by Steve Berry
“My father once made them. My family lived at Ybor City, in Tampa. Many of the 1960s Cuban immigrants settled there. Florida was like home. It was once quite a place. Ever been?”
He shook his head.
“Spaniards, Cubans, Italians, Germans, Jews, Chinese. We all coexisted, thriving off one another. What an exciting place. So alive. Then it all ended, and they built an interstate highway straight down its middle.”
He kept silent and let her talk. She was buying time. Okay. Buy it.
“My father opened a cigar factory and did well. There were many in Ybor back in the 1920s, before the Great Depression, but gradually they all disappeared. He was determined to bring them back. No machines for him. All of his smokes were hand rolled, one at a time. I acquired a taste for them early in life.”
He knew that her parents had fled Castro in the 1960s and that she’d been born and raised here. Beyond that, she was a mystery.
“Have you always been a man of few words?”
“I say what I need to say.”
She stepped around the gun and came closer. “My parents were quite wealthy when they lived in Cuba. They were capitalists, and Castro hated capitalists. They left everything they owned and came here, starting over, intent on proving themselves a second time. They loved America, and at first this country gave them another chance. Then bad economies and bad choices took it all away. They lost everything.” She paused and stared at him through the dark. “They died broke.”
He wondered why she was telling him this.
“The opportunists who fled Cuba in the 1980s? The Mariel boat people? They tried to buy into Castro, and when it didn’t work out they decided to come here. All they did was make it hard for the others, my parents included. They should be sent back to live with what they embraced.” She paused. “I worked my way up. Every step. No one gave me anything. When my father died I swore to him that I would not make the mistakes he made. That I’d be careful. But unfortunately, I made an error today.” Her eyes locked on him. “Yet you gave me a reprieve. Why? So you could kill me yourself?”
“I’m going after the Jefferson Wheel,” he told her. “If you interfere, I’ll kill anyone you send, then I will kill you.”
“Why do you care? This really doesn’t concern you anymore.”
“A man died last night for no reason other than he did his job.”
She laughed. “And that affects you?”
“It affects you.”
He saw she understood. He could cause her problems. Change all of her plans. Screw up her life.
“Malone has the cipher key, too,” she said. “He emailed it to himself last night from Voccio’s computer, then deleted it from the institute’s server. There is no other record of the solution. Only you, he, and I have it.”
“He’ll go straight to Monticello.”
He stepped around her toward the door.
She grabbed his arm, her face only inches away. “You can’t do this alone and you know it.”
That he did. Too many unknowns. Too much risk. And he was not properly prepared.
“You don’t fool me, Jonathan. This isn’t about me and what happened last night. It’s Malone. You don’t want him to succeed. I can see it in your eyes.”
“Maybe I just want you to fail.”
“Go to Monticello. Get what we both want. What you do with Malone is your business. What you and I do is between us. I’m betting you can keep those two separate. You need me. That’s why I’m still alive.”
She was right.
The only reason.
“Get that wheel,” she said.
“Why don’t you get it yourself?”
“As I told you in New York, I prefer to owe only you.”
That meant she was nearing the end of whatever she’d planned. Involving any of her agents would only require more cleanup.
“You actually wanted Scott Parrott dead, didn’t you?”
“If he’d done his job, he wouldn’t be dead.”
“He never had a chance.”
“Unlike those three agents you ordered in after banging Malone in the head with a gun? They had a chance, right?”
The fingers in his right hand tensed into a fist, but he caught himself. That was exactly the reaction she wanted.
“Get the wheel, Jonathan. Then we’ll talk.”
MALONE SPUN AND KICKED ONE OF THE RICHMOND CITY COPS in the shin. He then planted a right cross to another and kneed the third in the gut.
All three went down.
The sound of a motorcycle roaring into the lobby had provided the few moments of distraction he’d needed to act.
Cassiopeia raced toward him across the marble floor. She slowed enough for him to hop onto the saddle, then gunned the engine, turning left, heading for the staircase fifty feet away. He wrapped one arm around her midsection while the other hand found his gun. He turned back to see the cops coming to their feet and unholstering weapons.
The cycle slowed as the staircase approached.
Risers descended in three long, straight flights, maybe a hundred feet from top to bottom, two wide landings in between.
This was the part he hadn’t been looking forward to.
“Here we go,” she said.
He aimed and fired a shot over the cops’ heads.
They plunged to the floor, scrambling to use Jefferson’s statue as cover.
CASSIOPEIA HAD NEVER ACTUALLY DRIVEN A MOTORCYCLE down a staircase. A carpet runner lining the stone risers should help with traction, but it was going to be a bumpy ride.
She downshifted to second and plunged forward.
The suspension bucked as she and Malone fought for balance. She worked the handlebars, keeping them stable. She knew this machine. A low center of gravity made it easy to handle. European police had successfully utilized them for years. An earlier model was parked in her French château’s garage. Familiarity was exactly why she’d chosen it for the trip to Fredericksburg, as opposed to one of the Secret Service cars.
Cotton was holding her tight, her grip on the handlebars equally firm.
They found the first landing.
She added a quick burst of speed, then a nudge of the disk brakes, before dropping down more stairs. At the second landing the front end twisted hard left. She immediately yanked the handlebars right, the front wheel slamming into the final set of risers as gravity kept sending them toward the floor below.
“Company,” she heard him say.
Then a shot.
From Cotton.
A few more bumpy meters and they found a smooth surface.
She revved the engine and they sped ahead, threading a path across rugs through chairs and sofas, across the faux-marble hall, beneath the stained-glass ceiling.
People who’d been sitting rushed out of the way.
The exit doors waited thirty meters away.
MALONE WAS SURPRISED THEY’D MADE IT THIS FAR. HE’D GIVEN the whole thing about a 30 percent chance of success. They’d caught the police off guard, and he was glad to see that the way ahead was clear. Behind was their problem. He caught sight of the cops, bounding down the stairway, finding the first landing and readying themselves to shoot. He fired three times at the second set of risers, bullets ricocheting off the marble and scattering the would-be attackers.
He hoped none of the rounds hit anybody.
“Cotton,” he heard Cassiopeia say.
He turned back and stared ahead.
Glass doors, locked as she’d told him until nine AM, blocked their path ahead. Beyond, a bright morning sun signaled freedom.
Forty feet.
“Anytime now,” she said, as they kept racing ahead.
He aimed the gun over her shoulder and fired three times, obliterating a set of glass doors.
Cassiopeia aimed the cycle for the center of the exposed opening.
They roared out onto the sidewalk and she braked.
Both of their feet found pavement.
A busy st
reet ran perpendicular to the hotel.
He checked traffic, spotted a break for a merger, then said, “Get us out of here.”
FORTY-TWO
BATH, NORTH CAROLINA
HALE WAS SATISFIED WITH ALL OF THE PREPARATIONS. THE choice of woodling had certainly surprised Knox, who’d openly hesitated an instant before nodding his consent, then requesting a few extra minutes so the necessary items could be readied. He noticed that the other three captains were anxious. The choice of punishment had been on his motion, but they’d all voted in favor.
“Killing your accountant was foolish,” Surcouf said to him.
“Like this crewman, he disappointed me.”
“You take too many chances,” Cogburn noted. “Far too many.”
“I do what I have to do in order to survive.”
One captain was not required to explain himself to the others so long as what he did remained personal to him, and the death of his family accountant certainly fell into that category. No different from when captains controlled their own ships, and another captain’s opinion was relevant only when companies grouped together.
Knox caught his attention and signaled that all was ready.
He stepped forward and called out to those assembled in the morning sun, “We each pledged loyalty to the Articles. You have a good life, a good living. Our company works because we work together.” He pointed at the man bound to the pole. “He spit in the face of all that we hold dear, and jeopardized each and every one of you.”
The men stirred.
“Traitors deserve what they get,” he called out.
A clamor arose signifying that they all agreed. A chill crept down his spine. What a feeling, to be in charge. Only the tang of salt air and the sway of a deck was missing.
“Bear witness to punishment,” he yelled.
Knox stood near the bound and gagged man and Hale watched as the quartermaster directed two other crewmen. The chosen punishment was especially harsh, though simple in design. Two boards were connected at each end by leather straps, about three feet long. The prisoner’s head was positioned between the two straps, the men standing on either side, gripping the boards with both hands.
He hoped Stephanie Nelle was watching. He’d had her moved from a windowless cell to one where she could see the yard. He wanted her to know what he was capable of doing. He still had not heard from Andrea Carbonell about any cipher solution, so Nelle’s fate remained undecided.
The two crewmen began rotating the boards, twisting the straps until they embraced the man’s skull. The prisoner wiggled his head, trying to thwart their effort, but the gesture proved useless.
Knox threw Hale a final look.
He glanced at the other three captains, who nodded.
He stared back at Knox and added his own nod.
The command to continue was given and the boards were rotated more. For a few turns, as the straps tightened, the skull endured. By the sixth, pressure was building. The prisoner’s body wiggled against the restraints. If he hadn’t been gagged, the man would surely be screaming in agony.
The boards continued to turn.
Pupils went wide, the eyeballs bulging unnaturally. Hale knew what was happening. Pressure from inside the compressed skull was literally forcing them outward.
The other three captains noticed, too.
He knew these men were not accustomed to witnessing violence. They could order it done with no remorse. Watching it, though, seemed another matter.
More turns.
The man’s face turned crimson from the pressure.
An eyeball burst from its socket.
Blood poured from the gaping hole.
The tightening continued, slower now as the straps had little give left in them.
His father had told him about woodling. How the last few seconds were the worst. Once the eyes gave way all that remained was for the skull to crack. Unfortunately for the victim, the skull was tough. That was the one thing about this particular form of punishment—many times it did not kill the victim.
The other eyeball escaped and more blood soaked the face.
Hale walked toward the yard’s center.
The prisoner had stopped all movement, his body limp, the head held aloft only by the straps.
Knox ordered the twisting to stop.
“Just know that there are two traitors in your precious company.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“When it comes time for me to die, I hope you’ll at least be merciful.”
He’d thought about little else since the man uttered those words less than an hour ago.
Two traitors in your precious company.
Though the prisoner had said he’d never bought into the company mentality, he was wrong. I betrayed you, not my friends. He cared about his fellow crewmen.
And that made him believe the man.
He stared at the bloodied face. Then he reached beneath his jacket, brought out a pistol, and fired one shot to the head.
“Punishment has been administered,” he called out. “Dismissed.”
The crewmen began to drift from the yard.
He turned to Knox. “Have the body dumped at sea. Then come to my house. We need to talk.”
CASSIOPEIA SHIFTED THE HONDA INTO FIFTH AND KEPT THE cycle moving down U.S. 250. They’d purposefully avoided Interstate 64 west, opting for a secondary highway, hoping they could avoid any alerts to adjoining counties. But she agreed with Cotton’s assessment. After having failed with the easy catch, whoever had ordered his arrest might not be so willing to involve others again. Next time they’d do it themselves, their way.
Cotton tapped her on the belly and said in her ear, “Pull over up there.”
She veered into an abandoned restaurant, the building collapsing, an asphalt parking lot infested with weeds and grass. She wheeled to the rear and brought the cycle to a stop.
“No sign of anybody on our tail,” he told her as he climbed off. “We need to talk to Edwin Davis again.”
She found her phone and dialed the number. Davis answered on the second ring. She pressed SPEAKER. They’d talked with him earlier, just before Cassiopeia descended to the lobby on her reconnoiter mission.
“Glad to hear you made it out,” Davis said. “Not too much damage to the hotel, I hope.”
“It’s insured,” Cotton told him.
“The dead man in the car at the Garver Institute was Dr. Gary Voccio,” Davis said. “We have an ID on the body, and it was his car.”
They listened as Davis explained how the FBI and CIA had descended on the institute. Power and phones had been deliberately cut, one building’s lobby obliterated, bullet holes spread across two floors.
“The big man isn’t happy,” Davis said. “More casualties.”
“We’re headed to Monticello,” Cotton said.
“When you deleted the cipher key off the institute’s server,” Davis said, “you eliminated it. Voccio had not saved anything. It’s gone. That file contained all of his notes and results.”
“At least we have it,” she said.
“But we have to wonder who else managed to get it, too.”
“We’re going to need access to the wheel,” Cotton said. “The estate’s website says it’s displayed in Jefferson’s cabinet, near his library and bedroom.”
“I’m headed to Monticello,” Davis said. “I’ll be at the visitor center, waiting for you to arrive.”
Cotton smiled. “Aren’t we Johnny-on-the-spot today.”
“This has to be handled, along with the other situation Cassiopeia has uncovered with the phones.”
He was right about that, Cassiopeia thought, in more ways than one. “We’ll be there in about forty-five minutes.”
She ended the call.
“What’s the problem?” Cotton asked her.
“Who said there was one?”
“Call it boyfriend intuition. I saw it on your face. What happened with the First Lady? You
only gave me the short version.”
True. She’d abbreviated the events, leaving off the last part of her conversation with Shirley Kaiser.
The First Lady is having an affair. Isn’t she?
Not exactly. But close enough.
“I’m thinking how we can use that phone tap to our advantage,” she said. “It’s our fastest ticket to flush out Hale.”
He gently grabbed her arm. “There’s something else. You’re holding back. That’s okay. I do it, too. But whatever it is, if you need my help, ask.”
She liked that he didn’t try to be the fixer. Instead, he was her partner, watching her back.
And she just might take him up on his offer.
But for now that something else was her problem.
FORTY-THREE
BATH, NORTH CAROLINA
8:30 AM
KNOX WAS TROUBLED. QUENTIN HALE HAD MET PRIVATELY with the traitor before the execution and now he’d been ordered to the main house with no explanation. The corpse was on its way to sea, where it would be weighed down and tossed into the Gulf Stream. Perhaps the traitor had told Hale that he’d compromised the murder but not the assassination. But why would Hale have believed him? And even if Hale harbored doubts, nothing pointed Knox’s way, except that he was one of four men who knew every detail, from the beginning, the other three all being captains. True, at least a dozen had worked on the weapons in the metal shop, but they were not told of any planned use. Were they suspects? Of course, but weak ones.
He entered the Hale house and walked straight for the study. All four captains were there, waiting, which immediately raised his anxiety level.
“Good,” Hale said, as Knox closed the door. “I was just about to play something for the others.”
A digital recorder lay on the tabletop.
Hale activated it.
“My marriage has been a problem for a long time, Shirley. You know that.”
“You’re the First Lady of this country. Divorce is not an option.”
“But it is once we leave, and that’s only a year and a half away.”
