He was aware of her looking at him in shock and awe. Shock at his lunacy and awe that he apparently thought it was true.
'Do you hear yourself, Conrad? How am I or my father or anybody else supposed to believe you? Show me something other than chopped-off fingers to back up your story, Conrad!'
'How about this?'
He showed her the silver cornerstone plate. The markings captured her attention immediately. He recalled her family had some Masonic background.
'This is the cornerstone plate, Conrad. You actually found the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol.'
'I told you I did.'
She looked up at him, hope in her eyes. 'No, you don't understand. This is a legitimate story. This is something you unveil on July 4, a piece of Americana. I'll get you to tell your story on Fox. Whatever crazy-ass stuff you add, well, nobody can deny you found this.'
'Or that I was the one responsible for the incidents at the Capitol and Library of Congress.'
'Let me work on this, work with my dad, bring you in somehow.'
'Bring me in? You make me sound like a dog you're afraid is going to come in out of the rain and crap on your carpet.'
'If the paw fits, Conrad. Now get dressed.'
Conrad walked into the closet and removed his bathrobe. He slipped the finger from Max Seavers into his expensive suit pants and put one leg in after the other.
'Say, Brooke,' he called out. 'What was his name?'
'Whose name?' she answered from the bedroom, sounding preoccupied, like she was on the phone.
'Your dog's name.'
'His name was Rusty,' she called back absently as she spoke quietly in the bedroom.
That's right, he thought, remembering that day in the park. Her dog was named after some early American scientist her father admired-David Rusthouse or something like that.
Conrad slid his belt through the last loop of his pants, eager to bolt. Any minute Serena would walk in and find him with Brooke, and then he would have still more explaining to do. But the reality was that after what happened at the Library of Congress tonight, nobody was going to believe anything he had to say. Not Serena nor the feds.
His only hope was to find that second globe. To do that he had to find some kind of landmark in Washington, D.C., that aligned with the setting sun, just like in the starburst on George Washington's sword at the western edge of the L'Enfant map in the Savage portrait.
The problem was that the land at the western edge of the district was developed as residential housing or preserved like Rock Creek Park. In other words, there were no obvious monuments or landmarks he could think of.
And then it hit him.
Ritty. The name of Brooke's dog wasn't Rusty. It was Ritty.
As in David Rittenhouse, a famous astronomer during the founding of America who worked closely with Ben Franklin and Benjamin Banneker.
As in Sarah Rittenhouse, the grand dame who two centuries later 'saved' Montrose Park in Georgetown from development.
But what was Sarah Rittenhouse really trying to preserve the parkland for?
Conrad felt his pulse explode:
The terrestrial globe!
The armillary dedicated to Sarah Rittenhouse was in fact the landmark he was looking for-a monument to the terrestrial globe that Washington buried somewhere below!
How could I have missed it?
Then he knew the answer: In his mind he had always associated the armillary sphere with Brooke's dog, who was urinating on the memorial's base that day he followed the canine back to Brooke's shapely legs and they reconnected.
He quickly tucked in his shirt, and then froze.
How could Brooke forget her own dog's name?
Suddenly their meeting in the park-their entire 'reconnection'-smelled like a setup from the start. She must have known that he liked to jog in the park and simply put herself in his path. The irony was that he must have jogged past that armillary a thousand times and never imagined its secret. And neither, he guessed, did Brooke.
Brooke had stopped talking in the bedroom.
From behind Conrad could hear the click of a slider. Slowly he turned and saw her pointing an automatic pistol at him.
'I'm sorry, Conrad.' She shook her head. 'That fucking dog.'
36
CONRAD STARED IN SHOCK at the 9mm Glock in Brooke's manicured hands, his mind trying to make sense of how he could have so thoroughly misinterpreted the nature of their relationship, and how long he had before whomever she called arrived.
'You've got to understand, Conrad, I had no choice,' she said. 'But you, you still have a choice: Give up the globe or die.'
She's either with the feds or the Alignment, he thought. If it's the feds, he could live with it. But, God, not the Alignment.
'Some choice,' he said, and coolly walked into the bedroom. Brooke followed him, and he could sense her gun pointed at his back until he sat down in a chair and looked up at her. 'So everything we had was a lie?'
'No, Conrad,' she said, her voice shaking with emotion. 'Everything but us is a lie.'
'Like you and Max Seavers?' he said, putting it out there.
'Tell me where you put the star map from the first globe, Conrad, and I'll let you go before he gets here.'
Damn. She's Alignment.
He said, 'What about the second globe?'
'Max doesn't have to know. But I need something to give him.'
Conrad nodded, trying to figure his way out of this. 'Does your father know about any of this?'
'No. He's a Mason. That's why it was a coup for the Alignment to nab me as a teenager and then use me to get to you, the son of General Yeats.'
'But I'm not his son. Not his real son.'
'No, you're much more special,' she said. 'I know about Antarctica, Conrad. I know about your blood.'
Conrad looked at her. 'What about my blood?'
'It's the basis for Max's flu vaccine.'
Conrad started. 'And how's that?'
'Max came to DARPA to genetically engineer the perfect American soldier,' she said. 'Along the way he discovered certain immunities to disease in the bloodlines of native Americans, specifically the Algonquin Indians. Immunities that had been diluted over the generations. So Max launched a global DNA testing program to connect the lost cousins of the Algonquins in the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. It was called Operation Adam and Eve. By studying the mutations in Y chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA, Max was able to reconstruct their tribal migrations throughout the globe and trace their roots to Antarctica and one common ancestor: You.'
'Me?'
'You're more American than any of us, Conrad. The last of the Atlanteans.'
'Atlantis?' Conrad had thought he was ready for anything, but not this. This was over the top even for
