The Jefferson Key

TWENTY-SEVEN

CASSIOPEIA WAS LED BY EDWIN DAVIS UPSTAIRS TO THE second-floor residence that contained the First Family’s private living space. A safe retreat, Davis had said, guarded by the Secret Service. Perhaps the only place in the world where they can actually be themselves. She was still trying to gauge Davis. She’d watched him as the staff greeted Daniels. How he’d kept out of the way. Off to the side. There, but not overtly so.

They came to the top of the stairs and stopped in a lighted hallway that extended from one end of the building to the other. Doorways lined either side. One was guarded by a woman who stood straight against the ornate wall. Davis motioned to a room across the hall. They stepped inside and he closed the door. Pale walls and simple draperies were warmed by the golden glow of lamps. A magnificent Victorian desk sat atop a colorful rug.

“The Treaty Room,” Davis said. “Most presidents have used this as a private study. When James Garfield was shot, they turned this into an icehouse with some crude air-conditioning machines, trying to make him comfortable as he lay dying.”

She saw he was anxious.

Odd.

“The Spanish-American War ended here when President McKinley signed the treaty on that table.”

She faced Davis. “What is it you have to say?”

He nodded. “I was told you were direct.”

“You’re a little on edge and I’m not here for a tour.”

“There’s something you need to know.”

Danny Daniels woke from a sound sleep and smelled smoke.

The darkened bedroom was thick with an acrid fog, enough that he choked on his next breath, coughing away a mouthful of carbon. He shook Pauline, waking her, then tossed the covers away. His mind came fully awake and he realized the worst.

The house was on fire.

He heard the flames, the old wood structure crackling as it disintegrated. Their bedroom was on the second floor, as was their daughter’s.

“Oh, my God,” Pauline said. “Mary.”

“Mary,” he called out through the open doorway. “Mary.”

The second floor was a mass of flames, the stairway leading down engulfed by fire. It seemed the whole house had succumbed save for their bedroom.

“Mary,” he yelled. “Answer me. Mary.”

Pauline was now beside him, screaming for their nine-year-old daughter.

“I’m going after her,” she said.

He grabbed her arm. “There’s no way. You won’t make it. The floor is gone.”

“I’m not going to stand here while she’s in there.”

Neither was he, but he had to use his brain.

“Mary,” Pauline shrieked. “Answer me.”

His wife was bordering on hysterical. Smoke continued to build. He bolted to the window and opened it. The bedside clock read 3:15 AM. He heard no sirens. His farm sat three miles outside of town, on family land, the nearest neighbor half a mile away.

He grabbed a lungful of fresh air.

“Dammit, Danny,” Pauline blurted out. “Do something.”

He made a decision.

He stepped back inside, grabbed his wife, and yanked her toward the window. The drop down was about fifteen feet into a line of shrubs. There was no way they could escape out the bedroom door. This was their only avenue out and he knew she would not go voluntarily.

“Get some air,” he said.

She was coughing bad and saw the wisdom in his advice. She leaned out the window to clear her throat. He grabbed her legs and shoved her body through the open frame, twisting her once so she’d land sideways in the branches. She might break a bone, but she wasn’t going to die in the fire. She was no help to him here. He had to do this on his own.

He saw that shrubbery broke her fall and she came to her feet.

“Get away from the house,” he called out.

Then he rushed back to the bedroom door.

“Daddy. Help me.”

Mary’s voice.

“Honey. I’m here,” he called out to the fire. “Are you in your room?”

“Daddy. What’s happening? Everything’s burning. I can’t breathe.”

He had to get to her, but there was no way. The second-floor hall was gone, fifty feet of air loomed between the doorway and his daughter’s room. In a few more minutes the bedroom where he stood would be gone. The smoke and heat was becoming unbearable, stinging his eyes, choking his lungs.

“Mary. You still there?” He waited. “Mary.”

He had to get to her.

He rushed to the window and stared below. Pauline was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he could help Mary from the outside. There was a ladder in the barn.

He climbed out through the window and stretched his tall frame downward, gripping the sill. He released his grip and fell the additional nine feet, penetrating the shrubbery, landing on his feet. He pushed through the branches and ran around to the other side of the house. His worst fears were immediately confirmed. The entire second floor was engulfed, including his daughter’s room. Flames roared out the exterior walls and obliterated the roof.

Pauline stood, staring upward, holding one arm with the other.

“She’s gone,” his wife wailed, tears in her voice. “My baby is gone.”

“That night has haunted him for thirty years,” Davis said, his voice a whisper. “The Daniels’ only child died, and Pauline could not have any more.”

She did not know what to say.

“The cause of the fire was a cigar left in an ashtray. At that time Daniels was a city councilman and liked a good smoke. Pauline had begged him to quit, but he’d refused. Back then, smoke detectors were not commonplace. The official report noted that the fire was preventable.”

She comprehended the full extent of that conclusion.

“How did their marriage survive that?” she asked.

“It didn’t.”

WYATT ENTERED THE SECOND-FLOOR OFFICE OF DR. GARY Voccio, who’d answered the intercom and released an electronic lock only after being provided the appropriate password. The doctor greeted him from behind a desk cluttered with paper and three active LCD monitors. Voccio was in his late thirties with a Spartan vigor and reddish hair cut in a boyish fringe. He appeared disheveled, shirtsleeves rolled up, eyes tired.

Not the outdoor type, Wyatt concluded.

“I’m not a night person,” Voccio said as they shook hands. “But the NIA’s paying the bill, and we aim to please. So I waited.”

“I need everything you have.”

“That cipher was a tough one. It took nearly two months for our computers to crack the thing. And even then, it was a little luck that did the trick.”

He wasn’t interested in details. Instead he stepped across the cluttered office to the plate-glass windows, which offered a view of the front parking lot, wet asphalt glistening beneath the sodium vapor lights.

“Something wrong?” Voccio asked.

That remained to be seen. He kept his eyes out the window.

Headlights appeared.

A car turned from the entrance lane, wheeled into the vacant lot, and parked.

A man emerged.

Cotton Malone.

Carbonell had been right.

Another car materialized from his left. No headlights. Speeding straight for Malone.

Shots were fired.

HALE LISTENED TO ANDREA CARBONELL. HER TONE WAS NOT THAT of someone cornered, more the frivolity of somebody genuinely bemused.

“You realize,” he said, “that I can easily turn Stephanie Nelle loose after I make some arrangements with her. She is, after all, the head of a respected intelligence agency.”

“You’ll find her difficult to work with.”

“More than you?”

“Quentin, only I control the key to the cipher.”

“I have no idea if that is true. You’ve already lied to us once.”

“The mishap with Knox? I was simply hedging the bet. Okay. You won that round. How about this. I’ll provide the key to you. And once you find those missing two pages, then we’ll both be in a better position to negotiate.”

“I assume that, in return, you would want what I have stored eliminated?”

“As if that’s a problem for you.”

“I’m not immune to that particular charge, even if I find the missing pages.” He knew she was aware that the letter of marque did not protect against willful murder.

“That hasn’t seemed to bother you in the past, and there’s a man at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean who would agree with me.”

Her comment caught him off guard, then he realized. “Your informant?”

“Spies do come in handy.”

But she’d tossed him a bone. He now knew where to look. And she knew what he’d do.

“Cleaning up loose ends?” he asked.

She laughed. “Let’s just say I can be quite generous when I want to be. Call it a demonstration of my good faith.”

The hell with Stephanie Nelle. Maybe she was more valuable dead. “Give me the key. Once I have those two pages in hand, your problem will go away.”