man in the background, behind the two women, is probably one of Washington’s slaves, but no one knows for sure.”
Stephanie listened as Carol explained more about the work. Edward Savage, its creator, had been an 18th-century American painter. Portraits were his specialty, but his most famous creation was this group started in 1789 and finished in 1796.
The Washington Family.
“It’s the only portrait of the First Family painted from life,” Carol said. “They actually posed for Savage, then he painted this from sketches he made. Washington, as you see, was depicted in uniform, his hat and sword on the table, his left hand resting above a set of papers, the idea to symbolize both the military and civilian aspects of his service to the country. Martha sits before a map of the federal city, her closed fan pointing to what is today Pennsylvania Avenue. The grandchildren are there to symbolize the nation’s future. The servant in the background is particularly noteworthy, as it was rare for slaves to be depicted in early American art. He stands overdressed in livery, in the shadows—there, but not. A reminder that Washington remained a gentleman farmer and planter.
“What’s really interesting are the people themselves. They sit stiff and awkward. Little life to them, and the faces, notice how none of them looks at the others. Their gazes are all off, focused separate, which was surely more symbolism. None of them was particularly close to the others. True, they were a family, but we would call it dysfunctional today.”
Stephanie studied the image, impressed with both its color and its detail. Behind the figures a vista down the Potomac seemed to complete the patriotic illusion.
“What you sent over,” Carol said, “Edward Savage, Eleanor Custis, Martha Washington. They all add up to this painting. Mr. Mellon bought it in January 1936. It’s hung here, in the gallery, since we opened in 1941 per his specific instruction. I checked on that to be sure. It’s one of the permanent pieces in the museum.”
All of the dots connected. That was nearly a full year before Mellon met with Roosevelt on December 31, 1936. But she needed to know more. “Where was it before the gallery opened, from 1936 to 1941?”
“In Mr. Mellon’s Washington apartment. It stayed there, even after he died in 1937, until we opened.”
Making it easily accessible if Roosevelt had bothered to go looking.
I’ll be waiting for you, Mr. President.
That’s what Mellon told Roosevelt.
Literally, at least for a time.
Stephanie held a smartphone in her right hand, its camera pointed at the portrait. On the walk from the Founders Room she’d dialed the number and established an encrypted connection. The unit had been provided by Treasury, so no one would be intercepting this transmission. As Carol Williams gave her explanation, the phone had heard, too.
Two other people appeared behind them, a man and a woman, the museum’s director and chief curator, who introduced themselves.
“I involved them,” Carol said. “I hope it was all right.”
She wasn’t listening. Instead, she was pondering the riddle. Andrew Mellon had left clues that directed FDR straight to this portrait.
But what now?
“Ask all of the workers here to leave, please,” she said. “We need privacy.”
The museum director looked unsure, so she decided to make the point clearer.
“That’s not a request,” she said. “Either work with me or I’ll shut this place down and do it my way.”
Joe Levy looked surprised at her abruptness, but there was no time for niceties. Things were playing out in Croatia and she had a timetable. The director gave the order and the chief curator cleared the galleries around them. She stepped closer to the painting and tried to make sense of what Mellon had done. He’d gone to a lot of trouble, everything executed with a precise purpose, so there was no reason to think that the final parts were any different.
Edward Savage Eleanor Custis
Martha Washington 16
She focused on the granddaughter, Eleanor, and asked Carol about her.
“They called her Nelly. She lived a long time and spent her life protecting George’s image. Look closely at how Savage depicted her, though. The right hand is lifting the map, as if signaling that there was something beneath it.”
And she saw that the observation was correct.
She aimed the phone toward Eleanor’s image, which also encompassed her grandmother Martha.
Then it hit her.
Mellon’s clues.
Edward Savage was for the painting itself. Eleanor Custis for a message beneath. So did Martha Washington complete the riddle? First she studied the painted floor beneath Martha’s hemline, where the toes of one shoe could be seen resting atop the checkerboards. Nothing there. She stepped closer and examined the outer frame in the lower right corner. Clearly it was old and had been hand carved, its edges abundant with chips and gauges. The wood was a good eight inches thick.
So why not?
She dropped to her knees and studied the frame’s underside that faced down to the floor. About four inches in from the bottom right corner she saw a round plug embedded into the wood. She immediately examined the opposite left corner and found a similar plug. One difference, though. The one on the right contained tiny engravings, rough, but still legible.
XVI.
16.
She aimed the phone at what she’d discovered.
“Bingo,” she whispered to it.
A small toolbox lay atop a padded drop cloth on the other side of the gallery. She laid the phone on the floor, rushed over, and found a hammer and screwdriver. The others watched her in silence. She came back and positioned herself beneath the frame. Three feet or so of clearance existed from there to the floor. She adjusted the phone’s angle, then jammed the screwdriver into the slight depression that encircled the plug. She was just about to pound the hammer when the museum’s director and curator both
yelled for her to stop.
“You can’t do that,” the director told her. “That’s a national treasure. I cannot allow it.”
“Stay out of this,” she said.
“Go get security. Now,” the director told the head curator.
The woman ran away and the director lunged toward her, reaching for the hammer. He yanked the tools away and said, “You’re insane.”
She allowed him his moment and simply reached for the phone. “What do you want to do?”
“You know damn well what I want,” Danny Daniels said through the speaker.
The director seemed shocked. He clearly recognized the voice.
“Sir,” Danny said. “Please hand those tools back to Ms. Nelle, and get the hell out of the way.”
Though a command, for Danny, it had been delivered in an uncharacteristically cordial tone.
“Take it from me,” Joe Levy said. “You don’t want to argue with him.”
The director definitely appeared to be in a quandary and she could sympathize. His entire job was to protect everything within the museum and here she was about to deface one its original treasures. But Andrew Mellon had specifically wanted that plug removed. If she was right, he’d been the one to actually place it there. So she doubted her violation would inflict any historical damage.
“I’m waiting,” Danny said through the phone. “You don’t want me to come over there.”
The director handed back the tools.
“I also need you and the other lady, Ms. Williams, to leave,” Danny said. “Please make sure Ms. Nelle and Mr. Levy are not disturbed, and that no one comes anywhere near the gallery. Have those security guards you summoned seal the area where you are right now. And shut off any cameras that are recording.”
“I assume it matters not that I don’t actually work for you,” the director said.
“You’re kiddin’, right? You think some civil service rules are going to stop me from kickin’ your ass.”