Serena had to see this.
More fascinating still was the text on the other side of the map. It was a coded letter of some kind, and someone-his father, he assumed, based on the handwriting-had deciphered the salutation and signature. It was dated September 25, 1793.
The body of the letter was written in an alpha-numeric code he didn't recognize. Probably a Revolutionary War-era military code. But the translated salutation was plain to see, and his hand trembled when he saw the signature. It was from General George Washington, and it began:
To Robert Yates and his chosen descendent in the Year of Our Lord 2008…
5
THAT MORNING Conrad found Brooke downstairs at the breakfast table scanning five newspapers while the morning news shows blared on the TV, which she had split into six screens to follow the major broadcast and cable networks simultaneously. She was having her usual half grapefruit and Wasa cracker along with her coffee-some diet that she religiously followed from a Beverly Hills doctor to the stars. It required her to take a tiny scale with her wherever she went to weigh her food-no more than three ounces of anything at a time, no less than four hours apart.
"You're up early," she said as she poured him some coffee. "The Post ran a nice obit on your dad."
She showed him the picture and headline: Body of Former Air Force General Found in Antarctica Laid to Rest.
Conrad glanced at the photo of his dad, circa 1968, back in his "Right Stuff" days with NASA, a genuine American icon.
"I figured I might as well get a jump on the documentary for the Discovery Channel," he told Brooke. "You know, put the past behind and look ahead. So I'm going in early this morning to the offices in Maryland. See if Mercedes goes for it."
"Just see that she doesn't go for you, Con," Brooke said without looking up from her newspapers. "That one, unfortunately, isn't a nun."
Conrad paused, wondering if he had talked about Serena in his sleep. But then he noticed Serena on four channels of the TV screen. She was talking about the state of human rights in China on the eve of the Olympics, as well as China's status as the world's biggest polluter because of its high carbon emissions. The two other channels had segments about the bird flu, which had landed in North America and caused some poultry deaths but had not yet jumped to human-to-human contagion. That, of course, the expert with the mask on TV droned, was only a matter of time.
"I'll be careful," he laughed and kissed her goodbye.
Outside on the front steps, he looked out and noticed no suspicious vehicles. No spy types lurking in the shadows. He hurried down the sidewalk toward 31st Street and hailed a cab. He climbed inside and said, "Union Station."
Brooke watched Conrad disappear around the corner, then went into her study and stopped. Something was off. She scanned the shelves and noted a gap on the third shelf that caused some books to slant. Conrad had removed and replaced a book. The book, she suddenly realized, the one everybody had been looking for.
So he cracked the book code.
She walked over to the bookcase, removed Tom Sawyer, and flipped through the pages. She was about to put the book back and call it in when she noticed a break in the binding. There was a slit, revealing some sort of hidden pocket. She swore.
Hands shaking, she went to the kitchen and returned with a razor blade. Carefully she traced the inside cover until she formed a kind of flap. Ever so gently she peeled it back to reveal the empty pocket and, inside the flap, a smudge trace of writing. An imprint of some kind.
In a fog of dread she marched into the foyer and held up the book to the mirror, barely able to force herself to look. There in the mirror the word shone clear: STARGAZER.
"Holy shit," she gasped.
The map had been in her house all along, inside the book, right under her nose, and she had missed it.
She speed-dialed a local number in Georgetown on her coded cell phone. She identified herself to the agent who answered.
"This is SCARLETT," she said. "I've got a Priority One message for OSIRIS."
6
CONRAD DIDN'T RECOGNIZE the tail until the young male attendant in the first-class compartment of the Acela Express came by to present a choice of hot or cold breakfasts. Conrad chose the bran flakes. The only other passenger in the compartment, a man who looked like an NFL linebacker crammed into a suit, ordered the Big Bob Egg Scramble.
That's how Conrad knew he was a federal agent. Only a fed on the taxpayer's dime would go first-class and order the Big Bob Egg Scramble, which sounded like Amtrak's version of a shrimp cocktail.
So much for the privacy he had sought by upgrading from business class after the attendant told him the first-class car was empty: Apparently none of the other passengers thought the Egg Scramble was worth the extra $80.
Except Big Bob a few seats back.
Conrad swore to himself and looked out the giant picture window at the barren pastures of Pennsylvania flashing by. The Acela Express was the fastest train on the continent, racing at speeds up to 150 miles an hour between Washington, D.C., and New York City. Conrad had hoped to reach Serena before lunch and make it back to Brooke by dinner without anybody knowing. Obviously, he wasn't moving fast enough.
Because there sat Big Bob, smiling at the attendant as he took a couple of tubs of cream and three blue packets of artificial sweetener with his coffee and pretended to peruse the Wall Street Journal until his Egg Scramble arrived.
Conrad got up from his seat and, without looking back, walked down the aisle to one of two bathrooms at the end of the car closest to the locomotive.
Conrad closed the door and braced himself. "Acela" was one of those names made up by some New York branding company that combined the words "acceleration" and "excellence." The secret to the Acela's speed was its ability to tilt in curves without slowing down or spooking passengers. Conrad could feel a slight tilt coming on now as he looked at himself in the mirror and thought about what he was doing.
He couldn't involve Brooke in any of this, for her own sake. At least that's what he told himself. Maybe he just didn't want her to know he was involved at all with Serena. But Brooke was a big girl. She knew he had never made her any promises. She probably also knew, better than he perhaps, just how slim the odds were of his ever getting together with Serena.
Facing the mirror, he slowly unbuttoned his shirt to reveal the envelope he had taped to himself. He removed the map from inside and flipped it over to look at the text:
763.618.1793 634.625. ghquip hiugiphipv 431. Lqfilv Seviu 282.625. siel 43. qwl 351. FUUO.
179 ucpgiliuv erqmqaciu jgl 26. recq 280.249. gewuih 707.5.708. jemcms. 282.682.123.414.144. qwl qyp nip 682.683.416.144.625.178. Jecmwli ncabv rlqxi 625.549.431. qwl gewui. 630. gep 48. ugelgims 26. piih 431. ligqnniphcpa 625.217.101.5. uigligs 2821.69. uq glcvcgem 5. hepailqwu eu 625. iuvefmcubnipv 431. qwl lirwfmcg.
280. qyi 707.625. yqlmh 5.708.568.283.282. biexip. 625. uexeqi 683. ubqy 707.625. yes.
711
All his father had translated was the alphanumeric salutation-To the chosen descendent of Robert Yates in the Year of Our Lord 2008-and the numeric signature-General George Washington. Perhaps his father thought that was enough information for him to crack the rest of the cipher. Or perhaps his father could never figure it out.
All Conrad really knew about Robert Yates was that his father's side of the family had adopted the "Yeats" spelling to distance themselves from Robert Yates, who was one of America's more controversial Founding Fathers. Besides helping to draft the first Constitution for the State of New York, he represented New York as a key delegate at the convention in Philadelphia to draft the U.S. Constitution.