The Devil Colony (57 page)

“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

June 8, 7:22
A.M.
Washington, D.C.

“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?”

8:04
A.M.

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.”