The Devil Colony (Sigma Force 7)

Uh-oh.

Rather than listening to all the messages, he hit redial. Might as well hear how things had gone from the horse’s mouth. The phone rang and rang and then went to voice mail.

That tension in his back squeezed his spine a little tighter. Wanting to know what happened, he listened through the rest of the messages.

“Gray, it’s your mother again. It’s getting bad, so I’m going to call that number for the home-health-care worker you left in case of an emergency.”

Very good, Mom . . .

The next few messages grew increasingly more distraught. The home-health-care worker thought his father was having a bad enough episode to warrant a hospital visit.

“Gray, they want to keep your father for a couple days. Run another MRI . . . is that right, Luis?” In the background, he heard a faint, “That’s right, Harriet.” Then his mother again. “Anyway, everything’s fine. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

But there were another five calls after that. He continued on, discovering that his mother was growing confused herself about tests, insurance, paperwork.

“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.