It was then that he decided, no. He wasn’t done yet. He wasn’t going to allow these two gorillas to finish him off. He would not let them kill him here and now. Not without a fight. The drums of his rebellion pounded faintly, but unmistakably. War drums.
A few hundred yards down the path, a hundred men and women were drinking and dancing the night away. Reach them and he was safe. He would flash his badge. He would give his name. He’d get the collar, one way or the other. Jacklin would be his.
Franciscus summoned his resolve. He needed to act quickly, while he had enough strength to make it to the main house. He lay as still as a rock, holding his breath. One of his interrogators knew right away something was wrong. You were supposed to jerk when you got hit, not just lie there. He came closer, looking at Franciscus as if he were a landed croc that might have some bite left in him.
“I think our man’s checked out. He’s blue.”
The other man laughed skeptically. “Has he stopped sweating? That’s when you’ll know if he’s dead.”
“I think it’s his heart.”
“Let me have a look.” The man dropped to a knee and bent over Franciscus. First he put a hand on his wrist. Then he looked at his associate, and the look was enough to get the man down on the floor of the tack room, too. “I can’t find a pulse. See if you can feel anything.”
“He’s cold. Fuckin’ Guilfoyle. I told him it was stupid to beat up on a senior. My dad’s a cop, too. I don’t want this on my conscience.”
“Shh. I’m still listening.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
“Go get him. The guy’s turning bluer than a fish.”
Jennifer Dance was reading the minutes of the Patriots Club.
December 6, 1854
Present: Franklin Pierce. Henry Ward Beecher. Frederick Douglass. Horace Greeley. Thomas Hart Benton.
“… the Committee votes in favor of a grant of $25,000 to assist Mr. Beecher in the purchase of Sharps rifles for overland shipment to Kansas in support of the abolitionist/antislavery movement.”
The guns were later named Beecher’s Bibles by the Northern press, and they turned the state of Kansas into a battleground that was nicknamed Bloody Kansas.
Sept. 8, 1859
Present: James Buchanan. William Seward. Horace Greeley. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Henry Ward Beecher.
“… all ammunition to be provided to Mr. John Brown and sons in support of his proposed raiding of the arsenal at Harpers Ferry…”
John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry failed, but his subsequent conviction for treason against the commonwealth of Virginia and his execution by hanging hastened the advent of the Civil War.
April 1, 1864
Present: Abraham Lincoln. William Seward. U. S. Grant. Salmon P. Chase. Horace Greeley. Cornelius Vanderbilt.
“… the Committee votes against General Lee’s petition asking for a truce between the Union and the Confederacy, the Confederacy accepting the Emancipation Proclamation with all territorial issues reverting to status quo ante bellum.”
A truce? Jenny had never heard of a failed truce between the states. Abraham Lincoln had pressed the war until the South had surrendered, exhausted, depleted, and without any chance of further victory on the battlefield.
Jenny opened the second ledger, dated 1878-1904. She thumbed the pages until she came to the date of January 31, 1898.
Present: William McKinley. Alfred Thayer Mahan. Elihu Root. J. P. Morgan. John Rockefeller. J. J. Astor. Thomas B. Reed. Frederick Jackson Turner.
“We can no longer overlook the pressing requirement for our nation to acquire global colonies. At the least, a string of coaling stations across the Pacific necessary for the expanding fleet… it is imperative that we check the British colossus as a world power.”
Her eyes skipped down the page.
“… an incident required to galvanize the American people in support of war… suitable targets: Cuba, Haiti, the Philippines… all lands where a democratic presence would be viewed as a liberator and widely welcomed by local populace… Mr. Root proposed scuttling of U.S.S. Maine, second-class battleship cruising in Cuban waters.”
Voices carried into the room from the corridor. Jenny flipped the pages forward faster, and faster yet. She was searching for one more name, a last indication that, against whatever argument she might muster, it was all true.
March 13, 1915. Present: Woodrow Wilson, Colonel A. E. House, General J. J. Pershing, Theodore Roosevelt, J. P. Morgan, Vincent Astor.
“… a means to enter European conflict is now of primary importance… unrestricted submarine warfare an assault on civility of conflict… the Cunard liner Lusitania will depart New York on May 1. The War Department is shipping two thousand tons of ammunition for the Allied war effort. Items are not on manifest… an irresistible target for German navy…”
She flipped forward to the most recent meeting. It was dated the night before. She read a paragraph, then two.
The door burst open.
Jacklin stood framed by the light. Two of his bodyguards waited behind him. She recognized them from the night before. Wolf and Irish. Jacklin walked slowly across the room and plucked the journal from her hands.
“Miss Dance… is it?”
63
“Take off the restraints,” said James Jacklin, entering the guesthouse and laying eyes on Bolden. “Jesus Christ. The man’s a banker, not a convict.” The tall, grim-faced man hurried toward him, occasionally admonishing Wolf to get the job done faster. “That better, Tom?”
Bolden rubbed his wrists. “Yes,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Well now,” said Jacklin, sizing him up. “What can I get you? Beer? Scotch? Name your poison.”
“I could use a glass of water.”
Jacklin fired off a command for some water, and a little something to eat, but for all the talk about the restraints being some kind of mistake, he was sure to keep his bodyguard nearby. “Jesus Christ, Tom, would you care to tell me how we got so far down the wrong road? As I recall, we even made you an offer a few months back.”
“You tell me. I think it might have started last night when Wolf, here, and Irish kidnapped me.”
“A regrettable mistake,” said Jacklin, lowering his head as if the whole thing plain embarrassed him. “I do apologize. Mr. Guilfoyle handles that side of things.”
“Mr. Guilfoyle knows damn well that I had no knowledge of Crown or Bobby Stillman.”
A figure stirred in the corner of the room. Guilfoyle rose from a club chair. “Maybe I can clear up the misunderstanding,” he said, hands tucked in his pockets, as close to a pleasant expression on his face as Bolden had seen. “Tom, as you know, Jefferson holds in its portfolio a good many companies active in the information technology sector-companies engaged in the manufacture of computer hardware and software, much of it with applications in the defense sector. Suffice it to say that our systems pinpointed no fewer than four indicators that you posed a threat to Jefferson.”
Trendrite. National Bank Data. Triton Aerospace. Bolden knew the companies to which Guilfoyle referred. “I guess you’ve gotten a long way toward perfecting the code on that one. Tell me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t that software designed to heighten national security? What’s Jefferson doing messing with it?”
Guilfoyle answered matter-of-factly. “There are corporate applications we’d be foolish not to take advantage of. One of them indicated that you’d been in contact with Bobby Stillman.”