The Jefferson Key

SEVENTEEN

HALE ENTERED HIS HOUSE, STILL SEETHING FROM STEPHANIE Nelle’s insult. Just the latest example of America’s continued ingratitude. All that the Commonwealth had done for the country, during and since the American Revolution, and he got spit on.

He stopped in the foyer at the base of the main staircase and gathered his thoughts. Outside, his secretary had told him the other three captains were there. He had to handle them carefully. He stared up at one of the canvases that dotted the oak-paneled walls-his great-great-grandfather, who’d lived on this same land and attacked a president, too.

Abner Hale.

But surviving had been a lot easier in the mid-19th century, as the world was a much larger place. You could actually disappear. He’d often imagined what it would have been like to sail the oceans back then, going about, as one chronicler had written, like roaring lions seeking whom you might devour. An unpredictable life on a rolling sea, no home, no bounds, few rules save for those all aboard had agreed upon in the articles.

He sucked a few deep breaths, straightened his clothes, then walked down the corridor, entering his library, a spacious rectangle with a vaulted ceiling and a wall of windows framing a view of the orchards. He’d remodeled the room a decade ago, removing most of his father’s influences and purposefully evoking the mood of an English country estate.

He closed the library doors and faced three men seated in tufted, burgundy velvet chairs.

Charles Cogburn, Edward Bolton, and John Surcouf.

Each was lean, two wore mustaches, all bore sun-squinted eyes. They were men of the sea, like him, signers of the Commonwealth’s current Articles, heads of their respective families, bonded to one another by a sacred oath. He imagined that their stomachs were tossing similar to Abner Hale’s in 1835 when he, too, had acted like a fool.

He decided to start with a question he already knew the answer to. “Where is the quartermaster?”

“In New York,” Cogburn said. “Doing damage control.”

Good. At least they planned to be reasonably honest with him. Two months ago he’d been the one to inform them of Daniels’ unannounced New York trip, wondering if perhaps an opportunity might present itself. They’d debated the proposed course at length, then voted. “I don’t have to say the obvious. We decided not to do this.”

“We changed our minds,” Bolton said.

“Which I’m sure you championed.”

Boltons had always displayed irrational aggression. Their ancestors had helped found Jamestown in 1607, then made a fortune supplying the new colony. On one of those voyages they imported a new strain of tobacco, which proved the colony’s saving grace, thriving in the sandy soil, becoming Virginia’s most valuable export commodity. Bolton descendants eventually settled in the Carolinas, at Bath, branching out into piracy, then privateering.

“I thought the move would solve the problem,” Bolton said. “The vice president would have left us alone.”

He had to say, “You have no idea what would have happened, if you’d been successful.”

“All I know, Quentin,” John Surcouf said, “is that I’m at risk of going to prison and losing everything my family has. I’m not going to sit by and allow that to happen. Even if we failed, we sent a message today.”

“To whom? Do you plan on taking responsibility for the act? Does someone in the White House know that you three sanctioned the assassination? If so, how long do you think it will be before you’re arrested?”

None of them spoke.

“It was foolish thinking,” he said. “This is not 1865, or even 1963. It’s a new world, with new rules.”

He reminded himself that Surcouf family history differed from the others. They’d started as shipbuilders, immigrating to the Carolinas just after John Hale founded Bath. Surcoufs eventually financed much of the town’s expansion, reinvesting their profits in the community and helping the town grow. Several became colonial governors. Others took to the sea, manning sloops. The early part of the 18th century had been piracy’s Golden Age, and Surcoufs reaped their share of those spoils. Eventually, like others, they legitimized themselves with privateering. One interesting story came at the dawn of the 19th century when Surcouf money helped finance Napoleon’s wars. Enjoying friendly relations, the Surcouf then living in Paris asked the emperor if he might build a terrace at one of his estates tiled of French coins. Napoleon refused, not wanting people traipsing across his image. Undaunted, Surcouf built the terrace anyway but with the coins stacked upright, edges to the surface, which solved the problem. Unfortunately, later Surcouf descendants had been equally foolish with their money.

“Look,” Hale said, softening his voice, “I understand your anxiety. I have my share as well. But we are in this together.”

“They have every record,” Cogburn muttered. “All my Swiss banks caved.”

“Mine, too,” Bolton added.

Combined, several billion dollars of their deposits lay overseas, on which not a dime of income tax had ever been paid. Each of them had received a letter from the U.S. attorney notifying him that he was the target of a federal criminal investigation. Hale assumed that four separate prosecutions-as opposed to one-had been chosen to divide their resources, pit one against the other.

But those prosecutors underestimated the power of the Articles.

The Commonwealth’s roots lay squarely within pirate society, a raucous, reckless, rapacious bunch for sure, but one with laws. Pirate communities had been orderly, geared to profit and mutual gain, always advancing the enterprise. They’d smartly adhered to what Adam Smith had observed. If there is any society among robbers and murderers, they must at least abstain from robbing and murdering one another.

Which pirates did.

What became known as the custom of the coast called for articles to be drawn before every voyage specifying the rules of behavior, all punishments, and dividing the booty among officers and crew. Each swore on a Bible to obey the articles. While swallowing a swig of rum mixed with gunpowder they would sign along the borders, never beneath the last line, which demonstrated that no one, not even the captain, was greater than the whole. Unanimous consent was required for the articles’ approval, and any who disagreed were free to search elsewhere for more satisfactory terms. When multiple ships joined together additional articles were drawn for the partnership, which was how the Commonwealth had been formed. Four families united to further a singular goal.

To betray the Crew, or each other, desert, or abandon a battle is punished as the Quartermaster, and or the Majority, shall think fit.

None would turn on the other.

Or at least, none would live to enjoy the benefit.

“My accountants are under siege,” Bolton said.

“Deal with them,” Hale said. “Instead of killing a president, you should have been killing them.”

“It’s not that easy for me,” Cogburn said.

He stared at his partner. “Killing never is, Charles. But occasionally it has to be done. The skill is in choosing the right time and how.”

Cogburn did not reply. He and the others had clearly chosen the wrong time.

“I’m sure the quartermaster has done his job,” Surcouf said, attempting to break the tension. “Nothing will lead back to us. But we still have a problem.”

Hale stepped over to an English bamboo console table flanking one of the pine-paneled walls. None of this should be happening. But perhaps that had been the whole idea. Toss out the threat of prosecution, then wait and see what happened when fear set in. Maybe it was thought they would self-destruct and save everyone the trouble of trials and jail. But surely no one had assumed that the president of the United States would be attacked.

He’d tried his own form of diplomacy, which had failed. The humiliation of his White House trip remained fresh in his mind. Similar to a visit made in 1834 by Abner Hale, which also failed. But he intended to learn from his ancestor’s mistakes, not repeat them.

“What are we going to do?” Cogburn asked. “We’re about at the end of the plank.”

He smiled at the reference to the stereotype of a blindfolded man being forced to walk into the sea at the end of a plank. In reality that punishment had been used only by squeamish captains, those who avoided bloodshed or wanted to convince themselves that they were not responsible for another’s death. The bold and daring adventurers, the ones who forged legends that continued to be told in countless books and movies, were not afraid to stare their adversaries down, even in the face of death.

“We shall raise the flag,” he said.