by Steve Berry
Her mind jolted back to the present, still sitting in Alex’s apartment. She recalled walking back to the house that day, letting herself in through the garage, standing in the quiet for nearly an hour, hands trembling, swallowing the fear, wondering if anyone had seen her. She could still see Alex’s arms flailing in the water, the mouth open, desperate for air. Her greatest fear had not been what she’d done, but rather that she would be caught. When the sheriff came hours later to inform her that the body had been found, she’d had to fight hard not to show relief. Nothing pointed to foul play and no one suspected her in any way.
No witnesses had come forth. To the world she was a woman who’d lost her husband in a tragic accident. The fact that he was a longtime member of the U.S. Senate had only added to the level of grief.
Which she’d milked at the funeral.
She took a few deep breaths and gathered herself, savoring again the great wave of relief that had swept over her the day Alex died. That was all in the past. The future was now hers for the taking.
Her cell phone rang, its chime like an alarm.
The display indicated it was Lucius Vance.
She answered.
“We need to talk, right now,” he said to her. “In private.”
She heard the urgency, which was troubling. “I’m in town, at Alex’s apartment. This is as good a place as any.”
“Tell me where. I’m on my way.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Grant waited until the visitor left. He’d heard it all. His father had offered some sort of code, which the guy from the Smithsonian, whom his father had been calling Captain Adams, had broken.
And fast, too.
The answer supposedly led to the Heart Stone.
The man had not stayed long after that, his father lapsing into more and more nonsense about the past. Finally the front screen door opened then banged closed. He waited in the kitchen until he heard a car engine rev, followed by his father’s footsteps back to the den. He hadn’t brought the uniform in with him and should probably go and get it. But what for? What he needed to know had just been told to a total stranger. He could simply beat the same information out of the old man.
He was beyond pissed. He’d had to put up with nonsense for two years, obtaining information in bits and pieces, never getting the whole story. Now to know that his father was lucid enough to craft a code, and pass on the location of the Heart Stone, only swelled the anger rising inside him. Further fueling him was the piece of new information he’d heard. Some sort of journal that seemed important.
He stormed from the kitchen and entered the den.
“Where’d you come from?” his father asked.
He wondered if his face had penetrated the fog. “Do you know who I am?”
“I do not, sir. Are you with the captain? He just left.”
“No, old man. I’m your friggin’ son. Could you for once remember?”
The eyes that stared back were blank and listless. His gazed searched the room, looking for the pad of paper that had been passed back and forth.
Which was nowhere to be seen.
“Where is the pad you were writing on?”
“That was between the captain and me. No strangers allowed.”
Interesting how short-term memory seemed to be functioning today. So he tried, “Tell me about the code.”
“Were you listening to us? Tell me, boy. Were you spying?”
“I’m not going to ask again. Where is the pad?”
No reply.
He grabbed his father by the shoulders, gripping each arm hard, and shook. “Do you want a fist in the gut? Is that what you want? Those bones of yours can take only so much. A trip to the hospital could be the end for you. Tell me what I want to know. Now.”
His father’s body went limp, the head tilted to one side, which made it hard to hold him up, so he released his grip and dumped the old man into a chair.
Then he saw the pad.
In a back pocket.
He slid it free, but there was no writing on any of the pages.
“Where is it?” he screamed. “Where is what you wrote?”
“The captain … took it … with him.”
Dammit.
But if the old man remembered once, he could again. Especially with proper motivation. Which Grant intended on supplying.
He tossed the pad down to his father.
“Write what you wrote to him.”
“You know how to solve the code?”
He nodded. “Yes. Yes. I know the code. Write it down.”
He’d take whatever he could get. If he could not figure it out, Diane certainly could. At least they’d have the information.
“Did the captain teach you?”
He had to play along. “Of course. I work with him.”
His father righted himself in the chair, found the pen, and wrote. When the pad was handed over, the top sheet seemed an unintelligible jumble.
FATAHW UOYLOO NOSERA
“This is nonsense,” he roared. “Do you want me to beat the hell out of you? Is that what you want?”
His father shook his head, and he saw a familiar fear. Good. Finally. He might be getting through.
“Tell you what,” the old man said. “I’ll unlock it. Will that help?”
“Damn right. Do it.”
His father did as instructed and he yanked the pad away, reading the single line of deciphered letters.
Whatafoolyouareson
“Break the line into words. Can you read it?”
He could.
WHAT A FOOL YOU ARE SON.
His father stood from the chair, holding a gun, aimed straight at him. “My little charade is over. You’ll not lay a hand on me again.”
The words came clear, concise, and with a familiar harshness. In a firm voice he hadn’t heard in years.
Then he realized. “You’re as sane as the rest of us.”
A smile came to the thin lips. “More so than you can say. Elder abuse seems not to bother you.”
He was too shocked to speak. Finally, he managed, “Why would you pretend like that? And let me beat you?”
“Because I needed you to do things I could not do on my own. All war is deception, but I doubt you would appreciate such a truism. But savor what a French poet once said. It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.”
His father moved a few feet away, toward the front windows, and motioned with the gun that he should retreat a few steps, too.
“That gold has an amazing pull, doesn’t it?” his father asked.
“Damn right.”
The old man shook his head. “Without that Layne woman, or Sherwood as she calls herself now, you would have made no progress. Her father taught her well.”
“You tricked her, too? When she came to see you?”
“Of course, but I also determined how much she knew. Then I watched as the two of you became acquainted. And when you kept coming back, wanting more information, I learned that you were together. So I led you both where I wanted you to go.”
Then he realized. “You want the stones. You can’t get them on your own, so you had us do it for you.”
“See, you’re not always so stupid. Sadly for you, though, your usefulness is waning.”
He began to acquire a more healthy respect for the gun aimed at him.
“Why does this matter?” he asked his father.
“I am a knight of the Golden Circle. I have been most of my adult life. I may, in fact, be the most important knight in the Order’s history.”
“Because you control the vault.”
“There it is again. Those flashes of brilliance that peek through the idiocy you so easily display. What does that Layne woman see in you?”
“You know about our relationship?”
“I know a great deal, son. More than you may ever realize.”
“You’re also a sentinel?”
“I am the sentinel. Of the vault. I have protected it a lon
g time. But I’m old, and there are tasks I must do before I die. The stones had to be acquired, and you offered the fastest route to accomplishing that goal.”
His father pressed an empty hand to the front window.
“I could be a sentinel,” he said.
“You have neither the brains nor the character for the job. You remind me of Davis Layne. All he wanted was the gold for himself. Greed does not become a knight of the Golden Circle.”
A thought suddenly occurred to him.
“Kenneth. Diane’s brother. He’s a knight?”
“Of course. He was sent to enlist his sister’s help, as she had the knowledge.”
“So why did you need me?”
The screen door opened and two men entered.
One of them pounced, wrapping an arm around his neck, the other pinning his hands behind his back. The second man jammed a fist into his right kidney.
Pain shot through him.
Bile rose in the back of his throat.
His father smiled. “These men are now going to provide what you so easily gave to me.”
Another fist slammed his abdomen.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Cassiopeia entered the mine, the same lights from before burning bright, the way ahead clear. She kept to one side of the tunnel, the gun tight in her right hand, finger on the trigger. She came to the gash in the side wall that led to the gold chamber. Back to there? Or keep going deeper into the main shaft?
She heard voices.
From beyond the gash.
So she headed toward the gold chamber.
The wooden door she’d shoved her way through before hung wide open. Shadows danced along the interior walls.
Voices continued.
“You’re friggin’ crazy,” a man yelled.
She made her way to the doorway, careful with her own shadows. A quick peek inside revealed three men lying on the earthen floor, hands and feet bound with rope. The same three from the bee house at Morse’s place. Proctor stood over them with a gun aimed downward. Where was the other man she’d seen loading, the one who hadn’t left with the truck?
She stepped into the chamber.
Proctor saw her.
But before he could raise his weapon she fired a bullet at his feet.
“Let the gun drop,” she said.
He smiled and did as ordered. “I’ve been waiting. I assumed Morse’s granddaughter would find you after I took the old man, and that’s exactly what she did. We left enough of a trail that anyone could follow.”
“Where is Morse?”
“Gone. In the truck.”
“I didn’t see him.”
“He was tied in the back, unconscious.”
She did not like the sound of any of that. “What’s the rule? No knight kills another. Except you?”
He turned his palms upward and shrugged. “I simply administer justice.”
She motioned for Proctor to step toward the maw in the floor, the same one she and Lea had been imprisoned in. “Your turn to jump.”
He stepped to the edge.
The three men still lay on the floor, one now close to where she stood. A quick glance down and she saw that the bindings on his wrists were not tied. The rope simply lay loosely across his skin. Before she could react to the new threat, his arms shot out and clipped her legs out from under her.
She pounded to the ground.
Another of the three men from yesterday pounced and her gun was wrestled away.
“Excellent,” Proctor said. “Good work.” He reached down and relieved her of the gun. “These three offered to assist, and who am I to refuse such graciousness.”
She felt like an idiot at being played.
“Get up,” Proctor ordered.
She stood.
“We all had a little talk before you arrived,” Proctor said. “It seems that a gentleman back in Washington, a man named Grant Breckinridge, hired them to impersonate knights of the Golden Circle. They were sent to find the Witch’s Stone.”
“Which you now have,” she noted.
“That I do. I explained to these gentlemen that before and during the War Between the States, membership in the Order was deemed an honor. Men were carefully screened and vetted before being asked to join. The North was the enemy, and all who did not see it that way were regarded as the enemy, too. Even if those men be Southerners. I envy those times. Things were so much simpler.”
“We did as you wanted,” one of the three said. “Can we go now?”
Proctor held up his hand. “In a moment. First, indulge me.”
The other man she’d seen earlier entered the chamber and she caught a slight nod of his head toward Proctor.
A signal that something had been accomplished.
“The Order’s induction ceremony back then was most impressive,” Proctor said. “Men wore crimson robes with silver lace. They had turbans on their heads and sandals on their feet. Then there were the masks, painted to represent a human face. Not their own, of course, but another of their choosing. So perfect were the masks that, in the right light, they appeared real. Two oaths were required. Both taken solemnly before God. Once done, all of the knights would remove their masks, revealing their true selves, and clasp the new member with hugs and handshakes.”
“Sounds like a big boys’ club,” she said.
“That it was, meant to build an army, and it did. Tens of thousands became knights. They went on and became soldiers, administrators, governors, legislators, infiltrating every aspect of the North and South. A network of eyes and ears that wreaked havoc. What an honor it must have been to be a part of all that.”
Proctor fired three shots, one each into the skulls of the three other men. Their bodies collapsed to the ground.
“These imposters disgraced the memory of it all.” He lowered the weapon. “I imagine death is no stranger to you.”
“It seems to be your best friend.”
“I do my job.”
Proctor motioned and the remaining man scooped up some of the rope and bound her hands behind her back. He then shoved her to the floor and tied her ankles. The man then stepped back to the doorway and retrieved two rucksacks, which he laid down on the other side of the chamber. From inside each he removed some sort of electronic device with wires running from it.
“Those backpacks contain dynamite,” Proctor said. “We’ve already left more in the tunnels. It’s time for this place to disappear. With you inside. But, as I said when we first met, I am a gentleman, so I plan to give you a sporting chance.”
He reached down, grabbed her bound ankles, and dragged her ten meters away from the floor chasm. He released his grip and she rolled over to see him step back to where the rotted wooden ladder jutted up from the opening’s edge. He removed a knife from his pocket and flicked his wrist, exposing an impressive serrated blade, which snapped into place.
He crouched down and jammed the tip deep into the old wood.
“It might be helpful,” he said. “Then again, maybe not.”
He stood and headed for the doorway. The other man pushed buttons on the top of each device and a LED display indicated three minutes.
“Goodbye, Ms. Vitt,” Proctor said.
And they left.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Diane opened the apartment door and invited Lucius Vance inside. The Speaker appeared flustered.
“We have an issue.”
She closed the door and listened as he explained about Danny Daniels’ visit to the Willard Hotel.
“You didn’t know he’d been appointed to Alex’s vacant seat?” Vance asked, reading her face.
She shook her head. “I haven’t paid attention to the news today.”
“No one called you?”
There’d been calls, but she’d ignored them. “I’ve been here, working on things in the quiet.”
Vance knew zero about the gold hunt. Why should he? He knew only about Kenneth’s initiative with the state legislatures and the
call for a second constitutional convention. Amazingly, Kenneth had apparently kept the gold part of their endeavor close, not sharing it with either Alex or Vance, as neither of them had ever mentioned anything about lost treasure.
“He knew exactly what we said last night,” Vance said. “Word for word.”
Which was troubling.
“Your protective agent thought he heard something. Remember? You told him it was nothing. Apparently, you were wrong.”
“I don’t recall your being overly paranoid, either.”
No, she had not been. “Which means if Daniels knows what we said, he also knows what we did.”
The kiss.
And their talk of an affair.
“He’s after us,” Vance said. “My guess is he secured that Senate appointment to give himself a beachhead.”
And Kenneth’s missing notebook now made sense. It had to have been Daniels who took it. He had opportunity, and now she knew he had a motive. But she kept that conclusion to herself. “What are you going to do?”
“Not a damn thing. We’re going ahead, as planned. I just met with my people on the Rules Committee. They’re ready to adopt the change first thing tomorrow. They understand the risks and are ready to take them. There’ll be a twenty-four-hour delay from the time they take their committee vote until the measure goes to the House floor for a full vote. I can’t get around that. And even if I could, it wouldn’t be smart. It would seem too much like a ramrod. So there’s going to be some attention. But the House is sick and tired of the Senate’s shenanigans. Everyone I talk with is ready to change things up.”
“What about the White House?” she asked.
“Fox? That moron? Before he realizes what’s happened, he’ll be impotent. After that, he won’t matter.”
Vance seemed both sure and confident.
“Daniels was asking about Alex’s death,” Vance said. “He even threatened me on it, thinking I might have been involved. Is there anything to worry about there?”
