by Steve Berry
He froze.
His gaze raked the blackened scene. In the glow from the outside tarmac lights he caught three forms sitting in the leather seats.
The voice was instantly recognizable.
Andrea Carbonell.
“As you can see,” she said, “I didn’t come alone. So be a good boy and close the cabin door.”
CASSIOPEIA SAT IN THE PASSENGER COMPARTMENT OF AN AIR force transport chopper, flying south from Virginia to the North Carolina coast. Edwin Davis sat beside her. Weeks ago he’d reconnoitered the Commonwealth’s compound and was able to provide her with a detailed satellite image of the acreage. The Secret Service had arranged through the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation for a boat to be waiting on the Pamlico’s south shore. From there, she’d motor across to the north bank and Hale’s land. Avoiding local law enforcement seemed the safest course for now, as there was no way to determine how far the Commonwealth’s reach stretched.
It was approaching midnight. Local news outlets in Fredericksburg would be reporting the shooting at Kaiser’s residence early tomorrow. Assuming that no one else had been around to report back the disaster, she should have a few hours in which to operate.
Surely the Commonwealth compound was monitored electronically, as cameras would offer a far better line of defense than guards. Unfortunately, Davis had little intel on what awaited her on the ground. She’d been told of a nasty storm engulfing the entire coastal region, which should offer cover.
The Secret Service agents watching Paw Island had reported all quiet there for the past hour.
And Cotton?
She couldn’t shake the thought that he was in trouble.
WYATT STARED DOWN AT MALONE, WHO WAS SLOWLY COMING to his feet. Thankfully, he’d awakened first and managed to find a flashlight that Malone had apparently been carrying, which survived the fall.
“You happy now?” Malone said.
He said nothing.
“Oh, I forgot. You don’t speak much. What was it they called you? The Sphinx? You hated that nickname.”
“I still do.”
Malone stood in ankle-deep water and worked out some kinks in his shoulder, stretching his back. Wyatt had already studied their surroundings. The chamber was about thirty feet high and half that wide. The walls were wet limestone, the rock floor engulfed by water, agate and jasper pebbles glistening in his beam.
“It’s from the bay,” he said, motioning to the water.
“Where the hell else would it come from?”
But Wyatt watched as Malone comprehended the significance of his comment. He’d apparently read the history on this place, too. Seventy-four British soldiers died at Fort Dominion in a subterranean chamber subject to the tides.
“That’s right,” he said. “We’re trapped in here, too.”
SIXTY-NINE
BATH, NORTH CAROLINA
HALE WATCHED AS TWO CREWMEN YANKED SHIRLEY KAISER from an electric cart and dragged her through the rain into the prison. He’d called ahead and told them to be ready for another occupant. She remained groggy from his blow to her face, a nasty bruise on her left cheek.
She tugged at the grip of her two minders as they forced her inside.
He entered and slammed the door shut.
He’d ordered Stephanie Nelle roused from her sleep and brought downstairs to new accommodations. He intended on placing these two women together since you never know what they might say to each other. Electronic monitoring would not miss a word.
Nelle stood in the cell, watching as they approached. The door was unlocked and Kaiser shoved inside.
“Your new roommate,” he told Nelle.
The older woman was examining the bruise on Kaiser’s face.
“Your doing?” Nelle asked.
“She was being most disagreeable. She had a gun pointed at me.”
“I should have shot you,” Kaiser spit out.
“You had your chance,” he said. “And you were wondering about Stephanie Nelle. Here she is.” He faced Nelle. “Do you know a man named Cotton Malone?”
“Why?”
“No reason, other than he appeared somewhere he was not expected.”
“If Malone’s there,” Nelle said, “you’ve got a problem.”
He shrugged. “I doubt that.”
“You think you could get this woman an ice pack?” Nelle asked. “She has a nasty knot.”
Not an unreasonable request, so he ordered it done. “After all, she must look her best.”
“What does that mean?” Nelle asked.
“As soon as the storm passes, the two of you are taking a sail. Your last voyage. Out to sea, where you will stay.”
CASSIOPEIA NAVIGATED THE CHURNING BLACK WATERS OF THE Pamlico River. She’d arrived from the west, deposited by helicopter a kilometer or two from the south shore. The State Bureau of Investigation agents who’d waited for her and Davis had pointed across the nearly three-kilometer black expanse. Though she could see nothing, she’d been told about a dock that extended into the river, at the end of which should be moored a sixty-meter sailing yacht, Adventure, that belonged to Hale. If she wanted to gain entrance to the property, that was the place. Just maintain the right heading, which they’d provided-but it was proving difficult. A gale had blown in off the Atlantic. Not quite a tropical storm, but strong enough with high winds and sheeting rain. The last few minutes of her helicopter ride had not been pleasant. Davis would be nearby, waiting either for her signal or dawn, whichever came first. Then he’d move in with Secret Service agents who were amassing north of Bath.
Rain pelted her.
She cut the motor and allowed the boat to drift closer to Hale’s dock. She’d found it exactly where they’d predicted. Swells rose in the meter-plus range, and she had to be careful not to crash into anything. The yacht tied to the dock was indeed impressive. Three masts, their stout size and shape indicating that they housed one of those automated sail systems she’d seen before. No lights burned anywhere, which was unusual. But it could be the storm. Power may have been affected.
Through the rain she caught movement on the deck.
And on the dock.
Men.
Running toward shore.
MALONE ASKED WYATT, “WHY IS ALL THIS NECESSARY? WHAT happened between us was a long time ago.”
“I thought I owed you.”
“So you involved me in an assassination attempt? What if I hadn’t stopped the guns?”
“I knew you’d do something. Then maybe you’d either get the blame or get shot.”
He wanted to smack the SOB in the jaw but realized that would be fruitless. He stared around at their confines. The water level on the floor remained at ankle level.
“So why not just kill me? Why all the drama?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Which means you now owe somebody else more.”
“It means it doesn’t matter anymore.”
He shook his head. “You’re a strange bird. You always have been.”
“There’s something you should see,” Wyatt said. “I found it while you were sleeping.”
Wyatt angled the beam down the rock corridor. Twenty feet away, carved into the stone, gleaming from moisture and encrusted with algae, was a symbol.
Malone instantly recognized it as one from Jackson’s message. “Any more?”
“We can find out.”
He glanced upward from where they’d fallen. No way to climb back up. A good thirty feet of air stretched overhead, the walls a slick mass of slime. Not a handhold anywhere.
So why not. What the hell else was he going to do?
“Lead the way,” he said.
HALE DECIDED TO GRAB A FEW HOURS OF SLEEP. THERE WAS NO way they could make it to sea in this weather. Adventure was good, but every ship had its limits. He’d already ordered Kaiser’s rental car locked away, off premises, where it could not be found. He still hadn’t heard from the two men sent to Kaiser’s residence and he had to assu
me that they were either dead or captured. But if they had been captured, why hadn’t law enforcement already descended on him?
He left the prison and headed for his cart.
An alarm sounded.
His gaze shot to the darkened trees surrounding him, in the direction of his house. No lights could be seen.
A man burst from the prison and sloshed through the standing water, running his way.
“Captain Hale, there are intruders on the premises.”
CASSIOPEIA HEARD THE ALARM, THEN THE STEADY RAT-TAT-TAT of automatic weapons fire.
What was happening?
She leaped from the boat, taking a line with her, which she tied to a piling.
At the top of the ladder she found her weapon and turned for shore.
HALE RUSHED BACK INTO THE PRISON. HE’D HEARD THE DISTANT gunfire. A disturbing sound within his fortress of solitude. He found a phone and called the security center.
“Ten men entered the estate from the north perimeter,” he was told. “They tripped motion sensors and we spotted them on camera.”
“Police? FBI? Who are they?”
“We don’t know. But they’re here, shooting, and they don’t act like police. They’ve cut power to the main house and dock.”
He knew who they were.
NIA.
Andrea Carbonell.
Who else?
KNOX WANTED TO LEAVE NOVA SCOTIA, BUT CARBONELL AND her two companions seemed in no hurry. He decided not to try their patience, at least not yet, and sat in the plane.
“Did you find what you came for?” she asked him.
He wasn’t going to answer her. “Two of my men are dead in that fort. Your man Wyatt is battling it out with someone named Cotton Malone. You send him, too?”
“Malone is there? Interesting. He’s from the White House.”
He then realized why she was here. “You were going to take back whatever I found. You had no intention of letting the captains have the solution.”
“I need those two missing pages in my possession.”
“You still don’t get it, do you? The Commonwealth is not your enemy. But you’ve gone out of your way to make it one.”
“Your Commonwealth is radioactive. CIA, NSA, the White House, they’re all closing in.”
He did not like the sound of that.
“We have to go back to Paw Island,” she said.
“I’m leaving.”
“There’s nowhere for you to go.”
What did that mean?
“Your precious Commonwealth is being attacked, as we speak.”
“By you?”
She nodded. “I decided Stephanie Nelle needs rescuing. And if Hale or one or two of the captains is killed in the process? That would be good for us all, wouldn’t it?”
Her right arm moved and he caught the silhouette of a weapon in her hand. “Which brings me to the other reason why we’re here.”
He heard a pop, then felt something pierce his chest.
Sharp.
Painful.
A second later, the world vanished.
SEVENTY
NOVA SCOTIA
MALONE RECALLED WHAT THE BOOKSTORE OWNER HAD TOLD him about the symbols. That they could be found at various points inside the fort and on stones and markers around the island, but she’d said nothing about them appearing beneath. Understandable, considering that this was surely off limits.
The passage they were trapped in seemed to span from one end of the fort to the other. Dark yawns dotted the walls at varying heights. None of it was natural, the cut stones all man-made. He examined one of the yawns and noted that the rectangular chute, which extended into blackness, had also been crafted by hand. Positioned at points about three and six feet high, each dripped with remnants of the last high tide. He knew what these were.
Faucets and drains.
“Whoever built this place made sure it would flood completely,” he said to Wyatt. “These openings are the only way out.”
He began to feel what those 74 British soldiers must have felt. Underground spaces were not his favorite. Especially confined ones.
“I didn’t sacrifice those two agents,” Wyatt said to him.
“I never thought you did. I simply thought you were reckless.”
“We had a job to do. I just did it.”
“Why does that matter right now?”
“It just does.”
And then he realized. Wyatt truly regretted those deaths. He hadn’t thought so at the time, but now he saw different. “It bothers you they died.”
“It always did.”
“You should have said that.”
“It’s not my way.”
No, he supposed not.
“What happened up there?” he asked. “The Commonwealth came to kill you?”
“NIA sent the Commonwealth to kill me.”
“Carbonell?”
“An act she will regret.”
They came to a point where two more tunnels opened into the rock, forming a Y-shaped junction. With the flashlight Wyatt examined another of the chutes that opened from the wall, this one about shoulder-high. “I hear water at the other end.”
“Can you see anything?”
Wyatt shook his head. “I’m not staying here and waiting for high tide. These have to lead out to the sea. Now’s the time to find out-before they start filling.”
He agreed.
Wyatt laid down the flashlight and removed his jacket. Malone grabbed the light and shone it around the junction point. As long as they were here they might as well make a full reconnoiter.
Something caught his attention.
Another symbol, chiseled into the stone to the left of where the main passage broke into two.
He recalled it from Jackson’s message. He studied the remaining walls and spotted a second symbol opposite the first. :
Then directly across from those, on the far wall of the first passage, two more, about eight feet apart.
That made four of the five Jackson had included in his message. And something else. They were positioned in relation to one another.
Wyatt noticed his interest. “They’re all here.”
Not quite.
He sloshed through the water to the center of the intersection of the three tunnels. Four markers surrounded him. The fifth? Down? He doubted it. Instead, he glanced up and shone the light at the ceiling.
“Triangle marks the spot,” he said.
Water burst from the lower chutes, surging through the chamber, swamping the floor in a cold wave.
He walked back to Wyatt, switching the flashlight from his right to his left hand.
He whirled his right arm up and smashed a fist across Wyatt’s jaw.
Wyatt staggered back, splashing into the water on the floor.
“Are we done now?” he asked.
But Wyatt said nothing. He simply came to his feet, hopped into the closest chute, and disappeared into the blackness.
CASSIOPEIA SOUGHT COVER IN A STAND OF TREES, WATCHING the house that stood fifty meters away. Wind chimes performed a symphony of high-pitched tones. She glimpsed dark forms scurrying from one side of the house to the other, and more shots were fired. She decided to take a chance and found her phone, dialing Davis’ number.
“What’s happening there?” he immediately asked her.
“This place is under siege.”
“We can hear the gunfire. I’ve already checked with Washington. It’s nobody that I can identify.”
“It’s good cover,” she said. “Just sit tight and stick to the plan.”
She sounded like Cotton. He was rubbing off on her.
“I don’t like it,” Davis said.
“Neither do I. But I’m already here.”
She ended the call.
WYATT WIGGLED DOWN THE TIGHT TUNNEL, NO MORE THAN three feet high and a little more than that wide. Cold water continued to drain from outside toward him with an ever-increasing intensity, the rush from
its source growing more distinct.
He was coming to the end.
In more ways than one.
He’d allowed Malone the violation. He would have done the same, or worse, if the roles were reversed. Malone remained too self-important for his taste, but the cocksure SOB had never lied to him.
And there was something to be said for that.
Andrea Carbonell had sent him to Canada, assuring him repeatedly that the journey was between the two of them. Then she promptly informed the Commonwealth.
He could imagine the deal she’d made.
Kill Jonathan Wyatt and you get to keep whatever there was to find.
And that rattled him more than Cotton Malone.
He’d done okay the past few days, stopping the assassination of the president of the United States and managing to come as close as anyone to solving the puzzle Andrew Jackson had created long ago. He would have saved Gary Voccio’s life, too, if the man had not panicked. His physical confrontation with Malone seemed to quell whatever anger had lingered inside him from eight years ago.
Instead, a new fury raged.
Faint rays of light appeared ahead.
In the absolute darkness, any glow, however minor, was welcome. The chilly water now rose to his elbows. He continued to crawl on all fours. The end of the shaft appeared and he saw a pool inside a rocky cavern. Surf lapped its sides as water rose to the chute. Beyond the cavern entrance he spotted open sea, bright streaks of moonlight glimmering off the restless surface.
He began to understand the engineering. The shafts had been cut into the rock at varying heights, emptying beneath the fort. As the tide rose so would the pool, flooding each of the tunnels in turn, forcing water into the chambers. When the tide receded, so would the water. A simple mechanism utilizing gravity and nature, but he wondered what its purpose had been in the first place.
Who cared?
He was free.
SEVENTY-ONE
KNOX AWOKE.
Cool air rushed across his body. His head hurt and his vision was blurred. He heard the monotonous drone of an engine and felt himself jostled up and down. Then he realized. He was back on Mahone Bay. In a boat. With three people on board.
