The Jefferson Allegiance (13 page)

“What’s that?” he asked, indicating the writing.

“McBride gave this to me.” Evie gave him a sad smile, a surprisingly honest pain in her eyes. Not info-robot ex-CIA agent now, just a hurt woman, missing her friend. “It’s actually a misprint from the inscribers. It says: ‘A blood of patriots and tyrants.’ It should be ‘
the
blood’. It’s from a famous quote by Thomas Jefferson:
‘The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants’.
”

“So McBride and LaGrange were patriots.” Ducharme said.

“Yes.” She grabbed another piece of gum, deep in thought. “What are you going to do about the tracking device?”

“Keep it for now.” Ducharme told her. “Throwing it away will just let them know we know. Better we play that card when it’s to our advantage.”

“The killer is headed to Baltimore, of course,” Evie said.

Ducharme glanced at the GPS and drove toward the Beltway and the Interstate north. “Poe’s grave?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“There’s probably something hidden in his grave.”

“The other disks?”

“That would be the logical conclusion.” She turned to him and gave a cold smile. “Except the tyrants are going to make a mistake.”

***********

Deep inside the Anderson House, Lucius stared across the polished desktop as Mister Turnbull walked in. The only thing on his desk was the chess set: on one side George Washington commanded in white versus King George in black on the other.

“May I?” Turnbull indicated the chair across from Lucius.

Lucius nodded.

Turnbull sat down and glanced at the board. “You haven’t started a game?”

“I have not yet found a worthy opponent. Too bad you don’t play.”

Turnbull held up his hands, two slabs of meat covered in old scars, incongruous with the deftness of his cunning. “This was the only game I played.”

Lucius gave the ghost of a smile. “I don’t believe you played when you were in the ring. I saw you fight at the Academy.”

Turnbull lowered his hands. “That was a long time ago.”

“It’s just a different ring now.”

“The contractors took out Admiral Groves’s replacement. The Surgeon is on her way to see the Admiral as we speak.”

“And McBride’s replacement?” Lucius reached out and placed a finger on top of a blue-clad pawn.

Turnbull grimaced. “The contractors missed. And—“ he paused.

Lucius toppled the pawn over.

Turnbull continued. “There was someone with her. A Colonel. Named Ducharme. LaGrange, his uncle, was his surrogate father.”

Lucius became still. “Was there a mistake in killing LaGrange’s son?”

“Perhaps. He seemed the obvious successor, but with LaGrange, obvious wasn’t always the way to view things.”

“So Tolliver and this Ducharme are now together.”

“Yes. The FBI picked them up, but released them.”

Lucius reached out and picked up Martha Washington. “Curious. How much do they know?”

“Ducharme—not much. I think Tolliver is more clued in. They had two disks and the cipher rod. And McBride’s computer, which was encrypted.”

“Can you break the encryption?”

“No. A one-time method that requires a thumb drive with the decrypt. We gave it back to her.”

“In hopes she knows where the drive is.” It was not a question. They’d worked together enough years to be past such questions.

“And they still need to find twenty-four more disks,” Turnbull said.

“Your contractor failed and in doing so united two of our enemies, giving them the chance to succeed in both tasks.”

“Giving us a chance to achieve our original goal of getting the Allegiance,” Turnbull said, “and finding out McBride’s secrets.”

Lucius smiled and placed Martha Washington back down on the board. “You should play, Mister Turnbull.”

Turnbull stood. “I will make the appropriate move.”

22 August 1848 

President Polk figured it had to be a hell of a lot hotter down south for the Mexican President than even Washington in the summer, although some might question that. A bead of sweat dripped off Polk’s nose and onto the copy of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which he had been reading one more time, savoring the terms, as if he could feel the actual growth in the United States that the Treaty decreed.

Polk was staying in the White House, an insane decision for anyone who had survived a Washington August. But there was work to be done, and even the specter of yellow fever couldn’t persuade Polk to head to the cooler mountains as most Washingtonians with means had done. He could hear the mooing of cows from the large open pasture to the south of the White House, and the occasional rattle of a passing carriage, but otherwise the capitol was still.

Polk turned his chair to a map, his most prized possession since coming into office. He had made four promises when elected to office and the map represented two of them:

-Acquiring some or all of the Oregon Territory.

-Purchasing California from Mexico in order to have access to the port of San Francisco to open trade to the Pacific.

Drawn in fountain pen on the map by his own hand were the successful results of those two promises: the Oregon Territory and a huge chunk of land including Texas and the southwest from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, encompassing all of the California Territory.

It was the second largest expansion of the United States since Jefferson had purchased the Louisiana Territory. It was Manifest Destiny and Polk had done it, stretched the United States from Atlantic to Pacific. That he had done it with blood via a war some considered imperialistic wasn’t something he concerned himself with.

Polk leaned back in his chair and barely noticed as he wiped the sheen of sweat off his forehead. He looked over, irritated, as his secretary cracked open the door and stuck his head in. “Sir, there are some gentlemen here to see you.”

Polk waved. “Send them in.” He stiffened as he saw former President John Quincy Adams leading three men into the room: General Zachary Taylor, who was getting altogether too popular for winning the war Polk had instigated with Mexico. There were more than whispers that Taylor wanted to run for President under the banner of the opposing Whigs.

There was also a tall, rangy freshman Congressman named Lincoln, who had been a minor thorn in Polk’s side during the run-up to the war. The press had dubbed him ‘Spotty’ Lincoln for the resolution he had tried to get past Congress, demanding that Polk “show me the spot” where American blood had been spilled that precipitated the War with Mexico, claiming it had happened on Mexican soil, not American. The resolution had failed, and Polk was determined to crush Lincoln’s political career.

Lastly, there was old General Winfield Scott, who had opened the way to the ‘Halls of Montezuma’ as the press liked to dub it.

Polk stood, focusing on Adams. “Sir, what brings you here?”

Adams had a black, wooden tube in his hand, which he placed, to Polk’s chagrin, right on top of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. “Let me be frank,” Adams said. “You began this most horrid of wars by direct provocation of the Mexicans. Generals Taylor and Scott, while supporting you publicly, verify that privately.”

Polk glared at the two generals, but they seemed impervious.

Adams continued. “You used the war to further your Imperial goals, which is inconsistent with our Constitution. And you are a front man for the Cincinnatians.”

Polk slammed a fist onto the map. “We now stretch from sea to sea. We won the war. We—“

Adams cut him off. “Mister President, I don’t care what the immediate results are. You manipulated the military for the agenda of a select few. As Congressman Lincoln noted, you declared war the way a monarch would, not a President.”

“I dealt with the problems I inherited with the office,” Polk argued. “Texas was annexed by Congress four days before I took office. The Mexicans had already promised war if that happened. Conflict was inevitable.”

“Not if you had used diplomacy instead of the army,” Adams countered. “You sent General Taylor and his troops into disputed territory without consulting Congress.”

“This is true,” Taylor said.

“Indeed it is,” echoed Lincoln.

“But Congress voted for war,” Polk said.

“On the basis of a fake ‘causus belli’,” Lincoln said.

Scott finally spoke up. “The army is sick of such a war. We lost more men to disease in that God-forsaken place than the enemy. It cannot happen again.”

“How dare you all—“ Polk began, but Adams cut him off.

“Read this, sir.” He picked up the wooden tube and screwed off the end. He pulled a scroll out and unrolled it on top of Polk’s map.

Polk leaned over and read the few sentences. Startled, he looked up at Adams. “What—“

“Look at the signatures,” Adams commanded and Polk obeyed. Before the current President could say anything, the former President continued. “The War is done. The treaty ratified. You’ve had your glory. You have a year left in office. You will not start another war. You will not violate the treaty to grab more land from Mexico or cross swords with the British in the Oregon Territory. You will not run for election again. You will tell your fellow Cincinnatians they have what they sought and that is enough.”

Taylor spoke up. “Or else we will enforce the Jefferson Allegiance as you have just read.”

“Do you understand?” Adams asked. “You will abide strictly by the Constitution for the remainder of your term. Clear?”

Polk weakly nodded, slumping down into the chair where just minutes ago, he had been reveling in his achievements. What they had just dictated meant he would be the first President not to seek re-election since the founding of the country. It was unheard of. But so was the document he had just read. He numbly watched as Adams rolled the scroll and stuck it back in the tube. The men turned and marched out of the room leaving the President alone.

President Polk grabbed the map and tore it to shreds.

Chapter Seven

Church bells tolled, signaling the end of one day and the start of a new one. Lily sat in her van, scanning the immediate area, searching for the two black vans that had followed her to Annapolis: the ‘assistance’ promised to her by Mister Turnbull. She saw one parked two blocks away. The other was better hidden. She hadn’t asked for the assistance, so she wondered briefly why they were really there. There were two possible conclusions and she knew both were true: they were support, and they were also control.

She turned on the engine, driving toward the water. The GPS announced she was within a half-mile of her destination. She stopped, switched off the GPS and turned it to the computer built into the system. She accessed the FBI’s secure uplink. On the screen touchpad, she typed in the first name the Chair had given her: Admiral Hazard Groves.

She scrolled down, checking his information and nodded. Groves was retired and lived a half-mile away, alone. She accessed his address and then loaded it into the military satellite mapping system. Within seconds she had his house located, zooming in until she had an excellent picture of the building and the surrounding neighborhood. She kept the picture on the screen and began driving toward the house as she formulated her plan. It didn’t take her long: he was an old man, living alone. It would be simple and direct.

*************

From his upstairs window, Admiral Hazard Groves watched the moon come up over Chesapeake Bay, illuminating the water and the Naval Academy on his side of the bay. Based on the text message he’d received from General LaGrange and the lack of contact from Captain Kevin O’Callaghan, he was fairly certain this was the last night he would ever have. He was glad that he could see the Academy one last time. His hands trembled as he brought the old set of Naval binoculars up to his eyes. The exterior of the glasses was battered and scuffed from decades of shipboard duty. He scanned the Academy grounds, watching a few midshipmen hurrying across the campus in the late night cold. He remembered being young like them. He spotted a middie tucked into the shadows of a building, a cigarette in his hand. Groves’s hand automatically reached out toward the phone to call the Office of the Day to report the midshipman, but he paused, as the reality of his own current situation washed over him, and a sense of priority interceded. He almost envied the young man his indiscretion, remembering some of the things he’d done during his years at the Academy.