The Devil Colony (48 page)

“Then, Monsieur Crowe, if you wish your niece to live, you’d best make this exchange as quickly as possible.”

“Listen to me, Rafael. I’ll tell you the location
now
. The Fourteenth Colony is hidden somewhere in Yellowstone National Park. I’m sure that such a resting place makes sense to you, does it not?”

Rafe fought to understand such a drastic turn of events.

Is this a ruse? To what end?

Painter did not let up, speaking rapidly. “Give me an e-mail address. I’ll send you all the relevant data. But in a few short hours, that cache is going to go critical, triggering a blast over a hundredfold stronger than the one in Iceland. But you know that’s not the true danger. That explosion will release a mass of nanobots. They’ll start disassembling any matter they encounter and keep spreading and growing larger. The nano-nest will eat its way down until it reaches the magma chamber under Yellowstone, where it will ignite the supervolcano buried beneath that park. The resulting cataclysm will be the equivalent of a mile-wide asteroid slamming into the earth. It means the end of most life, certainly all
human
life.”

Rafe found himself breathing harder.
Could he be telling the truth?

“I doubt that such destruction will serve even your aims,” Painter continued. “Or those of anyone you work with, for that matter. We either team up, share our knowledge, in order to stop this from happening, or it’s the end of everything.”

“I . . . I will need time to think about this.” Rafe hated to hear the stammer in his own voice.

“Don’t take long,” Painter warned. “Again I will send you all of our data—whatever you want. But Yellowstone is spread over two million acres, and this creates a huge challenge to us. We must still discover and pinpoint the lost city’s exact location, and we must do it while the clock keeps ticking downward.”

Rafe checked his wristwatch. If the director was telling the truth, they had until 6:15
A.M.
to find the lost city and neutralize the material that was hidden there.

“Send me what you have,” Rafe said, and gave him an e-mail address.

“You have my number.” Painter signed off.

Rafael lowered the phone, hanging his head in thought.

Do I believe you, Monsieur Crowe? Could you be telling the truth?

Rafe lifted his head enough to glance toward Kai Quocheets.

The director had never asked once about his niece. That, more than anything, spoke to his honesty. What did it matter if he negotiated for one life when the lives of all of mankind were at risk?

The phone rang again, making Rafe jump. He stared down at the mobile device in his hand, wired to the encrypting software. But that wasn’t the source of the ringing. He turned to the dining room buffet, where his personal laptop and cell phone rested. He watched his phone vibrate and heard it ring again.

Leaning more heavily on his cane than he usually did, he stepped over and retrieved the device. His personal phone was meant only for direct communication with his family, along with a few of his associates at the research facilities back in the French Alps. But the caller ID simply listed the caller’s name as blocked. That made no sense. His phone didn’t accept blocked calls.

He was ready to dismiss the matter and not respond, but the phone was already in his hand and he needed something to distract himself with while he awaited the data from Painter Crowe.

Irritated, Rafe lifted the device to his ear. “Who is this?”

The voice was American, soft-spoken, nondescript, perhaps a hint of a Southern accent, but too faint for Rafe to tell anything more than that. The man told him his name.

Rafe’s cane slipped from his hand and clattered to the marble floor. He reached back to the buffet to catch himself. He noted Ashanda rising, ready to come to his aid. He sternly shook his head at her.

The caller spoke calmly, distinctly, with no threat in his voice, only certainty. “We’ve heard the news. You’ll cooperate with Sigma to the fullest extent. What is to come must be stopped for all our sakes. We have full confidence in your abilities.”

“Je vous en prie,”
he said breathlessly, cringing to note that he’d slipped into French inadvertently.

“Once you’ve accomplished your goal, anyone outside your party who has knowledge of what is discovered must be destroyed. But be warned. Director Crowe has been underestimated in the past.”

Rafe’s gaze flicked to Kai. “I may have a way of neutralizing any threat he poses, but I will still be careful.”

“With such brittle bones, I’m sure that is a trait you’ve honed well.”

While this might be taken as a vague insult, the gentle amusement—even in such trying times—made it clear that the speaker’s intent was nothing but good-natured.

“Adieu,”
the man said in French, equally accommodating. “I have matters I must address out east here.”

The phone clicked off.

Rafe turned promptly to TJ, who was packing the last of the computer gear. “Raise Painter Crowe for me.” To Bern, he said, “Have the men ready to leave in fifteen minutes.”

“Where are we headed?” Bern asked. He wasn’t prying; it was just a need-to-know inquiry to better prepare his team.

“To Yellowstone.”

TJ interrupted. “Connection’s ringing, sir.”

Rafe took the phone, ready to make the deal.

He knew better than to disobey. The honor of the moment warmed through him, hardening his resolve, if not his bones. He was the first in his family to ever speak to a member of the True Bloodline.

Chapter 34

June 1, 4:34
A.M.
Outside Nashville, Tennessee

It would soon be getting lighter.

Gray wasn’t sure if this was a positive development. They’d barely made it out of Nashville, having to take surface streets and back roads, sticking to the speed limits. Monk had done the driving while Gray coordinated matters with Painter Crowe.

With one goal accomplished, the director had assigned him another: to attempt to narrow down the location of the Fourteenth Colony settlement by following the historical trail. They’d dogged Archard Fortescue’s path to Iceland and back. Now they had to see if they could track the Frenchman’s subsequent footsteps.

That meant they weren’t the only ones who were getting no sleep.

“Calling this early is becoming a habit, Mr. Pierce,” Eric Heisman said over the phone, but rather than irritated, he sounded excited.

Kat had arranged the call, passing it through the Sigma switchboard to scramble the connection.

“I’ve got you on speaker,” Gray said. He needed everyone’s input. Now was not the time to miss a critical insight or overlook an important detail. Gray wanted everybody’s fingerprints all over this case.

Seichan sat up from the backseat, listening in.

Monk was driving slowly down Shelbyville Highway south of the city. At this hour, it was deserted, which allowed him to focus all of his attention on the call. Kat also listened in on the other end, from Sigma command.

Heisman filled them in where he’d left off in his scholarly investigations. “Sharyn and I pulled everything we could on the Lewis and Clark expedition and its relationship to Yellowstone. I also consulted with Professor Henry Kanosh just a few minutes ago. He saved me much time and effort by researching the Native American side of the equation.”

Gray urged the man along, sensing the press of time. Kat had already informed him that Painter, along with a French team of Guild operatives, was already en route to Yellowstone, where the two groups would jointly work on the puzzle from ground zero. Not a good situation from any perspective. Gray was determined to help from afar in any way he could.

“And you found no evidence that Lewis and Clark’s team ever entered Yellowstone?” Gray asked.

“No. But I find it odd, almost beyond comprehension, that they missed it. The expedition crossed to within only
forty
miles of the park. According to Professor Kanosh, the Native American tribes had been secretive about the geothermal valley, but the expedition had bushels of trinkets and coins to ply Indians for any information about unique natural features: plants, animals, geology. Someone would have eventually tipped their hand and talked about such an unusual valley.”

“So you think they did find it?” Seichan asked from the backseat.

“If they did, they erased their tracks very well. So far the only evidence we do have to support such a claim is weak at best. We know all records of Archard Fortescue came to a halt after he left with the expedition led by Meriwether Lewis. We know Lewis was murdered a few years after returning. But that’s a far cry from saying either of them found that lost Indian city, that heart of the Fourteenth Colony.”

“Then let’s work this backward,” Gray suggested, turning the puzzle around in his head. “Let’s start with the death of Meriwether Lewis. Let’s assume the expedition
did
discover the truth and that Lewis’s murder was somehow connected to the discovery. Can you tell us again about the manner of his death?”

“Well, he was struck down in October of 1809, at a wayside inn called Grinder’s Stand in Tennessee, not far from Nashville.”

Gray glanced to the others.

Nashville?

Monk mumbled, “Oh yeah, looks like we’re still dogging after those guys. First to Iceland and now Tennessee.”

Heisman didn’t hear him and continued: “Again, there’s no solid explanation for Lewis’s death. Despite the double gunshot wounds—one to the gut, one to the head—his death was deemed a suicide. It remained the belief for centuries, until just recently. It’s now widely accepted that Lewis was indeed murdered, whether as part of a robbery or an outright assassination or both.”

“What details do we know about the night he died?” Gray asked.

“There are numerous accounts, but the best comes from Mrs. Grinder herself, the innkeeper’s wife, who was there alone that night. She reported gunshots, sounds of a struggle, and heard Lewis call out for help, but she was too scared to check on him until daybreak. She eventually found him dying in his room, barely hanging on to life, sprawled atop his buffalo-skin robe, which was soaked in his blood. It is said his last words were mysterious.
‘I have done the business
.
’
As if he’d thwarted his murderers in some manner at the end.”

Gray felt his pulse quicken with the telling, knowing this had to be important. But there was something else Heisman had mentioned . . .

The curator wasn’t done. “But rumors are many about Lewis’s last days, about who might have killed him. The best evidence points to Brigadier General James Wilkinson, a known conspirator of the traitor Aaron Burr. Some believe the general orchestrated the murder. Those same stories hint that Lewis was still acting as Jefferson’s spy, that he had with him something vital that he wanted to bring to D.C.”

Gray pictured one of the gold plates. Was Grinder’s Stand the place where the Guild originally got hold of their own plate? He recalled how he imagined Lewis as a colonial version of a Sigma operative:
spy, soldier, scientist
. Was Wilkinson one of the great enemies mentioned by Jefferson and Franklin, a predecessor to the modern Guild? Did he murder Lewis to gain possession of that tablet?

Gray felt history repeating itself.

Is that same battle still going on two centuries later?

Still, he sensed he was missing a key element to the story, something that snagged in his mind, but slipped through without catching.

Seichan beat him to it. “You mentioned that Lewis bled out on top of a buffalo-skin robe.”

“That’s right.”

Gray glanced at her appreciatively, but Seichan merely shrugged. “Dr. Heisman,” he asked, “didn’t Fortescue’s journal mention that the mastodon’s skull was wrapped in a
buffalo skin
?”

“Let me check.” Heisman whistled slowly, the sound accompanied by a shuffling of pages. “Ah, here it is. It’s mentioned simply as
‘a painted buffalo hide.’
”

“Whatever happened to it?” Seichan asked.

“It doesn’t say.”

Gray followed up with his own question. “Is there any record of Jefferson ever owning a
painted
buffalo skin?”

“Now that you mention it, yes. In fact, the president amassed a huge private collection of Indian artifacts that he kept in his home at Monticello. A highly decorated skin was one of his showcase items. It was said he received the hide from Lewis, who sent it back from the trail during the expedition. It was said to be stunning and very old. But upon his death, most of Jefferson’s collection, including that spectacular hide, vanished.”

Odd . . .

Gray ruminated for a time. Could the buffalo hide in all these stories be the same one? Had Lewis taken it with him in order to help him find that lost city? Did it take both the map
and
the hide to solve the puzzle of the Fourteenth Colony? Afterward, did Lewis send the hide back to Jefferson as some token of his success?

Gray knew he had nothing solid to go on: there were too many suppositions, too many holes. For example, why was the skin again in Lewis’s possession at the time of his death? Was its presence the reason he spoke those cryptic words in the final moments of his life—
I have done the business
? Had he lost the gold tablet to Wilkinson or some other thief, but retained the more important buffalo hide?

A new player in the game spoke. “Dr. Heisman,” Kat asked over the phone, “can you tell us anything about what happened to Lewis’s body?”

“Nothing special. A tragedy considering he was such a national hero. But because his death was deemed a suicide, he was buried on the spot, on the grounds of that same inn. There in Tennessee.”

“And can we assume he was interred with all of his possessions?” Kat asked.

“That was usually done. Sometimes the authorities would send any money found on the bodies or something of sentimental value to their surviving heirs.”