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“There’s a lot of gold buried up here,” his father said. “More than any of us could ever spend. But it ain’t ours. Others own it. Our job is to protect it.”
He considered that. It seemed important.
“And besides,” his father said, “I don’t know how to find the hidin’ places.”
They crested the ridge and the ground leveled off.
His father stopped his horse before a holly tree. “Look there.”
He’d already spotted the carving. A snake of some sort, in the bark.
“I can’t read the signs,” his father said. “I have no idea what they mean. That was on purpose. We just watch over ’em. Protect ’em. Make sure they last. So before I pass, I’ll show you all of ’em I know.”
“But he never did,” Morse said. “He died a year later from a fall off his horse, while huntin’ more cows.”
“What about the stone?” Cotton asked, getting back to the original question.
“He showed me. That first day, when we found the snake on the tree.”
“There are sentinels, then there are special ones, like us,” his father said. “Sure, there’s lots of gold all around here in the ground, but there’s also somethin’ extra important. And that I do know how to find.”
They rode for a few minutes in silence. Then his father stopped and dismounted. He did, too. In the underbrush, near a stand of elm, he saw the rusted remnants of an iron strongbox.
“That came off a stage robbed near Hot Springs back in the 1870s.”
On one side, visible through the rust were the faint letters WELLS FARGO.
“Jesse James left that here when he hid the gold it contained. He was a knight of the Golden Circle. All those banks he robbed. That gold ended up in these hills, hidden away, belongin’ to the Order. But there’s somethin’ else you need to know. Somethin’ real special I was told by my pa.”
“Most of that gold is gone,” Morse said.
Cotton stared at the older man.
“They came and got it.”
“Who came?” Cassiopeia asked.
“Knights. They went all around everywhere and collected the gold, leavin’ only some.”
“And did what with it?” Cotton asked.
“Took it to one place. They called it the vault. We never knew where, just that it was all bein’ brought together. A few of the smaller hidin’ places were all they left. But my grandpa and my pa were given a extra-special job. One that passed to me. We guarded that stone out there.”
“And why is it so important?”
“It leads to the vault.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
WASHINGTON, DC
10:45 P.M.
Stephanie retreated from the rotunda as Smithsonian security and the local police examined the shattered display case. Rick had gone silent, professing to know nothing. One of the DC police approached her and wanted some information. Her first inclination was to tell them about Thomas’ murder, but a plea from Rick’s eyes asked her to stay silent. So she just flashed her Magellan Billet badge and told the officers to take it up with the U.S. attorney general.
“What about Thomas’ body?” she whispered to Rick as they stood off to one side in the rotunda.
“At the moment, only a couple of people know about that.”
“What in the world have you brought me into?”
She drifted away, taking another look at the shattered wooden display case. The inside housed the institution’s ceremonial objects, each described by a printed card. On the rear wall hung a mace made of gold, silver, diamonds, rubies, and polished Smithsonite, a mineral first identified by James Smithson and named for him after his death. From the placard she also learned that the mace was encrusted with symbolism relating to Smithson. She knew that universities employed a mace to represent jurisdiction, authority, and academic independence. She assumed those same ideals applied here, and she read how the mace was presented to each incoming secretary. Also displayed was a sterling-silver salver and badge of office.
Lying at the bottom, a printed card described the ceremonial key.
The tradition of passing this key to the incoming Secretary originated with the 1964 induction of S. Dillon Ripley, as eighth Secretary of the Smithsonian. In lieu of the administration of an oath of office, outgoing secretary Leonard Carmichael proposed instead a key-passing ceremony based on similar ones frequently used in the inauguration of university presidents. Chief Justice Earl Warren, Chancellor of the Smithsonian at the time, presented the key to Ripley prior to the January 23, 1964, meeting of the Board of Regents. The key, as a representation of knowledge and of guardianship, is an appropriate Smithsonian symbol. Dating to 1849, this large brass key may have opened one of the original massive oak doors of the building.
Beside the card sat a small wooden box, hinged open, lined with blue velvet. An indentation outlined what appeared to be a skeleton key.
Gone.
“What about the key that’s not here?” one of the DC police asked, noticing the empty container, too.
“It’s been out of there for a while,” Rick said. “We’re duplicating it.”
“You have any idea why this case is the only thing destroyed?”
“Could have been an accident,” she said. “He was in a hurry to leave.”
“And you were here because—?”
“Just helping out a friend.”
She turned and faced Rick, who stood on the far side of the rotunda. He slowly nodded, both agreeing with her statement and thanking her for the partial lie.
A cell phone buzzed and she watched as Rick answered, then drifted down the hall for privacy. What was so important about a ceremonial key that it cost Martin Thomas his life?
“Stephanie.”
She turned.
Rick motioned for her to come.
She left the police and approached.
“Someone wants to speak with you.”
* * *
They descended the spiral staircase back to Rick’s basement office. There he led her into the tunnel beneath the Mall and over to the natural history museum. When they came to Thomas’ body she saw that it had been covered with a sheet and a security guard stood watch. Rick had locked the gate on the Castle side when they entered, and another guard was on sentry at the portal inside natural history.
“No one will come in here,” he told her.
They made their way up to the Cullman Library, where an hour ago all this had begun. Everything inside the natural history museum loomed cemetery-quiet. During the day this was a place of people, light, and noise. Rick had told her that no cleaning crews worked inside any of the buildings after hours. All that work was done during the day. So at night the exhibits slumbered alone, in a surreal silence. Easy to see why books and films liked to dramatize the tranquility.
A man waited for them inside the library. A monk’s ring of white hair, like a halo, encircled a bald pate. He carried some girth at his waistline, beef to his limbs, and puffiness around the eyes, but this gentleman had a reputation for brilliance.
Warren Weston.
Chief Justice of the United States.
Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” the jurist said, rising as she came into the library.
Rick turned to leave.
“No. Please stay.”
“I need to see about Martin. I’ll be back.”
And he left.
“I’m afraid I’m the reason you’re involved in this,” Weston said to her. “We needed help, and I learned that you and Rick were friends, so I asked him to call you.”
“After you involved Cotton Malone. Mind telling me why?”
“That’s a long story.”
She nearly smiled. Exactly what Cotton liked to say when people asked him about his name.
“We have a serious situation here,” Weston said. “One that seems to have taken a tragic turn. I was informed about what happened, so I t
