The man was several inches over six feet tall, dressed in razor-creased khakis and a blue-green linen blazer over a pale green shirt. A color-coordinated bow tie adorned his neck. The tall woman at his side could have stepped out of the pages of Vogue by way of a triathlon. The olive-colored silk pants suit rippled around her athletic body, and she seemed to flow rather than walk.
The woman stopped in front of Angela’s desk and extended her hand.
“Ms. Worth? My name is Gamay Morgan-Trout. This is my husband, Paul.” She smiled, showing the slight space between her front teeth that didn’t diminish her attractiveness.
Angela realized she was slack-jawed. She regained her poise and stood to shake hands.
“You’re the people from NUMA who called yesterday.”
“That’s right,” Paul said. “Thanks for seeing us. Hope it’s not an imposition.”
“Not at all. How may I help you?”
“We understand you were the one who discovered the long-lost Jefferson file,” Gamay said.
“That’s right. How did you hear about it?”
“The State Department contacted NUMA after the NSA deciphered the file.”
Angela had tried to reach her friend at the NSA cryptographic museum. Deeg hadn’t returned her call.
“Did you say the State Department?”
“That’s right,” Gamay said.
“I don’t understand. Why would they be interested?”
“Do you have any idea of what was in the file?” Gamay said.
“I tried to decipher the material. I’m only an amateur. I gave it to a friend at the NSA. What’s going on?”
The Trouts exchanged glances.
“Is there anywhere with a bit more privacy?” Gamay said.
“Yes, of course. There’s my office.”
Angela’s office was small but well organized. She took a seat behind her desk and offered the Trouts a couple of chairs. Paul Trout opened a leather portfolio case and extracted a folder. He placed the folder on the desk.
“This is our only copy, so we’ll have to summarize the contents,” Trout said. “The material you found indicates that Jefferson shared with Meriwether Lewis his belief that a Phoenician ship had crossed the Atlantic nearly three thousand years ago and that it carried a sacred relic, possibly a biblical object, to North America. The State Department is worried that the story, true or not, might stir up things in the Middle East.”
Angela listened, spellbound, as Paul and Gamay took turns explaining the file’s contents. Her mind was awhirl. Her tongue seemed stuck to the roof of her mouth. Her eyes were glassy, like those of a victim of shock.
“Angela,” Gamay said. “Are you all right?”
Angela cleared her throat. “Yes. I’m fine. I think.” She regained her composure.
Gamay continued.
“We realized we could only go so far delving into an ancient voyage. It seemed to us that the American Philosophical Society was the nexus for many threads of the story. Jefferson was president of the society. Lewis studied here for his great exploration. A fellow member told Jefferson that the vellum contained Phoenician words. The connections go on and on.”
“I’m not surprised,” Angela said. “Many people don’t even know this organization exists. Think of its history. Founded by Franklin. George Washington was a member, along with John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Rush, and John Marshall. Its reach extended worldwide: Lafayette, von Steuben, and Kos$$$ciuszko. Later, we had Thomas Edison, Robert Frost, George Marshall, Linus Pauling. Women too. Margaret Mead. Elizabeth Agassiz. This library has millions of documents and papers, including the original Newton’s Principia, Franklin’s experiments, Darwin’s Origin of Species. It’s simply breathtaking.”
“The collection’s scope is both a blessing and a curse,” Paul said. “We’re looking for a needle in an intellectual haystack of enormous size.”
“Our cataloguing system is second to none. Just point me in the right direction.”
“Meriwether Lewis,” Gamay said. “According to the artichoke file, Lewis had important information that he wanted to get to Jefferson.”
“I pulled some files on Lewis after talking to you on the phone. There’s lots of controversy about his death. Some think it was suicide. Others say it was murder.”
“That would fit in with the air of mystery surrounding the Jefferson file,” Paul said. “Where do we begin?”
Angela opened a folder. “Even as a boy, Lewis was smart, adventurous, and intrepid. He joined the army, made full captain at the age of twenty-three, and was twenty-seven when he became Jefferson’s private secretary. Jefferson found Lewis to be bold, fearless, and intelligent. Three years later, Jefferson picked Lewis to lead one of the greatest expeditions in history. To prep for the journey, he sent him to study at the Philosophical Society.”
“Everything Lewis needed to know was contained here,” Paul said.
Angela nodded. “The members tutored him in botany, astronomy, geography, and other sciences. He was an apt student. The expedition was a huge success.”
“What happened to him after the expedition?” Gamay said.
“He made what might have been the biggest mistake of his life. In 1807, he accepted an appointment as governor of the LouisianaTerritory.”
“Mistake?” Paul said. “I would think he’d be a natural for the job.”
“Lewis was better suited for trekking through the wilderness. St. Louis was a frontier outpost filled with dangerous men, crooks, and fortune hunters. He had to deal with plots, feuds, and conspiracies. He was constantly undercut by his assistant. But he managed to last two and a half years as governor before his death.”
“Not bad, considering the difficulties he faced,” Paul said.
“It was a sedentary and confining job,” Angela said. “But, from most accounts, he did pretty well.”
“What were the circumstances leading to his decision to go to Washington?” Gamay said.
“Lewis had repatriated a Mandan chief. There was a five-hundred-dollar cost overrun, and the federal government rejected his claim. There were rumors of a land deal scandal. Lewis said he was in a financial bind, and he had to go back to Washington to clear his good name. He had some important documents to deliver as well.”
“Tell us about the trip that ended in his death,” Gamay said.
“The whole thing is full of contradictions and inconsistencies,” Angela said.
“In what way?” Gamay said.
Angela slid a map across the desk. “Lewis leaves St. Louis at the end of August 1809. He goes down the Mississippi River and arrives at Fort Pickering, Tennessee, on September fifteenth. Lewis is exhausted from the heat and may have a touch of malaria. A rumor circulates that he was out of his head during the trip and attempted suicide. Another rumor says he drank heavily the whole time with old army comrades. That’s funny, because he didn’t have any army friends at the fort.”
“Any truth to these rumors?” Gamay said.
“They were secondhand accounts. Lewis wrote a letter at the fort to President Madison that shows he was pretty clearheaded. He tells Madison he was exhausted but that he is much better. And that he plans to go overland through Tennessee and Virginia. He says he is carrying original papers from his Pacific expedition and doesn’t want them to fall into the hands of the British, who were expected to declare war.”
“What happened next?” Paul said.
“Two weeks after he arrived at the fort,” Angela continued, “Lewis set off again. He was carrying two trunks that held his papers from the Pacific expedition, a portfolio, memo book, and documents of a private and public nature. The expedition journals are contained in sixteen notebooks bound in red morocco leather.”