Cradle of Solitude

by Alex Archer

  She saw a chance to extract a little information. “Is that what you do all day, patrol the grounds? That’s an awful lot of space to cover, isn’t it?”

  “Over eight hundred acres,” he said, with not a little pride in his voice. “But they don’t make us patrol all day long. Just a few hours here and there. Really just an excuse to give Chestnut here—” he patted the horse’s flank “—some exercise.”

  “That’s all? I’d have thought they’d make you patrol more often.”

  He shook his head. “No real need for it, I guess. Nothing much to steal out here except some old gravestones and a flag or two. We do a few rounds at night, checking the place out, but for the most part it’s peaceful. If you can stand the ghosts, that is.”

  He winked at her when he said it and then added a grin for good measure, making it quite clear what his intentions were. If she’d had the time, she probably would have taken him up on the challenge; he looked pretty damn good in that uniform, she had to admit.

  But time was not something she had an abundance of at the moment and she was already calculating how to get rid of him without arousing his suspicions even as she flirted back with him.

  “Ghosts? You’re just pulling my leg,” she said, while glancing casually around for something to use as a distraction.

  The ranger’s radio went off at that point, calling him back to the visitor’s center, and she was saved the effort of coming up with a story to get rid of him. He rode off with a wave, a smile and an offer to show her the ghosts of Gettysburg any night she wanted.

  Annja had to give him credit; it was one of the more original pickup lines she’d heard.

  Too bad she had more important things to do.

  She made her way back to the visitor’s center and from there to the parking lot. Once in her rental car, she set out to locate the road that was going to provide her access to the park after dark. Letting her instincts, and the fact that she’d been blessed with a pretty decent sense of direction, be her guide, she meandered down country road after country road until at last she found the right one.

  The entrance was at the very end of a long country lane, past a pair of dairy farms. Two posts had been set up on either side of the road and a chain ran between then, blocking access. When Annja got out of the car to investigate, though, she found that the chain had simply been hooked to each side. Without a lock on it, there was nothing preventing her from unhooking it, driving her vehicle to the other side and then rehooking the chain back in place, except for the Private Property—Do Not Enter sign.

  Ten more minutes of driving, and two trips out of the car to clear debris from the road, brought her directly opposite the location she’d marked on the fence.

  Satisfied that she could find it again, even in the dark, she turned the car around, retraced her route to the main road and then headed back into Gettysburg to do some shopping and find a place to hole up for a few hours. Once the sun went down she’d pay Parker’s doppelgänger a visit and hopefully get to the bottom of this thing once and for all.

  35

  While Annja was wandering around Cemetery Hill looking for the grave of a man who couldn’t possibly be buried in it, Garin Braden was busy plotting his escape from captivity.

  He’d watched dispassionately as Blaine Michaels ordered Reinhardt’s execution. Garin had known Michaels was a ruthless bastard and the decision to have the professor killed after Annja had agreed to help them hadn’t surprised him at all. Garin might have done the same thing himself, if the situation had been reversed. With that one move Michaels had shown his enemy—in this particular case, Annja—that he was not a man to be trifled with.

  Knowing exactly how she’d react to the death of an innocent man, especially one she called a friend, Garin had tried to come to her aid when she rushed forward, but the quick blow of a rifle butt to the back of his head had ended his feeble attempt.

  When he’d regained consciousness some unknown number of hours later, he’d discovered he was locked in a wardroom, with nothing to do but stare at the ceiling tiles and hope to be rescued.

  Or so his captors thought.

  Garin, of course, had other plans.

  He’d been aboard enough luxury yachts to realize that he was being held captive on one now. He suspected that it was the same boat he’d snuck aboard earlier after diving from the Marietta. The low rumble of the engines, discernible to him through the floor beneath his feet, told him he was belowdecks and likely in the aft section of the craft. Breaking out would therefore mean making his way up through at least one, possibly two decks, without being seen, just to get above the waterline. Since the engines were running, he knew they weren’t sitting idle at the dock, so from there he’d have to figure out a way to get off the boat without ending up stranded in the middle of the river or, worse yet, the Atlantic Ocean.

  It was certainly doable, but Garin thought he knew an easier way.

  He moved to the wardroom door and tried the handle. It was locked, as he’d expected. He stood and listened carefully for a moment, only to be rewarded with the sound of a low cough coming from the other side of the door. Garin nodded in satisfaction.

  He reached out and began pounding on the door with his heavy fist.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “I want to talk to your boss. Tell him it’s about the Order’s plans for the treasure.”

  He kept it up for several minutes, pounding on the door and generally making as much noise as he could. He was all but certain his message was already on its way to Michaels’s ear. The guards might not know what he was talking about, but whatever he said was sure to be reported and his comment about the Order would definitely grab his captor’s attention.

  Garin had just decided he’d made his point and sat back down on the small bunk when he heard the sound of the key in the lock. The door opened, revealing his escort. All four men were close to Garin’s height and build. That did little to faze him, however, for he knew sheer size often meant little in a fight against a skilled opponent. It was the firearms each of them carried that interested him more than anything else. If he could get hold of one of them at the right moment…

  After sizing them up, Garin was confident he could take them if it became necessary. He filed that information away for later, in case an opportunity presented itself. For now, though, he intended to stick with his plan.

  The thug in the lead held up a thick, law-enforcement-style zip tie and said, “Turn around.”

  Garin complied, surreptitiously clenching and unclenching his fists several times in the process. He kept his hands clenched as they used the zip tie to secure his hands behind his back as well, the two actions momentarily filling the tissues of his wrists with blood and making them slightly larger than they normally were. It was a tactic he’d learned years before that kept the tie looser than his captors intended for it to be. He had no idea if he was going to need to get out of his bonds in a hurry, but felt it was better to be prepared just in case.

  Once he was secured they led him out of the room, down the length of the hull and up two decks to a closed door at the end of the hall. The guard knocked, waited for a muffled reply from within and then led Garin inside.

  Michaels was waiting for him in an elegantly appointed dining room, a large meal spread out on the table before him. The guards marched Garin halfway across the room, but refused to let him approach Michaels. Garin felt his stomach clench as the smell of the filet mignon on the plate hit him full force; it had been hours since he’d eaten. He knew the scene was intentional, just more of the mind games Michaels apparently liked to play, so Garin steeled his features and kept the hunger from showing on his face.

  After a moment, Michaels looked up from his meal and waved impatiently for the guards to bring the prisoner forward.

  “This had better be good,” Michaels said. “I’m a busy man and don’t appreciate those who waste my time.”

  You’re a thug and a boor, Garin thought, but managed to refrain from s
aying so to the man’s face. It wasn’t so much the actions that Michaels took that troubled Garin—for, after all, he’d certainly done worse things himself. It was just the man’s innate lack of style or finesse that galled him to no end.

  Time to take him down a notch or two.

  “Your name is Blaine Michaels,” Garin began. “You’re the current head of an organization that stretches back to the sixteenth century. An organization known as the Order of the Golden Phoenix.”

  Michaels stared at him for a moment and then slowly lowered his fork down to the plate in front of him.

  “I believe you have me at a disadvantage,” Michaels said finally.

  “I’m Garin Braden, of Dragontech Security.”

  Michaels gave that a few moments of thought and Garin was happy to give him the time, knowing he’d eventually begin to put things together. Michaels wasn’t a fool and, if he was anything like the men who’d held his particular position before him, he’d be well versed on the various organizations that had clashed with his own during the course of his leadership. He was bound to have heard the name of Garin’s private security firm, both for its public activities and for those it was rumored to carry out in the shadows.

  It was a reputation that Garin had carefully cultivated over the years and one designed to serve him well in situations just like this one.

  “Indeed?” Michaels replied, the surprise evident on his face. “Why should I believe you?”

  Garin laughed. “Do you honestly think I would claim to be someone I am not in this day and age? When a simple Google search can give you a photograph of most individuals over the age of fifteen?”

  Michaels quickly glanced over Garin’s shoulder and he gave a subtle nod to the guard standing behind him. Garin tensed, waiting for the blow, but none came. Instead, the guard lifted his hands and cut the zip tie binding them. Another glance from Michaels sent the guard scurrying to produce a chair for Garin’s benefit.

  When they were comfortably seated on opposite sides of the table, Michaels looked at him intently. “You said something about the treasure?”

  Garin leaned back in his chair. “You know as well as I do that Annja Creed is not going to hand over even a single Mexican half-dollar to you.”

  To his credit, Michaels didn’t react with anything more than a shrug. “That remains to be seen.”

  “If you believe that, then you haven’t done your due diligence with regard to the woman you are dealing with. Trust me, Annja Creed would no more cooperate with a man she considers a cold-blooded murderer than she would wake up tomorrow and declare that the world was flat. Whatever she’s doing, you can rest assured that she’s planning a way to get back at you for what you’ve done.”

  Michaels scoffed. “She’s one woman. I doubt she has the resources or the determination to stand up to the Order.”

  You have no idea, Garin thought, recalling the number of times she’d foiled his own carefully laid plans.

  “Are you willing to bet the treasure on that? Or would you rather take action now, while you still can, and ensure that the gold winds up in the proper hands?”

  Michaels eyed him with a curious expression. “You have obviously given this some thought. I’m curious to hear what you have in mind.”

  Garin smiled. “I thought you’d never ask….”

  36

  It was four hours after sunset.

  Annja drove carefully down the narrow, weed-infested road until she could see the branch she’d stuck through the fence as a marker earlier that afternoon. She pulled over, parked and got out of the car as quickly and quietly as possible.

  Opening the trunk, she removed a pickax and shovel, then closed the lid carefully so as not to attract any attention. She was still a few hundred yards on the other side of the woods from Cemetery Hill, but she knew she should be extracautious.

  Getting caught grave robbing in a national cemetery was not something that would be easily explained or overlooked.

  When her eyes had adjusted fully to the darkness, she stepped up to the fence and threw her pick and shovel over one at a time. They landed in the grass on the other side with soft thuds, barely audible above the sound of the light wind that was blowing.

  She grabbed the fence with both hands and quickly scaled it.

  She paused to look around, confirmed she was alone and then headed through the woods to the edge of the park. She stood in the trees for several long moments, watching the grassy field and the hill that rose up just beyond that. She was going to have to cross that open space and climb the hill in order to reach the grave. That would leave her exposed to view for several minutes. Her conversation with the park ranger had revealed that the park was patrolled, but not very regularly. If she could get amid the graves without being seen and keep the noise to a minimum, she had a chance of pulling this off.

  Okay Annja, it’s now or never, she told herself.

  She picked up her tools and headed across the open field at a light jog. Despite her desire to cross the open space as quickly as possible, she avoided picking up speed. The high grass could hide any number of hazards and she didn’t want to end up turning an ankle in an unseen rabbit hole that might require medical assistance just to get out of the park. The jog would get her there quickly without endangering her mission.

  It only took her a few minutes to reach the top of the hill, but to Annja it felt like hours. She kept waiting for a light to snap on in the darkness, pinning her in place, to hear a guard yelling at her to stop what she was doing or he’d be forced to fire. But none of that happened.

  A lone tree stood on the summit and Annja used the shadows at its base to conceal herself as she looked down into the cemetery spread out below.

  In the days after the Battle of Gettysburg, the dead had been buried in hastily dug graves across the battlefield itself. Later, with the support of the governor of Pennsylvania, the dead were moved to a more permanent cemetery close to Cemetery Hill. How Parker had discovered that there was a Union soldier with the same name as himself buried there, Annja had no idea. Perhaps no one was buried there at all and the grave had just been dug to support Parker’s machinations behind the scenes. She couldn’t know for sure, though she had her suspicions given the very different appearance of the headstone.

  You’ll find out soon enough, she told herself.

  She stepped out into the open, making her way down the slope with the help of the red-lensed flashlight that she’d picked up earlier that day at an Army-Navy surplus store. The colored light would be difficult for an observer to see at night but provided enough illumination for her to locate the grave she was looking for. The unique shape of the gravestone allowed her to find it easily.

  Parker’s instructions echoed in her mind.

  “Disturb him in his slumber, wake him from his rest.”

  She set the flashlight down on the top of the gravestone, illuminating the well-manicured grass that covered the grave site.

  Here goes nothing, she thought as she took a deep breath.

  Laying the pick aside, she used the edge of the shovel to mark a rectangular shape in the grass along the direction that she thought the coffin would have been placed. She carefully cut the turf free in large pieces and then moved them to one side, doing what she could to preserve the sod intact. If she had the time, she intended to replace the grass before leaving, which might help keep the evidence of her activity from being discovered right away.

  Once she had cleared the sod from her target area, she began rotating back and forth between the two tools, using the pick to break up the earth and then scooping the loose dirt out with the shovel. The work was made harder by her effort to keep the noise down and the fact that she stopped regularly to listen to avoid having anyone sneak up on her in the darkness.

  Annja had been working for about an hour and had uniformly gone down about three feet across the entire surface of the grave, when her shovel hit something solid. The sound of metal striking metal was partial
ly muted by the earth, but to her it sounded unnaturally loud. She winced and held the shovel still, listening.

  All was quiet for a moment and Annja was about to breathe a sigh of relief when a horse whinnied somewhere off to her left.

  She reached for the flashlight and shut it off as quickly as she dared.

  The only horses in the park that she knew of were those ridden by the park rangers like the one she’d run into earlier that afternoon. Unless they let them out to roam the grounds at night, something she thought unlikely, there had to be a mounted patrol headed in her direction.

  The question was how far away were they?

  Her mind was racing. Was it already too late? Were they even now calling in backup? Could she possibly escape?

  She didn’t know what to do and that worried her more than if sirens and flashing lights had suddenly split the night air in response.

  A minute passed, then two, as Annja strained her eyes to see who might be out there in the darkness. Finally the gleam of a cigarette caught her eye, flaring red in the darkness for a moment and then dimming again. It was down the hill and off to her left, a few hundred yards away. She couldn’t be sure, but it looked like the light was moving toward her.

  She had a decision to make.

  If she left now, the open grave would most likely be discovered. If that happened, she’d never get another chance at it; they’d probably post armed guards around the grave site and she’d lose access to whatever it was that Parker had hidden there.

  And she’d lose her shot at finding the treasure and using it, in turn, to rescue Garin.

  If she stayed and finished the work, she risked getting caught in the act and charged with several different crimes. Criminal trespass. Desecration of a grave. Destruction of federal property. And who knew what else.

  Clearly there was only one logical choice.

  With her heart beating faster over the possibility of discovery, Annja picked up the flashlight and put it in the bottom of the hole she was digging before turning it back on, knowing the high walls of the grave would keep it from being seen right away. If she worked quickly, she might be able to get out of there before the rider got close enough to know she was even there.