Life in the Time of COVID-19

The Jefferson Key  by Steve Berry

The story centers around a letter of Marque granted by none other than George Washington and the second continental congress.  This letter of Marque allegedly legitimized piracy or at least that’s what it sounds like to me by elevating the lowly pirate to a privateer.  By definition a privateer is a private citizen authorized by a government, in this case the United States government, by letters of marque or a government license to attack foreign shipping during wartime.  It is, according to this book, backed by the constitution.  In the old days it was a way of mobilizing ships and sailors without the government paying for ships and men. A Privateer got to keep the spoils of his efforts but was required to pay the government twenty percent of their profits. Yeah right a pirate, excuse me a privateer who takes great pleasure in capturing ships and pilfering cargo is really going to give twenty percent of their take to anyone. In the early days of the government these letters of Marque protected these privateers from wrong doing.  In other words, free pass to steal.

The Story starts just outside the Capitol Building in January 1835 when a man attempts to assassinate Andrew Jackson.  Luckily for Jackson, it was raining and the two pistols this man had got wet preventing the gun from shooting properly.  Andrew Jackson got lucky.  He also got pretty made  Wouldn’t you if someone tried to shoot you?  He had a pretty good idea of who was behind this attempt on his life.  It was a group made up of four families who had named themselves the commonwealth.  Not to be confused with the Commonwealth of Virginia. So mad was Jackson, he rips the pages that granted this group a letter of Marque out of the record books. This made what they did technically unsanctioned.  He sent them a letter basically telling them to rot in you know where and attaching a page that had a cyphered code made up of nine lines written by none other than Thomas Jefferson and his buddy Patterson telling him where he put those pages.  And much to the chagrin of the commonwealth until present day no one was able to decipher the code.  In steps a modern day code cracker and his fabulous computer and software and you guessed it, the code is cracked.  People want this deciphered code bad.  No one more than the four families of the commonwealth because the government is breathing down their backs saying they owe a bunch of taxes on their stashed booty. All parties invloved will do whatever it takes to get the cracked code. There are a lot of people and govenment agencies involved and it is really hard to tell who is the good guys and who are the bad ones. There are a lot of twists and turns.  There is an attempt of the Presidents life and a trail of bodies.  It is a very interesting thriller. Try it, you'll like it.