by Steve Berry
He stared up.
The third floor contained the room beneath the dome. Only the north and south staircases led there. Malone was clearly drawing him that way into a confined space.
Not today, Cotton.
He crept away from the stairs to the end of the corridor and peered out into the entrance hall. The woman had taken cover on his side of the room, behind a table, near the front windows and door. He aimed the gun above her head and obliterated a set of eighteen-paned windows directly behind her.
Hale debated what to say in response to Cogburn’s threat. For the first time, he saw a semblance of backbone in one of these men.
So he opted for the truth.
“I am solving the cipher,” he told them.
“How?” Cogburn asked, clearly not impressed.
“I made a deal with the head of NIA.”
Malone stood just inside an octagon-shaped room with bright yellow walls, crowned by a dome and a glass oculus. Circular paned windows in six of the walls allowed bright morning sun inside. Little smoke had, as yet, drifted to this floor.
He debated how best to confront Wyatt.
Gunfire erupted below.
Knox kept his composure, but what he’d just heard sent a chill down his spine.
Carbonell was playing every angle. Squeezing him. Dealing with his boss. Had he been compromised? Was that why he was here? He readied himself to react, but Hale still held a gun and he was unarmed.
“What kind of deal have you made?” Bolton asked Hale.
“The NIA has solved the cipher.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Surcouf asked.
“There is a price.”
The other three waited for him to tell them.
“Stephanie Nelle has to die for us to obtain the solution.”
“Then kill her,” Cogburn said. “You’re always chastising us on being blood-shy. What are you waiting for?”
“The NIA director is not to be trusted. And we can, of course, only kill Ms. Nelle once. So that death has to produce the desired results.”
Bolton shook his head. “You’re telling us you can end this simply by killing that woman in the prison? We’ll all be safe? Our letters of marque fortified? And you’re playing games?”
“What I am doing, Edward, is assuring that, if that happens, we will indeed be safe.”
“No, Quentin,” Bolton said. “What you’re ensuring is that you will be safe.”
Cassiopeia crouched low, using the table as cover.
Two reports.
Close by.
And the windows behind her shattered from bullets.
She recovered and sent a round in reply, aiming for the spot in the fog where she’d spotted muzzle flashes.
By eliminating the set of windows behind the woman, Wyatt had provided her an easy escape route. They stretched six feet from the floor, like doors, an easy matter to step through.
But she wasn’t leaving.
He aimed his next shot at the table she was using for cover.
On the fourth round, he might not be so generous.
Malone had to return to ground level and see about Cassiopeia. She and Wyatt were engaged in a gun battle. But the south stairway, to his right, the one he’d used to ascend, was not the way. He decided to head to the north side of the building and the second set of risers.
He quickly found them and descended.
Cassiopeia decided that retreat was the smart move. TOO many bullets, too much smoke.
How many assailants were there?
And why had Cotton not answered?
She fired another round, then darted out the open frame behind her, leaping from the portico.
Wyatt saw the woman flee and decided to do the same.
Malone was surely on his way back down.
Enough of this.
Malone found the first floor. A short hall to his left led back to the entrance hall, but he avoided that and stepped into what appeared to be a dining room.
A large parlor opened through another doorway, the interior walls dotted with paintings, the exterior lined with draped windows and a set of doors, the air inside consumed by swirling smoke.
He entered and peered through another set of glass doors, back out into the entrance hall.
Cassiopeia rolled onto the portico, staying low, advancing to the shattered window.
She had to get back inside.
She came to her feet and pressed her body close to the outer bricks, then slipped into the smoke-filled hall.
Her gaze raked the murky scene.
On the opposite side, beyond a set of glass doors, in another smoke-filled room dotted with windows and portraits, she caught movement.
She aimed and fired.
FORTY-NINE
BATH, NORTH CAROLINA
Hale’s patience ended. These three imbeciles had no conception of what was required to win this war. It had been that way from the start. Hales had always dominated the Commonwealth. They were the ones who’d approached George Washington and the Continental Congress with the idea of coordinating the privateers’ offensive efforts. Before that, vessels had operated independently, doing what they pleased when they pleased. Sure, they’d been effective, but not like what happened after they unified under a single command. Of course, for their trouble Hales derived a specified cut from every seizure, partnering with privateers from Massachusetts to Georgia, ensuring that attacks on British shipping continued unabated. Surcoufs, Cogburns, and especially Boltons had been there, but had not done nearly as much as what the Hales did. His father had cautioned him to cooperate with his fellow captains, but also always to keep a distance and maintain his own connections.
You can’t rely on them, son.
He agreed. “I’m about sick to death of being accused and threatened.”
“We’re sick to death of being kept in the dark,” Bolton said. “You’re making deals with the same people who are trying to put us in prison.”
“The NIA is our ally.”
“Some ally,” Cogburn said. “They’ve done nothing to stop any of this. They then cultivated a spy within the company and interfered with our move on Daniels.”
“They solved the cipher.”
“And have not, as yet, provided it to us,” Bolton said. “Some friend.”
“What effect has that traitor had on your dealings with NIA?” Surcouf wanted to know. “Why would they need a spy among us?”
That was the first good question he’d heard. And the answer remained unclear, except that “The NIA director wants Stephanie Nelle dead—”
“Why?” Cogburn asked.
“There’s something personal there. She did not explain, only that Nelle was investigating both her and us. It was to our advantage to stop that. She asked me to do it, so I obliged. That is what friends do for each other.”
“Why the need for the spy if she had you?” Surcouf asked.
“Because he’s a liar, a thief, and a murderer,” Bolton spat out. “A stinking, crooked pirate who can’t be trusted. His great-great-granddaddy would be proud.”
His spine stiffened. “I have had enough of your insults, Edward. I challenge you. Here and now.”
Which was his right.
Whenever ships in the past joined for a common purpose, the possibility of conflict had been great. By their nature captains were independent—mindful of their own crew, uncaring about anyone else’s. But civil wars were deemed counterproductive. The idea was to loot merchant shipping, not fight among themselves. And never were disputes settled at sea, as crews rarely chanced their own lives or damage to the ship over a silly quarrel.
So another way evolved.
The challenge.
A drama in which the captains could show their courage while at the same time not endangering anyone or anything, besides themselves.
A simple test of guts.
Bolton stood silent and stared.
“Typical,” Hale said. “You have no stomach for a fig
ht.”
“I accept your challenge.”
Hale turned to Knox.
“Prepare it.”
Malone heard the shot and dove to the floor, scrambling beneath a table surrounded by chairs.
Glass doors six feet away shattered.
More shots came his way, keeping him close to the floor.
Cassiopeia decided to attack. She fired once, twice, then a third time, taking no chances, advancing toward the source of movement.
Malone kept his head down and waited for the shooting to stop. He was going to take Wyatt out, but he needed to make his one move count. He lay flat on the floor beneath the table and gripped the gun, readying himself.
Through the smoke, a shadow came his way.
From the entrance hall, toward the parlor.
He waited for the target to grow larger.
Then he’d take Wyatt down with some well-placed shots.
Wyatt found the cellar, pleased to see that no staff occupied the small office at the base of the stairway. A series of brick-lined rooms formed both the house’s foundation and subterranean storage. They lined a long passage that stretched the building’s length, lit by incandescent fixtures springing from the rough stone walls. He recalled from the exhibits at the visitor center that the rooms served as food, beer, and wine cellars. He stared at the end of the north passage, maybe seventy-five feet away, which opened out into the morning sun.
All clear.
He rushed ahead.
He knew that behind him were what Jefferson had called the dependencies. The south set held the kitchen, smokehouse, dairy, and some slave quarters. Here, on the north side, were the carriage house, stables, and ice cellar. He came to the passage end and hesitated near a door identified as the north privy.
Good placement, he thought. Ground level, outside the walls, private.
He found his cellphone and hit SEND for the message he’d prepared earlier.
READY FOR PICKUP. NORTH SIDE.
That had been the plan.
If anything had changed, so would have the message.
He’d known from the start that getting into Monticello would be easy. Getting out? An entirely different matter. That was why he’d accepted help from Andrea Carbonell.
He fled the north dependency and crossed the asphalt road. His location, on the far side from the main entrance, among trees and shrubs, provided ample cover. A check on Google Maps earlier had revealed an open field about a hundred yards northeast of the house.
A perfect landing spot.
He heard three shots from inside the house and smiled.
With any luck, the woman would shoot Malone for him.
Cassiopeia knew someone was in the next room. She’d caught movement before her barrage, but had not seen any other disturbances through the fog. She was still concerned about Cotton.
Where was he?
Who had shot at her?
A hallway opened to her right where less smoke had collected. She spotted the base of a stairway.
Whoever was in the next room knew she was here.
But they were lying low. Waiting.
For her.
Malone aimed at the black smudge drifting across the smoke.
Just a few more feet and he’d have a clean shot. He didn’t want to miss. He’d tried to draw Wyatt in upstairs. That effort failed.
Now he had him.
He held his breath, finger tightened on the trigger.
One.
Two.
Cassiopeia had advanced too far.
She was exposed, and knew it.
She darted right, used the hallway for protection, then called out, “Cotton, where are you?”
Malone exhaled.
He lowered his gun.
“In here,” he said.
“Better for you to come out here,” she called out.
He came to his feet and stepped from the parlor. Cassiopeia appeared from the smoke to his left.
“That was close,” he said.
He saw in her eyes that she agreed.
“What happened in here?”
“I found the source of all our trouble.”
A new sound invaded the silence. A low rhythmic thump of deep bass tones beating air. Approaching.
Helicopter.
Wyatt cradled the wheel in his arms, careful not to damage it. A couple of glances back and he saw no one following him. He disappeared into the trees and eased down an incline toward the field.
A chopper swooped in from the west, clearing the trees lining the field, and settled on the grass.
He jumped in the open cabin door.
Malone and Cassiopeia stepped outside onto the east portico and saw a helicopter landing about a quarter mile away.
Way too far to do anything about it.
After only a minute below the trees, the rotors’ thump increased and the chopper climbed back into the morning sky, heading west.
Malone realized that without the wheel there was no way to know what Andrew Jackson had done. And since only one existed, the cipher’s solution had just flown away.
“We can track that thing, can’t we?” Cassiopeia asked.
“Not quick enough. He’ll set down somewhere not far away and drop his passenger off.”
“The person who shot at me?”
He nodded.
The estate manager rushed up to where they stood, along with Edwin Davis. Malone stepped back inside and headed straight for Jefferson’s cabinet.
The others followed.
He found the table where an empty glass cover sat.
“Those windows outside,” the manager said, “were 19th-century glass. The frames were original to Jefferson’s time. Irreplaceable.”
“This isn’t a World Heritage Site, is it?” he asked, trying lighten the tension.
“Actually, it has been since 1987.”
He smiled. Stephanie would love that one. How many of those had he damaged? Four? Five?
He heard windows being opened throughout the house and saw the smoke dissipating. A new face appeared. A middle-aged woman with dark red hair and freckled skin. She was introduced as the senior curator, in charge of the estate’s artifacts. She was visibly upset at the site of the missing wheel.
“It’s the only one in the world,” she said.
“Who was here?” Edwin Davis asked him.
“An old friend, who apparently holds a grudge.”
He motioned for Davis and Cassiopeia to walk with him toward the library while the curator and the estate manager talked in the cabinet. He told them about Jonathan Wyatt, then said, “Last I saw him was eight years ago, at the admin hearing when he was fired.”
Davis immediately withdrew his phone, placed a call, listened a few moments, then hung up.
“He’s a contract agent now,” Davis said. “Works for hire. Lives in Florida.”
Malone thought back to the coded message from the sheet Jackson had written. Twenty-six letters, five symbols.
GYUOINESCVOQXWJTZPKLDEMFHR
“Without that wheel, the final message is indecipherable,” he said. “We’re done. We need to focus on Stephanie now.”
“Mr. Malone,” a female voice said.
He turned at the call of his name.
The curator.
“I understand it was the cipher wheel that interested you.” She walked toward him beneath the room’s arches.
He nodded. “It’s what we came for. We needed it but, like you said, that’s the only one in the world.”
“The only original in the world,” she said. “Not the only wheel.”
He was listening.
“At the learning center, down in the visitor center, we wanted the kids to experience Thomas Jefferson hands-on. So we re-created many of his inventions and devices. We made them so they could touch and feel them. There’s a wheel there. I had it made myself. It’s plastic, and looks somewhat like the original. There are twenty-six disks, each one with twenty-six letters carve
d on the edge. I had nothing else to go on, so I told the company who made it to copy the disks exactly as Jefferson made them.”
FIFTY
BATH, NORTH CAROLINA
Hale watched as Knox made the necessary preparations. six glasses were brought from the bar and laid out in a row on one of the tables. Into each was poured a swallow of whiskey. Knox produced a glass vial that held a yellow-tinted liquid. The captains stared at the contents. Bolton nodded his consent to proceed. At any time, a captain challenged could withdraw, conceding defeat.
But not today.
Into one of the glasses Knox trickled a few drops of the yellowish liquid. The poison came from a Caribbean fish. Odorless, tasteless, fatal in seconds. A Commonwealth staple for centuries.
“All is ready,” Knox said.
Hale stepped to the table, his gaze on the third glass from the left where the poison rested within the amber-colored whiskey.
Bolton approached.
“Do you still accept my challenge?” Hale asked.
“I’m not afraid to die, Quentin. Are you?”
That wasn’t the issue. Teaching these three a lesson was the point—one they would never forget. He kept his gaze locked on Bolton and said to Knox, “Shuffle the glasses.”
He heard the bottoms slide across the tabletop as Knox rearranged the glasses, making it impossible to know which one contained the poison. Tradition required that the two participants lock eyes. Centuries ago, the crew would study the shuffle, then wager among themselves when a captain would make the wrong choice.
“It’s done,” Knox said.
The six glasses waited in a row, their swirling contents settling. Since Hale had extended the challenge, he was required to pick first.