by Steve Berry
She already knew what Cotton wanted her to do. “I’ll slow them down through the phone tap. We can feed Hale whatever we like.”
He nodded. “Do it. Wyatt has the wheel and he’ll be headed north, too.”
“I’ll find Stephanie,” she told him.
He turned to the curator. “You said you created that duplicate wheel. Is the fact that it’s an exact duplicate of the original advertised anywhere?”
The woman shook her head. “The manufacturer and I are the only ones who know. I didn’t even tell the estate manager until a little while ago up in the house. It really wasn’t that important.”
But Cassiopeia realized exactly why that fact was critical. “Wyatt thinks he’s the only one who knows.”
Cotton nodded.
“Yep. Which means, for the first time, we’re ahead of the game.”
FIFTY-THREE
BATH, NORTH CAROLINA
11:15 AM
KNOX PACED THE GRASS BENEATH A CANOPY OF OAKS AND pines. He’d been excused from the captain’s meeting just after Hale’s resurrection and told to wait outside. Not unusual for the four captains to discuss things without him, but he remained concerned about Hale’s private talk with the traitor.
Was that what the captains were discussing?
Adventure had, by now, made its way through the Ocracoke Inlet into the open Atlantic, heading out to dispose of the body.
What was he to do next?
The front door opened.
Bolton, Surcouf, and Cogburn emerged into the midday sun. They descended the veranda and headed for an electric cart. Bolton spotted him and walked over as the other two kept pace toward the vehicle.
“I wanted to thank you,” Bolton said.
“My job is to look after all of the captains.”
“What Hale is doing is wrong. It’s not going to work. I know, what we tried to do was desperate, or even worse than that. But he’s no better.”
Knox shrugged. “I’m not sure any of us knows what to do anymore.”
Defeat clouded the other man’s face. Bolton extended his hand, which Knox shook.
“Thanks again.”
Good to know that his move may have paid off. He might need Edward Bolton before this was done.
“Mr. Knox.”
He turned.
Hale’s private secretary waited on the porch.
“The captain will see you now.”
HALE POURED HIMSELF A DRINK AS KNOX REENTERED THE study. It held some of the same whiskey that had been used for the challenge. He tipped the glass to his quartermaster and said, “At least this one won’t kill me.”
The tumbler Knox had slapped from Bolton’s hand still lay on the hardwood floor, its liquid death soaked into the nearby planks.
“No one should touch that stain,” Knox made clear. “It will need to evaporate.”
“I’m keeping it there as a reminder of my triumph over idiocy. You should have let him die.”
“You know that I couldn’t.”
“Ah, yes. That duty of yours. The loyal quartermaster who walks the line between captain and crew. Elected by one group, yet dominated by the other. How do you do it?”
He made no attempt to mask his sarcasm.
“Did you make your point to them?” Knox calmly asked.
“What you really want to know is what we just discussed without you.”
“You’ll tell me when necessary.”
He threw the whiskey toward the back of his throat and swallowed.
He then banged the glass down on the table, reached for his gun, and pointed the weapon straight at Knox.
MALONE SETTLED INTO THE SEAT OF AN EXECUTIVE GULFSTREAM and fired up the LCD screen beside the white leather seat. He was alone in the spacious cabin, taxiing down the runway at Reagan National Airport, readying himself for what lay 800 miles to the north, across the Canadian border.
He needed the Internet and, thankfully, did not have to wait until 10,000 feet before using any approved electronic devices. He zeroed in on a few websites and learned what he could about Nova Scotia, a narrow Canadian peninsula barely connected to New Brunswick, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. Three hundred miles long, 50 miles wide, 4800 miles of coastline. A mix of old and new with craggy coves, sandy beaches, and fertile valleys. The south shore, from Halifax to Shelburne, contained countless inlets, the largest of which was Mahone. Though the French had discovered the bay in 1534, the British took control in 1713.
Something he hadn’t known came up on one site.
During the American Revolution colonial forces had occupied the region, attempting to make Canada the fourteenth colony. The idea had been to woo the many angry French still living there into becoming allies against the English, but the move failed. Canada remained British and, after the Revolution, became even more so, as Loyalists emigrated northward, fleeing the newly formed United States.
And he’d been right.
Mahone Bay became a haven for pirates.
Shipbuilding developed into an industry. Thick fogs and sinister tidal marshes provided ideal cover for several hundred islands. The locale was not all that dissimilar to Port Royal, Jamaica, or Bath, North Carolina, both of which had also once been notorious pirate dens.
Oak Island, which lay in Mahone Bay, appeared on many of the websites, so he read what he could. Its history began on a summer day in 1795 when Daniel McGinnis, a young man in his early twenties, discovered a clearing where oak trees had been felled, leaving only stumps. At the center of the clearing lay a circular indentation, maybe twelve feet wide. A large branch protruded over the depression. One version said that a ship’s pulley had been attached to the branch. Another stated there were strange markings on the tree. A third account noted that the clearing had been blanketed with red clover, which wasn’t native to the island. No matter which version was accepted as true, what happened next was beyond dispute.
People started digging.
First McGinnis and his friends, then others, then organized treasure consortiums. They bore down nearly two hundred feet and found layers of charcoal, timber, coconut fibers, flagstones, and clay. If their accounts could be believed, they unearthed a strange stone with curious markings. Two ingenious flood tunnels tied into the shaft, designed to ensure that anyone who dug deep enough would encounter nothing but water.
And that was exactly what they found.
Flooding had thwarted every attempt to solve the mystery.
Countless theories abounded.
Some said it was a pirate cache, dug by Captain William Kidd himself. Others gave ownership to the privateer Sir Francis Drake or the Spanish, as an out-of-the-way place to stash their wealth. More pragmatic people suggested military involvement-pay chests concealed by the French or English in their seesawing struggle to control Nova Scotia.
Then there were the far-outers.
Antediluvian Atlanteans, interplanetary travelers, Masons, Templars, Egyptians, Greeks, Celts.
Several men lost their lives, many their fortunes, but no treasure had ever been found.
Oak Island wasn’t even an island any longer. A narrow causeway, built to allow heavy digging equipment to easily pass back and forth, now connected it to the mainland. One recent Canadian news article mentioned that the provincial government was considering buying the land and turning the place into a tourist attraction.
Now that would yield a treasure, he thought.
He located a few mentions of Paw Island, a few miles southeast of Oak. About a mile long, and half that wide, shaped liked its name. Two coves indented its center facing north, while smaller ones cracked the remaining shoreline. Its rounded west side was covered with trees, while rocky cliffs dominated the east and south shores. The French had explored it in the 17th century looking for furs, but the English had built a fort, which they dubbed Wildwood, that faced the Atlantic and guarded the bay. He read how Nova Scotia was generally devoid of ruins. Nothing was ever wasted. Houses were dismantled timber by timbe
r, the hinges, door handles, nails, bricks, mortar, and cement all reused. Twenty-first-century boards, driven by 18th-century nails, over 19th-century joists, was how one site described it.
But the limestone fort on Paw Island stood as an anomaly.
And history was the explanation.
In 1775 when the American Continental army invaded, seizing control of the British forts, Wildwood was taken early and renamed Dominion. But the Americans were soon defeated at the Battle of Quebec and withdrew from Canada in 1776. Before leaving Paw Island, though, they torched the fort. Nothing was ever rebuilt, the site abandoned to the elements, the fire-blackened walls left standing as a reminder of the insult.
Now only birds occupied them.
“Mr. Malone,” a voice said over the intercom. “We have a weather delay. They’re asking us to hold on the runway.”
“I didn’t think those rules applied to the Secret Service.”
“Unfortunately, there’s a nasty storm between here and Maine and even the Secret Service has to bow to that.”
“Keep in mind, we’re in a hurry.”
“It could be a little bit. They didn’t sound encouraging.”
He tapped the keyboard and found a map of Mahone Bay, deciding how best to arrive on Paw Island. They would be landing at a small airstrip to the south, specifically avoiding Halifax and its international hub, since Wyatt could be traveling through there. The Secret Service had run a check of all flights to Nova Scotia, but no seats had been booked in Wyatt’s name. No surprise. He was surely flying under an alias with a clean ID, or he may have chartered something.
It didn’t matter.
He wanted his adversary to have a clear run to the island.
There, they would get reacquainted.
FIFTY-FOUR
WHITE HOUSE
CASSIOPEIA FOLLOWED EDWIN DAVIS INTO A ROOM NOT MUCH larger than a closet. Inside was a small table that supported a console with an LCD monitor. The screen displayed a room dotted with oil portraits dominated by a conference table, whose seats were rapidly filling with men and women. She’d returned with Davis to Washington. Later, she’d head back south to Fredericksburg to make use of Kaiser’s phone tap.
“He had me order them here,” Davis said, pointing to the screen. “Heads of the eighteen largest intelligence agencies. CIA, NSA, NIA, Defense Intelligence, National Counter-Terrorism, Homeland Security, Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking, National Geospatial, Underground Facility Analysis-you name it, we have somebody spending money on it.”
“Bet they’re wondering what’s going on.”
Davis smiled. “These people don’t like surprises, or one another for that matter.”
She watched on the screen as the president of the United States burst into the room and moved out of view to the head of the table. The camera had apparently been installed behind where he sat so only the participants would be recorded.
Everyone sat.
“It’s good to see you’re okay,” one of the participants said to Daniels.
“It’s good to be okay.”
“Mr. President, we had little notice of this meeting so nothing has been prepared. We weren’t even told of the subject matter.”
“Head of Central Intelligence,” Davis told her. “The president owes me five dollars. I bet he’d be the first to probe. He said NSA.”
“You people love to tell me how good you are,” Daniels said. “That this country would be in dire jeopardy if we didn’t spend billions of dollars every year on what you do. You also like to hide behind that secrecy you so righteously demand. I don’t have the luxury of working in secret. I have to do what I do with a cadre of reporters camped out less than a hundred feet away from where I work. Hell, I don’t even know where half of your offices are located, much less what you do.”
“Do they know we’re watching?” she asked.
Davis shook his head. “Pinhole camera. The Secret Service installed it a few years ago. Nobody knows but senior staff.”
“This monstrosity of government called homeland security,” the president said, “is absurd. I have yet to find anyone who knows how much it costs, how many are employed, how many programs there are and, most important, how much duplication there is. Best I can tell there are nearly 1300 separate organizations working homeland security or foreign intelligence. That’s on top of nearly 2000 private contractors. Nearly 900,000 hold a top secret clearance. How could anything possibly be kept secret with that many eyes and ears?”
No one said a word.
“Everyone said they were going to streamline things after 9/11. You folks swore you were finally going to start working together. What you did was create 300 new intelligence organizations. You produce over 50,000 intelligence reports each year. Who reads them all?”
No answer.
“That’s right. No one does. So what good are they?”
“He’s going right for their throats,” she said to Davis.
“It’s all they understand.”
“I want to know who hired Jonathan Wyatt and had him in New York yesterday,” the president asked, breaking the room’s silence.
“I did.”
“Is that her?” Cassiopeia asked.
Davis nodded. “Andrea Carbonell. Head of NIA.”
She’d noticed the woman’s entrance, her swarthy complexion, dark hair, and Latino influences similar to her own. “What’s her story?”
“Daughter of Cuban immigrants. Born here. She worked her way up through the ranks until finally snagging the head of NIA. Her service record is actually exemplary, except for her ties to the Commonwealth.”
Carbonell sat straight, hands folded on the table, eyes intent on the president. Her features remained expressionless, even in the face of an angry commander in chief.
“Why did you have Wyatt in New York?” Daniels asked her.
“I required outside assistance to counter pressure I was receiving from CIA and NSA.”
“Explain yourself.”
“A few hours ago someone tried to kill me.”
The room fell into a hush.
Carbonell cleared her throat. “I wasn’t planning on bringing it up in this meeting, but an automated weapon was waiting for me in my residence.”
Daniels hesitated only a moment. “And the importance of that? Besides the fact that you could be dead.”
“Wyatt was in New York to help me decipher the recent actions of some of my colleagues. We were meeting to discuss the situation. But a CIA deputy director and another deputy from NSA interrupted that meeting and took Wyatt. I would like to know the purpose of that action.”
She was good, Cassiopeia thought. Carbonell had yet to answer a question, but she’d managed to shift attention away from herself. Her inquiry clearly interested some of the others around the table, who stared at CIA, and another man whom Davis identified as the NSA director.
“Mr. President,” CIA said. “This woman has been conspiring with the Commonwealth. She may well have been involved in the attempt on your life.”
“Do you have proof of that?” Carbonell calmly asked.
“I don’t need proof,” Daniels said to her. “I just need to be convinced. So tell me, did you have any involvement with the attempt on my life?”
“I did not.”
“Then how did Wyatt get himself right smack in the middle of things? He was there, in the Grand Hyatt. We know that. He directed agents straight to Cotton Malone. He involved Malone in the whole thing.”
“He has a personal vendetta against Malone,” Carbonell said. “He set Malone up, involving him in the attempt on your life, unbeknownst to me. I fired him just before CIA and NSA took him away.”
“Wyatt just shot up Monticello,” Daniels said. “He stole a rare artifact. A cipher wheel. Did you arrange for that to happen?”
“The shooting or the stealing?”
“You choose. And, by the way, I’ve never liked a smart-ass.”
“As I said, Mr. President, I fi
red Wyatt yesterday. He no longer works for me. I think the CIA or NSA is in a better position to answer the question of what happened after I terminated him.”
“So, do any of you have any knowledge of the plot to kill me?” the president asked.
The table stirred at the pointed question.
“We were unaware there was a plot,” one of them said.
“You’re damn right there was,” Daniels said. “I asked a question. Ms. Carbonell, how about you answer first.”
“I knew nothing of any assassination plot.”
“Liar,” CIA said.
Carbonell kept her composure. “I only know that Wyatt lured Cotton Malone to the Grand Hyatt, hoping Malone would stop the attempt. Then Wyatt directed agents toward Malone. He apparently was hoping one of them would shoot him. He reported this to me after it happened. I realized immediately that things were way out of control. So I severed all connection with him.”
“You should have arrested him,” one of the others around the table said.
“As I’ve already said, he was in the custody of CIA and NSA after I did what I did. Seems they are the ones who need to explain why he was not arrested.”
“She’s good,” Cassiopeia said.
“And she’s holding back,” Davis said.
Cassiopeia’s eyes seemed to communicate exactly what she was thinking.
“I know,” Davis said. “I’m doing the same thing. But can we keep things close a little while longer.”
“To what end?”
“Hell if I know.”
“Where’s Wyatt now?” Daniels asked the room.
“He attacked the two men we sent to interrogate him,” CIA said. “And escaped.”
“Were you planning on reporting any of this?” the president asked.
No reply.
“Who sent the police after Cotton Malone in Richmond, Virginia?”
“We did,” CIA said. “We ascertained that Malone emailed to himself a classified document. He then accessed it from a hotel in Richmond. We asked the locals to pick him up for questioning.”