Outskirts Press, INC.

Before the CIA can grab them off the streets of Boston, Hiram Haynes and the Countess of Castiglione are again plunged back through time. This time it’s to 1863 Vicksburg, Mississippi, as the historic siege is about to begin. They’re arrested as Yankee spies by the Confederates. Among them are the newly formed Knights of the Golden Circle. These secretive Freemasons have discovered fortunes in Templar gold and religious artifacts. Its very existence, and how it got there, rewrites history. And, if the Knights have their way, it will change the future. The South’s new Spanish and English allies, bought with the fantastic treasure, will enable a Southern Caribbean Empire, from Mexico to South America. Confederate battlefield victory will no longer be necessary. Hiram and the Countess know this plan must not succeed. They struggle to preserve history, while freeing themselves from the mysterious power that has thrust them through time and space.

After their shoddy treatment at Pea Ridge, Pike released his Indian regiments. They were as happy to return to their tribes in the Indian Territory and Texas as he was to vanish. Only a small cadre travelled with him. Scouts among these most trusted Knights of the Golden Circle were his eyes and ears. They provided better intelligence that either the Yanks or Rebels. They soon informed him that the Federals were daily gaining more and more control of the Arkansas-Missouri border. He wasted no time in removing the treasure from its original hiding place and stashing it again in the cave about fifty miles south, deep in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. It was a laborious, slow task, but finished in only a few days. Only three accidental witnesses had lost their lives. The KGC took no chances. Pike created the secret codes. West learned them before embarking on his top-secret diplomatic mission to Charleston. First used by him at the cabin clearing in Arkansas, they’re still in use. Men such as the outlaw Jessie James and his KGC successors during the next century, have added to the wealth taken mostly from ambushed Federal payroll shipments. Modern use is primarily political. Most of these resources are buried today along a trail from Arkansas to the high desert of New Mexico. They finance the continuing dream of a Southern Empire, which from Reconstruction to the present day, never died. It is very much alive. With the Union Army closing in, the second phase of Pike’s plan began with a series of wagon caravans from Arkansas, bound for Texas. From the Gulf Coast two ships will carry initial payment to the Confederacy’s new Spanish and English allies, waiting in Havana and Bermuda. But the plans are in flux.