by Bob Mayer
Philosophical Hall was mostly ignored by tourists, even though it was the only other building besides Independence Hall on Independence Square. Most tourists saw the sign outside and thought it was some sort of place for old men to sit around and chat about esoteric subjects. It was so far off the radar that for almost a century the building had been closed to visitors and no one had registered a complaint. A part of the building had only been recently opened to the public where they could view such wonders as the chair Thomas Jefferson sat in when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin’s clock and library chair, and an eclectic gathering of small exhibitions from the collection of the American Philosophical Society, for which the building had been the headquarters for over two centuries. Most tourists preferred to see a cracked bell further down the street.
Philosophical Hall was the only privately owned building on Independence Square, a little known fact that the Society preferred not be publicized, because it might raise questions which they would also prefer not to answer as people would wonder where the money came from. Hiding in plain sight was a tactic the Society had adopted from the very beginning, putting its scientific and exploration exploits in the foreground and cloaking its true power in secrecy.
Parker sighed deeply and switched his gaze from the outside, to his watch, then to the visages staring down on him from the paintings that cluttered the walls of the office: Benjamin Franklin, of course, the founder of the APS in 1745; George Washington, a man who could straddle every fence; John Adams; Thomas Paine; James Madison; the Maquis de Lafayette; Charles Darwin; Robert Frost; Baron Von Steuben; Tadeusz Kosciousko; Thomas Edison; Louis Pasteur; Margaret Mead, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and others whose names reverberated through the annals of science and exploration. Two paintings were centered right next to each other as if paired for some special reason: Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.
The Jefferson painting had historical significance. It was one of only two copies that Thomas Sully, who had done the original, had painted based off that work. The original was at West Point, which had commissioned the full body portrait of the Founder of the Academy. The two copies were half that size, from the waist up. The twin to this one was in the Rotunda at the University of Virginia.
The portrait of Hamilton was not so well rendered. From the Society’s records, Parker knew that Hamilton had been extended an honorary membership by Thomas Jefferson as part of an attempt at conciliation. Hamilton had accepted, but since he was best known for initiating the National Debt, starting the National Bank, and founding the Federalist Party, his contributions to the Philosophical Society were negligible.
At least that’s what the records said.
Parker knew better. It was in this building, in this room, on opposite sides of this very desk, that President Jefferson and Hamilton had negotiated with each other to try to determine the direction the fledgling United States would continue to go in. Hamilton wanted a form that might almost be considered a monarchy without the hereditary king: he proposed that the President and Senators all be elected for life and that state governments be abolished. And he was the point man of the Society of Cincinnati, trying to gain power for that organization.
Jefferson believed in the people and wanted limits on the Federal government. He thought the government served the people, not the reverse.
The arguments must have been fierce and loud, Parker imagined. And resulted in a bitter compromise that only a handful of people throughout history had ever been aware of: The Jefferson Allegiance.
Above the two portraits was a pair of sayings:
Nullo Discrimine. The motto of the APS, which meant “We are open to all.”
Not exactly, thought Parker.
And next to it, the motto of the defunct Military Philosophical Society: Scientia in Bello Pax. Science in War is the Guarantee of Peace.
It helps, he thought,
Parker figured the two sayings said a lot about the schizophrenic nature of the secret inner circle of the Society.
Parker leaned back in the chair, the worn wood creaking. He felt as old as the chair, but he also felt vibrant and alive for the first time in a long while. The possibility of impending death had a tendency to do that, he knew from his experiences in aerial combat. Once more he made a time check. She was late, which was most unusual.
McBride was dead. A successor had been activated.
General LaGrange was dead. As was his son, who had been the first successor. A new successor had picked up the mantle.
The report on Admiral Groves had just come in. Dead also. He’d written that his successor had also been killed, but that a replacement had been alerted.
And Parker’s own successor was late.
He looked at the flat-screen computer monitor on top of the old wooden desk that had been in this room since the founding of the Society. The email from Admiral Groves consisted of only five words: DON’T GIVE UP THE SHIP. Parker had spent no time in ships, but rather over thirty-five years in the cockpits of planes, becoming rated on more types of aircraft than anyone else in the Air Force, making him a mini-legend inside a closed circle of people who knew what such a feat meant.
“Damn Navy,” Parker groused as he stared at the words. Who the hell wanted to confine themselves to the two dimensions of the ocean surface when you could roam free in the three dimensions of the sky? Now submariners, Parker would allow, could move three ways, but so slowly, what was the point? And the very element they moved in could kill them. The air didn’t kill pilots. Other pilots or the ground did.
Slowly, Parker typed the saying on the keyboard. He accessed the first link that came up, having little patience with computers. June 1813. Captain James Lawrence, commander of the USS Chesapeake fought a British Frigate outside of Boston Harbor. And lost, Parker noted. “Goddamn Squids,” he muttered as he scrolled down. Apparently Lawrence was mortally wounded, and as he lay dying he gave his last command: ‘Tell the men to fire faster. Fight ‘til she sinks, boys. Don’t give up the ship.’
Of course, they gave up the ship. Another defeat trumpeted through history as magnificent to the point where it was considered a victory. There were too many of them throughout history in Parker’s opinion. Where the loser got the glory. He saw that the last part of Lawrence’s dying words were appropriated by Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry—Admiral Groves’ namesake—and sewn onto his battle flag.
At least Perry won a few battles, Parker noted. And did his own famous quote: ‘We have met the enemy and they are ours.’ This after defeating a British fleet on Lake Erie during the War of 1812. Not exactly a ‘real’ war, Parker thought. Especially considering the battle most Americans remembered it for, New Orleans, under General Andrew Jackson, occurred after the peace treaty had already been signed. Many good men dying for nothing.
Where the hell was she? Parker wondered.
Parker rubbed his forehead. He was getting old and cynical and needed to focus. “Connections,” he said to himself and smiled, sadly remembering the ribbing his grandkids gave him for speaking to himself. He began clicking links, reading, trying to weave the threads together that Groves had left with that five-word message. He knew the ultimate goal was a grave, but the question was: Whose grave?
Perry’s?
Newport Island Cemetery in Rhode Island.
Parker shook his head. Not enough connections.
Lawrence’s?
Parker stiffened when he saw the result. Originally buried in Halifax, Novia Scotia, but re-interred in Trinity Church cemetery in New York City. Parker took a deep breath and looked up at the two portraits facing him. He knew Alexander Hamilton was also buried in Trinity Church cemetery. Entombed there after being mortally wounded during his famous duel with Aaron Burr in 1804.
He checked his watch. It was time. He couldn’t wait on his own successor any longer.
Parker got up, his old joints protesting, and walked to the Sully painting. He carefully lifted the image of Th
omas Jefferson off the wall, revealing the face of a safe. Parker placed his thumb on an indent and pressed his eye up to a rubber oval. The safe’s locking mechanism read the fingerprint and the retina. There was a soft click. Parker twisted the handle and opened the door.
Instead of money or treasure, there was only a yellow Post-it note inside. He removed the note, shut the safe, and replaced the picture.
Parker placed the note next to the keyboard for the computer. It had eight phone numbers, arranged in two columns of four. One in the first column was worthless and he crossed that one out. Parker pulled out his satphone and linked it to the computer via Bluetooth. He entered three in the first and the backup in the second. Then he sent the results of his search to all four via text message.
He was getting ready to shred the post-it when the door burst open and a beautiful woman wearing a black cloak strode into the room, a pistol in one hand, pointing right at him, a sword, of all things, in her other.
“Do not move, General,” she said.
“Who the hell are you?” Parker demanded, crumpling the post-it, hoping she hadn’t seen it.
“Where are your cipher disks?”
Parker was looking at the hand that held the sword. “You’re an Academy grad? Which one?”
She seemed taken aback. “Air Force Academy.”
Parker snorted. “What class? And what’s your name?”
“’98. They call me the Surgeon. You don’t need my name. But I know all about you, General. All your ratings, all your medals. Because of that, if you tell me where your disks are, I’ll let you live.”
“Do you remember the Academy honor code?” Parker asked. Class of ’98, he thought. Unbelievable. He glanced past the Surgeon’s shoulder toward the door, then back at her.
“I’m not a cadet any more.” But the Surgeon’s face flushed.
“You’re an Academy graduate,” Parker snapped. “That’s life-long.”
“I will let you live if you give me your disks,” the Surgeon said.
“A liar and stupid,” Parker said. “Don’t put me in the same cesspool as you.”
The Surgeon took a step closer, the hand with the sword rising. Parker glanced at the information on the computer screen and grimaced. He went to tap the delete key and a bullet hit him in the shoulder, knocking him away from the computer and spinning him halfway around in his chair. He groped for the desk, trying to turn back. He reached again for the keyboard when the woman brought the sword down point first, pinning his forearm to the arm of the wooden chair. His hand spasmed and the post-it fell from his useless fingers.
The woman jammed the muzzle of the gun under his jaw. “The last of the Philosophers. Tired old men who have failed. Utterly and completely. By my hand. A woman’s hand. I actually thought you would be more of a challenge. Where are your disks?”
Parker was surprised there wasn’t much pain from his right arm. He’d never been wounded in all the aerial encounters he’d fought, but he’d often wondered what it would feel like. Not too bad, he thought as he reached for the keyboard with his left hand.
She fired the gun, the bullet punching through the center of his hand. Parker sat back in the chair, staring at the sword in his right arm and the hole in his left hand. Blood was seeping out of both wounds.
“Your cipher disks?”
Parker shook his head. “Never. You are so wrong.”
She paused, her eyes searching his face. “Wrong about what? You just spoke a truth. What am I wrong about?”
“You’re being used,” Parker said.
“Of course,” she said. “I allow it because it gives me what I want.”
She twisted the blade that had gone through his forearm, the steel grating against bone and he bit back a scream. Not so bad had turned into excruciating. The woman holstered the pistol and reached inside her black cloak and pulled a long, thin cylinder out. Parker blinked through his shock, trying to see what it was. With a quick jerk, she pulled the sword out of his forearm. He gaped in pain and relief, a bizarre mixture of feelings. There was a clicking noise and then a hiss. Parker’s eyes widened as he saw the bright blue flame from the small blowtorch in her hand.
He screamed as she ran the flame over his left hand, cauterizing the wound and stopping the bleeding. She slammed the sword back down into his other forearm, pinning him to the chair once more.
“Your disks, old man,” she said as she pulled the blowtorch away. “We can go for a long time now. The blade, then the flame.”
The stink of burned flesh filled the room. Pain without relief overwhelmed Parker’s mind; blinding, searing agony, unlike anything he’d ever felt. He blinked the sweat out of his eyes and saw that the Surgeon was looking at the computer screen. “Alexander Hamilton’s grave?” she said. “What does that have to do with anything?”
She reached down and moved the cursor to the ‘history’ button. Clicking on it, she could see his most recent pattern of searches. “So you’re aware of Groves’ flag? I knew that was important.”
Parker could only groan in pain and frustration. The Surgeon bent closer to the screen to read. “It’s all about graves, isn’t it? You Philosophers have hidden your disks in graves. First Poe’s, now Hamilton’s. Who else? Whose grave did you put your disks in, General?”
“No one’s and everyone’s.”
The Surgeon paused, staring at him. “You just said a truth. But it makes no sense. You put your disks in ‘no one’s and everyone’s’ grave?”
“You’re a fool,” Parker managed.
The Surgeon shook her head and turned back to the computer.
Parker took a deep breath, knowing he had the barest window of opportunity as she wasn’t watching her six. He reached with his crippled left hand and jerked the sword out of his right forearm, then jumped to his feet and dashed toward the window he’d just been gazing out of. He dove for it, the hands of the Surgeon just missing him as he smashed through the old, leaded glass.
He felt a moment of freedom. He was flying.
***********
Lily bit back a curse at losing her prey. She was unfulfilled. She strode over to the paintings and slashed the one of Jefferson to shreds, venting her frustration, feeling a pounding on the side of her head. She drew a deep breath, slowly getting her anger under control, then sheathed the wakizashi and removed Hamilton’s painting.
She retraced her steps and exited the office. And bumped right into a woman rushing in the door.
Lily stared in disbelief. “Elizabeth!”
The other woman was even more surprised. “Lily?” Elizabeth’s eyes shifted from Lily’s face, to the painting and then past her, into the office and the shattered window.
Lily dropped the painting and whipped the sword out. Elizabeth’s right hand was scrambling underneath her leather flight jacket as Lily slashed the blade across her throat.
Blood spurted out in an achingly beautiful crimson arc, splattering Lily.
Elizabeth didn’t give up, pulling a pistol from underneath the coat, even as she bled out. Lily automatically whipped the blade down, flat-edged, slapping down the gun.
Elizabeth dropped to her knees, eyes blinking, mouth moving, trying to say something that she didn’t have the air to make audible. Then collapsed forward.
Lily stood still—blood, Elizabeth’s blood—dripping from her clothes, her earlier frustration gone. She took in the moment, relishing it, but the sound of approaching sirens cut into her reverie. Lily knelt next to the dead woman, rolling her over. She quickly searched for disks or a further clue where they were. She found a single disk with the number 14 on the side. She slid it into a pocket. Lily reached for the left hand and held it up. An Air Force Academy ring graced one finger. It was her year: 1998.
She remembered seeing Elizabeth outside the chapel one fine Colorado morning. Lily pressed a hand against the side of her head, increasing the pain from the bruises, trying to regain control.
Lily pulled the ring off and started to put
it in the pocket of her liquid armor cloak, then paused. Shaking her head, she placed the ring over Elizabeth’s heart.
Then Lily picked up the painting and ran down the stairs.
She safely made it to her van as the first police cars were pulling up to Independence Square.
************
Driving up the Palisades Parkway on the west side of the Hudson River toward West Point automatically generated a strong sense of dread in Ducharme, starting deep in his stomach and reaching up to wrap tendrils around his heart. He was conditioned to it, like Pavlov’s dog. West Pointers developed it from that first trip reporting for R-Day (Reception Day) through all the times they returned to their ‘Rockbound Highland Home’ as the school’s alma mater ominously described the Academy.
It was January, the ‘Gloom Period’ when everything at West Point would be gray: the weather, the uniforms, the buildings and the attitude.
Six bells and all is well
Another weekend shot to hell
Another week in my little gray cell
Another week in which to excel.
Oh hell.
“What’s wrong?” Evie asked.
“Nothing.” He erased the grimace that had stolen onto his face remembering the ditty all cadets memorized and chanted on Sunday evenings.
“Going back to Hudson High,” Kincannon chimed in with. “Never fun. Unless you’re General Macarthur coming back to make a speech. It’s an interesting place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.”
“It’s—“ Ducharme began, but his sat phone buzzed. He pulled it out, keeping one hand on the wheel. He didn’t recognize the incoming number for the text message or the area code: 215. The caller ID was three letters: APS. A low tone sounded to his right and he glanced at Evie. She retrieved her iPhone.
“I’ve got a text message,” Evie said.
“What number?” Ducharme asked.
“215-555-2376.”
“I think I just got the same message,” Ducharme said. “Do you recognize it? Someone you know?”
