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“He’s a knight and a sentinel,” Lea said. “Those are people who watch over the treasure. They keep folks away and protect it.”
“For how long?” Cassiopeia asked.
“Generations. It’s a family duty.” The young girl said the words with pride. “They say the woods here are filled with gold.”
“Belonging to the Golden Circle?” Cotton asked.
“That’s right,” Morse said. “They hid it and left markers in the trees, on the ground, all over. You followed ’em today. Did real good, too. People like to say it’s outlaw money. But it ain’t. It’s Confederate.”
His own grandfather told him that the knights had been real good at hiding things in plain sight.
Today he proved that observation true.
Past the windows, a warm and seasonal twilight was thickening into night. His watch read 7:40 P.M. It had been a long day, one that had unfolded much differently than he’d imagined this morning. The idea had been to investigate the site, check out the markers, then ask around to see what the locals knew. Two days on the ground, tops, then back to DC.
“What did you mean when you said the knights just wanted us to think they were gone?” he asked Morse.
“Some men came to see me, about a month ago. They gave me the handshake.”
The older man extended his right hand, which Cotton shook. Morse’s grip was firm, but only with two fingers and the thumb. The third and little finger stayed free and Cotton locked his two fingers with Morses.’
A familiar feel.
“Why did you do that?” he asked his grandfather.
They were in the attic, the dusty air cool from a Georgia autumn morning.
“You’re old enough to understand now,” his grandfather said.
“I’m only eleven.”
The old man chuckled. “But real smart. So I wanted you to see this stuff.”
Usually the attic was off limits. He and his mother had lived back at her father’s house for over a year now, ever since his own father disappeared, presumed dead, on a naval mission. They knew little to nothing about what happened, only that his submarine had sunk with all hands lost. His mother had taken the loss hard, eventually finding refuge in running the day-to-day operations of the onion farm. He’d done what he always did and kept the pain to himself, but he and his papa spent a lot of time together.
Today they’d come up into the attic.
He stood grasping the older man in a strange handshake, two of his grandfather’s fingers locked with his own.
“You feel that? That was the Order’s grip. One member would do that to another, in public. Then ask, ‘Are you on it?’ The correct reply was ‘I am on it.’ That meant they were both knights.”
His grandfather had told him stories about the Knights of the Golden Circle and how his great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather had been members. He’d even gone to the library and tried to find some books on the subject but had come up empty. He’d asked his history teacher, who knew nothing.
Which made him wonder if the whole thing was even true.
“They had a castle, right here in Toombs County,” his grandfather said. “That’s what they called their local chapters. Castles. My father served as an officer, as did his father before him. They were devils, those knights.”
His mind returned to the lit room around him, and he released Morse’s grip.
The older man watched him with curious eyes. “You know what I’m sayin’ is real, don’t you?”
He wasn’t going to admit anything. “What did the men want who came to see you?”
“It was right after I scared off the last guy who was snoopin’ around the map tree. And he wasn’t no treasure hunter. Not sure what he was, but he didn’t care for the woods. He was easy to spook. I just hung a dummy and off he went.”
Exactly as had been reported by Martin Thomas.
“But he did bury a plow point in the ground and used a compass to locate it,” Morse said. “That told me he knew things. Just like you today. I watched you. Somebody taught you, didn’t they?”
He was beginning to see that this old man was far smarter than he wanted people to think.
“The men who came to see me knew I was a sentinel,” Morse said. “They also knew what I was protectin.’ But I told ’em nothin.’ Didn’t trust a word they said.”
“Even though they were knights?”
“I’m not sure what they were. So I kept quiet.”
“Here’s the thing,” he said to Morse. “You don’t have a choice with us. So are you going to tell me what they wanted?”
“Better than that. I can show you.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TENNESSEE
8:00 P.M
Danny sat in his battered recliner, huddled among his favorite things, a lamp burning to his right, the notebook open in his lap. He’d carefully read every page. He was inside his second-floor bedroom with the door closed. The governor was down for the night. They’d had dinner together, pizza delivered from a local eatery. It had been fun catching up. He hadn’t had many visitors the past four months. Only Alex and a literary agent, pestering him about starting to write his memoirs. Apparently it was some sort of mandatory duty that all ex-presidents had to write a book. His story seemed to be a hot commodity, as three publishers had already offered seven figures for the manuscript. A ghostwriter had to be hired and dictation started, but the simple thought of doing that turned his stomach. It almost seemed like an admission that his life was over, time now to write everything down before he died. He didn’t need the money and he certainly did not want the aggravation that would come from remembering every detail of his life.
Reading the notebook, though, had piqued his curiosity.
Alex had clearly been up to something.
For a second time he scanned through the handwritten pages, at paragraphs here and there, committing the sentences to memory.
The U.S. Senate met in secret from 1789 to 1795. No public sessions and no one paid it any mind. It was deemed a political black hole from which no career would emerge. It had no affect on any legislation. Did little to nothing. Conversely, the House held its sessions in public and dominated Congress. Everything was done there, the Senate all but forgotten. Henry Clay called the Senate’s atmosphere a “solemn stillness.”
1806. Aaron Burr, as vice president, convinced the Senate that its rule allowing members to vote an end to debate was unnecessary. His colleagues agreed and, henceforth, senators carried the right of unlimited monologue, not stoppable by the other members. They had no idea what they had stumbled upon.
1820s. Things started to change. House had grown to 181 members, while Senate stayed small at 48. House members elected by the people. Senators came from state legislatures. Different rules governed each body. The House limited members on time and length of debate. Not so in the Senate. Debate actually encouraged there. No limit on how long a senator could talk. Again, they still had no idea of the potential.
1830s. Southern senators discovered that Senate rules allowed them to refuse to yield the floor once they began to speak. Combine that with no way for other senators to stop the debate, and no time limit on how long a senator could talk, senators realized they could hold the floor forever. Filibuster was born. Webster, Calhoun, Clay, and others used it to paralyze the Senate and stall or kill any legislation they did not like.
The notes were listed under a header that read REBUTTAL REMARKS, as if the author had been preparing either for a speech or for a paper. He was familiar with Alex’s handwriting and he’d immediately noticed that the journal was not penned by his friend.
He riffled through the pages.
Many dealt with observations about obscure Senate rules, things nearly no one would care about.
But they should.
Procedural rules determined how and when laws were passed. Smart representatives gained a tactical advantage by studying those in detail. During his three terms in the Senate Danny
had learned every nuance of the 1500-page procedural manual.
Since 1789 nearly 2000 men and women had served in the U.S. Senate. Those folks could be divided into two broad classes—workhorses and show horses. One got things done, the other took the credit or assigned blame. Of late, that dichotomy had been brought into sharp focus, as the Senate seemed overrun by show horses.
Everyone clamored for the limelight.
Television and newspapers had been consumed for the past four months with the Senate’s refusal to confirm President Fox’s cabinet appointments. First one Senator, then another, had blocked a floor vote, effectively stopping the will of the other 99. True, cloture now allowed 60 votes to end a filibuster, a safeguard implemented in the early 20th century, but getting three-fifths of the Senate to agree on anything was next to impossible. Especially when it came to ending debate. It was like a courtesy. If one Senator wanted to filibuster, the others simply allowed it since next time they could be the one in the hot seat.
He scanned more of the notes.
Article I, Section 5, Clause 2 of Constitution provides that the House and Senate are the sole judge of their procedural rules. The Supreme Court has held that House rules are adopted by each new Congress, every two years. Senate rules, though, stay in effect until otherwise changed. In 1892, United States v. Ballin, the Supreme Court said that there must be only a reasonable relation between an established rule and the result sought to be attained. That’s pretty wide open, meaning that the power of Congress to make procedural rules is unlimited. It is continuous, absolute, and beyond challenge by any other body or court.
He looked up from the notebook.
