The Lincoln Myth

by Steve Berry

  Symbolism abounded.

  The east side’s three towers represented the First Presidency. The twelve pinnacles rising from the towers implied the twelve apostles. The west side’s towers reflected the presiding bishops and the church’s high council. The east side was purposefully built six feet higher, so to make clear which was superior. Its castle-like battlements illustrated a separation from the world and a protection of the holy ordinances practiced within, a statement in stone that no one would destroy this mighty edifice, as had happened before that time to the temples in both Missouri and Illinois.

  Atop each of the center towers were eyes, which represented God’s ability to see all things. The earth stones, moonstones, sun-stones, cloud stones, and star stones each told a story of the celestial kingdom and the promise of salvation. One of the early elders said it best when he proclaimed, Every stone is a sermon.

  And Rowan agreed.

  The Old Testament taught that temples were the houses of God. The church now owned 130 around the globe. This one anchored ten acres in the center of Salt Lake, the oval-shaped tabernacle building just behind, the old Assembly Hall nearby, two modern visitor centers nestled close. A massive conference center, which could accommodate more than 20,000, stood across the street.

  Access inside any temple was restricted to those members who’d achieved “temple recommend.” To gain that status a Saint must believe in God the Father and Jesus as Savior. He must support the church and all of its teachings, including the law of chastity that mandates celibacy outside of marriage. He must be honest, never abuse his family, remain morally clean, and pay the required yearly tithe. He must also keep all of his solemn oaths and wear the temple garments, both night and day. Once granted by a bishop and a stake president, the recommend remained valid for two years before being reviewed.

  To have a temple recommend was a blessing all Saints desired.

  Rowan went through the temple at nineteen, when he served his mission. He’d kept a temple recommend ever since. Now he was the second-highest-ranking official in the church, perhaps only a few months away from becoming the next prophet.

  “Where are we going?” he asked Snow.

  The old man’s legs barely worked, but he made it inside the doors.

  “There is something you must see.”

  With each rise in the hierarchy, Rowan had become aware of more and more secret information. The church had always worked by compartmentalizing, information passed vertically and horizontally on a need-to-know basis. So it made sense that there were matters only the man at the top was privy to.

  Two young temple workers waited at the base of a staircase. Usually just the retired served inside, but these two were special.

  “Are we to change clothes?” he asked the prophet.

  Normally only white garments were worn inside the temple.

  “Not today. It’s just you and me.” Snow crept toward the two men and said, “I appreciate your help. I’m afraid my legs cannot make the climb.”

  They both nodded, affection and respect in their eyes. No one outside of the apostles was allowed to witness their assistance. Snow settled into their intertwined arms, and they lifted his frail body from the pale blue carpet. Rowan followed them up the Victorian staircase, his hand sliding along on the polished cherry banister.

  They ascended to the third floor and entered the council room.

  White walls, white carpet, and a white ceiling cast a look of utter purity. Victorian lighting fixtures burned bright. Fifteen low-backed upholstered chairs dotted the carpet. Twelve were arranged in a semi-circle, facing toward the south wall, where three more faced back, lined in a row behind a simple desk.

  The center of the three was for the prophet only.

  Snow was settled into his chair and the two young men left, closing the door behind them.

  “For us,” Snow said, “this is the most secure place on this planet. I feel most safe right here.”

  So had Rowan, for a long time.

  “What we are about to discuss none, save the next prophet after you, may know. It will be your duty to pass this on.”

  They’d never before spoken of succession.

  “You assume I will be chosen.”

  “That has been our way for a long time. You are next in line. I doubt our colleagues will vary from tradition.”

  The twelve chairs arranged in a semi-circle were for the apostles, Rowan’s designated spot at their center, facing the prophet, the desk symbolically between them. On either side of the prophet sat the two councilors of the First Presidency. He’d already been giving thought as to who he would select to flank him when it came his time to lead.

  “Look around, Thaddeus,” Snow said, voice cracking. “The prophets watch over us. Each is anxious to see how you will react to what you are about to hear.”

  The white walls were lined with gilt-framed portraits of the sixteen men who’d led the church before Snow.

  “My image will soon join them.” Snow pointed to a blank spot. “Hang my portrait there, so you can always see me.”

  On the desk before the old man sat a plain wooden box, about two feet long, a foot wide, and half a foot tall, its lid shut. He’d noticed it immediately and assumed it was why they were here.

  Snow caught his interest.

  “I had that brought from the closed archives. It is for prophets only.”

  “Which I am not.”

  “But you soon will be, and you have to know what I am about to reveal. It was told to me by my predecessor when I served in your capacity as president of the twelve. Do you recall what happened here, at the temple, in 1993? With the record stone.”

  The story was legendary. A hole was dug ten feet deep near the temple’s southeast corner. The goal was to find a hollowed-out foundation block. In 1867, during the temple’s construction, Brigham Young had filled the stone with books, pamphlets, periodicals, and a set of gold coins in denominations of $2.50, $5, $10, and $20, creating a time capsule. The stone was found cracked, which had caused most of the paper inside to rot away. Fragments survived, which had been placed in the church archives, some occasionally on display in the History Library. In 1993 Rowan was beginning his third term in the Senate and had just risen to the level of an apostle. He hadn’t been present on August 13, exactly 136 years to the day after the stone had first been sealed.

  “I was there,” Snow said, “when they climbed from that hole with buckets of mush, like papier-mâché. The gold coins were spectacular, though. Minted right here in Salt Lake. That’s the thing about gold—time never affects it. But the paper was another matter. Moisture had done its damage.” The prophet paused. “I’ve always wondered why Brigham Young included coins. They seemed so out of place. But maybe he was saying that there are things on which time has no effect.”

  “You speak in riddles, Charles.”

  Only here, inside the temple, behind the closed doors of the council room, would he ever use the prophet’s first name.

  “Brigham Young was not perfect,” Snow said. “He made errors in judgment. He was human, as are we all. On the issue of our lost gold he may have made a grievous error. But with regard to Abraham Lincoln, he might have committed an even bigger mistake.”

  FIFTEEN

  DENMARK

  MALONE DROVE HIS MAZDA OUT OF COPENHAGEN, THEN SIXTY miles west to Kalundborg and Zealand’s northwest coast. Four-laned highway the entire way made the going quick.

  “You suspected Kirk, too, didn’t you?” he asked Luke.

  “He was a little too fast with the info in your shop. What did Stephanie tell you on the phone?”

  “Enough for me to know that Kirk wasn’t trustworthy.”

  “When he came up behind me with the gun I thought it better to give him a little rope and see where it led. Then I saw you thinking the same. Of course, I didn’t know you were going to go all William Tell on me.”

  “Lucky for you my eyes are still good … for an old-timer.”
r />   Luke’s cell phone rang and Malone could guess the caller’s identity.

  Stephanie.

  The younger man listened stone-faced, betraying nothing. Exactly what he was supposed to do. Malone recalled many conversations with his former boss just like that, when she’d told him what he needed to know to get the job the done.

  And not an ounce more.

  Luke finished the call, then directed him toward Salazar’s estate, a tract of expensive real estate north of town, facing the sea. They parked in the woods, off the highway, a quarter mile east from the main drive.

  “I know the geography here,” Luke said. “Salazar owns a tract that butts up to this property. There are a few buildings there. We should be able to get to them through those woods over there.”

  He stepped out into the night.

  They were both now armed, as Luke carried the gun retrieved from Kirk. Here Malone was again, back in a game that he’d supposedly quit, one that he hadn’t wanted to ever play again. Three years ago he decided the rewards were not worth the risks, and the prospects of owning an old-book shop had been too tempting to resist. He was a bibliophile and always had been. So he’d jumped at the chance to move to Europe and start over.

  There’d been costs, though.

  There always were.

  Yet part of being smart was knowing what you wanted.

  And he loved his new life.

  But there was the matter of an agent in trouble. People had once come to his aid. Now it was his turn to return the favor.

  The risks be damned.

  They found a pebbled drive that led past a brick gate. A dense canopy of arching trees blocked the blackened sky. He felt a familiar stir of excitement at the unknown. A washed-out yellow glow came from somewhere in the distance, flickering through the trees like a candle in the breeze. A dwelling of some sort.

  “The intel on this place,” Luke whispered, “is that there are no guards. No cameras. No alarms. Salazar keeps a low profile.”

  “Trusting soul.”

  “I’m told Mormons are that way.”

  “But they’re not foolish.”

  He was still bothered by the Danites. Those two men in Højbro Plads had been real. Were more threats like that lurking in the darkness that surrounded them? Possible. He still believed this a trap. Hopefully, Kirk’s reinforcements were still chasing that cell phone on the bus.

  They cleared the woods, and he spotted three structures in the dark. A small brick house, two stories with a gabled roof, along with a pair of smaller cottages. Two lights burned in the larger house, both just above ground level, in what was surely a cellar.

  They hustled around to the rear, staying in the shadows, and found a short set of steps that dropped down in the ground. Luke descended and Malone was surprised to see that the door at the bottom opened.

  Luke stared at him.

  Way too easy.

  They both readied their guns.

  Inside was a dimly lit cellar that stretched the house’s entire length. Brick archways provided support to the upper floors. Lots of nooks and crannies raised alarms. Equipment and tools lay about, surely used to maintain the estate.

  Over there, Luke mouthed, pointing.

  His gaze followed.

  Built into one of the archways near a corner were iron bars. Inside, propped against the wall, lay a man with a bullet hole in the forehead, his face beaten into a mottled pattern of blood and bruises. They approached and saw a bucket of water and a ladle just outside the bars to one side. The light was dimmer here, no windows nearby, the cell’s floor as hard and dry as a desert. The iron door was locked. No key in sight.

  Luke squatted and stared at his comrade. “I knew him. We worked together once. He’s got a family.”

  Malone’s gut ached, too. He ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth and swallowed hard, then knelt beside the water bucket with the ladle. “You realize Salazar wanted you to find this. I’m sure we would have had company the moment we did.”

  Luke stood. “I get it. He thinks we’re stupid. Now I’m going to kill the son of a bitch.”

  “That would accomplish a whole bunch.”

  “You have a better idea?”

  He shrugged. “This is your show, not mine. I’m just here for a limited engagement, which seems to be over.”

  “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that long enough, Malone, you might start believing it.”

  “You might have an open-field run now. Those guys are surely still chasing that bus. But there could be more of them around.”

  Luke shook his head. “Salazar only has five on the payroll. Three are dead. The other two were there in the square.”

  “Aren’t you a wealth of information? Would have been nice if you’d shared that before now.”

  He knew Luke was ready to be rid of him. He’d never liked partners, either, especially difficult ones. And he was ready to be gone. There was still the matter of the Copenhagen police, though, but Stephanie could deal with them.

  “I have a job to do,” Luke said. “You can wait at the car.”

  He blocked any retreat and said, “Quit bullshitting me. What did Stephanie brief you on in the car?”

  “Look, old man, I don’t have time to explain. Get out of my way and go back to your bookshop. Let the A-team handle this one.”

  He caught the anger and understood. Losing a man affected everyone.

  “I told Stephanie I’d see this through. So that’s what I’m going to do. Whether you like it or not. I assume you want to take a look at the main house, in that study Kirk so conveniently mentioned?”

  “It’s my job. I don’t have a choice.”

  They left the cellar and traipsed west through the woods, paralleling the sea, the pound of surf clear in the distance. The lit mansion that awaited them was an excellent example of Dutch Baroque. Three stories, three wings, hip roof. The exterior was sheathed with the trademark thin red brick—Dutch clinkers, Malone had learned to call them. He counted thirty windows facing their way, only a handful lit, and all on the ground floor.

  “Nobody’s home,” Luke said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “The man’s out for the evening.”

  Surely more of what Stephanie had told him on the phone.

  They stayed toward the mansion’s rear, where an expansive terrace faced the blackened sea fifty yards away. A row of French doors and windows opened into the house.

  Luke tried the latches. Locked.

  A light came on inside.

  Which startled them both.

  Malone darted left into a shrubbery bed, where darkness and the exterior wall offered protection. Luke found refuge in a similar spot on the terrace’s opposite side, the French doors and windows between them. They both peered around the edge into the lit space beyond the glass and saw a red-walled parlor dotted with elegant period furniture, gilt mirrors, and oil paintings.

  And two people.

  One face—a man’s—he did not recognize. But it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know his identity.

  Josepe Salazar.

  The other, though, was a shock. No one had said a word about her involvement.

  Not Stephanie. Not Frat Boy.

  Nobody.

  Yet here she was.

  His girlfriend.

  Cassiopeia Vitt.

  SIXTEEN

  CASSIOPEIA VITT ADMIRED THE MANSION’S INTERIOR, WHICH reflected the elegance she recalled of Josepe’s mother. She’d been a quiet, refined woman, always respectful toward her husband and mindful of her family. Cassiopeia’s own mother had been the same, and watching what she took to be both women’s passiveness was one of the reasons she’d fled both the relationship with Josepe and the family religion. Those precepts may be good for some, but dependence and vulnerability simply were not part of her character.

  “I’ve left the furnishings close to how my mother arranged them. I always liked her style, so I saw no need to change. I remember her
so clearly when I’m here.”

  Josepe remained a striking man. Tall, squarely built, his Spanish ancestry showed in his swarthy complexion and thick black hair. His imposing brown eyes cast the same confidence, the same quiet intensity. Highly educated and with a colloquial command of several languages, he’d enjoyed immense success in business. His family’s concerns, like her own, stretched across Europe and Africa. And, like herself, he led a life of wealth and privilege. But unlike her, he’d decided to devote himself to his faith.

  “You spend a lot of time here?” she asked.

  He nodded. “My brothers and sisters are not fond of the place. So I enjoy summers here. Soon I’ll head back to Spain for the winter.”

  She’d never visited the Salazar family in Denmark. Always in Spain, where they lived only a few kilometers away from her family’s estate. She stepped toward a row of French doors that opened to a darkened terrace.

  “I imagine there’s a lovely view of the ocean from here.”

  Josepe came close. “A magnificent view, actually.”

  He walked over and yanked the cantilevered handles down, throwing open the panels and allowing cool air to rush inside.

  “Feels wonderful,” she said.

  She was not proud of herself. She’d just spent an evening lying to a man she’d once cared about. There’d been no reawakening inside her. She’d not recently read the Book of Mormon. The only time she’d ever tried, as a teenager, she stopped ten pages in. She’d always wondered why the philosophies of the lost peoples described in the book were so revered. The Nephites wiped themselves out—no survivors, no trace left of their entire civilization. What was there to emulate?