The Jefferson Key

SIXTY-FIVE

MALONE STUDIED THE CRENELLATIONS ON THE CRUMBLING walls for movement. A knot formed in the pit of his stomach. His heart raced.

Just like the old days.

He retreated to a stairway and quickly found the ground. Leading with the automatic, he crept forward into the darkness of the inner ward. He stopped in the shadows and allowed his eyes to adjust.

A deathly chill crept into his body.

One that primed every nerve to be ready.

The fort was like a maze on three levels, rooms leading one into another. He recalled what he’d read about its lowest levels and the 74 British prisoners who’d drowned. The courts-martial had revealed that the fort’s foundations rested on a tangle of tunnels, cut from rock, high tide filling them, low tide offering a respite. The colonial officers claimed that they had no knowledge of the fact and simply chose the underground locale as the securest place to hold their prisoners. Of course, none of the Brits survived to contradict that testimony and none of the hundred or so colonial soldiers refuted the account.

He heard movement above.

Footsteps.

His gaze shot to the ceiling.