Free The 13th Enumeration by William Struse, Rachel Starr Thomson Page B

many years, Darius understood the significance attached to the number thirty-three. To Darius’s knowledge, what had never been mentioned before in the context of the aluminum capstone was that aluminum’s atomic number was thirteen, and its Latin name meant bitter salt. Interestingly, the sum of a Fibonacci sequence up to thirteen was in fact thirty-three. Was it all just a strange coincidence, or was William Frishmuth a secret member of the Order? Or more likely, was William Frishmuth a genuine friend of Abraham Lincoln and his aluminum capstone a clever symbolic testimony to the “bitter salt” of the death of his friend, the president, at the hand of Southern Templar Masonry? On August 1, 1893, William Frishmuth was found dead of a “self-inflicted” gunshot wound to the head.
    Darius closed the Frishmuth file with no more insights than the last time he had read it several years ago. Still his instincts told him there was something he was missing. Thirteen . . . a number that for centuries had inspired secrets and superstition.

Chapter 13
     
    Dallas, Texas
              The phone rang, startling Zane awake. He looked over at the clock on the wall and saw it was seven a.m. He rolled over, grabbed his cell phone, and in a groggy voice said, “Hello?”
    Sam McKinney’s loud “Good morning, bro!” came pounding through his head.
    “Good morning, Sam, how have you been?” Zane asked sleepily.
    “Good—work has been good, and not much is new on my end. How about you? How was your trip to the Holy Land? Did you find the lost Templar treasure or the ark of the covenant?”
    “No,” Zane replied, “I just practiced my shoveling and wheelbarrow skills.”
    “Bro, if you want to just dig in the dirt, you can come over to my house anytime. I have tree holes that need to be dug. Who knows? You might even find some buried treasure.”
    Zane laughed. “Speaking of buried treasure, Sam, how is that penny stock you said would make David and me wealthy some day?”
    Zane never missed an opportunity to razz Sam about it. “What price did you buy that at again? Didn’t you say it was a steal at a penny a share? Sam, last time I looked it was $.0002 cents a share. That two hundred dollars you begged David and me to invest is now worth four bucks. That doesn’t give me the warm and fuzzies, my friend. If my math is right, your investment of a thousand is now worth twenty bucks. Talk about buried treasure. This dog is in a hole so deep it would take an elevator to find it.”
    “Okay, okay, I get it,” Sam replied with a good-natured laugh—tinged with a note of embarrassment. He wasn’t about to tell Zane the stock price was now $.0001 2 . “You just don’t have enough faith, man. I’m telling you, this stock is going to surprise you someday.”
    “Dude,” Zane laughed, “the only thing that will surprise me about this stock is if it is still trading in another year. How you ever talked David and me into each buying two hundred bucks worth of that dog I will never know.”
    “I’m telling you I have a hunch about this one. The guy who started the company has got some real talent gathered around him, and he could not have attracted them unless he had something cooking.”
    “Okay, bro,” Zane replied, “but don’t expect me to hold my breath.”
    The good-natured banter out of the way, Sam asked, “Did you get to do any good climbing while you were over there?”
    Zane laughed as his mind went back to Israel and his precarious climb up the cliff. “Yes, I had some really good climbs.”
    “Well . . .?”
    “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Zane laughed.
    “Try me.”
    Zane smiled to himself. This was going to be fun. “Well, it happened like this … I was just out hiking, minding my own business, when I noticed an incredibly beautiful girl free soloing a 5.13 route. As I drew near, a rock fell and cut her leg. She was injured and in dire straits . . .”
    Sam interrupted.