The Jefferson Key Read Online Free PDF Page A

meandering Pamlico River. Log-hewn canoes, pole-propelled periaugers, and shoal-draft steamboats all once plied these waters. But so had sloops, corsairs, and frigates, manned by opportunists who’d called the densely wooded shores of the isolated Carolina colony home. The Pamlico comprised some of the most complex waterways on the planet. A vast array of oyster-rock islets, tidal marshes, hammocks, and sloughs. Its farthest coasts were stunted by dangerous capes whose names—Lookout and Fear—warned of tragedy, the open sea beyond so treacherous it had earned the title Graveyard of the Atlantic.
    He’d been born and raised nearby, as had Hales back to the early part of the 18th century. He learned to sail as a boy and was taught how to avoid the ever-changing shoals and negotiate the dangerous currents. Ocracoke Inlet, which they’d just traversed, was where in November 1718 Black Beard himself had finally been cut down. Locals still spoke of both him and his lost treasure with reverence.
    He stared down at the table where the two documents lay.
    He’d brought them with him, knowing that once the matter of his accountant had been resolved, he would need to turn his attention back to a mistake made by Abner Hale, his great-great-grandfather, who’d tried, on January 30, 1835, to assassinate President Andrew Jackson.
    The first time in history that a sitting president’s life had been directly threatened.
    And Jackson’s response to that attempt—a handwritten letter to Abner, now sheathed in plastic—had tortured Hales ever since.

    So you have at last yielded to traitorous impulses. Your patience is no longer restrained. I am content with that. This shall be war, as great as when the martial hosts of this nation are summoned to tented fields. You have clamored for a fight and I shall not skulk in a corner now that the first shot has been fired. Because I would not yield to your advances, accede to your demands, or bow in your presence, my life is deemed unnecessary? You dare send an assassin? To retreat from such a gross offense would be shameful. My feelings are most alive and, I assure you, so am I. Your assassin spends his days muttering nonsense. You chose this servant well. He shall be adjudged insane and secreted away, not a single person ever believing a word he might utter. No evidence exists of your conspiracy, but we both are aware that you convinced the man named Richard Lawrence to aim those pistols. At this moment, when my feelings are thus so alive, I should do violence to them if I did not hasten your downfall. Yet I have been perplexed as to a response. And so, after seeking counsel and guidance from some who are wiser than I, a proper course has been chosen. My object in making this communication is to announce that what legal authority existed to shield your thievery is gone. I have stripped all reference to your letter of marque from the official congressional reports. When you approach another president and ask that your letter be respected, he will not be bound by the law as I have been. To increase your torment, and thus to prolong the agony of your helpless situation, I have not destroyed the authority. That would have been my course, I confess, but others have convinced me that such certainty might make your situation so helpless that it would inspire further acts of desperation. Since you adore secrets and plot your life along a path in the shadows, I offer you a challenge that should suit you. The sheet attached to this letter is a code, one formulated by the esteemed Thomas Jefferson. I am told he thought it to be the perfect cipher. Succeed in learning its message and you will know where I have hidden what you crave. Fail and you remain the pathetic traitors that you are today. I must admit, I like this course much better. I shall soon retire home to Tennessee and the final years of my life, awaiting the day when I will sleep beside my beloved Rachel. My sincerest hope is that the