by Bob Mayer
Hamilton slowly sat down. “You want a new Amendment to the Constitution?”
“No,” Jefferson said. “I’m not stupid, Mister Hamilton. Presenting that admits my own malfeasance in the Purchase. As I said, this must be done in secret. I want you and I, as heads of the two parties, to agree to an Allegiance. The Jefferson-Hamilton Allegiance. We will take this Allegiance back to our parties and get just enough members we trust to sign it in secret to pass and then I will sign it into law. No one is to speak of it. It will be hidden away. But it will be law and it will be the final check on the President and the power-hungry rich who do not have the country’s best interests at heart.”
Hamilton was silent for a few seconds. “What is this Allegiance you wish to put my name to?”
“Did you know this chair I am in,” Jefferson said, “is the exact same one in which I was seated when I wrote the Declaration of Independence?”
“Show me this Allegiance,” Hamilton snapped, but Jefferson knew his reference to the classic document he had penned was now in Hamilton’s head.
Jefferson walked over to a bookcase and picked up a piece of parchment. He brought it back. Hamilton unrolled the paper. It only took a few seconds to read. “I do not want my name on the title of this.” He looked up. “So this is why you founded the Military Academy last year. I thought that a most strange move for you.”
“I dwell in reality,” Jefferson said. He waited a moment. “Does that mean you agree to the body of the Allegiance?”
Hamilton hesitated. “In exchange for not attacking the Society of the Cincinnati? And establishing the national bank?”
“Yes.”
Hamilton grabbed a fountain pen, dipped it in the ink well, and signed his name at the bottom. “I will bring it back to you with the signatures needed.”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Jefferson said. “You’re thinking what you hold is no great matter. That it would never be enacted. I hope that is true. But it is the ultimate check against a President who seeks to be King and against your Cincinnatians or any group like it.”
Hamilton rolled the parchment up. He tucked it under his arm and stood. “When I bring it back, and then your people and you sign it, what is to be done with it?”
“Let me worry about that. I will have people appointed to be caretakers. People who can be trusted with such power, desiring none of their own. People who can keep a secret.”
Hamilton laughed. “Remember what old Benjamin said about people keeping secrets. Three might if two are dead.”
Jefferson met his adversary’s eyes. “Let us hope it does not come to that.”
Hamilton gave that half-smile which Jefferson had always interpreted as the man thinking he held the winning hand. Perhaps he did, Jefferson allowed as Hamilton departed. But there was more to Jefferson’s plan for the Allegiance than he had told Hamilton.
Jefferson laughed. And given Hamilton’s insistence, it had a new, simpler name:
The Jefferson Allegiance.
Chapter Four
Deep inside FBI headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue, Ducharme stared without expression at the two men across the table from him. They had been asking questions for a half hour and in that time he had not uttered a single word in response. While they prattled on with their useless inquiries, he was trying to concentrate. To understand what was happening. As he had been programmed to do in harsh military training, he separated emotion from mission and kept the beast raging in his chest under leash as this was neither the time nor the place to let it out.
The door behind the two officers opened and Special Agent Burns walked in holding a bulky manila envelope. Burns leaned over and whispered into the ear of one of the agents who had been asking the stupid questions.
Reluctantly, and with angry glances, the two junior men left. Burns stared at Ducharme for over a minute. Then he said in a voice that was level and emotionless. “They told me you haven’t said a word.”
Ducharme returned the gaze.
“I’m in charge of this investigation.”
Ducharme remained silent.
“You’ve been advised of your rights, correct?”
Ducharme said nothing.
Burns sat down across from Ducharme, pulling out a small spiral notepad. He flipped the cover open. “You are Colonel Paul Ducharme, United States Army. Apparently. According to your identification card and uniform. However, when I queried our Army liaison on the highest priority, I was told you don’t exist. That means you’re not who you say you are or are deep in covert operations.”
Ducharme said nothing.
“If you are covert ops, you were trained not to say anything when interrogated,” Burns added. “Probably Level Three SERE training at Fort Bragg. Correct?”
Ducharme crossed his arms over his chest. He’d gone through the Survival-Evasion-Resistance-Escape training at Bragg years ago. The FBI were amateurs compared to the ‘interrogations’ the instructors in SERE put the high-risk-of-capture students in Level Three through.
Putting down the notepad, Burns reached into a coat pocket and pulled out a switchblade, which he flicked open. He began to slice the skin off the fruit with one long, slow, spiral, as he glanced once more at the notepad.
“I checked out your gun. MK-23 pistol, but one that is specially modified-- a military Special Operations version, the Mod O. Built in laser sighting, trigger pull’s been lightened, serial number gone, top of the line suppressor. Those big, bad .45 caliber rounds. A lot of punch even when subsonic. Not something you pick up at your local gun show. In fact, the modified MK-23 is illegal outside of Special Operations.” A piece of apple skin fell to the table.
“The vehicle your Sergeant Major was driving—he’s downstairs, by the way, also not saying anything-- is interesting. Armored, bulletproof windows, tamper sensors, modified turbo engine for power, more weapons in the rear locker along with night vision goggles, body armor, and other specialized equipment. You could be in big trouble having those automatic weapons in your truck. The registration of the vehicle is to a front company we believe is part of a cover wing of the Activity, an organization in the Department of Defense which isn’t supposed to exist.”
Ducharme waited for Burns to tell him something he didn’t already know.
“You knew General LaGrange.” Burns said it as a statement, not a question. He had almost the entire skin off the apple. It fell to the table. Burns jammed the blade of the knife into the apple, and held it in one hand, while he opened the manila envelope and slid a file folder and several other objects onto the table. He turned a page in his notepad and began reading it. “Lieutenant General LaGrange, US Army retired and brought back on active duty as Special Assistant for National Security Affairs. Very high level. The calls are already coming from a lot of big names. Deep shit my friend, deep shit.”
Burns pulled a photo out of the file folder and slid it across the table. Ducharme stared at the photo trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Given his history of violence he could stare at the photos without expression. “That’s General LaGrange’s heart?”
“We believe so. He’s the only body we’ve found tonight missing one.”
“Whose head?”
“James McBride. Retired editor from the Washington Post. Know him?”
“No.”
“Heard of him?”
“No.”
“Not many people outside of DC have. He was behind the scenes, though, of pretty much every major story the Post broke for over fifty years. Including Watergate.”
“That was a long time ago. Somebody still sore?”
“People in this town have long memories. He had a lot of enemies.”
Burns said that with feeling. He must top someone’s shit list, Ducharme thought. “Not me.”
“Didn’t say that. You feeling guilty?” Burns asked. He cut a piece out of the apple and popped it into his mouth.
“Yes.” The answer jumped from Ducharme’s mouth, surprising
him.
“About?” Burns was staring at him hard while he loudly chewed.
“My Uncle’s murder.”
Burns blinked. “LaGrange was your uncle?”
Ducharme regrouped from the unusual burst of emotion. “Why did you pick up Evie Tolliver?”
“Professor Evie Tolliver, the curator at Monticello. She was waiting at that restaurant for the other victim, McBride. She knew him. She had McBride’s briefcase.”
“She a suspect?”
“No. She was in the restaurant when that murder occurred. Who shot at you in the alley?”
“I have no idea. Did your men catch the shooter?”
“No.”
“What about the man in uniform in the restaurant with the gun?”
“No.”
“Not very efficient.”
Burns stiffened for a second, then gave a lazy smile. “We’ll find them.”
“I doubt it.” Ducharme looked closer at the photo. The White House was barely visible through the falling snow in the backdrop of the photo. From the angle, the stone monument holding the grisly trophies was somewhere to the south of the building.
Burns looked at his notepad. “Where were you at 1844 hours?”
“Arlington Cemetery.”
“Can anyone confirm that?”
“Sergeant Major Kincannon. And several members of the Old Guard.”
Burns nodded. “Kincannon has said nothing but the Old Guard already did. We tracked the GPS in your Blazer back to there and the time stamp confirms it.”
“Then why are you asking?”
“Being thorough.”
“Being redundant.”
“You received a text message from General LaGrange directing you to meet him at 19th and Pennsylvania where we found the General’s body inside his vehicle. It was his last communication.” Burns checked a notepad. “It was sent at 1844 hours. Took you a while to ‘come quick’ since I met you at 2048.”
“If you check my phone, you’ll also see I didn’t receive the text message until exactly two hours after it was sent, at 2044.”
“Why the delay?” Burns asked.
Ducharme shrugged. “I don’t know.” But a disturbing thought wormed its way into the back of his mind.
“What does ‘brings pacs’ mean?” Burns asked.
The worm crawled into Ducharme’s frontal lobe. “The message is a repeat of one that was sent a long time ago.”
Burns waited, then tapped the table top with the handle of the switchblade. “Explain.”
“It’s from the last written order George Armstrong Custer gave at the Battle of Little Big Horn,” Ducharme said. “He dictated it to his adjutant who gave it to Trumpeter Martin to carry to Major Benteen. It said: ‘Benteen, Come on. Big Village, be quick, bring packs. P.S. bring p-a-c-s.’”
A slight smile graced Burns’s lips. “’Come on, boys, we got them on the run?’”
“That’s a Western myth,” Ducharme said. “No one knows what Custer said after he sent Martin off with that message, because every man with him died. People think the Seventh Cavalry was wiped out, but almost half of it survived under Reno and Benteen. The most Medal of Honors ever awarded for a single battle in our history were given to troopers under their command for their actions the night after the massacre when men volunteered to crawl under fire from the hill they were making their stand on to retrieve water from the Little Big Horn for their wounded comrades.”
“You sound defensive of Custer,” Burns said.
Ducharme’s voice was sharp. “I served in the 2nd Battalion of the Seventh Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division during Operation Iraqi Freedom. I’m proud of the lineage of the unit and the men who served with me.”
“So they gave out a lot of medals to put spin on a massacre.”
Ducharme bristled. “They gave out a lot of medals to soldiers who risked their lives to save other soldiers. The worst of times can bring out the bravest in people.”
“The military and medals.” Burns shook his head.
Ducharme realized he was being baited and ignored it, already having started to slide into Burns’s pit.
His barb not being taken, Burns pressed on. “Why would LaGrange send you such a message?”
Ducharme sat back in the seat, feeling a tiredness that went beyond the physical weariness creeping into his muscles. “General LaGrange was—“ he closed his eyes for a moment in pain. “General LaGrange was an expert on military history so he specifically picked Little Big Horn and Custer. Sending a message from Custer means he felt there was a good chance he was doomed. I believe the text of the message explains the time lag on the text message. General LaGrange set his phone to send two hours after he wrote it. When he knew, like what happened to Custer and his message to Major Benteen, it would be too late.”
Burns was staring at him strangely. “That doesn’t make sense if he wanted your help.”
“I think he wanted to face whatever it was by himself,” Ducharme said. “Then he wanted to meet me if he survived—or if killed, for me to find him and--.”
Burns leaned forward. “And what?”
Ducharme fell back into silence.
“This is my case,” Burns said. “You’re not overseas any more.”
“Right.”
“Things didn’t work out too well for your uncle,” Burns said. He cut another piece off the apple.
“It didn’t for Custer either,” Ducharme said.
“And LaGrange knew that.”
“Yes.”
“Want a piece?” Burns offered a slice on the point of the switchblade.
“No.”
Burns popped it in his mouth and chewed loudly. It was irritating and that was exactly why Burns was doing it.
“Both men were tortured before being killed,” Burns said.
Ducharme looked down at his hands and realized they had tightened into fists. With great difficulty he unclenched them. “Someone wanted them to talk. General LaGrange wouldn’t have. I don’t know about McBride.”
“You sound sure of LaGrange. I thought everyone talked under torture.”
“I am sure of the General. And everyone talks under enough torture applied long enough,” he corrected. “The killer was in a rush. Also, with torture, even though everyone eventually talks, you can’t believe what they say. It’s a paradox—when the torture is extreme enough to make someone talk, they’ll say anything to stop it, especially what they think the torturer wants to hear, whether it’s true or not. That’s why it’s ineffective.”
“Interesting.” Burns took a moment to digest that. “You often provided LaGrange with backup in Washington DC?”
“Never before. But we served together.”
Burns stared at him. “And now you serve with?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“The Activity?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why do you call LaGrange, ‘General’ all the time if he was your uncle?”
“We always called him the General.”
“’We’?”
Ducharme sighed and felt the pounding in his head worsen. “His son, Charles, my cousin, was also my best friend. He didn’t call General LaGrange, dad, he called him the General. And it was out of respect.”
“’Was’?”
Ducharme stiffened. “You a fucking echo? Charlie was killed in a car wreck four days ago. That’s why I was at Arlington.”
“I’m sorry.” Burns ran a hand across the stubble on his chin as he made a note in his pad.
“Do you have anything on his death?” Ducharme asked.
“I’ll look into it,” Burns said. The FBI agent pulled two wooden disks out of the manila folder and slid then across the table. “Seen these before?”
Ducharme took the disks. One had the number 26 etched in it—the one Kincannon had given him—and the other had 1 on the side. “You know I saw one of them since you took it off me.”
“Tolliver was
carrying the other one in McBride’s briefcase,” Burns said. “What are they?”
“Never seen anything like them before. Ask her.”
“I will.” Burns picked the disks up. “They look—feel-- old.”
Ducharme pointed at the photo, trying for misdirection. “What’s the monument the body parts are on?”
“The Zero Milestone,” Burns said.
“This placement wasn’t done by chance,” Ducharme said.
“It’s a message,” Burns said with a nod. “I’ve got people working on it.” Burns slammed the blade into the desk top, leaving the knife there, handle quivering. He turned toward the mirror on the side of the room and crooked a finger. “What does ‘See the elephant’ mean in the message?”
“No idea.”
“Bullshit.”
Ducharme didn’t respond.
“So you never met Tolliver before?”
“No.”
“But you were waiting for LaGrange in that restaurant and she was waiting for McBride. Not coincidence.”
“Brilliant deduction.”
The door to the room opened and Evie Tolliver was escorted in.
“Professor Tolliver, meet Colonel Ducharme. Again,” Burns said. “Take a seat.”
Evie sat to Ducharme’s right, giving him a curious glance as Burns spread photos over the desk: the head and heart on top of the Monument; a headless body lying in the snow; LaGrange’s heartless body in the driver’s seat along with others of the two crime scenes.
“We’ve got two murders,” Burns said. “Two bodies mutilated. And you two are connected to the victims. I want some answers.”
“What are the questions?” Ducharme asked.
“Don’t push me,” Burns snapped.
Ducharme stared at the FBI man. “OK, what are the fucking questions?”
Burns’s fists clenched. “That asshole thing—nice.”
Ducharme nodded. “It’s a technique.”
“It’s not working.”
“I think it is.” Ducharme shrugged. “It’s called frustration and I don’t know anything more about this than you. Just wanted to share the feeling.” Evie was staring at the gruesome photos, not with shock, but with detachment, which said a lot about the woman. Or anyone for that matter. Tension was coming off her in waves though. It was costing her a lot to keep her emotions under control.
