The Lincoln Myth (Cotton Malone 9)

She said nothing.

The sirens kept coming.

“Go,” she finally said. “Get us out of here.”

He fired up the Mustang’s engine.

Tires spun, then grabbed a firm patch, and they sped away.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Now that, darlin’, is going to blow your mind.”

FORTY-THREE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

ROWAN WAITED UNTIL STEPHANIE NELLE HAD LEFT THE READING room and the doors were closed before he focused on the book. He felt awe that Lincoln himself had held what lay on the table and pondered the meaning of lessons from long ago.

It shall be brought out of darkness unto light, according to the word of God. Yea, it shall be brought out of the earth, it shall shine forth out of the darkness and come unto the knowledge of the people, and it shall be done by the power of God. For the eternal purposes of the Lord shall roll on until all of his promises shall be fulfilled.

A prophecy, voiced just before the sacred golden record was hidden in the earth, where it was found centuries later by Joseph Smith and converted to the book before him.

Rowan had dedicated his life to his religion. His parents and theirs before them had all been Saints. Rowans had served the prophets, enduring both good and bad. Many had died to preserve what those before them had created. Why should this generation be any different? Charles R. Snow had done nothing but retreat and conform. His leadership had been irrelevant and uninspiring. The church remained fractured, with offshoots in Missouri and Pennsylvania, and smaller ones scattered around the world. Each believed in Joseph Smith as prophet and founder. They accepted the Book of Mormon. But they disagreed on many fundamental issues.

And they were not wrong.

So many tenets Joseph Smith and Brigham Young instituted had been either abandoned or repudiated by later leadership in Salt Lake.

Most prominent was the belief in plural marriage, which many fundamentalists still held as central to their religion.

As he believed.

The prophet Smith decreed the practice essential, and no later decision made for political and public relations reasons could reverse that. For Rowan, personally, monogamy was fine. But a Saint should have the choice, as the Prophet Joseph decreed.

The time had come to reassemble as many of the faithful who wanted under one banner. But that could not be done while the U.S. government still wielded power. Each state should be free to chart its own course, especially in matters of faith and religion. Congress had no business in the hearts and minds of individuals.

If the people only knew.

He’d served thirty-three years in the Senate. Sadly, nothing ever seemed to get done unless it benefited a select few, the government as a whole, or both. Nothing ever passed simply because it was good for the country, or the states, or the people. Those were the farthest things from most legislators’ minds. Every congressman quickly learned that his or her only goal was to gather enough resources for the next election. Beyond that? Not a worry, until the next election was over. How many times had he watched as one lobbyist after another metamorphosed a good bill into a bad one. He’d never accepted one penny from a lobbyist. He rarely talked with them, and when he did, it was always in a group so there’d be no misunderstanding as to what was said. His reelections were paid for by individual donations from constituents inside Utah, all of which were reported in minute detail. If the voters were dissatisfied with that arrangement, they were free to elect someone else. But for the past thirty-three years, the people of his state had chosen him.

He stared down at the book.

Brigham Young had written in the note sealed within the cornerstone that Lincoln told my emissary that he had read the Book of Mormon. As a young legislator in Illinois, Lincoln had known Saints. He actually helped obtain approval for the Nauvoo city charter, which granted them unprecedented autonomy. For thirty-two years, starting with Franklin Pierce and ending with Chester Arthur, presidents of the United States showed nothing but harshness toward the church. Lincoln’s five years were the sole oasis. In death his stature with Saints only grew. He emerged constantly at conference talks, in lesson manuals, in anecdotes. Rowan never realized the full extent of the connection until he began this quest.

But now he understood.

Did this book hold the key?

The moment he’d read Brigham Young’s note he knew where he had to look. Two months after our bargain was sealed Lincoln sent me a telegram that said Samuel, the Lamanite, stood guard over our secret, among the Word, which gave me great comfort. Three words—among the Word—had made him immediately think of the book kept safe in the Library of Congress, the one Lincoln himself had read.

He opened to the first few pages and studied the tiny print. Nothing unusual had appeared on the front endpapers, so he checked the back ones.

All blank.

He could thumb through every page, but there were hundreds and that would take time. So he allowed the tissue-thin pages to slip past his thumb as he rifled through in rapid succession, his eyes scanning for anything unusual.

He saw something.

He stopped and found the page.

Part of the Book of Helaman. More precisely, chapter 13. The prophecy of Samuel, the Lamanite, to the Nephites. He knew the story, from around five hundred years before the coming of Christ. It told of the righteousness of the Lamanites and the wickedness of the Nephites. In no uncertain terms Samuel predicted the destruction of the Nephites, unless they repented.

Atop the type on the page, penned in ink, was a drawing.

He found the copy of the map from the temple cornerstone, which Snow had provided to him. They were the same, except this one had writing.

He noticed the printed passages that lay beneath the drawing.

19 For I will, saith the Lord, that they shall hide up their treasures unto me; and cursed be they who hide not up their treasures unto me; for none hideth up their treasures unto me save it be the righteous; and he that hideth not up his treasures unto me, cursed is he, and also the treasure, and none shall redeem it because of the curse of the land.

20 And the day shall come that they shall hide up their treasures, because they have set their hearts upon riches; and because they have set their hearts upon their riches, and will hide up their treasures when they shall flee before their enemies; because they will not hide them up unto me, cursed be they and also their treasures; and in that day shall they be smitten, saith the Lord.

21 Behold ye, the people of this great city, and hearken unto my words; yea, hearken unto the words which the Lord saith; for behold, he saith that ye are cursed because of your riches, and also are your riches cursed because ye have set your hearts upon them, and have not hearkened unto the words of him who gave them unto you.

He smiled.

Lincoln had chosen his page with care.

The Nephites rejected Samuel and ultimately stoned the prophets.

A warning?

Perhaps.

But he had no choice. He had to move forward.

He noticed that something was missing from the map. One location unidentified. That could be problematic. He’d already recognized some of the locales. They were in the mountains northeast of Salt Lake, in an area long suspected of holding secrets. But the area contained thousands of miles of wilderness, with few or no markers, and the omitted reference seemed to be an end point.

Lincoln had hedged his bets and not revealed all.

At the bottom of the page was scrawled Romans 13:11. He could not recall the gist of the passage.

Why had it been included?

He stared past the open blinds, out the window, at the illuminated Capitol dome. He needed time to think

and could not leave this evidence.

Heavenly Father forgive him.

Never had he defaced the scriptures.

But he carefully tore the page from the book.

FORTY-FOUR

3:50 A.M.

LUKE HAD FLED MONTPELIER QUICKLY, FINDING THE HIGHWAY and speeding north out of Virginia to Washington, D.C. Katie had sat in the backseat, quiet for the most part, only occasionally engaging in conversation. She’d kept the gun, but obviously knew little about it. He wasn’t stupid enough to leave a loaded weapon around for anyone to get hold of. He kept the magazine beneath the driver’s seat, easy to get, if you knew where to look. Which she didn’t. He’d checked and was comforted to discover it was still hidden away.

They were now off the highway, headed into the city, the streets devoid of cars at this godforsaken hour. Luckily he’d always been a night person, so his mind was alert.

“You ever watch The Andy Griffith Show?” he asked her.

“Sure. Who hasn’t?”

“Remember how Barney wanted to carry a gun. Made a big thing out of it. But Andy made him keep the bullets in his pocket.”

Katie said nothing.

“The gun’s not loaded,” he told her.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Pull the trigger.”

He watched her in the rearview mirror.

She did nothing.

“You said you knew how to use one. So use it.”

He heard a click. Then another. And another.