top of the desktop screen flashed like a cosmic odometer.
'Behold, the secret design of Washington, D.C.,' he announced to himself.
He stared intently as the terrestrial and celestial triangles became one and the calendar clock froze at 07.04.2008.
July 4, 2008.
Conrad let out a breath. That was only five days away.
What's going to happen in five days?
'I'm wondering the same thing,' said a voice from behind.
Conrad turned to see the abbot, Father McConnell, looking over his shoulder. Conrad must have spoken aloud. That or he was going crazy, which by the looks of his surroundings was becoming more plausible by the day.
'So you broke the astrological code, Dr. Yeats.'
'The first level,' Conrad said. 'There's more to everything than meets the eye.'
'There always is, son.'
Conrad asked, 'When is Serena coming back to return my terrestrial L'Enfant map with the Stargazer text on the back?'
'Tomorrow. Meanwhile, I found something for you from the archives at Mount Saint Mary's.'
McConnell showed him a text written by Pierre L'Enfant in March of 1791, just after arriving to begin his preliminary survey. His work, L'Enfant wrote, would be like 'turning a savage wilderness into a garden of Eden.'
Conrad said, 'So you think Washington's use of the term savage is referring to the original L'Enfant map Serena took, and that the map will show us the way to whatever we're supposed to find?'
'That's my bet,' McConnell said. 'But you don't look so sure.'
'I think that's partly right. I get the impression that this savage is a person, but we'll need more to go on.'
'Then we'll keep looking and leave you alone.' McConnell walked away.
Conrad felt like he was getting his second wind after his breakthrough with the star map code. He was afraid he'd lose momentum if he stopped.
He turned his attention to the coded letter to Stargazer. The digital scan he had taken of the text remained a jumble of numbers.
763.618.1793
634.625. ghquip hiugiphipv 431. Lqfilv Seviu 282.625. siel 43. qwl 351. FUUO. 179 ucpgiliuv erqmqaciu jgl 26. recq 280.249. gewuih 707.5.708. jemcms. 282.682.123.414.144. qwl qyp nip 682.683.416.144.625.178. Jecmwli ncabv rlqxi 625.549.431. qwl gewui. 630. gep 48. ugelgims 26. piih 431. ligqnniphcpa 625.217.101.5. uigligs 2821.69. uq glcvcgem 5. hepailqwu eu 625 iuvefmcubnipv 431. qwl lirwfmcg. 280. qyi 707.625. yqlmh 5.708.568.283.282. biexip. 625. uexeqi 683. ubqy 707.625. yes.
711
He tried to use what little translation his father had given him to figure out the rest, but didn't have enough to go on. He ran the message through every old military code Washington used as president and then commander- in-chief, all to no avail.
Finally, he tried something else: an obscure Revolutionary-era military code. It was a secret numerical substitution code invented in 1783 by Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge, America's first spy chief. Tallmadge substituted strings of numbers for words that Washington would insert into secret communiques. 'New York,' for example, became the number 727 in Tallmadge code.
I wonder if there's a word for the number 763.
According to his database, there was: 'Headquarters.'
Suddenly the dateline at the top of the Stargazer letter made more sense:
Headquarters September 18 1793 But many words in the rest of the text didn't have a number code. For those words, he would have to use Tallmadge's letter-substitution cipher:
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
e f g h i j a b c d o m n p q r k l u v w x y z s t
Conrad thought it a long shot since Washington was not the kind of spymaster to resort to sixteen-year-old codes on his deathbed. But he applied the letter-substitution cipher, and when he looked at the display of his digital chart table, the translation, clear as day, read:
Headquarters September 18 1793 To Robert Yates and his chosen descendent in the Year of Our Lord 2008:
My sincerest apologies for any pain I have caused you and your family. If we do not deceive our own men we will never deceive the enemy. Failure might prove the ruin of our cause. There can be scarcely any need of recommending the greatest caution and secrecy in a business so critical and dangerous as the establishment of our republic.
The fate of the world is in your hands, and your reward is in Heaven. The savage will show you the way.
General Washington Conrad was so excited he accidentally knocked his coffee mug off the table and it shattered on the floor. He didn't bother to pick up the pieces. He was too busy staring at the translation, pondering its implications.
He quickly got back to work. The word Headquarters appeared to be the Tallmadge translation for the mysterious number 763 engraved on his father's tombstone. That solved that mystery, only to raise another: What did Headquarters actually mean?
Then there was the date: September 18, 1793. That was a good six years before December 14, 1799, the night Washington died, and the night that Robert Yates first received Stargazer's orders. Had Washington written the letter years earlier and only released it on his deathbed? Or had he written the letter the night he died and the date carried some significance for Robert Yates?
The phrase 'the fate of the world,' meanwhile, looked like a double entendre to Conrad. He didn't know what 'the world' meant but sensed it was important, and that the key to unlocking both it and the 'reward in Heaven' was the 'savage' Washington mentioned.
Sun sets over savage land.
He remembered the message his father left him from the tombstone along with the number 763 and the astrological symbols. It was almost as if his father wanted to draw special attention to the word 'savage' in case Conrad never found the L'Enfant map.
So who is the savage? he was wondering when McConnell breathlessly walked up to him with a document.
'We pulled this from the archives,' he said. 'It's dated the night of Washington's death on December 14, 1799.'
Conrad took the letter and looked at it closely. It was a letter addressed to Bishop John Carroll and purported to be an eyewitness account of George Washington's last hours at Mount Vernon as seen by Father Leonard Neale, a Jesuit from St. Mary's Mission across the Piscatawney River.
From what Conrad could tell from the report, Father Neale was distraught that he wasn't allowed to perform last rites or baptize Washington before he died. Neither were the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, or Baptists. Only the Masons would be allowed to bury the body, Neale noted, even though Washington hadn't set foot in a Masonic Lodge more than a couple of times in the last thirty years of his life, nor practiced Masonry outside of a few public cornerstone-laying ceremonies.
The reason, according to Tobias Lear, Washington's chief of staff, was that while Washington believed the republic owed its freedom to men and women of faith, he had seen the sectarian strife in Europe and wanted no part of it for America. As a result, he would not allow himself to be allied to any particular sect or denomination.
But it was what followed in Neale's account that riveted Conrad:
Lear told me that it was Washington's duty to the unity of the republic that he be complimentary to all groups
