The Seventh Stone (32 page)

They climbed a second flight of stairs and stepped through a heavy fire door into a hallway that was as grand as the one that they left behind in the history building was ordinary. It evoked the air of a gentleman’s library, with dark, wainscoted paneling and well-lit portraits of important-looking men in gilded frames. She could nearly smell their cigars.

Conroy led them through a heavy, carved oak door marked simply, with a gilt-lettered sign,
The Harold Hershey Memorial Room
. It was dimly lit by the nighttime security sconces, which washed the room in a reddish glow. The mahogany paneling swallowed the scant natural light that slanted through the room’s tall, narrow windows from the gloom outside. The Hershey Room had already been closed for the winter break. Their footsteps echoed loudly in the hush. Christa startled when the radiator banged and hissed awake.

“
Harold Hershey was a mason, you know,” said Conroy, pointing to the painting of the room’s benefactor just inside the door. Hershey was seated in a carved wooden chair, dressed in the tuxedo of the era, with a golden pocket watch chain hooked onto his vest button and an expression of barely tolerated patience on his bearded face. Beside him, on a mahogany desk, were glimpses of letters and drawings of the man’s fertile and profitable innovations. Behind him, on the wall, hung the familiar square and compass symbol of the freemasons. “Now, there is a connection for you, Christa. The Bible only describes two of the twelve sacred gemstones on the Breastplate of Aaron by name. They are, of course, Urim and Thummim. The masons teach, in their thirteenth, fourteenth and twenty-first degree ceremonies, that the Urim and Thummim were part of the treasury of Solomon’s Temple.”

Daniel drew alongside Conroy. “Which was destroyed when Jerusalem was sacked by the Babylonians in 586 BC,” he said. “When the Ark of the Covenant, which held the original Ten Commandments, vanished.”

“
Along with the Ark’s sister piece, the Breastplate of Aaron,” she said, “that held the Urim and Thummim.”

Conroy nodded. “The Jewish Kabbalistic traditions concur with the freemasons,” he said. “The Urim and Thummim are also significant to the Mormon religion. When the angel Moroni presented Joseph Smith with the golden plates that contained the Book of Mormon, Smith used Urim and Thummim to translate it, thus beginning a new religion.” He led them past cases of illuminated manuscripts, Etruscan pottery and Greek friezes taken from a time when travelling aristocrats paying a pittance for a country’s ancient artifacts was considered fashionable.

“
Islam has its own sacred stone,” said Christa, “not of the Breastplate, although their holy stone is connected to the Old Testament. When the faithful make their pilgrimage to Mecca, they go specifically to circle the Black Stone seven times. It is said the God sent the stone from heaven to Adam and Eve, so that it would be the first temple on Earth. And that Mohammad, before he even became a prophet, placed the stone in its spot in Mecca and kissed it.”

“
That stone, although black, has a colorful history,” quipped Conroy. “The Black Stone has been stolen, ransomed, broken into seven pieces, restored and, indeed, is the focus of the Muslim’s most holy pilgrimage.” He stopped at a case with a small but impressive collection of finely wrought Mesoamerican gold.

“
My favorite exhibit,” Christa said. It wasn’t much. The pieces were small, pendants, ear adornments, but they had survived. The conquistadors, in their hubris and lust for gold, had melted down most of these works of art into gold bars for ease of transport back to Spain. She’d been granted hands-on research of the Mesoamerican collection on several occasions, trying to find evidence that proved that the Spaniards destroyed the pieces not because they did not recognize the mastery of the culture’s artisans, but because they did.

“
There he is,” said Conroy, a hint of affection in his voice. “El Dorado.”

Daniel nearly muscled her out of the way. He sighed with disappointment. “That is what you brought us in here for?” he asked.

“
That,” said Conroy, pointing to the diminutive figurine, “is history.”

“
It’s the piece that you got when you were in Colombia as a boy,” said Christa. The piece was simply labeled,
Figurine, Colombia, Muisca, 300-1500 AD
, followed by a catalog number. Only about two inches tall, the golden man’s round face was adorned with a feathered headdress and hoop earrings half as big as his face. He wore a necklace, loincloth and sandals. Each hand grasped a golden object, speculated to be his tribe’s version of a royal staff and orb. His golden legs were bowed outwards at the knees, as if he was performing a dance. This golden man evoked history clearer than volumes of text.

“
This,” said Conroy, “is El Dorado.”

“
El Dorado,” she echoed. “Literally translated as the gilded man. The legend began with the Muisca tribe of Colombia. It all started with an eyewitness account of a European, written just one year before Quesada’s catastrophic expedition.”

“
Like the Spanish, the Muisca ritualized their coronations,” said Conroy. “Their new ruler was gilded head to foot in gold dust. The ruler and his top aides gathered a bounty of gold and Emeralds. They brought their tribute to Lake Guatavita. There, they built a raft of rushes and floated to the center of the lake. They tossed a wealth of gold and Emeralds into the waters as a tribute to their heathen god. The water, for the Muisca, lives with a spiritual power.”

“
The gilded man dove into the waters,” said Christa, “leaving behind his skin of gold, emerging as the new monarch.”

“
That one true account transmuted into a legend of the lost mythical city of gold that enthralled the Spaniards and inspired hundreds of miles of exploration,” Conroy said. “But they kept their blinders on. They weren’t interested in anything except for gold.”

“
The archives say this figurine once belonged to a medicine man,” said Christa. “You never told anyone the story of how you acquired it.”

“
Jairo’s father gave it to me,” said Conroy, “in the hospital, in gratitude for saving his son’s life from the jaguar. I didn’t want to accept it. He said that it had been passed down through generations of shamans. Even then, I knew the figurine had to have great spiritual significance.” A blush pinked Conroy’s already ruddy cheeks. After all these years, the intensity of the emotion brought on by his memory had not dulled. He cleared his throat. “The El Dorado figurine dangled from a pendant that Jairo’s father wore. The pendant,” he breathed in deeply, “depicted a giant bird of prey.”

“
The protector of the Oculto Canyon,” said Christa. “Salvatierra described the rock outcropping above the temple hiding the canyon as Demon’s Wings.”

Conroy nodded. “I was young and heavily sedated,” he said, “but it’s coming back to me. I wonder now, could Jairo’s father have possibly foreseen what has come to pass? Is that why he insisted I accept it even though I knew I wasn’t worthy? I do believe that shamans are often endowed with a kind of sixth sense, specifically clairvoyance and precognition. It could be genetic. I conducted a study once, quite fascinating, really.”

Daniel groaned. “How is this going to help us get the gems,” he asked, “and the Breastplate?”

“
Your words, Christa, that gold endures,” said Conroy, “jogged my memory. Jairo’s father told me.
El Dorado is a guardian, between Earth and Heaven. Only he can show you the way to paradise.
The Oculto Canyon was their Garden of Eden.” He bent down to examine the lock holding closed the hinged lid of the glass display case. “You’ve got to get this figurine to Gabriella,” he said. “Perhaps she has to use it with a map, I don’t know. But without it, she will never find the entrance to the temple leading to the Oculto Canyon.”

“
It’s gold. The case is locked,” said Daniel. His tone was condescending. “I don’t suppose you have the key.”

“
As a matter of fact, I do,” said Conroy. He extracted the archaeologist’s hammer and chisel from his jacket pocket and, without hesitation, jammed the chisel behind the hasp with a shiver of metal against metal.

“
Stop,” shouted Daniel. “It’s got to be alarmed.”

Too late. Conroy pounded on the chisel with his hammer. Alarm claxons blared into the room. Blinding lights flashed on. Christa reflexively cringed at the din and raised an arm to protect her eyes from the sudden glare. Conroy pounded away. The chisel edged its way in behind the hasp, slowly bending the metal.

“
They’re coming,” said Daniel. In between the deafening alarms, heavy footfalls approached rapidly from down the hall. He grabbed Christa’s arm. “He’s nuts. Let’s get out of here.”

Christa shook off Daniel’s hand. She wasn’t about to let Conroy take this risk for nothing. With a snap, the hasp broke open. Conroy lifted the case’s hinged lid. He reached in and snatched up El Dorado from its velvet cradle. He thrust the figurine into her hand. “Take El Dorado,” he shouted over the alarm. “I’ll stall them. Out the window with you. Run!”

They ran all right, in a full out sprint, around the building, back across the courtyard. Christa dove behind a hedge of boxwoods lining the sidewalk near her car. Daniel stumbled in beside her, breathing hard. He pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. “Great,” he said, “we’re thieves. I sure didn’t predict that part of God’s divine plan for us.”

Her cell phone chimed. An email coming in. She looked at the screen. “My God,” she said. “It’s from Ahmed.”

“
That name Conroy asked you about. Who the hell is Ahmed?”

“
My father’s friend from Morocco. He’s here in New York.” She showed Daniel the picture of the stunning cat’s eye Emerald on her phone. “And he has the Tear of the Moon Emerald.”

CHAPTER
39

Jared knew he had little hope, but he had to try. Contreras brought the duplicate of Edward’s sapphire closer to his eye; he had to suspect it was a fake. Jared would grab the champagne bottle, swing at Torrino first, maybe get lucky and clock him in the head. His plan didn’t go beyond that. By then, he knew, he’d be dead.

Jared tensed to make his move, but he saw something truly unexpected. Contreras smiled.

Contreras removed the loupe from his eye and closed his gloved fingers around the sapphire. “Well done, Jared,” he said. “This is truly the gem of a monarch.” Jared hoped the man had not heard his sigh of utter relief. “Mister Torrino, my briefcase.”

The beefy man picked up the silver Halliburton case, crossed over to Contreras and presented it to him like a vassal with a treasure chest. Contreras spun the combination locks and released the latches. He opened the top lid, leaving the case balanced on Torrino’s formidable forearms. Jared could see that the black velvet lining of the case had been tailored to fit a customized, protective foam. The entire case was built for one purpose. In the velvet, precisely sized hollows awaited seven roughly oval objects, varying in length and width from ten to fifty millimeters. The seven sacred stones.

“
And so it begins,” Contreras said. He placed the sapphire in the fifth spot from the left. The blue looked proud against the black, terrifying in its brilliance. Contreras drank in a long, slow look. He waved his hand. Torrino stepped back. Contreras set his sights on Jared. “Now for the Kohinoor diamond.”

Jared grasped the diamond between his forefinger and thumb with renewed confidence and held it towards the window. Although it was dark and stormy without, the diamond was alive with a brilliance from within. Cut from what was once the largest diamond in the world, he balanced between his fingertips 105.6 carats of purest white. Oval in shape, faceted expertly to fully enhance its inner beauty, Jared felt as if its refractions of light had to be the Earthly version of the tunnel people describe when the “see the light,” when they die, are called towards heaven and then are yanked back to life. “The Mountain of Light diamond,” he translated from the Persian,
Kohinoor
. “And yet that is a most recent name for the gem. It was first written about 5,000 years ago in the ancient Sanskrit texts. Its first known name was Syamantaka, one of the most powerful gems in Hindu mythology, a gift to Krishna from the Sun God, who wore it round his neck.”

Contreras rose from the chair like a specter from the grave. “He who possesses this diamond rules the world.”

Jared tightened his grip on the gem. Contreras’s desire to hold it was palpable. “And so they have, Baltasar,” he said. “But with great power comes great risk. In the 1300s, a mighty Shah possessed the diamond, only to have his army defeated, the stone taken away as war bounty to Delhi. By 1526, it belonged to the sultan, Babur, who claimed the diamond’s value could feed the whole world for two days. It was a time of conquest and defeat in the mogul’s empires. In 1547, the diamond was temporarily lost in the annals of history.”