The Jefferson Key: A Novel

by Steve Berry

  She chose the Governor’s Suite not only for its views but also for its two bedrooms. Though they’d made great strides, she and Cotton were still exploring their fledgling relationship. Granted, one of the bedrooms had yet to be utilized, but it was there—just in case.

  They’d spent a lot of time together since returning from China, both in Copenhagen and at her French château. So far the emotional plunge, new to them both, seemed okay. She felt safe with Cotton—comfortable, knowing they were equals. He said all the time that women were not his strong point, but he underestimated himself. This trip seemed a perfect example. Though its primary purpose had been for him to meet with Stephanie Nelle, she’d appreciated the simple fact that he’d wanted her along.

  But she, too, had combined pleasure with some business.

  One of her least favorite tasks was looking after the family concerns. She was the sole heir to her father’s financial empire, which totaled in the billions and stretched across six continents. A central management team, headquartered in Barcelona, ran the everyday operations. She was provided weekly reports but occasionally her input, as the only shareholder, was required. So yesterday afternoon, and again today, she’d met with her American managers. She was good at business, but smart enough to trust her employees. Her father taught her always to invest those in charge with a stake in the outcome—a percentage of the profits, however small—and he was right. She’d been blessed with a team that treated her companies as their own, and they’d actually multiplied her net worth.

  Cotton had left a couple of hours ago, having decided to walk to 42nd Street. That was the thing about New York—so much traffic, it was far easier to stroll the thirteen blocks. Tonight was dinner and a show. Her choice, he’d said. So she’d purchased the tickets a few days ago and made reservations for afterward at one of her favorite eateries. She’d also stopped at Bergdorf Goodman and bought a new dress.

  Why not? Every once in a while a girl had to splurge.

  She’d been lucky in the store. The Armani she chose fit perfectly, not a single alteration required. Black silk, backless, decadent.

  Just what they both needed.

  She liked thinking about pleasing someone else. Those thoughts had been foreign to her for the majority of her life. Was that love? Maybe a part of it. Or at least she hoped.

  The doorbell rang.

  She smiled, thinking back to yesterday when they’d arrived.

  I learned something a long time ago, Cotton had said. If you come to your hotel room and there’s double doors, something pretty good is on the other side. If there’s a doorbell, that’s always a good sign, too. But if there’s double doors and a doorbell, holy crap, look out.

  She’d ordered wine and hors d’oeuvres since it would be a while until dinner. Cotton didn’t drink alcohol—never had, he said—so she’d substituted cranberry juice for him. He should be back soon. His meeting with Stephanie was at 6:15 and it was now pushing eight o’clock. They’d need to be leaving shortly.

  The bell rang again.

  She left the bathroom and walked through a spacious living room to the double doors. She turned the latch, but the door was suddenly forced toward her, the unexpected action reeling her back.

  Two men rushed inside.

  She reacted and spun, driving her leg into a stomach and thrusting with her right fist, aiming for the second man’s throat. Her kick found flesh and the man doubled forward, but she missed the other. She spun again, the towel in her hair falling away, and saw the gun.

  Aimed straight at her.

  Three more armed men appeared.

  She froze and realized her robe was askew, providing her visitors with a view. Her fists were raised, nerves ready. “Who are you?”

  “Secret Service,” one of them said. “You’re under arrest.”

  What had Cotton done now? “Why?”

  “Assassination of the president of the United States.”

  Rarely was she genuinely surprised. It happened, but not often. But assassination of the president of the United States?

  That was a new one.

  “You need to lower your arms and place them behind your back,” the agent calmly said. “And maybe close that robe.”

  She did as he suggested and composed herself. “Am I allowed to dress before you take me away?”

  “Not alone.”

  She shrugged. “I can handle it, if you can.”

  TEN

  MALONE REALIZED THEY WEREN’T HEADED TO ANY POLICE station. He’d been cuffed and quickly led from Grand Central. They’d confiscated his wallet and St. Regis room key, so he assumed Cassiopeia was going to have visitors. Too bad about dinner and the show. Would have been fun. He’d even bought some new clothes for the occasion.

  They’d given him no time to speak. Instead he was stuffed into a waiting car, left alone for a few minutes, then driven away. Now they were crossing the East River and entering Queens, heading away from Manhattan. Police cars ahead cleared a path. If he didn’t know better he’d swear they were headed for JFK airport. Were they transporting him to a place under their exclusive control?

  You can’t trust anyone.

  Stephanie’s caution.

  Perhaps she was right.

  He doubted anyone in the car was going to volunteer anything, but there was one thing he wanted to say. “Fellows, you know my name, so you know my background. I didn’t try to kill anybody.”

  Neither of the agents in the front seat nor the one sitting next to him in the rear responded. So he tried a different tack.

  “Is Daniels all right?” he asked.

  No response again.

  The guy beside him was young and eager. Probably his first time in a situation like this.

  “I need to speak with someone at the Magellan Billet,” he said, changing his tone from friendly to irritated.

  The agent in the front, sitting on the passenger side, turned toward him. “You need to sit there and shut up.”

  “How about you stick it up your ass.”

  The man shook his head. “Look, Malone, make this easy and just ride. Okay?”

  This conspiracy reaches far.

  More of Stephanie’s warning.

  Which they now had, the note taken from him when he was searched.

  So they knew he knew.

  Fantastic.

  They rode in silence for ten more minutes, then motored into JFK, passing through a gate that led directly to where planes were busy coming and going. One, though, sat alone, away from the others, ringed by police. A 747, painted blue and white, an American flag on its tail, the words UNITED STATES OF AMERICA stenciled in gold on its fuselage.

  Air Force One.

  A navy-blue jacket was tossed from the front seat. “Put it on,” came the command.

  He noticed three gold letters stamped on the front and back.

  FBI.

  They wheeled to the stairs that led up into the plane. The cuffs on his wrists were removed and he stepped from the car, slipping on the jacket. A man appeared from the far side of the stairs. Tall, lanky, with thin gray hair and a tranquil face.

  Edwin Davis.

  “They’re watching us,” Davis said. “From the terminal. Every network has a camera here with a telescopic lens. Careful with your words. They hire lip-readers.”

  “I heard you got promoted.”

  Last time they’d met in Venice, Davis was a deputy national security adviser. Now he served as White House chief of staff.

  Davis motioned to the rolling stairs and muttered, “Lucky me. Let’s go up.”

  “What about Daniels?”

  “You’ll see.”

  HALE WATCHED THE TELEVISION. ADVENTURE WAS NEARING home, now under engine power as they cruised west on the murky Pamlico River. He’d turned the volume down, tired of the anchors speculating in hope of holding viewers’ attention while the same grainy videos of two mechanical devices sprouting from the Grand Hyatt hotel played over and over. Twenty-four-hour news wa
s good for the first thirty minutes of a crisis, but after that it was overkill.

  He shook his head, thinking of his fellow captains.

  The damn fools.

  He knew it was their right to do as they pleased—majority ruled in the Commonwealth—but he’d been excluded from their vote, and that ran contrary to the Articles. Unfortunately, desperate situations bred desperate acts, and he understood their frustration. They were all facing prison and the forfeiture of everything their families had accumulated for the past three centuries. Their only hope rested with the single sheet of paper he now held, encased within its own plastic sheath.

  The second page of Andrew Jackson’s scathing letter.

  Since you adore secrets and plot your life along a path in the shadows, I offer you a challenge that should suit you. The sheet attached to this letter is a code, one formulated by the esteemed Thomas Jefferson. I am told he thought it to be the perfect cipher. Succeed in learning its message and you will know where I have hidden what you crave. Fail and you remain the pathetic traitors that you are today.

  He stared at the page.

  Nine rows of random letters and symbols.

  Gibberish.

  My sincerest hope is that the unmanly course ascribed to you shall be your ruin and that I shall live to enjoy that day.

  For 175 years the failure to solve Jefferson’s cipher had been a source of concern. Four times that concern had risen to possible ruin, and four times the situations had been handled.

  Now a fifth scenario had arisen.

  But contrary to what his colleagues might think, he hadn’t sat idle. He was working on a solution to their problem. Two separate paths, actually. Unfortunately, his compatriots may have now endangered both of those efforts.

  On the television, something new appeared.

  The image of Air Force One on the ground at John F. Kennedy International Airport. A scrolling banner at the bottom of the screen announced that a suspect had been apprehended trying to flee the Grand Hyatt, but had been released.

  Mistaken identity.

  NO WORD AS YET ON THE CONDITION OF THE PRESIDENT, WHOM WE ARE TOLD WAS TAKEN DIRECTLY TO AIR FORCE ONE.

  He needed to speak with Clifford Knox.

  MALONE ENTERED AIR FORCE ONE. HE KNEW THE PLANE CONTAINED 4,000 square feet of carefully designed space on three levels, including a suite for the president, an office, staff accommodations, even an operating room. Usually when the president traveled, an entourage tagged along with him including a doctor, senior advisers, Secret Service, and the press.

  But the deck was devoid of anyone.

  He wondered if Daniels had been brought here for treatment and everyone cleared out.

  He followed Davis, who led him through the empty mid-deck to a closed door. Davis turned the knob to reveal a plush conference room, its exterior windows shuttered closed. At the far end of a long table sat Danny Daniels. Unscathed.

  “I hear you tried to kill me,” the president said.

  “If I had, you’d be dead.”

  The older man chuckled. “On that you’re probably right.”

  Davis closed the door.

  “You okay?” he asked the president.

  “No holes. But I got my skull popped when they threw me back into the car. Luckily, as many people have noted through the years, I have a hard head.”

  He noticed the typewritten note from the hotel room lying on the table.

  Daniels stood from the leather armchair. “Thanks for what you did. Seems like I’m constantly owing you. But as soon as we learned who they had in custody, and I read that note you were carrying, supposedly from Stephanie, we knew the shit had really hit the fan.”

  He didn’t like the tone. This conversation was leading somewhere.

  “Cotton,” Daniels said. “We have a problem.”

  “We?”

  “Yep. You and me.”

  ELEVEN

  WYATT EXITED FROM THE SUBWAY AND STEPPED INTO UNION Square. Not as bustling as Times or Herald, or as high-toned as Washington, to him Union possessed its own personality, attracting a more eclectic crowd.

  He’d watched as Cotton Malone had been wrestled into custody inside Grand Central, then led from the terminal. But he wouldn’t stay a captive long. Not once Danny Daniels learned that one of his fair-haired boys had been involved—and Malone was definitely a member of that exclusive club.

  He crossed 14th Street and walked south, down Broadway, toward the Strand—four floors of overstock, used, rare, and out-of-print books. He’d chosen the location for the meeting in deference to his adversary, whom he knew loved books. Personally, he despised the things. Never read a novel in his life. Why waste time on lies? Occasionally he did consult a nonfiction volume or two, but he preferred the Internet or simply asking someone. What all the fascination was with words on paper he’d never understand. And why people would hoard the things by the ton, treasuring them as they would a precious metal, made no sense whatsoever.

  He caught sight of his contact.

  She stood on the sidewalk, perusing carts of dollar books that lined the Strand’s Broadway storefront. Her reputation was one for being sharp-eyed, distant, and coy. A bit difficult to work with. Which was in stark contrast with her physical appearance, her curvy figure, black hair, dark eyes, and swarthy complexion representative of a Cuban ancestry.

  Andrea Carbonell had commanded the NIA for more than a decade. The agency was a holdover from the Reagan years, when it had been responsible for some of the country’s best intelligence coups. CIA, NSA, and just about every other agency had hated them. But the NIA’s glory days were over, and now it seemed just another annoying multimillion-dollar line item in the black-ops budget.

  Danny Daniels had always preferred the Magellan Billet, headed by another one of his fair-haired favorites, Stephanie Nelle. Her twelve agents had accomplished many of the country’s recent successes—ferreting out the treason of Daniels’ first vice president, stopping the Central Asian Federation, eliminating the Paris Club, even effecting a peaceful transition of power in China. And all without ever contracting for any services from Wyatt. The Magellan Billet worked internally with no outside help.

  Except for Cotton Malone, of course.

  Nelle hadn’t seemed to mind recruiting her glamour boy when necessary. He knew that Malone had been involved with nearly all of the Billet’s notable efforts. And, according to his sources, had worked for free.

  The idiot.

  Wyatt had received his call from Andrea Carbonell three weeks ago.

  “Do you want the job?” she asked him.

  “What you’re asking may not be possible,” he told her.

  “For you? No way. Everything is possible for the Sphinx.”

  He hated the nickname, which referred to his tendency toward silence. He’d long ago acquired the skill of being in a conversation, saying nothing, yet appearing fully part of it. The tactic unnerved most listeners, nudging them to talk more than they ever would ordinarily.

  “Is my price acceptable?” he asked.

  “Perfectly.”

  He kept walking, passing the dollar carts, knowing that Carbonell would follow. He turned the corner and headed east on 12th Street for half a block, ducking inside the doorway of a closed business.

  “Daniels is fine,” Carbonell said as she drew close.

  He was glad to hear that. Mission accomplished.

  “How close were you going to cut that?” she asked.

  “Where is Daniels?”

  He saw she did not appreciate the inquiry, but then again he didn’t appreciate her tone.

  “At JFK. Inside Air Force One. I heard before I got here he’s about to make a statement. Let the world see he’s okay.”

  He decided to answer her question now. “I did my job.”

  “And that meant involving Cotton Malone? The Secret Service grabbed him in Grand Central Station. They were led there by a radio alert. You wouldn’t know who provided that informatio
n, would you?”

  “Why do you ask questions you already know the answer to?”

  “What if Malone had failed?”

  “He didn’t.”

  She’d hired him to stop the assassination attempt, telling him she could not trust the assignment to anyone in-house. She’d also told him that her agency was on the budgetary chopping block, the official word being that it would be eliminated in the next fiscal year. He had little sympathy for her. He’d been eliminated eight fiscal years ago.

  “I did what you asked,” he said.

  “Not exactly. But close enough.”

  “Time for me to go home.”

  “Don’t want to stick around and see what happens? You realize, Jonathan, that if NIA is hacked from the budget you’ll lose money, too. I think I’m the only one who still employs you on a regular basis.”

  No matter. He’d survive. He always had.

  She motioned at his wristwatch. A Rolex Submariner. “You like it?”

  What was not to like? Gilt-faced. Gold lettering. Accurate to a tenth of a second on a battery that lasted practically forever. A gift to himself a few years ago after a particularly lucrative assignment.

  He stared hard into her dark eyes.

  “Do you know how the Swiss rose to be such superb watchmakers?” she asked.

  He said nothing.

  “In 1541 Geneva outlawed jewelry on religious grounds, so the jewelers were forced to learn a new trade—watchmaking. Over time they became good at it. During World War I, when foreign competition had factories either seized or destroyed, the Swiss thrived. Today they produce half of the world’s watches. The Geneva seal is the gold standard by which all others are judged.”

  So what?

  “Jonathan, you and I are not the gold standard of anything any longer.”

  Her gaze bore into his eyes.

  “But just like those Swiss jewelers, I have an exit strategy.”

  “I wish you well with it. I’m done.”