League of American Traitors

by Matthew Landis

  “What?” Jasper asked.

  “The guy, before Thanksgiving—he was recon,” Nora said. “The Libertines were trying to see what we’d do with you, and we showed them.”

  Colton shook his head. “That don’t explain how she knew about the safe room.”

  “Because you have a leak, Colton. One of your people talked.”

  Rufus was freaking out on the walkie channel, barking for somebody to report in with Jasper’s location.

  “You’re not bringing anybody back here until you’ve figured out how she knew,” Nora said.

  When Colton left, they reinforced the barricade with a desk. Nora unscrewed the legs of a coffee table and tossed Jasper one to use as a club. She made them sit in the dark in case anybody was prowling around outside and hissed every time he made a noise.

  An hour later, boots clanged on the metal stairs.

  “Open up, Nora,” Rufus demanded. “It’s all right.”

  “There’s a leak.”

  “Yup. I believe we found it.”

  They took down the barricade and let the Donelsons in.

  And someone else.

  “What’s he doing here?” Nora asked.

  Sheldon’s face was as white as a sheet. He looked like he’d recently thrown up.

  “We’ll get there,” Rufus said. “Cameras showed a man climbing over the east wall. That’s what tripped the sensors. My boys gave chase, but the target got away again.”

  “He wasn’t trying to get in,” Nora said. “He was trying to get Jasper to the shelter.”

  “Looks that way.” Rufus glanced at Sheldon. “Adele woke up. Girl can barely talk on account of her jaw being broken, but she said enough. Said a burner phone was mailed to her over the break. Man called and said he’d send some Libertines to visit her family if she didn’t kill Jasper. Had her steal a gun from the armory. Told her to find out where we keep him during a breach, and report back when she found out. Sent her a text yesterday to go there and wait.”

  “But how did she find out?” Nora asked.

  Sheldon pulled out his phone and gave it to Rufus.

  “No—nononono,” Jasper said.

  “Jasper sent Sheldon a text over the break,” Rufus said. “Something about the chapel basement being like the bomb shelter we put him in. Adele said she looked through his phone one night when they was hanging out.”

  “I didn’t even think about it—”

  “Shut up—just shut. Up.” Nora grabbed the phone and read the text. “That little—and you—” She threw the phone at Sheldon. “She’s a ten—what the hell would she want with you?”

  “Easy,” Jasper said. “It was my fault.”

  “’Cause you’re always a victim. The poor orphan boy who can’t get his shit together.”

  He bit back a nasty reply. She wasn’t exactly wrong. “I messed up. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry.” Nora put her fist up to his eye. “That’s more blood. On my hands, Jasper. Mine.” She pressed her knuckles into his cheek, and smeared bits of dried blood on it. Water pooled under her eyes. “I volunteered for this job, but it costs me a lot. Don’t waste it on your own fucking stupidity.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Byron watched Jasper and Sheldon change. He’d been attached to Jasper since he’d arrived the night before.

  “At least you don’t have to help me go the bathroom anymore,” Jasper said.

  “The Counselor is waiting.”

  Apparently, the bodyguard still hadn’t discovered a sense of humor.

  “Right at the end last night, before he kicked us out,” Sheldon said, “I thought Cyrus was going to have Larkin murder us.”

  Jasper reached for his phone and then remembered Byron had taken everybody’s cells last night right after the epic scolding session. He’d probably crushed them with his giant fists. “I think I said I was sorry three hundred times.”

  “Yeah, you had major I’m sorry diarrhea.”

  They joined the small army outside their dorm room. Nora and Byron, plus about ten Donelsons, acted as a human shield as they walked to the library.

  The halls were less crowded—some kids had taken off early for winter break—but anybody still at Juniper Hill had to back against the wall as the entourage passed by. The procession bordered on the absurd, but reminded Jasper of the terrifying. He kept reliving the seconds in the bomb shelter, the feeling of cold metal on his skin. That it was his own fault didn’t make the memory any less paralyzing. In the safe room, he’d crept even closer to the edge than when he’d nearly drowned in the Delaware River. Almost dying was becoming habit.

  Lacy and Tucker were waiting outside the library.

  “Did you pitch Cyrus the Virginia trip when we left?” Jasper asked.

  Lacy nodded.

  “And?”

  She shrugged. “A granite wall of silence.”

  “But he enjoyed reminding us that he’d been right about the Libertines having people on the inside,” Tucker said. “Guess we deserved that.”

  Cyrus was reading something on a laptop when they came into the study room. He let them settle down. “I spent the night reviewing your research,” he said. “I’m convinced of your primary theory: that Jasper’s father was seeking out the descendants of Lieutenant Ira Boswell and the records they may have inherited.”

  Jasper let out a breath.

  “But the Directors will not approve the mission without a more thorough argument—specifically, how the supposed items connect Boswell to Arnold. Or Reed and Washington, for that matter. Do you have a theory?”

  “More of a gut feeling,” Jasper said. “Nothing I can prove.”

  “Explain, please.”

  Jasper watched the mobile twist on its string. “All these historians make one thing pretty clear: Reed hated Arnold. My dad visited a bunch of Joseph Reed archives, found this letter about him giving Boswell money, then started tracking down Boswell’s descendants and was killed.”

  “I have yet to hear a theory.”

  Jasper took a second to arrange the details. “The answer to our Big Question—why did Reed donate off-the-books cash to Boswell?—is the same as why the Libertines killed my dad: Boswell. I think he knew something, and I think he wrote it down, and the Libertines don’t want us to find it. Something about Reed or Washington. Something damaging.”

  Cyrus pressed his fingertips together. “That would explain their decision to break the Code. And to infiltrate our organization.”

  “Right,” Jasper said. “And Elsbeth is in the driver’s seat of this, obviously—so maybe Reed was too, back then.”

  “Perhaps, but we are widening the extent of our speculation. Restrict your argument to Lieutenant Boswell, focusing on his close relationship with Arnold, and connecting that to Reed’s public campaign against him. You have one week.”

  Jasper blinked. “Until what?”

  “At my request, Lacy’s father has called an emergency meeting of the Board of Directors. They arrive Friday. You must convince a majority of them that the trip is worth potentially angering the Jeffersons, as well as any transportation and protection expenses.”

  “We’re doing this, then?”

  “We are.” Cyrus looked among them. “Be certain you understand the implications of your request. If your mission is compromised, you’ll have to fight your way out.”

  “We’re in,” Sheldon said. Adele’s attempt on Jasper must have swayed him.

  “I will remain on campus to plan the expedition should the Directors grant their approval.” Cyrus stood and buttoned his jacket. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must have a discussion with the headmistress.”

  “I would kill to have Chilligraphy duty today,” Sheldon said. “He’s gonna light her up like a bonfire.”

  ****

  They decided to go the old-school research-paper route to build their case. Lacy divvied up sections, and Tucker became everybody’s walking citation. It took three days to get together a first d
raft, which Sheldon said sucked worse than the dystopian novella he wrote in seventh grade. They ate and slept and drank Lieutenant Boswell until he started appearing in their dreams. If anybody thought about going home for Christmas, they didn’t say it.

  At Cyrus’s instruction, Kingsley reopened the range for the group. It was more real this time, the pointing and shooting; Jasper missed the target less and less frequently. He wondered if it was the practice, or maybe he’d finally gotten to the heart of the thing—this was war and if he wasn’t willing to pull a trigger, he’d die. Nobody cared that he was scared or that none of this was his fault. They were after him, so he had to do something about it. He maybe had to kill.

  “Reading in church is a sin,” Nora said one night.

  Jasper crossed out a line in their latest draft. Sheldon really needed to cool it with the word thus. “Pretty sure God wants me to succeed, so He’ll forgive me.”

  “Because you have a direct line to Him.”

  Byron roamed up and down the aisle like he was searching for a bomb.

  “You don’t have to come if our mission gets approved, you know,” Jasper said. “Byron’s pretty good at his job.”

  “I can keep you from dying without a gun. We’ve established that. Multiple times.”

  “I mean, if you don’t want to be around all the possible shooting—if it’s too hard—it’s not a problem.”

  “Penance is supposed to hurt.”

  “Is the plan to die protecting me?” he asked. “Is that why you just charged in and went after Adele? And why you’re coming with us now?”

  “The plan is to do things that make me feel less shitty about my past,” Nora said.

  “Right, but I’m asking about the logical conclusion of that process. If you’re aiming for martyrdom here. Because I would have a serious problem with that.”

  “I keep forgetting that my life is really about your self-obsession.”

  He put the paper down. “I was sort of okay with our consumer relationship because it’s kept me alive and made you feel less awful,” he said close to her ear. She smelled like lilac and smoke. Spring on fire. “But I’m over it now. I’m not really sure when that happened, and I don’t know if it even matters because of all your emotional baggage, but consider me no longer okay with being your guilt outlet if you’re just using me to get to some ultimate solution.”

  “So you don’t mind if I die protecting you,” Nora said. “You just don’t want it to be my main goal.”

  “Maybe you forgot that I’ve buried both of my parents in the last six months. Forgot how burying one more person—specifically, you, who despite trying to make chain-smoking cool again, has definitely become my closest friend—might be more than I can take. How it might break me.”

  She put her palms on the pew and pressed down. “It’s my life, Jasper. I can do whatever I want with it.”

  “But you don’t live in vacuum.”

  “Still my life.”

  The pounding bass quieted as the song changed. Jasper heard dogs barking in the distance. The pair went to the door and watched a steady stream of cars and pickup trucks park at the cottages.

  The Directors had arrived.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The guy in the back who looks like an out-of-shape linebacker is Lacy’s dad,” Sheldon said.

  “No wonder Colton’s terrified of him,” Jasper said.

  Lacy leaned on their shoulders and peeked over. “He’s a total pushover.”

  Jasper went to the next window to get a better look at the Directors parading toward the manor. The group was watching from the closed, north-wing dorms that overlooked the front entrance. Jasper could see his breath. “And the old lady he’s helping?”

  “Mary Greenhow,” Lacy said. “Related to Rose Greenhow, the Confederate spy. The grandmother you always wanted.”

  “So that’s two votes for us.” Jasper squinted at a couple around his parents’ age arguing pretty loudly. “Which one is Oswald?”

  “Lady in the red coat,” Sheldon said. “And the guy who looks like he walked out of a copy of GQ is her ex-husband, Director Forrest.”

  “A guy whose ancestor was a Confederate general turned KKK leader married the daughter of a Russian spy?” Jasper asked. “That has to be awkward.”

  “Not a lot of gift exchanges happening at the holidays, I’m sure,” Sheldon said. “They divorced after their son died in a duel.”

  Jasper spotted Cyrus in the rear chatting with a shorter, thin man in his fifties. He leaned on a cane. “And that’s Chairman Hickey.”

  “He’s kind of a legend,” Lacy said. “Survived a three-shot duel against a Washington in the seventies. Took a bullet in the femur and ribs.”

  “He might be the only League member hated more than you, bro,” Sheldon said. “His ancestor plotted to kidnap and assassinate Washington during the war.”

  “People say the range targets at the Libertine schools have his face on them,” Lacy said.

  Nora opened the door and Tucker came into the room carrying the final draft. They paged through it one last time, even though everybody knew it was too late to make changes. Lacy put the printouts in five folders and had a Donelson deliver them to the auditorium.

  “Should’ve left in some of my thuses,” Sheldon said. “The power of a good thus cannot be overstated.”

  The group skipped lunch and instead paced outside the auditorium door. Jasper reviewed Cyrus’s outline for the Virginia trip in case the Directors asked for a summary. Sheldon kept trying to fix his tie, but just kept making the mess worse. Tucker had gone with jeans and a blazer over a T-shirt that read DIE above a gigantic, twenty-sided die.

  “It’s been three hours,” Jasper muttered.

  “They are taking forever to read it; thus, they hate it,” Sheldon said.

  Lacy smoothed a wrinkle from her black dress, and went back to pulling her curls out.

  The door opened.

  “They are ready for you,” Cyrus said.

  The four tromped up the steps to stage left and sat on stools by the podium. Nora camped out by the door. The Directors sat at two tables below, hands folded on top of the report.

  “Good morning, I am Director Greenhow.” The old lady examined them over her reading glasses. “Which of you is responsible for the annotated bibliography?”

  Tucker raised his hand.

  “Outstanding, young man,” she said. “Simply sublime.”

  “If only the same were true for the rest of the paper,” said Director Forrest. His blue suit was basically painted on. “To start, how do you know that James Mansfield didn’t already visit the home of”—he checked his notes—“Milford and Anna Boswell before his death? If he did, this entire trip is a waste of resources, and that doesn’t even touch on the inevitable political fallout with the Jeffersons.”

  Jasper walked to the podium. “When he visited a descendant, my dad made notes on that part of the family tree. There were no notes recorded on this section.”

  “Maybe he forgot. Or he just didn’t get around to it,” Director Forrest argued.

  “Which is exactly why they’re requesting to go—to find out,” said Director Oswald.

  “Are you going to argue for him?” Director Forrest asked.

  There was a moment of tense silence.

  “He checked into a hotel in Charlottesville in the afternoon, and died a couple hours later,” Jasper said. “That also supports our theory that he never made it to see Milford and Anna Boswell.”

  “Maybe he was on his way back,” said Director Forrest. “Your supposition is thin, if you ask me.”

  “This money Joseph Reed gave to Lieutenant Boswell is what I find troubling,” said Director Greenhow. “It could simply have been a gesture of good will. After all, we know historically that his wife wanted the money she raised to be paid directly to the soldiers. Why do you find the payment so nefarious?”

  “Reed hated Arnold,” Jasper said. “So it’s really odd t
hat he would pay that much money to somebody who worked so closely with him. But it’s even more shady because of what has happened in the present—in light of my dad’s murder.”

  “Alleged murder,” Director Forrest corrected.

  The other Directors watched Jasper.

  “Alleged murder,” he repeated, “followed by my very real kidnapping and torture, which I’d be happy to review in graphic detail, since I was there—”

  “Easy,” Sheldon whispered from behind him. Cyrus was giving him a death glare.

  Jasper cleared his throat. “My dad’s alleged murder by Elsbeth, my kidnapping, and the two attempts to kill me here are more evidence that the True Sons of Liberty don’t want us looking into Boswell. So while we argue that giving money to the guy whose boss would eventually betray America is odd, the attempted cover-up has made it very … nefarious.”

  “I’m inclined to agree,” said Director Oswald. “But you don’t say what this evidence contains.”

  “We don’t want to speculate,” Jasper said.

  “In other words, you don’t know,” said Director Forrest dryly.

  “No.”

  The Directors traded pointed looks.

  “But whatever is in that document, it’s big enough to blackmail two people at Juniper Hill into attempting murder,” Jasper said. “That seems like something we should check out.”

  Lacy’s dad stirred in his seat at the end. “On behalf of the board, I would like to apologize for not doing more to protect you. We’re investigating both incidents thoroughly.”

  “Have you considered dropping the matter entirely?” Director Forrest asked Jasper. “It could be the safest option for you. For all of us.”

  Jasper thought the man must be kidding. “So my dad died for nothing?”

  “We’ve all lost someone; it’s part of League membership.”

  Chairman Hickey put a hand on Forrest’s shoulder, and patted it twice. “Jasper, Counselor Barnes tells me there is a plan in place.” His voice was a little raspy. Slow and steady. “Please, share it with us.”

  Jasper scanned the outline. “We stay at a motel ten miles from the Boswell home near Charlottesville. Sheldon will set up a secure Wi-Fi network and digital scanner so the item can be transmitted immediately in case we run into problems.”