The Lost Order (Cotton Malone 12)

“We lost you on the radio,” he whispered, approaching close. “Oh, no,” he said, seeing Thomas’ body. “It can’t be.”

She saw the panic in his eyes.

“This is awful,” he said.

“You have to forget it for right now. He’s dead. We have to deal with the shooter.”

He nodded, took a moment, gathered himself, then they stepped over the body. He led her down the tunnel at a brisk pace until they found an unlocked iron grate at the far end. He opened the portal and they walked through into a lit space. The block walls here were all whitewashed, the ceiling lined with pipes, ducts, and wires, the floor a polished tile.

“We’re below the Castle,” he whispered. “In the basement. My office is right over here.”

He led her into a room cluttered with display cabinets, bookshelves, and a desk stacked with files and paper. The décor consisted of artifacts that clearly had come from the Smithsonian collections, the walls dotted with historic paintings and pictures, most of the Castle.

“Are there cameras in this building?” she asked in a low voice.

“Only a few on the ground floor, in the main hall, where the public goes. This is generally an admin building. There’s not much of value to worry with security.”

“So what’s this guy doing here?”

“I truly don’t know.”

She could see he was upset over Martin Thomas. But she was as much to blame as him. “Maybe we should alert security as to what’s happening.”

“Not yet.”

That answer came too quick.

“Why not?”

“You can handle this, right? This is what you do.”

“It’s actually what my agents do.”

“I called you because I need your expertise. Let’s find the guy and see what he’s after.”

“Without security?”

He seemed to steel himself. “For the moment. Can you do it?”

“I can handle it.”

His attention was suddenly diverted and he darted toward one of the exterior walls where a metal panel hung ajar. He swung it open to reveal a spiral staircase that wound a path upward inside the confines of rough brick.

“I keep this door closed at all times,” he said. “He must have gone up through here. This guy definitely knows his way around.”

* * *

Grant climbed the spiral stairs. Nine towers were the Castle’s trademark. They were built primarily to hold staircases like this one, and later elevators, but eventually they came to house offices, laboratories, and storage. A few even served as sleeping quarters for 19th-century interns. One once held an aviary for falcons, and the tall north tower had served as an observation perch during the Civil War. The most famous residents were owls, who came uninvited, keeping the National Mall clear of swallows. When those squatters disappeared, two similar birds from the National Zoo were relocated. But eventually they flew away, too.

He knew all about the stairway he was climbing, put here so scientists could get from their labs above down to the wet collections storage area below. The door he’d entered through in the curator’s office was sealed shut back in the 1970s, reopened in the early 1990s. He was there the day his father cracked the seal.

He stopped his corkscrew ascent and eased open a wooden door on the Castle’s second floor, in what would have long ago been the original picture gallery. The great fire of 1865 had started right here. Now it was a dimly lit space, part of the administrative areas that dominated the second floor, off limits to the general public. As best he could recall, this floor was a maze of nooks and crannies, all from decades of haphazard remodeling. Though the outside remained inviolate, the Castle’s inside was nothing like the original.

He hustled through the former picture gallery and came to a long, narrow corridor. Paintings and sculptures graced the walls. Carpet lined the floor. Display cases stood full of objects. Offices lined either side. Originally the second floor had accommodated an enormous two-tiered lecture hall, an apparatus museum, and a picture gallery. The Smithsonian’s first secretary, Joseph Henry, had his office up here, too. But all that changed after the fire, when the lecture hall was eliminated and the floor converted to other uses.

He made his way down the corridor, past the dark offices.

Into the rotunda.

* * *

Stephanie exited the spiral staircase into a second-floor gallery. Rick had explained that the hidden staircase once offered employees a quick way up and down, away from visitors. Now it was used mainly by him to gain access to the upper reaches.

She stopped and gestured that they should move quietly. She gripped her Beretta, ready for what might come their way, allowing Rick to lead, not knowing where she was going.

He approached an open doorway that led out and peek

ed around the edge, jerking his head back quickly.

“He’s in the rotunda, just outside the Regents’ Room,” he whispered in her ear. “There’s nothing there of any historical value. Zero to steal. I prepared those exhibits myself.”

But apparently he was wrong.

* * *

Grant marveled at the rotunda, recalling how he’d once explored this area as a child. Twenty-five years ago the octagonal-shaped, windowless space had also been secretarial, filled then, as now, with desks, sofas, and chairs, serving as an anteroom for the adjacent office of the secretary and the prestigious Regents’ Room. Back then, though, there’d been few display cases. Especially not the oversized one, sheathed in gold leaf, that now dominated one wall. An antique lamp on a wooden table burned as a night-light. He approached the gold case and read the placard at the top.

S. Dillon Ripley, 8th Smithsonian Secretary, was once eloquently lauded for “his almost magical sense for the perfect symbolic gesture.” The importance of symbolism and ceremony was never lost on him. For Ripley’s induction as Secretary, in 1964, outgoing Secretary Leonard Carmichael originated the custom of presenting a ceremonial key to the new Secretary, a symbolic tradition at many universities. Ripley further commissioned the creation of two more symbolic ceremonial devices commonly found in institutions of higher learning. The Mace and the Badge of Office. These three special objects, imbued with symbolism, are uniquely associated with the Smithsonian.

He stared at the mace, the badge, and, most important, the ceremonial key, gently tapping on the sheet of glass that protected the case front. Maybe five feet wide and at least that much, or more, tall. Thick, too.

But breakable.

He stepped back, aimed his gun.

And pulled the trigger.

* * *

Stephanie snuck her own look at what lay down the corridor. Their target had disappeared from view, somewhere in a spacious room at the end that Rick had called the rotunda. Then the man reappeared with his gun leveled at something.