<><><><><>
Once again they were cut off from exploring anything deeper due to the staff inside the house. Ropes lined the doors and other tourists roamed about which made a thorough search impossible. Seth was frustrated and held his head in his hands as they exited the building.
“Cripes, now what?” Seth asked.
Madison yawned and stretched her arms over her head before responding. “We find out where the hell this Bushrod lived, died or whatever. He took something from the Ross house and hid it. Supposedly here. Where? I have no idea. Maybe he moved it again. We need to find out everything we can about Bushrod Washington.”
“For what?” Seth asked quickly.
Madison looked over at him as they made their way toward the car. He didn’t return her gaze but kept staring ahead. “Are you done?” she asked.
He shrugged and put his hands in his jacket pockets. “I mean, what’s the point?”
“I’m not gonna argue with you anymore, Seth. We had this same conversation yesterday and you said you were in. I’ll drop you off at the hotel or your place or wherever you wanna go.”
Seth gazed in every direction as they neared the car and saw no sign of the vehicle that followed them earlier that day. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet,” she responded. “Maybe see where Bushrod leads us, maybe go back to the hotel and sleep the rest of the day. I’m tired, men are chasing us for God knows what, and now I’ve met a cool guy and he’s already ditching me.”
Seth leaned forward and put his hands on her shoulders. “I’m not ditching you. But you just said everything I was thinking. I’m tired too. Why are these men chasing us? What information do we have that they don’t?”
They stared at each other for a few moments and Seth cocked his head and looked away. “They’re never going to leave us alone, Madison.”
She gazed at him with wrinkled eyebrows. “What do you mean? We gave them the book.”
“Yeah, but listen,” Seth pleaded, “we took the clue from the Ross steps. Even if they find the staircase in the Kent museum, the note Bushrod left is gone. That’s why they’re following us. They need us to find whatever it is they can’t.”
“What if we stop looking? What if we don’t find it?” she asked.
He looked at her. “Then, they’ll beat the shit out of us until we tell them what we know.”
“Well I’m not tellin’ them anything,” she said.
“Me neither,” Seth concurred. His cell phone rang in his pocket and saw that it was Harper’s Grove. He answered, “Hey Granddad.”
“Where the hell you been?”
“At Valley Forge Park for some time now, sorry, didn’t realize the time.”
“What’d ya find?” Arthur asked.
“Listen, we’re going back to the hotel or the library maybe. I’ll call ya later.” He hung up before he got a response. He took one last look around the parking lot and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “Looks like you really did lose them. Let’s get to a library and find out all we can about this Bushrod guy.”
CHAPTER 16
The Montgomery County Library was the closest one to the park, according to the GPS in her car. They found it and went inside. Seth scanned the parking lot once again but didn’t see anything unusual. The days of finding books using old-fashioned card catalogs were over. They saw at least a dozen small computer stations throughout the sprawling complex, not including eight additional ones that were used for Internet access. Madison walked over to the first one and typed in “Bushrod Washington”. Only four books appeared on the screen and two were over at another library. She found the call numbers and they memorized each one.
Seth looked up and down at the numbers and letters on the ends of each aisle until he found the non-fiction section. They walked down two aisles, found the correct book and pulled it out of its place. It was thin, only a hundred eighty pages authored by a man named Kent Janikowski. It was entitled The Washington Family Tree.
Seth flipped open the book and read the table of contents until he came to chapter nine, ‘Washington’s Nieces and Nephews’. He turned to the page number and Bushrod was listed first, alphabetically.
“Bushrod Washington was a U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice and nephew of George Washington,” Seth began. He finished the quick biography of Washington, skimming the paragraphs.
“Damn, nothing useful here,” Seth said. “Let’s try the other book.” They put the book away and went down another aisle until Madison found the book they were looking for on the bottom shelf: Washington’s Final Years by Frank Gorro. This, too, was divided into chapters, but there was no mention of nephews. Confused, Madison flipped to the index at the back of the book and looked for Bushrod’s name. There it was. Mentioned on pages 34-35 and 89-92. She started on page thirty-four.
They read for a few moments, turning to page thirty-five but still found nothing of significance. Madison turned to page eighty-nine and this time read aloud to Seth:
“In his dying days Washington was sick with pneumonia and succumbed quickly. He was tended to by Martha and others who worked in the house. The one person that was there on the day he died was Bushrod Washington, his nephew. This is when it is reasoned, that George Washington changed his will and left part of his inheritance to Bushrod. Washington had some money; he was a soldier and the First President of The United States of America. What he did have to give to Bushrod though, was a nice piece of property on the edge of the Potomac River, Mount Vernon.”
She stopped reading and looked at Seth. “Bingo.”
“Let’s go.” She closed the book, put it back in its place and they both moved toward the exit, and that’s when they noticed Kohler outside the glass doors, smiling.
Seth looked for another exit but couldn’t find one, so they turned back to Kohler. Nothing would happen here, it was a public library. He grabbed Madison’s hand and they walked out the door.
“Where’s Costello?” Seth asked, stopping short of Kohler.
He ignored the question. “Any good books you recommend?”
A thought occurred to Seth and he asked, “How’d you find us?”
Kohler ignored the question again. “Lemme tell you something, Seth. Those three Brits that stumbled upon your girlfriend’s house last night? You don’t want to piss them off. Me, I’m a reasonable man, but I can’t vouch for those three.”
“Who are they?” Madison asked.
“Beats the hell out of me. I just met them last night too. I would just be careful. Why don’t we go somewhere and talk. I can protect you.”
“Protect me from what?” Seth asked.
“I don’t know, but wouldn’t you feel better if we talked? I can assure you they would never find you.”
“Am I under arrest?” Seth asked defiantly.
Kohler held up his hands, “Whoa, I’m no cop, Seth.”
“Then leave us the hell alone.” He grabbed Madison’s hand and they walked down the steps to their car. They looked around and saw Costello leaning against a car smoking a cigarette. Damn, how had they found us? His cell phone buzzed in his pocket and he read the caller ID, Harper’s Grove. He pushed the ignore button and they got in the car.
“Head to Harper’s Grove,” he told Madison.
She looked at him as she turned the ignition, “You sure you wanna bring him?”
“No, but he’ll love every minute of it.”
<><><><><>
Maximus had a great rest in Madison’s bed. He thought of her sleeping there every night and breathed in her femininity. He pictured her coming out of the shower, tossing the towel on the floor, grabbing REDBOOK from her nightstand and sliding into bed naked. He put his hands behind his head and interlocked his fingers. He thought of the other suckers out there taking turns watching the house, Evan then Chloe, Evan then Chloe. He didn’t bother to split up and watch Seth’s house even though he told the Americans he would. He had it under control.
&nb
sp; Maximus peeked out the bedroom door and saw Evan on the recliner and Chloe on the couch, both sound asleep. He closed the door, stepped into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Before hopping in, he called Bannister in London and briefed him on last night’s events.
“So, what’s the book say?” Bannister asked.
“There’s not much there, honestly. It lists Washington’s relatives, and then some connect the dots sort of puzzle that no one could figure out.”
“Have you heard from the Americans today?”
“Not yet, but we will.”
“Bloody hell,” Bannister shouted. “Let me get Castle on the line. I want you blokes ready to go as soon as I call you back.”
Max tried to end the call before his boss did but Bannister beat him to the punch. He undressed and took a long hot shower. He thought about Madison but thought even more about Chloe sleeping on the couch. Chloe came into the group four months earlier, and according to her records, she was a criminal. That was no surprise, they were all criminals, but Chloe was different. She led small groups of women into Northern Ireland and carried out small, but important tasks, completely on her own.
The first one was a bank robbery. It was the largest bank in Belfast. After they killed two guards and blew the door off the safe, they made their getaway underground in the sewer, crippling the region by making off with over eight million Euros. The next task was setting fire to an important politician’s home. After that, she blew up a private airplane carrying five IRA extremists on vacation. The British Intelligence Agency knew all along who she was and what she was doing, but they let her get away with it. They kept her in check, but also fed her information. Bannister recruited her specifically to work with Max. They were a good team.
Max toweled off in the bedroom. Chloe knocked on the door and walked through. She yawned once before saying, “What’s the plan?”
“Damn,” Max said, wrapping the towel around him. “If I knew you were up, I would’ve waited to shower.”
“Piss off, Max.”
His cell rang again. It was Bannister.
“Yeah?”
“I just got off the phone with Castle. His men tracked them to Valley Forge Park and then to some library nearby. He doesn’t know where they’re going, but he has a tracker on them. They just picked up the old man and are heading south on Interstate 95.”
“Got it,” Max said.
“So get the hell in your car and start heading south. I’ll keep you posted whenever I hear something.”
Max ended the call and looked at Chloe. “Let’s get moving.”
“Where?”
“South,” he responded.
“DC?”
“That’s my guess.” Max said. He watched her leave and quickly dressed. All three of them were out the door within ten minutes, stopping only once for coffee before picking up the exit to I-95 South.
Chapter 17
By the time they got Arthur at Harper’s Grove, signed the forms and convinced the woman at the desk that Arthur would not be gone for too long, it was nearing twelve noon. This was past Arthur’s lunch hour. He was used to eating breakfast at seven, lunch at eleven-thirty, and dinner at four-thirty. Most nights he was in bed by eight-thirty. It wasn’t more than fifteen minutes into the trip that Arthur complained every other minute that he was hungry. Madison drove, Seth rode shotgun and Arthur sat in back.
After being on I-95 for only a few minutes they entered the state of Delaware. Two exits down, Seth told Madison to turn off and make a right at the bottom of the exit. They traveled only two miles with Seth directing until they turned right again and pulled into a small strip mall of shops. Close to the end was Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop. They parked, got out of the car and went in.
Seth told them all about Capriotti’s sandwiches before they arrived and they knew what to order when they walked in. It was not a sit down place, just a counter and a kitchen. Seth ordered a cheese-steak with mushrooms, Madison ordered a turkey hoagie and Arthur got the turkey special, called a “Bobbie.” It was a turkey hoagie on a long roll with stuffing and cranberry sauce. Arthur salivated as Seth described it to him.
After ten minutes, Seth paid for the sandwiches and a couple of iced teas and they were back in their car heading south. Arthur inhaled his sandwich.
“Don’t get any on my seats!” Madison said.
Seth held her hoagie in one hand and ate his steak with the other.
“Man, this is good,” Arthur said between bites.
“Granddad,” Seth said quietly, “we wanna hear the truth.”
“What truth?” Arthur responded.
“How’d you get the book—Washington’s book?”
Arthur stopped mid-chew and looked up at Seth who was half-turned in the front seat. He dabbed a napkin all over his mouth and cheeks and finished chewing before responding. “I stole it,” he said.
Madison and Seth stopped mid-bite.
“From whom?” Seth asked.
“Listen Seth, I hope you don’t think any less of me for doing so, but I was in no position to do what was right.”
“What do you mean Granddad?”
“Remember your dad telling you I traveled all over the place because I was in the military? Well, that wasn’t the whole truth.”
Seth nodded. “I’m listening.”
“I was chasing this book, Seth. I just didn’t know where it was. I first learned about it in the Marines. I was stationed on a small island outside Korea and became good friends with a fellow named Willie Wright, Dub-Dub we called him after his initials.” He rolled up the papers the sandwich came in and passed the trash to Seth who took it and put it in the brown paper bag. “One night, we stole some liquor from the chief and went down to the beach and started drinking it. Man we got drunk. We hadn’t had a drink in over two months so we had a good ol’ time. Anyways, Dub-Dub started tellin’ me about these crazy stories that he was related to someone who was related to someone else who was related to George Washington.”
“Really,” Madison said in disbelief. “Your Marine buddy was related to Washington?”
“Yeah, I didn’t know if it was the whiskey talking or what, but he went on and on so I let him talk. Next thing I know, he tells me about a diary or journal of Washington’s that is in his family’s possession.”
“Our book,” Seth said.
“Yeah, our book. I still can’t believe you gave it to those limey bastards,” Arthur said.
Seth started to say something in protest but Arthur held up his hand. “So I started asking him what was in the book and who had it but he didn’t know. He just said it was important because they moved it from family to family so no one had it very long. He said it was passed down five or six generations.”
“Did he say anything about Bushrod?” Seth asked.
“Not that I recall. I would’ve remembered a name like that.”
“So what’d you do?” Madison asked.
“Well, we got shipped back to the states six months later but he never brought it up again. Frankly, after we got back here, I never saw him again. Well, I did see him once.”
“When?”
“The night I took the book,” he said.
“You stole it from your Marine buddy?” Seth asked.
“You gotta understand, son. Coming back to the states, we had nothing. I had no job, your grandma was pregnant with your dad’s sister, we were broke. I thought, hey, if that book was valuable, I could have sold it for some money.”
Seth looked up at the toll booth and they glided through with the cars’ EZ-Pass tag. A few moments later they saw a sign that said Welcome to Maryland.
“Then what?” Seth asked reluctantly.
“Well, I tracked Dub-Dub down and found out he was living in a suburb of Baltimore, so I paid him a visit. I called him on the phone; we chatted for almost an hour about our time in the Corps. He said he wasn’t married at the time and had no kids. I drove down there from our home in Philly then called hi
m and asked him to meet me for lunch. I showed up all right, but I was late.”
“Why?” asked Madison.
“Well, I knew he was out of his house and that’s when I broke in and took the book.”
Seth started to say something but Arthur interrupted. “I’m not proud of what I did Seth. I’m ashamed of it till this day. I was a different person back then.”
“How’d you know he had the book?”
“I searched everywhere. I knew his mother had it and I even paid her a visit one time asking her about the book. She sniffed me out and I left without it. Then, Dub-Dub’s mom died and I waited until things settled down and thought that this was my chance.”
“How’d you know where to look?” Madison asked.
Arthur chuckled. “Dub-Dub was obsessed with fishing. That’s all he talked about when we were stationed on this small island. He even rigged up a homemade fishing rod and was catching little fish right there on the beach. Well, when we got to talking on the phone, he told me about a trip he took out of the Florida Keys a few years back. He said he hooked into a monster tarpon that took him three hours to pull in. Can you imagine that?”
Seth and Madison stared out at the long stretch of highway in front of them and waited for Arthur to finish his story.
“He told me he had it stuffed and mounted and it was sitting on a wall in his office at home. I knew right then, that’s where he would put the book, inside the tarpon. Dub-Dub was a simple guy and he wouldn’t go to all the trouble of a security box at a bank or a safe in his house. So, when he was out at the restaurant waiting for me, I broke in the back door and found the book in no time, right there inside the big fish.”
“Wow,” Seth said. “Did you go to the restaurant?”
“Oh yeah, I was only a few minutes late. At the time, I acted like everything was normal. I was even giddy with excitement. Then, after a few weeks and I couldn’t figure out any of the puzzles or clues, I gave up. I bought the safety deposit box, hid the key and forgot about it.”
The Lost Journal Page 10