Two military aides, meanwhile, were waiting for Hercules with the horses. Hercules faintly recalled their faces. One was a former Son of Liberty. The other was an assassin and an original member of the Culper Spy Ring who helped Washington beat the British in New York. No words were exchanged as Hercules threw a leg over his chestnut-colored horse and they galloped away from Mount Vernon.
They avoided the main roads as they rode north through the outskirts of Alexandria, cutting across farms and orchards in a wide arc until they reached the nape of the Potomac and crossed a wooden bridge a few miles west of Georgetown. Ten minutes later they reached the great woods at the edge of the federal district and Hercules brought his horse to a halt.
'What are you waiting for?' asked the former Son of Liberty.
Hercules looked into the woods. The twisted trees and strange noises had always spooked him, even before that terrible night when he and the General buried the old globe.
Oh, Lord, not here! Please don't make me come back here!
Hercules remembered the stories about the ancient Algonquin Indians that old Benjamin Banneker, the General's Negro astronomer, used to tell him when the General used the stars to draw the boundaries for the federal district. According to Banneker, long before Europeans colonized the New World, the Algonquin held tribal grand councils both at the base of Jenkins Hill, where the new Capitol Building sat, and in the ravines of these woods. What they did during those councils, Banneker wouldn't say. But he did say that the Algonquin were linked by archaeology to the ancient Mayans and by legend to the descendents of Atlantis. The chiefs of their primary tribe, the Montauk Indians, were known as Pharaoh, like their ancient Egyptian cousins 10,000 years ago. Banneker told him the word Pharaoh meant 'Star Child' or 'Children of the Stars.'
Hercules craned his head up to the stars. The clouds had parted like a frame around Virgo. A chill shook his bones. Hercules knew that, by making the layout of the new capital city mirror the constellation, the General benignly sought the blessings of the Blessed Virgin in heaven upon the new republic. But such mysteries spooked him, almost as much as words like Pharaoh and Star Child.
After all, slaves built the pyramids of Egypt. Would the same be true of America?
'Let's move,' demanded the former assassin.
Hercules led his military escort into the woods. For several minutes he listened to the crunch of leaves beneath hooves as he weaved between the trees in the starlight, a bare branch or two scratching him along the way.
'Thro' many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come,' he began to sing, repeating his favorite verse from the song 'Amazing Grace.' ''Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.'
He tried not to think about old Banneker's otherworldly stories or, God forbid, the secret cave and the secret globe, which contained the greatest secret of them all. As he sang, his eyes darted back and forth, glancing at the dancing shadows all around. Then he heard the snap of a twig and stopped.
He glanced back at the two horses of his military escort in the darkness. But he could see only one rider-the former assassin. At that moment, he felt the muzzle of a pistol in his back and then heard the voice of the other escort, the former Son of Liberty.
'Get down here, slave.'
Slowly Hercules dismounted and turned. Both soldiers, now standing before him, pointed their pistols at him.
'The communique,' said the assassin. 'Hand it over.'
Hercules hesitated, staring down the long barrel of the French flintlock.
'The communique, slave!'
Hercules slowly put his hand into his coat and removed the letter. He handed it to the former Son of Liberty, who glanced at it and handed it to the assassin.
'Who is Stargazer?'
Hercules said nothing.
'Tell me or we kill your family, too, starting with your two-year-old bastard daughter. We know where to find her. She lives with her mother in Philadelphia. So, again, who is Stargazer?'
'I-I don't know,' Hercules said.
The assassin's face turned red with rage and he tapped the barrel of his flintlock to Hercules' temple. 'How can you not know, slave?'
'Because, be-because,' Hercules stammered, 'he ain't been born yet. Won't for a long, long time.'
'What gibberish is this?' The assassin glanced at the other soldier and grimaced at Hercules. 'Give me your coat.'
Hercules stepped back, furious.
'Now, or I put a bullet hole in it.'
Hercules shook his head, trying to understand what was happening. 'The republic…'
'The republic dies tonight with the General, his slave, and this Stargazer,' said the assassin. 'Now give me my coat.'
'Your coat?'
'That's right, slave. My coat.'
Hercules suddenly felt the calm that often washed over him in moments of great danger, whenever the face behind his fear finally revealed itself. As he started to take off his coat, he used his free hand to reach into the small of his back and remove from its sheath the dagger that the General had given him. He held the coat in front of him.
'Throw it on the ground, slave.'
The soldier might as well have asked him to soil the American flag. Hercules had worked too hard to buy this coat to give it up now, especially as they meant to kill him in the end. He had fed too many American soldiers with food his hands had prepared, and had sacrificed too much for his children and the General's dream of a free nation for men and women of all races and creeds.
Everything, Lord, but not my coat!
'For the last time, slave, throw it down.'
'Not the ground,' Hercules said. 'It would get your coat dirty, sir.'
Hercules tossed it through the air to the soldier. For a moment the soldier let his hand with the gun swing to the side to catch the coat, and in that moment Hercules turned to slit the throat of the soldier behind him, the blade slowed only by the catch of an artery. Before the man crumpled over, Hercules hurled the dagger at the assassin who held his coat. The blade struck him in the chest and drove him back against the trunk of a tree. The flintlock discharged aimlessly as he slid down to the ground.
A wisp of gun smoke hung in the air as Hercules marched over to the assassin, who was gurgling up blood, his eyes rolling in surprise and fear. Hercules yanked the dagger out of his chest. The assassin opened his mouth to scream, but emitted only a low wheeze as the breath of life slowly escaped him.
'My coat, sir.'
Hercules picked up his coat, mounted his horse, and looked up at the constellation of Virgo, the Blessed Virgin, watching over him. He slipped the letter to Stargazer into his coat and buttoned up. Then he kicked his horse to life and rode off into the night toward America's destiny.
PART ONE
1
CONRAD YEATS kept a good three steps behind the flag-draped coffin. Six horses pulled the caisson toward the grave site, their hooves clomping like a cosmic metronome in the heavy air. Each resounding clap proclaimed the march of time, the brevity of life. In the distance lightning flickered across the dark sky. But still no rain.
