The white walls were lined with gilt-framed portraits of the sixteen men who’d led the church before Snow.
“My image will soon join them.” Snow pointed to a blank spot. “Hang my portrait there, so you can always see me.”
On the desk before the old man sat a plain wooden box, about two feet long, a foot wide, and half a foot tall, its lid shut. He’d noticed it immediately and assumed it was why they were here.
Snow caught his interest.
“I had that brought from the closed archives. It is for prophets only.”
“Which I am not.”
“But you soon will be, and you have to know what I am about to reveal. It was told to me by my predecessor when I served in your capacity as president of the twelve. Do you recall what happened here, at the temple, in 1993? With the record stone.”
The story was legendary. A hole was dug ten feet deep near the temple’s southeast corner. The goal was to find a hollowed-out foundation block. In 1867, during the temple’s construction, Brigham Young had filled the stone with books, pamphlets, periodicals, and a set of gold coins in denominations of $2.50, $5, $10, and $20, creating a time capsule. The stone was found cracked, which had caused most of the paper inside to rot away. Fragments survived, which had been placed in the church archives, some occasionally on display in the History Library. In 1993 Rowan was beginning his third term in the Senate and had just risen to the level of an apostle. He hadn’t been present on August 13, exactly 136 years to the day after the stone had first been sealed.
“I was there,” Snow said, “when they climbed from that hole with buckets of mush, like papier-mâché. The gold coins were spectacular, though. Minted right here in Salt Lake. That’s the thing about gold—time never affects it. But the paper was another matter. Moisture had done its damage.” The prophet paused. “I’ve always wondered why Brigham Young included coins. They seemed so out of place. But maybe he was saying that there are things on which time has no effect.”
“You speak in riddles, Charles.”
Only here, inside the temple, behind the closed doors of the council room, would he ever use the prophet’s first name.
“Brigham Young was not perfect,” Snow said. “He made errors in judgment. He was human, as are we all. On the issue of our lost gold he may have made a grievous error. But with regard to Abraham Lincoln, he might have committed an even bigger mistake.”
FIFTEEN
DENMARK
MALONE DROVE HIS MAZDA OUT OF COPENHAGEN, THEN SIXTY miles west to Kalundborg and Zealand’s northwest coast. Four-laned highway the entire way made the going quick.
“You suspected Kirk, too, didn’t you?” he asked Luke.
“He was a little too fast with the info in your shop. What did Stephanie tell you on the phone?”
“Enough for me to know that Kirk wasn’t trustworthy.”
“When he came up behind me with the gun I thought it better to give him a little rope and see where it led. Then I saw you thinking the same. Of course, I didn’t know you were going to go all William Tell on me.”
“Lucky for you my eyes are still good … for an old-timer.”
Luke’s cell phone rang and Malone could guess the caller’s identity.
Stephanie.
The younger man listened stone-faced, betraying nothing. Exactly what he was supposed to do. Malone recalled many conversations with his former boss just like that, when she’d told him what he needed to know to get the job the done.
And not an ounce more.
Luke finished the call, then directed him toward Salazar’s estate, a tract of expensive real estate north of town, facing the sea. They parked in the woods, off the highway, a quarter mile east from the main drive.
“I know the geography here,” Luke said. “Salazar owns a tract that butts up to this property. There are a few buildings there. We should be able to get to them through those woods over there.”
He stepped out into the night.
They were both now armed, as Luke carried the gun retrieved from Kirk. Here Malone was again, back in a game that he’d supposedly quit, one that he hadn’t wanted to ever play again. Three years ago he decided the rewards were not worth the risks, and the prospects of owning an old-book shop had been too tempting to resist. He was a bibliophile and always had been. So he’d jumped at the chance to move to Europe and start over.
There’d been costs, though.
There always were.
Yet part of being smart was knowing what you wanted.
And he loved his new life.
But there was the matter of an agent in trouble. People had once come to his aid. Now it was his turn to return the favor.