“Can we drive through the town itself?”
“Depends. The roads aren’t the best up there, and with the storm we just had, some could be impassable right now. That’s why we don’t get a lot of tourists up that way. The town itself was always a muddy swamp after a heavy downpour.” His finger traced a line on the map on the ridge of the mountain slope. “Coming in from here, you can use this road above the old town that bypasses the town and connects to the road that leads to that area my daughter painted.”
“And where the coin factory is located?”
He shrugged. “Never been there myself, but I believe it’s over this ridge.” He pointed to a string of hills. “In any case, I wouldn’t recommend going there right now.” He checked his watch. “It’ll be dark soon, and it can be dangerous trying to navigate those roads at night.”
“Good advice.” She grimaced. “Not welcome, but good. Thank you. You’ve been a huge help.”
Johnson awkwardly gestured toward the map. “Uh, that’ll be six dollars for the souvenir map.”
“And worth every penny.” Kendra paid him, and Johnson tipped his hat toward her and strolled back into his store. She immediately pulled out her phone and called Venable. “I’ve contacted the artist, and I believe we’re on track.” She filled him in on the new information Johnson had given her. “I don’t like the idea of waiting until morning.”
“It’s the smart thing to do,” Venable said quickly. “By that time, I should have an exact location for the coin factory and will be able to send up an attack team.”
“No!” Kendra said. “What are you talking about? You show up with a show of force, and Eve is a dead woman. You know that Doane is crazy.”
“Don’t get upset,” Venable said soothingly. “I know what I’m doing. I’ve dealt with Doane for years.” He paused. “And it might be best if you let me handle the entire retrieval. You’ve done a fine job of gathering information, but it’s time I took over. You could get in my way, Kendra.”
“The hell I would,” Kendra said. “You’re scaring me, Venable. We’re so close to being able to get Eve out of this. I won’t let her die because you’ve gone trigger-happy.”
Venable was silent. “You’re right. Perhaps a more subtle, indirect, approach is best. I’ll work on locating that coin factory and get back to you.” He hung up.
Kendra stared blindly down at the map. She should have felt reassured by those last words. She did not feel reassured; she was uneasy. As she had told Venable, he had scared her. The CIA man was experienced and intelligent and should know better than to rush an operation like the one that might be facing them. Yet his first impulse was not intelligent at all.
She was tempted to call Joe Quinn, but evidently he wasn’t presently available. Jane had called her back and told her that she’d not been able to reach Quinn by phone and had sent him an e-mail.
And what could he do anyway from Vancouver? Except maybe contact Venable and make sure he’d taken Kendra’s protests seriously. It would probably be fine. It was just that she’d gone through a hideous experience in the past that had not gone fine but terribly wrong.
“You’re frowning.”
She looked up to see Margaret coming toward her from the picnic area. “Am I? I’ve got to stop that. I hear it causes wrinkles. Where did you go?” She watched Margaret drop onto the picnic bench beside her.
Margaret raised Kevin’s journal. “I wanted to go someplace where I could concentrate on this. You seemed to have things under control here.” She grinned. “Though I don’t know how you could manage without my invaluable help.”
“It was a terrible burden. But I now know where we’re headed. We’ll check into a hotel and set out first thing in the morning. Jane will be here by then, and she can come with us.”
“Good. In the meantime, maybe we can give this journal a closer look.” Margaret snapped the cover band of the journal. “I just read something that makes me think we were right not to give it up too quickly.”
Kendra’s gaze flew to her face. “What?”
“Later. While we’re getting something to eat. It may be nothing, but it made me uneasy.”
“Uneasy?” It was strange that Kendra had been bombarded by that same emotion only moments before. At a time when hope should have been soaring, it wasn’t good that both she and Margaret were experiencing doubt and apprehensiveness.
Margaret shrugged. “It will be okay. Don’t worry. We’ll work through it.”
“Now that’s one of your typically optimistic comments that has no basis on fact or reason.” Yet Kendra felt a sudden surge of gladness that Margaret was here with her, and her words were giving her both warmth and comfort. She smiled. “But you know, I’m not only becoming accustomed to them, I’ve started to search for some inner wisdom in them. That’s pretty frightening.”
Margaret giggled. “It would be more frightening if you found it.” She got to her feet. “Come on, let’s find someplace to eat. I need something normal and megacalorie to balance all this high-powered brain drain.”
CIA Field Office
Denver, Colorado
VENABLE LEANED FORWARD in his chair and stared at the photograph that the young researcher, Callie Burke, had just handed him. “What exactly am I looking at?”
“It’s a coin press made by McGruber Mechanics and Associates between 1848 and sometime during the Civil War. Based on the photographs and measurements taken from Doane’s car in Atlanta, this is what he had been transporting. And based on how little oxidation there is on the interior trunk marks, it was probably in the past couple of weeks.”
Venable nodded. “Exactly what Kendra Michaels said.”
“It’s a different-model coin press than in the photo she sent. But it’s similar. The team in Atlanta said they wouldn’t have even thought of it if she hadn’t tipped us off.”
Venable placed the photo on his desk. Burke, the researcher, a slender woman in her mid-twenties, was obviously eager to impress. She had gone into high gear when he’d issued an order to speed up the research after he’d received that call from Kendra. Okay, impress me. “How many of these were made?”
She shook her head. “As far as we can tell, only about fifteen were ever in use in North America. It’s hard to tell how many still exist. We’re still combing ads and online auction listings to see how many have turned up in the collectors’ market. But we did find something interesting: one of these was originally used in a coinery near Drakebury Springs, Colorado.”
Yes. He tried to keep her from seeing the intense interest the last bit of info generated in him. “That’s why I told you to look in that area. Doane’s car may have been there.”
“Yes, sir. And that old coinery is still standing. It was sold as a private residence about four years ago.”
“Sold to whom?”
“A holding company. We’re still running it down. It’s not clear if the coin press was still there, but the real-estate listing did make a lot of the fact that it was a former gold-rush coin factory with many original features intact. We’re still trying to contact the property’s real-estate broker to ascertain if the coin press was there.”
Venable nodded. “Good work. Let me know the minute you hear something.”
The researcher hurried out of the room.
But Venable would bet that coin press was no longer in the factory. He felt a rush of fierce satisfaction.
I’ve got him, General. He’s mine. I’m going to take him down.
He quickly got off an e-mail to Kendra Michaels with the information and leaned back in his chair. He thought for a long moment, staring at the photograph on his desk. Difficulties. Kendra Michaels, Joe Quinn, Jane MacGuire. He’d have to sweep those difficulties away.
So? He was good at eliminating difficulties.