The Jefferson Key cm-7

by Steve Berry

  “I’ll handle things.”

  MALONE WRESTLED WITH A DECISION. HE’D SPOTTED AGENTS heading for the Grand Hyatt’s main entrance. The Secret Service was thorough, which meant there were most likely agents already in the hotel, stationed where they could have observed the street below. They’d surely been contacted and ordered to head for both rooms. Should he leave? Or just wait for them?

  Then he recalled the envelope in his pocket.

  He tore it open to see a typewritten note. I needed you to see these. Disable them before the president arrives. This could not be accomplished any sooner. I’ll explain why later. You can’t trust anyone, especially Secret Service. This conspiracy reaches far. Leave the hotel and I’ll contact you before midnight by phone. Stephanie

  Decision made.

  Time to go.

  Apparently Stephanie was into something huge. He should at least follow her instructions.

  For now.

  He realized cellphones carried cameras and the sidewalks below had been crowded. His image would soon be splattered on every media outlet. He’d only been exposed for a couple of minutes, so he hoped that whatever pictures had been captured were not of the best quality.

  He opened the door, not worrying about leaving evidence. His fingerprints were all over the device dangling out the window.

  He calmly walked down the deserted hall toward the elevators. A lingering scent of nicotine reminded him that this was the smoking floor. No one appeared from any of the rooms that opened on either side.

  He turned a corner.

  Ten elevators serviced the hotel. Nothing indicated where those cars were currently located. He decided none of them was the smart play. His gaze searched left, then right, and he spotted the stairway exit.

  He opened the metal door, listened, heard nothing, then slipped out.

  He climbed two stories and hesitated at the 17th floor. All quiet. He stepped out into another elevator foyer nearly identical to the one two floors below. A similar side table with a flower arrangement and mirror adorned the wall.

  He stared at himself.

  What in the world was happening?

  Somebody had just tried to kill the president of the United States and, at the moment, he was a prime person of interest.

  He removed his jacket and exposed a pale blue buttondown shirt underneath. They’d be searching for a man with light hair and a dark jacket. He spotted a trash bin, topped by more artificial flowers, between two of the elevator doors, and stuffed the jacket inside.

  From his left, down the hall, a family approached. Mom, Dad, three kids. They seemed excited and were talking about Times Square and one of its neon signs. Dad pressed the UP button, summoning the elevator. Malone stood patiently with them and waited for the car to arrive. These people had somehow missed the whole thing. You’d think it would have been hard to ignore a rocket propelling out into the sky, leaving a trail of smoke in its wake. Tourists, though, had always baffled him. Hojbro Plads, back in Copenhagen where his bookstore sat, was filled with them daily.

  The elevator arrived and he allowed the family on first. Dad inserted a room card into a slot that granted access to the thirty-first floor. Apparently, that was reserved for special guests, probably the concierge level. Malone decided it might be a good place to think.

  “Oh, you got it for me,” he said.

  They rode in silence up another fourteen floors, then they all stepped off. Just as he suspected, the hotel’s concierge lounge was there, available only to guests who’d paid for the privilege. He allowed Dad to go first and the guy inserted his key card into another slot and opened the glass-paneled door.

  Malone followed the family inside.

  The L-shaped lounge was crowded with people enjoying a cold buffet of meats, cheese, and fruit. He surveyed the room and immediately spotted two suits with ear fobs and lapel mikes glued to the windows that faced East 42nd Street.

  Secret Service.

  He grabbed an apple from a wooden bowl on a table, along with a copy of the day’s New York Times. He retreated to the far side of the room, munched on his apple, and sat, one eye on the newspaper, the other on the agents.

  And hoped he hadn’t just made a third mistake.

  FIVE

  PAMLICO SOUND, NORTH CAROLINA

  HALE SAT IN ADVENTURE’S MAIN SALON AND NOTICED THEY’D veered west, leaving open ocean behind and entering the sound. What had been blue-gray water now turned coffee-colored, thanks to a steady flow of sediment brought east by the meandering Pamlico River. Log-hewn canoes, pole-propelled periaugers, and shoal-draft steamboats all once plied these waters. But so had sloops, corsairs, and frigates, manned by opportunists who’d called the densely wooded shores of the isolated Carolina colony home. The Pamlico comprised some of the most complex waterways on the planet. A vast array of oyster-rock islets, tidal marshes, hammocks, and sloughs. Its farthest coasts were stunted by dangerous capes whose names-Lookout and Fear-warned of tragedy, the open sea beyond so treacherous it had earned the title Graveyard of the Atlantic.

  He’d been born and raised nearby, as had Hales back to the early part of the 18th century. He learned to sail as a boy and was taught how to avoid the ever-changing shoals and negotiate the dangerous currents. Ocracoke Inlet, which they’d just traversed, was where in November 1718 Black Beard himself had finally been cut down. Locals still spoke of both him and his lost treasure with reverence.

  He stared down at the table where the two documents lay.

  He’d brought them with him, knowing that once the matter of his accountant had been resolved, he would need to turn his attention back to a mistake made by Abner Hale, his great-great-grandfather, who’d tried, on January 30, 1835, to assassinate President Andrew Jackson.

  The first time in history that a sitting president’s life had been directly threatened.

  And Jackson’s response to that attempt-a handwritten letter to Abner, now sheathed in plastic-had tortured Hales ever since. So you have at last yielded to traitorous impulses. Your patience is no longer restrained. I am content with that. This shall be war, as great as when the martial hosts of this nation are summoned to tented fields. You have clamored for a fight and I shall not skulk in a corner now that the first shot has been fired. Because I would not yield to your advances, accede to your demands, or bow in your presence, my life is deemed unnecessary? You dare send an assassin? To retreat from such a gross offense would be shameful. My feelings are most alive and, I assure you, so am I. Your assassin spends his days muttering nonsense. You chose this servant well. He shall be adjudged insane and secreted away, not a single person ever believing a word he might utter. No evidence exists of your conspiracy, but we both are aware that you convinced the man named Richard Lawrence to aim those pistols. At this moment, when my feelings are thus so alive, I should do violence to them if I did not hasten your downfall. Yet I have been perplexed as to a response. And so, after seeking counsel and guidance from some who are wiser than I, a proper course has been chosen. My object in making this communication is to announce that what legal authority existed to shield your thievery is gone. I have stripped all reference to your letter of marque from the official congressional reports. When you approach another president and ask that your letter be respected, he will not be bound by the law as I have been. To increase your torment, and thus to prolong the agony of your helpless situation, I have not destroyed the authority. That would have been my course, I confess, but others have convinced me that such certainty might make your situation so helpless that it would inspire further acts of desperation. Since you adore secrets and plot your life along a path in the shadows, I offer you a challenge that should suit you. The sheet attached to this letter is a code, one formulated by the esteemed Thomas Jefferson. I am told he thought it to be the perfect cipher. Succeed in learning its message and you will know where I have hidden what you crave. Fail and you remain the pathetic traitors that you are today. I must admit, I like this course much better. I s
hall soon retire home to Tennessee and the final years of my life, awaiting the day when I will sleep beside my beloved Rachel. My sincerest hope is that the unmanly course ascribed to you shall be your ruin and that I shall live to enjoy that day.

  Andrew Jackson

  Hale stared at the second sheet, it also encased in plastic.

  His family had tried to solve Jefferson’s cipher for 175 years. Experts had been hired. Money had been spent.

  But the key had eluded them.

  He heard footsteps approaching from the ship’s forward and his personal secretary entered the salon.

  “Switch on the television.”

  He saw the look of concern in the man’s eyes.

  “It’s bad.”

  He found the remote and activated the screen.

  MALONE FINISHED HIS APPLE AND KEPT THE NEWSPAPER OPEN before him. He noticed no story about any presidential trip to New York. Odd. Presidents usually appeared with much fanfare. He should leave the hotel, and quickly. Every second he lingered was making the effort that much more difficult. He knew the Grand Hyatt lived up to its name, a massive, multistoried complex that thousands of people streamed into and out of twenty-four hours a day. Doubtful that the police or Secret Service could seal off every access, at least not this fast. Two televisions played in the room, and he saw how cellphone cameras had indeed captured images-but thankfully, most were blurred messes. No word as yet on Daniels’ condition. People chattered about the attack, remarking how it had occurred right below them. A few had heard the bangs and seen the rocket. The two suits with radios on the other side of the lounge kept their attention below, talking into their radios.

  He stood to leave.

  The agents abandoned the window and rushed straight for him. He braced himself to react, noting that the thick wooden table supporting the apples and newspapers could be used to break their advance.

  Of course, they carried guns and he didn’t, so a table would go only so far.

  The two agents brushed past him and bolted out the door, straight for the elevators, one of which they entered when an open car arrived.

  He heaved a silent sigh, then left, pressing the DOWN button, deciding to take the direct approach.

  Straight out the main doors.

  SIX

  WYATT WAITED IN THE GRAND HYATT’S BUSY LOBBY, FILLED with tourists here for a weekend in the Big Apple, now made that much more exciting by someone trying to kill the president of the United States. He’d listened to snippets of conversations from a nearby lounging area and learned that no one knew if Daniels had been hit, just that he sped from the scene. Some recalled the Reagan assassination attempt from 1981, when only after the president was headed into surgery had an official statement been made.

  At least a dozen New York City police and half that many Secret Service were now racing through the two-story lobby. Voices were raised and positions were assumed near escalators and exits. Hard to say where Malone would make his move, but the paths out of this hotel were limited to an entry down one floor, to his left, that led out onto East 42nd Street-as well as another set of adjacent glass doors that opened into a tunnel connecting with Grand Central Terminal-and a second set of glass doors one level up, which he could observe from his vantage point. If he knew his adversary as well as he thought he did, Malone would simply walk out the main doors. Why not? No one had seen his face, and the best place to hide was always in plain sight.

  He realized the authorities would love to clear the hotel, but that could prove impossible. There were simply too many people on the twenty-plus floors. With the usual six months of prep time for a presidential visit, the Secret Service would have been able to handle this. As it was, they’d barely had eight weeks, their main tactic secrecy since no travel announcement had been made until this morning, when the White House simply said that Daniels would be in New York on a personal visit. The precedent for that came from a past president who’d made an unannounced trip with his wife to see a Broadway production. That jaunt had gone off without a hitch, but Danny Daniels was probably kicking himself right now, provided his organs weren’t failing or he wasn’t losing large quantities of blood.

  Wyatt loved it when people screwed up.

  It made things so much easier.

  More than likely Malone had fled upward, at least initially. He’d yet to exit any of the elevators Wyatt could see. He certainly would not be using the stairs, as the police would have those sealed first thing. But the note he’d left in the room should drive Malone forward. He’d be the Lone Ranger, as always. Good and faithful to his beloved Stephanie Nelle.

  He liked being back in the fray.

  It had been a while since his last contract. Work had come less frequently the past few years, and he missed his job as a full-time agent. Eight years now since he’d been forced out. Still, he’d made a living peddling his services, which seemed the future of the intelligence business. Fewer agents on the payroll, more hired by the job-independent contractors who offered deniability and required no pension. But he was fifty years old and should have risen, by now, to deputy administrator, or maybe even head of an agency. He’d been called one of the best field agents ever.

  Until-

  “What are you going to do?” Cotton Malone asked him.

  They were trapped. Two gunmen had them pinned from above, and another two were positioned in the dark recesses that stretched before them. He’d suspected a trap and now that fear had been confirmed. Thankfully, he and Malone had come prepared.

  He reached for the radio.

  Malone grabbed his arm. “You can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “We know what’s out there. They don’t.”

  They were three agents told to watch the perimeter.

  “We have no idea how many guns are here,” Malone said. “Four we know of, but there could be a lot more.”

  His finger found the SEND button. “We have no choice.”

  Malone yanked the radio from his grasp. “If I agreed with that, we’d both be wrong. We can handle this.”

  More rounds came their way. They kept low, among the crates.

  “Let’s divide,” Malone said. “I’ll take the left, you the right, and we’ll meet in the center. I’ll keep the radio.”

  He said nothing.

  Malone stared out into the blackness, seemingly assessing the danger, readying himself to advance.

  Wyatt decided on another course.

  One swipe of his gun across the temple and Malone slumped to the concrete, out cold.

  He retrieved the radio and ordered the three men to move in.

  A loud voice snapped his mind back to reality.

  Another wave of police had invaded the lobby. People were now being herded toward the exits, the hotel staff assisting. Apparently, somebody had finally made a decision.

  His gaze raked the mayhem.

  The main elevators opened on the ground floor and people streamed out. One of them was Cotton Malone.

  Wyatt smiled.

  Malone had ditched his jacket, just as Wyatt knew he would. That would be one of the things agents would be looking for. He watched as Malone melded into the crowd and hustled across the lobby to the escalator, riding it down toward the hotel’s main entrance. Wyatt stayed back, using a tall curtain for cover. The agents and police were making their way toward where he stood, gesturing for everyone to leave.

  Malone stepped off the escalator and, instead of leaving through the center doors, turned right and headed for the exit that led into Grand Central Terminal. Wyatt drifted toward one of the hotel meeting rooms, closed for the evening, and reached for the radio in his pocket, already set on the frequency being used by the Secret Service.

  “Alert to all agents. Suspect is wearing pale blue buttondown shirt, light trousers, no jacket at this time, presently exiting Grand Hyatt hotel from main lobby into tunnel that accesses Grand Central Terminal. I’m headed in that direction.”

  He waited an
instant, pocketed the radio, then turned toward the lobby.

  Malone disappeared through the exit doors.

  Secret Service agents elbowed their way through the crowd in pursuit.

  SEVEN

  KNOX LEFT THE PLAZA HOTEL. HE KNEW AT LEAST THREE MEMBERS of the Commonwealth were bordering on panic. As they should be. What they’d authorized came fraught with risk. Too much in his opinion. Always before they’d worked with the encouragement and blessing of the government, their actions and authority sanctioned. Now they were renegades, sailing stormy, uncharted waters.

  He crossed the street and entered Central Park. Sirens blared in the distance, as they would for hours to come. Still no word on the president’s condition, but the whole thing had happened less than an hour ago.

  He’d always liked Central Park. Eight hundred plush acres of trees, grass, lakes, and footpaths. A backyard for an entire city. Without it Manhattan would be one unbroken block of concrete and buildings.

  He’d made a call from the Plaza and requested an immediate meeting. His contact had likewise wanted to talk-no surprise there-and was nearby, so they chose the same bench past the Sheep Meadow, near Bethesda Fountain, where they’d met before.

  The man who waited for him was unremarkable in nearly every way, from his forgettable features to his plain manner of dress. Knox walked over and sat, immediately disliking the smug look on Scott Parrott’s face.

  “The man hanging out the window,” he asked Parrott. “One of yours?”

  “I wasn’t told how it would be stopped, only that it would be.”

  The answer raised more questions than it resolved, but he let it go. “What now?”

  “We want this to be a message to the captains,” Parrott said. “We want them to know that we know everything about the Commonwealth. We know its employees-”