The Jefferson Key

MALONE DOVE BEHIND HIS PARKED CAR AND REACHED FOR THE

semi-automatic the Secret Service had provided. He’d expected something, but not necessarily this fast. The car speeding toward him slowed as the gun projecting from the open window fired three rounds. The weapon was sound-suppressed, the shots popping more like those of a cap pistol than the bangs of a high-caliber weapon.

The car wheeled to a stop fifty yards away.

Two men emerged, one from the driver’s side, the other from the rear passenger door. Both armed. He decided not to give anyone time to think and shot the man closest to him in the thigh. The body dropped to the ground, his victim crying out in pain. The other man reacted, assuming a defensive position behind the vehicle.

The rain quickened, drops stinging his face.

He glanced around to see if there were any more threats and spotted none.

So instead of aiming for the man with the gun, he pointed his weapon at the open driver’s-side door and fired into the car.

HALE HUNG UP THE PHONE. OF COURSE, HE DID NOT BELIEVE A word Andrea Carbonell had said. She was buying time.

But so was he.

He was bothered by the fact that she knew about the earlier murder at sea. There was indeed a spy among them.

Which had to be dealt with.

He mentally assessed Adventure’s crew. Many of them performed other tasks around the estate, some in the metallurgy workshop where Knox had surely fashioned his remote-controlled weapons. Each man derived a designated share of the Commonwealth’s annual spoils, and it pained him to think that one of them had betrayed the company.

Justice must be done.

The Articles provided an accused a trial before his peers with the quartermaster presiding and crewmen, captains included, serving as jury. A simple majority vote would determine his fate, and if he was found guilty, the punishment was not in doubt.

Death.

Slow and painful.

He recalled what his father had told him about a convicted traitor from decades ago. They’d resorted to the old ways. About a hundred of the crew assembled to deliver one blow each from a cat-o’-nine-tails. But only half were able to inflict the punishment before the man died.

He decided not to wait for the quartermaster.

Though it was approaching midnight, he knew his secretary was down the hall. Never would he retire before Hale.

He called out and a few moments later the door opened.

“I want the crew of the sloop assembled at once.”

CASSIOPEIA STAYED CALM. APPARENTLY, DANNY DANIELS’ INSTINCTS had proven correct.

“Are you married?” the First Lady asked her.

She shook her head.

“Someone special in your life?”

She nodded, though it felt strange to actually admit the fact.

“Do you love him?”

“I told him I did.”

“Did you mean it?”

“I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.”

A sly grin came to the older woman’s thin lips. “I wish it were that simple. Does he love you?”

She nodded.

“I met Danny when I was seventeen. We married a year later. I told him I loved him on our second date. He told me on the third. He always was a little slow. I’ve watched him rise up the political ladder. He started as a city councilman and ended up president of the United States. If he hadn’t killed our little girl, I do believe I would worship him.”

“He didn’t kill her.”

“But he did. I begged him not to smoke in the house and to be careful with his ashes. Back then nobody knew anything about secondhand smoke, all I knew was that I didn’t want him smoking.” The words had come fast, as if they needed to be said. “I relive that night every day. Earlier, when they told me somebody had tried to kill Danny, I thought about it again. I hated him for tossing me out the window. Hated him for being stubborn. Hated him for not saving Mary.” She caught herself. “But I also love him.”

Cassiopeia sat silent.

“I bet you think I’m a crazy person,” the First Lady said. “But when I was told someone would be coming to interrogate me, someone from outside the White House, I knew that I had to be honest. You do believe that I’m being honest?”

That was the one thing she was sure of.

“Who did you tell about the New York trip?” she asked, trying to get back on point.

Pauline Daniels’ face cast an expression of profound sympathy. Her blue eyes seemed on the verge of tears, and Cassiopeia wondered at the thoughts swirling through this troubled woman’s mind. From everything she knew the First Lady was a poised, well-respected figure, never a cruel word uttered about her. At all times she conducted herself in a proper manner, but apparently this woman kept her emotions bottled inside, the relative safety of these walls, home to her for the past seven years, the only place where they might be exposed.

“A friend of mine. A close friend. That’s who I told.”

The eyes conveyed more.

“A friend I don’t want my husband to talk to.”