The Lost Order_A Novel

by Steve Berry

  Proctor was forced to slow down, too.

  Both lanes congealed as one police car stayed behind the panel truck, another in front, with two at its left side.

  She glanced at the dashboard.

  45 MPH.

  More brake lights glared in the dark.

  The police cars finally forced the truck onto the shoulder, officers emerging with guns in hand.

  “I guess you won’t be getting those ten bars of gold,” she said.

  “Shut up.”

  In order to attract the officers’ attention, she’d have to bend her knees, then flex her body down and up, swinging around to use her legs and feet as weapons. A swept kick to Proctor’s head should do the trick, sending the car reeling. But she’d have to be fast to avoid the gun in his lap.

  Traffic had slowed to less than 20 MPH.

  The police forced the driver from the truck.

  She readied herself to move but before she could do a thing, something hard slammed into her left ear.

  Everything spun.

  Then hope vanished.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  THURSDAY

  MAY 27, 1:30 A.M.

  Cotton glanced out the window and watched the lights of Washington, DC, recede. He’d just taken off in a Department of Justice Gulfstream, the same one that had ferried him to and from Arkansas. Another day had ended, a new one beginning with him again flying west. Luckily, he’d thought ahead and had transportation on standby and, as he received reports from the agent at the Manassas Regional Airport, he’d heard that he’d been right.

  The Breckinridges were leaving town.

  Their flight plan called for a trip to another regional airport, just outside Taos, New Mexico, an artsy community about seventy miles north of Santa Fe in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. They had a nearly two-hour head start, but the DOJ pilots thought they might be able to make good time. The Breckinridges were aboard a slower Learjet registered to a Richard Choi, who lived just outside DC. The Billet was busy gathering what they could on Choi, who surely had something to do with the Knights of the Golden Circle.

  Rick Stamm had stayed behind, working on digitally assembling the Heart and Trail Stones so they could have some idea of what they were facing. But he had brought Angus Adams’ journal along with him. He’d examined every handwritten page, though nothing had jumped out at him. The book seemed far too elegant, the pages clean, the handwriting containing no mistakes, for it to be an original field journal. More likely some sort of reproduction. He assumed Adams himself had penned it, since both the title and last page were signed in a stout, Edwardian-like script.

  Angus “Cotton” Adams

  His grandfather had told him that, after the war, Adams was never seen again in middle Georgia. Around 1900 Adams’ eldest son returned with his own family to work the family farm. His grandfather’s father. And brought with him a trunk of his father’s prewar letters, some personal papers, a few illustrations and paintings, and a book.

  A laptop lay on a small work desk before him. Stamm had provided it, and he quickly secured an Internet connection. The video link established and he saw Stamm’s smiling face inside the archive at the American History museum.

  “We did it,” the curator said. “Look at this. The two stones joined.”

  And the screen filled with an image.

  “At least we know the end point,” he said.

  The dotted line on the Heart Stone now connected to a similar one on the Trail Stone to define a clear path with nine markers. The inverted U symbolized that a mine waited at the end. But he knew from what his grandfather had taught him that the arrow from the dagger to the mine signified danger.

  A clear warning.

  “We still have no starting point,” Stamm said.

  No, they didn’t. And he assumed that the remaining Alpha Stone would show the other nine markers, so as to fulfill the inscription from the Witch’s Stone.

  I go to 18 places.

  Along with the starting point.

  Something told him that Frank Breckinridge was not working under the same disability. He replayed again every word uttered during his visit with Breckinridge. Plenty of Civil War history. Jefferson Davis. Lincoln. The knights. Then—

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

  “What is it?” Stamm asked through the computer.

  “Breckinridge tested me on the stones, which I passed. He tested me on the code and I passed that, too. Then he asked me if I wanted to meet with the commander while I was in town. I took ‘the commander’ to mean the head of the knights. He wanted to set up a meeting and I asked where. He told me, ‘In that damn Temple of Justice of his.’”

  “You know what that refers to, don’t you?” Stamm asked.

  He did. “The Supreme Court building. I read a book on its history. When they moved into it, most of the justices weren’t happy. The whole place was made of marble with columns and looked like something from ancient Greece. They called it pretentious and inappropriate. One of them said they ought to enter the courtroom riding elephants. Another equated the justices to nine black beetles in the Temple of Karnak. The analogy stuck and it became the Temple of Justice. I’ve been so focused on other things, I didn’t notice the discrepancy.”

  Stamm looked puzzled.

  “While talking to me, Breckinridge seemed back around 1865, toward the end of the war. The Supreme Court then met in the Old Senate Chamber inside the Capitol. The new building didn’t come until 1939. So in his so-called delusion, why did he refer to it as the Temple of Justice?”

  “Could be just his mind traveling back and forth.”

  “It could, but it’s not. We know that old man isn’t crazy. He was sending me a message. He told me he didn’t trust the commander. He said, ‘That hair around his bald head makes him look too much like a priest.’ Who does that sound like?”

  “Chief Justice Weston.”

  “You got it.”

  “That can’t be,” Stamm said, a little incredulous. “Weston is the commander of the Order?”

  “Why not? He certainly knows a lot about all of this. And I don’t think Breckinridge threw in the Supreme Court clue by accident. Everything else he did was calculated. He sent us to Smithson’s tomb and he sent us to Weston.”

  “We’d have to be damn sure before treading into those waters,” Stamm said.

  He agreed, staring again at Adams’ journal. “It would explain how he knew so much about my family and Angus Adams. Along with his huge interest in all of this. Have you heard from him?”

  “Not in several hours.”

  Everything was beginning to make sense.

  He checked his watch.

  “I should be on the ground around 5:00 A.M., New Mexico time,” he said to Stamm. “Keep working on the graphics. We’ll need the best images possible.”

  “You want me to talk to Chief Justice Weston?”

  He’d been thinking about just that.

  “No. I have someone better in mind.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  WASHINGTON, DC

  2:30 A.M.

  Danny was back on the move.

  Paul Frizzell had dropped him at the hospital after their encounter, and he’d spent a couple of hours beside Stephanie’s bed. Her condition had remained unchanged, though the doctors were sounding more hopeful. He’d finally dozed off, awakened by his cell phone. He’d listened to Malone then told him he’d handle it immediately.

  So he’d taken a cab to the residence of Warren Weston. His new chief of staff had provided him the address, after he’d woken her from a sound sleep. He was liking her more and more, as she hadn’t uttered a word of protest, only a resolute “I’ll be back to you shortly.” She reminded him of Edwin Davis, who’d been equally resourceful during his time in the White House.

  Everything he’d heard from Malone about Warren Weston had sent daggers through his gut. But he agreed. Frank Breckinridge had tossed them the scent for a trail that had to be follo
wed.

  He was a little surprised to learn that the chief justice lived in the heart of Georgetown. He’d never known Weston to be a man of money. His Supreme Court job knocked down barely $250,000 a year. A solid salary, for sure, but barely enough to pay what Georgetown real estate commanded.

  He realized he may have to deal with the Supreme Court police, who were charged with protecting all the high court’s justices. An agent was on duty near Weston’s front door. Surprisingly, a light burned in one of the house’s ground-floor street-side windows. He stepped down a short brick walk and approached the sentry.

  “Good evening, Mr. President,” the man said to him.

  “Bet you’re wondering what I’m doing here at this hour?”

  “Actually, no sir, I’m not. The chief justice said you might be coming by.”

  He nearly smiled.

  Warren Weston was a lot of things, but he wasn’t stupid.

  “He said if you did, to just go inside.”

  He opened the door and entered. The light he’d seen from outside burned in a front parlor, not unlike his own back in Tennessee. Weston sat in a high-backed leather chair, nursing a drink.

  “Come in, Danny. If you want a whiskey, there’s some on the table.”

  “Where’s your little gadget for the voice?”

  “I told my colleagues that precaution was a waste of time, but they insisted. I would have much preferred the talk we’re about to have.”

  The room was wood-paneled with a warm, cozy décor.

  He sat on a small settee.

  “I meant what I said earlier,” Weston said. “The Order is not some fanatical organization. We are committed to working within the law.”

  “But let’s get real, Warren. The Knights of the Golden Circle was a terrorist organization. It may well have been the largest, most successful terrorist organization in American history. They wreaked a lot of havoc and spawned the KKK.”

  “That’s all true. From 1854 to 1865. But we moved past that. And for over a hundred years we’ve been quietly waiting for a time when we might do what Alexander Stephens envisioned.”

  “Change the Constitution?”

  Weston nodded. “The people are ready.”

  He shrugged. “You might be right. The problem comes when deciding what that change will be. On that the people may not agree with you. But as you said back in that diner, it’s your right to try.”

  “The more immediate problem is twofold. One is Vance. The other is what’s happening within the Order. We have our own version of the Civil War happening as we speak.”

  “Is that why Breckinridge ratted you out?”

  “I thought that might be how you found me.”

  “A lot’s been happening at the Smithsonian tonight.”

  “I’ve been out of touch, dealing with you. Can you tell me about it?”

  So as a courtesy he told Weston what he knew.

  “Breckinridge pointed Malone toward me,” Weston said, “because he wants me preoccupied, so he can do what he plans.”

  “Which is?”

  “Destroy the five stones and prevent anyone from finding the vault. He thinks that wealth should be left alone, until he says it’s okay to use it. Interesting how all this seems to be not about gold, but power. Both Breckinridge and Vance want an unchecked version.”

  “Malone’s on his way after the old man. The son is with him. And that bastard shot someone near and dear to me.”

  “I’m sorry about what happened to Ms. Nelle. I never realized you were that close to her.”

  “More than you think. I want Grant Breckinridge. We know they’re headed to New Mexico. Where exactly?”

  Weston did not answer him, which was irritating.

  “Warren, maybe you don’t get it. The game’s over. If you want Vance stopped, I’m all you got. If you want Breckinridge stopped, Malone is your only bet. He’s on their tail, but I need to get him ahead of the game. Where are they going?”

  “Pasto al Norte.”

  “My Spanish is lousy.”

  “Shepherd of the North.”

  * * *

  Cotton stared at the computer screen.

  He’d added the images of the Horse and Witch’s Stone to those of the now merged Heart and Trail Stones.

  The phone on the desk beside the laptop buzzed.

  He answered on speaker.

  “Cotton,” Danny Daniels said. “I’m here with the Chief Justice. And you were right. He is the Order’s head honcho. The two you’re after are headed to a tract of land once owned by your relative Angus Adams. When he died, he left that land to the federal government and it’s now part of the Carson National Forest in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The vault is there.”

  Cotton stared harder at the stones on the screen.

  “There’s an old mission, which was part of Adams’ land. And a church called Pasto al Norte. Shepherd of the North.”

  “That’s on the Horse Stone. But I read the Spanish as The horse of faith, I graze to the north of the river.”

  “The Spanish is ambiguous,” Weston said. “We’ve long thought it to mean the servant of faith, I shepherd to the north of the river.”

  That made sense.

  Then another dot connected.

  He reached for the journal and found its title page. “Adams’s field journal contains the words the servant of faith. He seems to call himself that.”

  “You found the journal?” Weston asked.

  Apparently Daniels had not passed on that piece of information.

  So he told the chief justice how and where.

  “We need to talk,” he heard Weston say.

  And not to him.

  “We’ll call you back,” Daniels said.

  * * *

  Danny ended the call to Malone and stared at Weston.

  “Angus Adams is the key,” Weston said. “After the war, he personally supervised the consolidation of the Order’s wealth. By 1890 most of it had been gathered and moved west to his land in New Mexico, inside a repository he secretly created.”

  “The vault.”

  “That’s what he called it. Previous to that, he oversaw the creation of the stones, which were hidden with sentinels around the country. But secrets being what they are, they don’t stay secret forever, and people started looking for the stones. In the early part of the 20th century, some Smithsonian curators found three. The Horse, Trail, and Heart. But in 1909 one of our historians was killed looking into this.”

  “The Smithsonian wanted the gold?”

  “Definitely. Billions of dollars in wealth just sitting out there. For an institution that lives off donations, that would have been the mother lode. But they found nothing, and everything went quiet until the 1970s, when Davis Layne started looking again. That’s when Breckinridge stepped in and shut things down.”

  “And when did you assume the role of the knights’ commander?”

  “I’ve been a member since I was twenty-seven. But in 1980 our commander died and I was chosen to replace him. I was two years into my Supreme Court appointment. As chancellor of the Smithsonian I had access to a vast archive, and I’ve spent the past three decades learning what I could. I tried to get Breckinridge to open up and tell me what he knew, but the old fool refused. He and I never saw eye-to-eye.” Weston paused. “I do know the starting point, though. It was created and preserved by Angus Adams. That information has been passed to each commander since.”

  He waited.

  “But a problem developed.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  Cotton kept staring at his great-great-grandfather’s journal, remembering the gold cross and circle he’d seen in his mother’s jewelry box. She’d never told him much about it, but now he knew its likely origin.

  Her ancestor.

  Angus Adams.

  A knight of the Golden Circle.

  No wonder she thought the tradition of passing the necklace down through the generations should stop with her. He shoo
k his head. He was so much like her. So easy for them both to keep things to themselves. But she had shared one thing.

  A book.

  From the old trunk in the attic.

  “Where did it come from?” he asked his mother.

  He’d never seen one like it before. The library at his elementary school contained many books, but none like this.

  “It belonged to a relative of mine. A spy during the Civil War. But he was also an artist. He painted for the Smithsonian and made this book.”

  He read the title.

  The Servant of Faith.

  He’d first noticed the words on the Horse Stone but had dismissed any connection since, at the time, he’d known little of Angus Adams’ involvement. But when he found the journal in Breckinridge’s gramophone and saw what Adams had written at the bottom of the title page, he’d made the connection.

  “Is this book old?” he asked his mother.

  “The date inside says 1889. It was a gift from my great-grandfather to my grandfather, who lived here on the farm. But it’s not an ordinary book.”

  Which he’d seen after opening the cover. Past the title page there was writing on only two of the hundred or so pages. The rest were blank, though they were all elegantly gilded on three sides.

  “It has only a poem inside,” his mother said. “I assume it was written by my great grandfather. His name was Angus. He titled the poem ‘The Servant of Faith.’”

  His eidetic memory recalled every word.

  Ye aging knights of silver grey,

  We ask you not to fade away.

  Though your hair has turned to white,

  Your weary bones no more to fight.

  While at last the time has come,

  You ride into the setting sun.

  Then again you ride once more,

  On honored fields just like before.

  When at last you need your rest,

  The South will face its greatest test.

  O Elder Knights all clad in grey,

  Lead the charge into the fray.

  Our Confederate Nation ask of thee,

  Ride once more and set us free.

  Silver Knights have walked this land,

  In golden years they make a stand.