AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t trust anything you do,” Bolton said.
Charles Cogburn stepped forward. “I have to agree with him, Quentin. This could be as foolish as what we tried.”
“Assassination wasn’t foolish,” Bolton was quick to say. “It’s worked in the past. Look at what happened to McKinley. He was determined to prosecute us, too.”
Hale’s father had told him about William McKinley, who like Lincoln had at first made use of the Commonwealth. By the time of the Spanish-American War, thanks to the 1856 Treaty of Paris, more than fifty nations had outlawed privateering. And though neither Spain nor America signed that treaty, they agreed not to engage in privateering during their war at the turn of the 20th century. Not bound by any international agreement, the Commonwealth preyed on Spanish shipping. Unfortunately, the war lasted only four months. Once peace was declared the Spanish demanded retribution, calling into question America’s veracity since it had violated its prewar agreement. McKinley finally relented to pressure and authorized prosecutions, resting on the fact that the Commonwealth’s letters of marque were legally unenforceable. So a deranged would-be anarchist was covertly recruited and encouraged to kill McKinley, which he did on September 6, 1901. The assassin was apprehended at the scene. Seventeen days later he was tried and convicted. Five weeks after that he was electrocuted. The new president, Theodore Roosevelt, had no qualms with the Commonwealth’s attacks and cared nothing about appeasing the Spanish.
All prosecutions ended.
Of course, neither Roosevelt, nor anyone else, knew of the conspiracy to kill McKinley.
“That is the difference between you and me,” Hale said to Bolton. “I merely cherish our past. You insist on repeating it. As I said, bullets and violence are not the way to take down a president any longer. Shame and humiliation work in the same manner with the advantage that others willingly take up the fight for us. We have to do nothing more than light the fire.”
“It’s your damn family that created this mess,” Bolton said. “Hales were nothing but trouble in 1835, too. We were fine. No one bothered us. We’d provided a great service to the country and the government left us alone. But instead of accepting Jackson’s decision not to pardon those pirates, your great-great-granddaddy decided to kill the president of the United States.” Bolton pointed his finger at Hale. “About as stupid a move as the one we tried. The only difference is, we didn’t get caught.”
Hale could not resist. “Not yet, anyway.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shrugged. “Just that the investigations have barely begun. Don’t be so sure that there is no trail to follow.”
Bolton lunged forward, apparently taking the words as a threat, then stopped, realizing that the gun, though lowered, was still in Hale’s hand.
“You’d sell us out,” Bolton said. “Just to save your own hide.”
“Never,” Hale said. “I take my oath to the Articles seriously. It is you that I take lightly.”
Bolton faced Surcouf and Cogburn. “Are you going to stand there and let him talk to us that way? Does either of you have anything to say?”
CASSIOPEIA RODE WITH EDWIN DAVIS UP THE INCLINED ROAD toward Monticello’s main house. Buses up and down had been halted, the local sheriff called. They wheeled into a parking lot in front on the mansion. The estate manager waited at the end of a paved walk that led to a columned portico. Twenty meters away, people were being herded onto another bus.
“Where’s Cotton?” she asked.
“Inside. He told me to seal the house and let no one in.”
“What’s happened?” Davis asked.
A swoosh could be heard from inside, followed by a bright flash of light that illuminated some of the windows.
“What was that?” she asked.
“There’ve been others like that,” the manager said.
She ran down the walk toward the house.
“He said for no one to enter,” the manager called out to her.
She found her weapon. “That doesn’t apply to me.”
A loud retort echoed from inside.
That sound she knew.
Gunfire.
FORTY-EIGHT
MALONE DROPPED TO THE FLOOR JUST AS WYATT FIRED, THE bullet shattering one of the wooden spindles. He beat a hasty retreat on all fours toward the back wall, away from the railing, using the angle below for protection. Another shot and a bullet came up through the floorboards a few feet away, the two-hundred-year-old timbers offering little resistance.
A third shot.
Closer.
Wyatt was searching for him.
Something arced through the air and bounced on the balcony floor. He’d seen this movie before and quickly shielded his head as the light bomb did its thing, adding a fresh wave of smoke to the confusion.
He sprang to his feet and found the hall that led back to the stairs he’d taken earlier. Spying movement below, he stared up toward the third floor and decided to reverse the roles.
Time for Wyatt to play rabbit and for him to be the fox.
WYATT CREPT UP THE STAIRS, GUN LEADING THE WAY, SEARCHING through the smoke for Malone.
Two things happened at once.
He heard the house’s main doors open and a woman yell, “Cotton.”
Then, up above, he caught sight of Malone.
Climbing to the third floor.
KNOX WAITED FOR CAPTAINS SURCOUF AND COGBURN TO ANSWER Bolton’s question.
“I don’t know, Edward,” Surcouf finally said. “I’m not sure what to think. We’re in a mess. Frankly, I don’t like what either one of you proposes. But I have to wonder, Quentin. There’s no way you’re depending totally on Daniels caving simply from embarrassment.”
“If it were me,” Cogburn said, “I’d call the wife a lying whore and hang her out to dry. Nobody would have any sympathy for her.”
Typical, Knox thought. Cogburns had long viewed the world in black and white. He wished life were that simple. If it were, none of them would be in the mess they were in. But he, too, doubted that the tactic alone would pressure the White House into doing anything productive.
“I still have Stephanie Nelle,” Hale said.
“And what are you going to do with her?”
Knox wanted to hear the answer to that question, too.
“I haven’t decided. But she could prove valuable.”
“Talk about a thing from the past,” Bolton said. “Do you hear yourself? A hostage? In the 21st century? Like yo
u told us about the assassination attempt. Are you going to call up the White House and say you have her? Let’s make a deal? You can’t do diddly-squat with that woman. She’s useless.”
Unless her corpse could be shown to Andrea Carbonell, Knox thought. Then, she was worth a great deal.
At least to him.
“Why don’t you let me worry about her value,” Hale said.
Cogburn pointed an accusing finger. “You’re plotting something else. What is it, Quentin? Tell us or, by God, I’ll join with Edward and make your life a living hell.”
CASSIOPEIA COULD DISTINGUISH LITTLE THROUGH THE SMOKE. The two-story entrance hall was enveloped in a gray fog. She sought cover close to the wall, behind a pine table, beneath a wall dotted with antlers.
She realized what she had to do.
Not the smartest move, but necessary.
“Cotton,” she called out.
MALONE CAME TO THE TOP OF THE STAIRWAY ON THE THIRD floor. He’d made no attempt to disguise his path. Surely Wyatt had seen or heard him and was headed this way.
Or at least he hoped.
He heard his name called out.
Cassiopeia.
WYATT HAD NO IDEA AS TO THE WOMAN’S IDENTITY, BUT SHE obviously was connected to Malone. He should simply descend to the cellar and leave, but he recalled that the staircase before him led down, not into a public area, but into a private room the staff utilized. He wondered if any of them was still there, or if they’d been told to evacuate. The one thing he did not want to do was shoot anyone. That would bring immeasurable grief his way. Better to be a simple thief, inflicting nothing more than a little property damage.
He stared up.
The third floor contained the room beneath the dome. Only the north and south staircases led there. Malone was clearly drawing him that way into a confined space.
Not today, Cotton.
He crept away from the stairs to the end of the corridor and peered out into the entrance hall. The woman had taken cover on his side of the room, behind a table, near the front windows and door. He aimed the gun above her head and obliterated a set of eighteen-paned windows directly behind her.
