by Bob Mayer
The building was easy to spot. Large, H-shaped. Ducharme squinted as he silently passed through one thousand feet. He couldn’t see his landing point. He was losing air. He turned, searching, time running out.
Then he spotted the small rectangle on the roof. He dumped air, heading straight for it. At the last moment, he pulled in both toggles, abruptly slowing his descent, pulling his feet and knees tight together, rotating his elbows in front of his face to protect it.
He smashed through the skylight, feeling a piece of glass cutting into the side of his right leg, then slammed into a hard floor. He jumped to his feet, hitting the quick releases on the parachute harness, then bringing the MP-5 up at the ready.
Just in time as a pair of guards came running into the room.
Ducharme fired rounds as fast as he could pull the trigger, just as he’d been trained and done in combat. Right into the men’s foreheads.
***********
The Surgeon charged again and Evie retreated. Not fast enough as the Surgeon spun, and side-kicked, hitting Evie hard in the stomach.
Just what Evie wanted.
She tumbled to the ground as if badly hurt, rolling as the Surgeon brought her boot down to stomp. Evie dodged the boot and thrust upward with all the strength in her legs, hands leading right for the Surgeon’s throat.
The Surgeon came to an abrupt halt. The handle of Burns’s switchblade stuck out, exactly in the small space where the collar of the Liquid Armor Cloak allowed an inch of clearance at her throat.
The Surgeon blinked in shock. Her good hand reached up to her throat, fingers curling around the handle. She pulled it out, staring at the red on the blade in momentary confusion as arterial blood pumped out of her neck. Evie backed up.
The Surgeon dropped to her knees. The look had changed. There was something dark and salacious in them as she watched her own blood spurt out.
“Everyone stay calm!” Kincannon yelled, moving forward. “No shooting.”
The Surgeon’s mouth was moving, trying to say something, but no words came. She collapsed forward and was still.
************
An alarm bell was ringing as Ducharme ran down a hallway lined with portraits. Nearing the heavy looking door at the far end, he fired at the lock. The rounds ricocheted off, the lock not so easily defeated.
Reaching into his vest, Ducharme pulled out a small shaped charge and slapped it on the door over the lock, arming it. He ran back ten feet, then pressed the remote detonator. There was a sharp crack and the door blew inward.
Ducharme staggered forward as a bullet hit him right in the middle of his back, slapping his body armor. He rolled and twisted, firing a sustained burst and taking down the cluster of guards crowding into the narrow hallway. Then he was on his feet running toward the open door, dropping the magazine from the sub and slamming a new one in just as he entered the room beyond.
An old man sat behind a large desk, calmly staring at Ducharme, holding a chess piece in one hand. “Colonel Ducharme?”
“Lucius.” Ducharme strode forward, MP-5 tight to his shoulder, muzzle centered on the old man’s forehead.
*************
“No firing,” commanded a new voice that easily carried through the sudden, tense silence. Turnbull walked to the front of the mercenaries and halted, not deigning to look down at the body of the Surgeon at his feet.
“Agent Turnbull,” Burns said as he reached down and retrieved his knife, wiping the blood off on the Surgeon’s cloak. The sound of sirens approaching filled the air. The mercenaries disappeared into the darkness, running away among the cemetery markers.
Evie realized she was almost hyperventilating and brought her breathing under control. Turnbull nodded at Burns. “You’ve done your duty, Agent Burns. You have your murderer.” He looked over his shoulder, a sheen of nervousness on his scarred forehead despite the cold air. “You can’t touch me. Give me the Cipher.”
Evie held up the Cipher like a trophy. “Yes and no. You can be touched now, because your precious Lucius won’t be there to protect you any more. And you will never get the Cipher or the Allegiance. You’ve lost.”
“You’ll never get to Lucius,” Turnbull declared even as Burns snapped the cuffs on him.
*************
“Now, now, Colonel,” Lucius said. “Can we talk about this?”
“Sure,” Ducharme said. “Who did you have kill Charlie LaGrange?”
“That death was avenged,” Lucius said. “As a matter of fact, your friend the Surgeon took those contractors out.”
“But you ordered it.”
“Not exactly. I gave my subordinate a mission statement. The actual mission execution turned out to be extreme. The truce can be restored. There is no need for such extreme measures now.”
“Actually, there is.” Ducharme fired, a small black hole appearing in the center of Lucius’s forehead, blood and brain splattering onto the books behind as his body flew backward.
The gun hidden in Lucius’s other hand dropped to the floor with a clatter as Lucius’s lifeless head slammed forward onto the desktop, scattering chess pieces.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“The Jefferson Memorial is to the right,” Kincannon noted, as he drove them over the bridge into DC.
“Take Constitution Avenue,” Evie said. “Toward the Zero Milestone.”
Kincannon drove her around the Lincoln Memorial. Looking to the side, she saw the gash in the earth of the Vietnam Memorial. As they crossed 17th Street, Evie glanced left, past Kincannon’s grim profile. A solitary figure was standing there, dressed in black.
Kincannon slowed and Ducharme slid into the back seat.
No one had to ask.
Evie reached a hand between the seats and Ducharme took it. Squeezed tight. Relaxed the pressure, but didn’t let go. He noted there was blood on her hand.
They drove in silence until Evie broke it: “Stop here,” she ordered when they were due south of the White House—and the Zero Milestone.
Kincannon pulled over to the curb. When Evie got out, Ducharme and Kincannon followed.
“This way,” Evie said, pointing to the south, away from the Zero Milestone and in the direction of the brightly lit Washington Monument. The mall was empty this early. There were more sirens in the distance, in the direction of the Anderson House blocks away.
Evie walked in a straight line, boots eating up ground. Ducharme was at her side and Kincannon a dark shadow, off at a tactical angle.
“What’s the Jefferson Stone?” Ducharme asked.
“When Washington DC was first laid out by Pierre Charles L’Enfant, there was much discussion about establishing a prime meridian for the new country. Jefferson pushed for it. He thought the United States should be scientifically and geographically ‘free’ from Europe as well as politically. He wanted the new prime meridian to run through the center of the President’s house. So a stone was placed out here—“ she pointed ahead—“to be that meridian. It was actually used for a long time before the United States joined the international community in accepting the Greenwich Meridian.”
“I’ve never heard of this Jefferson Stone,” Ducharme said.
“Most people haven’t,” Evie said. “Actually, the marker disappeared for a little while around 1872 when the Corps of Engineers was cleaning up the area around the un-finished Washington Monument.”
“The Jefferson Stone?” Ducharme pressed.
“We’re getting there,” Evie said as they passed by the Monument.
They approached a short, worn stone set in the ground.
The stone was a square block, about waist high. There was writing etched in the stone—midway down there was a gouge across it.
POSITION OF JEFFERSON
PIER ERECTED DEC 18. 1804
RECOVERED AND RE-ERECTED
DEC 2. 1889
Then there was the gouge, followed by:
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
“What happened to it?” Ducharme aske
d,
“It was used as a pier and barges were lashed to it when the water in the canal ran close to here.”
Kincannon came up to them, watching the perimeter. “What now?”
Evie knelt down and beginning digging in the almost frozen ground with her bare fingers.
“Hold on,” Ducharme said, pulling his knife out. “Let me.” He dug until the blade hit something solid. Then he probed with his fingers. There was a flat stone blocking his way. He removed it. With a final tug, Ducharme pulled a black wooden cylinder out of the hole below the stone. It was a foot long and four inches in diameter.
“The Jefferson Allegiance,” Evie said. “Shall we?”
“Should we?” Ducharme responded.
Evie paused, her hand on the cap. “What do you mean?”
“Do we even want to know?” Ducharme tapped the side of his head. “We read that, then the knowledge is in our heads. Makes us targets.”
“Uh,” Kincannon said, “I think we passed that one already.”
Evie put a hand on his chest—rather his body armor. “We have to know. We’re the new Philosophers. We have to know what power we hold.”
Ducharme said nothing further as she unscrewed the lid and pulled out a piece of parchment. Delicately she unrolled it. She turned so that the reflected light from the Washington Monument illuminated the words.
“It’s the Second Amendment,” Ducharme said as he began to read.
“It’s a revised Second Amendment,” Evie corrected. “Read the last sentences.”
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. The Army and Navy of the United States, and the militia of the several states, at the direction of the American Philosophical Society, shall remove from power any Federal official who, having openly violated his oath of office or the decreed balance of power, has not been impeached or otherwise checked by the will of the people. At last resort, every Federal official will be removed from office; a Constitutional Committee will be formed by democratic vote in each state, and a new government will be established under a new Constitution. The responsibility for such removal shall be the sworn duty of the General Officer Corps of the Army and Navy of the United States.
“It’s signed by a sufficient number of members of Congress at the time it was ratified,” Evie pointed out. “And President Jefferson. Thus, it is law and part of the Constitution.”
She rolled it and put it back in the wooden tube.
“What now?” Ducharme said.
“What do you suggest?” Evie asked.
“What do you suggest?” Ducharme said.
Evie looked around. The Washington Monument loomed over them. The White House was to the north. Capitol Hill loomed to the east. They were literally in the political epicenter of the United States. “We have to reconstitute the Philosophers.”
Ducharme nodded. “We need two more military. Navy and Air Force. I can do that. I know good people—high-ranking officers who were friends of General LaGrange. Men who can be trusted.”
“In the meanwhile,” Evie said, kneeling, “we put the Allegiance back.” She slid it into the hole, replaced the stone and pushed the dirt back on top. Ducharme swept a covering of light snow over it.
Evie stood. “We need to hide the Cipher until we reform the APS and break the disks back out again among the members for each to hide their set.”
Ducharme nodded. “I know what to do with the Cipher for now.” He looked over at the tall figure of Kincannon, standing guard. “Sergeant Major, we’re heading back to Arlington.”
***********
Emergency lights were flashing around the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and Ducharme figured Burns had his hands full trying to explain things. Too many people with too much power needed this entire thing hushed up, so Ducharme wasn’t overly concerned about publicity.
“We can’t put part of the Cipher in the Tomb,” Evie said.
“We’re not going there.”
Kincannon and Evie followed Ducharme through the cemetery, away from the flashing lights, into the calm of fields of dead. Dawn was lighting up the eastern sky and the tombstones cast long shadows in the early morning chill.
Ducharme halted. “Here.”
Evie looked at the newly emplaced headstone:
CAPTAIN CHARLES LAGRANGE
BORN NEW ORLEANS 6 MAY 1972
DIED 3 JANUARY 2011
DUTY-HONOR-COUNTRY
SILVER STAR
Ducharme knelt at the foot of the grave where new turf had been laid. A raw grave was to the right: the General. Ducharme pushed his knife into the loose soil and probed for a few moments. He struck something and pulled out the leather pouch he’d buried. He opened it and the two rings tumbled into his palm. He slid one on his finger. Then he took a third from a pocket—General LaGrange’s, which Evie had retrieved from the Surgeon’s body. He put it in the pouch next to the General’s son’s ring.
Ducharme buried the rings back in the hole, pressing them down deep.
Then he held out his hands to Evie. “Let me have the Cipher.”
Evie removed the rods and disks. Ducharme unscrewed the end and removed 19 of the disks. He handed the rod and 7 remaining disks back to her. “You hide your seven wherever you want. Make sure it’s a place where whoever you appoint as your successor can unravel the clues to finding by knowing you. I’ll hide the rest until we name the next two Philosophers. Then I’ll give each one their six.”
Ducharme turned back to the General’s grave. He slid his commando knife into the dirt and covered it.
“Won’t you be needing that?” Evie asked.
“I hope I won’t need my knife. Not quite Kosciuszko’s sword, but you get the idea. We need to move beyond the sword. I think the words of the Jefferson Allegiance are more powerful than any knife or sword.”
Evie nodded. “They’ve proven to be so far. It’s our duty to make sure they continue to do so.”
THE END
The second book in the Presidential series: The Kennedy Endeavor will be published in summer 2012.
Read an excerpt from
Duty, Honor, Country A Novel of West Point and The Civil War
by Bob Mayer
Who commanded the major battles of the Civil War? ------ There were 60 important battles of the War. In 55 of them, graduates commanded on both sides; in the remaining 5, a graduate commanded one of the opposing sides.
Required Plebe knowledge at West Point.
Military Academy
West Point, NY
Sept 22d 1839
To R. McKinstry Griffith from Ulysses Grant
Dear Coz,
I was just thinking that you would be right glad to hear from one of your relations who is so far away as I am, so I have put aside my Algebra and French and am going to tell you a long story about this prettiest of places, West Point. So far as it regards natural attractions it is decidedly the most beautiful place I have ever seen; here are hills and dales, rocks and rivers; all pleasant to look upon. From the window near I can see the Hudson; that far famed, that beautiful river with its bosom studded with hundreds of snow sails. Again if I look another way I can see Fort Putnam frowning far above; a stern monument of a sterner age, which seems placed there on purpose to tell us of the glorious deeds of our fathers and to bid us remember their sufferings—to follow their examples. In short this is the best of all places—the place of all places for an institution like this.
I have not told you half its attractions. Here is the house Washington used to live in—there Kosciuszko used to walk and think of his country and ours. Over the river we are shown the dueling house of Arnold, that base and heartless traitor to his country and his God. I do love the place. It seems as though I could live here forever if my friends would only come too. You might search the wide world over and not find a better. Now all this sounds nice, very nice, “what a happy fellow you are” you will say, b
ut I am not one to show false colors the brightest side of the picture. So I will tell you about a few of the drawbacks.
First, I slept for two months upon one single pair of blankets; now that sounds romantic and you may think it very easy. But I will tell you what coz, it is tremendous hard. Suppose you try it by way of experiment for a night or two. I am pretty sure that you would be perfectly satisfied that is no easy matter. But glad am I these things are over. We are now in our quarters. I have a splendid bed and get along very well. Our pay is nominally about twenty-eight dollars a month. But we never see one cent of it. If we want anything from a shoestring to a coat we must go to the commandant of the post and get an order for it or we cannot have it. We have tremendous long and hard lessons to get in both French and Algebra. I study hard and hope to get along so as to pass the examination in January. This examination is a hard one they say, but I am not frightened yet. If I am successful here you will not see me for two long years. It seems a long while to me. But time passes off very fast. It seems but a few since I came here. It is because every hour has its duty which must be performed. On the whole I like the place very much. So much that I would not go away on any account. The fact is if a man graduates here he is safe for life. Let him go where he will. There is much to dislike but more to like. I mean to study and stay if it be possible. If I cannot—very well—the world is wide. I have now been here about four months and have not seen a single familiar face or spoken to a single lady. I wish some of the pretty girls of Bethel were here just so I might look at them. But fudge! Confound the girls.
