The Lincoln Myth (57 page)

S
ALAZAR LOOKED FOR THE ANGEL
. B
UT THE VISION WAS GONE
.

He still held the gun, but no muscle in his body seemed to work. He lingered for a moment, his muscles shutting down, yet he was still aware of the surroundings.

Blackness enveloped.

The world blinked in and out.

The last thing he saw was Cassiopeia’s face.

And his last thought was a wish that things had been different between them.

C
ASSIOPEIA RUSHED TO
J
OSEPE AS HE DROPPED TO THE HARD
earth. No question he was dead. Cotton had shot him twice, once in the chest, once in the head. Just like she knew would happen.

Stephanie stood.

Contempt filled Cassiopeia’s eyes and she glared at Cotton. “Are you satisfied now?”

“I gave him a chance to stop.”

“Not much of one.”

“He would have shot you.”

“No, he wouldn’t. You both should have let me handle this.”

“That was impossible,” Stephanie said.

“You’re murderers.”

“No, we’re not,” Stephanie said, her voice rising.

“You tell yourself that. Make yourself feel better. But you’re not a damn bit different than he was.”

SEVENTY

W
ASHINGTON
, D.C.

M
ONDAY
, O
CTOBER
13

4:50
A.M
.

S
TEPHANIE FOLLOWED
D
ANNY
D
ANIELS AS THEY CLIMBED THE
steps inside the Washington Monument. The president had walked from the White House in the predawn chill. She’d been waiting for him outside the lower entrance. He’d called her yesterday, on the flight back from Utah, and told her to be here.

She and Luke had returned alone. Cotton had taken another flight overseas to Copenhagen. Cassiopeia had stayed, intent on returning Salazar’s body to Spain. At
Falta Nada
the air had been tense afterward, Cassiopeia refusing to speak to any of them. Malone had tried to approach her, but she’d rebuked him. Wisely, he opted to leave her alone. Cassiopeia had been partly right. They
were
murderers. Only with a free pass to stay out of jail. She’d always wondered why it was right to kill in her business. All that
greater good
crap, she supposed. But killing was killing, no matter where, how, or why.

“My boy did good, didn’t he?” Daniels asked her, as they climbed.

She knew who
my boy
was. “Luke handled himself like a pro.”

“He’s goin’ to be fine. You’re going to be glad you have him. I even think he and I might make our peace.”

She was glad that Danny had settled another score.

One more step toward retirement.

She’d never been inside the Washington Monument. Strange, considering she’d seen it thousands of times. Just one of those visits that had always been delayed. Made entirely of marble, granite, and bluestone gneiss, the 555-foot obelisk carried the distinction of being the tallest stone structure in the world. It had stood since 1884, when its capstone was finally laid. A rare East Coast earthquake a few years back damaged its exterior, which took three years to repair.

“Any reason why we can’t use the elevator?” she asked him.

“You’ll see.”

“Where are we going?”

The Secret Service waited at the bottom of the staircase, which right-angled its way from the ground to the top—a long climb, 897 risers, as the site superintendent had explained below.

“Only about halfway up,” he said. “What is it? You out of shape?”

She smiled. He seemed back to his old self. “I can keep up with you anytime, anywhere.”

He stopped and turned back. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“I sincerely hope so.”

They were alone, both of them comfortable with the other. Soon he would not be the president of the United States and she would not be his employee.

She pointed to what he was holding.

A laptop computer.

“I was unaware you could use one of those?”

“I’ll have you know that I’m actually quite good on one.”

He offered nothing more as to why he’d brought it along, but she’d expected little.

They started to climb more stairs.

Along the way, embedded into the exterior walls were commemorative stones, carved with patriotic messages from donors. She’d noticed references to particular towns, cities, and states, many countries, Masonic lodges, Bible verses, maps, military regiments, colleges, a bit of anything and everything.

“Were these all donated?” she asked.

“Every one. All in honor of George Washington. There are 193 of them inside.”

They hadn’t spoken of Rowan or Salazar, beyond her curt report that both had died, neither at the hand of anyone officially connected to the U.S. government. Charles Snow had been waiting for them outside the cave, a sad, forlorn look on his face. U.S. Army personnel were dispatched to remove the bodies. All evidence of a gunshot was removed from Rowan’s remains, the wound erased by an extensive autopsy performed by military pathologists. The senator’s family had been told that he died of a heart attack while on church business with the prophet. He would be given an elaborate funeral in Salt Lake sometime this week. Salazar’s body was released to Cassiopeia, who flew to Spain aboard Salazar’s jet.

Daniels stopped ahead of her on the next platform. “This is the 220-foot level. My thighs actually do ache. I’m not accustomed to that kind of workout.”

Hers were throbbing, too.

“We’re here for that,” he said, pointing to another of the commemorative stones.

She studied the rectangle, this one featuring what appeared to be a beehive resting atop a table. Above the hive was an all-seeing eye that radiated downward, revealing the words
HOLINESS TO THE LORD
, which crowned the hive. Beneath the table was carved
DESERET
. An assortment of three-dimensional trumpets, flowers, vines, and leaves sprang from the stone.

“This was donated in September 1868 by Brigham Young himself. The stone was quarried in Utah and carved by a Mormon pioneer named William Ward. The beehive was the symbol for the state of Deseret, which is what Young wanted to call his new land. Of course, we had other ideas. It would be nearly thirty years before statehood came their way, but this clearly illustrates Young’s early intentions.”

Daniels hinged open the laptop and laid it on the steps leading up from where they stood. The screen came to life with an image of Charles Snow.

“It’s real early out where you are,” the president said to the prophet.

“That it is. But I haven’t slept much these past few days.”

“I know the feeling. Me either.”

“I’ve been praying for Elder Rowan and Brother Salazar. I only hope Heavenly Father is kind to them.”

“We did what had to be done. You know that’s true.”

“I wonder how many of my predecessors said the same thing. They did things, too, that they thought had to be done. But does it make them right?”

“They gave us no choice,” the president said. “None at all.”

“I see the stone behind you. It’s been a long time since I gazed upon it. I visited the monument once, long ago, when you could still climb the stairs and see them.”

She wondered what was happening. Why the cyberlink to Utah, which she assumed was on an encoded line?

“Our church has always cherished stone,” Snow said. “It is our preferred building material. Maybe because it is harder to destroy. Our wooden temples never stood for long, most burned away by mobs. Finally, once we began to construct them of thick rock, they endured. To this day, nearly all of those early structures remain.”

She stared again at the donation from Utah.

“Stone has also held another special purpose,” Snow said. “Joseph Smith first glimpsed the golden plates inside a stone box. On October 2, 1841, Smith placed the original manuscript of Book of Mormon inside the Nauvoo Hotel cornerstone. Brigham Young sealed documents and coins inside the cornerstone for the Salt Lake temple, a practice that has been repeated many times at other temples. For us, sealing things inside rock is a sign of reverence.”

It hit her. “The document from the founders is here?”

“Brigham Young thought it only fitting that it be returned to Washington,” Snow said. “So he sealed it inside his gift for the monument. This he told to John Taylor, the man who ultimately succeeded him, and the secret has been passed from prophet to prophet. We revere this nation, and are honored to be a part of it. Only a few,
like Rowan, thought otherwise. But these men were anomalies, no different from the radicals of any other religion. The men who ultimately rose to lead this church realized the gravity of what they knew, so they kept the secret. As they should.”

“Is that why Nixon was rebuffed in 1970?” Daniels asked.

“Precisely. There was no way the information would be revealed. Rowan, to his credit, is the first to ever learn as much as he did. But being next in line gave him access few others had ever possessed. Being a senator opened up even more resources.”

She stepped to the commemorative stone and lightly caressed its pale gray surface. Behind the façade hid a document that could dismantle the United States of America.

“Why am I here?” she asked. “Why allow me to know this?”

“Those deaths weigh on us all,” Daniels said. “You have a right to know that what they died for actually exists.”

She appreciated the gesture. But she’d been around the block too many times to count. A lot of people had died on her watch. None of the deaths was easy, and none was forgotten.

“Abraham Lincoln’s reputation remains intact,” Snow said from the screen. “As it should. Every nation needs its heroes.”

“The greatest enemy of truth is often not the lie—deliberate, contrived and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.”

She was impressed with Daniels’ statement and asked about its source.

“John Kennedy. And he’s right. A myth is so much harder to counter than a lie. We’ll allow the Lincoln myth to continue. It seems to have served this country well.”

“Within the White Horse Prophecy,” Snow said, “the people of the Rocky Mountains, Saints, were described as the White Horse. It was said they will establish Zion and guard the Constitution. The people of the United States were the Pale Horse. The Black Horse was the force of darkness threatening the Constitution. Then there was the Red Horse, not specifically identified, but noted as a powerful force that would play a key role.”

Snow paused.

“Ms. Nelle, you, Mr. Malone, and the young Mr. Daniels are that Red Horse. Joseph Smith said that he
loved the Constitution. It was made by the inspiration of God and it will be preserved and saved by the efforts of the White Horse and by the Red Horse who will combine in its defense
. We’ve always thought that prophecy suspect, created long after the Civil War, more fiction than truth, but everything played out exactly as predicted. So whoever may have created the prophecy was right.”

“What do we do about what’s inside this stone?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Daniels said. “There it will stay.”

“And Madison’s notes on the subject?”

“I burned them.”

She was shocked to hear that, but understood the necessity. Katie Bishop had already been sworn to secrecy, on threat of criminal prosecution. But with no tangible evidence, anything she might say would never be believed.

“All is as it was,” Daniels said.

But she wondered about that.