The Jefferson Key

11:20 PM

WYATT SURVEYED THE FORESTED CAMPUS OF THE GARVER INSTITUTE. The cluster of five brick buildings, each three stories high, sat in a wooded glen a quarter mile off a state highway. Clouds rolled across the black sky, veiling a half-moon. A splatter of rain had followed him from the small airport a few miles away where Andrea Carbonell had left him. Thunder clapped in the distance.

He’d purposefully not driven into one of the lit parking lots, the hundred or so spaces vacant. In fact, he’d left the car Carbonell had provided him on the highway and walked in. Ready for whatever might be waiting.

He’d watched as Carbonell left, flying south, toward the Potomac and Virginia. Washington lay north. Where was she going now?

He used a progression of pine trees lining the lane for cover and kept easing toward the one building where lights still burned on the second floor. Carbonell had said that the office he sought was located there, a Dr. Gary Voccio, supposedly some mathematician supreme. The good doctor was told to wait until an agent appeared with the appropriate password, then to provide all data and information on the Jefferson cipher only to him.

His gaze raked the darkness, his alert level rising from yellow to orange. A chill coursed through his body. He wasn’t alone. Though he couldn’t see them, he sensed them. Carbonell had warned they’d be here. Why hadn’t they moved on the institute already? The answer was clear.

They were waiting for him.

Or someone else.

Prudence advised caution, but he decided to not disappoint them.

So he stepped from his cover and walked straight for the lit building.