The Jefferson Allegiance (42 page)

Evie realized she was almost hyperventilating and brought her breathing under control. Turnbull nodded at Burns. “You’ve done your duty, Agent Burns. You have your murderer.” He looked over his shoulder, and a sheen of nervousness appeared on his scarred forehead despite the cold air. “You can’t touch me. Give me the Cipher.”

Evie held up the Cipher like a trophy. “Yes and no. You can be touched now, because your precious Lucius won’t be there to protect you any more. And you will never get the Cipher or the Allegiance. You’ve lost.”

“You’ll never get to Lucius,” Turnbull declared even as Burns snapped the cuffs on him.

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

“Now, now, Colonel,” Lucius said. “Can we talk about this?”

“Sure,” Ducharme said. “Who did you have kill Charlie LaGrange?”

“That death was avenged,” Lucius said. “As a matter of fact, your friend the Surgeon took those contractors out.”

“But you ordered it.”

“Not exactly. I gave my subordinate a mission statement. The actual mission execution turned out to be extreme. The truce can be restored. There is no need for such extreme measures now.”

“Actually, there is.” Ducharme fired, a small black hole appearing in the center of Lucius’s forehead, blood and brain splattering onto the books behind as his body flew backward.

The gun hidden in Lucius’s other hand dropped to the floor with a clatter as Lucius’s lifeless head slammed forward onto the desktop, scattering chess pieces.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“The Jefferson Memorial is to the right,” Kincannon noted, as he drove them over the bridge into DC.

“Take Constitution Avenue,” Evie said. “Toward the Zero Milestone.”

Kincannon drove her around the Lincoln Memorial. Looking to the side, she saw the gash in the earth of the Vietnam Memorial. As they crossed 17
^th
Street, Evie glanced left, past Kincannon’s grim profile. A solitary figure was standing there, dressed in black.

Kincannon slowed and Ducharme slid into the back seat.

No one had to ask.

Evie reached a hand between the seats and Ducharme took it. Squeezed tight. Relaxed the pressure, but didn’t let go. He noted that there was blood on her hand.

They drove in silence until Evie broke it: “Stop here,” she ordered when they were due south of the White House—and the Zero Milestone.

Kincannon pulled over to the curb. When Evie got out, Ducharme and Kincannon followed.

“This way,” Evie said, pointing to the south, away from the Zero Milestone and in the direction of the brightly lit Washington Monument. The mall was empty this early. There were more sirens in the distance, in the direction of the Anderson House blocks away.

Evie walked in a straight line, boots eating up ground. Ducharme was at her side and Kincannon a dark shadow, off at a tactical angle.

“What’s the Jefferson Stone?” Ducharme asked.

“When Washington DC was first laid out by Pierre Charles L’Enfant, there was much discussion about establishing a prime meridian for the new country. Jefferson pushed for it. He thought the United States should be scientifically and geographically ‘free’ from Europe as well as politically. He wanted the new prime meridian to run through the center of the President’s house. So a stone was placed out here—“ she pointed ahead—“to be that meridian. It was actually used for a long time before the United States joined the international community in accepting the Greenwich Meridian.”

“I’ve never heard of this Jefferson Stone,” Ducharme said.

“Most people haven’t,” Evie said. “Actually, the marker disappeared for a little while around eighteen seventy-two when the Corps of Engineers was cleaning up the area around the un-finished Washington Monument.”

“The Jefferson Stone?” Ducharme pressed.

“We’re getting there,” Evie said as they passed by the Monument.

They approached a short, worn stone set in the ground.

The stone was a square block, about waist high. There was writing etched in the stone—midway down there was a gouge across it.

POSITION OF JEFFERSON

PIER ERECTED DEC 18. 1804

RECOVERED AND RE-ERECTED

DEC 2. 1889

Then there was the gouge, followed by:

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

“What happened to it?” Ducharme asked,

“It was used as a pier and barges were lashed to it when the water in the canal ran close to here.”

Kincannon came up to them, watching the perimeter. “What now?”

Evie knelt down and beginning digging in the almost frozen ground with her bare fingers.

“Hold on,” Ducharme said, pulling out his knife. “Let me.” He dug until the blade hit something solid. Then he probed with his fingers. There was a flat stone blocking his way. He removed it. With a final tug, Ducharme pulled a black wooden cylinder out of the hole below the stone. It was a foot long and four inches in diameter.

“The Jefferson Allegiance,” Evie said. “Shall we?”

“Should we?” Ducharme responded.

Evie paused, her hand on the cap. “What do you mean?”

“Do we even want to know?” Ducharme tapped the side of his head. “We read that, then the knowledge is in our heads. Makes us targets.”

“Uh,” Kincannon said, “I think we passed that one already.”

Evie put a hand on his chest—rather, his body armor. “We have to know. We’re the new Philosophers. We have to know what power we hold.”

Ducharme said nothing further as she unscrewed the lid and pulled out a piece of parchment. Delicately she unrolled it. She turned so that the reflected light from the Washington Monument illuminated the words.

“It’s the Second Amendment,” Ducharme said as he began to read.

“It’s a revised Second Amendment,” Evie corrected. “Read the last sentences.”

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. The Army and Navy of the United States, and the militia of the several states, at the direction of the American Philosophical Society, shall remove from power any Federal official who, having openly violated his oath of office or the decreed balance of power, has not been impeached or otherwise checked by the will of the people. At last resort, every Federal official will be removed from office; a Constitutional Committee will be formed by democratic vote in each state, and a new government will be established under a new Constitution. The responsibility for such removal shall be the sworn duty of the General Officer Corps of the Army and Navy of the United States.

“It’s signed by a sufficient number of members of Congress at the time it was ratified,” Evie pointed out. “And President Jefferson. Thus, it is
law
and part of the Constitution.”

She rolled it and put it back in the wooden tube.

“What now?” Ducharme said.

“What do you suggest?” Evie asked.

“What do
you
suggest?” Ducharme said.

Evie looked around. The Washington Monument loomed over them. The White House was to the north. Capitol Hill loomed to the east. They were literally in the political epicenter of the United States. “We have to reconstitute the Philosophers.”

Ducharme nodded. “We need two more military. Navy and Air Force. I can do that. I know good people—high-ranking officers who were friends of General LaGrange. Men who can be trusted.”

“In the meantime,” Evie said, kneeling, “we put the Allegiance back.” She slid it into the hole, replaced the stone and pushed the dirt back on top. Ducharme swept a covering of light snow over it.

Evie stood. “We need to hide the Cipher until we reform the APS and break the disks back out again among the members for each to hide their set.”

Ducharme nodded. “I know what to do with the Cipher for now.” He looked over at the tall figure of Kincannon, standing guard. “Sergeant Major, we’re heading back to Arlington.”

***********

Emergency lights were flashing around the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and Ducharme figured Burns had his hands full trying to explain things. Too many people with too much power needed this entire thing hushed up, so Ducharme wasn’t overly concerned about publicity.

“We can’t put part of the Cipher in the Tomb,” Evie said.

“We’re not going there.”

Kincannon and Evie followed Ducharme through the cemetery, away from the flashing lights, into the calm of fields of dead. Dawn was lighting up the eastern sky and the tombstones cast long shadows in the early morning chill.

Ducharme halted. “Here.”

Evie looked at the newly emplaced headstone:

CAPTAIN CHARLES LAGRANGE

BORN NEW ORLEANS 6 MAY 1972

DIED 3 JANUARY 2011

DUTY-HONOR-COUNTRY

SILVER STAR

Ducharme knelt at the foot of the grave where new turf had been laid. A raw grave was to the right: the General. Ducharme pushed his knife into the loose soil and probed for a few moments. He struck something and pulled out the leather pouch he’d buried. He opened it and the two rings tumbled into his palm. He slid one onto his finger. Then he took a third from a pocket—General LaGrange’s, which Evie had retrieved from the Surgeon’s body. He put it in the pouch next to the General’s son’s ring.

Ducharme buried the rings back in the hole, pressing them down deep.

Then he held out his hands to Evie. “Let me have the Cipher.”

Evie removed the rods and disks. Ducharme unscrewed the end and removed 19 of the disks. He handed the rod and 7 remaining disks back to her. “You hide your seven wherever you want. Make sure it’s a place where whoever you appoint as your successor can unravel the clues to finding it by knowing you. I’ll hide the rest until we name the next two Philosophers. Then I’ll give each one their six.”

Ducharme turned back to the General’s grave. He slid his commando knife into the dirt and covered it.

“Won’t you be needing that?” Evie asked.

“I hope I won’t need my knife. Not quite Kosciuszko’s sword, but you get the idea. We need to move beyond the sword. I think the words of the Jefferson Allegiance are more powerful than any knife or sword.”

Evie nodded. “They’ve proven to be so far. It’s our duty to make sure they continue to do so.”

THE END

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by Bob Mayer

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