nondescript compared with the public entry on the far side of the building with its giant bronze doors. That massive threshold led into the main rotunda of the Archives, a hall that displayed the original copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, all preserved in helium-filled glass enclosures.

But those documents were not why they'd come for this midnight visit. The building held over ten billion records covering the span of American history, cataloged and stockpiled in the nine hundred thousand square feet of storage space. If they were to find the document they sought, Gray knew he'd need help.

As they approached the entrance, the door swung open ahead of them. Gray tensed until a slim figure stepped forth and waved to them brusquely. His face was fixed in a hard scowl. Dr. Eric Heisman was one of the museum's curators, specializing in Colonial American history.

'Your colleague is already inside,' the curator said as greeting.

The man's hair was snowy white, worn long to the collar, with a trimmed goatee. As he held the door open for them, he fidgeted with a pair of reading glasses hanging from a chain around his neck. He clearly was not happy to be called from his home at this late hour. Summoned at the last minute, the curator was attired in a casual pair of jeans and a sweater.

Gray noted the emblem for the Washington Redskins-a profile of a feathered Native American warrior-sewn on the sweater. At the moment he found the symbol ironic, considering the subject matter he intended to broach. Dr. Heisman's historical expertise concerned the relationship between the burgeoning American colonies and the indigenous people the colonists had found living in the New World. It was just such an expert Gray needed to further his investigation.

'If you'll follow me,' Heisman said, 'I've reserved a research room near the main stacks. My assistant will pull whatever records you need.' He glanced back at them as they crossed the entry hall. 'This is quite unorthodox. Even clerks for the Supreme Court know better than to request records outside of regular hours. It would have been easier if you'd informed me about the specific matter that you required to be researched.'

The curator looked ready to chastise them some more, but his glance happened to settle on to Seichan's face. Whatever he saw there silenced any further complaints. He swung swiftly away.

Gray looked at her. She met his gaze and lifted a single brow, her countenance innocent. As she turned away, he noted a small scar under her right ear, half hidden by a fall of black hair. He was sure it was new. Wherever her investigations into the Guild had taken her, it had plainly been a hard path.

Following the curator through a maze of halls, they ended up in a small room dominated by a conference table and lined with microfiche readers along one wall. Gray found two people already waiting there. One was a young college-aged woman with flawless ebony skin. She could have stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine. The black pencil dress that hugged her figure only accentuated her appearance. Her perfectly made-up face suggested she hadn't been lounging at home when she was suddenly called to work.

'My assistant, Sharyn Dupre. She's fluent in five languages, but her native tongue is French.'

'Pleasure to meet you,' she said, her voice silkily deep, tinged with a slight Arabic accent.

Gray shook her hand. From Algeria, he surmised from her lilting accent. Though the North African country had shaken off the yoke of the French colonists in the early sixties, the language still persisted among its people.

'Sorry to keep you waiting,' Gray said.

'No trouble at all,' came a gruff response from the far side of the table. The other figure waiting for them was well known to Gray. Monk Kokkalis sat with his feet up on the table, dressed in sweats and a ball cap. His face shone brightly under the fluorescents. He cocked his head toward the slender assistant. 'Especially considering the company at hand.'

The assistant bowed her head shyly, a ghost of a smile on her lips.

Monk had beaten them to the National Archives. Of course Sigma command was only a short walk across the National Mall from here. Kat had insisted that her husband join Gray this evening. Though Gray suspected the assignment had more to do with getting Monk out from under her feet than with offering backup for this investigation.

They all took seats at the table, except for Heisman, who remained standing, clasping his hands behind his back. 'Perhaps now you could tell me why we've all been summoned here at such a late hour.'

Gray opened the manila file in front of him, slipped out the letter, written in French, and slid it across the table toward Sharyn. Before she could touch it, Heisman swooped in and took it with one hand while securing his reading glasses in place with the other.

'What's this?' he asked, his head nodding up and down as he scanned the handful of pages. He plainly did not read French, but his eyes widened as he recognized the signature at the bottom of the letter. 'Benjamin Franklin.' He glanced to Gray. 'This appears to be in his own handwriting.'

'Yes, that's already been verified and the letter translated-'

Heisman cut him off. 'But this is a photocopy. Where's the original?'

'That doesn't matter.'

'It does to me!' the curator blurted out. 'I've read everything ever written by Franklin. But I've never seen anything like this. These drawings alone...' He slapped a page on the table and stabbed at one of the hand-drawn sketches.

It showed a bald eagle, wings outspread, gripping an olive branch in one claw and a bundle of arrows in the other. Clearly it was still a work in progress. Hen-scratched side notes, indecipherable, pointed here and there at the figure.

'This appears to be an early rendition of the Great Seal of the United States. But this letter is dated 1778, years before this draft of the Seal appeared in the public record around 1782. Surely this is some sort of a forgery.'

'It's not,' Gray said.

'May I?' Sharyn gently retrieved the pages. 'You said you've translated these, but I'd be happy to confirm the accuracy of that work.'

'I'd appreciate that,' Gray said.

Heisman paced alongside the table. 'I'm assuming the content of this letter is what triggered this late-night meeting. Perhaps you could explain why something two centuries old could not wait until morning.'

Seichan spoke for the first time. Her voice was quiet, but coldly threatening. 'Because blood has been spilled to secure these pages.'

Her words sobered Heisman enough to get him to sit down at the table. 'Fine. Tell me about the letter.'

Gray began, 'It was a correspondence between Franklin and a French scientist. A man named Archard Fortescue. He was a member of a scientific group put together by Franklin. The American Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge.'

'Yes, I'm familiar with the group,' Heisman said. 'It was an offshoot of the American Philosophical Society, but more specifically geared to the gathering of new scientific ideas. They were best known for their early archaeological investigations into Native American relics. In the end, they became almost obsessed with such things. Digging up graves and Indian mounds all across the colonies.'

Sharyn spoke at the curator's elbow. 'That is specifically what the letter seems to address,' she said. 'It is a plea to this French scientist to assist Franklin in mounting an expedition to Kentucky'-she translated the next with her brows pinched together- ' 'to discover and excavate a serpent-shaped Indian barrow, to search for a threat to America buried there.' '

She glanced up. 'There appears to be some urgency to this correspondence.' To prove her point, she ran a finger along a passage of the letter, while translating. ' 'My Dear Friend, I regret to inform you that the hopes for the Fourteenth Colony-this Devil Colony-are dash'd. The shamans from the Iroquois Confederacy were slaughtered most foully en route to the meeting with Governor Jefferson. With those deaths, all who had knowledge of the Great Elixir and the Pale Indians have pass'd into the hands of Providence. But one shaman did live long enough, buried under the bodies of the others, to gasp out one last hope. He told of a map, mounted within the skull of a horned demon and wrapped in a painted buffalo hide. It is hidden in a barrow sacred to the aboriginal

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