The Lost Order (Cotton Malone 12)

Breckinridge remained silent.

Then the old man reached for a pad and pen on a side table. Cotton watched as he scribbled, flipping back and forth between two pages, composing something. Finally he finished and tore off one of the sheets, handing it over.

“Prove yourself, Captain. Decipher that.”

* * *

Grant listened to the odd exchange between his father and another man, the second voice familiar.

His pursuer from Fossil Hall.

He’d managed to slip into the kitchen and could hear the conversation. His father was back in the past and the visitor was playing along, actually making better progress than he’d ever been able to achieve. Why was the guy here? Most troubling was the fact that he knew about the Heart Stone.

And had come here for a reason.

* * *

Cotton studied the sheet the old man had handed over. On it was written five sets of letters.

TSIM ESEKA EVEL NEBN HTAE

He nearly smiled.

God bless his grandfather.

As a child of twelve he’d learned about Confederate codes, none of which were overly complicated since they were created at a time when most people remained illiterate. Simple substitution matrixes were a norm. Today those would be broken in a matter of minutes. He and his grandfather used to toy with them, his eidetic memory making them easy to unravel. This one was not even a code. More a jumble, designed only to confuse any snooping eyes.

“Can I borrow that pad?” he asked.

Breckinridge ripped off the other sheet upon which he’d written and handed it over.

First, he rewrote the letters, reversing the five groups.

HTAE NEBN EVEL ESEKA TSIM

A simple matter from there to combine the four sets into a single line.

HTAENEBNEVELESEKATSIM

Then reverse the line.

MISTAKESELEVENBENEATH

And he immediately noticed three words.

He was right. Just a jumble.

One more reverse and the message became clear.

BENEATH ELEVEN MISTAKES.

He wrote out his findings and handed the pad back.

Breckinridge read, then nodded. “Good work. That’s where you’ll find the Heart Stone.”

“What about my journal?”

“One thing at a time, Captain. One thing at a time.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Danny had learned something interesting. After he’d rattled off the names of the people who’d been inside the Willard Room to his new chief of staff, she’d immediately seen a connection.

“They’re all on the Rules Committee,” she’d told him. “Speaker of the House appointments.”

Why had Vance needed to have lunch with his own people? It wasn’t necessary to kiss their asses. He recalled something Ian Fleming wrote in one of the Bond novels. Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Good advice from a novelist trained by British intelligence. That lunch happened for a purpose and every part of his mind screamed it was related to what Vance was planning. His visit to the Willard had certainly rattled the Speaker. There’s no way it could not have. So one snake was probably already slithering out from the burning bush. Surely Vance had found Diane on the phone and they’d had a heart-to-heart chat, both of them wondering how in the world he could have known what they’d said. Diane had certainly, by now, discovered the notebook was gone. Once she heard what Vance had to say, the prime suspect would be clear. And the second snake would be on the move.

All in all not a bad start to his first day as a senator.

But he had to know more.

So he’d left his office in the Dirksen building and caught a cab toward the National Mall. It was a little odd puttering alone around DC, where before he could not even leave his office without a contingent of Secret Service agents following in his wake. His new second in command had proved her usefulness again by contacting the chief of staff for Texas congressman Paul Frizzell. He’d known Paul a long time, and though of different political parties, they’d always been close. He’d seen Paul in the Willard Room, perched at one of the tables, and caught the wink of one eye. Paul was a longtime veteran, on his fifth or sixth term. Seniority meant everything in the House, and Frizzell had managed to snag a plum assignment. Member of the Rules Committee. What had Ben Franklin said? Diligence is the mother of good luck. So true. And he’d caught a bit of good luck, too, with Frizzell being in the right place at the right time.

The cab sped down Independence Avenue and eased to the curb in front of the National Air and Space Museum. He paid the driver, who seemed especially thrilled to have a former president in his backseat, and added a $10 tip, which the guy seemed to like even better. The hour was approaching 4:00 P.M., the spring day warm and sunny. Inside was crowded, people everywhere, which was nothing unusual, as this was one of the world’s most visited museums. If truth be told, it was his favorite among the Smithsonian’s stable. Space had always been an interest. He’d followed the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions closely and could still recall, as a teenager, sitting in front of the television the night Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. During his time in the White House he’d been generous to NASA, funding the agency far better than any of his predecessors. He wondered how well it would fare with the Fox administration.

He turned right and headed for the Space Race exhibit, trying to ignore the stares from some of the visitors. He entered the hall, where full-scale rockets from Germany, America, and Russia stood at attention. He knew them by name. V-2, Viking, Minuteman, Jupiter-C. Most impressive was the massive Skylab space station. At the far end, just before the entrance to the food court, stood a lunar module. Six of them had ferried astronauts to and from the moon. This one was a backup vehicle that, thanks to a lot of shortsightedness by politicians at the time, never got the chance to fly. Frizzell stood off to one side, admiring the display. He knew Paul was a space freak, too, which was why he’d chosen this spot to meet.

He shook hands with his old friend.

“Congratulations, Senator,” Paul said. “Good job snagging that appointment.”

He decided to get right to the point. “Your lunch from a little while ago and my appointment are related to each other.”

“I could see no love lost between you and the Speaker. But that’s nothing new.”

“No, it’s not. But this is different. It involves Alex.”

Paul and Alex Sherwood had been friends.

“I hate what happened,” Paul said. “He was a good man and died far too early.”

He led Paul into an adjacent gallery labeled MOVING BEYOND EARTH where more large-scale models and spacecraft replicas waited. Fewer people milled about in the dimly lit space, and they retreated to a far corner, near an exhibit of space suits.

“There’s a lot about Alex’s death that doesn’t add up,” he said. “He goes for a stroll and falls off a cliff? That man walked those mountains all his life. I can’t go into details, but believe me there are real questions. Enough that the governor of Tennessee sent me here to get answers.”

He was being his old self, straight shooting, pulling no punches.

“What does this have to do with me?” his friend asked.

“Vance is involved. I know he’s planning something big. What I don’t know is what. But I’m bettin’ you do.”

He caught the immediate concern on Frizzell’s face. “If I did, I couldn’t tell you.”

“That gathering back at the Willard. It had somethin’ to do with what I’m talkin’ about, didn’t it?”

“Danny, you do realize the horrible position you’re placing me in.”

That he did. No one from the majority party made it to the coveted Rules Committee unless they possessed two things. Longevity and an unquestioned loyalty to the Speaker of the House. The former was simply a matter of record. But the latter had to be proved, day in and day out. For Paul Frizzell to even think about challengin

g that sacrosanct principle amounted to political treason.

“I get it, Paul,” he said. “I’m asking a lot. But we’ve known each other a long time and you’ve yet to walk away from this talk. I see it in your eyes. There’s somethin’ goin’ on.”

Silence confirmed he was right.

And his old friend seemed to be struggling with some painful but overwhelming conviction.

So he kept pressing.

“Let me tell you a story. A few years ago I went deer huntin’ with the president of Bulgaria. We paired off in twos for the day. That night, one of the Bulgarian hunters came back alone, staggering under the weight of an eight-point buck. A really solid kill. He was asked about his partner and replied that the guy broke his foot and was a couple of miles back up the trail. The president asked why he left the hunter and carried back the deer. The guy didn’t hesitate. He said no one would steal his partner. That’s you, Paul. No one is gonna steal you. We can weather this.”