The Devil Colony

Chapter 35

The helicopter lowered toward the steaming geothermal heart of Yellowstone. Night still claimed the primitive landscape of bubbling pools, white-gray cones, and fog-enshrouded rivers and creeks that spanned the upper geyser basin. Farther out, dark meadows and black stands of lodgepole pines stretched toward the distant plateaus and mountains.

But man had carved his own mark into this national treasure, this contrasting mix of quiet natural beauty and hellish geological activity. In the predawn darkness, lines of streetlights and trails of headlamps mapped the few roads winding through the park. The evacuation Painter had ordered was under way, turning the park at its peak season into a massive traffic jam. The flashing blue lamps of park service vehicles dotted the thoroughfares, as rangers did their best to empty the park.

He checked his watch.

Two hours left.

Not everyone would get clear in time, but he had to try. He had started the evacuation two hours ago as he left Flagstaff and raced north in a private jet to the small airport in western Montana, a few miles from the western entrance to the park. The helicopter ferried him the rest of the way to the rendezvous point.

A parking lot rose up below them. Two other helicopters already rested below in neighboring lots. It looked like Rafael’s team had beaten him to the place, but they had a head start, flying directly out of Salt Lake City. The two teams were to meet inside the Old Faithful Inn, a colossal landmark of the park, built in the early 1900s. The seven-story rustic hotel, with its steep roofs and heavy beams, was the largest log structure in the world, built from locally harvested pine and quarried stone.

It had been built here as the perfect vantage point from which to view its namesake.

As the skids of the helicopter touched down, the geyser lived up to its reputation. A vast flume of steam and boiling water jetted nearly two hundred feet into the air from the most famous of the valley’s geysers. Old Faithful’s eruptions occurred roughly every ninety minutes.

Painter prayed that the valley would still be around for the next scheduled show.

Beyond the geyser, the dark Firehole River wound across the upper basin, lined by more geysers, each with crazy names — Beehive, Spasmodic, Castle, Slurper, Little Squirt, Giantess, and many more — along with numerous vents, pools, and steaming springs.

The helicopter door cracked open, releasing Painter’s party into this blasted, wondrous world. But they weren’t here for sightseeing.

“Stinks,” Kowalski commented — but Painter didn’t know if he was referring to the air’s sulfurous taint or their dire situation. His partner stared sourly around, tugging his long duster more firmly over his shoulders.

Hank climbed out next, followed by his dog, who ran ahead to mark a lamppost. Jordan helped the professor out. Painter had tried to get the young man to remain behind at Flagstaff, but the kid offered a good argument.

If you fail, I die anyway. I’d rather go down fighting.

But Painter also knew what it was that drew Jordan north. The young man’s eyes stared toward the massive hotel. He wasn’t appreciating the architecture, but trying to spot any sign of Kai. Painter was anxious, too. The fate of the entire world was too large a notion to take to heart, too bulky a concept to fully grasp.

Instead, it came down to those you loved.

Jordan’s fear was simple to read, concern for the safety of a single terrified girl squeezed the young man’s heart into his throat. Likewise, Painter prayed he’d get to see Lisa again. Their last conversation on the phone had been necessarily brief, given that the fate of the world was hanging in the balance. Lisa had been strong, but he heard the tears behind her words.

“Let’s go,” Painter said, waving forward the last members of their group.

Ronald Chin followed, along with Major Ashley Ryan. Three other National Guard soldiers accompanied them, carrying large trunks. Ryan had collected the additional manpower at the Montana airport, teammates up from Utah, while Painter had ordered the trunks of equipment flown in.

According to the parley Painter had with Rafael prior to leaving Flagstaff, each team was restricted to the same number of members. Painter didn’t want this to become a pissing contest. They had work to do — and it had to be done fast, with a minimum of drama.

Reaching the hotel’s front entrance, Painter pushed through a huge set of plank doors, painted a fire-engine red and strapped and studded in black iron. As he stepped inside, the sight took his breath away. It was like entering a lamp-lit cavern made of logs. The sheer volume of the open four-story space drew his eyes upward. Balconies and staircases climbed toward the roof, all railed by twisted, contorted pine logs, stripped of their bark, glowing golden in the light. In the middle, dominating by sheer mass, rose a towering stone fireplace. It was the central pillar and hearth of the lobby.

The cavernous space seemed especially large because it was empty. Like the park, the hotel had been evacuated, except for a skeleton crew who’d volunteered to remain behind and protect this treasured place. It was a futile gesture. No one could protect anything against what was coming — they could only try to stop it.

To that end, upon spotting Rafael’s party, Painter crossed toward them. They had taken up residence amid a collection of Mission chairs, rockers, and coffee tables. A larger trestle table from the neighboring lobby restaurant had been carried over and turned into a makeshift computer lab. Miniservers, LCD screens, and other digital equipment were being rapidly assembled, overseen by a scrawny, nervous-eyed technician and a familiar-looking dark woman.

From that woman’s shadow, another familiar figure appeared.

“Uncle Crowe…” Kai stepped into view.

Jordan ran forward. “Kai!”

Her face brightened upon seeing him. She moved to greet him as he hurried toward her, raising one of her arms to hug him. But suddenly she was snagged to a stop by the larger woman’s grip on her wrist. A jangle of steel links drew Painter’s eye, correcting his assumption. The African wasn’t holding Kai — the two were handcuffed together.

Jordan drew to a stop, also noting the situation.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Painter asked, stepping forward.

“Merely insurance, Monsieur Crowe.” Rafael rose from one of the chairs, needing his cane to help him up. Small wrinkles of pain etched the corner of his eyes. Apparently the ride here had taxed his frail body.

“What do you mean, insurance? We had a deal.”

“Indeed. I am a man of my word. The agreement was that I’d safely return your niece once you revealed the location of the lost city.”

“Which I did.”

“Which you did not.” Rafael lifted his arm to encompass more than just this hotel. “Where is this lost city, then?”

Painter realized that the Frenchman was right. He stared into Kai’s forlorn and scared eyes. Her hand had found Jordan’s during his exchange with Rafe. He also noted the thickness of the cuff’s bracelet around Kai’s other wrist. A tiny red light was blinking.

Rafael noticed his attention. “An unfortunate necessity. The handcuffs are powered, creating a closed circuit, connecting the two bracelets. Break that circuit, and a small, but powerful charge will explode with enough force to take off your niece’s arm and likely a good portion of her torso.”

Kai looked aghast at Rafael. Apparently her captor had not revealed this extra bit of security to her.

“I thought this best,” Rafael explained. “Now you will not be distracted by the thoughts of wresting your niece from me. We can both concentrate on what must be done. In the meantime, she is perfectly safe until we complete our transaction.”

The tension in the room seemed to thicken the air between the two forces. Backing up Rafael, his Aryan bodyguard rested his palm atop his holstered sidearm. Five mercenaries flanked their leader.

They were at an impasse — and time was running out.

Painter had said he didn’t want drama, and here he was adding to it. He needed to end this.

Painter gave Kai a firm look of assurance. He would get her through this — somehow. He turned back to Rafael. “Did you bring the gold wolf’s-head jar?”

“Of course.” Rafe hobbled around. “Bern, bring that valise to the table.”

The soldier obeyed, stalking across to a medium-size case on the floor. He hauled it atop a coffee table and opened its lid. The golden canopic jar lay nestled in protective black foam. The two gold tablets, stolen by Kai out of the Utah cave, were also inside.

Hank noted the tablets, too, and moved closer, but Bern extracted the jar and snapped the lid closed. The soldier crossed and placed the artifact on the table next to the computer workstation.

Again Painter was struck by its beauty, from the perfectly sculpted head of a timber wolf to the handsomely etched mountain landscape. But he did not have time to appreciate such artistry. Instead, he studied it as if it were a piece to a puzzle.

Without turning, he pointed his arm back. “Kowalski, go unpack our gear.”

Rafael stepped beside Painter, his movement accompanied by a waft of spicy cologne. He leaned on his cane with both hands. “Do you truly think this will help us narrow down our search of these two million acres?”

“It must. The satellite passes of the park are of little use.”

En route to Yellowstone, Painter had pulled every string he could, raising the alarm all the way up to the Oval Office. With President Gant’s signature, along with approval of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Painter had commandeered every available satellite in orbit. The entire park had been scanned across every spectrum: ground-penetrating radar, geomagnetic potentials, thermal gradients… anything that might offer a clue as to where a lost city might be buried.

He’d come up with nothing.

“Problem is,” Painter said, “this terrain is riddled with caverns, caves, vents, lava tubes, and hot springs. Pick almost any spot in the park and there seems to be some cavity or pocket underground. The city could still be anywhere.”

“And the physicists?” Rafael asked.

“We’ve got every expert in subatomic particles trying to calibrate and pinpoint the source of the massive neutrino flow from this region. But the volume of production is so prodigious that they could narrow the scope only to a two-hundred-mile radius.”

“Useless,” Rafael commented.

Painter agreed. He had one hope. It rested on the table. The landscape on the canopic jar. Some ancient artist had taken a great deal of time to etch it so meticulously upon the bottle.

The foreground of the landscape showed the confluence of two creeks, flowing into the distance down a forested valley. In the background rose towering clifflike mountains, fringed by lodgepole pines, so detailed that each needle had been carefully scratched in place. And in the middle, rising between the creeks, rose a tall cone, slightly steaming, like a small smoldering volcano. Around it stood smaller anthill-like cones.

So realistic were the details that it seemed impossible to believe them to depict anything other than a real place. The steaming geothermal structures in the center certainly suggested that such a spot might be found within this park. Painter pictured the artist sitting in a field, meticulously working the metal to preserve an image of this place. If it was important enough to etch onto this canopic jar, it must represent a site sacred to the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev. Perhaps it was a view from their new refuge here in Yellowstone.

That’s what Painter hoped.

By now, Kowalski had unpacked the cases Painter had ordered him to bring here. He set the disassembled pieces of the digital laser scanner on the table, next to all of the other computer equipment.

Painter glanced from Rafael to the scrawny computer tech. “Do you have all the satellite uplinks and parameters set on your end?”

“We do.”

“Can your guy help me assemble and get it cabled in properly?”

Instead of addressing the tech, Rafael turned to the tall African woman. “Ashanda, perhaps you should oversee TJ’s handiwork. We don’t want to risk any mistakes.” He drew Painter aside. “Let them do their magic.”

Even with the use of only one hand and without speaking a single word, Ashanda orchestrated the assembly of the laser device, along with its calibration and integration into the workstation. Even Kai helped run some of the cabling, plainly needing to do something — though every jangle of the handcuffs drew a scared glance from her.

Within a few minutes, a window opened on one of the monitors, ready to accept data. The window ledger read LASER TECHNIQUES COMPANY, LLC. It was a company out of Bellevue, Washington, that worked with NASA, developing patented tools to detect erosion, pitting, scuffing, or cracking in metallic surfaces, covering a gamut of uses that included space-shuttle thrusters, military hardware, nuclear steam generator tubes, and underwater pipelines. The laser device could pick up and photograph minute changes in metal that the eye could easily miss.

Painter needed that precision now.

Ashanda turned and silently announced the completion of her work with a small bow of her head.

Is she mute? Painter wondered absently. But he could give the question no more attention than that. At the moment he had a more important puzzle to solve.

“Guess that’s my cue,” he said.

He stepped back to the table and switched on the laser mapping system. A bluish holographic cone glowed from the scanner’s emitter. Painter positioned it until a set of crosshairs were fixed to the center of the golden landscape. Once this was done, he activated the scan.

Dark azure lines flowed up and down across the golden surface, then back and forth, absorbing every detail off the jar, from the tiniest wisp of steam to a minuscule pinecone hanging off the branch of a tree in the background.

On the computer monitor, the image formed — at first a static flat image, then, as the scan finished, it rendered out into an extrapolated 3-D view. A square slice of landscape, topographically accurate, spun slowly on the screen.

“Amazing,” Rafael said.

“Let’s see if it helps us.” Painter moved to the computer keyboard, opened a data stream to a NASA technician in Houston, and sent the large file. Once it was received, the team in Houston would set about using the satellite data collected over the past hour and compare the real-world terrain of Yellowstone to this holographic image. With a bit of luck, they’d find a match.

“This may take a few minutes,” Painter said.

Rafael stared at the golden jar and muttered. “Let’s hope not too many minutes.”

Hank crouched beside the table, opposite from Painter and the Frenchman. He kept his gaze fixed on the canopic jar, feeling possessive about it, as he’d been the one who found the artifact down in the Anasazi’s kiva. He imagined one of the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev devoutly inscribing this sacred object. Painter was right. It had to be important and could point them to the location of the lost city.

Hank also felt that the landscape was a significant clue. In fact, it nagged at him. There was something vaguely familiar about the picture, especially that small volcano in the center; he felt as if he’d seen it somewhere before, yet he’d never visited Yellowstone.

So how could that be? What am I forgetting?

Racking his memory, he finally gave up and turned his attention to the other mystery on the gold jar.

Leaning down, Hank studied the writing etched onto its opposite side, wondering again if he was gazing upon the letters of the language that the Book of Mormon described as reformed Egyptian. His linguist colleague back at BYU who had helped identify the writing on the gold plates had an equally fanciful name for this script: the alphabet of the Magi.

Hank studied the writing and considered the scribe who had etched the letters onto the jar ages ago. Were the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev some kind of scholarly sect, masters of a lost technology who had fled the Holy Lands centuries before Christ’s birth? Did these fleeing Israelites—these Nephites—come to North America to preserve and protect their knowledge, some mix of Jewish mysticism and Egyptian science?

Oh, if only I could talk to one of them…

But maybe one of them was speaking to him now, through these flowing lines of proto-Hebrew. Still, Hank knew he would need help to understand the message he was receiving.

He straightened and interrupted Painter, who was in conversation with the Frenchman. It seemed as if the enemies had become colleagues. Still, Hank noted the nervous edge to Painter’s mien, the quickness with which his fingers formed themselves into fists, the angry pinch to his eyes, the clipped manner of his speech. He imagined it was taking all of the man’s control to keep from ripping Rafael’s head from his shoulders. Hank also saw the raw wound in Painter’s eyes, born of guilt and pain, whenever he looked in Kai’s direction.

It was made worse by the waiting and tension.

Hank offered him something to do. “Painter, could we use your tool to take a photo of the writing on this side of the jar? I can send it to my colleague, the expert in ancient languages and linguistics. When I spoke to him last, he believed he might be able to help us translate it. Not the entire message, mind you. He thought he might be able to pick out a few words here and there, those bits that still bear some relation to modern Hebrew.”

“At this point, I’ll take any help I can. Even a single word could be the final key to solving this puzzle.”

Hank was hanging back while Painter and the French team worked to get a copy uploaded to BYU when he accidentally bumped into the carrying case that had been used to transport the canopic jar.

Hmm…

Painter suddenly called out, drawing everyone’s attention.

“NASA just sent word. We got a hit!”

Chapter 36

The sun had come up by the time they were able to off-load the backhoe from the flatbed. Gray trundled the earthmover across the empty parking lot of the Meriwether Lewis State Park. The recreation area lay about eighty miles south of Nashville along the Natchez Trace Parkway. At this hour, the park was still closed, and the gravesite they sought was well off the road, surrounded by thick forest.

If they moved quickly enough, they shouldn’t be disturbed.

Earlier, Kat had cleared the way for this little bit of grave robbing by arranging permits for a bogus sewer repair job to cover their actions, along with renting the backhoe from a local heavy-equipment dealer in the nearby town of Hohenwald.

Monk and Seichan, both suited up in blue utility jumpers and carrying shovels, led the way from the parking lot.

Gray followed, working the two brakes to control his turns and peering over the top of the loading bucket. He’d driven tractors and backhoes as a kid back in Texas. He was rusty, but it was coming back to him.

Entering the main grounds, they passed several commemorative and informational signs, as well as a restoration of the original Grinder’s Stand, where Lewis died. The log structure stood to one side of the park. The grave marker lay ahead, across a swath of lawn. It was a simple monument with a stacked stone base holding up a broken plinth of limestone, symbolic of a life that was cut short.

Gray headed across the lawn toward it, going slowly.

Once they got close enough, Monk circled his arm in the air. “Turn her!”

Gray obeyed, swinging the backhoe fully around, to bring the rear boom and bucket to bear. He shifted into neutral and set the brake. Once the machine was ready, he swiveled his seat to face the stubby controls to the rear digging arm and lowered the stabilizer legs to either side.

But before digging, he had to do a little clearing.

With a cringe against the violation he was about to commit and a silent apology to the dead pioneer, Gray lifted the boom and extended the arm, using the bucket like a ram against the top of the pillar. Hydraulics whined and slowly the broken plinth toppled over, ripping out of its stacked-stone base. It crashed, penetrating deep into the lawn on the far side.

Once that was done, it took another fifteen minutes to remove the base: scooping stone and mortar and dumping it to the side. After this, Gray pointed the bucket’s teeth to the ground and began to dig in earnest, one scoopful at a time.

Monk and Seichan helped guide his actions, checking after each bucket load, jumping in and searching around with their spades. Finally, a sharp whistle drew Gray’s attention. Monk straightened from the hole and pointed down.

“Time to wake up the dead!”

Monk and Gray cleared the rest of the way with the shovels. Monk had a bit of difficulty with only one hand, but he’d learned long ago to manage most tasks through the artful use of his stump.

Seichan watched from the lip of the open grave.

According to information supplied to them by Eric Heisman, Gray’s team was not the first to violate Lewis’s resting place. A monument committee had dug up Lewis’s body back in 1847, to confirm that it was indeed the famous pioneer in this grave before allowing the construction of the broken-pillar grave marker. The committee’s report to the state legislature also stated their firm belief that Lewis met his end through murder, not suicide, declaring he’d “died at the hands of an assassin.”

The coffin was probably dated back to that time.

A worry nagged at Gray. Had the committee, he wondered, committed any further violation, such as emptying anything they found here?

They were about to find out.

Inside the grave, Gray set the edge of his spade and broke the rusted locks from the wood coffin. With Monk’s help, he got the lid raised. Skeletal remains rested in the tattered remnants of an old suit. Dried bits of flesh still clung in flaking patches.

Monk fell back a step and pointed a thumb up. “I think I’m going to go join Seichan.”

“Go ahead,” Gray said, releasing him from duty.

They were done here.

Folded neatly over the body’s skeletal legs was the hide of a buffalo. It looked to be in poor shape, the fur of the pelt ragged, almost bald, but the leather itself appeared intact.

Gray bent closer to examine it as the crack of a rifle suddenly split the bright morning quiet. Monk came falling back into the grave, sprawling atop the bones.

Gray reached to his side, and his fingers came back bloody.

Seichan leaped down to join them as more shots blasted into the edge of the grave. “Where are our rifles?” she asked.

“Still in the backhoe’s cab,” Gray said.

It was a foolish oversight.

Monk groaned. “Looks like we dug our own graves.”

Chapter 37

Half an hour after getting word from NASA, Painter stood within the landscape pictured on the canopic jar. While he was being airlifted here, dawn had broken across Yellowstone, though the sun had yet to fully rise. The soft glow of a new day cast a magical quality on the small valley.

According to the ranger they’d spoken with, this was one of the most remote areas of the park. Fewer than twenty-five people had ever set foot in this small geothermal basin. To use the ranger’s words, “More people have been to the summit of Everest than have made it to Fairyland Basin.”

Despite the whimsical name, the reason for the lack of visitors was plain to see. The basin lay seventeen miles away from the nearest trailhead, and treacherous cliffs rose fifteen hundred feet all around. Only the most foolhardy dared risk coming here.

Luckily they had helicopters.

The chopper lifted off behind him after the search party had been unloaded.

Ducking against the beat of the rotor wash, Painter yelled to be heard. “We have a little over one hour, people! We need to find that lost city!”

Other helicopters circled overhead, carrying insulated blast boxes that were normally used to explode suspicious packages. The plan was to find the cache of unstable compound. If they couldn’t neutralize it here, the nano-material would be transported hot, out of the valley, and dumped clear of the caldera. That was the primary goal, to protect the supervolcano.

After that, they would address whatever destructive and denaturing force was released by that blast. Kat had the Japanese physicist working up various scenarios, not ruling out a nuclear option if necessary.

But this was a bridge they’d cross later.

First, they had to find the tomb of the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev—and it would not be easy. Painter gaped at the towering cliffs, the dark stands of dark lodgepole pines, and the green meadows that rolled outward from the confluence of two silver creeks.

It was a beautiful spot, but it might not be the right spot. That ancient artist may have etched this valley in gold for no other reason than that it appealed to him. It might have had nothing to do with that lost city.

Someone disagreed with him.

“This is the place!” Professor Kanosh stood several yards away, holding a hand to his forehead. “Why didn’t I remember this before?”

Painter headed over to him. Hank stood amid the geothermal structures that gave this valley its fanciful name. Fairyland came from the chalk-gray geothermal structures rising up between the shores of those two streams. They were geyserite cones, according to Chin, formed by the aggregation of mineral deposits left by small geysers. There had to be over forty of them spread over an area half a football field in size. Some were as squat as knee-high toadstools; others towered ten feet tall, reminding Painter of giant African termite hills. Most had long gone dormant, but a handful continued to puff with steam or run with boiling water. According to the ranger, many of the larger cones had specific names: Magic Mushroom, Phallic Cone, Pitcher’s Mound…

It was the last of these before which Hank was standing. Steam rose from the top of the largest cone, a minivolcano amid its more stalklike neighbors. Water ran down its sides and flowed in rivulets across the chalk-stone ground.

Painter headed toward the professor as Kawtch splashed in the shallows of the neighboring creek. Jordan stood at Hank’s side, though his gaze shifted often to Kai. Rafael’s party gathered in a clutch on the far side of the geothermal field’s expanse.

Sweeping his cane high, Rafael ordered Bern and his men to begin a systematic search, concentrating on the cliffs. Smart. If there were an entrance to a subterranean city, it would most likely be found there.

“Major Ryan,” Painter called out. “Take your men and check the cliffs on this side of the valley. Chin, you’re with me. I want your assessment about this steaming hot spot here.”

Kowalski followed them, eyeballing the French team across the way with suspicion. “I trust that guy as much as I trust a snake in a boot.”

Painter thought this was a fair assessment, but for now, they had to work together.

“Hank, what did you find?” he asked as he reached the professor’s side.

The professor pointed to the rippled sides of the Pitcher’s Mound cone. Its name clearly derived from the fat fingerlike projections along the rim, making it look like an open pitcher’s mitt.

“Look at this,” Hank said, crouching down and pointing. “Over the centuries, the slow aggregation of minerals must have remodeled this cone somewhat, but the resemblance is still uncanny. Study the silhouette.”

“Resemblance to what?”

“To one of the most revered Jewish landmarks, from out of the Book of Exodus, the mountain Moses came down bearing the Ten Commandments.”

“Are you talking about Mount Sinai?” Painter asked. He bent at the waist and stared at the hill, trying to picture it as a miniature model of that famous mountain.

I guess so, he thought, but he remained unsure. It was like staring at clouds and seeing what you wanted to see. To Painter, the big cone appeared as much like Mount Sinai as those other bent-backed gray towers looked like gnomes.

Kowalski shook his head, plainly not buying it either. He searched around at the field of stalklike gray rocks. “They all look like penises to me.”

“What difference does it make,” Painter asked, “whether it looks like Mount Sinai or not?”

“Because if the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev were descendants of a lost tribe of Israel, then the discovery of a cone shaped like Sinai would be a providential sign to them. This valley would be important, sacred enough to make it their secret home.”

“I hope you’re right,” Painter said.

Chin had another opinion. He knelt atop the thick field of dried minerals and rocks called sinter, from which most of the cones arose. “Well, from a geologist’s standpoint, this is the worst place for them to choose.”

“Why is that?” Painter asked. “Besides the fact we’re standing on top of a supervolcano?”

“That’s deeper underground.” The geologist patted the surface of sinter. “Feel this.”

Painter reached down and pressed his palm against the chalky stone.

“What are you doing?” Rafael asked, joining them, along with Ashanda and Kai.

“It’s vibrating,” Painter said.

Chin explained. “This geothermal zone sits atop a plugged-up hydrothermal vent, known as a hydrothermal boil, a hot teapot that continually cycles the water seeping through the porous rock, then back up again as steam. The vibration is from the pressure underground, the pulse of the steam engine beneath us.”

Before anyone could comment on this, Hank’s phone rang. He checked the number and lifted his face. “It’s my colleague from BYU, the one helping us decipher the lost language.”

“Answer it,” Painter urged, hoping the man had some good news.

Hank stepped away, pressed the phone to one ear, and placed a palm over the other. As the professor conversed, Painter watched his face go from hope to dismay to confusion. He finally snapped his phone closed and returned to them. He seemed momentarily unable to speak.

“Professor?” Painter urged.

“My colleague deciphered some bits of the writing on the wolf-totem jar. He found a smattering of words and phrases that spoke of death and destruction. Nothing more.”

“So basically a warning label,” Painter said.

Kowalski frowned. “Why didn’t they just slap it with a skull and crossbones to begin with? It would’ve saved everyone a bunch of trouble.”

“I think maybe they did,” Hank said. “The early Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev stored their elixir in containers that were meant to hold the organs of the dead. Egyptian canopic jars, modified for their purpose. But once they integrated here, they chose another totem of my early ancestors, the bones of animals long extinct. Perhaps it was to caution against tampering with this compound lest it destroy the human race, a symbolic warning against our own extinction.”

Painter read some hesitancy in the professor’s eyes, as if he wanted to say more. He noted the slightest glance in Rafael’s direction. But the Frenchman had survived long in an organization that did not reward a lack of attention to detail.

“What aren’t you telling us, monsieur le professeur?” Rafael asked.

Painter gave Hank a small nod. They were all long past secrets, at least most secrets. “Tell him.”

Hank looked dismayed. “My friend was also able to translate the passage your colleague sent to you. The writing found on the margins of the gold map.”

Rafael turned to Painter. “Why is this the first I’ve heard of this? You explained how the mark on the map revealed Yellowstone, but not this clue?”

“Because it was meaningless information until now.”

“It may still be,” Hank added. “My colleague could translate only a small section. It reads ‘where the wolf and eagle stare.’ ”

“What does that mean?” Rafael asked.

Hank shrugged and shook his head.

Another dead end.

Painter checked his watch and stared across the valley. Gray had sent them this clue. According to Kat, he was searching for another, something to do with a buffalo hide. Hopefully they’d all have more luck with that one.

But with the way their luck was running…

Chapter 38

This will have to do…

Gray lifted his shovel, the only weapon he had at hand.

“Going primitive on their asses?” Monk asked with a wince, pushing up enough to lean on the wall of the freshly uncovered grave. He looked down to the spreading pool of blood through his blue coveralls. “Bullet went through and through. But I won’t be getting my cleaning deposit back on these clothes.”

“Can you walk?” Gray asked.

“Hobble, sure. Run, no way.”

“Then you stay here.”

“I wasn’t really planning on going anywhere.”

Seichan lowered herself from where she was watching a team move in from the parking lot. “I counted eight to ten. They’ve moved behind the cabin across the lawn for cover.”

“Must think we have weapons,” Gray said. “Or they’d have swarmed us by now.”

“What’s the plan?” Seichan asked.

Both she and Monk looked to him.

“We keep them thinking we have guns — at least long enough for us to get to our rifles. The backhoe is only a few yards away. Its bulk will offer some cover if we can reach it. But we’ll be vulnerable climbing out of this hole.”

Gray handed Monk his shovel, then twisted around and grabbed the other. “We need some sound effects. Our attackers are edgy, wary, moving in cautiously. So let’s spook them some more. Crack the shovels together… loudly and rapidly.”

Monk got it. “Make them think we’re firing at them.”

“It’ll only work for a couple of seconds. Hopefully long enough for us to reach the backhoe’s cab and our rifles.”

“Got it.”

“Then on my mark.”

Gray crouched beside Seichan. Her eyes shone in the shadows of the grave. Her pulse beat at her throat as she stared up at the edge, ready to pounce.

“Go!”

With one shovel propped against the side of the grave, Monk banged the other spade against it with all of his might. The noise was so loud and sudden, it did sound like gunfire. Gray leaped to the lip, shoved hard with his arms against the edge, and rolled cleanly out of the grave and to his feet. He sprinted low for the cover of the backhoe.

Seichan kept next to him.

Reaching the momentary safety under the boom arm at the back of the earthmover, Gray checked on her. Her face was flushed, her lips slightly parted. She lifted an eyebrow toward him.

Good enough…

Without needing to say a word to each other, they split to opposite sides of the backhoe. Shots were fired at them, but they went wild, hitting the dirt yards away. The assailants were momentarily confused as Monk continued to bang his shovels.

Gray ducked into the cab. He’d left the backhoe idling when he went to check the grave. He slid into the seat, popped the parking brake, and raised the hydraulic stabilizers to free the earthmover.

Seichan grabbed both rifles, leaving the driving to him. She pointed, and he understood. This was not a vehicle to attempt to flee in. Besides, they couldn’t leave Monk behind.

Gray raised the large front loader, using it as a shield across the windshield. He’d be driving blind, but at the moment he wasn’t worried about sideswiping a car. He trundled out into the lawn. Rounds banged into the loader. He slowly angled toward the rear of the log home while Seichan leaned low out the door and fired under the raised bucket, keeping the men pinned down behind the cabin.

Once they reached the shadow of the cabin, Seichan rolled out.

That was the easy part.

Monk sat in the grave, holding his shovel.

After he’d heard the real rifle fire, it was clear that his job here was done. He used the spade as a crutch to help him gain his feet. He wanted to see what was happening. With some effort, he stood up and peeked his head out of the grave — only to have it almost sheered off by a set of giant metal teeth.

Gray had returned with the backhoe, coming in low and fast with the front loader. The noise of the ongoing firefight had covered his approach.

Monk fell back as the scoop dug into the opposite wall of the grave, caving in a good section.

“Climb up!” Gray hollered.

Understanding dawned.

Monk hauled over, climbing through the dirt, and shoulder-rolled into the front loader. Hydraulics whined and raised the arm high while Gray twisted the hoe around. Monk slid inside the bucket, keeping hidden as shots were fired, pinging against the front loader.

Something bumped his shoulder.

He reached over and found an assault rifle.

And it’s not even my birthday.

After tossing the rifle into the bucket for Monk, Seichan had fled away from the backhoe and toward the cabin, keeping the stout log home between her and her assailants. But she couldn’t count on such protection for long. The team would eventually come at her from both sides, outflanking her.

That must not happen.

Besides, she had to keep the commando team’s attention on her while Gray freed Monk. So she sprinted toward the window on this side of the cabin. She raised her rifle and fired three rounds at the panes, striking the glass in a perfect triangle pattern. With the glass weakened, she leaped up, kicked out with her boot, and hurdled through the window. The rest of her body followed. She landed smoothly inside, sliding and skating atop the broken glass, keeping on her feet.

She raised her rifle while still moving.

She had burst into the cabin’s main room and had a clear view to the window on the far side. A soldier stared at her, momentarily frozen. She fired—pop, pop, pop—and down he went.

She dove to the side, seeking the shelter of a cast-iron stove.

A rifle barrel shoved through the broken window and blindly strafed inside. Seichan ignored it, merely waited, centering her aim. A head poked into view, checking for damage. She fired only once this time. A body tumbled past the window.

With her back to the wall and the stove for shelter, she readied to make a stand. Hopefully she’d bought Gray the time he needed.

Then a grenade flew into the room and bounced across the floor.

It looked like she’d overstayed her welcome.

Bent to peer under the raised front bucket, Gray rode past the cabin as an explosion blew out its windows and tore the door off its hinges. Smoke rolled out. He fumbled with his gears in surprise and worry.

Seichan…

Silence fell over the battlefield for a heartbeat — then the noise resumed. Two men popped around the cabin’s corner. Monk strafed from his advantage atop his steel castle tower, balancing the front of his rifle between two teeth of the front loader. A third assailant threw a grenade from where the commandos were hiding, lobbing it over the roof toward the backhoe.

But they didn’t know that Monk was an expert sharpshooter — or how pissed he was about getting tagged in the gut. Monk swiveled his weapon and pinged the grenade as if he were shooting skeet. It fell back behind the cabin. Another explosion blew back there, casting up dirt and smoke. A helmet rolled into view. It wasn’t empty. Screams followed.

Then gunfire.

It sounded like a brief firefight — a one-sided firefight.

After a moment, through the smoke, a figure appeared.

Seichan, covered in blood and with her clothes still smoldering, crossed into view. She must have dived out a back window as the grenade inside the cabin blew. She pointed toward the parking lot. She wasn’t indicating that it was time to go. A single figure remained, standing next to a Humvee.

Mitchell Waldorf.

The traitor turned toward the vehicle, but Monk was one step ahead of him. From his perch, he took out the truck’s tires and drove Waldorf back from the vehicle. If they could capture him alive — a Guild operative buried deep in the government — he could prove to be invaluable, a resource capable of exposing much about the workings of the organization.

Waldorf must have realized the same thing.

He lifted a pistol to his chin.

Gray swore, goosed the backhoe for more speed. Seichan ran toward him. Waldorf smiled and shouted at them cryptically: “This isn’t over!”

The single pistol shot rang brightly.

The top of the man’s head erupted in a blast of skull and brain matter. The body slumped to the pavement.

Certainly looks over to me.

Still, the sight of the man’s last smile stayed with Gray. A cold fear settled in his gut. What did the bastard mean?

Ten minutes later, Gray and the others were speeding down the Natchez Trace Parkway in the second Humvee they’d stolen that day. They’d taken one of the assault team’s vehicles, figuring they’d be less likely to be bothered that way. Plus, they needed the extra room.

Monk lay sprawled across the backseat, stripped to the waist, his belly bandaged in a pressure wrap from an emergency medical kit Gray had found in the back of the Army vehicle. Apparently the assault team had been expecting some injuries. He’d also found a morphine stick and jabbed Monk in the thigh with it.

His friend’s eyes already had a happy glaze around their edges.

Seichan, with her cuts and lacerations taped, manned the wheel, leaving Gray to examine the buffalo hide. He’d fetched it from the grave before leaving. The leather was brittle, but he was able to unfold it, revealing an image of a riotous battle dyed into the skin, showing Indians in the midst of waging a great war. Thousands of arrows flew, each delicately but indelibly tattooed into the skin. Elsewhere, pueblos tumbled from cliffs. Faces, feathered and painted, screamed.

Gray remembered Kat’s report from Painter, about the destruction of the Anasazi following the theft of sacred totems from the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev. Was that slaughter — that genocide — being memorialized on this buffalo skin?

This raised a larger question.

Gray had the buffalo hide open to the middle, spread over his lap. A large section was missing. He felt the surface with his fingers. It was much rougher.

“Lewis scraped this part of the artwork off the hide,” Gray said.

“Why?” Seichan asked.

“He’s written something here in the blank space.”

He stared down at the meticulous lines of script, flowing in a large swatch down the middle. While everyone was tending his or her wounds, he had sponged off the old blood that still covered most of the hide. The iron in the hemoglobin had stained the skin, but the words he found there were still legible.

“Only it makes no sense,” he said. “It’s just a jumble of letters. Either it’s a code, or Lewis really had gone mad.”

Seichan glanced down at the hide, then back to the road. “Didn’t Heisman say Lewis and Jefferson communicated in code? That they exchanged messages in their own private cipher.”

“That’s true.”

Gray pictured Lewis dying over that long night, waiting for Mrs. Grinder to find him. He had plenty of time to write this last message to the world, but what did it contain? Did it name his killer? Was it his last will and testament?

Gray’s fingers again rubbed the tough hide, where it had been crudely abraded. What did Lewis erase here? Along the edges, bits of what looked like a map remained: a corner of a river coursing down a mountain, some pass through another range, a piece of a lake. Was this a more detailed map of the terrain around the lost city of the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev? Did the gold map point to the general position, while this dyed rendition offered a more precise location? Is that how Fortescue was able to find it out west — that is, if he did in fact find it?

Gray put the bits together in his head. “I think the traitor, General Wilkinson, killed Lewis for the gold tablet in his possession, but he never knew about the significance of the buffalo hide. After his assassination, Lewis didn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands, so he scraped it clean and left this last cryptic message to the world. He used his own blood and body to hide it.”

“Why hide it?”

“Perhaps to keep his murderer from knowing he’d been named. Maybe he hoped the hide would reach Jefferson with his other possessions, and if not, he’d at least leave a final testament to the future. We may never know. All we know is that there’s no map here to help Painter.”

Gray’s disposable phone rang. He picked it up. “Kat?”

“How’s Monk doing?” she asked, trying to sound strong but cracking at the edges.

“Sleeping like a baby,” he assured her.

Gray had already called her as they set off down the road, updating their situation. He’d given her a quick debriefing about the map.

“I have a jet waiting for you at a private airfield near Columbia,” she said.

“Good. We should be there in a few minutes. But what about Seichan? Isn’t everyone and their brother hunting her?”

“With what’s going on in Yellowstone, no one is concerned with the three of you any longer, especially as I’ve passed on an intelligence briefing implicating Waldorf, explaining how the situation at Fort Knox was an inside job orchestrated by him, and how he’d fabricated his story of terrorists to cover his own actions. That should buy you all enough clearance to get back home.”

“We’ll be there as quickly as we can.” Gray had one other concern. “Have you figured out how Waldorf managed to set up that ambush? How he knew we’d be digging up Lewis’s body? As far as I know, only you and Eric Heisman knew about it. Possibly also the curator’s assistant, Sharyn.”

“As far as I can tell, they’re both clear. And to be honest, with everything that’s happening so fast, some bit of intel may have reached the wrong ears. And you know the Guild has ears everywhere.” Kat sighed. “What about you? Did you make any further progress with the buffalo hide?”

“No. Nothing that can help Painter. I’m afraid he’s on his own from here.”

Chapter 39

Kai moved through the forest of otherworldly cones with her shadow chained to her. Ashanda followed so quietly behind, even the handcuffs were silent. Despite the bomb on Kai’s wrist, the woman’s presence was reassuring in some odd way.

Maybe it’s some sort of Stockholm-syndrome kind of thing, Kai thought.

But she sensed that it was more than that. She knew the woman did Rafael’s bidding, but there was no enmity in her. In many ways, the woman was as much a prisoner as Kai herself. Weren’t they both wearing handcuffs? Plus Kai had to admit that there was a kind of simplicity and beauty in Ashanda’s quietness, and in the soft sound of her humming that Kai occasionally overheard — filled always with that sadness under the surface.

Still, Kai could never shed the weight of the bomb on her wrist. It grew heavier with each step, a constant reminder of the danger she was in.

Seeking diversion, she wandered the forest with Ashanda. The world had less than an hour of life remaining to it now. The soldiers from both sides had begun to drift back, empty-handed, after searching their sections of the cliffs.

The words of Hank Kanosh stayed with her, a puzzle to distract.

Where the wolf and eagle stare.

Walking through the forest with these words in her mind, she finally saw it, from the right angle, with the sun just rising. She froze so fast that Ashanda bumped into her, a rare lapse in the African woman’s sharp reflexes.

“Professor Kanosh! Uncle Crowe!”

The two men lifted their heads from where they were bowed.

“Come here!” Kai waved her arm, pulling up short, forgetting for the moment that her limb was handcuffed, but her urgency drew the men, along with Rafael.

“What is it?” Hank asked.

She pointed to the six-foot geyserite cone in front of her. It rose like a pillar. “Look at the top, how it’s broken into two sharp points… like ears!… and below it, that thick knob of rock sticking out… doesn’t that look like a dog’s muzzle?”

“She’s right,” Hank said, and stepped closer. “The wolf and eagle are common Indian totems. And these natural pillars are like stone totem poles. Feel this.”

Uncle Crowe reached his hand up. “They’ve been carved,” he said, awed.

Hank ran a finger down the pillar. “But over time, new accretions of minerals have coated the surface, blurring the imagery.”

Rafael spun, leaning on his cane. “We must find that eagle.”

Over the next ten minutes, both teams scoured the stone forest. But none of the pillars looked birdlike in any way. The flurry of searching died down to head-scratching and plodding feet.

“We’re wasting time,” Rafael said. “Maybe we should just search in the direction of the wolf, non?”

By now, Kai had made a roundabout hike through the geothermal cones and ended up where she started. She stepped in front of the wolf pillar, putting her back to it, and gazed outward across the valley. The wolf had a long stare. It stretched clear across the longest axis of the basin, eventually striking a distant cliff.

She pointed toward it. “Did anyone search—”

Jordan cried out, gasping in surprise. “Over here!”

She turned, along with everyone else. Jordan stood before an ordinary column of bumpy rock. It looked nothing like an eagle. But he bent down into the meadow grasses and picked up a fluted chunk of rock. He fitted it to the pillar’s side, from which it must have broken off. Once the piece was in place, a slight fluting on the other side paired up with it, forming a pair of wings.

Jordan motioned up. “That crest of flowstone near the top, pointed down, could be a beak.” He pantomimed by lowering his chin to his chest and looking down his nose.

“It’s the second totem pole!” Hank said.

Jordan stared across at Kai, smiling broadly, silently communicating a message: We both found one.

Kai returned to her post in front of the wolf and waved for Jordan to do the same. Once in position, she began to walk in the direction of the wolf’s stare. Jordan followed the eagle’s gaze. Step by step, they continued out across the field, slowly approaching each other, attempting to determine the spot where the stares of the two totems met.

Everyone followed.

Forty yards out, Kai reached out her free arm and took Jordan’s hand, the two of them coming together at last. They stood before another cone. Standing four feet high and about three feet wide, it was squat and unremarkable looking, resembling nothing so much as a fat mushroom cap.

“I don’t understand,” Rafael said.

The Asian geologist came forward and examined the structure from all sides. “Looks like any of the others.” He placed his palms atop it and stayed in this position for several breaths. “But it’s not vibrating. Even the dormant ones have a palpable tremor to them.”

“What does that mean?” Kai said.

He pronounced his judgment. “This is fake.”

Full sunrise brightened the day, but not their moods.

“Why don’t we just blow it up?” Kowalski asked.

“It may come to that, but let’s give Hank and Chin at least a minute to finish their examination.”

Still, Painter had to consider Kowalski’s option. They had roughly forty minutes until the valley exploded.

“Just in case,” Painter asked, “do you have any C4 with you?”

He had asked Kowalski to secure some of the explosive for the flight here, in case they needed to blow their way into a tunnel or passage. But the man had come here with no satchel or pack.

“I have a little,” Kowalski admitted. He stepped back and flared out both sides of his ankle-length duster, revealing a vest covered in cubes of C4.

“You call that a little?”

Kowalski glanced down. “Yeah. Should I have brought more?”

Over by the mushroom rock, Hank and Chin stood up together.

Hank gave their assessment. “We think it’s meant to act like a plug, perhaps symbolic of an infant’s umbilical cord. Either way, we need four strong men to hook their arms around that lip — which I believe is the very reason it’s there — and lift straight up.”

Kowalski volunteered, as did Major Ryan, Bern, and Chin.

Bending at the knee, the men circled the stone and linked arms.

“The rock is porous,” Chin said. “Hopefully we can lift it free.”

On a count of three, they all heaved up. From the strain on their faces, the geologist’s assessment was proving questionable. But then a grating metallic sound groaned from the earth. The stone plug rose in the men’s arms. With the stopper finally loosened, the men easily lifted the stone and sidestepped out of the way to set it down.

Painter moved forward with Hank and Rafael.

“Is that gold?” Jordan asked behind them.

If it was, they’d definitely found the right place.

Painter studied the bottom of the stone stopper. Gold coated the lower foot of the mushroom-shaped rock and rimmed the pit’s edges.

“The precious metal must be to keep the plug from corroding into place permanently,” Chin said.

Hank studied the hole. “This reminds me of the opening to a kiva. The entrance to the underworld.”

Kowalski glared down that hole. “Look how well that turned out for us last time.”

Hank followed Painter down into the pit. The initial drop was only four feet, but the tunnel below sloped steeply from there, aiming back toward the heart of the geothermal basin and its strange cones. The air was hot but dry, smelling strongly of sulfur.

Painter led the way with a flashlight while a small parade of other people trailed behind him. Chin and Kowalski followed Hank. Behind them came Rafael, assisted by two of Bern’s men and Ashanda, who by force brought Kai along. Everyone else stayed topside.

Jordan agreed to stay on top of the pit to watch Kawtch — though doing so brought an ominous chill as he remembered Nancy Tso and the fate of the dog’s last caretaker.

The remaining armed military men on the surface stayed divided, grouping on opposite sides of the opening.

The tunnel sank steadily deeper, growing ever hotter. Hank touched one of the walls with his palm. It didn’t burn, but the rock was definitely hot, reminding him of the hellfires burning below — both literally and figuratively.

Was this how the world ended?

After another minute, Hank thought he might have to turn back, his lungs on fire. How much deeper must they go? It felt like they were a quarter mile underground, but most likely only half that.

“We’re here,” Painter said at last.

The tunnel squeezed into a final choke point. Here the walls pinched close together, requiring them to sidle through sideways for the last couple of feet.

Painter went first.

Hank followed — then heard Painter gasp loudly as he broke free, sounding both amazed and horrified. Once he was through, Painter stepped rigidly to the side.

Hank pushed after him, stepping out and moving clear for the others. Still, his feet stumbled in shock. He had to reach to the wall behind him to keep himself steady. His other hand rose to cover his mouth.

“Mon Dieu!” Rafael wheezed out.

Kowalski swore.

As the rest of the party entered, the glow of more and more flashlights illuminated the vast chamber, pushing back the darkness.

Mummified bodies, thousands of them, covered the floor of a vast cavern, rising at least seven stories high. The desiccated figures seemed to have arranged themselves in rows, radiating out from a massive temple in the center like spokes on a wheel.

Hank struggled to keep his attention focused on the poor souls who ended their lives here. Like those they had seen in Utah, they all seemed garbed in Native American attire: feathers, bones, loose skirts, leather moccasins, and breechcloths. Their hair was worn long, often braided and decorated, but Hank witnessed shades of every color, certainly plenty of raven-haired men and women, but also blond, chestnut, even fiery red.

The Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev.

Again dagger blades, mostly steel but several made of bone, littered the floor or were clutched in bony grips.

So much death.

All to keep a secret, to protect a world against a lost alchemy.

Staring up now, Hank understood the potential source of that science. A temple rose before him, built of native slabs of rock mortared together. It climbed six stories high, seeming to stretch toward the ceiling and filling the center of the massive chamber.

He knew what this place was.

Or rather what it had been modeled after.

Even the facade’s dimensions seemed to be correct.

Twenty cubits wide, thirty-five cubits tall.

Right out of the Bible.

But it wasn’t the dimensions that made him certain. It was the temple in its entirety. Stone steps led up to a porch, the entrance framed by two mighty pillars — the famous Boaz and Jachin — only rather than brass, these two columns were made of gold, as was the massive bowl standing before the temple.

The golden chalice rose nine feet tall and twice that wide, resting on the backs of twelve oxen. The original was named the Brazen Sea, or Molten Sea. It was a fitting name for this copy. The bowl sat in the middle of a steaming hot spring that rose from the floor and fed into the basin. Water spilled over its top to return to the pool before spilling over the top again in an endless cycle.

“What is that place?” Kai asked. “Looks like Pueblo construction but the shape’s all wrong.”

Hank shook his head. “The shape’s perfect.”

Painter looked aghast at the place.

How can you deny the truth now? Hank wondered.

“Is that what I think it is?” Painter asked, clearly recognizing it, too. “Or at least a Pueblo version of it?”

Hank nodded, exultant. “It’s Solomon’s Temple.”

Chapter 40

Major Ashley Ryan didn’t like babysitting.

“Just stay out of our way,” Ryan warned the Ute kid. He pointed to a boulder at the edge of a stand of pines. “Sit there. And make sure that dog doesn’t lift his leg on my pack.”

Jordan scowled, but obeyed.

The National Guard and the Indians in Utah did not get along — or, at least, not as far as this National Guardsman was concerned. Ryan still remembered the ruckus that had gone down before the explosion in the mountains. If the Indians just knew their place like everyone else did, they’d all get along fine.

Ryan stared across the field to where Bern and his mercenaries had staked a claim thirty yards from the hole. The blond giant had three men; so did Ryan. Even odds if you didn’t count the kid and dog.

And Ryan didn’t.

Bern stared his way, his hands on his hips, eyeballing the competition just as studiously. Then the big Aryan glanced toward the sky. A moment later, Ryan heard it, too.

Another chopper.

The constant bell beat of their rotors had already set his head to pounding, his eyeteeth to aching. A trio of choppers was circling above, ready with blast boxes. The pilots had already placed four insulated crates on the ground, preparing for fast handoffs and quick bunny hops out of the park.

Ryan checked his watch. Twenty minutes. That did not leave a lot of margin for error. As he listened, the sound of a second helicopter joined the first. He stared up as the first appeared, sweeping low over the ridge and diving down.

What the hell? Has something happened?

Then, from the back of the transport helo, heavy lines suddenly came coiling down, followed just as quickly by men. They wore the same black scare-gear as Bern’s mercenaries.

Fuck.

Ryan swung and ducked, moving instinctively. He heard the crack of the pistol at the same time as a round buzzed over his head. Down on one arm, like a linebacker, he stared back at Bern. The blond man held his pistol pointed.

The gun blasted again.

One of Ryan’s men flew off his feet and skidded on his back in the dirt.

He had a hole where his eye used to be.

Ryan bolted for the boulders where he’d sent the boy. His instinct was to protect the civilian. But he also had two men under his watch.

“Get to cover! Now!”

They had to find a castle to defend. The nest of boulders would do until he could figure out something better. Rounds blasted into the dirt around him. Ahead, Jordan had already ducked into hiding behind the rocks.

His two men — Marshall and Boydson — flanked Ryan, running low.

All three hit the boulders and dove down.

Ryan freed his rifle and found a crevice between two rocks to use as a roost. He stared as eight men vacated the first chopper. Moments later, the second dipped down like a deadly hummingbird and unloaded the same number.

That made it twenty to three.

Those were not good odds.

Rafael checked his watch.

Bern should be securing the surface by now.

He tried to listen for the spatter of gunfire, but they were too far underground to hear. Plus, the large gold fountain they’d passed on the way to the temple was burbling and splashing over the bowl’s lip, accompanied by gaseous popping sounds.

Rafe hurried past, holding his breath, followed by Ashanda and the girl. His two bodyguards kept several steps ahead, creating a shield between him and the others.

Sigma’s geologist glanced back to the bubbling gold bath. “They’ve tapped into the geothermal currents running through here. This whole place must be resting at the edge of that steam engine driving the basin’s natural hydraulics.”

But eventually even the geologist was drawn forward, staring at the giant temple. It seemed to grow taller the closer they got, supported by gold pillars adorned with sculpted sheaves of wheat and stalks of corn, all wrapped with flowering vines.

Could this truly be a model of Solomon’s Temple? Rafe wondered.

A part of him thrilled at that thought, but a much larger part sensed the danger pressing down upon them all.

The professor spoke as they climbed the stairs up to the front porch of the ancient structure. “Solomon’s Temple — often called the First Temple of Jerusalem — was the first religious structure to be built atop Mount Zion. Rabbinic scholars say it lasted for four centuries until its destruction in the sixth century BCE. It stood during the time that the Assyrians scattered the ten tribes of Israel to the winds.”

The old man waved an arm toward the structure before them. “This was their place of worship. But it was also a citadel of knowledge and science. King Solomon was said in many stories to wield magical, otherworldly powers. But what is one man’s magic is another man’s science.”

Kanosh led them forward in space, while in his mind he went back in time. “Perhaps these Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev were once magi in service to Solomon, bringing together Jewish mystical practices and Egyptian science. Until they were scattered by the invading Assyrians. After they arrived in the New World, they did their best to preserve the memory of that great temple to religion and science, borrowing the techniques of the ancient Pueblo people to construct it.”

Reaching the porch, Professor Kanosh hurried forward toward the open doors.

“The first chamber should be the Hekhal or Holy Place,” Hank said.

They all pushed across a vestibule into the first chamber. It was empty, its walls lined by pine logs, fashioned elaborately with animal totems: bear, elk, wolf, sheep, eagle.

“In Solomon’s Temple, this chamber was decorated with carvings of cherubim, flowers, and palm trees. But these ancient builders clearly absorbed the physical characteristics of their new home into their design.”

“But it’s empty,” Painter said, and checked his watch.

“I know.” Kanosh pointed to another set of stairs that led up to a doorway partitioned by gold chains. “If we’re looking for the temple’s most sacred objects, they’ll be there. A room called Kodesh Hakodashim, the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctum of Solomon’s Temple. It is in here that Solomon kept the Ark of the Covenant.”

Painter led the way, buffeted forward by the pressure of time. The others chased him up the steps. One of Rafe’s guards offered Rafe an arm to help him follow. He did not refuse it.

He heard gasps ahead and hobbled faster, striking the stone floor hard with his cane, angry at his disability. Ashanda stepped forward with her young charge and held the chain curtain open for him. He ducked through on his own, releasing the guard’s arm.

He stumbled into a room that left him trembling in awe. Gold covered every surface, floor to ceiling. Massive plates — three stories high — made up the walls, like gargantuan versions of those smaller gold tablets. And like those miniatures, writing covered the walls here in their entirety, millions of lines, flowing all around.

Hank had fallen to his knees between two fifteen-foot-tall sculptures of bald eagles, upright, side by side, wings outstretched to touch the walls on either side and tip to tip in the middle. “In Solomon’s Temple, these were giant cherubim, winged angels.”

Even Painter had halted his headlong rush forward to gawk. “They look like the eagles on the Great Seal. Did someone show Jefferson a drawing of this space?”

Hank just shook his head, too moved to speak anymore.

Rafe felt a similar stirring — how could he not? — but he knew his duty. “Record all of this,” he ordered one of his men, sweeping his cane to encompass the walls. “This must not be lost.”

“But where are the caches of nanotech?” Painter asked.

“That is a puzzle I will leave to you, Monsieur Crowe.”

That cache was going to blow anyway, so Rafe saw no need to chase down that trail. The true treasure was here: the accumulated knowledge of the ancients. He ran a palm along the wall, casting his eyes from roof to ceiling, trying to preserve it all with his unique eidetic memory, to bank it away into his organic hard drive. He moved step by step around the room, lost in the rivers of ancient script. Here must be their history, their ancient sciences, their lost art, all recorded in gold.

He must possess it.

It could be his family’s entry to the True Bloodline.

A shout rose to the side, but he did not turn.

It was Sigma’s geologist. “Director, there’s a door back here — and a body.”

Deafened by the continuous firefight, Major Ashley Ryan did not hear the small team flanking his nest of boulders. Pinned down, he and his two men did their best to hold their castle — picking off targets when they could, driving back raids and attempts to swarm them.

Bern’s commandos had control of the valley floor, holding the entrance to the tunnel below. Ryan could not even reach his men’s packs and extra ammo.

Then a sharp barking drew his attention back and to the left.

The alarm saved his life — all of their lives.

Ryan flicked a gaze in that direction. Spotted a shadowy trio of commandos slip low out of the dark tree line and race low toward his team’s flank.

The dog leaped atop the boulder and bayed a challenge.

Ryan rolled, freeing his rifle from the boulder roost. He used the distraction caused by the dog to pop the lead assassin in the face with two rounds. The man went down. The other two commandos fired. The dog yelped, one foreleg shattering under him. The dog toppled off the boulder and hit the grass.

Motherf—

Ryan raised himself higher, exposing himself, and squeezed the trigger hard, strafing in automatic mode. By now, his two men had entered the fray, swinging around and firing. A brief barrage and the two commandos crumpled outside the castle of boulders. Their walls had not been breached, but it had been close. And they all had a problem.

“I’m out,” Boydson said, discharging a smoking magazine from his rifle.

Marshall checked his weapon and shook his head. “One more volley then I’m spent.”

Ryan knew he wasn’t in any better shape.

Bern bellowed in German across the field, his voice rife with bloodlust. He must know their quarry had been beaten down, that they were running low on options and ammo. Ryan shifted forward again and peered out.

The enemy force — still fifteen strong — was readying for a final charge. Bern was going to lead it, standing exposed fifty yards away, fearless in his body armor and confident in his firepower.

A big arm pointed toward Ryan’s position.

Ryan settled his cheek to his rifle.

Here we go.

Riku Tanaka sat in front of the computer deep within the labyrinthine structure of the euphemistically named Public Security Intelligence Agency, Japan’s premiere espionage organization. Riku could not even say what floor he was on—likely underground, from the annoying hum of the air-conditioning—or even what building.

He did not care.

His hand rested in the palm of Janice Cooper.

Since their rescue out of the frigid depths of the Super-Kamiokande detector’s tank, he’d seldom been out of physical contact with her. Her presence helped him maintain his balance in the world, like an anchor securing a ship in questionable seas, while his psyche rebuilt itself.

They waited for the latest data from the various subatomic particle labs to collate through his refined software program. With the point of critical mass approaching, unknown variables were falling away, allowing a more exact estimate of the time when the explosion would occur.

Finally, the calculations were complete.

The answer glowed on the screen.

Riku’s hand flexed, squeezing hard.

Janice returned his hold, needing an anchor now as much as he did.

“We’re doomed.”

Painter crouched beside the body on the ground.

The man lay on his back atop a bison hide, hands folded to his chest.

The Native American garb on the man’s mummified remains was brighter than the bodies outside. A pearlescent ring of white eagle feathers circled his bare, thin neck. A long braid of gray hair still had bits of dried flowers, where someone had placed them with great and loving care. A richly beaded cape — acting as a burial shawl — wrapped his bony shoulders.

This man had not committed suicide. Someone had interred him here in the Holy of Holies, a great honor.

Painter could guess why.

Two objects were placed under his shrunken, pale hands.

Under one, a white wooden cane, topped with a silver knob imprinted with a French fleur-de-lis symbol.

Under the other, a birch-paper journal bound in hide.

It was the body of Archard Fortescue.

Painter didn’t need to read the journal to know that the man must have stayed here after the Lewis and Clark party left, intending to be the guardian and protector of this great secret. He must have gone native while he lived with the Indians, been accepted by them — and from the care with which his body had been laid, well loved.

Painter turned away. “Rest well, my friend. Your long vigil is over.”

Chin stood by an open door at the back of the room. His words were awash with terror. “Director, you need to see this.”

Painter crossed to Chin, who pointed his flashlight out the back door of the Holy of Holies. Hank and Kowalski joined them.

Beyond the threshold, steps led down to an expansive room that stretched far back and wrapped to either side of the inner sanctum.

“This is the temple’s treasure room,” Hank said.

Painter gaped, unable to speak.

Instead, it was Kowalski who summarized their situation the most succinctly.

“We’re fucked.”

With his cheek against his rifle’s stock, Major Ashley Ryan peered through his scope. Fifty yards away, Bern swept his arm down, his face bright with the flush of the final kill. Across the valley, commandos rose from hiding, preparing to charge the castle.

“Major?” Marshall asked.

Ryan had no consoling words for the kid. Or for Boydson, who sat slumped with his back to the boulders, clutching a dagger in his hand, his last weapon. His two men were barely into their twenties. Boydson had a new baby boy. Marshall had plans to propose to his girlfriend the following week, had even picked out the ring.

Ryan kept his focus forward.

He intended to take out as many of the enemy as possible, to make them pay in blood for each of his men’s lives.

He studied Bern through his scope, needing him to be closer. He did not have ammunition to waste. Each round from here on had to count.

I want you.

Ryan, though, would not get the honor of this kill.

As he peered, Bern’s hands suddenly clutched his throat. Blood spouted thickly from his mouth. An arrow had pierced through his neck. The big man fell to his knees as a savage whooping and hollering rose all around the valley. It echoed eerily off the canyon walls, causing Ryan’s hair to practically stand on end.

A crashing behind him made Ryan roll himself around. He swung up his weapon, coming close to shooting Jordan in the chest. The young man bounded briskly up to the major. Ryan thought the kid had been buried farther back in the nest of boulders — where he’d been ordered to remain.

But Jordan was winded, his clothes damp and torn in places. Clearly Ryan’s instructions had been ignored.

Jordan skidded next to him as the screams grew louder, setting Ryan’s teeth on edge.

“I’ve got movement out in the woods!” Marshall yelled. “Shadows all around. Every direction!”

“Sorry that took so long,” Jordan said. “We didn’t want to be spotted until we had the valley completely encircled.”

The young man shifted up and stared beyond the boulders.

As the major’s gaze turned in the same direction, he noted that the kid seemed to be purposefully avoiding eye contact. Across the valley floor, the remaining members of Bern’s team, leaderless now as the giant lay flat on his face in the grass, milled about in the valley. Some ducked back into cover.

But there was no cover any longer.

A sharper cry pierced the valley, and a volley of arrows swept out of the forest and dropped from every direction, hailing down atop the commandos’ positions. Screams of shock and bloody pain now joined the war cries echoing off the wall.

Rifles fired at shadows.

Return fire followed from the forest.

Commandos fell one by one. Ryan could now make out shadows as the hidden hunters moved in. They wore no recognizable uniform. He spotted some military outfits, but most of the men simply wore jeans, boots, and T-shirts — though a few had on nothing but breechclouts and moccasins.

But they all had one thing in common.

They were Native Americans.

With the war clearly won, but not wanting to take any chances, Ryan waved to his men. “Get to our packs, haul them over here.”

In case things went sour again, he wanted ammunition.

Jordan sank back down, breathless, and explained. “Before flying here, Painter had Hank and me roust up men we trusted fully from our tribes, from others. He arranged transports and helicopters. Once Painter knew where in Yellowstone we were going, he had our forces dropped into place before everyone got here. He didn’t trust that the French guy wouldn’t pull something like this.”

Damned right, there…

“Our guys kept hidden way back in the valley. They came close to being spotted a few times, but we know how to move through the woods unseen when we want to. Once the fighting started, I went out to report on force levels and positions to coordinate the attack.”

Ryan stared at Jordan with new eyes. Who was this kid? But he was still pissed.

“Why didn’t Crowe tell me? Why didn’t he involve the Guard to begin with?”

Jordan shook his head. “Seems there was some concern about infiltration. I don’t really know. Some problems out east with traitors in the government. Painter wanted to go old school here, sticking to his blood.”

Ryan sighed. Maybe that was for the best.

Jordan searched around the castle. “Where’s Kawtch?”

Ryan realized he hadn’t seen the mutt since he’d gotten shot. He felt a flicker of guilt for his disrespectful lack of concern. The dog had saved his life.

Jordan spotted the small body in the weeds, not moving.

The kid rushed over. “Oh, Kawtch.”

Before Ryan could offer sympathy or apology, Boydson came running up, threw down his pack, and held out the radio. “It’s for you. Washington has been trying to raise you.”

Washington?

The major lifted his radio. “Major Ryan here.”

“Sir, this is Captain Kat Bryant.” Ryan could feel the urgency in her voice pouring steel into his spine. Something was wrong. “Do you have access to Painter Crowe?”

Ryan looked over to the hole. With no radio contact through solid rock, someone would have to go down there. “I can reach him, but it might take a few minutes.”

“We don’t have a few minutes. I need you to get word to Painter immediately. Tell him the physicists have revised their timetable based on cleaner data. The cache will explode at six-oh-four, not six-fifteen. Is that understood?”

Ryan checked his watch. “That’s in four minutes!” He lowered the radio and pointed at Jordan. Ryan needed to send someone Painter would trust without hesitation. “Kid, how fast can you run?”

Painter pointed his flashlight into the treasure vault behind the Holy of Holies.

Hundreds of stone plinths supported golden skulls of every shape and size: fanged cats, ivory-tusked mastodons, domed cave bears, even what looked like the massive skull of an allosaurus or some other saurian beast. Amid them also stood scores of canopic jars, some etched with ancient Egyptian motifs, possibly originals carried over from their ancient home. But there were clearly others that had been modeled on local animals: wolves again, but also birds of every beak, mountain lion and other cats, grizzly bears, even a curled rattlesnake.

“We’ll never be able to move all this in time,” Chin said. “We have only fifteen minutes.”

Kowalski nodded. “Time for Plan B, boss.” He looked over at Painter. “You do have a Plan B, right?”

Painter headed back into the main temple. “We can try to move as much as we can. Maybe lessen the chance it’ll ignite Yellowstone’s caldera.”

Kowalski followed, pitching other ideas like hardballs. “How about we come down here with blowtorches? Doesn’t heat kill this stuff?”

“Take too long,” Chin said. “And I don’t think a flame’s even hot enough.”

“Then how about we drop a bunker buster up top.”

Painter fielded that one. “We’re too deep.”

“What about the nuclear option?”

“Last resort,” Painter said. “And we might end up causing what we’re trying to prevent.”

Kowalski tossed his arms high. “There’s got to be something we can do.”

As they entered the Holy of Holies chamber, a thin figure burst through the gold chain curtain. He skidded to a stop, gaping momentarily at all the gold.

Kai stepped toward him. “Jordan…?”

He held up a hand, panting to catch his breath. “Washington called… timetable got shortened… stuff is gonna blow at six-oh-four.”

Painter didn’t have to check his watch. His internal clock had been counting down all on its own. Two minutes. All eyes stared at him for some solution, some insight.

They were out of options — except for one.

He pointed to the door. “Run!”

Chapter 41

Two minutes…

Kai raced with the others through the massive temple. Jordan stuck to her side, which helped keep her on her feet. A part of her simply wanted to crash to her knees and give up. But Jordan would glance her way, silently urging her to stay with him — and she did.

Plus she had another massive incentive.

Ashanda was running alongside her like a juggernaut. If Kai fell, she was sure the woman wouldn’t even slow; she’d simply drag her along. Past Ashanda’s shoulder, Rafael was being carried between his two soldiers, hanging from their shoulders.

The group reached the exit to the temple.

Kai’s uncle and the team geologist led the way, bounding down steps two at a time. Despite their speed, they were deep into a discussion. The geologist pointed to the boiling fountain. Uncle Crowe shook his head.

Behind them all came Kowalski. His large form was not meant for sprinting. He wheezed in the hot air, his face glowing and running with sweat.

“We’ll never make it to the surface,” Kai mumbled as she and Ashanda hurried down the steps.

Jordan refused to give in to despair. “The mouth of the tunnel is pinched. If we get past that squeeze point, we should be okay.”

Kai didn’t know if such an assessment was based on anything more than hope, but she took it to heart. Just get to the tunnel.

With a goal set, she felt better, ran faster.

A cry sounded behind her. Ashanda skidded to a stop. Kai wasn’t as fast and got pulled off her feet by the handcuffs linking them together. Jordan braked and came back to them.

Behind them, Rafael and his two guards tumbled down the stone steps, landing in a tangled heap.

Ashanda headed back to them. Kai had no choice but to follow.

The soldiers disentangled themselves. One limped away a couple of steps, wincing on a twisted ankle. The other simply bounded to his feet, looked around in wild-eyed panic, and fled toward the distant tunnel.

The other guard watched him, seemed to reconsider his own options, and with a hopping, painful bounce to his step, chased after his comrade.

Jordan called to them: “What’re you doing? Help us!”

Uncle Crowe and the geologist stopped as the guards ran past.

Kowalski waved Painter and Chin on. “Go! I got this guy!”

He bent to pick Rafael off the ground. The Frenchman screamed as Kowalski lifted him. Both of the man’s legs were canting at odd angles. Broken. Startled, Kowalski almost dropped him again, not expecting such injuries from a simple tumble.

But Rafael hung on with one arm. “Merci,” he said, his brow pebbling with pained sweat. One hand palmed his ribs on that side, probably broken, too. He pointed his other arm, his eyes catching apologetically on Ashanda. Like Kai, he knew she wouldn’t leave him.

“Go,” he said, both to Kowalski and Ashanda.

They set off again.

Uncle Crowe and the geologist slowed enough not to leave the others totally behind. Kai’s group gave chase, but that small delay may have doomed them all.

Less than a minute left.

“Run ahead!” Kai urged Jordan.

“No, I’ll stay with you.”

She feared for him. “Go, or we’ll all get bottlenecked at that squeeze. Get there and get through. I’ll be there. I promise.”

Jordan wanted to stay, but he read the determination in Kai’s eyes. “You’d better be!” he called back as he took off.

Kai looked over her shoulder. Kowalski was falling farther and farther behind, burdened by Rafael — who gasped and cried out every few steps, though he was clearly biting his tongue to keep from doing so.

Ashanda noted this, too.

The big woman finally fell back, taking Kai with her.

Oh no.

Ashanda scooped Rafael away from Kowalski and nodded to him to go.

He hesitated, but Kai waved him away with her free arm. They continued, moving faster. Kowalski led now, but Ashanda kept pace with him, even while carrying Rafael.

Uncle Crowe was waiting at the mouth of the tunnel. He wheeled his arm for them to hurry. “Twelve seconds!”

Kowalski eked out a bit more speed from his heavy legs and reached the tunnel.

“Get inside! Go as far down the tunnel as possible!”

Uncle Crowe rushed forward to Kai and the others. Trying to get them moving faster, he took Rafael and swung him bodily around like a rag doll. A bone snapped with an audible crack. A small cry escaped from the man, but nothing more.

“Seven seconds!”

Uncle Crowe pushed Rafael through the crack as if he were stuffing garbage down a chute. He then turned to Kai.

“Go!” she screamed, and rattled her cuff. “You’re in the way! We have to go through together!”

He understood and flew into the tunnel. She doubted he even touched the walls.

“Five!” he called back.

Suddenly Kai was lifted off her feet, picked up by the shoulders, as Ashanda charged the choke point.

“Four!”

Kai twisted sideways as the woman shoved her through the crack. Rock scraped her back, her cheek.

“Three!”

She fell to her knees in the tunnel, wrenching her shoulder.

Rafael lay crumpled next to her. He held his arm out to her.

“Two!”

Ashanda pushed her large form into the crack — and stopped.

Rafael stared up at her, some understanding filling his eyes. “Don’t, mon chaton noir.”

Kai didn’t understand.

“One!”

Ashanda smiled softly as the world exploded behind her.

Painter dove forward and shielded Kai with his body. The blast sounded like the end of the world, accompanied by the burst of a supernova from within the far cavern. Brightness blazed into the tunnel, piercing through the small gaps like a flurry of sodium lasers around the form of the woman who was jammed into the crack.

He pictured the volume of nanotech erupting, tearing a hole in the universe and collapsing the tunnel. But he also remembered the first explosion in the Utah mountains, how the concussive force of the blast was minor, killing only the anthropologist and none of the nearby witnesses.

That wasn’t the true danger.

He rolled off Kai as the detonation echoed away and the blazing light dimmed back to darkness, leaving only traces burned into his retina. He blinked away the glare.

Kai sat up from where she’d been pinned down. “Ashanda…”

The woman hung limply in the crack, but she still breathed.

“Help her, please…” Rafael begged.

Painter stepped past Kai, who still remained tethered to the woman. Reaching up, careful of where he touched, he drew her out of the crack and let her weight pull her to the floor. He leaned her against the wall next to Rafael.

Moving back, he stared past the crack into the far chamber. Chin had returned and pointed his flashlight. It was unable to penetrate that darkness. A black fog seemed to fill the space: rock dust, smoke, and something Painter feared should never be in this world. The nano-nest. As some of it settled, he noted a deeper shadow back there, the mass of the ancient temple. But rather than growing clearer as the fog continued to dissipate, the dark shadow faded, dissolving away, as if it were an illusion.

A groan drew him back to the tunnel.

Ashanda’s eyes fluttered open, her head lolled back, as she struggled to regain consciousness.

“She was trying to protect us,” Kai said.

Painter suspected that her altruism was meant more for Rafael than for anyone else — but maybe not. Either way, they’d all benefited.

“She did protect us,” he agreed.

Even now, he watched the woman’s clothing on the side closest to the blast begin to lose color and drift down in flakes of fine ash. The dark skin beneath grew speckled as if it had been sprinkled with fine chalk — then those dots grew bigger, spreading, beginning to weep blood.

She was contaminated, whether by Chin’s nanobots or some other corrosive process. Using her own body like a shield, she had blocked the rain of particulate corruption from reaching them.

But the tunnel would not be safe for long.

The choke point at the end had begun to crumble, the rock turning to sand and sifting away.

“It’s happening much faster than in Utah,” Chin said. “A nano-nest of this size will likely grow exponentially from here.”

Painter pointed up the tunnel. “Grab Kowalski. You know what you have to do.”

“Yes, sir.” Still, Chin’s eyes looked longingly at the sight of the process as it began to spread, eating its way through all matter, his expression at once fascinated and horrified. Then he shoved around and headed up, collecting the others and herding them ahead of him.

Only Jordan refused to comply. He slipped under the geologist’s arm and came back down. “Are you okay?” he asked Kai.

She lifted her tethered arm.

Painter returned his attention to Rafael. “Give us the code for the handcuffs.”

But the Frenchman’s gaze remained fixed on his woman. She had regained a dazed, weak consciousness, her head leaning crookedly against the wall, staring back at him. Her breathing was shallow and rapid from pain. Blood flowed down her contaminated side, which was missing skin now, showing muscle.

“What have you done, Ashanda?” he murmured.

“Rafael, we need the code for the handcuffs.”

The bastard seemed deaf to Painter’s pleas, but Ashanda lifted her good arm a trembling fraction of an inch and let it drop, her desire clear.

Painter remained silent, knowing he could offer no better argument.

So he waited, watching the world slowly dissolve around him.

Shattered on the stone floor, Rafael gazed into Ashanda’s eyes. She had sacrificed all for him. All of his life, he’d fought to prove himself, to others, to his family, even to himself — to rise above a shame that was no fault of his own. But in those dark eyes, such effort was never necessary. She saw him, watching in her silences, always there, always so strong.

In this moment he finally truly saw her.

The knowledge shattered him worse than any fall could have done.

“What have I done to you?” he whispered to her in French.

He reached to her cheek.

“Be careful,” Painter said, sounding far away.

Rafael was beyond such concerns. He knew his injuries were severe, that he was growing cold and slipping into shock. He tasted blood on his tongue with each breath, coming from a ripped lung and fractured ribs. Both legs had multiple breaks, likely his hip, too.

He was done for, but he would last long enough.

For her.

He brushed his knuckles along her cheekbone, down the line of her jaw, touching the hollow of her throat.

Her eyes closed ever so slightly.

Her lips shifted into a ghost of a smile.

Oh, my love…

He pulled her gently into his arms, felt the hot blood along her back, the tremble of agony. She tried to push him away, ever protecting him.

No, let me be the stronger one… just this one time.

Whether hearing his plea or simply too weak, Ashanda collapsed with a sigh against him. Her head rested on his shoulder, her eyes looking up at him with a joy he’d never seen before. He cursed himself for denying such simple happiness to her — and to himself.

A voice nagged in his ear.

To be done with it, he spoke five numbers, the code to the handcuffs.

A shuffling followed. He heard two young voices, hopeful and intense and full of such raw affection. Then they took that brightness and fled away.

Once alone, he leaned down and gently kissed those lips. He felt them quiver under his. He held her this way for an eternity, feeling each breath against his cheeks… growing slower, slower… then at last nothing.

He felt the same corruption now eating into him, through the palm that held her, the shoulder that supported her, even the lips that kissed her. But it was a wonderful pain. It came from her, and he would have it no other way.

So he held her to him.

A voice intruded. He turned to find Painter still there at his side. He thought the man had left. What had seemed an eternity must have been only minutes.

“What do you want, Monsieur Crowe?” he whispered coarsely, feeling parts of himself drifting away.

“Who are you?” Painter asked, crouched a few feet away like some vulture.

Rafael leaned his head back and closed his eyes, knowing what the man truly wanted. Though his body was spent, his mind remained sharp.

“I know who you seek, but they are not me. Nor my family.” He opened his eyes to stare at Painter. It hurt to talk, but he knew he must. “What you seek has no name. Not formally.”

“Then what do you know about them?”

“I know your oldest families here in America have roots that trace back to the Mayflower. That is nothing, mere hiccups in the march of history. Off in Europe, families have unbroken roots that go back two, three, four times as far. But there is a handful — a chosen few — whose heritage goes back much further. Some claim to be able to trace their lineage to the time before Christ, but who knows? I do know that they’ve been gathering wealth, power, knowledge, while manipulating history, hiding behind shifting faces, always changing. They are the secret within all secret societies.”

This seemed to raise an amused croak inside him — painful as it was to emit.

“Others have named these bloodlines les familles de l’étoile, the star families. I hear they once numbered more, but now there is but one, the True Bloodline. To stay strong, they seek to rebuild from younger families, like my own, families of the upper echelon.”

“Echelon?”

“A ranking system among the younger families who seek to join the Bloodline. First tier is designated by a single mark: the star and moon of the oldest mystère. The second adds the Freemasons’ square and compass. Another énigmatique order, non? And for our service in America, the Saint Germaine clan was granted entry to the third level. We were chosen—I was chosen—because of our knowledge of nanotechnology. An honor.” He coughed thickly, tasting blood. “Come see.”

Rafael turned his head and weakly lifted his hand to part the fall of hair that hid his mark. The third symbol had been added just days ago, inked in crimson around the older two, to mark his new elevation.

He heard Painter gasp, knowing what the man saw. In the center of the tattoo, the star and moon… encircling it, the square and compass… and around them both…

“The shield of the Knights Templar,” Painter whispered. “Another secret order.”

“And there are more, or so I’ve heard.” Rafael let his arm drop heavily. “As I said, we are the secret within all secret societies. This third mark brings my family one step closer to joining the True Bloodline on that highest pedestal. Or at least it would have.” Again a painful chuckle croaked forth. “Failure is severely punished.”

Painter remained quiet for a long breath, then spoke. “But to what end? What is the goal of all of this?”

“Ah, even I do not know everything. Some things you’ll need to discover on your own. I’ll tell you no more because I know no more.”

He closed his eyes and turned his face away.

After a time, Painter rose and headed back up the tunnel.

Once alone, Rafael Saint Germaine leaned down and gave one last kiss to his love, holding it until he felt those lips dissolve away — taking him with them.

Chapter 42

Painter burst out of the darkness into light.

He didn’t know what to think of Rafael’s claims: grand delusions, lies, madness, or truth. All he knew was that the danger below had to be stopped.

While talking to the Frenchman, Painter had stared out into the cavern. Nothing remained. No bodies, no temple. As rock turned to sand and sand to dust, what he saw there offended him at a fundamental level, frightened him to the core of his being. Steps away, there had swirled a storm of pure entropy, where order became chaos, where solidity had no meaning.

The nano-nest had to be destroyed.

In the short time he’d been down below, the Fairyland Basin had changed into a bustle of frantic activity. Helicopters dotted the valley floor, ferrying everyone clear. They had one last chance to stop the growing cancer below from eating its way down into the depths of the volcanic caldera. And that hope hinged on striking while the nano-nest was still relatively small and confined.

Painter strode across the valley toward where Chin and Kowalski were working. It looked like they were ready.

As he passed one of the helicopters, he spotted Kai and Jordan seated next to Hank. Kai turned and waved, but Jordan’s attention was on her alone. The professor leaned down and accepted a blanket-wrapped package from Major Ryan. Hank gingerly settled the dog to his lap, so as not to jar the broken leg. Ryan had insisted that Kawtch receive attention from the field medic before his own wounds were treated.

As Painter headed away, the chopper lifted off behind him, roaring skyward and kicking up a whirlwind. He joined Chin and Kowalski.

“Are you ready?” Painter asked.

“Just about done here.” Kowalski sat cross-legged on the ground. Coiled at his feet was a spool of detonation cord threaded through cubes of C4. “It’s just like stringing popcorn.”

“Remind me not to come over to your house for Christmas.”

He shrugged. “Christmas is okay. It’s Fourth of July that scares most people away.”

Painter could only imagine.

Kowalski plus fireworks. Not a good combination.

Chin stood beside the ten-foot geyserite cone called the Pitcher’s Mound. He had topographical maps spread out on the chalky fields of sinter, along with scans of the basin that had been done with ground-penetrating radar.

“This cone’s the best spot,” Chin said. “GPR scans show this is the closest access point to the plug blocking the geothermal vent below. Release that and the superheated cauldron suppressed deep in the earth will come roaring up like a sleeping dragon.”

The idea had been Painter’s, but the execution was all Chin and Kowalski. The geologist had earlier described how two forces had shaped Yellowstone: the volcanic eruptions from deep underground and the shallower hydrothermal explosions. While they needed intense heat to kill the cancer below, a volcanic eruption was not an option, definitely not here. So the next best thing was to attempt a hydrothermal explosion.

Painter proposed triggering a shallow, superhot blast to fry the nano-nest before it had a chance to drill its way down to the volcanic magma chamber six miles underground. While there was some threat of the hydrothermal explosion disturbing that magma chamber, too, it was less risky than doing nothing and letting that nano-nest eat its way down unchecked.

But how do you trigger a hydrothermal blast?

“Okay, let’s do this.” Kowalski stood, hauled up his bulky spool of C4, and crossed to Chin.

The geologist had tilted ladders against the minivolcano’s steep sides. The two of them climbed to the top, where steam was rising from a small opening, just large enough for a shaped charge of C4 to slip through. Lying on their bellies on the ladders, the two men fed the spooled C4—one cube at a time, a hundred cubes in all — down the mouth of the cone, sending the chain deep underground, dropping it as close to the rock blocking the hydrothermal vent as possible. Chin had calculated the amount of explosive they needed to shatter the rock.

Kowalski doubled it.

For once, Painter agreed with Kowalski.

Go all in… or go home.

“That’ll do it,” Chin said from atop the Pitcher’s Mound.

The two men slid down their ladders.

Kowalski rubbed his palms together in happy anticipation. “Let’s see if this C4 colonic works.”

Painter glanced his way. It actually wasn’t a bad description for blasting that blockage free. The trio hurried to the last helicopter, which was still waiting in the basin. Engines hot, its rotors already spinning. They climbed aboard, buckled in place, and took off.

The helicopter pilot spared no fuel.

The valley shrank rapidly below.

“That’s good!” Painter radioed over his headset.

With the chopper slowly circling, Painter gave Kowalski a thumbs-up. He already had the transmitter in hand. With a fierce grin, Kowalski pushed the button.

From this height and with the charges buried underground, the explosion sounded like distant thunder.

Painter stared below. The Pitcher’s Mound was still intact. The only change was a bit more steam rising from its cone.

“That sucked,” Kowalski said. “I was expecting—”

The entire basin detonated below them. It cracked like a dropped plate and blasted upward in bus-sized chunks that cleared twice the height of the canyon walls and came crashing down, stripping forested hills. At the same time steaming water rocketed upward, forming a geyser twenty yards wide and shooting a thousand feet into the air.

“Now that’s what I call a colonic!” Kowalski said.

The helicopter banked away, its pilot fearful of getting caught in the maelstrom of rock, water, and steam.

Chin watched. “That much heat should definitely have destroyed the nano-nest.”

Still, another question remained: Did the huge blast trigger the very thing they feared? Everyone held their breath as the helicopter circled, rising ever higher. The geyser continued to churn, but its fountain slowly began to recede. There was no evidence of magma rising or lava erupting.

After another minute, Chin let out a loud puff. “Looks like we’re okay.”

The helicopter spun farther out, heading away.

As they turned, Painter got a bird’s-eye view of the entire Yellowstone caldera. All across the basin, water was shooting high into the air, spiraling with steam.

“My God, it’s every geyser,” Chin said, amazed. “Every geyser’s erupting!”

As the helicopter raced across the dazzling display, Painter stared out in wonder at the dance of waters, the twinkle of steamy rainbows, suddenly deeply struck by the wonder of this world, this gift to mankind in all its resplendent natural beauty.

With his face pressed to the window, Kowalski looked equally impressed. “Next time, we should use more C4.”

Chapter 43

Gray took a cab straight from the airport to the National Archives. He’d taken a short nap on the flight from Columbia, Tennessee, after discovering all had gone well out in Yellowstone. He felt worlds better. Painter would be spending another day or two out there to make sure everything was okay and to make sure his niece was settled into her classes at Brigham Young University.

Back at the airport, he’d wanted to go with Monk to the hospital, to make sure they took good care of him after his gunshot wound, but Kat had called him as they were landing. Dr. Heisman, she said, had been able to decipher Meriwether Lewis’s coded message and wanted to share it right away. Kat offered to send someone else to the museum, but considering all the trouble and bloodshed involved in obtaining the buffalo hide and its message, Gray wanted to be the first to hear what it said.

He owed it to Monk.

He owed it to Meriwether Lewis.

So he said good-bye to Monk at the airport. His friend had been in good spirits. And for good reason. The private jet they’d flown had been stocked with an amazing selection of single-malt scotches. Kat would take Gray’s place at the hospital. And probably just as well. She would keep Monk from hassling his nurses too severely.

The cab slowed to the curb in front of the Archives. Seichan stretched next to him in the backseat.

“Here already,” she mumbled drowsily.

Gray caught the cabdriver staring at her in the rearview mirror as he paid the fare. He couldn’t blame the guy. She’d changed out of her blue coveralls and back into her leather jacket, her black jeans, and a gray T-shirt.

They climbed out of the cab, and both hobbled a bit up the steps. Their bruises, scrapes, and injuries had stiffened up. Seichan leaned on Gray’s shoulder without having to be asked. His hand found her hip without her really needing the added support.

They reached the doors to find Heisman already waiting for them.

“There you both are,” he said by way of greeting. “Come. I have everything in the conference room. You didn’t bring the buffalo hide here by any chance? I would love to see it with my own eyes, rather than that photo you e-mailed.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged,” Gray said.

They entered the same conference room they had been in before to find it all cleaned up again. Only a few books dotted the table. Apparently, deciphering a centuries-old message required merely a couple of spare hours and the same number of books.

As they settled into the room, Gray asked, “How did you solve it so fast?”

“What? Meriwether’s final words? It wasn’t hard. The code that Meriwether used with Jefferson is well known. I’m sure they probably used more involved ones occasionally, but for most correspondence, they used a simple cipher. And considering that Meriwether was writing this as he lay dying, I suspect he went with the cipher he knew best.”

Gray pictured the man, shot twice — once in the gut, once in the head — struggling to leave this last message.

Heisman pushed and sent his chair rolling down the length of the table so he could grab a book. “I can show you. It’s a code based on the Vigenère cipher. It was used in Europe at the time and was considered unbreakable. The key to it is a secret password known only to the parties involved. Jefferson and Lewis always used the word artichokes.”

“Artichokes?”

“That’s right. The code itself involves a twenty-eight-column alphanumeric table to—”

Gray’s cell phone chimed with incoming voice mail. Saved by the bell. “Excuse me for a moment.”

He stood up, stepped toward the door, but pointed back to Seichan. “Dr. Heisman, why don’t you explain all about the cipher to my colleague? I’ll be right back.”

“I’d be happy to.”

Seichan just glared at him and rolled her eyes in exasperation as he left.

Out in the hall, the smile on Gray’s face faded as he read the number of voice mails on his phone. He’d been using the disposable for the past day and forgot to put his battery back into his personal phone until he hit ground again in D.C. Still, apparently it took over forty-five minutes to route and load the calls after he’d powered up.

He stared at the screen.

Maybe this is one of the reasons why it took so long.

He had received twenty-two messages over the past twelve hours, all from the same number. He kicked himself for not calling earlier. He remembered he’d gotten his mother’s first voice mail as they were fleeing Fort Knox. He’d had no time to listen to it then — and it had slipped his mind during all the commotion.

He started from the beginning, already feeling that familiar tension at the base of his spine. He held the phone to his ear.

“Gray, it’s your mother.” She started every phone call that way. Like I don’t know your voice, Mom. “It’s ten-thirty, and I wanted to let you know your father’s having a bad night. You don’t have to come over, but I thought you should know.”

Uh-oh.

Rather than listening to all the messages, he hit redial. Might as well hear how things had gone from the horse’s mouth. The phone rang and rang and then went to voice mail.

That tension in his back squeezed his spine a little tighter. Wanting to know what happened, he listened through the rest of the messages.

“Gray, it’s your mother again. It’s getting bad, so I’m going to call that number for the home-health-care worker you left in case of an emergency.”

Very good, Mom…

The next few messages grew increasingly more distraught. The home-health-care worker thought his father was having a bad enough episode to warrant a hospital visit.

“Gray, they want to keep your father for a couple days. Run another MRI… is that right, Luis?” In the background, he heard a faint, “That’s right, Harriet.” Then his mother again. “Anyway, everything’s fine. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

But there were another five calls after that. He continued on, discovering that his mother was growing confused herself about tests, insurance, paperwork.

“Why aren’t you returning my calls? Are you out of town… maybe you’re out of town. I can’t remember if you told me. Maybe I’d better water your plants anyway. You always forget.”

The last message had been left only an hour ago. Gray was still in the air at the time. “Gray, I’ve got a hair appointment near your town house. Are you still out of town? I’m going to water your plants on the way to my appointment. I think I have your house key here. I told you I had a hair appointment, right? It’s at one o’clock. Maybe if you’re home, we can do lunch.”

Okay, Mom…

He checked his watch. He should be able to finish here at the Archives and meet her at his house by noon.

Taking a deep breath, he headed back into the conference room.

Seichan must have read something in his face. “Are you okay?”

He shook his cell phone. “Family stuff. I’ll get to it after this.”

She offered him a sympathetic smile. “Welcome home.”

“Yeah, right.”

He returned his attention to Dr. Heisman. “So what did Meriwether have to say that was so important?”

“It was a strange letter, very full of paranoia.”

“Well, he’d just been shot… twice,” Gray said. “That would make anyone a little paranoid.”

“True. But I wanted you to know about what he wrote at the end. I think it bears on the matters from yesterday, specifically about the great enemy that was plaguing the Founding Fathers.”

“What does it say about them?” Gray asked, his interest pricking.

Heisman read from a text that was covered with lots of notes and jottings. “ ‘They’ve found me on the road, those who serve the Enemy. I leave this message, covered in my own blood, as fair warning to those who come after. With great effort, we few have cast most of the fearsome Enemy from our shores, through purges of our great armies and noble houses.’ ”

Gray interrupted: “Didn’t you tell us something about that? How Meriwether acted as Jefferson’s spy to discover who was disloyal in the armed forces?”

“That’s true, but it seems they weren’t entirely successful in flushing them all out.” Heisman continued to read. “ ‘Yet one family persists, rooted deeply in the South, too stubborn for us to pull out, like a weed. Lest in doing so we risk uprooting our young nation and tearing it apart. It is an old family with ties to slavers & rich beyond measure. Even here I dare not write that name down & alert the family of our knowledge. But a record will be left for those that follow, if you know where to look. Jefferson will leave their name in paint. You can find it thusly: In the turning of the bull, find the five who don’t belong. Let their given names be ordered & revealed by the letters G, C, R, J, T and their numbers 1, 2, 4, 4, 1.’ ”

“What does that last part mean?” Seichan asked.

“I have no idea,” the curator answered. “It is not uncommon to bury a code within a code, especially concerning something that so clearly frightened them.”

Gray’s cell phone rang in his pocket. Concerned that it was his mother, he checked the number and was relieved to see it was only Kat. She must be reporting on Monk’s condition.

“Kat, it’s Gray.” As he said those words, he realized how much he sounded like his mother: Gray, it’s your mother.

Kat’s voice came with a worried, yet relieved edge. “Good. You’re okay.”

“I’m still at the Archives. What’s wrong?”

Her voice grew calmer, but it was clear that she was still shaken. “I came home to change clothes before heading to the hospital. Luckily I’ve had plenty of intelligence training. I saw the door had been tampered with. I discovered a bomb, a booby trap. Looks like the same design as the ordnance that took down your jet yesterday, the work of Mitchell Waldorf.”

Gray pictured the bastard blowing the top of his head off and his final words: This isn’t over.

His breath turned to ice in his chest.

Kat continued: “The bomb squad is here, and I’m sending them over to your—”

“Kat!” he cut her off. “My mother was heading to my town house. Today. She has my key.”

“Go,” Kat said, without pausing. “I’m out the door already with the bomb team. I’ll alert local forces en route.”

He snapped his phone closed and simply ran for the door. Seichan bolted out of her chair and followed.

She must have gleaned enough from listening to his end of the conversation to know what was happening. They fled together out the door to the street. He searched for a cab. She ran out into the street, where the midday traffic had stalled. She headed straight for a stranded motorcyclist and whipped out her black SIG Sauer. She pointed it at his head.

“Off.”

The young man leaped and fell away.

She caught the bike one-handed before it dropped and turned to Gray. “You fit to ride?”

Until he knew otherwise, he was wired and focused.

He leaped into the seat.

She climbed behind him, wrapped her arms around him, and said in his ear, “Break any rules you need to.”

He gunned the motorcycle and did just that.

The flight through the city was a blur, wind whipping, leaping curbs, dodging pedestrians. As he made the turn onto Sixteenth Street, he saw a thin column of smoke in the air. Piney Branch Road lay in that direction. He choked the throttle and raced down the rest of the way.

Emergency vehicles were already there, lights blazing, sirens going.

He braked hard, skidding sideways, and leaped off the bike. An ambulance sat crooked in the road, half up on the curb.

He ran toward it.

Monk came hurtling around the blind corner, still in his hospital gown.

He must have stolen the ambulance and used the sirens to beat Gray here from Georgetown University Hospital.

Gray came running up and saw the answer to his unposed question in Monk’s face. His friend held up an arm, stopping him, but didn’t say a word, just one tiny shake of his head.

Gray crashed to his knees in the middle of the road.

“No…”

Chapter 44

“Where are my girls?” Monk called out into the apartment.

“Your girls are still asleep,” Kat replied from the couch, “and if you wake them, you’re staying up with them all night like I did.”

She was resting on a maternity pillow, her back still aching from the delivery three days ago. She’d been two weeks early, but all had gone well with the birth of their second child, a baby girl. Monk was now surrounded by women here in the apartment, which was okay by him. He had enough testosterone for the whole family and was certainly around enough testosterone at work.

He plopped down on the couch next to Kat and placed the white take-out bag between them. “Feldman’s bagels and cream cheese.”

She placed a hand on her belly. “I’m so fat.”

“You just had an eight-pound three-ounce baby girl. No wonder she demanded to come out early. No room in there.”

Kat made a noncommittal sound at the back of her throat.

He lifted the bag out of the way, slid closer, and put his arm around his wife. She leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, and kissed her hair — then, after a long moment, added, “but you sort of stink.”

She punched him in the shoulder.

“How about I warm up the shower — for the both of us?”

She mumbled into his chest. “That would be nice.”

He began to scoot up, but she pulled him back down.

“Just stay here. I like this.”

“Well, you’re going to get a lot more of this. Me, sitting around the house.”

She looked up. “What did Painter say?”

“He understood, accepted my resignation letter, but he wanted me to think about it while I’m out on family leave.”

She settled against him, again making that noncommittal sound.

They’d had long conversations about his resigning from Sigma. He had a wife and two children who needed him. After getting shot, having a bomb placed in their home, and seeing the devastation that had been wrought upon Gray’s family, he figured it was time. He already had offers from various biotech companies in D.C.

The couple remained locked in each other’s arms, simply enjoying each other’s warmth. He refused to put this at risk any longer.

Finally, Kat swung around, and with a bit of effort, put her feet in his lap. “Since you’re no longer working…”

He took her feet and began to rub them, one-handed. His new prosthesis wouldn’t be ready for another four days, but apparently one hand was enough.

She leaned back, stretching, and made a sound that was definitely not noncommittal. “I could get used to this, too.”

But such bliss could not last.

The small wail rose from the next room, starting low and rising quickly to an earsplitting pitch. How could so much sound come out of such a little package?

“She’s definitely got your lungs,” Kat said, and raised herself up on an elbow. “Sounds like she’s hungry.”

“I’ll get her.” Monk rolled to his feet.

So much for that hot shower.

He crossed to their bedroom and found the new joy of his life, red-faced, with eyes squinted tightly closed. He scooped her up and out of the crib, lifting her to his shoulder.

She quieted — slightly — as he gently bounced her.

She’d been born the day of the funeral for Gray’s mother. Kat had gone into labor during the memorial service. He knew how hard that day was for Gray, how much guilt he bore for his mother’s death. Monk had no words that could comfort that bone-deep grief, but Gray was strong.

Monk had seen a glimmer of that strength, and the eventual recovery it promised, later, when Gray came to visit Kat at the hospital, to see the baby. Monk had never told his friend what he and Kat had both decided. The revelation brought a sad, but genuine smile to Gray’s lips.

Monk lifted his girl around to stare her in the face. “Are you hungry, Harriet?”

Gray sat in the bedside hospital chair, his face in his hands.

His father was snoring softly, stretched out under a thin sheet and blanket. He looked like a frail shadow of his formerly robust self. Gray had arranged for a private room here at the memory-care unit, to allow his father some measure of privacy in which to grieve. His mother had brought his father to the hospital a week ago.

He’d not left.

The MRI revealed that he’d suffered a very small stroke, but he was recovering well. It was more an incidental finding than anything. The real reason for the sudden worsening of his dementia — the hallucinations, the nighttime panic attacks, the sundowner’s syndrome — had mostly to do with a dosage imbalance in his medication. His father had been accidentally overmedicating himself and became toxic and dehydrated, which led to the stroke. The doctors were currently correcting his meds and seemed to think that in another week he would be doing well enough to be moved to an assisted-living facility.

That would be the next battle.

After his mother’s funeral, Gray had to decide what to do about his parents’ house. His brother, Kenny, had flown in from California for the funeral and was talking to a lawyer and some real-estate people today. There remained some friction between the two brothers over a range of issues, and a lot of guilt, resentment, and blame. Kenny didn’t know the exact details of his mother’s death, only that it had been collateral damage in an act of revenge against Gray.

A voice rose behind him, speaking softly. “We’ll be serving breakfast soon. Can I bring you a tray?”

Gray turned. “No, but thanks, Mary.”

Mary Benning was an RN on the floor. She was a charming woman with a brownish-gray bobbed hairstyle and blue scrubs. Her own mother suffered from Lewy body dementia, so she understood what Gray and his father were going through. Gray appreciated such personal experience. It allowed them to shorthand their conversations.

“How did he do last night?” Gray asked.

Mary stepped more fully into the room. “Good. The new lower dose of Sinemet seems to be keeping him much calmer at night.”

“Did you bring Cutie or Shiner with you today?”

She smiled. “Both.”

They were Mary’s two rehabilitation assistants, two dachshunds. Alzheimer patients showed a great response to interaction with animals. Gray never thought such a thing would work with his father, but he had come to the facility last Sunday to find Shiner sleeping in bed with his father as he watched a football game.

Still, even that day had been hard.

They all were.

He turned back to his father as Mary left.

Gray tried to come each morning, to be at his side when his father woke up. That was always the worst time. Twice now, he’d found his father had no memory of his wife’s death. The neurologists believed it would take time for things to fully settle.

So Gray had to explain about the tragic loss over and over again. His father had always been quick to anger — the Alzheimer’s made things worse. Three times, Gray had to face that wrath, the tears, the accusations. Gray took it all without protest; perhaps a part of him even wanted it.

A shuffling behind him drew his attention back to the door.

Mary poked her head in. “Are you okay with a visitor?”

Seichan stepped into view, looking uncomfortable, ready to bolt. She was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a thin blouse, carrying her motorcycle jacket over her arm.

Gray waved her inside and asked Mary to close the door.

Seichan crossed over, dragging another chair, and sat down next to him. “Knew I’d catch you here. I wanted to go over what I found out — then I’m riding up to New York. Something I want to follow up on. Thought maybe you’d want to come.”

“What did you find out?”

“Heisman and that assistant of his—”

“Sharyn.”

“Both clean. They weren’t involved at all in the bombing. Waldorf seems to have orchestrated it all himself, using personal connections. I doubt he even got authorization from his Guild superiors. I think he acted alone, tried to murder both you and Monk in a cowardly act of vengeance. From the fact that the bombs were set hours before he killed himself, I think they were planted as backup, in case he failed to eliminate you in Tennessee.”

Gray remembered the bastard’s last words.

This isn’t over.

His and Seichan’s voices must have stirred Gray’s father, who raised an arm, stretched. He opened his eyes and slowly focused, blinking a few times, then cleared his throat. It took him an extra moment to get his bearings, looking around the room, eyeing Seichan up and down, lingering there a bit, in fact.

“Seichan, isn’t it?” he asked hoarsely.

“That’s right.” She stood up, ready to leave.

It always surprised Gray what his father remembered and what he didn’t.

Bleary eyes turned to Gray. “Where’s your mother?”

Gray took a deep breath, facing the confusion and anxiety in his father’s face. The small bubble of hope inside his chest popped and deflated.

“Dad… Mom’s—”

Rather than leaving, Seichan leaned between Gray and his father. She squeezed the old man’s hand. “She’ll be by later. She needed some time to rest, to get her hair done.”

His father nodded and leaned back into his bed, the anxiety draining from his face. “Good. She’s always doing too much, that woman.”

Seichan patted his hand, turned to Gray and nodded toward the door. Then she straightened, said her good-byes, and drew Gray out of the room with her.

“Where’s breakfast?” his father called after them.

“It’s coming,” Gray said as he left, letting the door close behind him.

Outside, Seichan moved him into a quiet side hall.

“What are you doing?” Gray said, anger rising, gesturing halfheartedly toward his father’s room.

“Saving you, saving him,” she said, and pushed him against the wall. “You’re just punishing yourself, torturing him. He deserves better than that — and so do you, Gray. I’ve been reading up on situations like this. He’ll work through it in his own time. Quit forcing him to remember.”

Gray opened his mouth to argue.

“Don’t you see, Gray. He knows. It’s in there, buried where it doesn’t hurt as much right now. He’s working through it.”

Gray pictured the anxiety in his father’s face. It had been there every morning. Even the relief he’d shown a moment ago hadn’t completely erased it. Buried deep in those eyes, a trickle of fear remained.

He rubbed his face with his palm, scratching stubble, unsure.

Seichan pulled his arm down. “Sometimes delusions are a good thing, a necessary thing.”

He swallowed hard, trying to accept these words. He was enough of his father to want to fight, to dismiss what wasn’t solid and graspable with a callused hand. Just then his phone chirped in his pocket, allowing him a moment to collect himself.

He pulled it free, his fingers trembling with everything inside him. He fumbled the phone open and saw he had a text message. The caller ID read BLOCKED. But the message made clear who had sent it.

Those few words were like a bomb dropped in his gut. The trembling inside him grew worse. He slipped down the wall, the world narrowing. All the conflict inside him flared for a breath, then collapsed like a dying star into a burning, dense ember. He went cold and hollow everywhere else.

Seichan followed him down, grasping his cheeks in both of her hot palms, holding him and staring into his face, inches away. She had read the message, too.

Her words gave voice to what was inside him. “I will help you. I will do whatever it takes to hunt them down.”

He stared into the emerald of her eyes, flecked with gold. Her palms burned on his cheeks. Their heat spread into those cold empty places inside him. He reached to her face and pulled her closer, narrowing the distance between them until their lips touched.

He kissed her, needing her.

She resisted at first, her lips tense, hard, unsure.

Then they slowly softened, releasing, parting.

Each of them needed the other.

But was this real — or just a necessary delusion for the moment?

In the end, Gray didn’t care.

It was real enough for now.

It felt good to be back… to shake off the ghosts that haunted her.

Kai Quocheets stood on the pueblo’s porch as the sun hammered the canyon and badlands of San Rafael Swell. Dust devils danced up through the gulches and ravines. She smelled the scent of juniper and hot sand as she stared out across its expanse of buttes, stone reefs, and fluted canyon walls, striated in shades of gold and crimson.

Even after only a week, it was beginning to feel like home again.

She’d be spending her summer at the pueblos, earning college credits from Brigham Young University. She was taking a Native American studies class on the ancient Pueblo peoples. It involved recording petroglyphs, helping with the restoration of old ruins, and learning the old Hopi customs.

Like discovering how to roast piñon nuts.

“Who burned my best tray?” a voice shouted from inside.

Kai cringed, knowing she had to face the consequences of her crime like a woman. She’d been doing that a lot lately. Two days ago, she’d been officially pardoned for any wrongdoing involving the events in Utah. It seemed that her role in saving the world had evened her karmic balance with the Justice Department. Plus, having the likes of Uncle Crowe and Hank Kanosh as character witnesses never hurt.

But this was one crime she could not escape so easily.

Kai turned to the screen door and entered the deeper shadows of the main room. Iris Humetewa wore oven mitts and held up a scorched tray.

“You have to wait for the coals to burn off.”

“I know, but Kawtch was chewing at his stitches, and by the time I caught him and got his cone put in place…”

She sighed, done with excuses.

Kawtch had lifted his head upon hearing his name, wearing a plastic funnel around his neck. They’d had to amputate his front leg. The rifle shot had left little bone and not much nerve, but he was recovering well.

They all were.

Alvin Humetewa’s burns were mostly just deep red splotches against his tanned ruddy skin. The pair of old Hopi Indians had survived their encounter with Rafael Saint Germaine through sheer stubbornness and their wily knowledge of the local terrain.

The Hopi tribe had a saying: Never try to hunt an Indian loose on his own land. It was a harsh lesson for the early pioneers to learn — and one Rafael Saint Germaine had never known about.

Iris had suspected that the Frenchman’s soldiers might come after them. So when she took off with her husband on the ATV, she aimed for the closest sandy bowl and kicked up a cloudy dust storm to hide their flight. Then once she heard the potshots, she rode into an old mine tunnel and trusted Rafael would not stick around long enough to find her and Alvin. She knew he was anxious to go after Kai’s uncle Crowe. Even if he had left men behind, she could cover her tracks and reach help, if necessary.

It seemed there was much Kai could learn from that old Hopi woman.

“I’m sorry, Auntie Iris,” she said. “I’ll polish the tray and make up for it by cooking the next two nights.”

Iris nodded, satisfied, and gave her a wink, expressing forgiveness and love in such a small movement.

The growl of engines drew both their attentions to the front door.

“Looks like the boys are back from their joyriding,” Iris said.

The two headed out to the porch to greet them. A pair of dust-caked figures climbed from ATVs that looked more like fossilized stone than fiberglass.

Jordan peeled off his helmet and wiped his face with a gingham handkerchief. Kai felt her heart stutter as the beam of his smile reached her and grew even wider.

Beside him, his companion popped off his helmet, red-faced and grinning. “I could get used to this,” Ash said.

Major Ashley Ryan and Jordan had become close friends after the events in Yellowstone. It seemed that the National Guardsman had developed a newfound respect for Native Americans.

Jordan reached over and patted the man’s chest, hard, knocking dust off his T-shirt. It read I LOVE INJUNS, and it depicted a cartoon V8 engine wearing a feathered headdress.

“Tacky and offensive,” Jordan said. “Both at the same time. That’s going to get our asses kicked out here one of these days.”

“Kid, that news just made this my favorite shirt.”

With his chest puffed out proudly, Ash climbed up to the porch.

Jordan smiled over at Kai. “Oh, by the way, I think I beat your best time on the Deadman’s Gulch run.”

Iris nudged Kai with her elbow. “Are you going to take that?”

Hell, no…

Kai slipped the helmet out from under Ash’s arm and leaped off the porch, her hair flying. “Let’s go see about that!”

From one temple to another…

Professor Henry Kanosh, a member of the Northwestern Band of Shoshone, was the first Mormon Indian to stand at the threshold of this temple’s Kodesh Hakodashim, the Holy of the Holies’ chamber at the heart of the Mormon temple in Salt Lake City.

Starting at dawn, he’d prepared himself: fasting and praying. He now stood in a vestibule of polished rock, before a door few men knew about. Pounded of raw silver, the portal rose fifteen feet high and eight wide, split down the middle.

In Hank’s hands, he held the one gift he had to offer, the key to the temple’s inner sanctum.

Ahead, the doors parted, and a single figure stepped out.

Hank knelt, bowing his head.

Soft footsteps approached, unhurried, calm.

Once they stopped before him, Hank raised his arms and offered up his gift. The gold plate was taken from his grasp, slipped from his fingers, and gone.

He had recovered the plate at the Old Faithful Inn. While everyone had been distracted by NASA’s call, announcing that they had found a match to the landscape depicted on the canopic jar, Henry had been standing next to the Frenchman’s case. He dared not take both plates, as Rafael would then have noted the theft much sooner. So setting aside greed, he satisfied himself with slipping one free and pocketing it in the back of his pants.

The gold plate belonged with the church. After seeing the re-creation of Solomon’s Temple, he knew that for sure.

Footsteps retreated, again unhurried and calm.

Hank risked a glance up as the doors started to sweep closed.

Brilliant light flowed out from that inner sanctum. He caught a slivered glimpse inside. A large white stone altar. Beyond it, gold shone forth, coming from shelves that seemed to stretch forever.

Were they Joseph Smith’s original tablets?

A tingling washed over his skin, awe prickling the small hairs over his body. Then the doors shut — and the world seemed a far darker and more ordinary place.

Hank stood, turned, and walked away.

Carrying some of that golden brilliance with him.

Alone, Painter headed across the National Mall, needing some fresh air, but also to follow up on a growing concern.

Everything was quieting down on the global level — at least, geologically speaking. Iceland had stopped erupting, doubling the landmass of Ellirey Island and birthing a small new atoll. Yellowstone remained quiet after a few swarms of quakes following the hydrothermal explosion. To be safe, Ronald Chin was still out there with a team of volcanologists, monitoring seismic activity. Dr. Riku Tanaka, out in Japan, had reported no new neutrino activity.

Still, while they had avoided triggering an apocalypse, the supervolcano still remained — and as Chin had warned, it was still overdue to erupt on its own. A frightening thought.

But there was nothing to be done about that today.

In the end, Yellowstone had a new crater lake, but all signs pointed to nothing worse brewing deeper underground for the moment. Kowalski petitioned to have the lake named after himself: Kowalski Krater Lake.

For some reason, the petition got squashed.

Painter attempted to investigate the remaining Saint Germaine clan in France, but within twenty-four hours of Rafael’s death, fourteen of its most influential members were found murdered. No one else in the family seemed to have any knowledge about the Guild. It seemed the True Bloodline had set about to erase its connection to that family.

Even the site in Belgium where they’d picked up the other neutrino trace in Europe revealed only a firebombed and gutted mansion, one leased by a corporation that proved to be a shell, a false identity that evaporated upon inspection. The Guild clearly wanted to destroy any remaining evidence — fingerprints, papers, DNA — from that place.

So that trail also came to a dead end.

Leaving only one path open.

Painter reached his goal at the east end of the mall — the U.S. Capitol — and set about climbing the steps.

Though the building was open to the public only for another fifteen minutes, the place was a noisy jumble of life: kids ran up and down the stairs; tourists posed for photos; protesters shouted, carrying placards. He enjoyed such exuberance and chaos after being cooped up in his offices below the Smithsonian Castle.

Here was American life in all its glory, warts and all, and he’d have it no other way. It was more representative of democracy than all the stately parliamentary rules and political games going on under that neoclassical dome.

So he enjoyed his walk, despite the stifling humidity of the day.

He had plans to have dinner with Lisa later, but for now he needed to clear his mind. He had to see the painting for himself first, before committing to any course of action. Besides, he did not even know where to start. He had told no one of his discovery, not even his inner circle at Sigma.

It was not that he didn’t trust that circle, but they had enough burdens at the moment. Monk had his new baby girl, Harriet. The man had proffered his resignation early that morning. Painter had agreed to keep it on file but convinced him to take family leave and use the time to reconsider. Hopefully, the life of crying children, diaper changes, and a long stretch of downtime would change Monk’s mind, but Painter doubted it. Monk was a family man at heart. And a week ago, they’d all seen the consequences of his trying to live a double life.

Then there was Gray. He’d sunk into a dark pit of despair, but what would arise out of it: a stronger man or a broken one?

Only time would tell.

So Painter kept quiet for all their sakes. Even coming here was not without risk, but he had to chance it.

Reaching the top of the steps, he crossed under the dome and into the Capitol Rotunda. The huge vaulted space echoed with voices. He sought the second-floor gallery, where giant twelve-by-eighteen-foot canvases circled the dome’s walls. He found what he was looking for easily enough on the south side. It was the most famous painting up here: Declaration of Independence by John Turnbull.

He stood before it, sensing the waft of history that blew through this space. He stared at the brushstrokes done by a painter’s hand centuries ago. But other hands had also been involved in this piece, just as influential. He pictured Jefferson guiding Turnbull, preparing this masterpiece.

Painter gazed up, studying every inch of it, connecting to that past.

The massive canvas depicted the presentation of the Declaration of Independence to Congress. Within this one painting, John Turnbull attempted to include a portrait of everyone who signed the Declaration, a memorial to that pivotal event. But Turnbull couldn’t manage to fit everyone into it. Yet, oddly enough, he did manage to get five people painted in there who had never signed the final draft.

So why include them?

Historians had always wondered.

In his research, Painter read how John Turnbull had offered some obfuscating answers, but none satisfactory — and it was indeed Thomas Jefferson, master of ciphers and codes, who oversaw the completion of this masterwork.

So was there another reason?

At least Meriwether Lewis believed so.

The words deciphered from the buffalo hide ran through Painter’s head as he stared at the strokes of oil on the canvas: Jefferson will leave their name in paint. You can find it thusly: In the turning of the bull, find the five who don’t belong. Let their given names be ordered & revealed by the letters G, C, R, J, T and their numbers 1, 2, 4, 4, 1.

It wasn’t a hard cipher to decode.

Turning of the bull referred, of course, to Turnbull, who had been commissioned to do many public paintings in early America.

Find the five who don’t belong indicated the five nonsigners depicted on the canvas:

John Dickinson

Robert Livingston

George Clinton

Thomas Willing

Charles Thomson

The last of that list, Thomson, did sign an early draft, but he was not invited to inscribe the famous version with its fifty-six signers.

The next bit of the passage—Let their given names be ordered & revealed by the letters G, C, R, J, T — simply meant taking their first names and putting them in the order of those five letters listed.

George

Charles

Robert

John

Thomas

Then all that needed to be done was to select the corresponding letter in each name that matched the number: 1, 2, 4, 4, 1.

The name of Meriwether Lewis’s enemy, the traitorous and secretive family who had confounded the early Founding Fathers, was Ghent.

It seemed meaningless at first — until Painter pondered it more, especially in light of the conversation he had had with Rafael Saint Germaine. The Frenchman had mentioned that the Guild was really a group of ancient families who had been accumulating wealth, power, and knowledge over centuries — possibly millennia — until in modern times only one family remained. His story closely matched Lewis’s tale of the purging of America, in which one family turned out to be rooted too deeply to remove, with ties to slavers & rich beyond measure.

Were these two stories speaking of the same family?

Ghent.

Again, Painter might not have attributed much to this code breaking, except for one nagging coincidence. Ghent was a city in Belgium. That country had kept popping up of late: the team who attacked Gray in Iceland had come from there, as had that smaller burst of neutrinos similar to those at Fort Knox.

So Painter had kept on digging. Ghent was a common surname for people from that city. Someone was John of Ghent or Paul of Ghent. But in more modern times you became simply John Ghent or Paul Ghent. And sometimes just the anglicized pronunciation was used, as it was easier to spell phonetically.

And that’s where Painter found the truth — or so he believed.

Not that he could do anything about it.

He stepped farther back from the painting, taking in its entirety. He studied the figures of Jefferson and Franklin, picturing them standing before this same painting, faced with the same challenge and threat. His own hands were tied as surely as the Founding Fathers’ had been.

During Painter’s research concerning the suspected family, he had discovered that they indeed had roots going back to Ghent, had even used that name before extending their reach to America. They’d been in the colonies at the beginning, entrenched in the slave trade to such an extent that any attempt to remove that single family by force could have ripped the new union apart.

They were the weed in the garden that could not be pulled.

And they still were today.

As America grew, so did this family, rooting and entwining into multiple industries, corporations, and yes, even in the halls of government. They were a thread woven throughout the fabric of this country.

So was it any wonder that Sigma could make no headway against them?

Rafael had said this ancient group of families—the secret in secret societies—went by many names, whispers that were only shadows: the Guild, Echelon, familles de l’étoile, the star families. But Painter knew the true name of the enemy — then and now — anglicized for the American tongue.

They were the Kennedys of the South.

But no longer were they called Ghent.

Now they were called Gant.

As in President James T. Gant.