The Jefferson Key (28 page)

Wyatt tossed a light bomb their way, jerking his head back just as the flash and smoke appeared.

Shouts came as fear set in.

“This way,” he heard a voice say over the commotion.

He glanced back and saw the guide leading the group through the smoke, out the louvered doors, into the adjacent greenhouse and fresh air.

He turned his attention to the cipher wheel.

Which rested two feet away.

MALONE
STOOD
INSIDE
MONTICELLO’S
TWO-STORY
ENTRANCE
hall. Smoke billowed from open glass doors at the opposite end, followed by screams and yells that signaled something had just happened to his left.

The estate manager stood beside him.

A wave of people had fled the house a moment ago through the main doors behind him, their voices excited, their eyes alight with fear.

“What’s that way?” he asked, motioning to the left where the commotion now seemed centered.

“Jefferson’s private rooms. The library, cabinet, bedroom.”

“Is that where the wheel is displayed?”

The man nodded.

He found his gun. “Out. And don’t let anybody in.”

He realized there was no bomb. Just flash and pan. A diversion. The same swishing sound from last night and the attack on the men with the night-vision goggles.

Who the hell was here?

WYATT
SLIPPED
THE
NYLON
CARRYALL
HE’D
BROUGHT
WITH
him from his pant pocket. The wheel was larger than he’d expected, but the thin bag could handle it. He’d have to be careful since the wooden disks seemed brittle. Understandable, considering they were over two hundred years old.

He climbed off the bed into the cabinet, removed the glass cover, and lifted out the spindled disks. Carefully, he worked the device into the nylon bag. He then grabbed two loose disks that had been displayed separately and laid them in the bag. He would have to cradle the bundle in his arms, holding it close to his chest to ensure no damage.

He tested the weight.

About five pounds.

No problem.

MALONE
PASSED
THROUGH
A
ROOM
WITH
PALE
GREEN
WALLS
and a fireplace. A placard identified it as the South Square Room. Above a white mantel hung a woman’s portrait. Another door led into what he recalled from some reading as Jefferson’s
sanctum sanctorum
, which consumed the entire south end of the building.

Gun in hand, he opened the door and was met by a wall of smoke.

He stared through the fog and caught glimpses of people outside, through the room’s windows, which stretched floor-to-ceiling, opening like doors into a sunlit porch bright with potted plants. He grabbed a breath and plunged into the smoke, keeping close to the wall, seeking cover behind a wooden cabinet. Ahead, to his left, rose narrow bookshelves lined with old leather-bound volumes. Archways supported the ceiling and led to the far end where, in a semi-octagonal alcove, he spotted a man, bagging up the wheel.

He focused on the face.

One he knew.

And everything made sense.

WYATT
CAUGHT
MOVEMENT
THROUGH
THE
FOG
.
SOMEBODY
had entered the library at the far end.

He finished his task, cradled the wheel in one arm, and found his gun.

He saw a man staring at him.

Cotton Malone.

And fired a shot.

MALONE
DROPPED
BEHIND
THE
WOODEN
CABINET
AS
WYATT
sent a bullet his way. What had it been? Eight years. At least. He’d never known what had happened to Wyatt after he was forced out, though he’d heard something about freelancing.

The person who’d set the trap using Stephanie Nelle as bait, luring him to that hotel room. The author of the note left for him to find. The voice on the radio from the Grand Hyatt that fingered him. The manipulation of the police and the Secret Service.

All Wyatt.

Something flew through the fog and landed on the floor.

Small, round, rolling his way.

He knew what was coming and whirled his head to the right, shutting his eyes.

WYATT
ABANDONED
THE
CABINET
,
THEN
THE
BEDROOM
,
AND
made his way back into the parlor, away from Malone. As much as he’d like to stay and play, he couldn’t.

Not now.

He had the wheel and that was all that mattered. He could use it to discover what lay next in the search for the two missing congressional pages. Or maybe he’d just destroy the thing and be done with it.

That way, nobody would win.

At the moment, he was unsure.

MALONE
DECIDED
NOT
TO
FOLLOW
WYATT
. HE
KNEW
THE
ground-floor rooms wound their way back to the center, so he opened a door to his right, revealing a short corridor that emptied twenty feet ahead into the entrance hall.

Smoke drifted his way.

Visibility wasn’t good, and Wyatt certainly wasn’t going to walk out the front door. To his immediate right, a set of narrow, wedge-shaped steps rose in a vertical spiral to the second floor. A chain with a sign indicated no admittance. He recalled the entrance hall and the open second-floor railing and decided the high ground might be better, so he stepped over the chain and headed up.

WYATT
INTENDED
ON
LEAVING
,
BUT
NOT
FROM
THE
GROUND
floor. His plan was to make his way to the cellar, then out through the lower, north exit into the woods beyond the service road. That had always seemed the safest route, considering the excitement would be centered on the house’s east side. But Malone was just a few feet away, probably trying to make his way back toward the entrance hall.

He stopped in the parlor and listened.

Smoke remained thick. No one was around. Malone probably had the house sealed. Then a thought occurred to him and his gaze drifted to the ceiling.

Of course.

That’s exactly what he would have done.

BATH
,
NORTH
CAROLINA

KNOX
WATCHED
THE
THREE
OTHER
CAPTAINS
AS
QUENTIN
Hale reveled in his moment. He, too, had been impressed when he first listened to the taped conversations. The fact was startling. The First Lady of the United States romantically involved with the White House chief of staff?

“How long has this been going on?” Cogburn asked Hale.

“Long enough that neither of them can deny it. The conversations are, at a minimum, hugely embarrassing. Never before has American politics been subjected to something like this. The sheer novelty will drive the press and the public insane. Daniels would be impotent for the remainder of his term.”

Even Edward Bolton, who as a matter of course denied all things that emanated from a Hale as either self-serving, impractical, or stupid, sat silent, certainly realizing the possibilities.

“Let’s use it,” Surcouf said. “Now. Why wait?”

“Its use must be timed with precision,” Hale said. “As you three like to remind me, when I went
begging
to the White House, I knew about this information. But I went there to see if we would have to use it. I asked that our letters be respected and was rebuked. So now we have little choice. Still, going straight to the president with this would be counterproductive. Instead we must pressure the two individuals involved, allow them to consider the ramifications of their actions, then wait as they do our persuading for us.”

Knox agreed, the First Lady and the chief of staff would have the most influence over President Daniels. But would they do the Commonwealth’s bidding? Hardly. This was more irrational thinking. The kind that had convinced him that making a deal with the
NIA
was preferable to riding out the storm on this leaky ship.

“They can choose for themselves what to tell Daniels,” Hale said. “We don’t care. We just want the U.S. government to honor the letters of marque.”

“How did you acquire these tapes?” Bolton asked. “Is there anything that leads this way? How do you know that you’re not being played? This whole thing is a bit fantastic. Too damn good to be true. We could be walking into a trap.”

“That’s a good point,” Cogburn said. “It is awfully convenient.”

Hale shook his head. “Gentlemen, why are you so suspicious? I have been involved with this woman for over a year. She shares with me things she really should not.”

“Then why tape her phone calls?” Bolton asked Hale.

“Because, Edward, do you think she tells me everything? And for this to work, we need the First Lady herself to speak about it. So I took the chance and monitored her phone line. Thank goodness I did, or we would not have such damning evidence.”

“I’m still concerned,” Cogburn said. “It could be a trap.”

“If this is a ruse, then it is one on an elaborate scale.” Hale shook his head. “This is real. I’d stake my life on it.”

“But the question is,” Bolton said, “will
we
stake
our
lives on it?”

MALONE
CREPT
DOWN
A
CORRIDOR
THAT
STRETCHED
NORTH-TO-SOUTH
, from one end of the second floor to the other. Though he’d never been inside Monticello, he knew enough about Thomas Jefferson to know that there would be another staircase at the far end. Jefferson had been an admirer of all things French. Double-height rooms, domes, bed alcoves, skylights, indoor privies, narrow staircases—all common elements in Franco architecture. As was symmetry. Which meant there should be a second stairway at the north end that would lead down. But between here and there was the balcony that opened out into the entrance hall, smoke filling the path ahead confirming that fact.

He came to the end of the corridor and gazed down into the entrance hall. Beyond the railing he spotted no movement. Smoke hung thick, dissipating as it drifted upward. He kept away from the rail, hugging the wall, and crossed the balcony to the other side. Ahead, a few feet down another hall, he spotted the second staircase, winding a steep path down and up to the third floor.

Something flew up from that stairway and bounced on the hall’s wood floor. Rolling his way. He dove back to the balcony just as the flash bomb exploded with light and smoke.

He raised his head and glanced down, beyond the railing.

Wyatt stood, aiming a gun upward.

HALE
GLARED
AT
EDWARD
BOLTON
AND
SAID
, “
I’D
SAY
YOU
HAVE
little choice but to trust this will produce the desired results.” He paused. “For us all. Unless you have a better idea.”

“I don’t trust anything you do,” Bolton said.

Charles Cogburn stepped forward. “I have to agree with him, Quentin. This could be as foolish as what we tried.”

“Assassination wasn’t foolish,” Bolton was quick to say. “It’s worked in the past. Look at what happened to McKinley. He was determined to prosecute us, too.”

Hale’s father had told him about William McKinley, who like Lincoln had at first made use of the Commonwealth. By the time of the Spanish-American War, thanks to the 1856 Treaty of Paris, more than fifty nations had outlawed privateering. And though neither Spain nor America signed that treaty, they agreed not to engage in privateering during their war at the turn of the 20th century. Not bound by any international agreement, the Commonwealth preyed on Spanish shipping. Unfortunately, the war lasted only four months. Once peace was declared the Spanish demanded retribution, calling into question America’s veracity since it had violated its prewar agreement. McKinley finally relented to pressure and authorized prosecutions, resting on the fact that the Commonwealth’s letters of marque were legally unenforceable. So a deranged would-be anarchist was covertly recruited and encouraged to kill McKinley, which he did on September 6, 1901. The assassin was apprehended at the scene. Seventeen days later he was tried and convicted. Five weeks after that he was electrocuted. The new president, Theodore Roosevelt, had no qualms with the Commonwealth’s attacks and cared nothing about appeasing the Spanish.

All prosecutions ended.

Of course, neither Roosevelt, nor anyone else, knew of the conspiracy to kill McKinley.

“That is the difference between you and me,” Hale said to Bolton. “I merely cherish our past. You insist on repeating it. As I said, bullets and violence are not the way to take down a president any longer. Shame and humiliation work in the same manner with the advantage that others willingly take up the fight for us. We have to do nothing more than light the fire.”

“It’s your damn family that created this mess,” Bolton said. “Hales were nothing but trouble in 1835, too. We were fine. No one bothered us. We’d provided a great service to the country and the government left us alone. But instead of accepting Jackson’s decision not to pardon those pirates, your great-great-granddaddy decided to kill the president of the United States.” Bolton pointed his finger at Hale. “About as stupid a move as the one we tried. The only difference is, we didn’t get caught.”

Hale could not resist. “Not yet, anyway.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged. “Just that the investigations have barely begun. Don’t be so sure that there is no trail to follow.”