He made a good point. It was one Emily had considered but figured it was nothing more than her imagination starting to run wild, desperate to find some link to the killings.
“Are you suggesting that Lilian Pike is the one behind all this?” Emily asked bluntly.
“I’m not saying anything definitively, Director. I’m just brainstorming here.”
Emily sighed.
“Pike is a beloved politician, if that sort of thing is even possible,” he continued. “After her son and husband died six months apart, she became a sort of darling in this town. Then when she found out she had cancer, no one could believe it. Poor woman can’t get a break. Forget I brought it up, Director. You’re right.”
“No, wait. What did you just say?” Emily suddenly stiffened.
“Which part? About her not getting a break or me being sorry?”
“Neither. You said she has cancer?”
“Oh yeah. Apparently, she doesn’t have much longer. The story got a lot of press around here for a week or two, especially when she said she wasn’t going to do chemo. Said she wanted to treat the disease with other methods. Some people thought she was just trying to kill herself, you know, like life’s beaten her up enough already. I don’t know; maybe she really is trying to cure the illness.”
There was the link Emily had been missing. The entire story started falling into place.
Lilian Pike hated the big oil companies. She’d dedicated her career to taking them down and bringing clean energy resources to the forefront. Her son’s death and the subsequent suicide of her husband were all the motivation someone would need if they were patient enough to see it through over the course of several years.
Emily’s mind spun. The connection was all too clear now. Pike had cancer; that explained sending the thief to get the amulet. She must have found out about its healing properties. It was a long shot, but Emily knew that if someone was desperate enough, they would go to almost any lengths to stay alive.
“She’s been plotting this all along,” she muttered. “The attack on her was a diversion to throw us off the trail. She must have known we’d be looking at potential enemies the earlier victims had. So, she told her assassin to make it look like a hit gone wrong, one where she narrowly escaped.”
“Yeah, but come on. She was shot for crying out loud. You’d have to be pretty anguished to take a bullet like that. One wrong move, and it’s curtains.”
“Only someone with nothing left to lose would do that. Pike fits that description.”
“She’s got her political career. Doubt she wants to lose that.”
“No,” Emily shook her head. “She doesn’t care about her career. She only cares about revenge.” Emily thought for a second. “Where’s Pike now?”
“I…I don’t know. We can find out. You want us to lock her down?”
“Yes,” Emily said. “Find her, and bring her in. Last thing we need is her slipping through our fingers again.”
Chapter 26
Washington
Cameras flashed all across the room. A half-dozen reporters were lined up in chairs in the front row, all with phones, tablets, and even a few still using pen and paper.
The rest of the room was full of supporters, friends, and a few stragglers who couldn’t get a seat up front.
They’d all gathered to hear an announcement from Congresswoman Lilian Pike. Rumors were flying around. Some said she was dying and only had a few weeks to live. Others claimed she was going to announce her candidacy for the presidency in the upcoming election two years away, though Pike had never said anything about that in public. It was, after all, Washington: a place where the rumor mill was always running and hot new stories were a dime a dozen.
Lilian waited behind a dark blue curtain with her speechwriter and two other assistants. They had tears in their eyes as they waited for her to step out and make the announcement.
She put her arm around one intern’s shoulders. The young girl was only twenty years old, but had shown a tremendous amount of potential in her short time with Pike. Evidently, she didn’t want to lose her mentor.
“Erin,” Lilian said in a comforting tone, “this is only temporary. Okay? I promise, I’m coming back. I just need to take a little time off.”
Erin nodded and wiped away a stray tear.
“Now, time to speak to the press,” Lilian said. “Wish me luck.”
Lilian stepped out from behind the curtain and placed her hands on the podium. Cameras popped and flashed all over the room again. The reporters all straightened up and hit the record buttons on their phones, ready to catch every word of the announcement. While it wasn’t necessarily huge news, it was better than nothing. Whether it made the front page or not was up to the editors.
“Thank you all for coming today,” Lilian started. “It’s been a rough couple of weeks for me. Actually,” she choked back a laugh, “it’s been a rough decade. But that’s life, isn’t it? It’s not easy for anyone.”
She looked out at the gathering. Her eyes panned the room, taking in all the faces, every anxious pair of eyes.
“When I first started this job, I had lofty goals. I wanted to make a difference in the world, especially here in the country I love. I know it’s cliché, but that’s how I felt. That was my driving motivation. It kept me going when times got tough.
“Washington tried to beat me down. There were those who did their best to suppress my goals, the things I wanted to get done. And while I wasn’t always successful with everything, I feel like we’ve been able to make a difference. It might not be a big difference, but a difference nonetheless.”
A few heads nodded in the audience amid more camera flashes.
“The events of the last few weeks have caused me to rethink some things. No, I am not quitting my job. I want to put that out there right off the bat. I will continue to serve my constituents and the people of this great country with every ounce of strength I have. However, due to my physical condition, I’m going to have to take a leave of absence to get treatment. This doesn’t have anything to do with the shooting that happened a few days ago. I have recovered from that incident. My mind is strong and I will eventually continue to do my job with the same resolve I’ve used for so long. This decision to step away for a short amount of time has to do with my cancer treatments.”
She took a deep breath before continuing. “I’ve not shown any signs of improvement with my therapy and have decided that to get the best results, I need to take some time off from the stress and day-to-day grind of the office. My doctors have agreed that stepping away will improve the results of my treatments. Again, this is not a resignation speech.” She flashed a playful smirk. “Now, if any of you have any questions, I’ll do my best to answer. But before you begin, I’ll put one question out of the way immediately. No, I am not running for president anytime soon.”
The room erupted in an uneasy but rousing fit of laughter.
Lilian spent the next ten minutes answering questions about the kind of therapy she was undergoing, what she expected from it, where she’d be going after she left Washington, and a dozen other things that she knew were trivial but had to be asked.
When she was done, she stepped back behind the curtain to a group of proud, smiling faces.
Her assistants and interns escorted her back to her office, where she collected a few personal things and said her goodbyes, once more reassuring them she’d only be gone for a short time and that the circumstances were only temporary.
After they’d all left the room, she took a deep breath and looked around the office. It had been her refuge, her home away from home for so long that it was like a part of her.
Lilian wasn’t so sentimental that she’d shed a tear over an office, even though she’d lied to her assistants and everyone in the press room.
It wasn’t going to be a temporary leave of absence. If everything went according to plan, she’d never come back to Washington again.
When she slid into
the back seat of her car, her driver looked into the rearview mirror. He was wearing a pair of aviator sunglasses, much like the ones her previous driver used to wear.
“Where to, Congresswoman Pike?”
“The airport. I’m going on a little vacation.”
She watched as he pulled out of the parking area and onto the road leading away from the Capitol. The pristine white building that symbolized power, freedom—and to many, corruption—would soon be a shambles.
Lilian Pike couldn’t wait to watch it all burn.
Chapter 27
Chiapas
“You disabled our ride?” Tommy asked, incensed.
He stood next to the SUV with his hands on his hips. The two right-side tires were flat. Sean couldn’t help but laugh at their predicament even though he knew it could prove to be their undoing.
“I didn’t want you to get away this time,” Pablo said with a shrug. “After the way you slipped through my fingers in Tulum, I didn’t want to make it easy on you.”
“Little did you know it would make things harder on you as well, huh?”
“Not to worry.”
Tommy’s frown deepened. “What do you mean, not to worry? How are we supposed to get out of here?”
“Open the doors and I’ll tell you.”
The key was one of the few things Tommy’d been able to keep from the drug smugglers when they were taken. The only reason the cartel didn’t find it was because it was in the bottom of his pocket with no keyring attached.
He fished out the key and unlocked the doors.
Pablo opened the back hatch and reached inside. He pried open a panel on the right-hand side and revealed an air compressor.
“How’d you know that was there?”
“How did you not?” Pablo fired back with a mischievous grin.
Sean laughed. “So, you didn’t pop the tires. You just let the air out?”
Pablo confirmed the answer with a nod.
He rushed around to the front of the car and opened the passenger door, leaned inside, and plugged in the compressor. Then he knelt next to the front right tire and attached the hose before turning on the switch.
The little black box rattled loudly as it slowly poured air into the flat tire.
Pablo stood back and watched with arms crossed as the tire gradually began to rise.
Tommy was tempted to remind their new friend that none of this would be necessary if he’d not let the air out in the first place, but decided to keep his lips sealed.
“That thing sure doesn’t work fast,” Tommy said. “It’s going to take forever at this rate.”
“Beats walking back to civilization,” Sean said. He stepped around to the back of the vehicle and sat down in the cargo area. He set the diary on the mat and placed the dead gunman’s phone next to it.
“Yeah, but it’s going to be dark soon. I’d like to be out of this jungle before that happens.”
“Agreed.”
Sean tapped on the phone screen and flipped through the pictures they’d taken inside the cave at the waterfall. He studied the images for a few minutes and then started turning the pages of the diary until he’d come to the last the little book had to offer.
Inside the folds of some of the pages were notes he’d made from earlier translations along with the coded sequences they’d discovered at the other sites. His eyes darted back and forth as he compared the symbols to ones from before.
Tommy stepped around the back of the vehicle and looked inside at what Sean was doing.
He snorted a laugh. “Are you trying to figure that out manually?”
“Our phones are gone and we’re out of range, so even if we had them they wouldn’t be of any use. When Alvarado created this code, he didn’t do it with the knowledge of computers from the future. He designed it to be decrypted by a human mind.”
Sean got out of the back and walked around to the front door.
“Where you going?” Tommy asked, concerned he’d somehow upset his friend.
“To get a pen.”
Sean looked in the glove box but found nothing but a manual and a map. He checked the center console and found what he wanted.
He returned to the rear of the SUV, proudly holding up the ballpoint pen and set back to work on the cipher. Then he wrote on the back side of one of his previous notes, putting the symbols and letters next to each other for reference.
“Now that we have most of these symbols already decoded, getting the last sequence shouldn’t be too difficult,” Sean explained as he continued working.
Pablo hovered close by, listening to the conversation and watching Sean writing furiously.
After several minutes, the first tire was full, and Pablo unplugged the hose and attached it to the rear tire. The machine groaned in protest for a moment and then picked up its usual humming rattle.
“What are you doing?” Pablo asked, looking over Tommy’s shoulder.
Sean kept working while the other two continued staring into the back of the SUV. “It’s a code, Pabs. I’m trying to figure out what it says.”
“I realize it’s a code. But why are you writing down all the letters from the other sites? I would think they each stand on their own.”
“That would certainly make things a lot trickier,” Sean said. “In this instance, Alvarado used one sequence for everything.”
“Thank goodness,” Tommy added.
Sean kept scribbling on the notes while Pablo looked around at the tire. It was almost full.
His eyes narrowed, and the skin on his forehead wrinkled. “Did you guys hear that?”
Tommy looked up at their new associate. “Hear what? All I hear is that compressor.”
“No,” Pablo shook his head. He tilted to the right to try to hear better. “There’s something else,” he said in a quiet tone.
Sean looked up from his work and listened. Concern washed over his face. “He’s right. Someone’s coming.”
“Someone’s coming?” Tommy asked. “Who?”
Sean hurriedly collected his notes and the diary. “If I had to guess, I’d say it’s guerrillas.”
“Or the cartel is out for revenge, and they’re trying to hunt us down,” Pablo offered.
“Thanks for that. Yes, it could be the cartel. Either way, we need to move.”
Tommy rolled his eyes. “Just one time I’d love for it to be easy.”
He ran around to the driver’s side of the SUV and climbed in. Pablo unplugged the hose on the tire and flung the compressor onto the front floorboard on the passenger side. Then he opened the back door and slid onto the seat while Sean rushed to the front and clambered in. He hadn’t even closed the door when he told Tommy to punch it.
Tommy revved the engine and gunned it. The vehicle’s rear wheels spun in the mud, spitting brown goop into the forest behind them.
“What’s wrong?” Pablo asked. “Why aren’t we moving?”
“Mud,” Tommy answered. “The wheels can’t get a grip.”
Sean glanced back in the side mirror and saw the first sign of trouble. “They’re here, buddy. Anytime you wanna kick this bad boy into four-wheel drive, I’d be grateful.”
Tommy looked back and saw a beat-up old Toyota pickup rumbling toward them down the jungle road.
“Good call.” Tommy reached over and pressed the button to engage all four wheels. He stepped on the gas again, this time with a little less force, and the SUV surged forward.
The pickup behind them closed fast. Pablo was looking back at the oncoming threat. Two masked gunmen were in the truck bed, taking aim with their rifles.
“Must go faster. Must go faster!” Pablo said with sudden urgency.
Sean looked back again. “Yeah, those are definitely guerrilla fighters.” He pulled up the gun he’d taken from Martinez and rolled down the window.
“Might want to take the other side, Pabs,” Sean said. “Don’t want to accidentally hit you.”
“Right.”
Pablo slid t
o the opposite window and drew one of the automatic weapons they’d taken off Martinez’s men. He pulled back the slide to make sure there was a new round in the chamber and then rolled down the window.
“I hate these child safety windows,” he complained when the window stopped halfway.
“Break it,” Sean said.
“What?” Tommy and Pablo asked simultaneously.
“Break it.”
“Then we’ll have to pay for it,” Tommy said.
Sean flashed an are you serious glare at his friend. “Dude, you’re worth like a hundred million dollars.”
The SUV hit a bump in the road and went flying through the air. The front tires slammed into the mud again about thirty feet down the track, just before a curve in the trail.
“Waste not,” Tommy said as he jerked the wheel to correct the vehicle from spinning out of control.
Sean turned to Pablo. “Break the stupid window!”
Pablo didn’t hesitate again. He rammed the butt of the gun through the glass, raining it down onto the dirt road as they sped through the jungle.
He started to poke his head out and open fire when the sound of metal plunking into the rear hatch caused him to shrink back and take cover behind the seat. The gunmen in the pickup truck poured a relentless stream of bullets at their quarry as the driver did his best to keep the vehicle steady on the bumpy, irregular road.
Sean leaned out his window and squeezed the trigger. He didn’t hit anything but trees and mud. The shots, however, caused the pursuing driver to tap his brakes and lose ground for a moment.
“Which way?” Tommy shouted.
“What?” Sean turned around and looked out the windshield at a fork in the road ahead.
“Left or right?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t come this way before.”
“Go left!” Pablo yelled from the back.
The Fourth Prophecy Page 20
