The Collection

leak from Nixon's White House, and the President's going to do everything in his power to make damn sure it goes no further than you. Like I said, the history biz isn't anything like it appears on the outside. It's a weird world in here, weird and secretive. And the Washingtonians ...' He shook his head, 'They're the fringe of the fringe. And they are a very dangerous group indeed.'

'They all had wooden teeth, the ones who came to my house-'

'Ivory, not wood. That's one of those little pieces of trivia they're very adamant about getting out to the public. The original core group of Washingtonians screwed up on that one, and subsequent generations have felt that the im­pression that was created made Washington out to be a weak buffoon. They've had a hard time erasing that 'wooden teeth' image, though.'

'Is that how you can spot them? Their teeth?'

'No. They wear modern dentures when they're not in uniform. They're like the Klan in that respect.'

'Only in that respect?'

The professor met his eyes. 'No.'

'What...' He cleared his throat. 'What will they try to do to me?'

'Kill you. And eat you.'

Mike stood. 'Jesus fucking Christ. I'm going to the po­lice with this. I'm not going to let them terrorize my fam­ily-'

'Now just hold your horses there. That's what they'll try to do to you. If you listen to me, and if you do exactly what I say, they won't succeed.' He looked at Mike, tried unsuc­cessfully to smile. 'I'm going to help you. But you'll have to tell me a few things first. Do you have any children? Any daughters?'

'Yes. Amy.'

'This is kind of awkward. Is she ... a virgin?'

'She's ten years old!'

The professor frowned. 'That's not good.'

'Why isn't it good?'

'Have you see the insignia they wear on their arms?'

'The hatchet and the cherry tree?'

'Yes.'

'What about it?'

'That was Professor Summerlin's contribution. The Washingtonians have always interpreted the cherry tree story as a cannibal allegory, a metaphoric retelling of Wash­ington's discovery of the joys of killing people and eating their flesh. To take it a step further, Washington's fondness for the meat of virgins is well documented, and that's what made Professor Summerlin think of the patch. He simply updated the symbol to include the modern colloquial defini­tion of 'cherry.''

Mike understood what Hartkinson meant, and he felt sick to his stomach.

'They all like virgin meat,' the professor said.

'I'm going to the police. Thanks for your help and all, but I don't think you can-'

The door to the office was suddenly thrown open, and there they stood: four men and one woman dressed in Rev­olutionary garb. Mike saw yellowish teeth in smiling mouths.

'You should have known better, Julius,' the tallest man said, pushing his way into the room.

'Run!' Hartkinson yelled.

Mike tried to, making a full-bore, straight-ahead dash toward the door, but he was stopped by the line of unmoving Washingtonians. He'd thought he'd be able to break through, to knock a few of them over and take off down the hall, but evidently they had expected that and were prepared.

Two of the men grabbed Mike and held him.

'My wife'll call the police if I'm not back in time.'

'Who cares?' the tall man said.

'They'll publish it!' Mike yelled in desperation. 'I gave orders for them to publish the letter if anything happened to me! If I was even later

The woman looked at him calmly. 'No, you didn't.'

'Yes, I did. My wife'll-'

'We have your wife,' she said.

A stab of terror flashed through him.

She smiled at him, nodding. 'And your daughter.'

He was not sure where they were taking him, but wher­ever it was, it was far. Although he was struggling as they hustled him out of the building and into their van, no one tried to help him or tried to stop them. A few onlookers smiled indulgently, as though they were witnessing the re­hearsal of a play or a staged publicity stunt, but that was the extent of the attention they received.

If only they hadn't been wearing those damn costumes,

Mike thought. His abduction wouldn't have looked so com­ical if they'd been dressed in terrorist attire.

He was thrown into the rear of the van, the door was slammed shut, and a few seconds later the engine roared to life and they were off.

They drove for hours. There were no windows in the back of the van, and he could not tell in which direction they were traveling, but after a series of initial stops and starts and turns, the route straightened out, the speed became con­stant, and he assumed they were moving along a highway.

When the van finally stopped and the back door was opened and he was dragged out, it was in the country, in a wooded, meadowed area that was unfamiliar to him. Through the trees he saw a building, a white, green- trimmed colonial structure that he almost but not quite recognized. The Washingtonians led him away from the building to a small shed. The shed door was opened, and he saw a dark tunnel and a series of steps leading down. Two of the Wash­ingtonians went before him, the other three remained behind him, and in a group they descended the stairway.

Mt. Vernon, Mike suddenly realized. The building was Mt. Vernon, George Washington's home.

The steps ended at a tunnel, which wound back in the di­rection of the building and ended in a large warehouse-sized basement that looked as if it had been converted into a mu­seum of the Inquisition. They were underneath Mt. Vernon, he assumed, in what must have been Washington's secret lair.

'Where's Pam?' he demanded. 'Where's Amy?'

'You'll see them,' the woman said.

The tall man walked over to a cabinet, pointed at the dull ivory objects inside. 'These are spoons carved entirely from the femurs of the First Continental Congress.' He gestured toward an expensively framed painting hanging above the cabinet. The painting, obviously done by one of early America's finer artists, depicted a blood- spattered George Washington, flanked by two naked and equally blood-spattered women, devouring a screaming man. 'Washington commis­sioned this while he was president.'

The man seemed eager to show off the room's posses­sions, and Mike wondered if he could use that somehow to get an edge, to aid in an escape attempt. He was still being held tightly by two of the Washingtonians, and though he had not tried breaking out of their grip since entering the basement, he knew he would not be able to do so.

The tall man continued to stare reverently at the painting. 'He acquired the taste during the winter when he and his men were starving and without supplies or reinforcements. The army began to eat its dead, and Washington found that he liked the taste. During the long days, he carved eating utensils and small good luck fetishes from the bones of the devoured men. Even after supplies began arriving, he con­tinued to kill a man a day for his meals.'

'He began to realize that with the army in his control, he was in a position to call the shots,' the woman explained from behind him. 'He could create a country of cannibals. A nation celebrating and dedicated to the eating of human flesh!'

Mike turned his head, looked at her. 'He didn't do it, though, did he?' He shook his head. 'You people are so full of crap.'

'You won't think so when we eat your daughter's kid­neys.'

Anger coursed through him and Mike tried to jerk out of his captors' grasps. The men's grips tightened, and he soon gave up, slumping back in defeat. The tall man ran a hand lovingly over the top of a strange tablelike