The Jefferson Key (15 page)

He exited onto Central Park South.

The sidewalk was crowded with more excited people and he followed the flow toward Fifth Avenue and the Plaza Hotel. He needed to collect his things and leave New York. Any remaining agents in the Helmsley Park were certainly occupied, discovering by now the extent of the carnage and cleaning up the mess.
NIA
would want the situation contained. No local police or press involved. Hopefully, that would consume them long enough for him to leave the city.

This had to end, but the nightmare seemed far from over. The captains were safe on their North Carolina estates. He was the point man, taking incoming rounds, trying to stay alive.

Had it all been a ruse? Was there any cipher solution?

He had to know.

He rode the Plaza’s elevator to his floor, and immediately upon entering the room powered up the laptop. Only a moment was needed for him to realize that the machine held nothing. Just a few standard programs that came with any computer.

He clicked on the email program and saw no accounts.

This thing had just been purchased.

As bait.

For him.

Which meant a bad day had just become worse.

WHITE
HOUSE

10:20 PM

CASSIOPEIA
SAT
IN
THE
CAR
.
THEY’D
TRAVELED
IN A
MOTORCADE
straight from Andrews Air Force Base—she, Edwin Davis, and Danny Daniels. Cotton had been provided transportation and directions to the Garver Institute, which lay about forty-five minutes south into Maryland. She hadn’t liked the idea of him going alone, especially with the prospect of trouble, but agreed that it seemed the only course. Stephanie Nelle was her friend, too, and she was worried. They all had to play their part.

“I need you to handle this situation carefully,” Daniels said to her as they motored onto the White House grounds.

She wanted to know, “Why me?”

“ ’Cause you’re here, you’re good, and you’re an outsider.”

“And a woman?”

The president nodded. “It could help. Pauline has her moods.”

She tried to recall what she could about the First Lady, but knew next to nothing. American politics was not her specialty, since her business concerns lay largely outside of North America. Her first foray into the Daniels administration had been with Stephanie a couple of years ago—the first time she’d visited the White House—which had been an eye opener in more ways than one.

“What makes you suspect your wife of leaking information?”

“Did I say I suspect her?”

“You might as well have.”

“She’s the only one,” Davis said, “besides myself, the president, and a few staffers, who knew from the start.”

“That’s a big leap, accusing her.”

“It ain’t as far a jump as you think,” Daniels muttered.

They were both holding back, which irritated her.

The motorcade came to a stop beneath a portico. She spotted a cadre of people waiting at the lighted entrance. Daniels emerged to a round of applause and cheers.

“At least someone loves me,” she heard him mutter.

Daniels acknowledged the well-wishers with handshakes and smiles.

“He’s actually a joy to work for,” Davis said as they watched from the car. “When I took over as chief of staff I quickly learned this is a happy White House.”

She had to admit, the welcoming committee seemed genuine.

“It’s not every day someone tries to kill a president,” Davis said.

She stared across at the chief of staff. Davis was cold and calculating, with a mind that never seemed to stop working. The perfect person, she concluded, to watch your back.

“Notice anything?” he quietly asked her.

Yes, she had.

Of the forty or so who’d waited in the dark to greet Danny Daniels, no where was the First Lady to be seen.

HALE
PACED
IN
HIS
STUDY
.
THE
OTHER
THREE
CAPTAINS
HAD
left an hour ago. Hopefully, by morning the Jefferson cipher would be solved and they could regain their constitutional immunity. Then those federal prosecutors, with their tax evasion charges, could go to hell.

He stared out at the blackened Pamlico River. Solitude was one of the things he cherished most about his family’s refuge. He checked his watch. Nearly 10:30 PM. Knox should have reported in by now.

He resented being called a pirate. By his accountant. By Stephanie Nelle. By anyone and everyone who did not understand his heritage. True, the Commonwealth drew heavily from pirate society, implementing policies and practices pioneered during the 17th and early 18th centuries. But those men had not been fools, and they taught one lasting lesson Hale never forgot.

Embrace the money.

Politics, morality, ethics—none of that mattered. Everything was about profit. What had his father taught him?
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from a regard to their own interest
. Greed was what compelled every business to serve its customers. It’s what guaranteed the best product at the best price.

The same was true with privateering. Take away the lure of riches and you removed all motivation. Everyone wanted to get ahead.

What was wrong with that?

Apparently, everything.

The crazy part was that none of this was revolutionary. Letters of marque had existed for 700 years. The word
marque
had been chosen from the French, meaning “seizure of goods.” Privateers had first come from well-educated merchant families, some even noblemen. They were described with respect as “gentlemen sailors.” Their credo?
Never come back empty-handed
. Their spoils increased royal treasuries, which allowed kings to lower taxes at home. They provided protection from national enemies and aided governments during times of war. As an institution piracy itself ended in the 1720s, though privateering continued for another hundred and fifty years. Now it seemed the United States had decided to erase its last vestiges.

Was he a pirate?

Maybe.

His father and grandfather had not minded the label. They’d actually taken pride in their buccaneer ways. Why not him?

The house phone rang.

“I have some bad news,” Knox said when he answered. “They set me up.”

As he listened to what had happened in New York, his anxiety returned. Salvation seemed fleeting once again. “I want you back here. Now.”

“I’m on the way. That’s what delayed my call. I wanted to get out of New York first.”

“Come straight to the house on your return. And no reports to the others. Not yet.”

He ended the call.

And immediately dialed another number.

LA
PLATA
,
MARYLAND

11:20 PM

WYATT
SURVEYED
THE
FORESTED
CAMPUS
OF
THE
GARVER
INSTITUTE
. The cluster of five brick buildings, each three stories high, sat in a wooded glen a quarter mile off a state highway. Clouds rolled across the black sky, veiling a half-moon. A splatter of rain had followed him from the small airport a few miles away where Andrea Carbonell had left him. Thunder clapped in the distance.

He’d purposefully not driven into one of the lit parking lots, the hundred or so spaces vacant. In fact, he’d left the car Carbonell had provided him on the highway and walked in. Ready for whatever might be waiting.

He’d watched as Carbonell left, flying south, toward the Potomac and Virginia. Washington lay north. Where was she going now?

He used a progression of pine trees lining the lane for cover and kept easing toward the one building where lights still burned on the second floor. Carbonell had said that the office he sought was located there, a Dr. Gary Voccio, supposedly some mathematician supreme. The good doctor was told to wait until an agent appeared with the appropriate password, then to provide all data and information on the Jefferson cipher only to him.

His gaze raked the darkness, his alert level rising from yellow to orange. A chill coursed through his body. He wasn’t alone. Though he couldn’t see them, he sensed them. Carbonell had warned they’d be here. Why hadn’t they moved on the institute already? The answer was clear.

They were waiting for him.

Or someone else.

Prudence advised caution, but he decided to not disappoint them.

So he stepped from his cover and walked straight for the lit building.

HALE
LISTENED
AS
THE
PHONE
RANG
IN
HIS
EAR
.

Once. Twice. Three times.

“What is it, Quentin?” Andrea Carbonell finally said in his ear. “Don’t you sleep?”

“As if you weren’t waiting for my call.”

“Knox made a mess at the Helmsley Park Lane. One dead agent, two wounded, another dead in Central Park. I can’t let that go unanswered.”

Noise on the line, like the rotor of a helicopter, signaled that she was on the move.

“What do you plan to do? Arrest us? Good luck, considering how deep you’re into this. I’d love to explain on television what a lying bitch you truly are.”

“A little touchy tonight.”

“You have no idea.”

“I have as much faith in the justice system as you do,” she made clear. “And like you, I prefer my own forms of retribution, administered my way.”

“I thought we were allies.”

“We were, until you decided to do something stupid in New York.”

“I didn’t do that.”

“Nobody would ever believe you.”

“Have you solved the Jefferson cipher? Or was that another lie?”

“Before I answer, I want to know something.”

He wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of discussing much with this woman, but what choice did he have? “Go ahead.”

“How long did you think you could do as you pleased?”

This he could discuss. “We have a constitutional grant of authority from the Congress and the first president of United States to attack, at will, this nation’s enemies in perpetuity.”

“You’re an anachronism, Quentin. A relic from the past that no longer has any place.”

“Our Commonwealth has managed to do things that could never have been accomplished through conventional avenues. You wanted economic chaos in certain Middle East nations. We provided that. You wanted assets stripped from certain persons of interest. We stripped them. Politicos who weren’t cooperating started to cooperate after we finished with them.” He knew she would not want this information broadcast to the world, so if anyone was listening they were enjoying an earful.

“And while you did all that,” she said. “You stole for yourself, keeping far more than the eighty percent allowed.”

“Can you prove that? We make considerable payments to several intelligence agencies on a yearly basis, yours included—payments in the millions. I wonder, Andrea, does all of that end up in the U.S. Treasury?”

She laughed. “Like we’re getting our full share. All you pirates and privateers perform your own special form of accounting. Centuries ago it happened on the high seas, the spoils divvied up per your precious Articles before anyone could see how much had been plundered. What did they call it? The ledger? I’m sure two sets of ledgers were kept. One to show the government to make them happy and another to make sure that everyone privy to the Articles didn’t complain.”

“We are at an impasse,” he said. “We’re accomplishing nothing.”

“But it explains why we’re speaking at this godforsaken hour.”

He tried again. “Have you solved the cipher?”

“We have the key.”

He didn’t know whether to believe her or not. “I want it.”

“I’m sure you do. But I’m not currently in a position to give it to you. I’ll admit that I was planning on taking Knox hostage, using him as a bargaining chip. Maybe even just killing him and be done with it. But your quartermaster moved fast and we took casualties. That’s the price my people pay for their failure.”

Had any corsair or buccaneer regarded his crew with the same callous disrespect, he would have been marooned on the first island encountered.

And she called
him
a pirate.

“Don’t forget,” he said, “I have what you really want.”

He’d moved on Stephanie Nelle only because Carbonell had specifically asked him to. If she was to be believed, Nelle had been asking questions about Carbonell, investigating her relationship with the Commonwealth or, more specifically, her relationship with Hale. None of the other three captains knew of her existence, or at least that’s what he’d been led to believe. Carbonell had become aware of a meeting Nelle had arranged with a terminated
NIA
agent, one who harbored no loyalty to his former boss. She’d provided him the Delaware location and Knox had snatched Nelle at the scene, under cover of darkness, no witnesses, quick and clean. She’d wanted him to hold her discreetly for a few days. He could not have cared less. Just a favor done. But with all that had happened over the past few hours, the circumstances had altered.

NIA
was no longer a friend.

“How is your guest?” she asked.

“Comfortable.”

“Too bad.”

“What is it you want with her?”

“She has something I want and will not voluntarily relinquish it.”

“So you thought I’d trade Nelle for Knox?”

“Worth a try.”

“I want the cipher key,” he made clear. “If you’re not interested, I could make some arrangements with Stephanie Nelle. I’m sure she’d love to know why I have her. She looks the bargaining type.”

The silence on the other end of the line confirmed that his suspicions had proven correct. That was something she feared.

“Okay, Quentin. Things have obviously changed. Let’s see what you and I can now agree to.”