Painter’s fingers tightened on the phone. “She’s back in the U.S.?”
“Seems so.”
Painter closed his eyes for a breath. He’d had no inkling that Seichan was back on American soil. But with her training and connections, he shouldn’t have been surprised. Still, her sudden resurfacing suggested something major was afoot. “What’s wrong?”
“She claims to have a lead on Echelon.”
“What sort of lead?” He sat straighter in his seat as Kowalski kept the SUV idling. Echelon was the code name for the leaders of the shadowy terrorist organization called the Guild. He began to regret leaving D.C.
“Gray didn’t elaborate. Only said that she needed his help to gain access to the National Archives. They’re meeting with a museum curator this evening.”
Painter scrunched his brow. Why was Seichan sniffing around the National Archives? The museum was a storehouse of America’s historical manuscripts and documents. What could any of its contents have to do with the Guild? He checked his watch. It was half past nine, which meant it was after midnight in D.C. Late to be meeting with museum personnel.
“Gray said he’d call back if there was any breakthrough. I’ll keep you informed.”
“Do that. I’ll see if I can’t clear up this matter with my niece, then return to D.C. in the morning. Till then, keep holding down the fort.”
Kat signed off, and Painter tapped in the phone number he’d memorized. It was answered on the first ring by a rushed voice.
“Uncle Crowe?”
“Kai, where are you?”
A silent moment stretched. He heard a gruff voice in the background, urging her to answer.
Still, her words came haltingly, balanced between tears and terror. “I’m . . . we’re in Provo. On the campus of Brigham Young University. At the offices of Professor Henry Kanosh.”
Painter squinted his eyes. Why did that name sound familiar? Then he remembered a report he’d read while en route from D.C. to Salt Lake City, a preliminary debriefing of the events up in the mountains. The professor had been a close associate of the anthropologist killed by the blast.
She gave him an office address, still sounding terrified.
He did his best to reassure her. “I can be in Provo in an hour.” Painter waved for Kowalski to head out of the airport. “Stay put until I get there.”
A new speaker replaced Kai on the phone. “Mr. Crowe, this is Hank Kanosh. You don’t know me.”
“You were a colleague of Margaret Grantham. You were at the site during the explosion.” Painter shifted his briefcase up from the floorboard to his lap. He had a preliminary file on the man, along with files on many others who had witnessed the blast.
A pause indicated the professor’s surprise at his knowledge, but the hitch in his voice suggested the hesitation was more than just surprise. “Maggie . . . she preferred to be called Maggie.”
Painter softened his voice. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“I appreciate that, but you should know that your niece and I were attacked while escaping from the mountains. A helicopter bearing National Guard markings fired upon us.”
“What?” He had heard no report from Kat about a sighting of the supposed terrorist, let alone someone shooting at her.
“But I don’t think they were actually with the National Guard. They seemed more like a mercenary group, maybe bounty hunters who had access to a Guard chopper.”
Painter wasn’t buying that explanation, especially since the sighting and shooting hadn’t been called in through proper channels. Someone else had tried to apprehend or eliminate the supposed terrorist. This raised a new fear. “Professor Kanosh, could you have been recognized by those hunters?”
Uncertainty wavered in his voice. “I . . . I don’t believe so. We were mostly under tree cover, and I was wearing a hat. But if so, you think they might come looking for us here? I should’ve thought of that.”
“No reason you should’ve.” Paranoia is part and parcel of my business. “But as a precaution, is there someplace you and Kai can go that doesn’t lead directly back to you?”
Painter could practically hear the gears turning in the professor’s head; then he answered. “I wanted to check something over at the neighboring earth sciences building. We could meet there.”
“Sounds good.”
After getting all the information, Painter hung up. Kowalski already had them heading south on Interstate 15.
Kowalski commented around the chewed stub of unlit cigar. “Got about another forty miles to go to reach Provo.”
Painter read the time estimate on the GPS. “Fifty-two minutes,” he mumbled under his breath.
Kowalski rolled one eye toward his boss. “If need be, I can make that forty-two minutes.” He gunned the engine and cocked a questioning eyebrow.
Painter sank deeper in his seat, his heart thudding harder as he considered the hunters already on Kai and the professor’s trail. “How about making that thirty-two minutes.”
Kowalski offered a crooked smile as he jammed the accelerator. “Always like a challenge.”
Painter was thrown back as the SUV gained speed. While he should have been unnerved as the needle of the speedometer climbed toward the hundred mark, instead he was relieved that he’d come out to Utah. It was confirmation that his instincts hadn’t grown stale during the time he’d been buried under the Smithsonian Castle.
Something major was afoot out here.
And maybe not just out here.
He remembered the call from Kat, reporting on Seichan’s sudden appearance, coming to ground with a possible clue to the true leaders of the Guild. It was rare for any intelligence to leak out from the vaults of that organization. It would take something significant to get them to let their guard down.
Like this mysterious explosion.
He could be wrong, but Painter had little stomach for coincidences. And if he was right, he at least had one of his best men following those leads on the East Coast. Despite the late hour, he should be getting started.
That is, if the man could keep his focus.
Chapter 9
May 30, 11:48 P.M.
Washington, D.C.
Gray followed Seichan toward the massive pillared facade of the National Archives Building. It was a cold spring night, a last blast of winter’s chill before D.C.’s boggy, humid summer started. Only a few cars moved along the streets at this late hour.
Following Seichan’s sudden appearance at his apartment, Gray had donned black trousers, boots, and a long-sleeved Army T-shirt, along with a knee-length wool overcoat. Seichan seemed oblivious to the cold, leaving her motorcycle jacket open, exposing a thin crimson blouse, buttoned low enough to catch a glimpse of lace underneath. The leather pants hugged her curves, but there was no seduction to her manner. She moved with a hard-edged purpose to her step. Her eyes took in every stir of windblown branch. She was a piano wire stretched to the snapping point. Then again, she had to be to survive.
They headed for the Archives’ research entrance along Pennsylvania Avenue. The access here was rather nondescript compared with the public entry on the far side of the building with its giant bronze doors. That massive threshold led into the main rotunda of the Archives, a hall that displayed the original copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, all preserved in helium-filled glass enclosures.
But those documents were not why they’d come for this midnight visit. The building held over ten billion records covering the span of American history, cataloged and stockpiled in the nine hundred thousand square feet of storage space. If they were to find the document they sought, Gray knew he’d need help.
As they approached the entrance, the door swung open ahead of them. Gray tensed until a slim figure stepped forth and waved to them brusquely. His face was fixed in a hard scowl. Dr. Eric Heisman was one of the museum’s curators, specializing in Colonial American history.
“Your colleague is alre
ady inside,” the curator said as greeting.
The man’s hair was snowy white, worn long to the collar, with a trimmed goatee. As he held the door open for them, he fidgeted with a pair of reading glasses hanging from a chain around his neck. He clearly was not happy to be called from his home at this late hour. Summoned at the last minute, the curator was attired in a casual pair of jeans and a sweater.
Gray noted the emblem for the Washington Redskins—a profile of a feathered Native American warrior—sewn on the sweater. At the moment he found the symbol ironic, considering the subject matter he intended to broach. Dr. Heisman’s historical expertise concerned the relationship between the burgeoning American colonies and the indigenous people the colonists had found living in the New World. It was just such an expert Gray needed to further his investigation.
“If you’ll follow me,” Heisman said, “I’ve reserved a research room near the main stacks. My assistant will pull whatever records you need.” He glanced back at them as they crossed the entry hall. “This is quite unorthodox. Even clerks for the Supreme Court know better than to request records outside of regular hours. It would have been easier if you’d informed me about the specific matter that you required to be researched.”
The curator looked ready to chastise them some more, but his glance happened to settle on to Seichan’s face. Whatever he saw there silenced any further complaints. He swung swiftly away.
Gray looked at her. She met his gaze and lifted a single brow, her countenance innocent. As she turned away, he noted a small scar under her right ear, half hidden by a fall of black hair. He was sure it was new. Wherever her investigations into the Guild had taken her, it had plainly been a hard path.
Following the curator through a maze of halls, they ended up in a small room dominated by a conference table and lined with microfiche readers along one wall. Gray found two people already waiting there. One was a young college-aged woman with flawless ebony skin. She could have stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine. The black pencil dress that hugged her figure only accentuated her appearance. Her perfectly made-up face suggested she hadn’t been lounging at home when she was suddenly called to work.
“My assistant, Sharyn Dupre. She’s fluent in five languages, but her native tongue is French.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” she said, her voice silkily deep, tinged with a slight Arabic accent.
Gray shook her hand. From Algeria, he surmised from her lilting accent. Though the North African country had shaken off the yoke of the French colonists in the early sixties, the language still persisted among its people.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Gray said.
“No trouble at all,” came a gruff response from the far side of the table. The other figure waiting for them was well known to Gray. Monk Kokkalis sat with his feet up on the table, dressed in sweats and a ball cap. His face shone brightly under the fluorescents. He cocked his head toward the slender assistant. “Especially considering the company at hand.”
The assistant bowed her head shyly, a ghost of a smile on her lips.
Monk had beaten them to the National Archives. Of course Sigma command was only a short walk across the National Mall from here. Kat had insisted that her husband join Gray this evening. Though Gray suspected the assignment had more to do with getting Monk out from under her feet than with offering backup for this investigation.
They all took seats at the table, except for Heisman, who remained standing, clasping his hands behind his back. “Perhaps now you could tell me why we’ve all been summoned here at such a late hour.”
Gray opened the manila file in front of him, slipped out the letter, written in French, and slid it across the table toward Sharyn. Before she could touch it, Heisman swooped in and took it with one hand while securing his reading glasses in place with the other.
“What’s this?” he asked, his head nodding up and down as he scanned the handful of pages. He plainly did not read French, but his eyes widened as he recognized the signature at the bottom of the letter. “Benjamin Franklin.” He glanced to Gray. “This appears to be in his own handwriting.”
“Yes, that’s already been verified and the letter translated—”
Heisman cut him off. “But this is a photocopy. Where’s the original?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me!” the curator blurted out. “I’ve read everything ever written by Franklin. But I’ve never seen anything like this. These drawings alone . . .” He slapped a page on the table and stabbed at one of the hand-drawn sketches.
It showed a bald eagle, wings outspread, gripping an olive branch in one claw and a bundle of arrows in the other. Clearly it was still a work in progress. Hen-scratched side notes, indecipherable, pointed here and there at the figure.
“This appears to be an early rendition of the Great Seal of the United States. But this letter is dated 1778, years before this draft of the Seal appeared in the public record around 1782. Surely this is some sort of a forgery.”
“It’s not,” Gray said.
“May I?” Sharyn gently retrieved the pages. “You said you’ve translated these, but I’d be happy to confirm the accuracy of that work.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Gray said.
Heisman paced alongside the table. “I’m assuming the content of this letter is what triggered this late-night meeting. Perhaps you could explain why something two centuries old could not wait until morning.”
Seichan spoke for the first time. Her voice was quiet, but coldly threatening. “Because blood has been spilled to secure these pages.”
Her words sobered Heisman enough to get him to sit down at the table. “Fine. Tell me about the letter.”
Gray began, “It was a correspondence between Franklin and a French scientist. A man named Archard Fortescue. He was a member of a scientific group put together by Franklin. The American Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge.”
“Yes, I’m familiar with the group,” Heisman said. “It was an offshoot of the American Philosophical Society, but more specifically geared to the gathering of new scientific ideas. They were best known for their early archaeological investigations into Native American relics. In the end, they became almost obsessed with such things. Digging up graves and Indian mounds all across the colonies.”
Sharyn spoke at the curator’s elbow. “That is specifically what the letter seems to address,” she said. “It is a plea to this French scientist to assist Franklin in mounting an expedition to Kentucky”—she translated the next with her brows pinched together—“ ‘to discover and excavate a serpent-shaped Indian barrow, to search for a threat to America buried there.’ ”
She glanced up. “There appears to be some urgency to this correspondence.” To prove her point, she ran a finger along a passage of the letter, while translating. “ ‘My Dear Friend, I regret to inform you that the hopes for the Fourteenth Colony—this Devil Colony—are dash’d. The shamans from the Iroquois Confederacy were slaughtered most foully en route to the meeting with Governor Jefferson. With those deaths, all who had knowledge of the Great Elixir and the Pale Indians have pass’d into the hands of Providence. But one shaman did live long enough, buried under the bodies of the others, to gasp out one last hope. He told of a map, mounted within the skull of a horned demon and wrapped in a painted buffalo hide. It is hidden in a barrow sacred to the aboriginal tribes within the territory of Kentucky. Perhaps such talk of demons and lost maps is the phantasm of an addled, dying mind, but we dare not take the chance. It is vital we secure the map before the Enemy does. On that front, we’ve discovered one clue to the forces that seek to tear asunder our young union. A symbol that marks the enemy.’ ”
She flipped the page for them all to see. It depicted drafting compasses atop an L-square, all framing a tiny sickle-shaped moon and a five-pointed star.
She glanced up. “It looks to be a Freemason symbol, but I’ve never seen such a rendition like this. One with a star a
nd moon. Have you?”
Gray remained silent as Dr. Heisman examined the symbol. The curator gave a slow shake of his head. “Franklin was a Freemason himself. He wouldn’t disparage his own order. This must be something else entirely.”
Monk leaned over to see the symbol. Though his partner’s face remained stoic, Gray picked out the pinching of his nostrils as if he’d just smelled something foul. Like Gray, Monk recognized the mark of the Guild leadership. He met Gray’s gaze, the question plain in his eyes: How could such a symbol be found in a letter from Benjamin Franklin to a French scientist?
That was the very question Gray wanted answered.
Monk voiced another mystery. “So how come ol’ Ben was asking a Frenchman to help in this search? Surely there was someone closer at hand to lead such an expedition into the wilds of Kentucky.”
Seichan offered one explanation. “Perhaps he didn’t entirely trust those around him. This shadowy enemy he mentions . . . they could have infiltrated the government’s inner circles.”
“Maybe so,” Heisman said. “But France was our ally against the British during the Revolutionary War, and Franklin spent a lot of time in Paris. More important, French colonists had developed close allegiances with Native American tribes during the French and Indian Wars, during which Canadian colonists fought alongside the region’s natives against British forces. If Franklin needed someone to investigate a matter sensitive to the Indians of the time, it would not be strange to reach out to a Frenchman.”
“The letter seems to confirm this,” Sharyn said. She translated another few lines. “ ‘Archard, as confidant and bosom friend to the deceased Chief Canasatego—whose death by poison I still soundly believe was the dread work of our same Enemy—I could think of no one more fit to head such a vital exploration. This mission must not fail.’ ”
Despite the words in the letter, Gray suspected the true answer to Monk’s question lay in a combination of both theories. From the ominous tone, Franklin was wary and reaching out to a friend he knew he could trust, someone with close ties to the region’s tribes.