Right?
Cyrus brushed a piece of lint from his pant leg. “Have Asher Jefferson or any of the other Oligarchs reached out to you?”
“Nope,” Rufus said. “Which don’t sit right, considering we probably wounded a couple of them back there, maybe even killed one or two.”
“It sits perfectly,” Cyrus said. “Elsbeth has been leading this operation with their support since the beginning.”
“Whole thing has felt too organized; she’d need help from somebody at the top.” Rufus rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. “So y’all didn’t find what you were looking for in that lady’s house.”
“Unfortunately, no,” Cyrus said.
Jasper put on his best downcast face paired with a headshake—not too much, just enough to sell it. He wished he could lie professionally like Cyrus, without skipping a beat.
“Cryin’ shame to come all this way for nothing.” Rufus drifted back to the fire and poked at it. “But you got bigger problems: someone told them Jeffersons about the whole trip. Wasn’t no accident they knew where to find us.”
There it was, out in the open.
“It is equally clear that we have a leak, yes,” Cyrus said.
“I can write up a list a people who knew we was coming, but I’d be on it. My kin, too.”
“Your loyalty is not in question, Rufus.”
“It would be, if I was you.”
Cyrus nodded.
“Here on out, you oughta be more careful about who you tell your business to.”
Cyrus cleared his throat. “We are obviously beyond the bounds of our current contract, and yet your services are needed more than ever. Perhaps we can come to a new arrangement?”
Rufus watched the fire for a while. “I been both sides of this thing. Can’t say I like either one. But I’ll tell you what: I never slept better in my life than after them Oligarchs gave us the boot.”
“Considering the circumstances, I’m sure the Directors would allocate more funds—”
“You Yanks never could let a man get to the end of a sentence,” Rufus said. “Contract’s fine the way it is. Keep your money.”
They shook hands, then chatted about security before Rufus left to see how repairs on the trucks were going.
Cyrus waited a moment, then motioned for Jasper to join him by a window. “You will return to campus and begin transcribing the diaries alone and in secret,” he said, barely above a whisper.
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Consider the facts: the entire mission was a failure. There are no documents from Lieutenant Bowell. Sybil nearly died in your arms.”
“You want me to act depressed?”
“Withdrawn, yes. I’ll help the ruse along by informing Ms. Booth that Byron will be taking over for her.”
“So, lie to everybody?”
“Is that a problem?”
“Yeah, it’s kind of a freaking problem,” Jasper replied. “Those people are my friends. They helped me figure all of this out. Oh, and they also almost got ripped apart by machine-gun fire.”
“The perfect cover for a mole.”
Jasper blinked. “You can’t seriously think it’s one of them.”
“General Washington never imagined that your ancestor would betray him,” Cyrus said. “And now Arnold’s name is a synonym for traitor. Consider that the next time you put your full trust in anyone.”
Jasper racked his brain for an argument, but came up short. Cyrus had logic on his side. Somebody had talked, nearly ruining everything they’d been working for. “It feels wrong,” he finally said.
“Unless you’d like to inform Sybil that the entire mission was blown because you feel bad, we will honor her sacrifice by protecting what she almost died to obtain.” Cyrus set his jaw. “Deception is our only ally now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Jasper walked into the woods until he couldn’t see the cabin anymore. For once, Byron was giving him some space.
The worst part, though—and Jasper hated himself for it—was that he couldn’t wait to get started.
Every time he thought about the diaries, his heart beat faster. This was what they’d risked it all for. Those awful nights in the study room clawing at clues, digging and outlining and scraping until they’d finally cornered the thing and unearthed it big time.
And now he had to lie about it. It was like finding a cure for cancer and then hiding it under your mattress, awkwardly peeking at it every night to make sure it was still there.
He felt like a traitor.
The irony.
Eventually, he ran into a Donelson patrol. Colton peeled off from the group to show him the way back.
“Maybe we can take the scenic route,” Jasper said. “I’m not really in a rush.”
They found a stream and followed it for a while until it hit a waterfall that dropped twenty feet below.
“Great spot to jump in the summers,” Colton said. He pointed to the far side where a giant bolder stuck up out of the water. “Just gotta make sure you don’t go in at a bad angle or the pressure will push you under that rock and you’ll drown.”
“How do you make sure that doesn’t happen?” Jasper asked.
“Just gotta be real careful.”
Along the way, Colton named every tree, plant, animal, and most of the birds. Jasper could tell he knew these woods, and loved them. It was weird to think about Colton having this whole other life down here, away from Juniper Hill and the guns and security details. Jasper felt kind of selfish for never even considering that Colton’s life was about more than just protecting him.
They’d stopped by the side of the creek and were skipping stones across the surface. Jasper was barely keeping up.
“How come you guys help the League?” Jasper asked. “I get that the Libertines kicked you out because of the not-dueling and everything, but you don’t have to help us. You could just live your lives.”
Colton winged a rock across in one skip. “Jackson wasn’t a big fan of the Indians. Said they was in the way of progress and signed a law that made sure they left. You heard of the Trail of Tears, right?”
“Yeah. Bunch of Cherokee got pushed off their lands by the US government.”
“A lot a other tribes, too, but people only talk about the Cherokee.” Colton turned a stone over in his hand, ran a thumb along the edge. “Thousands in total died from starvation and disease during them marches. Women. Kids.”
Jasper nodded, really letting it sink in. It was looking like he didn’t have a monopoly on the whole inherited villainy front.
“Now, my daddy says that ain’t on us,” Colton said. “We wasn’t there, we didn’t do it ourselves—but as Jackson’s kin, it’s our job to help fix the harm his actions caused.”
“So, you try to do good to make up for what he did. Like helping us.”
“Something like that,” Colton said.
“The world needs more people like you and your dad.”
Colton shrugged, then threw another rock. “Ain’t none of us oughta be controlled by our past. But you can’t run from it, neither. Guess that’s what it comes down to for us.”
When the sun started to dip below the horizon, they started back. Jasper’s stomach knotted tighter with every step. He knew Nora was waiting, probably stewing in a cloud of smoke on the porch right now. And he had to face her—look her straight in the mouth and lie. The others would maybe buy the “poor, traumatized Jasper” routine, but not her. Her fantastic BS radar would out him in five seconds.
There was one way—a grenade he could use. It would pack enough boom to give him the space he needed. But pulling the pin, that would take guts.
If he went there—if stooped that low—there’d be no going back. He’d blow Nora apart and find himself covered in debris.
It would be the end of whatever they were.
****
Jasper and Colton got back to the cabin after dusk. Nora sat on the porch swing wrapped in a blanket, watching Ja
sper approach like a cat. An ashtray with about twenty butts in it sat beside her.
“Hey,” he said.
She took a pull and stared straight ahead. It was like that day in the courtyard after he’d come out of his coma. They were strangers again.
“Cyrus fired me,” Nora said.
“I know.”
She pointed her cigarette at Byron who was pacing by the door. “You think this is a good idea?”
“Wasn’t really my decision.”
“Bullshit actually does have a smell, Jasper.”
“What do you want from me?”
“How about the truth.” That was the old Nora. She was giving him a chance to come back from the edge. “What’s going on?”
Jasper gripped the grenade, fingers on the pin. He braced himself. This was going to be ugly. “It’s not my fault that you need this bodyguard duty to not feel awful about yourself. You’re just gonna have to find some other pet project to make up for what you did.”
She took it like a Marine: no flinching. Or maybe the insult had been so bad, it had obliterated her ability to speak.
He turned his head away. He couldn’t even stand to have her in his peripheral vision.
And then his neck was burning—a hot, searing knifepoint on the left side. He screamed and pulled away but it followed him.
Nora followed him, jamming the cigarette tip harder into his skin.
Byron grabbed her by the wrist and threw her against the porch railing. Jasper kept screaming. The pain actually got worse by the second. Nora stood there and watched, her face scary calm. He’d expected yelling and swearing and maybe even crying, but not this.
This was way worse.
The door burst open and people streamed out, but Byron held a hand up to keep them back. It was like a wild animal was on the loose and nobody wanted to spook it.
Jasper pressed his palm harder into his neck, not really sure if the pressure was even making a difference. It hurt so much. Obviously, that was the point.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her. And he really was. He’d been inside the blast radius, too, and the shrapnel had gone in deep.
Nora stared for another second, then pushed past the crowd to get inside.
Cyrus watched her go, his face empty. No sympathy for Nora’s suffering, no guilt for making Jasper do it.
Pure granite, to the bone.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The alarm went off at 5:30 AM. Jasper slammed the button to silence it after two beeps, not that it mattered. Sheldon could sleep through the apocalypse.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes, which had started throbbing a week after they’d gotten back to campus and the pain was only getting worse. Maybe he needed glasses. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to the eye doctor. Juniper Hill didn’t have a nurse that pulled you out of class to do vision tests.
He dressed in the dark. Layers were a must after the New Year’s Day blizzard that had turned the campus into a tundra three weeks before. He’d heard two kids had gotten frostbite walking from the gun range to the manor. He put on another sweatshirt, pulling the collar wide as he stuck his head through. The burn mark had scarred over, but it stung every time Jasper caught something on it.
Byron waited outside the door, looking like he’d slept like a baby, even though he’d probably only gotten four hours at most. The shift-change with the Donelsons happened somewhere around midnight—Jasper hadn’t nailed it down precisely—but it couldn’t leave much room for REM sleep. The guy was a robot.
“Hat,” Byron said.
“Right.” Jasper ducked back inside and got the thick wool cap Lacy had given him for Christmas.
They stopped in the cafeteria for some fruit, then started for the gun range. An arctic blast ripped through Jasper’s layers. The Donelsons had shoveled a path across the field and marked it with reflectors so if the snow drifted, you wouldn’t stumble around getting hypothermia. Bits of ice blew into Jasper’s eyes and he squinted through his hands most of the way. Byron unlocked the gym door and then relocked it behind them.
“Let’s shoot first,” Jasper said. “My eyes are killing me.”
Byron went to the armory and got Jasper’s gun, the one Kingsley had assigned him before the trip. Jasper thought it was stupid that he couldn’t carry it around—it would be easier to be protected if he could protect himself—but Kingsley would never allow it. They were lucky he even let them up here without personally supervising their practice. Cyrus had definitely gone over his head and Chillingworth’s to the Directors to get that kind of access.
Jasper put on his eye protection and headphones. He filled the clip, shoved it into the gun, chambered a round, and took his time. Shooting had become a reprieve from staring at the diaries, so he made sure to extend practice as long as possible.
Bang … Bang … Bang … Bang.
He barely noticed the recoil anymore. It was kind of scary how repetition got you so used to something.
“Pulling right,” Byron said.
“Yeah.”
Jasper finished the clip, then loaded another and emptied it even slower. He pushed a button on the booth that retracted the target.
“Still pulling right,” Byron said with a tiny shake of his head.
“Yes, I can see that.”
“Can you?”
So Byron had found some sarcasm. Good for him.
Byron returned the gun to the armory and they went to the classroom. From the special lining inside his jacket, Byron drew out a plastic sleeve containing the notebook, which Jasper had been using for transcription, and a diary covering the years 1779–1780. Jasper had started with this one because it spanned the years of three key events: Arnold’s first contact with André, Reed’s request to send Boswell money, and Arnold’s act of treason. The other two diaries were buried under the planks in Byron’s cottage. The bodyguard pulled out latex gloves from another pocket and Jasper put them on.
His cover was simple: Jasper, being super late to the League game, needed tons more weapons training. Winging Elsbeth had been a fluke. So, every morning and every night, Jasper and Byron had the range all to themselves. Jasper shot enough so that the ammo logs corroborated his story, and then spent the rest of the time transcribing the diaries of Boswell’s wife, whose life turned out to be incredibly boring.
“I bet she’s gonna tell me about the weather,” Jasper said. He squinted at the entry, March 1st, 1779. “Yup. ‘Cold.’ There it is. Always starting with the important information.” He jotted down the next sentence, but got stuck on a word. Alice’s cursive was tiny, faded, and slanted so far, it was basically falling over.
Was that an H? A B? Jasper reread the sentence, scanning for context. He’d ferreted out the most confusing words by now and had made a list, but this was a new one.
“It’s an L,” he announced to Byron, because one, this work was incredibly boring and he needed to share it with somebody else, and two, he knew it annoyed the crap out of Byron. “‘Lucy stopped by with a letter from … Paul.’” He added both names to an index in the back of the transcription journal. It was over twenty names long at this point, and Jasper still didn’t have the faintest clue who these people were. “I wish Alice was more like you: no friends and less chatty,” he said to Byron. “I’d be done with this in a month.”
“If you talked less, you’d be done sooner.”
“Careful, Byron. You’re becoming hilarious.”
Jasper cruised through two days worth of the diary, but got held up by the writing on the backside of the page bleeding through. Paper quality back in the 1700s really sucked, not to mention the two hundred years of decay. A random capitalization—“Providence”—screwed him up on March 7th, and he added that to the list of words Alice randomly capitalized for who-knows-what reason. By the end of two hours, he’d managed to get through half the month. It was a big improvement. He’d started at an entry a day.
“You know what’s weird?” he said, breaking the silence.
“She doesn’t talk about the war at all. I mean, she mentions stuff in passing—rumors, mostly—but life goes on like, ‘Lucy paid a visit. Somebody sent a letter. Ira dined with the officers. It snowed.’ Blah blah blah.”
Byron checked his watch. “Time to go.”
“Right.” Jasper packed everything back inside the plastic bag.
“How many days today?”
“Fourteen. No, fifteen. This would go faster if you helped.”
“I have a job.”
“If you can’t read, you can just tell me. I won’t judge you.” Jasper was getting less and less careful about poking the beast. He liked seeing the tiny cracks in Byron’s facade.
“Anything to report?” Byron asked.
“It’s all just names right now. Neighbors. Friends. Her two kids are always sick. Nothing ground breaking about Ira.”
“The Counselor says—”
“Yeah, I know. It’s all useful. I got it.”
Byron put the diaries back in the lining of his jacket.
Kingsley was pacing at the door when they left the building. He muttered something as Byron handed him the key, but the wind carried his words away. Jasper wondered who would win if the two men fought. Byron was made of steel, but Kingsley would fight dirty. It would be an interesting match-up.
“You think he knows?” Jasper asked.
Byron pretended not to hear and tucked his chin into the collar of his black overcoat for the trek back to the manor house.
Halfway across the field, Jasper looked up and saw the dark silhouette on the rooftop. Nora had started the routine a week after they’d gotten back, watching him from their old spot like a gargoyle. Neither snow nor sleet nor thirty-below temperatures stopped her. Jasper liked it better this time of day, when he could see her in the morning light.
He waved.
She crunched a cigarette under her boot and then climbed back through the window.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Bro.” Sheldon patted Jasper on the back, then rubbed his shoulders. “Brohemoth.”
“What.”
“I hate seeing you like this. Sulking is not your thing. You need to get back in the game.”
League of American Traitors Page 14