Page 115 of Once a Hero

Crossing silently across the dusty mosaic floor under arches and pillars, Jake and Benjamin headed toward the heat source. The signal from the fake brooch box was stronger now, more than ever.

Jake was confident they were getting to the box.

Whether that also led to Beatrice was another matter.

As they turned a corner, Jake heard voices. Molyneux and a man were talking.

Apparently, Benjamin heard their voices too.

They slowed down. There was light coming out of the hallway.

When they reached the end of the hallway, Jake realized the voices had echoed out from one floor below. The crypt?

However, the crypt was empty. There was a small chapel there with stone benches in front of the altar. No one was there.

How deep is this small church? Perhaps the builders had envisioned a cathedral but never got there?

The voices kept coming.

Jake followed the voices. He could also hear the rain pelt the church roof outside.

As he neared the stone stairwell, he heard two women talking.

“I don’t have children of my own, Amber.” It was Molyneux’s voice.

“My name is Beatrice.”

She’s alive. Thank God!

“I named you Amber after the Amber Room,” Molyneux said. “Your dad wanted to call you Beatrice. I guess he had his chance when you all entered WITSEC.”

“Let us go,” Beatrice pleaded.

“After you open the door.”

Jake touched his cargo pants pocket. He had both brooches in there. Benjamin had taken them out of the lab safe. Somehow, he trusted Jake enough to let him carry them. Technically they had been handed over to the FBI, although Jake had no badge when Benjamin put him in charge of the brooches.

Why did he do that?

Was that a test to see how much Jake could be trusted…with his sister?

At the top of the stairs, Benjamin hesitated.

Jake stepped forward. He had combat experience from his Army days, and also extensive training in the FBI.

Quietly, the team went downstairs, toward the voices, and straight into the vortex of no return.

Chapter Forty-Six

“Say goodbye.” Molyneux left her director’s chair.

“No, please,” Beatrice pleaded. “We’ll try again. Maybe the cabochons needed to be rearranged.”

“You’ve tried it many times in the last two hours.”

“We need a laptop to calculate the permutations.” Even as Beatrice said those words, she knew they didn’t need another computer.

What they needed were the two original brooches back at the lab safe in Charleston. The four fake amber cabochons they had didn’t have the right weight to open the steel door.

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