Heisman’s next words suggested that Gray was right. “What I find odd is that the tribes of Israel were all represented by different pairs of symbols. In the case of the Manasseh clan, it was an olive branch and a bundle of arrows.” Heisman glanced up to Gray. “Why would the Founding Fathers plant the symbols of the Manasseh tribe in the Great Seal?”
Gray suspected that he knew the answer to this question, but he had a more immediate concern. He waved Heisman onward. “That’s all well and good, but let’s continue to the place where Fortescue reached Iceland…”
Heisman looked disappointed, but he slid the draft of the Great Seal aside. “All right. Like I said, it took Archard about a month to reach Iceland, but eventually he grew confident that he’d found the right island, as marked on the map. But once there, he had no luck in finding anything. After twenty-two days of searching, he began to despair. Then his luck changed. One of his searchers dropped an apple while investigating a rather lengthy cavern system. It fell down a chute no one had noted. A lamp lowered down that hole revealed a glint of gold near the bottom.”
“They found the spot,” Seichan said.
“He goes into great length describing the deep cavern. How stone boxes held hundreds of gold plates inscribed with the same proto-Hebrew writing. He also found solid gold jars filled with the oft-mentioned silvery dry elixir. He was quite excited and drew many pictures.”
From the tick in the curator’s voice, it was clear that he was also excited. Heisman slid one of the pages over to Gray and Seichan. The curator tapped the picture in the center. “Those are the golden containers for the elixir.”
Gray stiffened at the sight. The drawing showed tall urns topped by various sculpted heads: that of a jackal, a hawk, a baboon, and a hooded man.
“Those look like Egyptian canopic jars,” he said.
“Yes. Archard thought so, too. Or at least he recognized that they were of Egyptian origin. He postulated that perhaps the pale Indians were in fact refugees from the Holy Lands, some secret sect of magi who had roots in both the Jewish faith and Egyptian traditions. But such speculations came to an abrupt end. After this point in the journal, his writing becomes very sloppy and hurried; it’s clear that he was in a state of panic.”
“Why?”
At a cue from her boss, Sharyn began to read. “ ‘I have heard word that a ship approaches Iceland. That the Enemy has discovered our investigation and closes upon us. They must never find this cache of lost treasures. My men and I will do our best to lure them away, to keep them from this island. Pray that I am successful. We will strike for the coast, to the cold mainland, and draw them after us. I will take a small sampling of the treasure in the hopes that I can still reach the shores of America. But I leave this journal as a testament, in case I fail.’ ”
Heisman crossed his arms. “That’s how the journal ends, with Archard fleeing his enemy. But I think we can piece together what happened after that.”
“The Laki eruption,” Gray said.
“The site of that volcano is not far from the coastline. Archard must have made it some distance, but then catastrophe struck.”
Gray had witnessed such an event himself. He pictured the explosion, followed by the violent volcanic eruption.
Heisman sighed. “After that, we know from Jefferson’s letter that our Frenchman went into deep seclusion, regretting the actions he had taken, actions that led to the death of more than six million people.”
“Until he was summoned twenty years later by Jefferson to undertake a new mission. To join Lewis and Clark on their sojourn west.” Gray let the pieces fall together in his head. “According to the date on the map you showed us earlier, Jefferson concluded the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. That very year, Jefferson commissioned his friend Captain Meriwether Lewis to put together a team to explore those former French territories and the lands west of there.”
Gray’s head buzzed with the certainty of his assessment. “Fortescue went with them. He was sent to find that spot on the Indian map, to find what Fortescue himself believed was the heart of the new colony, that lost city.”
Seichan kept pace with him. “And he must have found it. He vanished out of history, and Lewis was murdered.”
Gray turned to Heisman. “Do you have a map that marks the trail that Lewis and Clark took?”
“Of course. Just one moment.” He and his assistant combed through their stacks and quickly found the right book. “Here it is.”
Gray stared down at the page. He ran a finger along the trail, starting at Camp Wood in St. Charles, Missouri, and ending at Fort Clatsop on the coast of the Pacific Ocean.
“Somewhere along this route — or close to it — has to be the location of the lost Fourteenth Colony.”
But where?
His phone rang again. He’d left his cell on the tabletop; a glance at it showed Sigma’s emergency number.
Seichan saw it, too.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, and headed again to the door. Seichan dogged his heels and joined him in the hall.
He flipped open the phone. “Monk?”
“It’s Kat, Gray. Monk’s on his way over to meet you with a car.”
“What’s wrong? What’s the news from Japan?”
“Bad. An assault team killed nearly everyone at the facility.”
He swore silently. They’d been too slow.
Kat continued: “But two key personnel survived. Japanese authorities fished them out of the neutron detector’s water tank. Rather clever place to hide. They were whisked into PSIA custody at our request.”
PSIA was the acronym for the Japanese intelligence agency. Calling in the latter was a wise precaution. If no one knew about the survivors, Sigma command had a chance to get a step up on the Guild. Kat knew it, too.
“I’ve been on the phone with one of them,” Kat said. “An American postgraduate student. She reports that before the attack, the Japanese physicists had been making no headway on discovering the source of the latest neutrino surge. But she related something odd, something that was noted by the other physicist who survived. He was concerned about some spotty neutrino bursts he’d detected. I didn’t give this detail much thought until she told me where those readings originated.”
“Where?”
“Maybe one or two sites out west, but he couldn’t pinpoint the locations due to the background rush of neutrinos from the larger spike. Of the two he was able to identify, one was in Belgium.”
She let this piece of news hang. It took Gray only a breath to recognize its significance. He remembered Captain Huld’s description of the hunters who’d come to Ellirey Island before Gray and his team. He’d said they were from Belgium. Monk must have made the same connection. It could be a coincidence, but Gray wasn’t buying it.
He told Kat as much. “The assault team in Iceland was from Belgium. That’s got to be significant. But what about that other spot the physicist noted? Where is it?”
“It’s in Kentucky.”
Kentucky?
Kat went on: “Monk’s on his way over to pick you up. I want you to check out the location. You’re wheels-up in fifteen minutes. We must take full advantage of this intel while we still can.”
Gray sensed some hesitancy on her part. “What does Director Crowe think about all of this?”
“He doesn’t. I’ve not been able to raise him since we got this news. He was heading deep into the desert. I’ll keep trying to reach him while you’re en route. But we can’t wait. If things change, I’ll let you know. I’m also in contact with the president’s chief of staff.”