The 14th Colony (Cotton Malone 11)

“Hedlund called you yesterday. He told you, ‘It has to be that. We thought all of this was long forgotten, but apparently we were wrong. It’s starting again.’ The ‘that’ must be the 14th Colony. So I want what, why, when, how. Everything.”

“Peter said I’d probably be hearing from you.”

“I love it when folks expect me. Makes the job so much easier.”

Then he noticed something out in the rain, past the garage, near where the tree line began. A pile of frozen clods of dirt and a shovel plucked into them.

“Been doin’ some excavating?” he asked Begyn.

“Why don’t you shut up and come inside.”

* * *

Stephanie negotiated the sidewalk back to 7th Street and turned the corner, heading south toward central DC. The rumble and roar of car engines filled the air, the skies overhead thick with low hurrying clouds rushing in from the northeast. A cold rain and probably snow looked to be on the way, and she was a long way from anywhere warm.

Her gloved hands stayed in her coat pockets and she kept a watchful eye out for a taxi. But DC was not like New York where rides scurried everywhere at all hours of the day and night. Of course, she could always use her cell phone and call for one. She’d hardly ridden in a taxi for the last decade, ground transportation and security usually provided for her. The effects of being unemployed were beginning to set in, but she might as well get used to it.

Cotton had tried to find her, the phone noting a missed call. She needed to try him back, and would shortly. In the meantime she switched the unit off silent mode.

She’d resented Ishmael’s attitude, as if they were long-lost allies, each fighting a righteous cause. Russian criminal syndicates were some of the most complex, violent, and dangerous in the world. That was in no small part due to the fact that their activities inside Russia were nearly institutionalized. Not a whole lot was different, as Ishmael had said, from the early days of organized crime in America. Still, having thieves and thugs as partners was not all that comforting. But she supposed if anyone could take down the problems within the Russian government it would be the oligarchs and their private army, organized crime.

Her cell phone chimed in her pocket.

She removed the unit and answered.

“I need you back here now,” Danny Daniels said. “Where are you?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

So she did.

“You’re right. That is unbelievable.”

“Yet it happened.”

“All the more reason for you to be here. Stay put. I’ll send a car to get you.”

“What’s happening?”

“We’re going to have a chat with the next president of the United States.”

* * *

Luke entered the house, immediately struck by its cozy, rustic appeal. He guessed it rambled for maybe fifteen hundred square feet over two levels. Begyn propped his rifle beside a club chair and knelt before the hearth, where he lit a fire, flames licking at the kindling, then consuming the split logs, orange light flickering through the room.

“I held this until you got here,” Begyn said. “It’s cold out there.”

And raining, but that was not the point. “Your daughter said you left the house yesterday evening to come here,” Luke said. “That’s not a coincidence.”

“I had no idea people would invade the house.”

“I didn’t say that you did. But now that you’ve brought it up, tell me about the Tallmadge journal.”

Sue had retreated to the windows, where she gazed out past the venetian blinds, as if on guard, which bothered him.

He removed his coat.

“This is a nightmare,” the older man said. “One that I thought was long over.”

There it was again. A reference to something in the past.

“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear,” he said. “I need information and I need it quickly.”

“What are you going to do?” Sue asked. “Arrest us?”

“Sure. Why not? We can start with the three men you killed. Self-defense or not, we’ll let a jury decide. Just the allegations, though, will end your military career.”

“No need to threaten,” Begyn said.

“What was so important that Peter Hedlund tried to protect it? And what have you been diggin’ up outside?”

So far he’d asked four questions and received no answers.

“Mr. Daniels—”

“Why don’t you call me Luke,” he said, trying to relieve the tension.

Begyn eyed him hard. “Mr. Daniels, all of this is quite difficult for us. It involves the society, and that has always been private. I’m the president general of the society. Its head. I owe it my allegiance.”

“Then you can explain all of that to the FBI, the Secret Service, and the CIA, who will all want to question you and examine all of the society’s records.”

He allowed that threat to sink in.

“Dad, you need to tell him whatever it is,” Sue said. “There’s no point in keeping any more secrets. Look where it’s got you.”

Begyn stared across the room at his daughter. That was the first thing she’d said Luke actually agreed with. Maybe reality was finally setting in. Every high came with a low, and killing was never easy, no matter who you were.

His host motioned toward a doorway and led the way through it. They stepped into a long, narrow kitchen with windows that pointed out toward the bay. A small room opened off to the right, where a glass door led outside. Wind buzzed just past its frame, jostling the rain that continued to fall.

A mudroom.

His boyhood home in Tennessee had one, which he and his brothers had made good use of. Lying on its hardwood floor atop a layer of newspaper was a plastic box caked in mud.

“I dug it up,” Begyn said.

Luke bent down and eased up the lid. Inside lay bundles of opaque plastic wrapped around what looked like books and paper.

“What are these?”

“Secrets that Peter Hedlund thought he had to defend.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Stephanie slipped into one of the chairs surrounding the oval table within the White House Cabinet Room. Nineteen others guarded its perimeter, but only a few were occupied. Present was the current president and the president-elect, along with the incoming attorney-general-designate and Bruce Litchfield, the current acting AG. Edwin Davis was likewise there, along with Cotton and Cassiopeia, both of whom she was glad to see. There’d been no time for pleasantries. She’d walked straight from the car that had found her on 7th Street to the conference room.

This was her first time inside the room, where for decades presidents had met with their cabinets. She knew the story about the table, bought by Nixon and donated to the White House. The president always sat at the center of the oval, opposite the vice president, with his back to the Rose Garden, his chair a few inches taller than the others. Cabinet members were a

ssigned places according to the date their department had been established, the oldest seated closest to the president. Each administration selected portraits to adorn the walls, designed surely to offer inspiration. Right now, Harry Truman, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt kept watch. But she knew those would most likely change in the coming week.

With no vice president here, President-Elect Fox sat opposite Danny. Everyone else chose sides depending on their boss. She moved to the end of the oval at Danny’s right, Litchfield between her and the president, while Cotton and Cassiopeia assumed neutral ground at the oval’s opposite end.

After a flurry of introductions, Fox said, “You mentioned this was urgent.”

She caught the dismissive tone of How could anything be urgent at this late hour in your term. And the demeanor. Like a schoolmaster encouraging a slightly backward pupil. But Danny seemed to keep his cool. She knew he and Fox were nothing alike. Physically, Danny was tall, broad-shouldered, with thick bushy hair and piercing eyes. What had one observer noted? A great flint-eyed hulk of a man. Fox was short, pinched, pursed, and solemn with ash-gray hair and watery blue eyes. From what she’d read, he considered himself a northeastern intellectual, a financial progressive but social conservative. Danny was southern to the core and totally pragmatic. Pundits had tried to pigeonhole him for years, but none had ever been successful. To her knowledge the two men did not know each other, and compounding their estrangement was the fact that they were of opposite parties, neither owing the other a damn thing.

“We have a developing situation,” Danny said. “One this idiot sitting next to me was aware of, but decided wasn’t our problem.”

She smiled at his reference to Litchfield, who could say nothing.

“I understand,” Fox said, “how you could be irritated that we okayed the firing of Ms. Nelle, but we had an agreement that everything would be okayed by my people, especially at this late hour.”