The Trinity Game

and black Rolls Royce Phantom sat idling at the curb behind him.
    The man approached, and Daniel caught a hint of his cologne as he got close. He smelled like old money. What some people still insisted on calling
good breeding
. He said, “Congratulations. You’ve kept to the path, and I daresay you’ll know the truth before much longer.”
    You’ve kept to the path…you’ll know the truth.
The words resonated in Daniel’s ears like an echo.
Walk the path, find the truth.
The note that had been waiting for him at the Westin, written in an elegant hand on expensive stationery.
    “Papa Legba, I presume.”
    The man smiled. “Quite.” He gestured to the Rolls. “Allow me to offer you a lift back to Saint Sebastian’s. It’s cool inside, and we can chat along the way. You must be very uncomfortable in that jacket.”

    The man poured thirty-year-old Macallan Single Malt into a couple of crystal glasses, handed one to Daniel, and settled back into the deep green leather seat as the Rolls Royce gently rocked into motion. He said, “We’ve been most impressed by you, Daniel. You’ve shown all the makings of a top field operative.” His accent was maddeningly neutral. Probably an American who’d spentmany years living in England and, to a lesser extent, continental Europe. Or maybe a Brit who’d moved to America decades ago and purposely lost the boarding school accent of his youth.
    “Who’s
we
?” said Daniel. “And for that matter, who the hell are you? I think Legba wants his name back.”
    The man’s smile was utterly confident. A smile that would seem arrogant on a younger man, but on this man signaled the calm perspective that comes with a lifetime of wide experience. “We are an organization you’ve never heard of: the Fleur-de-Lis Foundation. My name is Carter Ames, and I’m the managing director. And as you already know, we’ve been your ally from the start.”
    Daniel tasted the scotch. It went down like liquid silk. “Why? What’s your interest here?”
    “The mission of the Fleur-de-Lis Foundation is to bring the truth to light, so the public can make informed choices about our civilization’s future,” said Carter Ames. “Unfortunately, there are other people, equally powerful, who do not trust the public with the truth. So we struggle against each other. It is a game we’ve been playing for many years, a game that may never end. But it must be played, lest we lose what’s left of our freedoms.”
    “Do they have a name, these powerful people you’re struggling against?”
    “Indeed. They call themselves the Council for World Peace. But don’t let the name fool you.” He sipped his scotch. “Oh, they might accept world peace, but only on their terms, under their control. Peace without freedom. For us, that is too high a price. We do not consider slavery, however peaceful, to be a viable future.”
    “Slavery? Come on.”
    “Of course they don’t see it as such. They prefer words like
security
and
stability
. But it all comes down to control, in the end.The council’s roots—and the foundation’s, for that matter—go back to the Middle Ages, albeit both under different names. The council began simply as a network of spies—a freelance espionage agency, if you will—gathering intelligence around Europe and the eastern trade routes and selling what they learned to monarchs and popes and wealthy merchant families, greasing the wheels of commerce. But over time their actions went far beyond intelligence gathering. They grew ever more powerful and became their own biggest client, really.”
    “And how did the foundation begin?” asked Daniel.
    “We were one of their clients—a huge merchant shipping dynasty, with interests spread across the civilized world—one of the most powerful families in France at the time. But this family held some sense of
noblesse oblige
, and as the heirs saw what the council was becoming, how it was concentrating power into fewer and fewer hands, they established the Fleur-de-Lis Foundation to thwart the council.
    “And what the hell does this have to do with my uncle?”
    Carter Ames shook his head. “What’s happening with your uncle, as significant as it is, is but one more battlefront in a war that has been raging for centuries. There have always been people who think like us and people who think like them, fighting behind the scenes of world events. What I’m trying to tell you, Daniel, is that the world as you know it is