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“By all means.”
“There’s a line item veto, which allowed the president to accept some and reject some of each piece of legislation. As you well know, no such power exists in our current Constitution. Wouldn’t it have been nice to have that power?”
That it would have been.
“Protective tariffs were forbidden, so no industry was given an unfair advantage. Congress had no power to forgive a debt. Think about that one. Nor could it pay for any internal improvements within a state. That was all left to the states, individually, to handle. So no pork barrel legislation. The postal service was expressly required to financially sustain itself. Can you imagine? There were even specific provisions designed to prevent corruption in the spending of public money.
“Most important, states, not the central government, were regarded as supreme. And yes, that constitution still sanctioned slavery and demeaned the human rights of all the people in bondage. That is its one central flaw, a gross mistake of the time. But know this, no one who has served in the Order during the last seventy-five years believes that anyone should be denied their civil rights. It’s contrary to everything we stand for.”
“All minorities? Gays and lesbians?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay,” Danny said. “I get your point. There were aspects of the Confederacy that made sense. Things that could go a long way to fixing what’s currently wrong with the federal government. But come on, that document has the stink of slavery. No one would ever cite it as authority. Look what happened with the Confederate battle flag. That image is now totally repugnant.”
“As it should be,” the voice said. “It was used to fight for the continuation of slavery. But the modifications we need today reach far across racial lines. Black and white both want governmental change.”
“Just a different kind.”
“Not necessarily,” Paul said. “Vance has strong support from the Black Caucus in Congress for what he’s about to do. They’re going to promote it.”
“Because they smell a power grab. They realize that as Vance moves up, so do they. There’s somethin’ there for everyone, and plenty enough to go around.”
“The difference,” the voice said, “between us and Vance is that we want our changes legally adopted at a constitutional convention after open debate and discussion, then submitted to the states for ratification.”
“And you’ll do your damndest to sway your way.”
“Which is our right. I’m prepared to trust this country’s fate to the will of the people. Are you?”
Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple. Every pundit and scholar agreed that once a constitutional convention was called there were few to no rules on what happened next. Some argued that a convention could be expressly limited to a specific subject matter. Others asserted that such a restriction would be illegal. After all, the 1787 constitutional convention had been called only to revise the existing Articles of Confederation. Instead, the convention abolished the Articles and created an entirely new constitutional government. So if a runaway convention was good enough for the Founders, it was good enough for everyone else.
“There’s no way to control what would happen,” Danny said. “It could be a free-for-all. Which probably explains why a convention has never actually been called. Not even by those wise men from the 1850s. They didn’t fight their battles from the safety of the dark.”
“No,” the voice said. “They did not. But this is a different time, with different ways. And come now, Mr. President, don’t you think the American people could handle a convention? After all, it is their country. And by the way, the Confederates were far more progressive on this point, too. Their version of Article V allowed as few as three states to call for a gathering to propose changes. Our constitution requires an unwieldy two-thirds. Even so, we’re nearly there.”
“The immediate concern,” Paul said, “is stopping Vance. But I can’t do it. I’m one of his picks on the Rules Committee. For me to openly buck him would be suicide, and we’d lose our eyes and ears on Rules. You have to stop him.”
“I was planning on doing just that.”
“I came here,” the voice said, “so you could hear, firsthand, where we stand. We know of your connection with Alex Sherwood. We also know that Kenneth Layne tried to recruit the senator into what he, his sister, and Vance are doing. Needless to say, Kenneth Layne was playing both sides. When we became aware of his duplicity, we began to carefully watch all concerned. Layne should have never involved the senator. We know that Alex Sherwood confronted his wife and told her he planned to openly protest what Vance was doing. Less than two hours later, the senator was dead.”
They monitored the Sherwood home? “What are you saying?”
“Show him,” the voice said.
Paul stepped close and produced a cell phone with a video on the screen. Taken in a pine forest, through a column of trees, it showed a rocky bluff and two people. Alex and Diane. Talking. Alex smoking a pipe. More talk. Diane appeared to cry. Alex comforted her. Then she shoved him off the cliff.
He could hardly believe his eyes.
He looked up at Frizzell, whose strained face was visible in the ambient glow.
“She killed him? You’ve known this, yet done nothing?” he asked both men.
The figure across the room kept a stolid silence.
So Danny made clear, “I asked a question.”
“We’ve been debating what to do,” the voice said. “All of the choices come with an assortment of risks and rewards. We heard your conversation with Mrs. Sherwood, in her study, after the funeral. We also know about Taisley Forsberg. And when you challenged Vance today at the Willard Hotel, we realized why you were appointed to the Senate. You want the truth, Mr. President. So do we.”
“What about Vance?” he asked.
“To our knowledge he knows nothing of the murder. He confronted Mrs. Sherwood earlier, in the senator’s apartment, but she denied any wrongdoing.”
“You people have bugs everywhere?”
“Only where we need them.”
“That’s when we knew we had to speak to you,” Paul said to him.
“Stop Lucius Vance,” the voice said through the darkness. “Do what you have to do. If you need help, we’re here to assist where we can.”
He’d had enough of the games. “What about Diane?”
“We are dealing with her. Which is something you cannot take the lead in. Let us—”
He lunged for the light switch and flicked it upward. Fluorescent fixtures flickered on, their ballast catching, warming, then flooding the bulbs with current, which threw out bursts of white light. He squinted against the glare, trying to see, but the man was gone.
He ran across the diner and saw a door leading back to the kitchen. He pushed through and found a rear exit.
He yanked it open and stepped out into the night.
Only to see a pair of taillights turning left, rounding the building, then vanishing.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Diane stepped from the cab in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The caller on the phone had told her to come here with all the information she possessed. Everything she had was on her iPad and in files stored in Dropbox, so she’d brought the device with her, tucked into her purse.
The memorial stood at the west end of the National Mall. A broad flight of steps led up. Off to the east, past the Reflecting Pool, the floodlit Washington Monument pierced the night like a warning sword. It was approaching 11:00 P.M. and though no massive streams of chattering tourists milled about, the place was not deserted.
Above her, at the top of the steps, the immense statue of Lincoln sat inside its shaded colonnade. Thirty-six columns held the roof aloft, each, she knew, representing a state in the union during Lincoln’s time. She climbed the steps and caught sight of the sad, brooding face of the dead president, which had a quieting effect and added to the atmosphere of a shrine.
Standing near the foot of t
he seated giant was a squat, brown-haired man with ball-bearing eyes, small ears, and thin lips. She was drawn to him though they hadn’t yet exchanged a single word.
“What is this all about?” she asked in a quiet but annoyed voice, when close. “And where is my brother?”
“You can start by losing the attitude. You’re not in charge here.”
“And what makes you think that I haven’t already called the police?”
He shrugged. “If you have, then I’m going to have to show them this.”
He held out a cell phone.
A video started.
Showing her killing Alex.
A cold cloud rushed through her.
“Still want the police involved?” he asked.
She said nothing.
“Let’s you and I take a walk.”
* * *
They left the memorial, descending the stairs and crossing the street toward the Reflecting Pool. He led her down a paved walk that paralleled one side of the shallow pond.
Her nerves were frayed from the video, her body cold.
“Your brother has done a bad thing,” he said. “He was working in conjunction with us, furthering our agenda. You being brought into the picture was our idea, but involving Lucius Vance was another thing entirely. And finally, there is the issue of your late husband.”
“Are you with the Knights of the Golden Circle?”
“Why do you seem surprised? Your father studied us for years. You’ve studied us, too.”
“In the abstract. He never told me that the organization still existed.”
“Because he never knew. His battle was with Frank Breckinridge, not with us, though Breckinridge is a knight. Your father wanted the vault. As apparently do you and the younger Breckinridge.”
“Where is Grant?”
