The Jefferson Key (43 page)

“I didn’t sacrifice those two agents,” Wyatt said to him.

“I never thought you did. I simply thought you were reckless.”

“We had a job to do. I just did it.”

“Why does that matter right now?”

“It just does.”

And then he realized. Wyatt truly regretted those deaths. He hadn’t thought so at the time, but now he saw different. “It bothers you they died.”

“It always did.”

“You should have said that.”

“It’s not my way.”

No, he supposed not.

“What happened up there?” he asked. “The Commonwealth came to kill you?”

“
NIA
sent the Commonwealth to kill me.”

“Carbonell?”

“An act she will regret.”

They came to a point where two more tunnels opened into the rock, forming a Y-shaped junction. With the flashlight Wyatt examined another of the chutes that opened from the wall, this one about shoulder-high. “I hear water at the other end.”

“Can you see anything?”

Wyatt shook his head. “I’m not staying here and waiting for high tide. These have to lead out to the sea. Now’s the time to find out—before they start filling.”

He agreed.

Wyatt laid down the flashlight and removed his jacket. Malone grabbed the light and shone it around the junction point. As long as they were here they might as well make a full reconnoiter.

Something caught his attention.

Another symbol, chiseled into the stone to the left of where the main passage broke into two.

He recalled it from Jackson’s message. He studied the remaining walls and spotted a second symbol opposite the first.

:

Then directly across from those, on the far wall of the first passage, two more, about eight feet apart.

That made four of the five Jackson had included in his message. And something else. They were positioned in relation to one another.

Wyatt noticed his interest. “They’re all here.”

Not quite.

He sloshed through the water to the center of the intersection of the three tunnels. Four markers surrounded him. The fifth? Down? He doubted it. Instead, he glanced up and shone the light at the ceiling.

“Triangle marks the spot,” he said.

Water burst from the lower chutes, surging through the chamber, swamping the floor in a cold wave.

He walked back to Wyatt, switching the flashlight from his right to his left hand.

He whirled his right arm up and smashed a fist across Wyatt’s jaw.

Wyatt staggered back, splashing into the water on the floor.

“Are we done now?” he asked.

But Wyatt said nothing. He simply came to his feet, hopped into the closest chute, and disappeared into the blackness.

CASSIOPEIA
SOUGHT
COVER
IN A
STAND
OF
TREES
,
WATCHING
the house that stood fifty meters away. Wind chimes performed a symphony of high-pitched tones. She glimpsed dark forms scurrying from one side of the house to the other, and more shots were fired. She decided to take a chance and found her phone, dialing Davis’ number.

“What’s happening there?” he immediately asked her.

“This place is under siege.”

“We can hear the gunfire. I’ve already checked with Washington. It’s nobody that I can identify.”

“It’s good cover,” she said. “Just sit tight and stick to the plan.”

She sounded like Cotton. He was rubbing off on her.

“I don’t like it,” Davis said.

“Neither do I. But I’m already here.”

She ended the call.

WYATT
WIGGLED
DOWN
THE
TIGHT
TUNNEL
, NO
MORE
THAN
three feet high and a little more than that wide. Cold water continued to drain from outside toward him with an ever-increasing intensity, the rush from its source growing more distinct.

He was coming to the end.

In more ways than one.

He’d allowed Malone the violation. He would have done the same, or worse, if the roles were reversed. Malone remained too self-important for his taste, but the cocksure
SOB
had never lied to him.

And there was something to be said for that.

Andrea Carbonell had sent him to Canada, assuring him repeatedly that the journey was between the two of them. Then she promptly informed the Commonwealth.

He could imagine the deal she’d made.

Kill Jonathan Wyatt and you get to keep whatever there was to find
.

And that rattled him more than Cotton Malone.

He’d done okay the past few days, stopping the assassination of the president of the United States and managing to come as close as anyone to solving the puzzle Andrew Jackson had created long ago. He would have saved Gary Voccio’s life, too, if the man had not panicked. His physical confrontation with Malone seemed to quell whatever anger had lingered inside him from eight years ago.

Instead, a new fury raged.

Faint rays of light appeared ahead.

In the absolute darkness, any glow, however minor, was welcome. The chilly water now rose to his elbows. He continued to crawl on all fours. The end of the shaft appeared and he saw a pool inside a rocky cavern. Surf lapped its sides as water rose to the chute. Beyond the cavern entrance he spotted open sea, bright streaks of moonlight glimmering off the restless surface.

He began to understand the engineering. The shafts had been cut into the rock at varying heights, emptying beneath the fort. As the tide rose so would the pool, flooding each of the tunnels in turn, forcing water into the chambers. When the tide receded, so would the water. A simple mechanism utilizing gravity and nature, but he wondered what its purpose had been in the first place.

Who cared?

He was free.

KNOX
AWOKE
.

Cool air rushed across his body. His head hurt and his vision was blurred. He heard the monotonous drone of an engine and felt himself jostled up and down. Then he realized. He was back on Mahone Bay. In a boat. With three people on board.

Two men and Carbonell.

He pushed himself up on his feet.

“My little dart works, doesn’t it?” Carbonell called out.

He recalled the weapon in her hand, the pop, then the sting to his chest. She’d tranquilized him. He didn’t have to ask where they were headed. He knew. Paw Island.

“It’s the same boat you stole earlier,” she said.

He rubbed his aching head and longed for a shot of bourbon. “Why are we going back?”

“To finish what you started.”

He steadied himself. Everything tossed and turned, and not from the boat. “You understand that Wyatt is not going to be happy to see you.”

“Actually, I’m counting on that.”

CASSIOPEIA
WATCHED
THE
ATTACK
ON
HALE’S
RESIDENCE
.
WHOEVER
these assailants were, they weren’t being subtle. The shooting had subsided, but there was still plenty of movement, both sides seemingly jockeying for a better position. She blinked rain from her eyes and tried to focus on the black house, every window devoid of light. In fact, there were no lights burning anywhere she could see.

From a side door, someone slipped outside.

A man, who immediately crouched low and crept to the veranda steps, where he slowly descended, staying down. Open hands signaled that he held no gun. Was this Hale? She watched as the figure hustled into the rain, toward the trees, using the wind and thick trunks for cover, advancing away, toward the dock from where she’d come.

More crackling gunfire raged in the distance.

She headed toward where the man had gone, keeping her steps light. Wet leaves, roots, and fallen branches challenged her balance. Thankfully the soil was more sand than dirt and seemed to drain fast. No mud. She found the graveled road that led to the dock, the one she’d just paralleled to the house, and spotted her quarry, maybe twenty meters away, trotting down the right side of the road.

She ran and came within ten meters of him before he realized she was approaching. As his head whirled around, she stopped, leveled her gun, and said, “Stay right where you are.”

The man froze. “Who are you?” he asked.

The voice was not of the age she knew Hale to be. So instead of answering his question, she asked one of her own. “Who are you?”

“Mr. Hale’s secretary. I’m not a pirate or a privateer. I don’t like guns and I don’t want to be shot.”

“Then you’d better answer my questions, or you’re going to find out what a bullet wound feels like.”

MALONE
SWAM
OUT
OF
THE
CAVERN
AND
INTO
MAHONE
BAY
. The sea was cold. He shook water from his eyes and stared up at Fort Dominion. The shaft he’d negotiated had emptied into a rocky cleft. He wondered about Wyatt. He hadn’t seen or heard any more from him. The shaft Wyatt had chosen apparently opened into another cavern. If he made it, Wyatt should be out here somewhere swimming, but Malone could not see or hear much beyond where he floated. He should be a hell of a lot angrier at Wyatt. But there was one thing. If Wyatt had not involved him, he wouldn’t be in a position to help Stephanie.

Strange, but for that he was grateful.

He had to get out of the water, so he started swimming toward a flat part of the island, south of the fort. He found a small beach and emerged from the bay. Night air chilled his bones. His jacket was back in the chamber, left there as Wyatt had done, since it would have been little more than an anchor. Thank goodness he’d come prepared with a change of clothes.

The stench of the birds returned as he plunged inland, turning toward where he’d beached his boat. He recalled a coil of nylon rope that he could use to reenter the underground chamber. He’d wait for low tide, which should provide a few hours to safely explore. Surely, Andrew Jackson had known of Fort Dominion and what had happened here during the Revolutionary War. Why else would he have selected such an out-of-the-way locale? Perhaps because, even if Jefferson’s cipher had been cracked and the cipher wheel found, nature would stand guard, ready to thwart all but the cleverest of hunters.

He pushed through the last of the foliage and found his boat. An easterly breeze stirred up tiny funnel clouds of sand near the water. He yanked off his wet shirt. Before changing he checked his cellphone. Edwin Davis had called four times. He hit
REDIAL
.

“How are things there?” Davis asked.

He reported the disaster, but also the success.

“We have a problem here,” Davis said.

He listened to what Cassiopeia had done, then said, “And you let her go?”

“It seemed the only course. The storm is excellent cover. Apparently, though, we’re not the only ones who think that.”

“I’m coming down there.”

“Shouldn’t you get those pages?”

“I’m not going to sit around here with my head up my ass and wait for low tide while Stephanie
and
Cassiopeia are now in trouble.”