El Paso, Texas
The unrest in Mexico City was the lead story of the twenty-four hour news cycle, but Roger Lavelle was more interested in watching Esperanza’s reaction to the repetitious coverage than he was in the latest updates. He made no comment, content to let Esperanza draw his own conclusions, and why not? The over-hyped media coverage made the argument far more persuasively than anything he might say.
When the pundits finally came up for air, the Mexican businessman turned to his host and asked the question again. “Do you really believe this is the answer, Roger?”
Lavelle gave a patient smile. “We’ve known each other for...what? Two years now? Have I ever led you astray? Your country has a problem that’s bigger than any one man. You know it. I know it.” He paused for dramatic effect. “History knows it, Guillermo. This should have happened long before either of us was born, but it didn’t. We have a chance to correct that mistake, once and for all, and for the good of all.”
He might have continued on in this vein, but a musical chirp from his pocket distracted him. He took out his phone, read the text message, and then rose from his chair. “I need to see to a matter. And you, my friend, need to get some rest. You, more than anyone else, are going to need it.”
My friend.
The lie came easy after two years of saying it, and his partnership with the Mexican had been so profitable that sometimes he almost forgot that the man was most certainly not his equal. Esperanza and his people had been put on earth to mow the lawns of people like Roger Lavelle.
He left Esperanza in the company of the talking heads and strolled down the hall to a conference room where his aide, Eric Trent, was working on the mystery of the Patton item. As important as it was to make sure that Esperanza played his part, none of it would matter if they could not unravel the secrets contained in that battered leather-bound journal, and soon. The wheels were already turning. Worse, there had been a troubling breach of security.
Samsonov had been quick to blame them for the slip-up, but Lavelle was not so sure. The Russians were not exactly masters of subtlety, and their vaunted spy organization was like an aging heavyweight champion, long past its Cold War prime.
Still, Destiny had been Samsonov’s idea. Maybe the KGB, or whatever they were calling themselves this week, had a few moves left, after all. As audacious as the plan was, what was even more astonishing was the fact that Samsonov had known exactly whom to bring it to.
Lavelle still recalled that first meeting, where Samsonov had shown him the letter, intercepted by Soviet agents seven decades earlier, in which the heroic but irascible General George S. Patton had declared his intention to launch a political career, with the ultimate goal of running for the office of president in 1948.
Winning the presidency on the strength of his war record would be only the first battle in a much larger campaign. Patton had been very clear about his motivations. The Soviet Union was, in his mind, an even greater enemy than the Nazi regime of Germany, and every day that passed would see the Russians consolidating their power and rebuilding their war machine. To defeat them would require more than just strong leadership, but the general had an ace up his sleeve which he believed would make all the difference when the inevitable showdown finally arrived.
Patton had been right about the Soviets, right about the threat of Communism and the eventual decline of American moral character. With a man like that leading America, there would have been no need for something like the Dominion. And while he might not have envisioned the coming of the atomic age or the protracted chess game that was the Cold War, in a prescient moment, Patton had foreseen the possibility that his decision would make him a target.
The letter openly detailed the contents of what Patton called “the Devil’s Gift”—neither the letter nor the diary explained why he chose this name—and how he would use it to forge a new chapter in American history, but it did not explicitly state where the object was. That information, if the letter was to be believed, was contained in his diary, written in a code which could only be understood, in Patton’s words “by someone worthy of such a destiny.” Given the context, there was little doubt that the reference was a play on words, a reference to the Spear of Destiny, with which Patton had been obsessed following the fall of Berlin. Patton rightly believed that the Devil’s Gift would hold the key to America’s future, and Lavelle felt certain the general would have approved of both the Dominion’s aims and its methods.
He wondered how Patton would have felt if he had known it would also mean salvation for the Russians.
He strode into the conference room and found Trent seated at the table, the diary open before him. On his right was a laptop computer, and on his left, resting on a square of velvet, was the Spear of Destiny, disassembled into its component pieces.
Trent was a compact, bookish man in his early thirties, an engineer by trade and one of the smartest men in Lavelle’s acquaintance. Lavelle, like many of those who had emerged to take positions of leadership in the Dominion following the roll-up of almost everyone involved in the Kingdom Church, was not a true believer, at least not in the quasi-religious mystical mumbo jumbo that had led Bishop Hadel and the others into ruin. Lavelle and Trent shared the view that the economic and political goals of the new and improved Dominion were of paramount importance, but Trent’s inquisitive mind and encyclopedic knowledge base made him the perfect point man for this particular task. As far as Lavelle was concerned, the Spear of Destiny was an interesting historical artifact albeit one with dubious provenance, but not much else.
The look on Trent’s face was about what Lavelle expected given the terse text message he had sent just a few minutes earlier.
“What’s wrong?”
Trent slid the Spear across the table. “See for yourself.”
Lavelle peered down at the relic, unsure exactly what he was supposed to be looking for. Samsonov had told him that the Spear was the key to cracking the code in the diary, and Trent had confirmed this shortly after returning from Vienna with the two items, but Lavelle had no clue as to exactly how the key was concealed.
He looked at the gold band with its legendary inscription, and then at the smaller silver band which had been added by Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV in the eleventh century. Trent had carefully removed both, as well as the black iron nail, allegedly used in the crucifixion.
Trent pointed again, leaning across the table to rest his finger on the gold band. Lavelle looked closer and saw a row of tiny letters stamped upon it.
REPLIK
“God damn it,” Lavelle breathed. “A goddamned fake.”
Trent nodded. “The museum put this on public display. The real one is probably locked away in a vault somewhere.”
Lavelle stared at the replica for several seconds. “If it’s an exact duplicate, then it should still work, right?”
Trent spread his hands. “If there’s a code key hidden there, I don’t know what it is.”
Lavelle took out a pre-paid “burner” cell phone and typed in the thirteen-digit string of numbers that would connect him to a similar phone unit on the other side of the world. It took a few seconds for the call to be connected and a few more before he heard a grunt. “Da?”
There was no need to waste time with pleasantries. “It’s a fake.”
Samsonov easily switched to English. “I have just learned this. There was a second break in, probably the same Americans who tried to stop me.”
“How did they find out about it?”
It was not the first time he had asked the question, and Samsonov’s answer was no more enlightening. “They are CIA. Who knows how they were tipped off?”
“We need the real Spear to crack the code.”
“That is your problem.” Before Lavelle could protest, Samsonov continued. “The Americans have the Spear now. If my information is correct, they are on their way to Washington D.C.”
“D.C.?”
“There is copy of diary in American Library of Congress. Soon, I think, they will know more than you do. If you hurry, you should be able to catch them and take back Spear.”
Lavelle did not like the sound of that. “Hang on. The cloak and dagger stuff is your job.”
“I am going to Mexico City to carry out next part of plan.”
“There won’t be a plan if we don’t crack that code. And don’t forget, I have to be in Mexico, too.”
“Is time to get your hands dirty.” Samsonov did not sound the least bit sympathetic. “If you cannot handle this small problem, then perhaps you are not ready for what will come when we succeed.”
Lavelle let his breath out slowly, measuring his reply. Without the Russian’s help, everything would fall apart. He could not afford to appear desperate or incompetent at this stage in the game.
“Relax,” Samsonov said, at length. “You know where they are going. Easy thing to set trap.”