The Spider and the Stone: A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas (78 page)

As the 13th century dawns, Cathar heretics in southern
France guard an ancient scroll that holds shattering revelations about Jesus
Christ. Esclarmonde de Foix, a beloved Occitan countess, must defy Rome to
preserve the true path to salvation. Christianity suffers its darkest hour in
this epic saga of troubadour love, monastic intrigue, and esoteric mystery set
during the first years of the French Inquisition.

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While investigating the murder of an American missionary in
Ethiopia, State Department lawyer Jaqueline Quartermane discovers an ancient
Latin palindrome embedded with a cryptographic time bomb. Separated by half a
millennium, two espionage conspiracies dovetail in this breakneck thriller to
expose the world’s most explosive secret: The true identity of Christopher
Columbus and the explorer’s connection to those now trying to launch the
Apocalypse.

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Mired in the Great Depression, the United States teeters on
the brink of revolution. And as the summer of 1932 approaches, a charismatic
hobo leads twenty thousand homeless World War I veterans into the nation’s
capital to demand their service compensation. Here is the epic story of
political intrigue and betrayal that culminated in the only pitched battle ever
fought between two American armies under the same flag.

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Islam’s holiest relic has been stolen from Mecca, and retired CIA agent Cas Fielding must recover it before the Saudi royal family is toppled. Teaming with a sultry expert on meteorites, he sees his mission turn into a deadly race to locate the world’s oldest human DNA, proving the old adage that nothing in the Middle East is what it seems.

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“G
ET THIS CHICKENSHIT SLUICE T-T-TROUGH
moving! If you
don’t put a gitty-up on, the damn war’s gonna be over b-b-before we fire a
shot!”

Lt. John Keyes shook his
head at that pathetic yelp of false courage. He had heard similar boasts from
many of the farm boys who had lined up that week at his induction station, but
none sputtered with such an unstrung stammer. The way he sized it, anyone from
around these parts trying to join the Navy had to be a little yellow anyway.
Most of these dust-grimed crackers in overalls hadn’t seen a body of water
larger than a washbasin, and half of them couldn’t swim. All of this Midwestern
bragging about steamrolling across the Pacific to Tokyo was just a cover to
avoid the infantry.

“What’s the d-d-damn
hold-up anyway?”

The officer didn’t bother to look up from the stack of NGCT
intelligence tests that he was grading. “Keep your powder dry, cowboy. There’ll
still be plenty of bullets to go around.”

Ignored, the impatient recruit bit off a couple of
incoherent curses.

The lieutenant leaned back in his metal chair to take a
break from the paperwork. Chilled to the bone, he yawned and pushed his aviator
sunglasses up the bridge of his red nose for cover, hoping to warm his feet
with the memory of Norfolk’s sunny beaches. Crackerjack shore duty that had
been, until the Japs had to go bomb Pearl Harbor and get him transferred to
this Okie Siberia to process enlistments. He closed his eyes and smiled at
those Virginia dolls in their skimpy swimsuits, frolicking in the waves—

A frigid blast of prairie air walloped him harder than a Joe
Louis left hook. Rousted from his daydream, he
returned to the test forms, and now his damn pen was frozen. If those pogue
geniuses in Washington thought this country was ready to fight a war, they
should bunk down a couple of nights at this cattle lick being passed off for a
service base. Hell, the whole damn place was falling apart. Just that morning,
wind gusts had collapsed a section of the Naval Training School’s armory roof,
forcing him to move this human cattle drive outside on the parade ground until
repairs could be made. Disgusted with the dead-end assignment, he took out his
frustration by thumping the pen’s congealed tip against his desk. When its
cheap casing splintered, he tossed the pen over his shoulder and, wiping his
ink-smeared hands on the brown grass, muttered a prediction that they’d all be
eating out of rice bowls soon if those new anti-aircraft guns didn’t last
longer than these—

“Those Nips’ll be in
Frisco by the t-t-time you get us on the boats!”

His patience spent, the
lieutenant shot to his feet to read the riot act to the dribble-mouthed hothead
who kept hectoring him. His jaw dropped at what stood before him: a gaunt old
codger sported a frayed khaki brownshirt, flared cavalry jodhpurs dappled with
mud stains, and scuffed black jackboots that reached to his knees. The tall,
lanky fellow seemed to be a nervous sort, constantly brushing his shocks of
graying blond hair across his mottled head with fingers stained yellow from a
chain of cigarette butts trailing behind him.

An ensign down the line
stopped passing out medical forms and raised his arms in mock surrender. “You’d
better sound all-hands-on-deck, sir. I think we’ve just been invaded by
Mussolini.”

The lieutenant stood grinning at the sodbuster’s ridiculous
Fascist get-up. “Nah, he doesn’t have enough flesh on the bone to be
El
Duce
. I’m thinking he’s the
Fuhrer
in spy disguise. He must have
cut off his mustache and painted his hair white.”

The ensign fingered a rusty trench whistle hanging from a
lanyard around the fellow’s gizzard neck. He blew a couple of razzing toots on
it. “You auditioning for the talkies, old-timer? I hear the Signal Corps is
looking for a Hitler stand-in to make their movies for the war bonds campaign.”

The craggy-faced
volunteer glared damnation at the two officers through his steel-blue eyes.
“You jabbering harebrains wouldn’t have lasted a da-da-day in my army.”

“
Your
army?” The lieutenant motioned up the other
recruits to his desk. “Take a look, boys. Stonewall Jackson has apparently
risen from the dead.”

The geezer waited stoically
for the serenade of rebel yells behind him to fade. Then, he challenged the two
chortling officers. “You g-g-gonna get on with this? Or you g-g-gonna keep
performing your Abbott and Co-co-costello routine till the war’s lost?”

The lieutenant wiped a
tear of laughter from his cheek before it could freeze. “How old are you,
gramps?”

The man cupped an
unsteady hand to his hairy ear. “What’s that?”

“Your age!”

“Forty-three.”

That claim drew puffs of disbelief from the young bucks
around him.

The lieutenant realized
that the half-deaf yarn spinner was dead serious about joining up. He put a
stop to the taunts and warned the man, “Lying under oath on a recruitment form
is a federal offense.”

The jittery volunteer
pointed at a blank sheet of paper on the officer’s desk. “W-w-write ‘er down in
duplicate. S-s-send one to Hirohito.”

The lieutenant circled
the odd fellow to determine if he looked as gimpy from behind as he did from
the front. “What in God’s name happened to you, partner? Appears you got one
step in the grave already.”

“I’ve been th-th-through
a few rough patches with my health. But I can still fire an Enfield.”

“What kind of rough patches?”

The volunteer kept staring at the ground. “It d-d-don’t
matter none.”

“It matters to the U.S.
Navy,” the lieutenant said. “We’re not going let some jag-off slip in just to
freeload medical care. A lot of bums are trying to sponge off the government
these days.”

The man clasped his right hand to stifle a spasm in his
fingers. “There’s more bums
in
the g-g-government these days, from
what I’ve seen.”

“You got the palsy?”

In a near whisper, the man admitted, “I was gassed.”

“Did you say
gassed
? You forget to turn off your
stove, or what?”

“On the Meuse.”

Stealing a look of disbelief at his ensign, the lieutenant
scoffed at the codger, “You really expect us to believe that
you
fought in France?”

“Hundred F-f-forty-Sixth Field Artillery.”

“And you were discharged?”

“Honorable.”

The tale was getting so tall, the lieutenant could hardly
see over it. “I suppose you had a rank, too.”

“Sergeant.”

The lieutenant knew the
half-senile crank was just making it all up. Hell of a mess the Army would have
to be in to promote such a clipped-winged cull to anything higher than a mess
cook. He decided to let him down gently. “Sorry, doughboy, but you’re just a bit
over the age limit.”

“I know my rights. The Navy is t-t-taking men up to age
fifty. I ain’t moving from this spot until I put my John Hancock on one of
those killing contracts.”

“Now listen here—”

“I’ll go over your head to the goddam stripe in charge of
this playground!”

The lieutenant reddened. “You won’t pass the physical
anyway, and you know it.”

The gimpy veteran just glared at the two officers, as if
debating another revelation. Finally, he tried negotiating his way in. “What if
I f-f-fought in another war
after
France?”

The lieutenant rolled his eyes. “We don’t have time for this
nonsense. The country hasn’t been in a war since 1918.”