by Steve Berry
Recruitment had always been accomplished by the quartermaster, usually from proven families who’d worked for the Commonwealth. Just as in former times, modern crews were generally ill educated and came from poor to modest backgrounds. But still—
“Is your word not good for anything?” he asked. “You signed the Articles and swore an oath. That means nothing?”
The man shrugged. “I did it for the money. Also, Knox got me out of some bad trouble. I appreciated that. I’m good with metal. So when he offered me a job, I took it.”
“You apparently did not appreciate things enough to keep your word and be loyal.”
“You’re the one who killed that guy on the boat. He was a threat to you. Not me, or any of the others. I betrayed you, not them.”
“Is this what you wanted to say to me?”
He caught the hard look of disgust on the man’s face. “I wanted you to know that I didn’t know a damn thing about any assassination attempt. The first I heard about it was on television, after it happened. Yeah, I worked on the gun in the metal shop and recognized it when I saw it on the news. But we weren’t told a thing about when, or where, it was going to be used. I had no clue, and I didn’t say a word about it to the NIA.”
“You’re a liar and a traitor. Not to be believed.”
The man shrugged. “Suit yourself. But just know that there are two traitors in your precious company, and one of them is still out there.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Two reasons. One, like I said, I never betrayed my friends and they need to know that there’s a spy among them. And two, since there’s no way I’m going to get off here, when it comes time for me to die, I hope you’ll at least be merciful.”
FORTY
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
Malone entered the elevator. Cassiopeia had reconnoitered The Jefferson’s ground floor, noting that three Richmond city police cars guarded the main entrance, but the second exit that opened onto West Main Street at the south end of the lobby was unguarded. She’d reported by cellphone that this seemed a local operation, which meant he would learn nothing by hanging around. He’d hoped some of the principals would reveal themselves. Knowing the solution to Jefferson’s cipher gave him bargaining power, and he’d wanted an opportunity to use it. Since that was not going to be the case, what waited at Monticello now seemed more promising.
Unfortunately, there was the matter of the police.
Cassiopeia had descended three long flights of carpeted stairs into a faux-marble hall, then walked a hundred feet to glass doors at the south end of the lobby. They were locked and the hostess in a nearby restaurant explained that the doors were not opened until nine each day. Apparently the police had decided the locked doors were enough protection, and controlling the upper lobby, the stairwells, and the main exit would be their play. Since he hadn’t registered using his real name, searching every room was impractical. Easier to simply wait for him to walk off the elevator and into their arms.
But they’d never met Cassiopeia Vitt.
She’d told him her escape plan over the phone. He’d shook his head, then said, Okay. Why not?
The elevator door opened.
He stepped off, turned left, and walked toward the main desk, intending on making another left and descending the stairs to the lower level. He realized he’d never get that far and, just as predicted, three uniformed officers appeared from his right and yelled for him to stop.
He did.
“Cotton Malone,” the lead officer said, who appeared to be a captain. “We have a warrant for your arrest.”
“I know I have a lot of unpaid parking tickets. I tear ’em up. I shouldn’t, but—”
“Put your hands behind your back,” a second officer ordered.
Cassiopeia watched as the attendant roared up on the motorcycle. The Honda NT700V came with a liquid-cooled, 680cc, V-twin, eight-valve engine that packed a kick, and the young man seemed to enjoy the jaunt from the parking lot. He climbed off, leaving the engine running, holding the two-hundred-plus-kilo gram machine steady while she climbed on.
She handed him a fifty-dollar bill.
He nodded in appreciation.
Two police cars were parked beyond the porte cochere, ahead of her, another positioned behind her, all with drivers inside. She’d caught the officer at her flank giving her ass the once-over, her tight jeans doing their duty.
“I need you to do something for me,” she said to the attendant.
“Name it.”
She pointed to one of the entrances that led into the lobby. “Could you hold that glass door open for me?”
Malone turned and complied with the officer’s command. The important thing was to keep the guns in holsters and, so far, none of them had drawn a weapon.
“What’s this about?” he asked.
“You’re a person of interest,” the first cop said as he gripped Malone’s wrists. “The feds want to talk to you.”
“Why aren’t they here?” he asked.
The grip on his wrists tightened.
“Cotton,” one of the other cops said. “Where’d you get a name like that?”
The growl of a motorcycle grew louder as a glass door opened fifty feet to his left.
“Long story,” he said, spotting Cassiopeia, outside, astride the motorcycle.
He smiled.
You had to love her.
Cassiopeia revved the sixty-five-horsepower engine and noticed in her rearview mirror that the policeman behind remained more concerned with her ass than where she might be going. Clearly he hadn’t paid the attendant, standing ten meters away holding the door open, any attention.
She yanked the handlebars to the right, popped the clutch into first, and strained the engine. Tires spinning, she swung right, straightened out, and sped through the open doorway into the lobby.
Knox stood before the company, which had assembled in the yard before the jail at precisely seven AM. Two hundred and four of the 214 were present, the absentees excused only because they were out of town. One rule was clear. A call to assemble could not be ignored.
Since none of the three Hale children was on the estate, the gathering could be held in private. The front gates were locked, video-monitored by staff in the security building who were witnessing punishment electronically. This was sacred ground. Where the company had gathered since the Commonwealth’s formation. For 250 years, thousands of men had stood and listened to pronouncements, buried captains, elected quartermasters, or, as today, bore witness to punishment.
He’d personally supervised the prisoner’s preparation, making sure the hands were bound and the mouth gagged. He did not want any outbursts or speeches. This matter had to end here and now.
But he’d been troubled by what the jailer had reported. The prisoner had requested to speak privately with Hale and the captain had obliged, spending a few minutes alone with the man.
Disturbing. No question.
His gaze focused on the four captains, clustered at the far end of the yard. The prisoner was tied to a pine stake in the center, the company assembled at the other end.
He stepped forward.
“This man has been tried and convicted of treason. Punishment was proclaimed to be death.”
He allowed those words to take hold. The whole idea of discipline was for it to be memorable.
He faced the captains. “What say you as to the method?”
In centuries past there were options. Shackled and chained, then locked away with no food or water? That took days. Dangled from a mast until exposure and starvation proved fatal? Faster. Flogging with a cat-o’-nine-tails? Even quicker since the knotted leather strips killed in a matter of minutes.
Today, options existed, too.
Hanging. Shooting. Drowning.
“Woodling,” Hale called out.
FORTY-ONE
WASHINGTON, DC
Wyatt waited beside the spring gun as a key was inserted into the lock
on the other side of the door.
He watched the knob turn.
Andrea Carbonell was about to enter her residence. Was she oblivious to the fact that the simple act of coming home would end her life?
The door opened.
Nylon whined as it tightened through the screw eyes.
Hinges pivoted thirty degrees, forty, forty-five.
He’d already determined that at least a sixty-degree arc would be needed for the trigger to engage.
His foot stopped the door’s advance and he snipped the line with scissors.
He withdrew his shoe and the door fully opened.
Carbonell stared at him, then the gun, the nylon swinging in the dim light. Not a hint of surprise flooded her face.
“Was it a tough choice?” she asked.
He still held the scissors. “More than I thought it would be.”
“Obviously not your doing. Who?”
He shrugged. “A man came, did his thing, and left.”
“Whom you did not stop.”
He shrugged. “Not my business.”
“I suppose I should be grateful you’re here.”
“How about grateful that I snipped the string.”
She stepped inside and closed the door. “Why’d you do it? You have to be angry about what happened last night.”
“I am. You wanted me dead.”
“Come now, Jonathan. I have a much greater respect for your skills.”
He lunged at her, his right hand clamping tight on her neck, slamming her thin frame into the wall. Framed pictures nearby rattled on their hangers.
“You wanted my skills to kill me. You wanted me to get Voccio out of there. Flush us both to the car, then blow us up.”
“Did you come to kill me?” she breathed out, his grip still tight. Not a hint of concern seeped from her.
He’d made his point. He released his grip.
She stood and stared at him, composing herself. Then she caressed the spring gun, admiring its workmanship. “High caliber, automatic fire. How many rounds? Thirty? Forty? There would have been little left of me.”
He could not care less. “You have the cipher solution.”
“Voccio emailed it to me a few hours before you arrived. But I suppose you already know that. Hence, your anger.”
“I have more than that to be angry about.”
She apprised him with a long gaze. “I suppose you do.”
“That solution will not remain a secret for long.”
“Jonathan, you have such little faith in my abilities. I had it emailed from outside the institute. Only Voccio knew from where. Now he’s dead.”
“Isn’t that convenient?”
She caught his drift. “You believe those men there last night came from me.” She pointed to the spring gun. “You probably believe that I planted this here, too.”
“Both are entirely possible.”
“It would do no good for me to deny either. You wouldn’t believe me. So I won’t.” She relieved him of the scissors, which he still held. “From my desk?”
He said nothing.
“I like you, Jonathan. I always have.”
“I didn’t know you liked cigars.” He’d caught the lingering scent in the air and found three antique humidors, each filled with smokes.
“My father once made them. My family lived at Ybor City, in Tampa. Many of the 1960s Cuban immigrants settled there. Florida was like home. It was once quite a place. Ever been?”
He shook his head.
“Spaniards, Cubans, Italians, Germans, Jews, Chinese. We all coexisted, thriving off one another. What an exciting place. So alive. Then it all ended, and they built an interstate highway straight down its middle.”
He kept silent and let her talk. She was buying time. Okay. Buy it.
“My father opened a cigar factory and did well. There were many in Ybor back in the 1920s, before the Great Depression, but gradually they all disappeared. He was determined to bring them back. No machines for him. All of his smokes were hand rolled, one at a time. I acquired a taste for them early in life.”
He knew that her parents had fled Castro in the 1960s and that she’d been born and raised here. Beyond that, she was a mystery.
“Have you always been a man of few words?”
“I say what I need to say.”
She stepped around the gun and came closer. “My parents were quite wealthy when they lived in Cuba. They were capitalists, and Castro hated capitalists. They left everything they owned and came here, starting over, intent on proving themselves a second time. They loved America, and at first this country gave them another chance. Then bad economies and bad choices took it all away. They lost everything.” She paused and stared at him through the dark. “They died broke.”
He wondered why she was telling him this.
“The opportunists who fled Cuba in the 1980s? The Mariel boat people? They tried to buy into Castro, and when it didn’t work out they decided to come here. All they did was make it hard for the others, my parents included. They should be sent back to live with what they embraced.” She paused. “I worked my way up. Every step. No one gave me anything. When my father died I swore to him that I would not make the mistakes he made. That I’d be careful. But unfortunately, I made an error today.” Her eyes locked on him. “Yet you gave me a reprieve. Why? So you could kill me yourself?”
“I’m going after the Jefferson Wheel,” he told her. “If you interfere, I’ll kill anyone you send, then I will kill you.”
“Why do you care? This really doesn’t concern you anymore.”
“A man died last night for no reason other than he did his job.”
She laughed. “And that affects you?”
“It affects you.”
He saw she understood. He could cause her problems. Change all of her plans. Screw up her life.
“Malone has the cipher key, too,” she said. “He emailed it to himself last night from Voccio’s computer, then deleted it from the institute’s server. There is no other record of the solution. Only you, he, and I have it.”
“He’ll go straight to Monticello.”
He stepped around her toward the door.
She grabbed his arm, her face only inches away. “You can’t do this alone and you know it.”
That he did. Too many unknowns. Too much risk. And he was not properly prepared.
“You don’t fool me, Jonathan. This isn’t about me and what happened last night. It’s Malone. You don’t want him to succeed. I can see it in your eyes.”
“Maybe I just want you to fail.”
“Go to Monticello. Get what we both want. What you do with Malone is your business. What you and I do is between us. I’m betting you can keep those two separate. You need me. That’s why I’m still alive.”
She was right.
The only reason.
“Get that wheel,” she said.
“Why don’t you get it yourself?”
“As I told you in New York, I prefer to owe only you.”
That meant she was nearing the end of whatever she’d planned. Involving any of her agents would only require more cleanup.
“You actually wanted Scott Parrott dead, didn’t you?”
“If he’d done his job, he wouldn’t be dead.”
“He never had a chance.”
“Unlike those three agents you ordered in after banging Malone in the head with a gun? They had a chance, right?”
The fingers in his right hand tensed into a fist, but he caught himself. That was exactly the reaction she wanted.
“Get the wheel, Jonathan. Then we’ll talk.”
Malone spun and kicked one of the Richmond city cops in the shin. He then planted a right cross to another and kneed the third in the gut.
All three went down.
The sound of a motorcycle roaring into the lobby had provided the few moments of distraction he’d needed to act.
Cassiopeia raced toward him across the marble floor. S
he slowed enough for him to hop onto the saddle, then gunned the engine, turning left, heading for the staircase fifty feet away. He wrapped one arm around her midsection while the other hand found his gun. He turned back to see the cops coming to their feet and unholstering weapons.
The cycle slowed as the staircase approached.
Risers descended in three long, straight flights, maybe a hundred feet from top to bottom, two wide landings in between.
This was the part he hadn’t been looking forward to.
“Here we go,” she said.
He aimed and fired a shot over the cops’ heads.
They plunged to the floor, scrambling to use Jefferson’s statue as cover.
Cassiopeia had never actually driven a motorcycle down a staircase. A carpet runner lining the stone risers should help with traction, but it was going to be a bumpy ride.
She downshifted to second and plunged forward.
The suspension bucked as she and Malone fought for balance. She worked the handlebars, keeping them stable. She knew this machine. A low center of gravity made it easy to handle. European police had successfully utilized them for years. An earlier model was parked in her French château’s garage. Familiarity was exactly why she’d chosen it for the trip to Fredericksburg, as opposed to one of the Secret Service cars.
Cotton was holding her tight, her grip on the handlebars equally firm.
They found the first landing.
She added a quick burst of speed, then a nudge of the disk brakes, before dropping down more stairs. At the second landing the front end twisted hard left. She immediately yanked the handlebars right, the front wheel slamming into the final set of risers as gravity kept sending them toward the floor below.
“Company,” she heard him say.
Then a shot.
From Cotton.
A few more bumpy meters and they found a smooth surface.
She revved the engine and they sped ahead, threading a path across rugs through chairs and sofas, across the faux-marble hall, beneath the stained-glass ceiling.
People who’d been sitting rushed out of the way.
The exit doors waited thirty meters away.