The Jefferson Allegiance (38 page)

“We’ve been in tight situations before.”

“Not with so much at stake,” Ducharme said.

Kincannon snorted. “I consider my life pretty damn high stakes.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah.” Kincannon let out a long breath. He reached down and retrieved his sub-machinegun. He checked the magazine, pulled the bolt back slightly to make sure a round was chambered. “What now?”

“I think it’s time we—“ Ducharme was interrupted by his satphone buzzing. “Yeah?”

“Colonel, it’s Agent Burns. Just found out that the man who’s been running this op, Turnbull, is actually a former marine who worked on the JCS: Thomas Blake. Reported killed in a plane crash over deep water a long time ago.”

“Let me guess,” Ducharme said. “No body recovered.”

“Right. He was facing six Federal indictments. And now he’s supposedly an ADiC in the FBI.”

Ducharme absently rubbed the scar under his eye with his free hand. “What do you have on him? Anything?”

“Besides the fact he’s not interested in catching the killer and is actually the one issuing her orders?”

“Anything else?”

“No. But I’m going to keep an eye on Blake, aka Officer Turnbull. I’ll let you know what he’s up to.”

“Good idea.”

“And there’s something else. I don’t know if it means anything or not, but General Parker commanded the Air Force Honor Guard in the late nineties. They do the burial detail for Air Force personnel at Arlington, so maybe his disks are there?”

Ducharme considered that. “But how does it tie in to the ‘no one and everyone’ thing?”

“No idea. But something is going to break loose soon.”

“Just make sure it isn’t you,” Ducharme said.

“Right.”

The phone clicked off. Ducharme brought Kincannon up to speed. He listened, thought for a second, and then shook his head. “Turnbull’s a spook, deep black. Not government either. This damn Society of Cincinnati is pulling all the strings.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“And lots of graves at Arlington,” Kincannon said.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“Sorry.”

Ducharme pressed his hand against the back of his head. He could see the dirt covering the grave of Charlie LaGrange. He opened his eyes and looked at the steering wheel. “’No one’s and everyone’s.’” He stiffened.

“What?” Kincannon asked.

“Did you know—“ Ducharme stopped, and then swore.

Kincannon laughed. “It’s catching, ain’t it? Did I know what?”

“That the hero of Gettysburg, Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, was a college professor just like Evie, before the Civil War?”

“’Evie’?”

Ducharme ignored the comment. “He wanted to enlist, but the college he taught at felt he was too valuable. So they gave him a two-year leave of absence to depart the country and go overseas to study foreign languages. So he promptly enlisted.”

“My kind of guy,” Kincannon said, laying the sub-machinegun across his lap.

“Yeah, he was. The governor of Maine offered him command of a regiment, but he declined, saying he kind of wanted to start a little lower and learn the business of war first.”

“Weird thinking there,” Kincannon said dryly. “Very un-officer-like.”

“Anyway,” Ducharme said, ignoring the sarcasm, “he eventually took command of the Twentieth Maine, and ended up holding the far left of the Union line on Little Round Top at Gettysburg. They got attacked hard by the Fifteenth Alabama. Things were looking bad for him—and the Union. His own flank got pushed back so far, his line ended up being in a Vee and his men were about out of ammunition.”

“Essentially, he was screwed,” Kincannon summarized.

“Which is the point of my story,” Ducharme said. “You know what he did then?”

“Nope.”

“He had his men fix bayonets and charge,” Ducharme said. “The Confederates were exhausted from attacking so hard all day, that it took them by surprise and broke their will and saved the left flank and, in essence, the entire Union line. And ultimately the Civil War.”

“So we’re a gonna fix bayonets,” Kincannon said.

Ducharme smiled grimly. “When the time is right.”

“And then charge.”

“Yes.”

***********

“Ducharme is going to hunt you down and—“

“Shut up,” the Surgeon snapped, slapping Evie across the face with the flat side of the wakizashi. Blood filled her mouth. Her body still twitched from the Taser. Her hands were cuffed behind her back, the chain looped through a cable along the back seat of the helicopter.

The Surgeon was facing her, sitting on a plastic case right behind the pilots. She slid the gun back into its holster, and then held up the rod with seven disks on it. Evie watched her unscrew one end and slide the six recovered from John Adams’s crypt onto it. Then she slid another one on.

“One through fourteen,” she said. “Over halfway toward my goal. How many does Ducharme have?”

“Fuck you,” Evie said, punctuating the statement by spitting blood at the Surgeon.

“Such bad language,” the Surgeon said. “How many disks does Ducharme have?”

“Fuck you,” Evie repeated.

The Surgeon smiled coldly. “I can cause you great pain.” She looked at Evie, eyes roaming, as if trying to decide the best cut of meat in a butcher shop. She made up her mind, aiming the blade when her satphone rang. With a regrettable sigh, she lowered the sword and put the phone tight against her ear to hear over the sound of the helicopter.

*************

“Yes?”

Ducharme recognized the Surgeon’s voice and steeled himself. “What’s the trade, missy?” He could hear a helicopter in the background.

“Colonel Ducharme,” the Surgeon replied. “I have a friend of yours.”

“What makes you think she’s my friend?”

“I get irritable when my time is wasted, and then I put blood on my blade.”

“Not my blood.”

“Not yet.”

“So you’re an optimist?” Ducharme asked.

“A realist.”

“The reality is I am going to kill you.”

“Can we get beyond this bluster to the details of what you’re going to do
for
me?”

Ducharme pulled the satphone away from his ear for a moment, took a deep breath, then brought it back. “Go ahead, missy.”

The response was quick and hard. “Are you insulting me?”

“I don’t even know you. Tell me what you want?”

“How many disks do you have?” the Surgeon asked.

Ducharme glanced at Kincannon who was listening in. The Sergeant Major shrugged. They both knew what was coming.

“I can make the lady experience considerable pain,” the Surgeon added.

“Seven.”

“So all we’re missing are General Parker’s five remaining disks,” the Surgeon said. “Any idea where they are?”

“No,” Ducharme said.

“I think you’re lying.”

“You can think all you want.”

“I can do more than think. Do you want to hear her scream?”

Ducharme gripped the phone tight. “I will rip the life right out of you. I will snatch it—“ Kincannon pressed a nerve in Ducharme’s shoulder, causing him to stop talking and loosening his grip on the phone. The Sergeant Major grabbed the phone and put it on speaker.

“Honey darling?”

“Who is this?”

“Someone else you’re going to have to spend every minute of what remains of your life looking out for if you hurt Tolliver.”

There was a moment of silence. When the Surgeon spoke again, her voice was tight. “We meet. I give you Tolliver back. You give me your seven disks.”

“How?”

“I’ll send a helicopter to pick you up,” the Surgeon said.

“Negative,” Kincannon said. “We’ve got our own pilot and chopper.”

There was another short pause. “All right.”

“How can we trust you?” This earned him a roll of the eyes from Ducharme.

“I was an officer and a gentlewoman,” the Surgeon said. “I also was bound by an honor code.”

“Right,” Kincannon said. “That took.”

“I’m going to enjoy—“ the Surgeon caught herself. “I’ll meet you and Ducharme—“

“We’ll decide where to meet,” Ducharme said.

“You don’t—“

Kincannon’s voice was like steel. “We’ve got what you have to get. And you need the disks more than we need Professor Tolliver. We’re professionals. It’s the disks that are important. Right?”

“Where?” the Surgeon asked.

Kincannon looked at Ducharme, letting him answer.

“Washington. I’ll direct the pilot to the exact spot once we get close. Just be in the area.”

“All right.”

“I’ll see you soon,” Ducharme said.

“Looking forward to it,” the Surgeon said.

“You shouldn’t.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Lily turned away from her captive in the rear of the helicopter and typed into her satphone.

>>>HAVE DISKS 1 THROUGH 14. HAVE TOLLIVER. MEETING DUCHARME IN DC TO GET HIS 7 DISKS<<<

There was a short pause before a response came on-screen.

***WHERE ARE LAST 5?***

>>>DON’T KNOW<<<

***WHERE ARE YOU?***

>>>EN ROUTE TO DC. WHERE SHOULD I LAND?<<<

There was a long pause.

***THEODORE ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL. ISLAND WILL BE SEALED OFF***

>>>ROGER<<<

The screen went blank. Lily moved forward and leaned between the pilot and co-pilot’s seats. She told them where to go, and for a moment she thought they were going to argue with her, but they acquiesced, punching up the destination on their flight computer. Lily pulled out her satphone and accessed Google Maps. She typed in the Roosevelt Memorial and put the resulting map on hybrid, zooming in. She nodded as she saw the result.

Isolated. A perfect place to finish things.

*************

Kincannon pointed up and then to his ear. Ducharme could hear a helicopter approaching the Quincy Hospital heliport.

Ducharme walked to the edge of the helipad with the Sergeant Major. “How are you feeling?”

“Most fun I’ve had in a while,” Kincannon said.

“Sorry to drag you into this mess,” Ducharme said.

“Ain’t nothing but a thing,” Kincannon said.

“What exactly does that mean?” Ducharme asked as the lights of the Huey appeared in the night sky, coming in low and fast.

“No idea,” Kincannon said, cheerful at the prospect of action. “But I like the way it sounds.”

Ducharme sighed. “Sometimes, I wonder if it’s worth it. Catching Charlie’s killer, yeah. But the people pulling the strings—they’re so powerful. What good can we do?”

“We can get this Allegiance,” Kincannon said. “It’s got to be pretty strong stuff. Enough to scare the string-pullers.” The chopper was getting closer, lights flashing in the darkness as it came in. “Evie pointed out this Mary Meyers woman who was connected to Kennedy got a head and heart double-tap. But the Cincinnatians didn’t take over the country then. Somebody fought them. And the Philosophers were still around to confront Nixon.”

Kincannon put a hand on Ducharme’s shoulder. “Listen. From Casablanca: ‘You might as well question why we breathe. If we stop breathing, we’ll die. If we stop fighting our enemies, the world will die.’ Don’t go Rick on me. Go Lazlo.”

Ducharme smiled. “Someone’s got to stand fast, right?”

“Not just stand fast, but fight back.”

The chopper touched down, Pollack at the controls. Ducharme and Kincannon threw their gear in the cargo bay, and then climbed in, sliding shut the cargo door. The chopper was airborne within seconds, and heading southwest.

************

Burns followed Turnbull out of the Hoover Building. The senior agent got into an armored Town Car with darkly tinted windows. Burns grabbed one of the ‘ready’ cars parked in front of the building after flashing his badge. The keys were in the ignition. There wasn’t much traffic this late, and Burns had no problem following.

He quickly caught up to Turnbull’s car on Constitution Avenue, but dropped back as four black Suburbans abruptly swung onto the road, falling in behind the Town Car—not FBI. Spooks of one sort or the other, government or more likely contractors. Who the fuck knew, and at the moment it didn’t matter to Burns.

Burns kept Turnbull in sight through Washington to the on-ramp for the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge. Traffic was a bit heavier now as they were on I-66. Then Turnbull’s car immediately swung off onto a little used exit. There was no way Burns could follow and not be spotted. He slowed down, staying parallel, earning the ire of drivers behind him, keeping pace with the Suburbans and Town Car on the service road to the right.