away and held the transceiver to the side of his head, taking a message and responding to it.
He said to the other three, “I’m needed at the guardhouse to iron out some business. Nice seeing you again, Ms. Clary. I’ll see you later, Anne — Jack.” He went out.
Marion Clary said, “Mr. Wright’s meeting with some of the event planners is running a little long. Please excuse the delay.”
Jack said, “I thought he was meeting with Don Bass.”
“He was, but Mr. Bass was called away unexpectedly a few minutes before you arrived and the planners seized the opportunity to see Mr. Wright for a few minutes. He’s scheduled to deliver the opening keynote address at ten and there were one or two last- minute details to finalize.”
“Mr. Wright is going to speak today?”
“Oh yes, he always delivers the opening address to the conference. It’s a tradition and a high point of the Round Table, if I say so myself. Of course, I’m hardly in a position to be objective, knowing him as well as I do. His talk should be especially interesting this year, what with all the turmoil in the global markets.”
“I’m sure,” Jack said. He was thinking that if Wright and the high-finance attendees knew of the short-selling bets being made against their companies, there’d be some real turmoil right there in the conference room. But that information was being closely held by Chappelle and a handful of others. Chappelle was as tight at disseminating confidential intelligence as a miser would be in handing out dollars. Which was one of his good points as far as Jack was concerned.
The pattern of shorting had of necessity been made known to CTU/DENV head Orlando Garcia, since it was the wedge that had gotten Jack involved in the local operation. Jack didn’t know how far down the line Garcia had passed the intel. He didn’t know if Anne Armstrong was aware of it. She hadn’t mentioned it, and he wasn’t about to volunteer anything on the subject until he was sure she had an irrefutable need to know.
Marion Clary said, “While you’re waiting, may I offer you some refreshments? Coffee, tea, or some other beverage?”
Jack said, “Coffee would be fine, thanks.”
Anne Armstrong said, “Yes, I’d like some, too, please.”
The process was nothing so simple as pouring a couple of cups from a coffee urn. Marion Clary spoke into her desk intercom, issuing a summons. A white-coated server appeared within less than two minutes, wheeling in a serving cart. It held silver pitchers, china cups and saucers, and an assortment of muffins, buns, and pastries. One pitcher held coffee, another held decaffeinated coffee. Jack had the full-octane coffee, black.
It was good coffee, rich, aromatic, flavorful. His stomach growled at the sight of the pastries, but the left side of his face still felt too sore for much chewing so he reluctantly passed on them. Anne Armstrong had the decaf coffee with plenty of cream and sugar. Marion Clary had a cup of tea. The server exited, wheeling away the cart.
Jack’s eye was caught by a picture that looked out of place among the Old Masters creations. It was a full- length portrait that hung high on the wall behind the mahogany desk. Its subject was a man dressed in the garb of the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. He had a shock of white hair, a hawklike predatory face, and a white walrus mustache that failed to disguise a self- satisfied smirk. His eyes were hard, narrow, and bright, boldly, contemptuously staring out at the viewer with a go-to-hell directness. He stood in a posture of dominance, hands thrust in his jacket pockets with the thumbs hanging out over the edges, narrow feet spread shoulder- length apart.
It was a masterpiece in its own way, the painter certainly having captured the personality of his subject.
Marion Clary noticed Jack’s interest in the picture. She said, “That’s a portrait of old H. H. Masterman himself, founder of the trust which bears his name, and the builder of Sky Mount.”
Jack thought that if the likeness was an accurate one, the H.H. in his name should have stood for “Hard- Hearted.” He looked like a money-grubbing skinflint who would have thrown widows and orphans out in the cold if their eviction would have earned him an extra dime. He settled for saying, “He looks like a pretty tough old bird.”
Marion Clary said, “He was a self-made man who started with nothing. He struck it rich with a silver mine near Cripple Creek and expanded into banking, railroads, and real estate. And he did it in the days before income tax. Even in an age of robber barons he was considered something of a pirate.” She spoke of him with a kind of proprietary pride.
She said, “His financial interests were centered in Denver and in his later years he built Sky Mount as a vacation home and retreat from city living. It was originally planned as a hunting lodge, but as you can see, it developed into a far more grandiose vision.”
A faraway look came into her eyes. “ ‘In Xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree’— according to the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. But in Sky Mount, H. H. Masterman built his own dream castle. And unlike the poem, which Coleridge never finished, Mr. Masterman finalized his creation, an architectural poem wrought in stone and timber and furnished with some of the greatest masterpieces of the Old World.”
Anne Armstrong said, “You certainly know your subject.”
Marion Clary said, “I should. Actually I’m the curator of the estate, in charge of overseeing everything from the upkeep and restoration of the art treasures to making sure the lawns get mowed and the garbage collected.”
Jack said, “Sounds like a big job.”
She said, “I love it. I live here all year round. Sky Mount is open to the public, except when the Round Tables are being held. It’s a major tourist attraction and draws thousands of visitors annually.”
Anne Armstrong said, “I shouldn’t wonder. It’s like a fairyland castle come to life.”
Marion Clary beamed. “I can say without exaggeration that it’s one of the most fantastic realms in all the world.”
“No doubt. But you live here? I think I’d find that somewhat overwhelming, making a home in a setting as stupendous as this. Even intimidating.”
Marion Clary shook her head. “It’s not as if I live here all alone. There’s a permanent party of over a dozen staffers who live here full-time, too. That’s not including the tour guides, guards, chambermaids, handymen, gardeners, and all the others who are here during working hours. It takes a small army to keep Sky Mount functioning properly.
“I’ve lived here for over ten years, and even when I think I know every nook and cranny of it, I’m always discovering new and wonderful things about it. To me it’s an old friend. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. There’s so much history here, so many art treasures at every turn… There’s a greatness of spirit here that seems to have gone out of today’s modern world. Of course, I’m an antiquarian or I couldn’t do my job properly. An antiquarian and something of an antique.”
Jack said, “Hardly that, Ms. Clary.”
“You’re gallant, Mr. Bauer.” She smiled piquantly, a bit wryly, as if shaking off her visionary mood and returning to the business at hand. “During the run-up to the Round Tables and the conclaves themselves, my role becomes more that of a personal assistant to Mr. Wright. It’s the one time of the year that I do see him. His responsibilities as chairman of the board of trustees take him all over the country — the world, really — and he spends very little time at Sky Mount except during the Round Tables.”
A stirring of muffled motion sounded from behind the tall set of double doors accessing Wright’s inner sanctum. The doors opened outward, allowing the exit of a handful of staffers, young men and women. Some carried portfolios, others briefcases and oversized loose-leaf binders. They looked sleek, well-groomed, fit, competent, energetic, and enthusiastic. They weren’t more than a few years Jack’s junior, but they made him feel old by comparison.
They crossed the anteroom and exited. A man, thirty, dark-haired, with tortoiseshell glasses, stood in the doorway. He said to Jack and Anne Arm-strong, “Mr. Wright will see you now.”
The two CTU agents crossed to the portal and entered the space beyond. The man with the glasses closed the double doors behind them, following. The office space was immense, the walls lofty, the windows tall and arched, the ceiling vaulted. The decor was suggestive of the period of Louis XIV, the Sun King, a melange of neo- classical formalism and rococo ornamentation. The walls were white with golden trim, the deep-pile wall-to- wall carpeting was royal- blue decorated with white fleur-de-lis, emblem of the Bourbon dynasty. There were paintings
