The Burr Conspiracies Read online

  I opened a waterproof compartment under my seat and pulled out a flintlock rifle packed with a combination of potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sawdust. I fired a flare in the sloop’s direction, hoping Jefferson would notice its colorful tail.

  Sure enough, Jefferson dove his airship toward the fleeing craft at ramming speed. The Pasha’s turban shielded Jefferson’s descent from view until it was too late. The airship’s gondola plummeted into the Pasha’s boat, crashing through its deck but then nestling nicely inside its hull. The resulting hybrid craft was a sturdy, double-hulled sloop, pasted together with the Pasha’s crushed remains.

  The massive balloon of Jefferson’s airship released from its moorings. At the same time, a mast rose from the airship’s gondola and a small sail unfurled to catch the wind. Jefferson piloted the new craft beside our floating shell and towed us ashore.

  The harbor docks were filled with celebrants who had come to watch an invasion repelled by their own President and two cabinet members at the helm of magnificent machines. On the roadway at the end of the docks I spotted several Hellfire Club lawyers, all tarred and feathered, atop carriages heading hastily out of town.

  Jefferson looked forward to leading a unified administration at last.

  Hamilton, however, was intent on tugging at the Burr in his side. When the Vice President arrived at Jefferson’s next cabinet meeting, Hamilton sprang.

  “Burr’s refusal to acknowledge the existence of evil in the world invited the Pasha’s invasion!” cried Hamilton. “Were it not for the ingenuity of Dr. Franklin and his Temple Trust investors, we would all be chained to the galleys of the Pasha’s slave ships!”

  “Calumny, Mr. Hamilton!” cried Burr. “The Barbary pirates were spurred to attack by America’s aggression abroad, not its humanitarian impulses at home!”

  Burr’s eyes grew black as coal, as if they might ignite.

  “Pistols!” said Burr, pointing to Hamilton. “Tomorrow, at dawn!”

  Hamilton pounced.

  “I accept Burr’s challenge,” he said, “as it reflects both his aristocratic impulse and his lust for political power. He would not lift a finger against the Pasha’s pirates, but he would draw a pistol against me!”

  Jefferson leaned back and clasped his hands, grasping for a way to maintain some control over his own administration. Finally, he leaned forward.

  “If two members of my cabinet are to draw weapons on each other on a field of honor,” he said, “then I must insist they rely on Dr. Franklin to supply the firearms. If the political debates of our time are to be settled with guns, there is no more competent gunsmith than our own Secretary of War.”

  We met in the morning hours on a misty field in Weehawken, New Jersey. Under the duel code, each duelist brought a friend as a second, and the seconds would negotiate the terms of the duel. Burr brought attorney Edwin Dashwood, a Senator from New York and suspected member of the Hellfire Club. Hamilton brought James Madison.

  They agreed on a thorough inspection of the integrity of the bullets and guns I provided. I readily acceded, as I had brought the finest Wogdon pistols. The inspection complete, Hamilton and Burr stood on their marks, back to back, then paced slowly away from each other.

  At their appointed spot, the two rivals turned and fired in a blur of frilled cuffs and topcoat tails, as if their own hips and elbows had been fitted with hair triggers.

  Between their whirlwind shots churned a dense cloud of smoke. As it dissipated, I saw the two duelists standing fast as statues, with their eyes white as marble and their shirts pure as milk.

  Though their shooting arms were extended, neither figure bore the slightest hint of injury.

  “Neither bullet hit its mark!” cried Madison.

  Burr looked astonished, either by his apparent lack of skill or the improbability of simultaneous misses. Hamilton hung his head, looking less disappointed than resigned to having to continue his service as Treasury Secretary in the proximity of his bitter rivalry.

  I was relieved. From the flow of the dissipating smoke, I could see the duelists had both shot straight and true, their bullets headed directly for each other’s hearts.

  But the inspection of the seconds had failed to detect the magnetized nature of the bullet I supplied to Burr.

  Later that evening, when the duel grounds were vacant, I secretly returned to extract a fused chunk of metal from the grassy knoll near the midpoint of the duelers’ paces.

  Jefferson knew that if either rival had died, their political supporters would have divided the nation into camps of persecutors and martyrs who would attack each other with religious zeal, threatening his own ability to govern. With that circumstance happily avoided, Jefferson’s plan for a unified administration was kept alive, along with the nation’s most bitter political rivals.

  Part 2: Benjamin Franklin and the Consanguineous Crown Royals

  (The Habsburg Conspiracy)

  With the Barbary threat expunged and his cabinet intact, President Jefferson focused his attention on a goal shared by all, namely the expansion of the United States into the western territories ceded to it by the British under the Treaty of Paris. The Barbary attack had made Americans feel vulnerable, and they sought the security of an enlarged republic. Jefferson would make the national will toward expansion, called its “Manifest Destiny,” the centerpiece of his young administration.

  To that end, Jefferson commissioned two hardened explorers, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, to chart the vast tract of land west of the Appalachian mountains and assess its fitness for economic development. Jefferson delivered the results of their preliminary report at our next cabinet meeting.

  “I regret to say Lewis and Clark found much of the territory tainted with the yellow fever,” said Jefferson, “an insidious scourge that infects its victims with nausea, craze-inducing pain, and a jaundice that reduces the complexions of the sturdiest sun-browned settlers to a pale, lifeless pallor. The fever has begun to deter even the heartiest explorers, leaving its rich acres barren of productive improvement.”

  Burr tapped the table impatiently.

  “If Americans are too timid to leave the comfort of the East coast and move west,” he said, “we should invite more desperate settlers from less fortunate foreign lands to come to America.”

  “What country does the Vice President suggest we approach?” asked Madison.

  “All of Europe is engulfed in Napoleon’s wars,” said Burr, “but Eastern Europeans have suffered the most. They are victims of famine caused by the loss of their most fertile lands.”

  “Of course Burr would suggest consorting with the insular aristocracy of the royal House of Habsburg!” scoffed Hamilton.

  “Indeed,” I added, “the Habsburg ruling family is so provincial it has conducted consanguineous marriages for centuries, resulting in extreme genetic abnormalities among its progeny.”

  “I have heard many a diplomat report their abnormalities extend to madness,” offered Madison, “so much so that the Habsburgs are known to frequent the most notorious chapters of Europe’s Hellfire ...”

  “If the Habsburgs are mad,” interjected Burr, “then we should exploit their insanity and have them settle in our most inhospitable western territories! We must populate the west as soon as possible lest it bear the enduring stigma of being uninhabitable.”

  Jefferson was about to respond when there was a knock on the door. It was Dolley Madison, wife of the Secretary of State and consummate event planner, whom Jefferson had recently employed as his social secretary. Dolley was famous throughout the city for her hostess charms, and now her delicate features and easy etiquette graced the halls of the White House as no sculpture could.

  As Dolley poured tea for the table, she inadvertently poured her ample bosom for all to see. By Sir Isaac Newton, I swear my eyes were drawn in her direction as much by the force of gravity as by her voluptuous curves!

  Jefferson nodded politely to Dolley and waited for her to leave before he turn
ed to her husband.

  “I regret having to send you away from your lovely wife, Mr. Madison,” said Jefferson, “but I would have you visit Eastern Europe’s Habsburg rulers and broach the subject of an emigration treaty. If you secure an agreement, the Vice President, as President of the Senate, can guide it through that body for approval.”

  A satisfied Burr leaned back in his chair as Jefferson turned to me.

  “Now Dr. Franklin,” he said, “what foreign threats do you perceive at present?”

  “The yellow fever is not all that is deterring Americans from moving west,” I said. “The Mohawk tribe has become increasingly aggressive against the frontier settlements. They have continued their alliance with Britain that was forged during the Revolutionary War. Reports are that the British keep them supplied with rum to fuel their escalating violence. To make matters worse, the British themselves continue to kidnap our sailors and press them into service with the Royal Navy to aid their war with Napoleon. And so the Union is besieged by Mohawks from the west and British frigates from the east.”

  Vice President Burr rose again.

  “There is a solution to both the Mohawk and British problems,” he said.

  Hamilton shifted in his seat.

  “I have been introduced to Bokor Samedi,” said Burr, “a doctor newly transplanted to New Orleans in our Louisiana Territory.”

  Hamilton bolted upright.

  “You call Bakor Samedi a doctor?” he asked. “Bokor Samedi holds himself out as a Houngan sorcerer! During my childhood in the Caribbean he hatched plans to reanimate the dead!”

  Burr clasped his hands calmly.

  “The Treasury Secretary may be uncomfortable with foreign ideas,” said Burr, “but Bokor Samedi buys the bodies of recently deceased slaves and revives them. Their minds are wiped clean. They can then be engineered to perform any simple task deemed socially useful. If his project proves successful, a reanimated army could be made available to defend both the western frontier and the eastern seaboard.”

  “If Bokor Samedi’s program involves reanimating corpses, tabula rasa, it involves great risk,” I interjected. “Without the natural yearning to live free, the corpses would be subject to ready exploitation in the hands of malevolent masters.”

  “Would Dr. Franklin rather the slaves retain their horrific memories of their former lives in bondage?” asked Burr. “Bokor Samedi provides merciful relief.”

  Jefferson pondered for a moment.

  “Bokor Samedi’s program is worth a look,” he said. “Dr. Franklin will travel to New Orleans and evaluate his facility.”

  I spent the next week navigating through Louisiana’s swamps before hitting solid ground at the edge of Samedi’s factory. He greeted me upon arrival. Samedi is a tall, slim man whose pale features are perpetually obscured by a ring of pipe smoke that hovers under the rim of his stovepipe hat. I followed his overlong coattails as he gave me a tour of the premises.

  The outer grounds consisted of white tents housing haybeds on which former slaves who had been worked to the edge of death spent their remaining days fanning themselves with leaf fronds and sipping medicinals. Beyond the tents was a stone structure, two stories tall, which we entered through a wooden gate. It was guarded by several slaves, whose vacant appearance Samedi said was the result of recent reanimation.

  Samedi gestured to the guards and spoke in a heavy Haitian accent.

  “These are, as the Creoles say, the zonbi.”

  As I approached them, their heads moved ever so slowly in my direction but I cannot say they ever truly met my gaze. Their eyes, vacant shells, seemed to take their direction from their olfactory nerves, or at least what was left of them under the remains of their noses, which had begun to fester noticeably.

  “No one smells life better than the dead,” said Samedi. “But have no fear. They are conditioned to obey only me.”

  We walked into the factory, a dank, unvented structure containing rows of wood slabs. Along the wall were giant bags of white powder. Samedi directed me to the body of a slave. It was laid face-down, and its shoulders bore the scars of multiple whippings.

  Samedi took a scalpel from his topcoat and used it to reopen one of the lash wounds at the base of the shoulder blade. He motioned to a Creole assistant, who promptly brought him a wooden spoon packed with white powder, which Samedi ground slowly into the freshly cut flesh.

  The corpse’s arms immediately twitched. Then its chest. Then its torso bolted upright in a startling display of reflex before its spine shrank and its shoulders slumped.

  “The powder is a neurotoxin squeezed from the flesh of the pufferfish,” said Samedi.

  “It can induce a trance-like state if applied just after death,” I said. “But I suspect the reanimation effect may belie inaccuracies in the method of determining death rather than a means of restoring life.”

  Samedi smiled, and revealed a smoke-stained array of unevenly sharpened teeth.

  “You know science well,” said Samedi. “But sometimes science only opens the door through which the supernatural lies.”

  The zonbi cast its vacant gaze toward Samedi.

  “The trance can be directed only by the voice that first passes through the zonbi’s ears,” he said.

  Samedi then proceeded to direct the zonbi through a series of labors. The zonbi swept the floor, carried a sack of powder, and even wrestled a horse to the ground, all under Samedi’s command.

  I returned to Washington City and reported on my experience at Jefferson’s next cabinet meeting.

  “The neurotoxin Bokor Samedi uses to produce his zonbis is in the earliest testing stages,” I said. “There is much room for failure.”

  “Let Bokor Samedi convince private investors who would commit their own money to fund his fantastical enterprise,” cried Hamilton. “If it proves successful, the government can purchase his zonbis. If it fails, taxpayer money will not have been wasted.”

  Burr turned to Jefferson, and his tone became softly sycophantic.

  “Mr. President,” said Burr, “imagine what you could accomplish before the next election if your brilliant mind controlled any army of zonbis!”

  Jefferson lingered for a moment, and I feared his pride had been stoked.

  “Mr. Vice President,” he said, “encourage Congress to loan Baron Samedi the funds necessary to keep his operation running.”

  Hamilton shook his head, but held his tongue.

  Jefferson turned to other business.

  “Secretary Madison has sent good news from the House of Habsburg!” Jefferson reported that Madison had met with Banffy Gyorgy, Governor of the Eastern European parts of the Holy Roman Empire. Much of their land had been taken by Napoleon, leaving his people to starve. Gyorgy therefore sought to enter into a treaty with the United States under which he would allow his people free emigration to the American western territories in return for their being given land there. Madison had reported to him in all candor the harsh, undeveloped conditions his people would find, including the risk of yellow fever. But Gyorgy assured him his people “would do the work Americans will not” and harvest the land to productivity.

  Jefferson instructed Burr to spearhead the emigration treaty through the Senate. At the next cabinet meeting, it was reported that thousands of Eastern Europeans had streamed across the Atlantic through our Southern ports and made their way west. Former Habsburg family royalty came as well, intending to turn thousands of acres into plantation estates. Their brick-jawed visages at first startled the few American locals, but any unease the Habsburgs caused was soon overshadowed by the vengeful return of the yellow fever, which spread uncontrollably throughout the region. Entire communities ceased sending posts east. There were rumors of panic and mass chaos.

  We had hoped the eastern seaboard would be spared the ravages of the fever, but we soon received reports that people had begun falling ill in the farmers markets just south of Washington City. Those affected were seen wandering the streets, pale or ot
herwise discolored, and moaning inexorably. Many exhibited the increased bleeding from the diathesis that accompanies the fever.

  Jefferson sent me to investigate the fever’s eastward progress.

  I began my inquiry at the King Street Market, in Alexandria. As was the case in all urban areas, dwellings were packed together, with privies and drinking wells placed in dangerous proximity. And so I situated myself in the city center in the hopes of monitoring the transactions at its central market and determining the trajectory of future fever victims so as to identify its source.

  Soon after my arrival I heard screams. I turned to see an open pocket forming around an otherwise densely crowded thoroughfare, at the center of which were two fallen bodies. One was splayed on the ground. The other was bent over a cart of pears for sale. Each had apparently just expired.

  I produced my executive credentials to the local authorities and had the bodies delivered to a local doctor’s office in the basement of the city hospital, where I conducted my examination with the aid of a magnifying glass I brought for the occasion.

  The body of the first cadaver, a male, was clothed in a heavy cloak that covered his face. When I pulled back the hood, I saw he had Eastern European characteristics, most notably the infamous Habsburg jaw. His skin exhibited the pallor of the yellow fever and his mouth showed the fever’s diathesis in the form of oozing blood. Save the telltale incidents of the fever, the cadaver had one other abnormality worth noting, namely a shallow chest wound, presumably the result of his doubling over the pear cart upon his final, fatal affliction.

  The second cadaver, a female, appeared of English stock. Her complexion was pale but it did not yet contain the fallowed hue of jaundice. I noticed signs of diathesis trickling from her shoulder and stooped closer with my magnifying glass.

  As I brushed away her hair, she sprang upright, bending my arms backward with vice-like force and pressing my shoulders against a table near the basement window. Her canines bared prominently and she lashed at my neck with her teeth, but was thwarted in her ravages by the particularly thick array of lace adorning my collar. As she struggled to pierce my ruffage, I gained enough leverage to bend my elbows and thrust her off.