The bodyguard nodded. He and the other three stepped out into the hall.
"Her?" Adriana asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Yes," Dawkins said. "We needed some assistance locating you. So, I called on an old friend. She flew up from Atlanta after the shooting at the ballroom."
Adriana knew who it was before the woman appeared in the doorway.
"Hello, Adriana," Emily said, stepping across the threshold and into the little room. She shut the door behind her and crossed her arms while wearing a thin smile. "I came up as soon as I heard what happened." She pointed at the president. "John said he needed help finding you. So here you are."
Confusion still filled Adriana's face. "Why all the secrecy with the pillowcase over my head and all that?"
"We weren't sure if your room was bugged," Emily said. "If you were being watched we had to make it look like someone was taking you. My men swept the room once you were gone. There were no traces of any clandestine devices, so you should be fine. Still, we didn't want to take the chance. I apologize for the headache."
The reminder made the pain more prominent. "Thanks. That makes sense now." She turned to the president. "Sorry I attacked your men."
Dawkins chuckled. "They'll be fine, although you did give Jimmy a pretty good contusion."
"We were concerned when you disappeared for several hours after the shooting," Emily said. "No one seemed to know where you went."
Adriana nodded. "Get me an ibuprofen, and I'll tell you all about it."
As if reading her mind beforehand, Emily reached into her back pocket and pulled out a packet containing two pills. "I thought you might need that since the drug they used tends to have that effect on people."
Adriana gratefully took the pills, popped them in her mouth, and swallowed.
The president held out a bottle of water he'd brought in with him, but Adriana waved it off.
"Thank you, I'm good," she said.
"Tell us what happened," Emily said. "We need to know everything."
Adriana nodded and looked around the room. "This room is clean, right?"
Emily and the president exchanged a knowing glance and then both nodded.
"Cleanest one you'll find."
Adriana sucked in a long breath through her nose and looked down at the floor, trying to collect her thoughts and all the information she'd gleaned from Officer Einhorn.
"What do you know?"
The president answered. "We saw the footage from the hotel security cameras. They caught you chasing a man out of the building. Street cameras weren't able to catch anything. There was a glitch in the system. They're trying to fix it now. We lost you as soon as you left the building."
Adriana bit her lower lip and nodded. "Interesting." She considered what to say first and decided to relay her story from the beginning.
"You're right about me following that guy. I don't know who he is. I just know he looked suspicious. So, I went after him. He saw me and took off down an alley. Cops cornered us. They killed him and one of the other cops."
"Wait a minute," Emily said, interrupting. "They killed one of their own."
"Mmhmm. They did it to make it look like self-defense." Saying it out loud caused her to have another thought. "That means they don't own everyone," she said to herself more than to the others in the room.
"What was that?" Dawkins asked.
Adriana snapped back to the present. "One of the cops — a guy named Einhorn — was going to take me somewhere, I assume to execute me. I'm not sure why they didn't just do it right there. I managed to escape, took the cop and his car out to the woods, and there I questioned him about everything."
"And?"
"He said he and the others… they're working for the Knights of the Golden Circle. He wouldn't tell me who he works for directly, said he didn't know any names. The only thing he would say about the KGC is that they're everywhere and own everyone."
The room fell silent. Dawkins and Emily eyed each other, probing for answers neither had.
"The Knights of the Golden Circle? That's an old secret society from the South," Dawkins said, breaking the silence. "They've not been around for over a century."
"Weren't they the ones behind the Lincoln assassination?" Emily asked.
"Yes," Adriana said. "And according to the late Officer Einhorn, they're still operating inside the government. He claimed that after the war, they decided they could do more working with the federal government than against it. He suggested they have connections in every branch of the government."
The president's right eyebrow lifted an inch. "You said the late Officer Einhorn. Did you—"
"As much as I may have wanted to, no, I didn't kill him. He had some kind of device embedded in his forearm, just under the skin. Must have been some kind of poison. The only thing I can figure is the device was activated remotely. One of the other cops must have had him killed when he didn't report in."
Dawkins and Emily exchanged a worried glance.
"There was something else he said, too," Adriana went on. "I couldn't get many details out of him, but he said there was some kind of ancient treasure in Alaska."
"Treasure?" Emily said.
"Yes. And he claimed there is a device that can create gold. Some kind of alchemy engine, I guess. To be perfectly honest, I don't know how much of what he said could be true or not. But he was very clear about one thing: they wanted you dead, Mr. President."
Dawkins's face was long. His cheeks sagged, and his eyes looked more droopy than usual. It was understandable. Someone had just tried to kill him with a big mechanical gun.
Emily diverted the subject to the assassination attempt. "We're still investigating, but are coming up with very few leads. The weapon found at the hotel was a remotely operated, modified AR-15 attached to a rotating tripod. They used 223 Remington rounds, otherwise known as 5.56 NATO. Those rounds are common now. No way we can trace where they came from. We hoped ballistics would tell us the rounds were exotic, but sadly that wasn't the case. No prints were pulled off the weapon. And as far as a motive is concerned, we got nothing."
"It must have something to do with what Sean's looking for," Dawkins said in an almost absent tone. "I asked Sean to look into something for me. He's been in western New York and New England the last few months investigating a letter I found in… in the Presidential Archives."
That was the first time Adriana had ever heard of such a thing. "Presidential Archives?"
"Yes," Dawkins said. "There are rumors about a secret book that the presidents pass down to their successor. The legends suggest that book contains secrets of all the presidents for the last few hundred years. I can tell you that if there is a book like that, I've never seen it. But the archives do exist, and they contain quite a few secrets. That's where I found the letter."
"Letter?" Emily asked.
"Yes. I enjoy looking through the archives. I find that going through the words and thoughts of past leaders often helps lend me wisdom to tough decisions I have to make. I'll spend an hour or two in there every week. A while back, I was looking through some documents from Abraham Lincoln when I discovered a note that seemed a bit out of place. The page was a different color than the rest and had been written in someone else's handwriting. I read the note and realized why. It was a letter from Lincoln's secretary of state, William Seward."
Emily shook her head. The president said it like reading through Abraham Lincoln's personal diary was no big deal. She moved past her amazement and stayed on topic.
"This letter, sir, what did it say?"
Dawkins looked bewildered. He waved his hands around and shook his head. "I don't remember all of it exactly. It was a few months back."
Adriana stepped closer to him. "What do you remember?"