The Jefferson Key (Cotton Malone 7)

She already knew what Cotton wanted her to do. “I’ll slow them down through the phone tap. We can feed Hale whatever we like.”

He nodded. “Do it. Wyatt has the wheel and he’ll be headed north, too.”

“I’ll find Stephanie,” she told him.

He turned to the curator. “You said you created that duplicate wheel. Is the fact that it’s an exact duplicate of the original advertised anywhere?”

The woman shook her head. “The manufacturer and I are the only ones who know. I didn’t even tell the estate manager until a little while ago up in the house. It really wasn’t that important.”

But Cassiopeia realized exactly why that fact was critical. “Wyatt thinks he’s the only one who knows.”

Cotton nodded.

“Yep. Which means, for the first time, we’re ahead of the game.”

FIFTY-THREE

BATH, NORTH CAROLINA

11:15 AM

KNOX PACED THE GRASS BENEATH A CANOPY OF OAKS AND pines. He’d been excused from the captain’s meeting just after Hale’s resurrection and told to wait outside. Not unusual for the four captains to discuss things without him, but he remained concerned about Hale’s private talk with the traitor.

Was that what the captains were discussing?

Adventure had, by now, made its way through the Ocracoke Inlet into the open Atlantic, heading out to dispose of the body.

What was he to do next?

The front door opened.

Bolton, Surcouf, and Cogburn emerged into the midday sun. They descended the veranda and headed for an electric cart. Bolton spotted him and walked over as the other two kept pace toward the vehicle.

“I wanted to thank you,” Bolton said.

“My job is to look after all of the captains.”

“What Hale is doing is wrong. It’s not going to work. I know, what we tried to do was desperate, or even worse than that. But he’s no better.”

Knox shrugged. “I’m not sure any of us knows what to do anymore.”

Defeat clouded the other man’s face. Bolton extended his hand, which Knox shook.

“Thanks again.”

Good to know that his move may have paid off. He might need Edward Bolton before this was done.

“Mr. Knox.”

He turned.

Hale’s private secretary waited on the porch.

“The captain will see you now.”

HALE POURED HIMSELF A DRINK AS KNOX REENTERED THE study. It held some of the same whiskey that had been used for the challenge. He tipped the glass to his quartermaster and said, “At least this one won’t kill me.”

The tumbler Knox had slapped from Bolton’s hand still lay on the hardwood floor, its liquid death soaked into the nearby planks.

“No one should touch that stain,” Knox made clear. “It will need to evaporate.”

“I’m keeping it there as a reminder of my triumph over idiocy. You should have let him die.”

“You know that I couldn’t.”

“Ah, yes. That duty of yours. The loyal quartermaster who walks the line between captain and crew. Elected by one group, yet dominated by the other. How do you do it?”

He made no attempt to mask his sarcasm.

“Did you make your point to them?” Knox calmly asked.

“What you really want to know is what we just discussed without you.”

“You’ll tell me when necessary.”

He threw the whiskey toward the back of his throat and swallowed.

He then banged the glass down on the table, reached for his gun, and pointed the weapon straight at Knox.

MALONE SETTLED INTO THE SEAT OF AN EXECUTIVE GULFSTREAM and fired up the LCD screen beside the white leather seat. He was alone in the spacious cabin, taxiing down the runway at Reagan National Airport, readying himself for what lay 800 miles to the north, across the Canadian border.

He needed the Internet and, thankfully, did not have to wait until 10,000 feet before using any approved electronic devices. He zeroed in on a few websites and learned what he could about Nova Scotia, a narrow Canadian peninsula barely connected to New Brunswick, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. Three hundred miles long, 50 miles wide, 4800 miles of coastline. A mix of old and new with craggy coves, sandy beaches, and fertile valleys. The south shore, from Halifax to Shelburne, contained countless inlets, the largest of which was Mahone. Though the French had discovered the bay in 1534, the British took control in 1713.

Something he hadn’t known came up on one site.

During the American Revolution colonial forces had occupied the region, attempting to make Canada the fourteenth colony. The idea had been to woo the many angry French still living there into becoming allies against the English, but the move failed. Canada remained British and, after the Revolution, became even more so, as Loyalists emigrated northward, fleeing the newly formed United States.

And he’d been right.

Mahone Bay became a haven for pirates.

Shipbuilding developed into an industry. Thick fogs and sinister tidal marshes provided ideal cover for several hundred islands. The locale was not all that dissimilar to Port Royal, Jamaica, or Bath, North Carolina, both of which had also once been notorious pirate dens.

Oak Island, which lay in Mahone Bay, appeared on many of the websites, so he read what he could. Its history began on a summer day in 1795 when Daniel McGinnis, a young man in his early twenties, discovered a clearing where oak trees had been felled, leaving only stumps. At the center of the clearing lay a circular indentation, maybe twelve feet wide. A large branch protruded over the depression. One version said that a ship’s pulley had been attached to the branch. Another stated there were strange markings on the tree. A third account noted that the clearing had been blanketed with red clover, which wasn’t native to the island. No matter which version was accepted as true, what happened next was beyond dispute.

People started digging.

First McGinnis and his friends, then others, then organized treasure consortiums. They bore down nearly two hundred feet and found layers of charcoal, timber, coconut fibers, flagstones, and clay. If their accounts could be believed, they unearthed a strange stone with curious markings. Two ingenious flood tunnels tied into the shaft, designed to ensure that anyone who dug deep enough would encounter nothing but water.

And that was exactly what they found.

Flooding had thwarted every attempt to solve the mystery.

Countless theories abounded.

Some said it was a pirate cache, dug by Captain William Kidd himself. Others gave ownership to the privateer Sir Francis Drake or the Spanish, as an out-of-the-way place to stash their wealth. More pragmatic people suggested military involvement-pay chests concealed by the French or English in their seesawing struggle to control Nova Scotia.

Then there were the far-outers.

Antediluvian Atlanteans, interplanetary travelers, Masons, Templars, Egyptians, Greeks, Celts.

Several men lost their lives, many their fortunes, but no treasure had ever been found.

Oak Island wasn’t even an island any longer. A narrow causeway, built to allow heavy digging equipment to easily pass back and forth, now connected it to the mainland. One recent Canadian news article mentioned that the provincial government was considering buying the land and turning the place into a tourist attraction.

Now that would yield a treasure, he thought.

He located a few mentions of Paw Island, a few miles southeast of Oak. About a mile long, and half that wide, shaped liked its name. Two coves indented its center facing north, while smaller ones cracked the remaining shoreline. Its rounded west side was covered with trees, while rocky cliffs dominated the east and south shores. The French had explored it in the 17th century looking for furs, but the English had built a fort, which they dubbed Wildwood, that faced the Atlantic and guarded the bay. He read how Nova Scotia was generally devoid of ruins. Nothing was ever wasted. Houses were dismantled timber by timbe

r, the hinges, door handles, nails, bricks, mortar, and cement all reused. Twenty-first-century boards, driven by 18th-century nails, over 19th-century joists, was how one site described it.

But the limestone fort on Paw Island stood as an anomaly.

And history was the explanation.

In 1775 when the American Continental army invaded, seizing control of the British forts, Wildwood was taken early and renamed Dominion. But the Americans were soon defeated at the Battle of Quebec and withdrew from Canada in 1776. Before leaving Paw Island, though, they torched the fort. Nothing was ever rebuilt, the site abandoned to the elements, the fire-blackened walls left standing as a reminder of the insult.

Now only birds occupied them.

“Mr. Malone,” a voice said over the intercom. “We have a weather delay. They’re asking us to hold on the runway.”

“I didn’t think those rules applied to the Secret Service.”

“Unfortunately, there’s a nasty storm between here and Maine and even the Secret Service has to bow to that.”

“Keep in mind, we’re in a hurry.”

“It could be a little bit. They didn’t sound encouraging.”

He tapped the keyboard and found a map of Mahone Bay, deciding how best to arrive on Paw Island. They would be landing at a small airstrip to the south, specifically avoiding Halifax and its international hub, since Wyatt could be traveling through there. The Secret Service had run a check of all flights to Nova Scotia, but no seats had been booked in Wyatt’s name. No surprise. He was surely flying under an alias with a clean ID, or he may have chartered something.

It didn’t matter.

He wanted his adversary to have a clear run to the island.