The Lost Order_A Novel Read online

  Brinksmanship: Amending the Constitution by National Convention.

  What had Taisley said Alex was reading? “Books that dealt with constitutional brinksmanship, constitutional conventions, filibusters, the history of Congress.”

  At the top of the other bag lay a brown leather notebook. About five by seven inches.

  With a circle and cross etched into its cover.

  Exactly as Taisley had described.

  What were the odds?

  But how did it get here? Considering that Diane, in her own words, had not been to DC “in quite some time” and the notebook had been left there on Alex’s desk. What else had Taisley said about the intruder?

  “The man had a key.”

  Okay, Columbo, calm down.

  He decided to go the next step and found the necklace in his pocket, which he showed her.

  Surprise filled her face. “Where did you get that?”

  “Alex came by the house a day or so before he died. He dropped this. I was going to return it to him, but never got the chance.”

  The lie seemed plausible, since the visit had occurred. Their last time together. She reached up beneath the collar of her dress and fished out a chain. Attached to its end was the same gold cross within a circle.

  “It’s a wheel cross,” she said. “Or a sun cross, as some call it. An ancient symbol for good luck. I liked it, so I had one made for each of us.”

  “Then I should return this to you.”

  And he handed it over.

  She stared at the pendant.

  “Now I see where you got your information,” she said. “I should have known the two of you would talk.”

  He decided to let her believe what she wished.

  “You realize,” she said, “that there’s no reason for us to have any animosity toward each other. It’s doubtful we’ll ever speak again, so why don’t we part, not as friends, but as two people who loved Alex Sherwood?”

  She wore her stature like a crown, standing before him with shoulders thrown back, chin tilted skyward. And though her words had been voiced with a mechanical lack of feeling, she was making a gesture, or maybe just practicing the old adage of rocking an enemy to sleep. No matter. He’d learned all he was going to learn.

  “Consider it done,” he said.

  And he excused himself, leaving her alone.

  Alex had maintained his own office farther down the hall, which Danny had visited many times. He’d like to see it one last time but doubted anything of substance would be there. The purge had already been accomplished, and it had reached all the way to Washington, DC. He had a bad feeling, one that came from years of political combat. He might be an ex-president, his public life over, but he wasn’t dead.

  Not yet, anyway.

  He sauntered back to the great room and spent a few minutes chatting with old friends. The governor stayed across the room, doing the same. Diane appeared and made her way outside to a group on the covered part of the deck, thanking people for coming and accepting more condolences. He watched her carefully and saw none of the dazed incomprehension that someone newly affected by grief would exhibit.

  A crazy thought swirled through his brain.

  Why not?

  He excused himself and headed back down the hall, toward where both the bathroom and Diane’s refuge sat. He approached the open door of her office and spied no one inside, not even the dog. He quickly entered, found the notebook in the tote bag, and stuffed it under his suit jacket between his belt and spine. If he kept the folds loose and was careful, no one would notice, and once he donned his raincoat he’d be fine.

  He headed for the great room.

  Out of office four months.

  And already committing crimes.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Cotton drove, his prisoner sitting beside him in the front passenger seat. He’d learned her name. Lea Morse. Her grandfather was Terry Morse, who’d lived here all his life on land owned by Morses dating back 200 years. It was clear the granddaughter worshiped the older man, but it was equally clear that she did not want to go to jail.

  “I try and tell him,” she said. “All that stuff’s over. It don’t matter anymore. But he won’t listen.”

  “What stuff is over?” he asked her.

  “Secret things that Granddaddy lives for.”

  “But you love him, so you do as he asks?”

  Lea nodded. “I’ve lived with him since I was a teenager. My mama and daddy were no good. Granddaddy takes care of me. But we have to stop all this sentinel stuff. He could have really hurt you today.”

  “Actually,” he said, “my head’s still spinning.”

  He was following Lea’s directions, driving the rental car. Cassiopeia sat in the rear seat, watching and listening. Lea led them east on a two-laned state highway, out of the national forest and into the rural Arkansas countryside. Her grandfather’s land lay to the north of a small town, just off the highway, down a long dirt track lined with more forest. Cotton negotiated the road with care, the steering wheel struggling in his hands against the rutted washboard surface.

  The clapboard house they found was single-story with tall, narrow windows, a covered porch, and a brick chimney. Thick-leaved trees crowded it on all sides. Chickens roamed free and he caught sight of the pink rump of a pig as it darted toward several wooden outbuildings, whose corrugated roofs flashed in the evening sun.

  He’d decided on a direct approach and parked near a waist-high wooden fence that outlined the yard surrounding the house. He stepped from the car. The warm air carried the heady scent of manure. An older man bobbed out of the front door. He wore a faded blue shirt, worn dungarees, heavy boots, and a wide-brimmed hat that seemed fixed to his head with the permanence of hair. He carried a single-barreled shotgun—.410 gauge, if Cotton wasn’t mistaken.

  “No, Granddaddy,” Lea yelled. “Put that down.”

  Terry Morse did not budge.

  Cotton reached for his gun.

  “Now,” Lea screamed.

  The weapon was lowered.

  “These people are federal agents,” Lea said. “You went too far this time.”

  * * *

  Cotton admired the simple room. A light-colored bookcase filled with Goosebumps and Harry Potter novels lined one wall, a nondescript rug protected the plank floor. Six chairs were drawn near a pine table, the walls dotted with black-framed memories. Everything was clean and tidy. Expediency, not style, ruled. Not all that dissimilar from his mother’s house back in Georgia. The only blemish was the acrid scent of nicotine and the mashed cigarette butts that filled several ashtrays.

  He’d flashed his Magellan Billet badge and made it clear that he was working with the U.S. Justice Department. He’d also been glad to see his backpack, phone, and Beretta lying on the table. Even his sunglasses, along with the jar full of coins.

  “You want to tell me about those,” he said to Morse, pointing at the gold.

  “Ain’t nothin’ to tell. It’s buried treasure and you found it.”

  “What’s a sentinel?” Cassiopeia asked.

  “How do you know about that?”

  “I told ’em,” Lea said. “This has to end, Granddaddy. It makes no sense to keep it up anymore.”

  “And how do you know what makes sense?” Morse asked her.

  “I know plenty. You taught me, remember?”

  Morse folded his arms tightly across his chest and squirmed in a chair that creaked in resistance. He had to be pushing seventy, a bell of a man—short, stout, and rock-hard—with a flat pan of a face and a complexion, like Lea’s, brown as tobacco. White hair sprang from every follicle on his scalp, ears, chin, neck, and eyebrows.

  “I know,” the older man said in a gravelly whisper. “I’ve known it a long time. But this is my life, all I’ve ever been. And I like bein’ a sentinel.”

  “And you’re good at it,” Cotton said. “I have a knot on my head to prove it.”

  “We just wanted you to go away.”r />
  “We’re not going anywhere,” he said. “So tell us what this is all about.”

  The lid on the glass jar was gone. The old man grabbed the container and poured the dirty coins out onto the tabletop. Cotton considered himself somewhat of an amateur numismatist. Monetary currency had always intrigued him. Before him he saw 1861 $5 gold pieces, 1854 $20 gold pieces, and 1845 $10 gold pieces. The earliest coin was dated 1825, the latest 1865. About fifty all totaled, surely worth a fortune to collectors.

  “Is this outlaw money?” he asked Morse.

  Silence was the only reply.

  “You certainly aren’t going to make me ask again, are you? ’Cause the next time will be from the FBI office in Little Rock, with you both charged on a list of felonies.”

  “It’s Confederate gold.”

  He had to admit, just hearing those words sent a chill down his spine. He was a Georgia boy, born and bred, his roots deeply southern. His father had been career navy, and though childhood until age ten had been spent traveling from one duty station to another, both his parents made sure that he understood where he came from. After his father died he and his mother moved back to Georgia, where he’d lived until age eighteen, finally going off to college, then the navy and law school. When he joined the Magellan Billet, Stephanie Nelle had headquartered the agency in Atlanta. He’d lived there until he retired out early, divorced, sold his house, and moved to Denmark, opening the bookshop. All his life he’d heard stories of how most Georgians had fervently believed in the Confederacy, fighting the North hard, but in the end most lost everything. His mother’s family had been lucky and managed to keep their land, which still produced Vidalia onions by the thousands of bushels.

  Middle and South Georgia were rife with tales of lost rebel gold. The vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, had lived in Crawfordville, not far from his mother’s family land. Jefferson Davis fled through the area, after the war, trying to avoid arrest. Even the Confederate treasury itself was said to have passed by on its way to disappearing into legend. Every one of those connections had come to mind when the call came from the Smithsonian’s chancellor, asking for his help.

  He glanced over at Cassiopeia, who seemed as interested as he was in what the old man had to say. But Morse’s lips, hidden within the white sable of a wiry beard, appeared more a thin line of refusal than one of cooperation.

  “Tell ’em, Granddaddy,” Lea said. “If you don’t, I will.”

  “Girls,” the old man said, shaking his head. “So different from boys. I couldn’t wait to take over for my pa. It was what we did as a son. But girls. They’re much smarter than we ever were.”

  “Granddaddy is a knight,” Lea said. “Show them.”

  Morse rolled up his right sleeve to reveal a faded tattoo.

  “The cross and circle,” Cotton muttered.

  “You know it?” the old man asked.

  How long had it been since he’d last seen that symbol? Twenty years? At least. His mind raced, as it had back in DC at the American history museum when he’d studied the 1909 records. A clock with brass movement hanging on the wall dinged for the half hour.

  “You know what he’s talking about,” Cassiopeia asked. “Don’t you?”

  He nodded.

  “I know all about the Knights of the Golden Circle.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Danny Daniels woke from a sound sleep and smelled smoke.

  The darkened bedroom was thick with an acrid fog, enough that he choked on his next breath, coughing away a mouthful of carbon. He shook Pauline, waking her, then tossed the covers away. His mind came fully awake and he realized the worst.

  The house was on fire.

  He heard the flames, the old wood structure crackling as it disintegrated. Their bedroom was on the second floor, as was their daughter’s.

  “Oh, my God,” Pauline said. “Mary.”

  “Mary,” he called out through the open doorway. “Mary.”

  The second floor was a mass of flames, the stairway leading down engulfed in orange. It seemed the whole house had succumbed save for their bedroom.

  “Mary,” he yelled. “Answer me. Mary.”

  Pauline was now beside him, screaming for their nine-year-old daughter.

  “I’m going after her,” she said.

  He grabbed her arm. “There’s no way. You won’t make it. The flooring is gone.”

  “I’m not going to stand here while she’s in there.”

  Neither was he, but he had to use his brain.

  “Mary,” Pauline shrieked. “Answer me.”

  His wife was bordering on hysterical. Smoke continued to build. He bolted to the window and opened it. The bedside clock read 3:15 A.M. He heard no sirens. His farm sat three miles outside of the center of town, on family land, the nearest neighbor half a mile away.

  He grabbed a lungful of fresh air.

  “Dammit, Danny,” Pauline blurted out. “Do something.”

  He made a decision.

  He stepped back inside, grabbed his wife, and yanked her toward the window. The drop down was about fifteen feet into a line of shrubs. There was no way they could escape out the bedroom door. This was their only avenue out and he knew she would not go voluntarily.

  “Get some air,” he said.

  She was coughing bad and saw the wisdom in his advice. She leaned out the window to clear her throat. He grabbed her legs and shoved her body through the open frame, twisting her once so she’d land sideways in the branches. She might break a bone, but she wasn’t going to die in the fire. She was no help to him here. He had to do this on his own.

  He saw that shrubbery had broken her fall and she came to her feet.

  “Get away from the house,” he called out.

  Then he rushed back to the bedroom door.

  “Daddy. Help me.”

  Mary’s voice.

  “Honey. I’m here,” he called out, into the fire. “Are you in your room?”

  “Daddy. What’s happening? Everything’s burning. I can’t breathe.”

  He had to get to her, but there was no way. The second-floor hall was gone, fifty feet of air loomed between the doorway and his daughter’s room. No time to jump out the window, find a ladder, and climb to Mary’s window. In a few more minutes the bedroom where he stood would be gone. The smoke and heat were becoming unbearable, stinging his eyes, choking his lungs.

  The little girl had to jump herself.

  “Mary. You still there.” He waited. “Mary.”

  He had to get to her.

  He rushed to the window and stared below. Pauline was nowhere to be seen. He climbed out through the window and hung from the sill. He released his grip and fell the nine feet, penetrating the shrubbery, landing on his feet. He pushed through the branches and ran around to the other side of the house. His worst fears were immediately confirmed. The entire second floor was engulfed, including his daughter’s room. Flames roared out the exterior walls and obliterated the roof.

  Pauline stood, staring upward, holding one arm with the other.

  “She’s gone,” his wife wailed, tears in her voice. “My baby is gone.”

  Danny closed his eyes and fought the horrible memory that had haunted him for forty years.

  And the fire’s cause?

  His cigar, left on the corner of his desk.

  At the time he was a city councilman in Maryville and liked a good smoke. Pauline had begged him to quit, but he’d refused. Back then, smoke detectors were not commonplace. Still, the official report noted the fire as accidental, but preventable.

  Visiting Mary’s grave had brought it all back.

  Which explained why he stayed away.

  He stood outside the front door to his house and tried to calm himself. The drive back from the Sherwood place, through the rain, had been uneventful. He lived alone. Pauline had not returned here after the inauguration. Instead, she now lived in Nashville, starting her new life. The idea had been for him to return hom
e and do the same.

  And he was trying.

  He opened the door and entered.

  He’d never bothered with locks. Useless. If people wanted to break in they would. So why have a door to repair, too? The land around him was the same as forty years ago, but the house was different. He’d razed the other structure and built new. Eventually, life went on and he ended up first in the governor’s mansion, then the White House. He’d tried hard to forget, then forgive himself, but had never accomplished either. Eventually the guilt cost him his marriage, as his wife could never forget or forgive. Thankfully, they’d finally made peace between themselves. He wanted Pauline to be happy. God knows she deserved it.

  But didn’t he, too?

  He laid the stolen notebook on a table, then removed his wet coat and hung it on the oak coatrack that filled the entryway. No one had paid him any mind while he was leaving. Diane might eventually notice the volume was gone, but why would she suspect him?

  His encounter with her still bothered him.

  Apparently she’d had Alex’s apartment searched and specific items removed. Why? Did that mean she also knew about Taisley? Hard to say. And what was Alex concerned about? Something monumental. It involved the Senate and some kind of radical change. A way to end all the problems that have been happening there lately.

  Tall order.

  Many had tried that feat and failed.

  If we make ourselves sheep, the wolves will eat us.

  Ben Franklin had been right on with that. But James Madison had expressed a thought, too. If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

  Everyone hated Congress. Its approval rating stayed in the toilet. But what did you expect when 535 people tried to get something done. What had Twain said? A camel was a horse made by a committee. Just too many egos, too many agendas, and too little compromise. Incredibly, though, the first branch of government had always managed to acquit itself, stepping up to the plate and hitting home runs exactly when the United States of America really needed it. Two world wars. A Great Depression. Countless recessions. Social Security. Fair labor. Civil rights. Health care. You name it. All had been dealt with by Congress. People tended to forget that. He never had, constantly reminding himself that naysayers had their own agendas, too.