Duluth Marina
Sam took a seat on a leather chair inside the Annabelle May’s main living space. Feet apart, arms behind his head, he relaxed back in the comfortable recliner.
“I’ve made some calls,” Sam said. “Your father has been rescued from a safe house in New York. The FBI found where he was being held captive.”
Virginia leaned down and wrapped her arms around Sam’s neck. A formidable woman, she embraced him with all of her heart – and the superhuman strength of a python.
“Thank you,” she said, giving him a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you for everything.” She then turned to Tom, “You too, Tom. I’m so grateful for what you’ve both managed to do.”
“You’re welcome. Really, it was fun. Hey, I think this deserves a celebratory drink.” Sam stood up, walked over and rummaged at the expensive, well stocked bar.
“What have you got?” Virginia asked.
Sam shrugged, looking through cupboards. “I’m pretty sure the good Senator has something nice lying around here.”
He came back a few minutes later, carrying three drinks on ice-cold rocks – actual rocks – the traditional way to cool rum without diluting it as the ice melts.
Tom brought the first glass up to his lips so that he could smell it. “There’s a first-rate aroma here.”
Sam raised his glass with Virginia, Tom, and Elise. “Congratulations. That was really something. We did a good thing today.”
Virginia gave a crooked grin. “Yeah, we sure did.” Silent teardrops running down her cheeks were the only sign of the emotional pressure she’d been under throughout the last few weeks.
“Will your father make it through his cancer do you think?” Sam asked, his voice serious.
“Only time will tell, but the trial has been achieving great results, and his treating oncologist says she feels confident my father got in early enough.”
Sam held his glass up high. “To Charles Beaumont’s good health.”
“To Charles Beaumont! Here, here!” they all cheered, as glasses clinked.
Tom took a gentle sip, savoring the fine tastes. He turned to Sam and said, “It tastes like nothing I’ve ever tried. There’s a smooth oak taste and a full body woody flavor I can’t quite pick. Whatever sort of rum did you find?”
Sam said, “I don’t know. Just something I found lying around. I’ll go get the bottle.”
“Whatever it is, it’s very, very good,” Tom reiterated. “The best, actually.”
Sam returned a few seconds later and handed Tom the bottle.
Tom carefully picked it up. His eyes were wide, his agape mouth speechless, as he stared at the old bottle. It bore the tenderness of a bygone skill of delicate craftmanship. The label was white with the words: Philadelphia 1876 set at the top – most likely a reference to the year Bacardi rum had earned a gold medal at the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876.
Below that were the words Ron Bacardi Superior and at the bottom of the label it read, Graduacion 44-5. The intact cork had been carelessly tucked back into the bottle. To its side were the remnants of a foil seal with the Bacardi Bat embossed. At the bottom of the label were the words, Santiago de Cuba and below that, Habana – New York.
Tom turned to Sam and said, “My God, Sam, where did you get this?”
Sam grinned. “I found it when we were coming out of the J.F. Johnson. Technically, it was outside the shipwreck and thus not breaking any shipwreck pilfering laws. I noticed it bore the same description and Bacardi Bat as the other broken bottle you found earlier.” He gave them all a pirates grin. “I just thought I’d bring it up and see if it was as nice a drop as you suggested.”
Virginia laughed. “Did you like it?”
Sam grimaced. “A fine rum is wasted on me. I don’t like rum in general.” He frowned. “To be honest, it has the distinct palate of sweet tasting tobacco, leather, and wood to me.”
Tom shook his head. “Do you realize you just destroyed a 50,000-dollar, rare bottle of Prohibition era rum, produced in the Bacardi Habana-New York distiller in the final weeks before Prohibition came into effect?”
“Destroyed? No way! Whether I like it or not, I’m drinking it!” Sam took another sip, grimacing over the taste. “Anyway, you guys are going to help me drink it.” Grinning, he added, “And tomorrow, we’re going to return the entire treasury of the Confederate States of America to its rightful owners.”
He finished his drink and went to bed. Sam slept well, catching up on some much-needed rest. In the morning they handed the keys for the Annabelle May to the marina manager.
After that, they strolled back to the Fond-du-Luth Casino, handed the ticket to the valet, who promptly returned the Ford Tudor.
Sam climbed into the front seat, tipped the valet, and headed down Route 53.
Chapter Seventy-Three
Pentagon – Two Weeks Later
The office of the Secretary of Defense was a large room with blue carpet, a massive oak desk, and two small tables for meetings – four seats each. It wasn’t the kind of place for a big, open gathering. Just a few generals and maybe a head of state or two.
Secrets passed through the room day and night.
The Secretary of Defense picked up the morning’s briefings.
Inside the first one was a two-page executive summary of more than a thousand-page dossier on the recent shut down of an organized crime family dating back to the 1920s. It had incredibly pervasive ties to politicians, judges, high ranking police officers, border patrol, and prosecutors.
The man who’d started the organization had stolen it from a Minnesotan offshoot of Al Capone’s bootlegging enterprise. That person’s grandson, David Perry, had recently murdered his father, a sitting senator from Minnesota, in an attempted coup of the business.
More than a hundred arrests had been made, including two high ranking city officials from New York, and a number of police detectives.
The Secretary of Defense studied the photo of an extremely good-looking detective – Eric Greentree. The guy wore a pressed New York Police Detective’s uniform, and had a number of citations next to his name. His face was fixed in the oval shaped proud smile of a man who was born to serve, yet behind that face, was the corrupt ruthless greed of a man bought by organized crime. A professional enforcer, he was willing to murder, remove evidence, and arrest anyone who got in their way.
There was another note about a woman who was instrumental in the breakthrough. Her name was Virginia Beaumont. The Secretary of Defense examined the image of the woman in a paramedic’s uniform. Her facial features were striking. She looked confident and intelligent in her uniform, but the Secretary guessed she would have been just as impressive as a model or an engineer.
The Secretary of Defense had a head for names and faces. Searching her memory for the name, she felt the face seemed familiar, but distant too. Lips pursed, she cast her mind back.
Ah! That’s right, Virginia Beaumont worked with Sam Reilly in Afghanistan. There was an incident where Sam had been shot.
Virginia Beaumont had saved his life. The Secretary smiled. Funny how life’s events can turn on the flip of a coin.
Next, she read the news about Beaumont’s father having made a miraculous recovery from a rare type of lung cancer following a recent drug trial. They used a new treatment using genetic engineering to trigger his own immune system to fight the cancer.
The Secretary of Defense, a slim, muscular woman with stark red hair, wore her dark business suit and her permanent scowl with equal severity. Yet the note brought a thin-lipped smile to her otherwise permanent scowl.
Six degrees of separation. Oh, I think not.
The man’s daughter had served with Sam Reilly in Afghanistan. She had been a long-term friend of his.
She moved to the next briefing note…
The page depicted a handwritten letter, laying back in a blue velvet box. At the top were the words Ironclad Covenant for the Reunification of the Union. It was dated May 14, 1863.
Her eyes ran across the document with intense interest.
It described an agreement signed by several wealthy landowners, senior military officers, and sitting Congressmen from the Confederate States of America to rejoin the Union, after being given specific assurances that no further financial consequences would take effect by doing so.
At the bottom of the lists was an agreement to be bound by the terms of the covenant, signed by two signatures.
She glanced at those signatures.
Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln
This was merely a photo of the real document, of course. The real document was now being held on display at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. alongside the remnants of the Confederate States of America’s once great wealth.
Closing her eyes, she imagined how many American lives might have been saved if the Covenant had reached Washington back in 1863.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a sharp knock at her door. Her assistant advised her that the Joint Chiefs of Staff needed to see her.
“Send him in,” she commanded.
The Chairman of the JCS entered her office, interrupting her thoughts.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. We have a problem.”
She leaned forward on her leather chair. “What’s happened?”
“Some hikers have discovered the wreckage of an old bomber plane from World War II within the outskirts of Washington, D.C.”
Her eyes narrowed. “A World War II bomber plane in Washington? We never lost any of our bombers in the area as far as I can recall. Although our history department would have a better idea of that.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. You misunderstand me. It wasn’t one of our bomber planes.”
Pushing back her chair, she stood up, and shot him a curious, incredulous smile. “Not one of ours. Then whose was it?”
“Germany’s, ma’am. And it gets worse. Preliminary reports from our team on site suggest the aircraft was carrying a primitive nuclear bomb.”
“Good God!” she said, taking in the full ramifications of the statement. Forgetting historical relevance and significance, she turned her focus on the immediate problem. “Has a team been tasked to secure the nuclear waste?”
The General looked away, crestfallen. “It appears someone has beaten us to it in the past twenty-four hours since the hikers located the wreckage.”
“What are you saying?” She met his eyes. “Did someone try and steal a nuclear weapon?”
The General swallowed, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “What I’m telling you, ma’am, is that we currently have a Broken Arrow, right here in Washington D.C.”
The End
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The Ironclad Covenant Page 27
