Unlocking the Kingdom

by Jeff Dixon

  “And is there anyone else that you have allowed access to your world recently?”

  “Oh, come on.” Hawk rolled his eyes. “You don’t mean Kate, do you? I am not being duped by another mysterious lady that has entered my life. It couldn’t happen again.”

  “Perhaps not.” Reginald shut his mouth.

  Silence settled over the remains of their breakfast. Farren looked at Hawk, then lowered his eyes to the table. Reginald allowed his gaze to move between both of them.

  “I may have misjudged her and told her too much.” Farren spoke softly. “I thought it was a safe thing to do, and eventually, we have to figure out ways to tell our story and answer the questions people have. I thought she could help us . . . help you.”

  “No.” Hawk looked from Farren to Reginald. “You are wrong, Reginald. Kate is not playing me. It isn’t happening again.”

  “I hope not,” Reginald said. “But let me ask you, who set up this in-depth interview with the most well-known documentary team in the world?”

  “Juliette.” Hawk knew what he was implying. “Reginald, you are out of line. Not just a little out of line, you crossed the line a few minutes ago.”

  “Then let me finish, since the line seems to have been ignored.” Reginald’s eyes grew fierce. “These men who have chased you have not been faring so well in their encounters with you. They are finding you to be more resilient than they had thought. Where has Jonathan been the last few days?”

  “This is nuts.” Hawk shook his head. “Jonathan has been ill.”

  “Yes, I know, and while anyone can be ill, think about the evidence.”

  “What is your evidence? You’ve been ill too.” Hawk attempted to derail his train of thought.

  “You are correct, but if you remember, I was with you yesterday. It was you who insisted that I go home . . . much to my displeasure.”

  “Hawk, let him finish.” Farren was riveted to Reginald’s words.

  “According to your accounts of what has happened, you head-butted your captor in the Hall of Presidents, and the next day we see Jonathan with a bandage on his head.”

  “He hit his head moving equipment,” Hawk defended.

  “Of course, but then you had your fight in the cemetery and cracked your attacker in the face with an elbow, I believe you said. Jonathan shows up with a visibly puffy and bloodshot eye . . . due to allergies.” Reginald leaned forward and gripped the table. “Yesterday, his wife called in sick for him because he was congested and sick with something that gave him trouble breathing. But that could also be from getting slammed in a door at the Brown Derby.”

  “Now I suppose Shep is a suspect as well.” Hawk felt his face growing warmer. “Tell me why he makes the most-wanted list.”

  “I am suggesting that there is something amiss. Shep is the one who figured out the picture, and you use him as your information source to help figure out clues. He would know where you are going and have an idea of when you will be there.”

  “And Tim? Is he out to get me as well?”

  “It would be safe to assume that if Juliette were involved, he would be as well.”

  “Unbelievable. So tell me, Reginald, why? Why would all of my closest friends in the world turn against me?” Hawk again had to check the elevated tone in his voice.

  “I did not say all of your friends have turned on you. I am suggesting that there is someone who may not be what he or she appears to be.” Reginald took a deep breath. “You need to be alerted to the possibilities.”

  “Are you buying into this, Farren?” Hawk turned toward the Imagineer.

  “The case is compelling. Someone has inside information as to how you are operating.”

  “Stop it!” Hawk pushed back from the table. “I have heard all I am going to listen to. Reginald, we’ll set the trap tonight after the Magic Kingdom closes. I’ll turn out the lanterns and see you there.”

  “Grayson,” Reginald called after Hawk, as he stormed away from the table.

  Hawk stopped, jaw clenched.

  “I know you are angry with me. My role is to keep you safe.” Reginald Cambridge looked away briefly, then brought his eyes back. “I hope I am wrong.”

  “You are wrong, and I will prove it tonight.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  * * *

  HAWK WAS FURIOUS, as he entered his office in the Bay Lake Towers. He had driven back and taken a long loop around the entire Disney property. He rumbled through his conversation with Reginald and Farren over and over again. He was convinced that the people closest to him were his friends. They had shared too much of life together. Reginald had become a conspiracy theorist, his dark assumptions putting a cloud over the people he loved and trusted. A preacher had once told Hawk a lesson he had often used and tried to live by— never doubt in darkness what you have seen in the light. He knew his friends were loyal and would never hurt him. But the one telling him these things was a friend as well. He trusted Reginald with his life. And another who was telling him to consider these things was his friend also. Farren was the one who had first started him on this adventure, and now he was telling him to listen to Reginald. All these thoughts pressed in, as he closed the door behind him.

  Nancy wasn’t at her desk, and the phone was ringing. Ignoring it, he went to the stairwell and bounded up the steps as he did each morning. His office door was open, and as he walked in, he saw there were people already inside waiting for him. Juliette stood just inside the door and she hugged him hard as he entered.

  “We were so worried about you,” she said, relief saturating her voice as she released him.

  Shep made his way across the room and hugged him as well. “I was starting to get nervous when I couldn’t get in touch with you.”

  “It sounds like you had quite an adventure last night.” Juliette nodded toward Kate, who was seated on the sofa.

  “I didn’t tell them everything, but I think I hit the highlights.” Kate looked at him closely. “Are you doing OK this morning?”

  Hawk let his gaze move from person to person as he walked across the room and settled in behind his desk. After rubbing his temples and then his eyes, he looked back up.

  “Where is Jonathan this morning?” Hawk asked no one in particular.

  “He’s still sick. Something has gotten ahold of him, from what it sounds like.” Juliette looked concerned. “Nancy told me she talked to him this morning.”

  “I was going to have Nancy get you all together this morning,” he said.

  “That’s what I told them,” Kate said. “I came over after breakfast to see if you were in yet, and they were both here looking for you.”

  “What do you mean, looking for me?”

  “We haven’t been able to get in touch with you.” Shep went back to his chair. “We called you off and on all day yesterday, to see where you were and what you were doing. Never could reach you.”

  “What are you talking about? You were out of touch yesterday. No one could find you.”

  “Huh? I was with Juliette and Tim part of the day, trying to figure out what you were doing since we couldn’t reach you.”

  “Juliette, I thought you were taking care of your sick family.” Hawk looked toward her.

  “They had a twenty-four-hour bug, but they were all better yesterday.” She rubbed the base of her neck and shrugged. “I must have called you twenty times.”

  “I heard you were still with your family and you were out.” Hawk pointed toward Juliette and then to Shep. “And you were just unavailable. Kate can tell you I had my new phone with me all day yesterday. If you were calling, I would have answered.”

  “That’s what we thought.” Juliette came over as Hawk pulled his phone out of his pocket. “But we called and called, and you didn’t answer. To be honest, we thought something had happened to you, and we were about to call Al if you weren’t here. Then Kate came in and told us about some of your day.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. Nancy got this new phone
for me and told me that you were all out and unavailable.”

  Shep got out his phone, pressed a few buttons, and held it to his ear. Listening, he waited, then held it out like everyone should be able to hear it. “I just called you, Hawk, and the message said that you were not available, please leave a message.”

  Juliette took Hawk’s phone. “But your phone didn’t ring, Hawk.” She touched the screen and scrolled through to find Shep’s number on speed dial. Touching the screen, she called. Shep’s phone began to ring.

  Shep looked at his phone and held it up again so everyone could see the screen. “This is a different number. You have a new phone and a new number, Hawk.”

  “Well, that explains why you couldn’t get in touch with him.” Kate smiled with relief.

  “So you never would have been able to reach me because you had the wrong number. Nancy didn’t just get me a new phone, she got me a new number.” Hawk scratched his head and got up from his seat.

  He paced the room. His mind was whirring, trying to understand the information that he had just been given and to align it with what Reginald had been saying earlier. He stopped his pacing in the center of the room and turned to face them.

  “But why did Nancy tell me that you were unavailable and that you were out sick?” Hawk looked to Shep and Juliette, who’d taken a seat.

  “I don’t know.” Juliette crinkled her lips. “I don’t remember talking to her yesterday.”

  “Come to think of it, I didn’t either,” Shep added.

  “So Nancy intentionally told you they were not available and failed to give them your new number.” Kate slid to the edge of the couch and was using her finger to connect dots in the air, her investigative instincts coming to life. “So there was no way they could find you, and she knew you wouldn’t bother them. Nancy was trying to keep you out of touch with your friends yesterday.”

  Hawk pondered this, then looked to Juliette. “You said Nancy told you about Jonathan. She was here when you got here?”

  Juliette nodded yes.

  “Where did she go?”

  “Don’t know. She left when I came up here.”

  “She was gone when I arrived.” Shep looked toward Juliette. “After I got here, Kate showed up.”

  Reginald hadn’t listed Nancy in his conspiracy, but perhaps he should have. Forgetting to give out his new phone number would have been an uncharacteristic mistake, but understandable. Lying about his friends’ not being available or out of communication seemed intentional—no matter how many ways he tried to explain it away in his head. Hawk locked eyes with Kate. She smiled at him and nodded as if she already knew what he was thinking.

  “Have either of you actually talked to Jonathan? Do we know he really is sick?”

  “I haven’t,” Shep popped back.

  “Not me.” Juliette slowed her speech. “Nancy is the one who told me he was sick.”

  Hawk felt his mouth go dry, as he opened his phone and called Jonathan’s number. There was no answer, and his excitement ebbed. He left a message and said to call him back.

  “So we don’t really know that Jonathan is sick,” Hawk said, “and he didn’t answer his cell.”

  “Let me call Sally.” Juliette was dialing Jonathan’s wife. They watched as Juliette shook her head, indicating there was no answer.

  “So none of you have heard from Jonathan?” Hawk asked. They shook their heads no. “Isn’t that a little odd? He knows what has been going on. He knew what I was up to, saw my apartment, and he hasn’t checked in with anyone for the last two days?”

  “Do you think something has happened to him?” Shep asked.

  “I don’t know.” Hawk’s thoughts grew dark. His mind went back to the conspiracy that Reginald had suggested earlier. He had seen Jonathan with the bandaged head and the puffy eye. He’d thought when he saw his eye that it looked more like Jonathan had been slugged in a fight than having an allergic reaction. Jonathan would have checked in with someone if everything were normal. And if he were sick, someone would have answered the phone, because he would have been home.

  Kate joined Hawk in the center of the room. “What are you thinking?”

  Hawk looked at her, then at Juliette and Shep. He had to look away from them because he didn’t want them to guess what he was thinking. He didn’t want to think that Jonathan was involved in this. Cambridge had to be wrong. But there was something . . . something . . . that was just not right.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  * * *

  HAWK HAD SPENT THE REST OF THE DAY pondering, trying to unwind the last clue George had left for him. He was unhappy with the pieces that were falling into place. Nancy had never returned to the office after she left in the morning. From all indications, she had misled him about his closest friends, leaving him to believe they were all unavailable and were not to be disturbed for various reasons. The new phone had made it impossible for his most trusted friends to reach him. No matter how many ways he tried to reason it away, he couldn’t escape the fact that her deception seemed intentional.

  Jonathan Carlson had been his friend for years. They had lived a lot of life together and had worked in ministry together for a long time. Hawk had been told he was sick, very sick, and struggling to get over whatever bug was plaguing him. But neither he nor his wife, Sally, were able to found. If he was so sick, then he should have been at home. Juliette had followed up by calling some of the local hospitals to make sure it had not been something far more serious, but they had all known that if Jonathan had really been that sick, one of them would have heard about it by now.

  The conclusion Hawk was leaning toward was the one Cambridge had suggested. That conclusion was in conflict with what Hawk knew about his friend. He felt awful for thinking that Jonathan might be a part of a movement to steal away Walt’s kingdom. Still, the evidence, although completely circumstantial, was bothering him. He tried to shove those thoughts of a friend deceiving him out of his mind.

  Juliette and Shep had kept in close contact all day. They made that pact in the morning and were checking in on one another at regular intervals. Each one was on heightened alert, and their stress levels were through the roof. Months before, the search for the kingdom key had turned dangerous; now it appeared that, once again, the danger increased the more they knew and the closer they got to solving this puzzle. Hawk made the strategic decision not to tell them the clue he and Kate had received from George. Not because he didn’t want them to know, and not really because Reginald had put them all under a dome of suspicion; the less they knew, the safer they were at this point.

  Kate had been with him as he listened to the clue, and at lunch at the Columbia Harbour House in the Magic Kingdom, they talked about what it might mean. She came to the same conclusion that he, Reginald, and Farren had come to: the clue contained an Epcot reference. After they were done, he made sure that when evening arrived, the lanterns burning in the window over Liberty Square would not come on. This would be the signal that he was ready to put an end to the upheaval at the resort and give this group of invaders the key. Of course, he had no intention of really doing that. He and his friends would be setting a trap.

  The afternoon was spent putting the pieces of the trap together. Once the Magic Kingdom was closed for the day, Hawk would move into the Hall of Presidents and wait. He was the bait, and although that didn’t make him happy, he knew it was the best—and perhaps the only way—to flush out some of the villains. As soon as the attraction was closed for the day, other things began to happen as well. Clint Wayman, one of Reginald’s top security men, dressed in a suit they had secured from costuming and took a seat on the stage with the audio-animatronic presidents. His role was to sit there and not move, to blend into the background, and when needed, spring to life to do whatever had to be done. Chuck Conrad was hidden along the edge of the stage, tucked away behind the massive curtain that covered the front of the performance area. Out of sight and out of the way, he could still hear everything that
happened as Hawk waited in the front row of the theater for someone to show up. Reginald stationed himself across the street in Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe and kept a close eye on the building itself. His part was to move inside as soon as he saw anyone enter. To make it easier, they left all of the access doors across the front of the building unlocked.

  Hawk took the plan a step beyond that, and Reginald agreed, seeing the value in it. Shep, Juliette, and Kate were all there as well. Hidden in alcoves in the lobby of the attraction, they would wait until something happened. Hawk was running under the principle that by keeping everyone close, they could all be there when the trap was sprung, and then would no longer be under suspicion of being involved. Hawk did this for Reginald as much as for himself. The longer the day had gone on, the surer he was sure his paranoid thoughts were more suggestions from a concerned Cambridge and Rales than founded in fact. The only one who would not be there was Jonathan. The last call to Jon had been made just before they moved into position. Both he and his wife once again had not picked up their phones.

  Hawk waited in Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe with Reginald until the streets cleared. The lights were extinguished in the window, and they watched each of their team move into place. With a pat on the back, Cambridge told Hawk it was time.

  He stepped out the door and paused under the Liberty Tree. Hawk then moved across the street and opened the front door to the Hall of Presidents. As he walked through the lobby, he traced the room with his eyes and spotted Shep, wearing black as they all were, standing to the right side of the lobby. Close to him was Juliette, also disappearing into the background of the room. Getting closer to the door, he saw Kate standing along the wall, shielded by a pillar, and watching him as he moved. She nodded to him slightly as he passed and entered the auditorium.

  The huge theater was cavernous and, in the dark, looked even bigger than when it was operating in the daytime. He could not see where Chuck was hidden but knew he was inside, having watched him come into the building. Clint was onstage, motionless and blending in, seated among the presidents, who now all seemed to be standing watch over the scene that would play out in the moments ahead.