Cradle of Solitude (23 page)

Annja drove straight back to her motel. She parked her car out of sight between a pair of oversize pickup trucks at the back of the lot and then carried the chest up to her room.

The light in the bathroom was brighter than that in the bedroom, so she took the chest in there and set it on the counter next to the sink. There was still a thin patina of dirt covering the outside of the chest so she grabbed a washcloth from the towel rack and used it to clear as much of it off as possible.

It wasn't anything to look at, really. It was just a simple metal box with a circular indentation in the lid. Aside from that there weren't any other markings or decorations of any kind.

Functional
was the word that came to mind.

After all the time it had spent in the earth, she hoped it still remained that way, as well.

She took the Jeffersonian Key out of her pocket and, with more than a bit of trepidation, placed it into the indentation on the lid.

With a deep breath and a silent prayer to whoever might be listening, Annja placed a finger against the center of the star and pushed down on the disk.

There was an audible
click
and a previously unseen seam opened up along the outline of the disk. Then she heard the whir and ticking of a clockwork mechanism and the disk sank half an inch into the top of the chest.

Taking hold of the eight-pointed star that sat atop the disk, Annja put her ear next to the box and slowly began to turn the star to the right, like a safecracker listening for the correct number on the dial. She was afraid she would miss it and there was no telling what would happen if she did. She'd encountered her fair share of reliquaries and other storage devices in the past that had been rigged to cause damage to their contents should the opening sequence not be performed correctly. She'd seen them all—everything from acid baths to sudden bursts of flame. It wouldn't do Garin any good for her to have come this far only to screw it up at the last minute.

She needn't have worried, however. The minute the dial had been turned the right distance, it clicked loudly into place. Annja pulled back at the sound and watched as the top third of the box extended outward in all directions, the pieces twisting and turning in individual squares like the parts of a Rubik's Cube. The ticking came again and then the parts rapidly reassembled themselves until the top of a cylinder with the same circumference as the key jutted out of the upper third of the device.

Annja's pulse was pounding in her ears as she reached out and turned the key back in the other direction, just as she would if dialing the combination on her locker at the gym.

The star spun in the other direction, all the way around past the first location once, twice, and then, as the main point of the star came around to true north for the third time, there was another
click
. Just as before, the box underwent a strange mechanical transformation, rearranging itself into the center section of the cylinder. One more turn of the dial, this time back in the original direction, another surge of activity, and Annja was left with a vertical cylinder about the size of a cookie jar, with the eight-pointed star as a lid. The letters
CSA
stretched down the front of the cylinder in faded red paint.

“All right, Parker,” she said to the container. “You've led me on a merry chase, now it's time to give up the ghost and tell me what you did with that treasure.”

She tugged the lid free and looked inside.

There was nothing there.

She put the lid down on the counter and frantically ran her right hand around inside the cylinder, looking for a hidden catch or something that might reveal a final secret not quite visible to the naked eye.

The second time around she told herself to go slower, to take her time and be as thorough as possible. These kinds of things could be delicate, she knew, and she might miss something in her excited state. She took a few deep breaths to calm her anxious heart and then tried again.

After the third attempt she had no choice but to admit the obvious.

The cylinder was empty.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror over the sink. Was that accusation in her eyes? All that effort and nothing to show for any of it. Where had she gone wrong?

And, more importantly, what now? How was she going to rescue Garin without the treasure?

Her head sagged forward in resignation and as it did her gaze fell on the reflection of the interior surface of the cylinder lid in the mirror in front of her.

There was something written there!

She snatched up the lid and turned it around. What was written made little sense until she realized that not only was she holding the lid upside down, but that it had been written backward, as well. Flipping it over and holding it up to the mirror allowed her to read it.

Grabbing the bar of soap from the dispenser next to her, Annja used it to scrawl the numbers on the mirror in front of her.

Despite the absence of the symbols noting degrees and minutes, the numbers were easily recognizable as latitude and longitude notations and could be nothing less than the location of the treasure.

All she had to do now was determine where, exactly, those notations indicated.

She didn't have her computer with her, so she couldn't just look it up. The motel she was staying in didn't have public internet access, either.

She thought about her options.

She knew it was a risk. The bodies aboard the
Kelly May
had probably been found by now. That would have led to a thorough examination of Jimmy Mitchell's contacts over the past few days, which would have turned up the delivery of the equipment Doug had arranged to borrow from the university. Her name, and possi
bly Garin's, too, were no doubt known to the police at this point. Right about now the authorities were either dredging the river looking for her corpse or, more likely, were looking for her as the prime suspect in the deaths of Jimmy and Bernard.

If that was the case, they might even have Doug under surveillance and any attempt to reach out to him could put the police right on her tail.

She thought it was worth the risk, though. She needed to find the location of these coordinates and Doug was the fastest means of getting it done. If Doug was under surveillance, the worst the police could do was trace the call to her motel. It would take time for the New York authorities to inform the local Pennsylvania authorities. By the time the locals arrived at the motel, she should be well on her way somewhere else.

Decision made, Annja picked up the phone. She dialed Doug's office number but then changed her mind and disconnected before it rang through. His cell would be harder for the police to trace and so she tried that instead.

The very fact that you know that shows what kind of life you've been living lately, she mused.

Ignoring the voice of her conscience, Annja punched in the number, keeping her eyes on the clock as she did so.

It rang quite a few times before being answered.

“Doug Morrell.”

He sounded tired, as if she'd woken him up. Given that it was four o'clock in the morning, she wasn't surprised. She knew he would recognize her voice so she didn't bother with the usual niceties. “It's me. Can you talk?”

There was a slight pause and then Doug replied, “I'm sorry you must have the wrong number.”

Damn!

“Have the police been to see you?”

“Uh-huh. Well, have you tried his office number?”

It took her a second and then Annja understood. She grabbed the pen and paper off the motel nightstand and said, “Go ahead.”

“I'd give him a half hour or so, but after that you should be able to reach him at…” Doug replied, and rattled off a different telephone number.

Annja wrote it down and hung up.

The call had lasted less than two minutes. It always took at least three minutes for the cops to trace a number on
Law and Order,
and while network television dramas weren't always the most accurate, it was the only gauge Annja had to go by. She hoped they'd gotten it right.

She sat down on the edge of the bed to wait.

The thirty minutes Doug had suggested she wait felt like forever and she spent most of the time pacing across her tiny motel room floor. When the half hour was up she snatched the receiver and dialed the number he'd given her.

He answered on the first ring. “Jeez! Give me a heart attack, why don't you?” Doug said. “Where have you been? Are you all right? Do you realize how many people are looking for you?”

Annja didn't have time to explain everything that had happened, so she said, “I'm fine but I need some help.”

She could hear street noise in the background and realized that he must have given her the number for the pay phone on the corner near his apartment. Why he
had that number in the first place, she didn't know, but she was thankful that he did.

“We'll get you the best lawyer we can, Annja. Right now I think it…”

“Doug?”

“…best if you just turn yourself in to the nearest police—”

“Doug!”

“What?”

“I'm not turning myself in. I didn't do whatever it is they're saying I did.”

She could hear the hesitation in his voice as he responded. “I'm not sure that's such a good idea, Annja. The police are looking for you and I think it'd be better if—”

“Listen to me!” she yelled, the stress of the past few days finally getting the better of her. “Lives are in danger here, Doug! I need your help!”

That shut him up. Into the silence, she said, “The men who killed Jimmy Mitchell and Bernard Reinhardt are holding others captive. I've got to find a specific location in order to help them and all I have are latitude and longitude numbers.”

“Why don't you just plug them into a GPS?”

She gritted her teeth. “I don't have a GPS unit, Doug. That's why I'm calling you.”

“Oh, okay, hang on. I've got one right here on my cell phone.” There was a moment's pause and then he said, “Give me the coordinates.”

She read the degrees and minutes off the mirror where she had written them earlier.

It took him less than thirty seconds to come back with the information she needed.

“The Genoa Mine in Tallulah Gorge.”

Annja scrawled it on the paper in front of her. “Tallulah Gorge? Where the heck is that?”

“Hang on… Would you believe Georgia?”

Yes, she thought wearily, yes, she would believe Georgia. This had all started in Georgia so it made sense that it would end there, as well.

“Where in Georgia?” she asked.

Doug gave her the details. Tallulah Gorge was located in a state park of the same name at the very northeastern edge of Georgia, about ten miles north of the town of Tallulah Falls and roughly eight hundred miles south of where she now stood.

Annja had another decision to make.

She could call Michaels, give him the coordinates as agreed and hope he'd live up to his word to release Garin once she had located the treasure.

It was the easiest thing to do and would also ensure that she accomplished the goal before the deadline.

She knew that doing so, however, would be an act of sheer stupidity.

Both she and Garin had seen Michaels have his men execute Reinhardt and Mitchell. There was no way that Michaels would let them go free as a result. There was a chance that Garin was already dead, but Annja doubted Michaels would throw away his ace in the hole easily. With Garin alive he could force her cooperation. With him dead, there was nothing stopping Annja from going to the police with everything she knew.

No, she suspected that Michaels would live up to his end of the agreement, at least until he had the whereabouts of the treasure guaranteed.

When that happened, all bets were off. There was nothing stopping Michaels from putting a bullet in both of them at that point except Annja's own ingenuity. She
had to find a way to get Garin out into the open before turning over the coordinates. That way she'd have a chance of getting them both out of this mess alive.

Perhaps Tallulah Gorge was the answer she'd been looking for in more ways than one.

With the police actively seeking her, there was no way she could risk getting on a flight. She was going to have to make the trip from Pennsylvania to Georgia by car, a drive of about twelve hours, if she did it without stopping.

She glanced at the clock and did some quick mental arithmetic. If all went well, she'd arrive at the Gorge with barely an hour to spare before the end of Michaels's deadline.

Theoretically speaking, it was doable, but that didn't take into account the events of the past few days. The constant travel combined with her need to be up all night in order to recover the chest from the cemetery had left her dead on her feet. There was no way she was going to be able to make a twelve-hour drive without getting some sleep first. But doing so meant she would fail to meet Michaels's deadline.

In order to pull it off, she was going to need some help.

“…it'll be the best episode we've ever had!”

She realized with a start that Doug had been speaking to her the whole time. She hadn't heard a word he'd said nor did she have time to deal with whatever cockamamie plan he'd come up with, so she did what she always did when Doug went off on one of his rabbit trails; she ignored him.

“I'm going to need you to arrange for a car and driver for me, Doug.”

“I know I can get the network's approval and…wait a minute! What?”

“I need a car and a driver. There's no way I can make the drive to Tallulah Gorge on my own. You're going to have to arrange to have someone meet me somewhere. Maybe Richmond?”

Doug tried to catch up with her line of thought. “Tallulah Gorge? Why are you going there?”