League of American Traitors

by Matthew Landis

  We’re going too fast, Jasper thought, right as the van lifted sideways. Larkin had gunned it around the final bend and the back tires hadn’t had time to settle. It was physics—momentum and speed and distance. Jasper tried to grab onto something but all he could find was the case, and so he hugged it closer and closed his eyes as the world tipped and he slammed into the window, which had suddenly become the floor. The van skidded a few feet before coming to a rest.

  Jasper smelled oil and burnt rubber. He tried to move. Bad idea. Pain shot through his ribs. The briefcase must have broken something. Somewhere behind him, Lacy was mumbling, “Tucker … Tucker, wake up.” People shifted on broken glass and on one another. Jasper saw Nora, unconscious with a gash on the left side of her face. Byron and Cyrus were splayed near the front of the vehicle. Larkin stirred by the driver seat. Colton was just gone—probably thrown right out the window on impact.

  “Are we dead?” Sheldon asked from near Jasper’s feet.

  “Shhh,” Jasper said. A car door slammed. Footsteps. He reached for his gun and swallowed a scream. It felt like somebody was prying his ribs apart with a fork from the inside.

  “Throw the briefcase out.”

  Jasper knew the voice. It was like a memory he’d tried to bury, but his mind had insisted on keeping a small scrap on file.

  Elsbeth.

  “That’s all we want,” she said. “Toss it out, and everybody walks away. Or don’t, and we kill you all.”

  Jasper closed his fingers around the handle of his gun and tried to orient himself. Was her voice coming from behind or in front? Which way was even up?

  “Sheldon,” Elsbeth said, “if you can hear me, I think you know our original deal is off.”

  Jasper thought maybe he had a concussion. Or maybe it was all the close-quarters gunfire. He turned his head and looked at his friend, crouched on the ground—actually crouched upright now, since the van had tilted.

  Sheldon was staring at the seat.

  “You were hiding things from us,” Elsbeth called out. “That can be forgiven. All we want is the diary, and we’ll honor the arrangement.”

  Cyrus or Byron—somebody near the front—groaned. Jasper saw feet dart across the back of the van. Sheldon’s breathing was getting louder like he was hyperventilating. He was reaching for something next to him, closer to Nora. Something in her hand that he had to pry out of her grip—her gun. He weighed it for a second. His eyes met Jasper’s, and then Sheldon pointed the weapon at him.

  “I want a new deal,” Sheldon said, voice shaking. “No duels for any of us.”

  “Fine,” Elsbeth said. “Toss the diary out.”

  “Sheldon …” Jasper said.

  “Shut up, Jasper.” His eyes were wide, flicking all around the wreckage. “We’re all going to walk away from this. None of us will have to duel. Just give me the diary.”

  Jasper hugged the case closer with his left arm. His mouth was a desert. “She’ll kill us,” he croaked. “You know she will.”

  “No.” Sheldon shook his head—quick, tiny jerks. “We’ll be okay. Just give me the case.”

  Jasper shifted, trying to get some space so he could bring his right arm out.

  “Don’t.” Sheldon was crying now, big rivers of tears racing down his cheeks. He reached over slowly and grabbed the briefcase’s handle.

  Nora’s gun remained inches from Jasper’s face.

  “What did you do?” Jasper demanded hoarsely.

  “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “You’re letting it happen.”

  “It was never supposed to be like this. It’s not what you think, I swear.”

  And that’s when Jasper understood—when he really got what it meant to see this quest through. How had he not known this before? Somewhere in the split second between a shout outside of the van and Sheldon looking for the source of it did the truth sink in: dying wasn’t the worst thing. Anybody could die for a cause. Yeah, it was tragic and heroic, but it was also easy. You didn’t have to stick around to find out what happened—learn if your death meant anything.

  Killing for a cause—that was worse. Dealing out death and then living with the consequence.

  Jasper wrenched his right arm free and fired.

  For a split second, he thought he’d missed.

  Then Sheldon collapsed onto him. Jasper heard the crack of a machine gun. He let go of the briefcase, hugged his friend, and moaned. Sheldon’s weight pushed on his broken rib, but there was worse pain to deal with. Warm liquid spread over his chest, and he squeezed Sheldon tighter, sobbing as his friend panted into his ear, mumbling something Jasper couldn’t make out.

  Larkin staggered back and tried to shift Sheldon’s weight, but Jasper fought him off until his rib felt ready to snap. Voices and footsteps surrounded the van and then things blurred into a waking nightmare and there was only the sharp smell of blood and then nothing at all.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Jasper stared at himself in the giant bathroom mirror. He’d showered twice, but still felt the blood tacky on his skin. A sourness pulled at his gut and he dry-heaved into the sink, then almost fell over as pain ripped up the side of his stomach; apparently every muscle in the human body was connected to his cracked rib. When the nausea passed, he washed his face and put on the shirt Sybil had left, fumbling with the buttons. His hands were shaking. How long would that last? Or would it come and go?

  Maybe that was part of the deal.

  Nora was waiting in the hall when he came out. A line of tiny bandages ran from the middle of her forehead to her temple like little railroad ties. Her flat, guarded stare was gone. They were in the same club now. No need for the badass routine. He’d been to hell and back, too.

  “How’s Byron?” he asked.

  “No change.”

  Jasper felt like he might throw up again.

  “You need to eat something,” Nora said.

  She took his hand and led him to a break room down the hall. In between playing nurse, Sybil had ordered in a ton of food. Nora sliced chunks off an apple and forced Jasper to eat some.

  “This is the part where you start filling in the gaps,” Jasper said. “Bring me back in the loop.”

  “I was pissed as hell after Charlottesville,” she said. “But I got it—Cyrus didn’t trust anyone. So I went digging on my own. That’s what you saw in the chapel.”

  “Digging for what?”

  Nora pulled her legs up, knees tucked to her chest. “We were trying to see if the school network could be hacked. Eliza did most of the work. I didn’t understand how the Libertines got to that cook and then to Adele. How would they have known where they worked and lived? The League buries those records under layers and layers of encryption.”

  “Did you crack it?”

  “Just a little, nothing deep. But we found Sheldon’s network—the one he made to protect your research.”

  Jasper shuddered. He wondered if that would happen every time someone said his friend’s name out loud. “So Sheldon was passing intel to the Libertines the whole time?”

  Nora shook her head. “That was the strange part: Eliza said his network was the real deal. A top-level firewall. Steel vault. He really was trying to keep anybody from finding our stuff.”

  Jasper rubbed his eyes. It felt like he’d been awake for a week. He thought of what Elsbeth had said to Sheldon. We know you’ve been hiding things from us.

  “I’m lost,” he said.

  “I thought we’d hit a dead end, and was getting antsy to move onto something else. But Eliza had coded all the programs and her dad had bankrolled all those towers so she kept at it. A week later, she found the back door.”

  Jasper picked at a bad spot on the apple slice. “Is that a technical term?”

  “Eliza said it was like somebody on the inside of a house had changed the locks on an entry point. We still couldn’t get in, but if you had the new key …” Nora picked at her bandage and examined her fingers, then flecked
off some dried blood. “It was one of the computers in your study room. That was the door.”

  “You’re saying Sheldon ‘changed the locks’ to let someone in.”

  “I didn’t know who did it,” Nora said. “That’s why Cyrus didn’t want any of them coming with us to see the Arbiter. After I showed him what I’d found, he didn’t trust them.”

  Jasper shook his head, which somehow made his busted rib hurt. “This doesn’t make any sense. Why would Sheldon make some deal to screw the League and then bother to protect all of our work?”

  “Maybe he felt guilty. I don’t know.”

  They were quiet for a while.

  Finally, Nora nodded her head. “Larkin will find out.”

  There was that sourness again. Jasper figured he should be happy that somewhere below them, Elsbeth was getting exactly what she deserved.

  Still, he just wanted it all to be over. FADE TO BLACK. ROLL CREDITS.

  They shuffled to the conference room, which Sybil had turned into a triage center. Cyrus stood over Byron, who was laid out on the table. Jasper pulled up a chair and held onto one of the bodyguard’s giant hands. They were cold and clammy. A bandage was wrapped around most of his head.

  “We need to take him to a hospital,” Jasper said.

  “You know that’s not possible.”

  “He’s gonna die.”

  Cyrus lowered his chin. “And he would do so gladly.”

  In the corner, Lacy was sitting beside Tucker as he stared deadpan at nothing. No headphones to keep this nightmare out.

  Colton limped into the room, left arm in a sling, clothes torn like he’d been dragged across a field of rocks. He whispered something in Cyrus’s ear.

  “I will not force you to attend,” Cyrus said, turning to Jasper, “but I would prefer if you joined us. I was … not exactly right concerning the Oligarchs’ role in all of this. I would like you there when we learn the truth.”

  Jasper watched Byron’s chest rise and fall. Were his breaths getting shallower? Was he in pain?

  “She talked?” he asked.

  “She has expressed a willingness to speak, yes.”

  So Larkin had tortured the crap out of her.

  Nora laced her fingers in Jasper’s as they rode the elevator to a lower level. It had all been a blur once he’d shot Sheldon, but there were still flickers: Larkin pulling him out of the van; the others groaning awake; Colton, half dead, machine gun trained on Elsbeth. He’d been the real hero, crawling to his weapon and taking out the other Libertine just as the League cavalry arrived. He’d saved them all.

  And that’s what made it all so horrible. It was what Jasper played over and over in his head: If he’d waited just a few more seconds, what would’ve happened? What would Sheldon have done? He’d be alive now, that’s for sure.

  The lower level was dark and industrial. Cyrus led them past machines that hissed and belched steam. Larkin was standing outside a supply closet along with some other League guards dressed in dark suits. His shirtsleeves were rolled to the elbows and two of his knuckles were split.

  He opened the door.

  Elsbeth Reed sat on a chair against the back shelf, arms tied behind her back. Her face was so swollen that Jasper barely recognized her.

  “You murdered James Mansfield in his motel room last September. Is that correct?” Cyrus asked evenly.

  Elsbeth spit at him—blood, mostly.

  Cyrus coolly wiped specks off his face. “I could give you more time with my associate.”

  “He got too close.” Her voice was ragged and scratchy. She panted and stared at the floor.

  “To the truth about Reed’s provocation of Benedict Arnold? You knew about it.”

  A few moments of silence passed. “We knew Reed would do anything to hurt Arnold,” she said. “We watch the archives in case anybody digs too deep, finds something they shouldn’t.”

  “The New York Public Library …” Jasper said, scrolling through a mental list of the safe documents.

  “That’s when we first noticed him.” Elsbeth rolled her left shoulder and winced. It must have still been healing from where Jasper had shot her. “We followed Mansfield to other archives. When he started paying visits to Boswells, he had to be dealt with.”

  “Just to protect some stupid legacy?” Jasper snapped. “Nobody would even care! It all happened almost three hundred years ago!” He was yelling now, borderline screaming: “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”

  She didn’t flinch.

  “On whose authority did you act?” Cyrus asked. “We know it wasn’t Oligarch Washington’s.”

  She remained silent.

  Cyrus motioned to Larkin. The bodyguard put a hand on her shoulder and pressed his thumb over the gunshot wound. Elsbeth writhed and screamed and bared her teeth. Jasper looked away and fought off another dry heave.

  “On whose authority did you murder James Mansfield?” Cyrus demanded again.

  “Tallmadge.”

  Cyrus and Larkin exchanged a quick glance. “Tallmadge?”

  She nodded.

  “Who’s that?” Jasper asked.

  “He runs the True Sons’ security division,” Cyrus said, eyes drifting as he tried to fit this new piece of information into the puzzle.

  But Jasper, who had spent months buried in Revolutionary history, beat him to it.

  “The Culper Ring,” he said quietly. You have to be kidding. “Washington’s spy network during the war. It was run by Benjamin Tallmadge.”

  Cyrus’s gaze snapped back to Elsbeth. “Is this true? Has Benjamin’s descendant resurrected that network without the Oligarchs’ knowledge?”

  Elsbeth was slower to nod this time, but it came.

  “Their own little CIA,” Nora murmered.

  “And the boy—Sheldon Burr—how did you get to him?” Cyrus asked.

  “We approached him at his brother’s duel,” Elsbeth said.

  “How were you able to do that?”

  She coughed. Winced. “We have people at the dueling estate.”

  “Other … Culper agents,” Cyrus said. “Like you.”

  Jasper thought she might refuse to answer again, but she nodded.

  “And you told him he could avoid his duel in exchange for what?” Cyrus pressed.

  “We gave him a flash drive to plug into a computer at Juniper Hill. He got us in the network.”

  There it was. Nora had been right.

  But that didn’t explain everything.

  “Sheldon was hiding things from you,” Jasper said. “How did you know we’d be in Virginia?”

  Drool seeped out the corner of her mouth. “No shortage of traitors who don’t want their daughters to duel.”

  Jasper blinked, then reeled. Only a handful of people knew about that trip—and only one had a daughter.

  Nora beat him to it. “Director Church.”

  “It wasn’t hard to convince him,” Elsbeth said. “You people rarely are.”

  “Send a car to his home immediately,” Cyrus ordered Larkin.

  When the door shut again, Cyrus took a step toward Elsbeth and backhanded her across the face. She slumped against the wall, eyes wide.

  “That was for Silas Washington,” he said. “A decent man, slain because of your interference. You’ve taken a shaky truce and ignited it into outright war.” Cyrus took out a handkerchief and wiped blood from his hand, his stony face returning. “Are you familiar with the security protocols in the capital?”

  Elsbeth moved her jaw around. Jasper heard a pop. She nodded.

  “Familiar enough to get us to the Supreme Court building, undetected?” Cyrus asked.

  “I tell you, and then you kill me.”

  “Unlike you, Ms. Reed, the League does not deal in that sort of deception,” he said. “Help us, and we will spare your life; refuse, and we will leave this room and lock the door behind us. You will die in that chair, in the dark, thirsty and hungry and soaked in your own urine. I leave the choice to you.”

&nb
sp; ****

  Jasper stood on the rooftop. Sirens wailed in the distance. Cops were still crawling the streets for them, clearing bodies. The city really pulled out all the stops for domestic terrorism. Jasper thought about Silas’s kids—did he have any? Did they know yet that their dad was dead? He hoped they had somebody with them when they found out. Getting that news alone was awful. He wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

  A door opened, and Cyrus came up beside him.

  Time is funny, Jasper thought. How you can be standing in the exact same spot, but things can be so different. Infinitely worse.

  “The Arbiter has been in touch,” Cyrus said. “He is livid, to say the least, but he will still hear our case.”

  Jasper heard Cyrus’s inflection go up a little at the end. “If …”

  “The True Sons have requested they be granted custody of you should the Arbiter rule against us.”

  “So it’s really me on trial.”

  “It is.”

  Jasper had expected that. Events had always been leading to this conclusion from the second Cyrus had knocked on the car window all those months ago.

  A showdown with no way out.

  “Your position isn’t different from the Founders whose offspring target us,” Cyrus said. “You can go into hiding, keep your head down and suffer tyranny, questioning every parked car, every shadow, every footstep.” He faced Jasper. “Or you can take a stand and fight for a future that you create. Prove that this diary implicates Reed and leverage that information for a peace that has eluded our side since the nation’s birth.”

  Jasper had looked over the edge of this particular cliff more than once. He’d even pushed his friend over it. But this felt different. They were so close to escaping the cycle. Collapsing of heatstroke a yard from the finish line was way more soul-crushing after the first twenty-six miles of the marathon.

  “This is where you say it’s up to me, even though that’s basically just a huge guilt trip,” Jasper said.

  “I will support whatever you decide. Chairman Hickey and the remaining Directors have been apprised of the situation, and they echo my support.”