The Devil Colony (Sigma Force 7)

“But that deal got screwed up,” Monk said.

Heisman’s assistant had been sifting through the piles of paper. “Here’s the passage again,” she said. “ ‘The shamans from the Iroquois Confederacy were slaughtered most foully en route to the meeting with Governor Jefferson. With those deaths, all who had knowledge of the Great Elixir and the Pale Indians have pass’d into the hands of Providence.’ ”

Gray nodded. “But now we know that one of the shamans lived long enough to reveal the location of a map, possibly a map to a fount of that knowledge. That’s what Fortescue was sent to find.”

“And apparently he succeeded,” Monk added. “Maybe it was that elixir mentioned in the letter, or something else. Either way, he believed it was powerful enough to trigger a volcanic eruption. Afterward, he was racked with guilt.”

“Until twenty years later, when Jefferson summoned him again,” Heisman said.

Seichan turned to the scholar, realized she was fingering the dragon charm, and forced her arm down. “What do you mean?”

Heisman fixed his glasses and read again from the letter. “ ‘After such tragedy, I am loath to drag A.F. yet again into another search, but his warmth and high regard among the aboriginal tribes of this continent will serve us well for that long journey. He will join you in Saint Charles, well enough in time to secure what he will need to join your excursion to the West.’ ”

Gray leaned forward. “Wait. Are you saying Fortescue joined the Lewis and Clark expedition?”

“Not me,” Heisman said and shook the papers in his hand. “Thomas Jefferson.”

“But there’s no other record—”

“Maybe they were purged, too,” Heisman offered. “Like the rest of this man’s records. This letter is all we could uncover. After Fortescue leaves on this expedition, he’s never mentioned again. At least as far as we can tell.”

“But why was Jefferson sending him with Lewis and Clark?” Gray asked.

Seichan guessed the answer, sitting up straighter. “Maybe Iceland wasn’t the only place marked on that Indian map. Maybe there was another spot. One out west. Iceland would have been closer, so they investigated that one first.”

Gray rubbed a finger along the edge of his right eye, one of his habits when struggling to connect pieces of a mental jigsaw puzzle. “If there was another site, why wait twenty years to go look for it?”

“After what happened the first time,” Monk said, “do you blame them for being more cautious? If Fortescue was right, their actions killed six million people and triggered the French Revolution. Of course they’d be more careful a second time.”

Heisman interjected. “There’s further support in the historical record that Lewis and Clark’s mission wasn’t purely for exploration. First, Jefferson all but admitted it.”

“What do you mean?” Gray asked.

“Prior to the expedition, Jefferson sent out a letter in secret, meant only for members of Congress. It revealed the true reason for the trip: to spy on the Indians out west and to gather as much intelligence about them as possible. Second, Jefferson had also developed a private secret code with Lewis so that messages sent back could be read only by Jefferson or those loyal to him. Does that sound like a yearlong nature hike? Jefferson was clearly looking for something out west.”

“But did he find it?” Seichan asked.

“There’s no public record of anything like that. Then again, all records of Archard Fortescue were expunged. So who knows? But there is one intriguing detail that suggests something was being covered up.”

Monk shifted closer. “What’s that?”

“On October eleventh, 1809, three years after the expedition returned from the west, Meriwether Lewis was found dead in his room inside a Tennessee inn. He’d been shot once in the head, once in the chest. Yet for some reason his death was deemed a suicide, his body hastily buried near the inn. It’s taken two hundred years for this cover-up to be exposed. It’s now firmly believed that he was killed by an assassin.” Heisman turned to them all. “Lewis had been on his way to Washington to meet with Thomas Jefferson. Some believe he had valuable information or was carrying something vital to national security when he was killed. But from there the trail goes cold.”

The room settled into silence. Seichan noted Gray still rubbing the corner of his right eye. She could practically hear the gears turning in his head.

Heisman checked his watch. “And that, dear gentlemen and ladies, is where we should stop for the night. I understand you have a flight to catch.”

Monk stood, and they said their good-byes. Heisman and Sharyn promised they’d continue the search in the morning, but didn’t sound hopeful.

Seichan followed the two men out to the street, where the Town Car still waited for them.

Monk eyeballed Gray. “You’ve got that worried crease across your forehead. What’s up? Nervous about the trip?”

Gray slowly shook his head as a cold breeze swept down the street. “No. I’m worried about Utah. After what we learned about Iceland—and knowing the two places are both showing odd neutrino discharges—I think today’s blast is the least of our problems.”

Monk popped open the car door. “If so, we have someone keeping an eye on things out there.”

Gray climbed inside. “That’s what worries me most.”

Chapter 16

May 31, 4:55 A.M.

High Uintas Wilderness

Utah

Major Ashley Ryan kept vigil with the geologist Ron Chin. The pair stood at the rim of the chasm. Dawn was not far off—and could not come soon enough for Ryan.

It had been a long, bloody night. He and his unit had managed to haul their injured teammate out of the steaming valley, where a helicopter had evacuated the man to the nearest hospital—missing most of his right leg, dazed on morphine, blood seeping through the pressure bandage on his stump.

Ryan had tried to take a nap afterward, but every time he closed his eyes, he flashed to the ax blade as it bit deep into the man’s thigh . . . or he pictured Chin taking that severed limb and tossing it into the smoldering pit, as if throwing another log onto a bonfire. But Ryan understood. They couldn’t risk contamination.

Finally giving up, knowing he’d never sleep, he had climbed out of his tent and kept watch on the valley with the geologist. Over the course of the night, the scientist had set up a whole battery of equipment: video cameras, infrared scanners, seismographs, something he called a magnetometer, used for measuring the strength and direction of the magnetic field. He knew his own men were reporting a growing interference with radios and cell phones. In the past hour, compasses all pointed toward the chasm. But worst of all, the tremors and quakes were rattling the mountain and were escalating in both frequency and severity.