The Lincoln Myth(6)
“They destroyed them,” the superintendent said. “My guess is there were maybe twenty or more before they started hacking them up.”
Twenty-two, actually. But he said nothing. Instead, he followed the superintendent around the debris pile where their lights revealed skeletons. He approached, loose gravel crunching like dry snow beneath his boots, and counted three, noticing immediately how they died.
Bullet holes to the skull.
Scraps of their clothes remained, as did two leather hats.
The superintendent motioned with his light. “This one lived a little longer.”
He saw a fourth victim, lying against the cavern wall. No hole to the skull. Instead the rib cage was shattered.
“Shot to the chest,” the superintendent said. “But he lived long enough to write this.”
The light revealed writing on the wall, like petroglyphs he’d seen in caverns in other parts of Utah.
He bent down and read the broken script.
FJELDSTED HYDE WOODRUFF EGAN
DAMNATION TO THE PROPHET
FORGET US NOT
He instantly realized the significance of the surnames.
But only he, one of the twelve apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, would know their identity.
“It was the reference to the prophet that caused us to call you,” the secretary said.
He gathered himself and stood. “You’re right. These men were Saints.”
“That was our thought, too.”
Throughout human history God had always dealt with His children through prophets. Men like Noah, Abraham, and Moses. In 1830, Joseph Smith had been anointed by heaven as a latter-day prophet to restore a fullness of the gospel in preparation for the second coming of Christ. So Smith founded a new church. Seventeen men since then had each taken the title of prophet and president. Every one of those seventeen had risen from the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, which stood just below the prophet in the church hierarchy.
His plan was to become the eighteenth.
And this discovery might just help.
He gazed around the cavern and imagined what had happened here in 1857.
Everything about this place fit the legend.
Only now it had been proven true.
FOUR
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
8:40 P.M.
MALONE PILOTED THE BOAT WHILE LUKE DANIELS, HIS CLOTHES soaked from the end of his skydive, kept low to avoid the briskness that raced across the windscreen.
“You a regular jumper?” he asked.
“I’ve got over a hundred in the logbook, but I haven’t landed in the water for a while.”
The younger man pointed at Kirk, who sat huddled near the stern, and yelled over the motor’s roar, “You’re a pain in my ass.”
“Care to tell me why?” Malone asked.
“What did Stephanie tell you?”
Good move, answering a question with a question. “Just that an agent is missing and this guy may know where he is.”
“That’s right. And this one here ran like a scalded dog.”
“And why is that?”
“ ’Cause he’s a snitch. And nobody likes a snitch.” Luke faced Kirk. “When we get to shore you and I are goin’ to have a chat.”
Kirk said nothing.
Luke stepped closer but stayed down out of the wind, knees flexed in response to the pitch and pound. “Tell me, Pappy, are you really as good as everyone says you are?”
“I ain’t as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.”
“You know the song. I love Toby Keith. Saw him in concert about five years ago. Didn’t take you for a country music man.”
“I’m not sure how to take you.”
“Just a humble servant of the U.S. government.”
“That’s my line.”
“I know. Stephanie told me to say that.”
“You understand,” he said, “that plane of yours was about to be sprayed with automatic rifle fire. Charging so low was foolish.”
“I saw the rifle. But he was standing on a swaying boat, and it looked like you needed help.”
“Are you always that reckless?”
He throttled the engine back as they approached the Copenhagen waterfront.
“You got to admit, that was pretty cool flying. Those wheels weren’t, what, six feet off the water.”
“I’ve seen better.”
Luke grabbed his chest in mock pain. “Oh, Pappy, you cut me to the core. I know you were once a navy top gun. A fighter jock. But give me a morsel. Somethin’. After all, I saved your hide.”
“Really now? Is that what you did?”
In another life Malone had worked as one of Stephanie Nelle’s original twelve agents at the Magellan Billet. He was a Georgetown-trained lawyer and a former navy commander. Forty-seven years old now. But he still had his hair, his nerve, and a sharp mind. His sturdy frame bore the scars of being wounded several times in the line of duty, which was one reason why he’d retired early three years ago. Now he owned an old-book shop in Copenhagen, where he was supposed to stay out of trouble.