WYATT’S TOYS HAD DONE THE TRICK. PANIC NOW REIGNED INSIDE the mansion. People screaming, shoving, trying to escape. He’d used a modified mixture that added smoke, which only amplified the effects. Thank goodness he’d shipped a supply to New York, since he’d been unsure just what would happen once Cotton Malone entered the picture.
He’d retreated into Jefferson’s bedroom and jammed a chair under the doorknob. He knew another tour would be making their way from the sitting room into the library, then the cabinet. He stepped lightly across the room’s plank floor toward the bed. He recalled the guide earlier babbling about how Jefferson would rise as soon as he could see the hands of an obelisk clock that sat across from the bed. A crimson silk counterpane-sewn to Jefferson’s specifications, the guide had pointed out-covered the mattress, which filled an alcove between the bedroom and the cabinet. He crawled onto the bed and carefully peered around the edge, past arches, to see people in the library, about twenty feet away. The guide seemed to be assessing the unusual situation and, upon hearing the screams from the other end of the house, asked for everyone to stay calm.
Wyatt tossed a light bomb their way, jerking his head back just as the flash and smoke appeared.
Shouts came as fear set in.
“This way,” he heard a voice say over the commotion.
He glanced back and saw the guide leading the group through the smoke, out the louvered doors, into the adjacent greenhouse and fresh air.
He turned his attention to the cipher wheel.
Which rested two feet away.
MALONE STOOD INSIDE MONTICELLO’S TWO-STORY ENTRANCE hall. Smoke billowed from open glass doors at the opposite end, followed by screams and yells that signaled something had just happened to his left.
The estate manager stood beside him.
A wave of people had fled the house a moment ago through the main doors behind him, their voices excited, their eyes alight with fear.
“What’s that way?” he asked, motioning to the left where the commotion now seemed centered.
“Jefferson’s private rooms. The library, cabinet, bedroom.”
“Is that where the wheel is displayed?”
The man nodded.
He found his gun. “Out. And don’t let anybody in.”
He realized there was no bomb. Just flash and pan. A diversion. The same swishing sound from last night and the attack on the men with the night-vision goggles.
Who the hell was here?
WYATT SLIPPED THE NYLON CARRYALL HE’D BROUGHT WITH him from his pant pocket. The wheel was larger than he’d expected, but the thin bag could handle it. He’d have to be careful since the wooden disks seemed brittle. Understandable, considering they were over two hundred years old.
He climbed off the bed into the cabinet, removed the glass cover, and lifted out the spindled disks. Carefully, he worked the device into the nylon bag. He then grabbed two loose disks that had been displayed separately and laid them in the bag. He would have to cradle the bundle in his arms, holding it close to his chest to ensure no damage.
He tested the weight.
About five pounds.
No problem.
MALONE PASSED THROUGH A ROOM WITH PALE GREEN WALLS and a fireplace. A placard identified it as the South Square Room. Above a white mantel hung a woman’s portrait. Another door led into what he recalled from some reading as Jefferson’s sanctum sanctorum, which consumed the entire south end of the building.
Gun in hand, he opened the door and was met by a wall of smoke.
He stared through the fog and caught glimpses of people outside, through the room’s windows, which stretched floor-to-ceiling, opening like doors into a sunlit porch bright with potted plants. He grabbed a breath and plunged into the smoke, keeping close to the wall, seeking cover behind a wooden cabinet. Ahead, to his left, rose narrow bookshelves lined with old leather-bound volumes. Archways supported the ceiling and led to the far end where, in a semi-octagonal alcove, he spotted a man, bagging up the wheel.
He focused on the face.
One he knew.
And everything made sense.
WYATT CAUGHT MOVEMENT THROUGH THE FOG. SOMEBODY had entered the library at the far end.
He finished his task, cradled the wheel in one arm, and found his gun.
He saw a man staring at him.
Cotton Malone.
And fired a shot.
MALONE DROPPED BEHIND THE WOODEN CABINET AS WYATT sent a bullet his way. What had it been? Eight years. At least. He’d never known what had happened to Wyatt after he was forced out, though he’d heard something about freelancing.
The person who’d set the trap using Stephanie Nelle as bait, luring him to that hotel room. The author of the note left for him to find. The voice on the radio from the Grand Hyatt that fingered him. The manipulation of the police and the Secret Service.
All Wyatt.
Something flew through the fog and landed on the floor.
Small, round, rolling his way.
He knew what was coming and whirled his head to the right, shutting his eyes.
WYATT ABANDONED THE CABINET, THEN THE BEDROOM, AND made his way back into the parlor, away from Malone. As much as he’d like to stay and play, he couldn’t.
Not now.
He had the wheel and that was all that mattered. He could use it to discover what lay next in the search for the two missing congressional pages. Or maybe he’d just destroy the thing and be done with it.
That way, nobody would win.
At the moment, he was unsure.
MALONE DECIDED NOT TO FOLLOW WYATT. HE KNEW THE ground-floor rooms wound their way back to the center, so he opened a door to his right, revealing a short corridor that emptied twenty feet ahead into the entrance hall.
Smoke drifted his way.
Visibility wasn’t good, and Wyatt certainly wasn’t going to walk out the front door. To his immediate right, a set of narrow, wedge-shaped steps rose in a vertical spiral to the second floor. A chain with a sign indicated no admittance. He recalled the entrance hall and the open second-floor railing and decided the high ground might be better, so he stepped over the chain and headed up.
WYATT INTENDED ON LEAVING, BUT NOT FROM THE GROUND floor. His plan was to make his way to the cellar, then out through the lower, north exit into the woods beyond the service road. That had always seemed the safest route, considering the excitement would be centered on the house’s east side. But Malone was just a few feet away, probably trying to make his way back toward the entrance hall.
He stopped in the parlor and listened.
Smoke remained thick. No one was around. Malone probably had the house sealed. Then a thought occurred to him and his gaze drifted to the ceiling.
Of course.
That’s exactly what he would have done.