The Jefferson Key by Steve Berry Page B

floor.
    He then stepped behind CIA and wrapped an arm around his neck.
    “I could choke you to death,” he whispered in the man’s ear.
    He gritted his teeth and increased the pressure on the windpipe.
    “I’d actually enjoy watching you suck your last breath.”
    Tighter.
    “Listen to me,” he said. “Stay. The hell. Out of my way.”
    CIA reached for his arm.
    He increased the hold. “Do you hear me?”
    Finally, the man nodded, then a lack of oxygen sucked all resistance from the muscles.
    He released his grip.
    The body folded to the floor, hardly making a sound.
    He checked for pulses. Faint, but there. Breathing was shallow, but constant.
    He stepped to the window, opened it, and left.
----
    MALONE WAS WAITING FOR BOTH DANIELS AND DAVIS TO EXPLAIN what was happening with Stephanie. But he also realized the president had much to say. So, since they were 30,000 feet in the air with nowhere to go, he decided to sit back and listen as Daniels explained what happened in the spring of 1835.
    “Jackson was furious over the assassination attempt,” the president said. “He openly blamed Senator Poindexter from Mississippi, called the whole thing a Nullifiers’ conspiracy. He hated John Calhoun. Called him a traitor to the Union. That one I can understand.”
    Calhoun had been Jackson’s vice president and, initially, a big supporter. But in the face of a rising southern sympathy, Calhoun had turned on his benefactor and started the Nullifier Party, advocating states’ rights—especially southern states’ rights. Daniels, too, had seen his share of vice-presidential traitors.
    “Jackson had dealt with pirates before,” Daniels said. “Jean Lafitte in New Orleans he liked. Together they saved that city during the War of 1812.”
    “Why do you call these people pirates?” Cassiopeia asked. “Were they not privateers? Specifically authorized by America to attack its enemies?”
    “That they were and, if they’d stopped there, it might have been okay. Instead, once they received that letter of marque in perpetuity, they were hell on water.”
    He listened as Daniels explained how during the Civil War the Commonwealth worked both sides of the conflict.
    “I’ve seen classified documents from that time,” Daniels said. “Lincoln hated the Commonwealth. He planned on prosecuting them all. By then privateering was illegal, thanks to the Declaration of Paris in 1856. But here’s the rub. Only fifty-two nations signed that treaty. The United States and Spain refused.”
    “So the Commonwealth kept going?” Cassiopeia said. “Using that failure to their advantage?”
    Daniels nodded. “The Constitution allows for letters of marque. Since the United States never renounced privateering by signing the treaty, it was essentially legal here. And even though we didn’t sign the treaty, during the Spanish-American War both we and Spain agreed to observe the treaty’s principles. The Commonwealth, though, ignored that agreement and attacked Spanish shipping, which so angered William McKinley that he finally had Congress pass an act in 1899 making it unlawful to capture shipping or distribute any proceeds taken as a prize.”
    “Which meant nothing to the Commonwealth,” Malone said. “Their letters of marque would give them immunity to that law.”
    Daniels pointed a finger at him. “Now you’re beginning to see the problem.”
    “Some presidents,” Davis said, “used the Commonwealth to their advantage, some fought them, most ignored them. No one, though, ever wanted the public to know that George Washington and the U.S. government had sanctioned their actions. Or that the U.S. Treasury profited from their actions. Most simply let them do as they please.”
    “Which brings us back to Andrew Jackson,” Daniels said. “He’s the only one who stuck it up their ass.”
    Davis reached beneath the table and found a leather satchel. He withdrew a sheet of paper and slid it over.
    “That’s a letter,”