The Jefferson Key

SEVEN

KNOX LEFT THE PLAZA HOTEL. HE KNEW AT LEAST THREE MEMBERS of the Commonwealth were bordering on panic. As they should be. What they’d authorized came fraught with risk. Too much in his opinion. Always before they’d worked with the encouragement and blessing of the government, their actions and authority sanctioned. Now they were renegades, sailing stormy, uncharted waters.

He crossed the street and entered Central Park. Sirens blared in the distance, as they would for hours to come. Still no word on the president’s condition, but the whole thing had happened less than an hour ago.

He’d always liked Central Park. Eight hundred plush acres of trees, grass, lakes, and footpaths. A backyard for an entire city. Without it Manhattan would be one unbroken block of concrete and buildings.

He’d made a call from the Plaza and requested an immediate meeting. His contact had likewise wanted to talk-no surprise there-and was nearby, so they chose the same bench past the Sheep Meadow, near Bethesda Fountain, where they’d met before.

The man who waited for him was unremarkable in nearly every way, from his forgettable features to his plain manner of dress. Knox walked over and sat, immediately disliking the smug look on Scott Parrott’s face.

“The man hanging out the window,” he asked Parrott. “One of yours?”

“I wasn’t told how it would be stopped, only that it would be.”

The answer raised more questions than it resolved, but he let it go. “What now?”

“We want this to be a message to the captains,” Parrott said. “We want them to know that we know everything about the Commonwealth. We know its employees-”

“Crew.”

“Excuse me?”

“The crew works the company.”

Parrot laughed. “You’re a bunch of friggin’ pirates.”

“Privateers.”

“What the hell’s the difference? You steal from anyone you can.”

“Only from the enemies of this country.”

“It doesn’t matter what you are,” Parrot said. “We’re all supposed to be on the same team.”

“It doesn’t look that way from our perspective.”

“And I sympathize with your bosses. I know they’re being squeezed. I get it. But there are limits. You have to understand that. They have to know that we would never allow them to kill the president. I’m shocked that they’d think we would. Like I said, this is a message.”

Which the National Intelligence Agency apparently wanted him to personally deliver. Parrott was Knox’s contact with the NIA. A year ago, when it became apparent that factions within the intelligence community had decided to destroy the Commonwealth, only the NIA had stood with them.

“The captains will wonder why you’re sending them messages. Why you interfered.”

“Then tell them I have some good news. Good enough that they should thank us for what we did today.”

He doubted that, but he was listening.

“The solution to your Jefferson cipher should be loading on my laptop as we speak. Our guys solved it.”

Had he heard right? The key? Found? After 175 years? Parrott was right-the captains would be thrilled. But there was still the matter of the foolishness that had just occurred. He could only hope he’d covered their tracks with no mistakes. If not, no cipher key would matter.

“If there’s anything that could help them climb out of the hole they dug for themselves today,” Parrott said, “this is it.”

“Why not just tell us that?”

The agent chuckled. “Not my call. I doubt you left a trail that will lead anywhere and we were there, ready to stop the attempt, so it doesn’t matter.”

He kept calm and silently reaffirmed the decision he’d made on the walk over.

It had to be done.

“I thought maybe you’d buy me dinner,” Parrott said. “Something that once had parents. You can afford it. Then we can go back to my hotel and you can find out what Andrew Jackson had to say.”

Could good fortune have actually come from this disaster? Even Quentin Hale, who should be furious, would be ecstatic to hear that the cipher had been solved.

Knox had served as quartermaster for nearly fifteen years, earning the job his father once held. He’d always smiled when he watched pirate movies with their caricatures of the all-powerful captain who mercilessly inflicted pain on his crew. Nothing could be further from the truth. Pirate communities had operated as loose democracies, members deciding for themselves who led them and for how long. The fact that both the captain and the quartermaster were elected ensured that the treatment of those below them would be fair and reasonable. As a further check and balance, crew votes could be taken for a new captain or quartermaster at any time. And many a captain who went too far found himself banished to the first speck of dry land the ship spotted, another man elevated to leadership. A quartermaster walked an even tighter line, serving both the crew and the captain.

A good one understood how to please both.

So he knew what had to be done.

“Okay,” he said, adding a smile. “Steak’s on me.” He reached over and patted Parrott twice on the shoulder. “I get it. You guys are in charge. I’ll take your message back.”

“I was hoping you’d see it that way.”

He withdrew his hand and tapped the exposed skin on Parrott’s neck, penetrating the short needle. A tad more pressure, then a squeeze, and the contents of the bubble syringe injected.

“Hey.” Parrott’s hand reached for the pain.

One. Two. Three.

Parrott’s body went limp.

Knox kept him upright, then gently laid him on the bench. The concoction he’d used was derived from a Caribbean reef fish. Karenia annulatus. A fast-acting, lethal toxin. Centuries ago, during the glory days when sloops roamed that southern sea, more than one enemy had been dispatched with its nearly instant effect.

A shame this man had to die.

But there was no choice.

Absolutely none.

Carefully, he arranged Parrott’s hands beneath his cheek, as if he’d dozed off. Nothing unusual for a Central Park bench. He patted Parrott’s trousers and found a hotel room key for the Helmsley Park Lane. Not bad. He’d stayed there a few times himself.

Then he left.