Crown of Serpents

by Michael Karpovage

  “So, can I stop down and inspect it? Say, tomorrow morning? Would you happen to know what time the library opens?”

  “Wait a minute there, son. You haven’t heard the news?” asked Gellers in a surprised tone of voice.

  “No. Heard what?”

  “I thought that’s what you were calling about. To write an article or something about what just happened. Well, it was stolen today. Matter of fact, just a few hours ago. My son, who’s a deputy sheriff, just told me about it.”

  “What?” Jake stammered. “You’re kidding me!”

  “Nope. Some young man took it right out from under the nose of the head librarian. He set her up to retrieve a reference item, and then snatched it off the wall mount. It’s a very small library you know and she was the only one there. Then he disappeared. She didn’t even notice the rifle gone for a full twenty minutes.”

  “Any idea who took it?” asked Jake in a quiet voice. He thought to himself that everything’s lost. That scumbag Nero beat him to it.

  “Oh yeah, sure. They got a good description of the suspect and his car. He was driving one of them new sport’s cars. Don’t know what they’re called, but it was on a security camera from the gas station across the street. That’s what my son, the sheriff, said. We know his car was from Pennsylvania because the colors on the plates matched. And there’s also a partially readable bumper sticker. An A and two Bs, then some other letters we can’t make out. He was probably with some antiquities crime ring from Philadelphia, my son thinks. That rifle is worth a lot of money.”

  “Can I get your son’s phone number to get a description of the man and the vehicle?”

  “Certainly,” said Gellers. “But you know if you wanted to see a picture, he posted it on the police web site already. We don’t waste any time down here in dealing with criminals. The web has proven to be a great community crime fighting tool.”

  “Really? This thief’s picture is already posted on web?”

  “Yes sir.”

  After getting the web site address and thanking the historian for all his help, Jake immediately popped open his laptop, fired it up, logged onto the web site and found the crime report. The static security video frame of the car appeared at the top with the suspect getting in.

  Jake’s jaw dropped open.

  “No f-ing way!” The car was a white Mini Cooper with a red stripe down the middle. He knew that car all too well. Behind it, was the suspect, quite visible from the torso up. He was wearing a long overcoat, baseball hat, and sunglasses, but his oversized head and thin mustache gave him away. Jake’s heart raced, rage welled deep inside his chest.

  The man in the image was undoubtedly his boss, Dr. Steven Ashland.

  “That dirty son-of-a-bitch!” And to top off his anger, Jake realized the connection with the bumper sticker of ABB that Gellers had mentioned. It would be a bumper sticker reading ABB2004, short for Anybody But Bush in 2004. Jake had questioned him about it not long ago in the parking lot at MHI. It was Ashland’s protest against the president way back in the 2004 election, a sticker he had refused to take off even after President George W. Bush had won. And even after Obama’s presidential win.

  Jake squeezed his fist.

  He grabbed his cell phone. Dialing MHI he asked for the director. Luckily, he was in.

  “Dr. Jacobson? This is Major Tununda. How are you, sir?”

  “Very well Jake. Yourself?” replied the deep commanding voice of the director.

  “Fine sir.”

  A retired Army major general with 30-years of service, Dr. Paul Jacobson was not only the senior executive of the institution, but also an award-winning author of several books on military history. What had turned Jake on to MHI, and what Jacobson was most famous for, was his investigation and discovery of Adolf Hitler’s personal gold and diamond studded mahogany cigar humidor.

  It was during an MHI oral history interview from a dying U.S. Army WWII vet that Jacobson had learned of the famed humidor. Supposedly looted by an American soldier when his 3rd Infantry unit arrived first at Hitler’s Eagles Nest retreat at Berchtesgaden in 1945, the humidor was later smuggled back to the states inside a secret compartment of a Sherman tank.

  But it was never recovered.

  After several years of intense field research by Jacobson, he finally located the tank outside of a Veterans of Foreign War post in Jonesboro, Georgia. Sure enough, over sixty years later, hidden where the soldier said it was, they found their prize. It was a story that astounded Jake when he first viewed it on the History Channel and caused him to seek out the man responsible for it. Soon a mentorship developed and subsequently a job offer to MHI.

  “Jake, I want to tell you how unfortunate it was the way things worked out with the journal they dug up at Fort Niagara. Dr. Ashland told me all about how that sly collector Alex Nero purchased it right after your viewing. That would have been an exquisite acquisition for our collection. In fact, I think it would have topped my discovery of Hitler’s humidor a couple of years back.”

  Jake blinked several times, taken aback. “Sir, I thought MHI would have hit gold had Dr. Ashland listened to me. We had a disagreement and unfortunately had a few choice words exchanged between us.”

  “Yes, I heard about that. He told you to not pursue this matter.”

  “But I bet he conveniently left out the rest of the story just before going on sick leave today.”

  “Oh, really?” asked Jacobson. “There’s bitterness in your voice. Please elaborate.”

  “It looks like our sick Dr. Ashland paid a visit to a local library this afternoon. It’s just up the highway from Carlisle — in Upper Exeter along the Susquehanna. Well, he just committed a serious criminal offense. He stole an artifact from the library, a Revolutionary War rifle. And he stole it based on information that I had personally e-mailed to him yesterday afternoon after viewing Boyd’s journal. Dr. Ashland has manipulated me, and undermined my trust as well as MHI’s trust, and I am asking you for personal advisement on how to proceed with the matter.”

  “Jake, tell me this isn’t true.”

  “I’m afraid it is. You can see for yourself. Are you at your computer?”

  16

  Tuesday evening. Route 390 South, near Geneseo, N.Y.

  “I EVEN TOLD ASHLAND over the phone that I thought it was Sean McTavish who was Boyd’s most trusted brother in the Freemasons,” rambled Jake, glaring out the front passenger window of Investigator Rae Hart’s sedan. Night had set in as he followed the brightly lit highway reflectors swiftly passing them by.

  Rae shook her head, squinted her eyes, and gripped the wheel. When he had finally called her that afternoon she expected to be talking about which restaurant they could meet at back in Seneca County. Instead, the investigator found herself on a completely unexpected twist of events and a new criminal case.

  “I gave him the lead to that name,” continued Jake. “He has the full September 12th journal page too. I freakin’ e-mailed it to him.” Jake balled his fist. “It contained the first half of Boyd’s directions to his buried war loot. It’s where the British paymaster’s Guineas are hidden and supposedly another clue leading to a sunken cannon full of gold back in Seneca Lake. That’s what he’s after.” He turned and looked at Rae. She remained silent.

  “You see, that torn page fragment has got to be stashed somewhere in McTavish’s rifle,” Jake pleaded, trying to convince her. “It holds the key to the rest of the directions. I’m sure by now he’s already found it and deciphered the rest of the code and is now looking to dig up the loot. He’s gonna go for the area between Conesus and Hemlock Lake. Right where Boyd’s last encampment was. I know it for sure.”

  “I tell you what, this whole damn story is getting stranger by the minute,” replied Rae, flashing her high beams. A car moved out of the left lane to let her pass. She stepped on the gas, reaching ninety miles an hour. “I wish you told me this buried treasure angle when we met this morning.”

  “But it had
nothing to do with the swamp fire,” pleaded Jake. “Besides, Ashland couldn’t have pulled that arson off. You’ve seen his credit card transactions from yesterday and they’re all in central Pennsylvania. Hell, he didn’t even know I was at that marsh yesterday morning.”

  Jake noticed a green road sign announcing the upcoming exit of Geneseo a mile ahead. Flicking on the overheard reading light, he pulled his road atlas from his briefcase and laid it across his lap. He opened it to the page they were traveling on. The Geneseo exit off of Interstate 390 south from Rochester told him they still had a good twenty miles to Dansville. A motel called Hogan’s Inn in that city, just off the 390, marked Ashland’s last credit card transaction. It’s where they hoped to corner him and take him into custody.

  “This is hard to follow as it is,” said Rae. “Any little clue helps piece things together. Gold is certainly a huge motivating factor. I’m just saying don’t hold back with any information next time. At least right now he’s partially ruled out as a suspect in the swamp fire, that is until I question him.”

  In explaining to her the Boyd Box assessment story of what led up to Ashland’s theft, Jake had deliberately held back the information pertaining to the White Deer Society and Atotarho’s supposed crown story. He never lied, he merely didn’t offer up those details. He maintained what he told her earlier. It was not relevant, in his opinion, to the theft by his greedy boss. Furthermore, now that Alex Nero and his thugs were clearly not involved in the rifle theft, as he first suspected, he felt the legends should just be kept secret, out of respect to his uncle and Miss Lizzie.

  During Jake’s call to Dr. Jacobson he presented the same evidence he had given Ashland — even sending the director the same e-mail attachments of the September 12 journal entry and a breakdown of the research he had conducted that afternoon at the 98th’s headquarters.

  Jacobson immediately questioned why Jake was also trying to find the rifle after he was told that Ashland had ordered him to stand down. He gave the director a clear answer that since Alex Nero did not play by the rules and in fact did not own the content in the journal, that he as a rep of MHI had every right to pursue it. Copyright infringement was bull. He rehashed how Nero and his thugs had tried to manhandle him, pulled weapons on him, and destroyed his digital camera images under threat of death. And now he knew why Ashland had stifled him — he wanted the treasure for himself.

  Jacobson expressed shock and anger at what Nero had done to a member of the U.S. Army. After he viewed the police web site of Ashland entering his Mini-Cooper, Jacobson’s fury turned into action. He agreed with Jake countermanding Ashland’s orders and acknowledged it was what he would have done too and had done on previous occasions when he was a field historian.

  Jake had then been given authorization to contact law enforcement and assist them in any way he could in order to apprehend their corrupt employee. Should the cipher fragment evidence turn up in the rifle, Jake was also given the green light to find that keg of war loot and ultimately the sunken cannon of gold. It was now deemed a special MHI mission assigned by the director. Jacobson said its historical significance could not be left buried or, for that matter, sitting at the bottom of a lake. And unlike Ashland, Jacobson wanted to hit Nero back hard. He too was willing to put up a fight, especially since he had his Major in the field as his bulldog.

  After their conversation, Jake immediately called Rae Hart but not for dinner plans. Luckily, she was still in the Rochester area. He recruited her to help him pursue Ashland’s weapon’s theft. Rae was apprehensive at first, stating the theft occurred in the Pennsylvania jurisdiction and the weapon was more of an antiquities theft. Regardless, she did agree to meet him because she could nail Ashland on possession of stolen property. She informed him she was downtown at the City of Rochester Police Headquarters and would await his arrival. She not only wanted to hear his explanation, but also didn’t mind seeing him one last time if she could help it.

  Rae contacted the Pennsylvania State Police while waiting for Jake to show up, informing them of a solid suspect who matched the theft description. The PSP immediately dispatched a unit with a picture from Ashland’s driver’s license and confirmed the identity with the librarian. Then, obtaining a search warrant from a local judge, they went to Ashland’s residence for the arrest. Nobody was home and no rifle was present. An additional precautionary search warrant was then obtained to put a trace on Ashland’s credit card purchases, figuring he was still mobile with the stolen item.

  After Jake’s arrival and greeting in the front lobby of the Rochester Police Department, Rae escorted him to a conference room for privacy to go over the case. She informed him that she had pulled a national criminal background check on Ashland.

  He had a record.

  Ashland had been convicted of theft of a rare manuscript in the archives library at a college in Oregon back in 1992, presumably as an undergrad. The material was returned, but he was kicked out of college, and received probation and a fine.

  Jake realized the government administrators of MHI, who had presumably conducted the required background check before employing him, either had been lied to or were grossly incompetent. All Jake had known from Ashland’s resume was that he had gotten his education at Berkeley in California, where he earned his bachelor and master degrees, and doctorate, if that was even true. The shit was really going to hit the fan at MHI now and it would start with those responsible for vetting Ashland.

  Over two cups of coffee, a few stale donuts, and some small talk, Rae filled Jake in on what the authorities were up to. She was awaiting more information as all active leads were being pursued. It wasn’t until an early evening phone call from Pennsylvania law enforcement that they scored their major hit.

  Ashland’s credit card company had faxed his latest transactions to the PA authorities and they in turn called Rae to pick up the trail. About an hour and a half earlier Ashland had purchased a room at a motel in Dansville, New York, just south of Rochester in the western Finger Lakes region.

  According to Rae’s estimates, from the initial time of the theft, Ashland had apparently traveled non-stop from the crime scene at Upper Exeter north to his current location. The case then turned into a cross-border weapons theft — a federal crime. Rae said she was in the best position to intercept the suspect and apprehend him before the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives could even get mobilized, let alone take any interest in the antiquities theft. Plus, she didn’t want Ashland to slip away. They needed to act fast. Jake decided to leave his SUV at the city police station and would drive with Rae to make the arrest.

  “The bastard even took today off as a sick day,” grumbled Jake as Rae motored faster to Dansville. “Covered his tracks. His e-mail was sent last night. He had this whole thing planned out. Suckered me good after ordering me to leave it alone. I can’t wait until we nail his ass.”

  Rae glanced at Jake. “Before we do, there are some questions I need to ask you.” Jake looked back then shut off the reading light. “Why were you doing this research to find the buried gold? What were you doing looking up McTavish’s rifle? And why were you trying to decipher the Freemason’s code? Don’t bullshit me anymore.”

  Jake’s eyelid twitched. He clammed up, thinking how he could dodge her questioning. She made a good point. He looked to be a part of the theft. Maybe even setting his boss up. “Here we go again. My director asked me the same question right before I contacted you.”

  “And your answer?”

  “After the Boyd journal was purchased by Alex Nero, I immediately called Dr. Ashland to report what had happened.”

  “Whoa! Hold on there,” Rae interrupted. “Alex Nero, the big gambling tycoon here in New York? The Onondaga Indian Nero?”

  “Yep, the one and the same.”

  She slammed the steering wheel. “My daddy was a Trooper you know, killed in the line of duty twelve years ago.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “He pulled over
a motorcyclist on Route 81 near Syracuse — the stretch of highway that goes through the Onondaga reservation. As he walked up to the man he was shot once in the head. The bastard was never caught. The investigators said it was a—,” she raised both hands off the wheel and made quotation marks in the air, “random act of violence. I happen to think otherwise.”

  Jake glanced at her. “Otherwise? Meaning Alex Nero had something to do with his death?”

  She nodded to Jake. “Yep, I think it was a hit.”

  “Why order a hit on your father? I don’t get it.”

  “You remember the riots on the Onondaga reservation back in ninety seven?”

  “Sure do,” said Jake, shaking his head. “Was over the state trying to impose taxes on the tribe. Same crap that’s going on now.”

  “Governor called in the State Police. My daddy busted a lot of heads during the riot. It was chaos he said. And when an elderly woman got in the way he cracked her in the head with his baton too. Well, she turned out to be Nero’s mother.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  Rae nodded. “She was hospitalized for a long time. Afterward, Nero made some threats against the Troopers while he was still in jail. Needless to say my daddy dies a month later.”

  “And on Onondaga territory,” said Jake.

  “Exactly the point. Random act of violence my ass! Then the prick gets out of jail a year later and starts his rise to power. That’s when I followed in my daddy’s footsteps and became a Trooper myself.”

  “To put that son-of-a bitch back behind bars, right?” asked Jake.

  “Damn right, but never got much of a chance. Did road patrol for three years up in the Adirondacks, then as fate would have it I took down a mutt with an AK-47 at a convenience store and was rewarded with a promotion to the Bureau of Criminal Investigations. That’s when I became an investigator. All the while Mr. Nero was building his empire and his criminal network. You know he even had the audacity to donate ten thousand dollars to the State Police one year?”