Steve Berry - The Jefferson Key

Hale took offense to that charge. “Killing a traitor is not murder.”

The chained man, as had his father and grandfather before him, kept the Hale family ledger. He was an accountant who lived in coastal Virginia on an exquisite estate. Hale Enterprises, Ltd., spanned the globe and required the attention of nearly three hundred employees. Many accountants were on the corporate payroll, but this man worked outside that bureaucracy, answerable only to Hale.

“I swear to you, Quentin,” the man screamed. “I gave them only the barest information.”

“Your life depends on that being true.” He allowed his words to carry a measure of hope. He wanted this man to talk. He must be sure.

“They came to me with subpoenas. They already knew the answers to their questions. They told me if I didn’t cooperate I’d go to jail and lose everything I had.”

The accountant started crying.

Again.

They were the Internal Revenue Service. Agents from the criminal enforcement division who’d descended one morning on Hale Enterprises. They’d also appeared at eight banks around the country, demanding account information on both the corporation and Hale. All the American banks complied. No surprise. Few laws guaranteed privacy. Which was why those accounts were supported by a meticulous paper trail. That was not the case with foreign banks, especially the Swiss, where financial privacy had long been a national obsession.

“They knew about the UBS accounts,” his accountant hollered over the wind and sea. “I only discussed those with them. No more. I swear. Only those.”

He stared past the rail at the churning sea. His victim lay on the aft deck, near the Jacuzzi and dip pool, out of sight from any passing boaters, but they’d been sailing for the better part of the morning and, so far, had spotted no one.

“What was I to do?” his accountant begged. “The bank caved.”

United Bank of Switzerland had indeed yielded to American pressure and finally, for the first time, allowed more than fifty thousand accounts to be subject to foreign subpoenas. Of course, threats of criminal prosecution to the bank’s U.S. executives had made that decision easy. And what his accountant said was true. He’d checked. Only UBS records had been seized. No accounts in the other seven countries had been touched.

“I had no choice. For God’s sake, Quentin. What did you want me to do?”

“I wanted you to keep to the Articles.”

From the sloop’s crew to his house staff to the estate keepers to himself, the Articles were what bound them together.

“You swore an oath and gave your word,” he called out from the railing. “You signed them.”

Which was meant to ensure loyalty. Occasionally, though, violations occurred and were dealt with. Like today.

He glanced out again at the blue-gray water. Adventure had caught a stiff southeastern breeze. They were fifty miles offshore, headed south, back from Virginia. The DynaRig system was performing perfectly. Fifteen square sails formed the modern version of the once-square rigger, the difference being that now the yards did not swing around a fixed mast. Instead, they were permanently attached, the masts rotating with the wind. No crewmen had to brave the heights and release the rigging. Technology stored the sails inside the mast and unfurled them by electric motor in less than six minutes. Computers controlled every angle, keeping the sails full.

He savored the salt air and cleared his brain.

“Tell me this,” he called out.

“Anything, Quentin. Just get me out of this cage.”

“The ledger. Did you speak of that?”

The man’s head shook. “Not a word. Nothing. They seized UBS records and never mentioned the ledger.”

“Is it safe?”

“Where we keep it. Always. Just you and me. We’re the only ones who know.”

He believed him. Not a word had so far been mentioned of the ledger, which relieved some of his anxiety.

But not all.

The storms he was about to face would be far worse than the squall he spotted brewing off to the east. The entire weight of the U.S. intelligence community, along with the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department, was bearing down upon him. Not unlike what his ancestors had faced when kings, queens, and presidents dispatched whole navies to hunt down the sloops and hang their captains.

He turned back to the pitiful man in the iron cage and stepped close.

“Please, Quentin. I’m begging you. Don’t do this.” The voice was racked by sobs. “I’ve never asked about the business. Never cared. I just kept the ledger. Like my dad. And his. I never touched a penny that wasn’t mine. We never have.”

No, his family hadn’t.

But Article 6 was clear.

If any Man shall violate the Company as a Whole he shall be shot.

Never had the Commonwealth faced something this threatening. If only he could find the key and solve the cipher. That would end it all and make what he was about to do unnecessary. Unfortunately, a captain’s duty sometimes entailed ordering unpleasant things.

He gestured and three men hoisted the gibbet, hauling it toward the railing.

The bound man screamed, “Don’t do this, please. I thought I knew you. I thought we were friends. Why are you acting like some damn pirate?”

The three men hesitated a moment, waiting for his signal.

He nodded.

The cage was tossed overboard and the sea devoured the offering.

The crew returned to their posts.

He stood alone on the deck, his face washed by the breeze, and considered the man’s final insult.

Acting like some damn pirate.

Sea monsters, hellhounds, robbers, opposers, corsairs, buccaneers, violators of all laws human and divine, devils incarnate, children of the wicked one.

All labels for pirates.

Was he one of them?

“If that’s what they think of me,” he whispered, “then why not?”

JONATHAN WYATT WATCHED THE SCENE UNFOLD. HE SAT ALONE at a window table in the Grand Hyatt’s New York Central restaurant, a glass-atrium eatery that offered an unobstructed view of East 42nd Street two stories below. He’d caught the moment when traffic was stopped, the sidewalks cleared, and the presidential motorcade arrived at Cipriani. He’d heard a bang from above, then the crash of glass to the sidewalk. When shots started he knew that the device had begun working.

He’d chosen this table with care and noticed that two men nearby had done the same. Secret Service agents, who’d commandeered the far end of the restaurant, assuming a position at the windows, their view of the scene below also unimpaired. Both men were wired with radios and the serving staff had intentionally seated no one near them.

He knew their operating procedure.

Presidential security relied on a controlled-perimeter mentality, usually three layers starting with counter snipers on adjacent rooftops, ending with agents standing within a few feet of their charge. Bringing a president into the congestion of a place like New York City posed extraordinary challenges. Buildings everywhere, each a sea of windows, topped by open roofs. The Grand Hyatt seemed a perfect example. Twenty-plus stories and two towers of glass walls.

Down on the street agents reacted to the shots, leaping onto Danny Daniels, implementing another time-honored practice-“cover and evacuate.” Of course, the automated weapon had been positioned high enough to shoot over any vehicles, and he watched policemen and the remaining agents dive left and right, trying to avoid the rounds.

Had Daniels been hit? Hard to say.

He watched as the two agents, standing fifty feet away, reacted to the melee, doing their job, acting as eyes and ears, clearly frustrated they were so far away. He knew the men on the street carried radios with earpieces. They’d all been trained. Unfortunately, reality rarely resembled scenarios enacted at an instructional facility. This was a perfect example. An automated, remote-controlled weapon directed by closed-circuit TV? Bet they hadn’t seen that one before.