Steve Berry - The Jefferson Key

“It’s Stephanie,” Davis whispered. “She’s the one who needs our help.”

CASSIOPEIA SAT IN THE REAR SEAT OF AN SUV, ONE AGENT BESIDE her, two more up front. They’d allowed her to dress, then to pack both her and Cotton’s belongings, bringing everything with them.

Apparently, they were going somewhere.

They’d left the St. Regis quietly and driven unescorted out of Manhattan, across the East River into Queens. No one had said a word, and she hadn’t asked anything.

No need.

The car radio told the story.

Someone had tried to assassinate Danny Daniels, and the president had just appeared before the press to assure everyone that he’d escaped unharmed. Cotton was somehow involved, and she wondered if this was what Stephanie Nelle had wanted to see him about.

Stephanie and Cotton were close-friends for fifteen years. He’d worked for her a dozen of those years at the Magellan Billet, a covert intelligence unit within the U.S. Justice Department. Cotton had been a navy commander, trained as both a pilot and a lawyer, personally recruited by Stephanie. While there, he’d handled some of her most sensitive assignments until retiring early three years ago. That’s when he’d moved to Copenhagen and opened an old-book shop.

She hoped Cotton was okay.

They’d both thought the email from Stephanie strange but ignored the warning signs. A weekend in New York had simply sounded like fun. Unfortunately, she wasn’t wearing her black Armani in a crowded theater. Instead she was in federal custody being driven who knew where.

Her long dark hair was still damp, curling as it dried. She wore no makeup, but rarely did anyway. She’d chosen a smart ensemble of brown leather trousers, a camel-colored cashmere shirt, and a double-breasted camel-hair blazer. Vanity had never been a weakness, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t conscious of her appearance.

“Sorry about the kick,” she said to the agent sitting beside her. He’d been the one to first rush into the apartment.

He acknowledged the apology with a nod but kept his thoughts to himself. She realized prisoners rarely had luggage brought with them to jail. Apparently, after her identity had been discovered, new instructions had been provided.

Up ahead she spotted the grand expanse of John F. Kennedy International Airport. They motored through an open gate and she caught sight of Air Force One parked on the tarmac. A swarm of people were being led away from the plane.

“We’ll wait until the press clears,” the agent in the front seat said.

“Then what?” she asked.

“You’re going on board.”

HALE CONTINUED TO WATCH THE TELEVISION COVERAGE. ADVENTURE was less than thirty minutes from home. They’d slowed to a crawl respecting the fact that the Pamlico, for all its vastness, was little more than twenty feet deep at best. He recalled what his grandfather had told him about the channel markers-once merely cedar saplings, they were routinely moved by the local pilots to encourage visiting boat captains to hire them. Thank God the days of tacking inland from the sand banks, dodging shoals that had not existed the day before, were over. Engines made quite the difference. He’d muted the TV and was listening to the slap-slap of the river’s flow against the ship’s smooth hull.

Waiting.

He’d placed a call twenty minutes ago and left a voice message.

Danny Daniels had been impressive before the press. Hale had caught the president’s unspoken message. The investigations were already starting. He wondered how good the quartermaster had been. Thankfully, Knox was thorough, that he’d give him. Knox’s father had been the same, serving Hale’s father. But this situation was unusual, to say the least.

His phone chimed.

When he answered, Knox said, “I told them not to do it, but they were insistent.”

“You should have told me.”

“It’s no different from what I did for you, and they have no idea of that. I’ve never violated your confidence, so you can’t expect me to violate theirs.”

True, only a few days ago Knox had indeed performed a clandestine mission for Hale. One of great importance.

And never had he violated any of their confidences.

Of the four families, the Hales were by far the most prosperous, with a net worth equal to the remaining three combined. That superiority had often bred resentment, evidenced from time to time by bursts of independence, the others’ way of asserting themselves, so he should not be surprised by the day’s events.

“What happened?” he asked.

He listened as the quartermaster reported, including the NIA’s interference and the elimination of their agent.

“Why did they interfere?” he asked. “They are the only ones who have stood by us.”

“Apparently, we went a bit too far. Beyond that, their agent offered no explanation. He seemed intent on sending us a message. I thought it important for them to know that we received the message, and don’t appreciate what they did.”

He could not argue with that conclusion.

A sense of mission had always bound a pirate company, the team more important than any one individual. His father had taught him that missions required goals and rewards, the participants bound into a single purpose. That had been the way of his ancestors, and even today every good ship captain knew that a clearly defined mission transformed the hunted into hunters.

So he decided not to chastise Knox and simply said, “From this point on, I want to be kept informed.”

The quartermaster did not object. “I’m going to retrieve Parrott’s laptop.”

His heart quickened. The prospect that Jefferson’s cipher may have been solved excited him. Could it be? Still-

“I’d be careful.”

“I plan to.”

“Notify me the moment you have it. And, Clifford. No more moves like the ones today.”

“I assume you’ll be dealing with the other three?”

“As fast as I can get to shore.”

He ended the call.

At least something might have gone right today.

He glanced over at the two pages sheathed in plastic.

In 1835, when his great-great-grandfather had tried to assassinate Andrew Jackson, there’d been hell to pay. And just like now, divisions existed within the Commonwealth. Only then a Hale had ordered the quartermaster to kill the president of the United States.

Richard Lawrence, an unemployed house painter, had been covertly recruited. Prior to the assassination attempt Lawrence had tried to shoot his sister and openly threatened two others, eventually believing that Jackson had murdered his father. He also thought himself the king of England and fervently pronounced that Jackson was interfering with his royal inheritance. He held the president responsible for his unemployment and for an overall shortage of money in the country.

Not a difficult matter to encourage him to act.

The problem came from Jackson, who’d sequestered himself within the White House during the bitter winter of 1834. A funeral at the Capitol finally brought the president out, so Lawrence was nudged to Washington and provided two pistols. He’d secreted himself within the crowd on a cold, rainy day and confronted his adversary.

But fate intervened and saved Old Hickory.

Thanks to wet powder, both guns misfired.

Immediately Jackson had blamed Senator George Poindexter of Mississippi, alleging a conspiracy. The Senate launched an official inquiry, but Poindexter was exonerated. Privately, though, Jackson targeted his real vengeance.

Hale’s grandfather had told him the story.

The six presidents before Jackson had been easy to work with. Washington knew what the Commonwealth had done for the country during the Revolution. So did Adams. Even Jefferson tolerated them, and their help with America’s war on the Barbary pirates removed any bad taste that may have lingered. Madison, Monroe, and the second Adams never presented a problem.