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“That weapon behind your back will do you no good,” he said.
His eyes momentarily drifted downward, to her shirt, unbuttoned just enough to expose the rim of her breasts.
“I thought you were a gentleman?” she asked.
“That doesn’t mean I’m blind.”
He gestured with his free hand and one of the men grabbed Lea, who started to kick. The second man gripped her ankles and together they hauled her across the chamber. Cassiopeia had already noticed a rectangular yaw in the floor about three meters long and two meters wide.
They tossed Lea in.
She started to rush over, but was stopped by the gun only millimeters away. She faced down Proctor’s penetrating stare with open hostility.
“Go ahead,” he said. “But first.”
He reached around behind her and claimed the pistol with a smile of superior, mocking pleasure.
She ran over and saw that the opening was a vertical connector, like an elevator shaft, down. A wooden ladder stood propped to one side. Darkness filled the cavity.
“Lea, are you all right?”
Nothing.
“Lea.”
“I’m okay,” a voice said from below. “The bottom is real soft.”
Proctor came up close behind her and she caught the garlicky bouquet of a recent meal. “As I said, I’m a gentleman. Your turn. You may jump on your own.”
“Move to one side, Lea, near the ladder. I’m coming down.”
“By the way, that ladder is of no use. Rotten. The rungs are all gone.”
She leaped into the blackness, the world dropping out from under her feet. The plunge was maybe five meters and she landed hard, rolling to one side. But Lea had been right. The ground was thick with powdery earth, which absorbed the impact like a sponge.
Her eyes searched for Lea but could not see the girl.
“You okay?” Lea asked.
She pinpointed the voice.
“Here,” Lea said. “Crawl.”
“It’s a shame we have to part like this,” Proctor said from above. “But it’s important neither one of you is ever found.”
She knew what was about to come, so she scampered toward Lea, who was huddled at the base of the shaft. When dug, the walls at the pit’s bottom had been flared out. Niches had formed, either from the digging or cave-ins. Lea was inside one and she quickly nestled tight to her, forcing both of them into the slit as far as possible, protecting the girl with her body.
Three shots rained down.
Lead thumped into the sandy earth. She knew what the bastard was doing. Aiming all around, knowing one or more would find their mark. So she gave him what he wanted and moaned in feigned agony.
Four more shots came down.
She went silent.
“Do it,” Proctor said from above.
And something whooshed down the shaft, crashing to the floor. Her pupils had dilated enough that the outline was clear.
One of the trunks.
Another followed, then more, each disintegrating atop the other.
She realized what was happening.
They were filling the shaft.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Cotton entered the National Museum of American History after being waved through a security checkpoint thanks to Rick Stamm being with him. The building would not open to the public for another two hours, so its halls were vacant. They made their way across the empty ground floor to a set of stairs, then up one level, past the Star-Spangled Banner display and into a foyer that led to more exhibits. Stamm bypassed those and led him through a closed door that required a security key card.
One swipe and they were inside.
The slick elegance of the public areas gave way to the employee-only portion, where plain white walls and shiny terrazzo floors dominated. They climbed a steep staircase, then Stamm used the swipe card again to gain access to a carpeted, windowless space filled with tracked shelves. Fluorescent lights illuminated everything, the flowing air cool, clean, and dry.
“This is one of several American history archives we have in the building,” Stamm said. “It deals specifically with the 19th century, and most of this stuff has never been displayed.”
The repository where he and Cassiopeia had spent a couple of days reading had been located on the fifth floor, near the main history library where Martin Thomas had worked.
Stamm had explained how the chief justice had drafted Stephanie’s assistance in hiding Martin Thomas’s body for a day or so while they found the man’s killer. Now, Cotton supposed, that duty had fallen to him.
“This is all way out of my league,” Stamm said.
“And yet here you are, right in the middle of things.”
He hoped the message was received. His bullshit-tolerance level had dropped to zero. Time to shoot straight.
The room was about thirty feet square. Painted pipes and conduits ran close to the gray concrete above. No sounds save for the muted hum of the air-conditioning. No luxury, either, only functionality. A single metal desk supported a computer monitor.
He decided to come to the point. “I want to know how my ancestor, Angus Adams, figures into this. Why was I specially recruited?”
He listened as Stamm told him about an 1854 Smithsonian expedition to the newly acquired American Southwest that also involved some covert reconnaissance by the Knights of the Golden Circle.
“Your great-great-grandfather was part of the expedition, working secretly with the Order,” Stamm said. “How much do you know about Adams?”
Quite a bit actually.
And all thanks to his grandfather.
Angus Adams had been one of the Smithsonian’s early hires, a painter who evolved into a first-rate illustrator. A trunk in his grandfather’s attic contained several lithographs Adams created while working at the Smithsonian. In the time before photography, art was the only way specimens could be memorialized. At the outset of the Civil War, Adams quit his job and obtained a lieutenant’s commission, becoming part of Georgia’s famed Cobb’s Legion. In 1862 he was promoted to major and reassigned to spying. Cotton had seen several grainy, black-and-white photographs of Adams, who’d been short and slender with a bushy head of light hair and a thick mustache, both common for the time. More letters revealed a soft, talkative man with a rash of pessimism, reflected in his constant carrying of both a gun and a knife. Friends called him dedicated, enemies labeled him a zealot. Nobody thought him stupid. He seemed to prefer nature over people, music to books, and ideas to silence. Most remarkable was the resemblance he bore to Cotton, there in the chin, eyes, nose, and mouth.
As a spy, Adams had led the first covert incursion into Pennsylvania with twenty other Confederates, posing as a Union unit in search of deserters. He obtained vital intelligence on troop movements, which Lee used in his march toward Gettysburg. He was then sent to Indiana to stir up insurrection as a way to entice that state to join the Confederacy.
And he almost succeeded.
But he was captured and imprisoned in Ohio.
What happened after that evolved into legend.
Supposedly, while in jail, Adams was reading Les Misérables and became inspired by Jean Valjean’s escapes through the Paris underground. He then noticed how dry the lower prison cells were, with no mold, though they remained in perpetual darkness. That might indicate a constant source of fresh air. Sure enough, he dug down and found a masonry-lined tunnel, probably used for drainage. Adams and five others eventually made their escape through it, and he left a note for the warden.
Castle Merion, Cell No. 20. November 27, 1863. Commencement of digging, November 4, 1863. Conclusion, November 20, 1863. Hours for labor per day, three. Tools, two small knives. La patience est amère, mais son fruit est doux. By order of six honorable Confederates.
That was the thing about an eidetic memory. Hard to forget anything. He remembered every word of the note. His grandfather told him that Adams had possessed the same advantage. And what a char
acter, as the brazen note and French phrase illustrated.
Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
The warden had not appreciated having his face rubbed in the insult of an escape, so a massive manhunt ensued. Adams fled south, heading for Kentucky. Near the Ohio River, Union troops cornered him in a small border town. He found refuge inside a farmhouse where the owner lay ill with delirium. Escape was impossible, so he hid himself inside the mattress upon which the sick man lay. When soldiers inspected the house, they checked to see if Adams was the man in the bed, but never thought to look beneath the man, inside the mattress. They left, but posted guards at the door. The following day it rained, but visitors still came to see the sick farmer. Thankfully, the soldiers paid little attention to the faces under the umbrellas, which allowed Adams the opportunity to sneak away. When he made his report to his superiors they were both impressed and amused. One of them made a comment. Something to the effect that Adams was apparently soft as cotton, since no one, not even the sick soul in the bed, had known he was there.
And the name stuck.
Cotton.
“I know a lot about him,” he said to Stamm. “What I don’t know is how he figures into all of this today. Enough for the chief justice of the United States to hire me to help.”
