James Rollins - THE DEVIL COLONY

Gray remained standing. She studied him, remembering the strained look on his face, the glimmer of fear in his eyes as he spoke with his father. There was no evidence of it now. Where had he bottled it away? How long could he keep doing that?

Still, he was in his element now, and for that she was relieved-almost as much as she was about the weight off her leg. But both their burdens would not stay away for long.

"So what can you tell me about Fortescue's journal?" Gray asked.

Dr. Eric Heisman nodded vigorously as he paced the room. The space was even more of a shambles than before. Documents and books had trebled in number on the table. Someone had wheeled in another two microfiche readers from a neighboring research room. Other people in the building must be wondering what was going on in here, especially with the armed guard posted at the door. But considering all the valuable documents preserved in the Archives' expansive vaults and helium-enriched enclosures, maybe the sight of a guard wasn't that unusual.

Still, by now, Heisman looked more like a mad scientist than a museum curator. His shirt was rumpled, rolled to the elbows, and his white hair stuck up like a fright wig. But the impression came mostly from his eyes, red-rimmed and wired, shining with a fanatical zeal.

Again, though, the latter might have come from the pile of empty Starbucks coffee cups filling the room's lone trash bin.

How long had the man been up?

"Truly astounding stuff in here," Heisman said. "I don't know where to begin. Where did you find it?"

Gray shook his head. "I'm afraid that's classified, as is our conversation."

He waved the words away. "I know, I know... Sharyn and I signed all the necessary documents for this temporary clearance."

His assistant sat at the other end of the table. She hadn't said a word when they'd entered. Her dark eyes merely lifted long enough from the photocopied pages to nod at them. At some point, she had changed out of her clingy black dress and into a smart blouse and casual slacks.

Wary, Seichan kept half an eye on her. There was nothing the woman had done to warrant suspicion, beyond her stunning looks, with her smooth skin, petite features, and flatironed black hair. What was someone so beautiful doing as a mere assistant to a curator in a vault of dusty manuscripts? This woman could easily be walking down a runway in Milan.

Seichan also didn't like how Gray's eyes lingered on her whenever she shifted in her seat, to turn a page, to jot a note.

"Why don't you start at the beginning?" Gray suggested, trying to jump-start the discussion.

"Not a bad suggestion," Heisman said, and pointed Gray to a chair "Sit. I'll tell you. It's a remarkable story. Fills in so many blanks."

Gray obeyed.

Heisman continued to pace, too agitated to sit. "This journal is a diary of events, beginning when Franklin first approached Archard."

Archard...?

Seichan hid a smirk. Looked like the curator was now on a first-name basis with the Frenchman.

"It starts with the discovery of an Indian mound in Kentucky." Heisman turned to Sharyn for help.

She didn't even lift her head. "The Barrow of the Serpent."

"Yes, very dramatic. It was there that they discovered a golden map lining the inside of a mastodon skull, which was itself wrapped within a buffalo hide. It was the hidden Indian map that the dying shaman had told Jefferson about."

Heisman continued, gesturing as he spoke for emphasis when needed, which apparently was a lot. "But that wasn't the first time Jefferson and Franklin met with a Native American shaman. Chief Canasatego brought another shaman from a distant Western tribe to meet with Jefferson. It seems this old fellow had traveled a long way to meet with the new white leaders to these shores. The shaman told Jefferson a long story about previous pale Indians who once shared their lands, a people with great powers. It was said that they also came from the east, like the colonists. This, of course, drew great interest on the part of those two Founding Fathers. Likewise, a fair amount of skepticism."

Gray nodded. "No doubt."

"Eventually the shaman returned with proof. Making sure that what transpired was cloaked in great secrecy, he demonstrated evidence of a technology that baffled and astounded Franklin and Jefferson." Heisman turned to his assistant. "Sharyn... could you read that passage?"

"One moment." She shifted pages, found the right one, and read. " 'They came with a gold that would not melt, weapons of a steel that no Indian had ever wielded, but most important, with a silvery dry elixir a very pinch of which was a thousandfold more powerful than a mountain of black powder.' "

Gray shared a look with Seichan. The immutable gold had to be the same metal as they had seen on the tablets. It was far denser and harder than ordinary gold. And the silvery dry elixir ... could that be the source of the powerful explosions that had been witnessed in both Utah and Iceland?

Heisman continued, "Because the Iroquois Confederacy very much wanted to be part of the new nation, they were trying to broker a deal."

"For the Fourteenth Colony," Gray added.

"The Devil Colony, yes. The negotiations, though held in secret, were fairly well along. It would be a trade. The Iroquois Confederacy even staked out its territory." He turned, but this time Sharyn was ready.

" 'They wished to possess a great land beyond the French territories, lands unexplored and unclaimed, wishing not to threaten the growing interest of the colonists to the east. The Iroquois would give up their old lands and their great secret knowledge in exchange for a permanent new home and a solid stake in this new nation. Additionally, it was ascertained through private meetings with Chief Canasatego that at the heart of the Indian colony was a lost city, the source of these miraculous materials. But of that place's location, they remained duly cryptic.' "

As his assistant read the translation, Heisman slid an open atlas across the table. It displayed an old map of the United States. He poked at a shaded section that spread northward from New Orleans in a V shape, covering most of what would later be the middle of the country. "Here are the lands bought from the French by Jefferson."

"The Louisiana Purchase," Gray said.

"From the journal entry, I think the proposed Fourteenth Colony desired by the Indians must lie somewhere west of the Purchase. But Archard never goes into any more detail on where exactly it was. There's only one tangential mention."

"What was it?" Seichan asked.

"After Archard unearthed that Indian map at the serpent mound, he determined the metal of the map was composed of the same strange gold. And on that map were marked two spots."

" Iceland was one of them," Gray muttered, plainly working the puzzle in his head.

"That's right. The second was far out to the west. Archard believed that the site marked in the Western territories might be the location of that lost city, the proposed heart of the new colony . But it was too far west-off in uncharted lands of that time-and the map apparently was not precise enough on the details, so Archard decided to investigate Iceland first, as that sea journey was well charted by sailors."

Gray leaned back. "I don't suppose the Frenchman thought to make a copy of that map to include with his journal?"

"No. According to Archard, Thomas Jefferson kept the map a great secret. He would not let anyone but his inner circle see it. No copies were to be made."

Seichan understood his caution. The president must have feared his unknown enemy and didn't realize how badly his government had already been infiltrated. Mistrust and paranoia . Yes, she could easily put herself in Jefferson's shoes.