Randy White - Black Widow

“He was just a lad at the time,” Montbard told me, showing me his grandfather’s journal as we sat in the library, near the stone with the strange glyphs. “Someone came along, surprised him, and he dropped the thing.” He’d gestured at the artifact with his temporary hook. “The Mayan glyph is unmistakable. But it’s only been in the last two years that I’ve had time to break the other cipher-my real job always kept me hopping.”

He’d taken out a sketch pad as we stood over the artifact, and showed me tracings of the glyphs. They were similar to sketches I’d made in my notebook.

I was skeptical when he added, “I think we’re looking at ancient Masonic code-but not as ancient as I’d hoped. See what you think.”

He flipped the page, saying, “Here’s the key to the code.”

There were two tic-tac-toe grids. Each square contained a letter: A-B-C on the top level of the first grid, D-E-F on the next level. Letters followed that progression. In the second grid, there were dots beneath each of the nine letters.

There were also two large Xs, with a letter in each of the eight open triangles. There were dots beneath letters in the second X.

“Look at the glyphs. They’re actually shapes. Partial boxes. Now look at the grid. The first square is a two-sided box, open at the left and top. It represents A. B is a three-sided box, open at the top. C is a two-sided box, open at the right and at the top.

“It’s a simple substitution cipher,” he’d said. “It’s supposedly a Masonic secret, but you see it all the time these days in books and films. Each box, opened or closed, replaces the letter it contains. Understand?”

“I think I do.”

I took the sketch pad and matched the glyphs to the tic-tac-toe grids. The result was a series of meaningless letters.

“It makes no sense. Did I do it right?”

“Perfectly,” Montbard had replied, grinning. “But it’s also perfectly wrong. The actual Masonic key-the one used for many hundreds of years-really is secret. The popular books, the films, the cipher they use, is actually gibberish when properly translated.”

“You know this because you’re a Freemason?”

“No. I know because the actual cipher key is here-” He held up his grandfather’s journal. “It has been in the family forever, but it wasn’t obvious, even to me.

“You’d have to be a Mason to understand that we have codes that represent codes that replace other codes. I have no idea of the meaning of half the things we learn as Masons. The language is archaic. But I finally figured out this one.”

He’d flipped the page of the sketch pad. “I can’t show you all of it, old boy. I’m breaking a rule, showing you this. But see what happens when I turn this… add this… then join this?” He used a charcoal pencil to change the key, then he translated the glyphs.

" ’tubal,’ ” I said, “is that a word?”

“If you’re a Freemason, my boy, it has great meaning. That’s all I can say.”

Sir James then took portions of the broken fragment he’d found at the monastery. On it were three more glyphs. When he fitted the stones together, the five glyphs, using the new cipher key, now translated as: "MDCXV.”

“Another secret word?”

Sir James said, “No. Roman numerals. It’s a date: 1615.”

I smiled, impressed. “It’s a great find.”

“Yes,” he said, “but it’s also disappointing. The Mayan glyph, of course, was carved long before 1615. Frankly, I expected the new section to provide missing numerals-thirteen. As in 1315. Still… it’s suggestive. Even encouraging, in its way. I’m not done looking, Ford. By God, I’m not!

“One more surgery, a spot of rest, then I’m off to Central America. Descendants of the Knights Templar were here. What I’ve found proves it-to me, anyway. I’m convinced the warrior monks sailed here long before Columbus, their ships loaded with gold and jewels, and relics from the Holy Land. Their treasure’s out there, Ford. Somewhere in the jungle.”

The next day, back on Grenada, Monday, July 1st, I sent duplicate packages to the Eastern Caribbean tourist board, to the Miami Herald, and to the French DST, which is the equivalent of our FBI. The packages contained evidence I’d collected against Isabelle Toussaint. I included a letter that suggested blackmail was a boutique industry on Saint Arc, and possibly Jamaica, too. I used data assembled by Tomlinson.

Contacting the wife of a former French president was trickier than contacting my new senator friend. So I let Bernie Yager take care of it.

The same day, I delivered a box to the U.S. embassy in Grenada. It would be transported to the States via diplomatic pouch.

It would not be the first time stolen cash and gems had entered the U.S. in that fashion. But it was the first time Tomlinson ever opened the door to a Federal agent and didn’t expect to be arrested.

Thursday night while I was in the lab, gathering Corona bottles Tomlinson had emptied as we planned his Summer Christmas Fiesta, the phone rang. Surprise, surprise-Hal Harrington. He sounded perturbed, but also mystified when he mentioned the first initial of my new friend, the U.S. senator, then said, “This person thinks you’re an absolute saint. This person talked my ear off about you at a certain embassy last night. I’ve heard this person actually got a certain state agency to release you from your contract. Why, for God’s sake?”

Hal spoke of the senator in careful, neutral terms because the senator was a woman-an attractive woman, dark-haired and fit, judging from photos. One of the youngest ever elected to that most exclusive of clubs.

“I did the person in question a favor,” I told Harrington. “No strings attached. That’s the truth. And that’s all I can say. Hal-I may do you a favor, and come back to work. If you ask real nice.”

“You’re serious.”

“On my own terms, of course.”

“Things are going pretty well, right now. Maybe we don’t need you.”

“Are we already negotiating, or are you being an ass?”

“We’re negotiating. Are you fit for duty?”

I brushed a hand over the back of my head. “Never better.”

We talked for another ten minutes. It sounded as if the man was my friend again. Then I told him I had to go-also true.

The visitor I was expecting was a woman. Ten-thirty sharp, drinks and a late dinner, she’d told me in a familiar businesslike voice. Then she had to go. Lots of work to do.

I wanted to be shaved and dressed before she arrived, so I was headed for the shower, towel knotted around my waist, when the open box on the dissecting table, return address General Forensics, White Plains, NY, caught my eye once again. I stopped, checked my Rolex10:10 p.m.-then reread the last few paragraphs of Merlin Starkey’s shaky hand.

… your daddy was a good man, Marion. A sight better man than your uncle Tucker Gatrell, although Tuck had a genius, which even I will admit.

If I wasn’t sure you already knew what it is I’m about to write, I’d warn you it might hurt. But I am sure. Your mother was a well-educated woman. She liked music and things, art and such, and she knew all the birds, which your daddy didn’t. People can get lonely inside their own heads. Maybe it’ll happen to you, one day. It happened to your mother.

She had an affair with a young museum professor, an expert on plants or maybe trees, who come down here from Chicago. The museum fella, he fell in love with your mother. Your mama didn’t fall in love with him. He was good-looking, I reckon, but he was a damn bad man. You know his name, Marion. No need for me to write it.

He disappeared seven months after the boat blew up and killed your parents. You couldn’t have been sixteen years old at the time. The museum man was out in the swamps, slogging around with his notebook, and he just disappeared. Murdered. I know, ’cause I investigated that murder, too.