The Jefferson Allegiance

by Bob Mayer

  ***********

  The man had passed through without stopping, putting Lily even more on edge. Maybe she was wrong about the grave. Too many mistakes.

  “A history buff, perchance, good lady?”

  She spun about, almost unsheathing the sword. A man dressed in Colonial America regalia, from his large buckle shoes to tricorner hat, was standing on the path, a cane under his arm. He had a big, bushy beard and small, old-fashioned glasses perched on his bulbous red nose. Ben Franklin come to life. If he started miming, she was going to cut him down where he stood. Perhaps with a few painful slices before a fatal one.

  He stepped forward. “Ah. Alexander Hamilton. Quite the controversial figure. And the duel, good lady, the duel that caused his poor soul to end up here, it happened not far that way.”

  He pointed vaguely to the southwest. If this guy ever had to navigate his way in enemy territory he’d be dead before nightfall.

  He continued annoying her. “Many sources say Hamilton deliberately missed. That he thought he had a gentleman’s agreement with Burr that both would miss, honor would be assuaged, and they could go on with their lives. But Burr was no gentleman. Any who knew the cur would have been sure of that. After all, Burr lost the 1800 Presidential Election to Jefferson by one vote, and, having to choose between what Hamilton viewed at two evils: Jefferson and Burr—Hamilton threw his support behind Jefferson and had one of his Federalist congressman swing the election to Jefferson.”

  She tensed when the re-enactor stepped closer and reached under his frock. She was ready to strike as he drew an antique pistol out. “The pistols used in the Burr-Hamilton duel—looking very much like this one-- had been used previously, in a duel whence Hamilton’s own son, Philip, was slain.”

  “Don’t you have a job?” She looked past him and saw another man enter the cemetery and knew right away that if she was wrong about the location, so was the latest generation of Philosophers. The newcomer had that attitude that only came from being one of the elite-- Special Operations. They could dress in civilian clothes, grow beards, slouch, but they couldn’t lose that aura. He wore a long black leather coat—too much watching of The Matrix—and a baseball cap pulled down low over his eyes. He moved as if he owned the cemetery and feared nothing.

  She tightened her grip on the sword.

  “This is my job.” The re-enactor sounded insulted. “Well, I do have a role off-Broadway in a production of—“

  “Shut up,” Lily hissed. She accepted that some people truly were idiots as the man continued.

  “They say Hamilton was carried to his home in upper Manhattan where he lingered for a night after being rowed back from New Jersey and then perished. But that is not true. He was taken to a friend’s home near the landing site. You can even walk down Jane Street in Greenwich Village and see a small plaque on the front of a brownstone proclaiming it to be the location of the house where Mister Hamilton expired.

  “Burr, of course—“

  “Leave!” Lily put all the command she had learned at the Academy and in the Air Force into her voice and finally got through to the idiot. The re-enactor grumpily slouched away, in search of better listening and perhaps someone who would buy him a drink.

  The newcomer looked down at a piece of paper in his hand, and then about. The re-enactor went up to him, they had a brief discussion and then the re-enactor continued in search of other victims. The man’s eyes locked on Hamilton’s grave. He glanced at her, checking her out as men always did, but didn’t see a threat. A subjective dismissal she was too familiar with.

  She pulled out her satphone and dialed the third number on the post-it. It rang several times. On the fourth ring she saw the man pull out his own satphone.

  “Hello?”

  Lily pressed the off and slid the phone back into her pocket. The man looked confused for a moment, then shrugged, putting the phone away. He walked over to Hamilton’s grave, staring at the monument, less than ten feet from her. The monument was a stone obelisk placed on top of a pedestal that had four urns at each corner. On the front was written:

  The corporation of TRINITY CHURCH has erected this

  In Testimony of the Respect

  FOR

  The PATRIOT of incorruptible INTEGRITY

  The SOLDIER of approve VALOR

  The STATESMAN of consummate WISDOM

  Whose TALENTS and VIRTUES will be admired

  Long after this MARBLE shall have mouldered into

  DUST

  He died July 12th 1804 Aged 47

  The man laughed. “He sure thought a lot of himself.”

  Lily raised an eyebrow. “That’s his eulogy, written by someone after he was dead.”

  The man shook his head. “It’s bullshit. Take his incorruptible integrity for example. Hamilton had so many affairs people started naming their Tomcats after him. Martha Washington was one of the first to do it.”

  The man was young, fit. Tanned skin despite the winter.

  “I’m Lily. And you are?”

  He looked at her squarely, a bit taken aback at her directness. She’d never understand the social ‘dance’ between the sexes, but she found it most useful at times in getting what she truly desired. “Vince.”

  She had learned early on at the Academy that a man could easily be distracted by a woman. “You’re military aren’t you, Vince?”

  He smiled once more, full of confidence. “Yes. Navy SEALS.”

  “I thought so.” She nodded at the monument. “You don’t seem to like him.”

  “Hamilton?” Vince shook his head. “Got to give him credit for what he achieved, but he sure had a twisted brain.”

  “’Twisted’?”

  “He was big into money and being born to the right people, yet he came out of squalor. Kind of weird.”

  Lily found comfort in running her hand over the top of her sword grip underneath her heavy cloak. “How so?”

  “He was born in the Caribbean on a small island, poor and illegitimate,” Vince said. “Mother died when he was young; he had nothing. Got to give him credit that he worked his way up. Made his own way in the world.”

  “You know a lot about Hamilton?” Lily asked.

  “I did some research on my way here,” Vince said vaguely. “You a fan?”

  She got off the crypt and stood close to the Navy SEAL, her hand curling around the handle of the wakizashi, sliding it up a few inches in its sheath. “I think he was a brilliant man. A true patriot.”

  He shrugged. “Should have been faster on the draw with Burr, though.”

  “Hamilton was a gentleman and had pride,” Lily said. “He deliberately missed Burr and then the coward shot him.”

  Vince shrugged again. “Then he was stupid as well as arrogant.” He was dismissing her; she felt it. It was the way she’d been treated by men in the military. Somehow they could sense when she was near that she would not give them what they really wanted from her.

  She stepped closer, inside the area that people considered their space. He seemed startled and really looked at her now. She could tell he liked what he saw. These always did until it was too late.

  “Lily,” he said. “That’s a nice name.”

  “Do you read Keats?”

  “Who?”

  She gave an alluring smile. “La Belle Dame sans Merci. It’s a poem he wrote. My father gave me my name from it.”

  “What does it mean?” Vince asked, his eyes locked into hers. She was very close now. She put her free hand on his thigh, feeling the solid muscles. His breathing shifted, got shallower. His eyes locked into hers and she saw the arrogance in them. She moved her hand up, to his crotch, felt his hardness. She leaned her head close and whispered in his ear, her tongue almost touching his skin. “’The Beautiful Lady without Pity.”

  Realization began to seep into Vince’s eyes but she didn’t give him a chance to fully process it. She slammed the wakizashi into his thigh, just below where she was gripping him, severing his femoral artery.
His warm blood flowed down the blade, over her hand. He remained hard.

  She let go of him and wrapped her hand around his neck, bringing his shocked face close to hers. To anyone watching, it would look like a lover’s embrace.

  “You’ve failed,” she whispered in his ear. “And you’re in the wrong place.”

  He was trying to say something and she pressed her face against the side of his, feeling the warmth of his skin and his dying breaths caress her neck and ear. “You feel so good,” she whispered.

  She grabbed his coat and pulled it tight, letting his weight drop him to a sitting position, back against the crypt she’d been on. She quickly searched his pockets as the life faded from his eyes. He had one disk in his coat pocket. Number 8. She took it. She saw the ‘Budweiser’ insignia of the SEALs pinned to the inside lapel of the man’s coat. She took that also.

  She smiled. This was almost as good as getting all Groves’ disks. And much more satisfying, as she pulled the sword out of the Navy SEAL, wiping the blade off on the inside of his coat. She looked over, saw the re-enactor standing alone and forlorn inside the iron gate to the cemetery. She considered going over and ending the poor man’s misery and decided against it. Let the fool suffer. He wasn’t a worthy kill.

  Two down of the new generation. Only Ducharme and Tolliver left.

  She quickly walked out of the cemetery and onto Wall Street.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ducharme had run this trail during intramural cross-country as a cadet. A rocky, precipitous route, through thick woods. He emerged into a parking lot paved with gravel and full of sports cars. This was one of the lots where Firsties—senior cadets—parked their vehicles during the week. There was a high percentage of Corvettes. Ducharme paused, catching his breath and surveying the lot. Evie would say there’s a lot of compensating going on here.

  Ducharme turned to the east. The upper levels of Michie Stadium were ahead. He curved to the left, toward Fort Putnam, a redoubt built to protect the rear of the post during the Revolution. He went around the base of the rock wall of the fort and then down-slope. Through gaps in the trees he saw the Cadet Chapel. He checked his watch, putting it in compass mode, shooting an azimuth to the front of the Chapel. He made his way down, moving slightly right. Checked azimuth again. He was on line. He looked up, checking the trees.

  There was an old, towering oak tree directly between his location and the front of the Chapel. Ducharme scrambled down to it. He dug at the base of it facing the chapel. Six inches down he hit something hard. He pulled up a packet. Opening it, he saw he had six more disks. He closed his eyes, remembering his Uncle, picturing him digging here, burying these disks. He gripped them tightly. They had better be worth it.

  Ducharme stuffed them in his pocket and began running down hill toward the impound lot.

  *************

  Lily sat in the truck in the heliport parking lot, slicing her arm once more, trying to come down off the high from the killing. A Navy SEAL—a worthy opponent. And she had taken him down as easily as she had the old men—easier, in fact, than his mentor the Admiral.

  She was running out of space on her forearm. She decided to continue on her thigh—no one was going to see it. After what had happened at the Academy, no one would ever see the inside of her thigh again. She was a weapon, pure and simple. She drew sustenance from blood, not sex.

  She opened her laptop and looked at the information that General Parker had researched. The flow of his Google searches. The results. She focused like she used to when taking final exams at the Academy in subjects she didn’t enjoy. Total. Complete immersion.

  Two results.

  She had no idea where Parker’s disks were. No clues, except for the enigmatic comment that the grave was no one’s and everyone’s. Apparently Parker had been concerned that Groves’ replacement wouldn’t understand the logic flow of the Admiral’s clue. She thought about it. He’d known somehow that the replacement wouldn’t have the clue—which she had taken from Groves’ home.

  Still.

  She knew the answer was there.

  Right in front of her.

  She went back through the information.

  *************

  Burns looked at the broken window, walked over, and glanced down at the small red flag marking where the body had hit the ground. No chalk outline of the position—in all his years in the FBI he’d never seen such a thing. TV bullshit. Chalk or even a tape outline would contaminate a crime scene. That’s what the crime scene photos in his hand were for.

  “The American Philosophical Society,” he said to Turnbull. “Sounds rather innocent.”

  Turnbull shrugged. “Sometimes things aren’t what they seem.”

  “So true.” Burns went over to the computer. The hard drive had been ripped out of it. Then he looked at the wall. The painting of Jefferson was sliced to bits. And there was a clean spot to the right where something else had been hanging. And a wall safe in the middle of the clean spot.

  “A portrait of Hamilton hung there,” Turnbull said.

  “Hamilton and Jefferson,” Burns mused. “Curious. Perhaps we’re dealing with an art lover and hater.”

  “Your humor escapes me,” Turnbull said.

  “The safe?” Burns asked.

  “Nothing in it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “My men checked,” Turnbull said vaguely.

  “Are we going to the Annapolis crime scene?” Burns asked. They’d raced down from New York on the functioning Blackhawk, Turnbull wanting his opinion on the crime scene, which Burns didn’t believe for a minute.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “We don’t need to.”

  “But we needed to come here,” Burns said. He looked at the crime scene photos from the responding FBI units, then back at the room. “We have a problem.”

  “And that is?”

  “The hard drive was taken after the first units got here. Its removal wasn’t part of the crime. The original crime, that is. Tampering with evidence is a separate crime.”

  “It’s not a problem,” Turnbull said. “My people took it. Tried to read what was on it, but it had been wiped clean.”

  “What did you find?” Burns asked. “Where’s his phone?”

  “Very good,” Turnbull said. He crooked a finger and a man came over with an evidence bag, which Turnbull reached into. “We’ve got it,” he said pulling out the phone and ignoring the look at surprise from the agent at the mishandling of evidence. “Parker called four numbers and texted them all the same message just before he died.” He held out the phone to Burns.

  Burns took the phone and checked the numbers. Then he scrolled through the message. He went back up and looked at the numbers once more. Then he pulled out his small notebook and checked. “He texted Ducharme and Evie.”

  “Yes.”

  “Who else?”

  “A Navy SEAL named Vince Simone. Body was just discovered in Trinity Church Cemetery in New York City. Stabbed in femoral and bled out. Right in front of Alexander Hamilton’s grave.”

  “And who’s the fourth?”

  Turnbull nodded toward the door where a pool of blood indicated where the other body had been found.

  Burns checked his small notebook. “Major Elizabeth Peters. What was her connection to Parker?”

  Turnbull shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Burns decided it was just as well to ignore Turnbull when he lied.

  “So we’re up to seven for our killer.”

  Burns looked at the message again. “The killer saw this. Went to New York City for some reason.”

  “I think the killer made a mistake again,” Turnbull said.

  Burns was confused. “By killing the Navy SEAL or Major Peters?”

  Turnbull shook his head. “No. I think, like at Poe’s grave, she went to the wrong place. As did the SEAL.”

  “So they read the clues wrong.” Burns straightened as the imp
lications hit home. “You want me to read the clues right.” It was not a question.

  “I want you to do your job,” Turnbull said blandly. “If the killer read them wrong and came up empty-handed, then she’ll backtrack. If you can read them right, we can beat her to her next location.”

  “We could have done all this in Baltimore,” Burns said.

  “That irritating habit of telling me something I already know.” Turnbull shook his scarred and battered head. “Very bothersome and worthless.”

  “What makes you think the killer will backtrack? How can you be certain the killer didn’t find what she was looking for in New York?”

  “Stop asking me questions,” Turnbull said. “I’m the supervisor. I do the asking. So where should the killer go next?”

  Burns stiffened and turned and looked at the older FBI agent. “Strange way you phrased that question.”

  “It’s a still a question and I’m still your superior,” Turnbull said.

  Burns looked at the slashed picture. “Well, she went to Hamilton’s grave and was wrong. Maybe Jefferson’s?”

  “Then let’s catch her there.” Turnbull turned toward the door.

  Burns looked at one of the crime scene photos. “Why was Peters’ ring left on her chest? The killer had to have put it there. She’s taken trophies before, not arranged them.”

  “No clue,” Turnbull said over his shoulder.

  Burns watched him leave, looked around at the other paintings on the walls. He glanced at the desk on the way out and paused. The mouse pad for the computer had an insignia on it. He leaned over: A helmet with two crossed rifles overlaid on it. Across the top was written USAF Honor Guard. And across the bottom: In Honore Et Dignitate.

  Burns wondered about the honor and dignity of taking a header out a window. He made some notes in his pad, shook his head, then followed Turnbull, stepping around the still congealing puddle of blood that had once graced Major Peters’ veins.

  ************

  Evie found a small electronics store in Highland Falls, just outside the main gate of West Point. The owner scratched his head for a moment when she asked about an 8mm projector, then disappeared into the recesses of the store. She heard some banging, then he reappeared with a dusty metal case. He opened it, revealing a projector.