Sarah L. Thomson - The Ring of Honor

Also by Sarah L. Thomson

Secrets of the Seven

The Eureka Key

The Eagles Quill

CONTENTS

New York

July 10, 1804

To My Son,

It is my most heartfelt wish that you may never see this letter. Tomorrow I must face a man who has ever been my enemy, even in those days when we fought as one to defend our land and our comrades against tyranny. I will not sully this page with attacks on one whose office I will always respect even as I deplore his character. I will only say it is my most fervent prayer that I may face whatever comes tomorrow with honor and return unharmed to serve my family and my country.

If events unfold as I hope, this letter will be burnt by my own hand. But if that does not come to pass, I must leave you with a heavy burden to carry before your time. I have long imagined that I would protect the secret entrusted to me for many years yet, and that you would be free of it until old age came upon me. But if this document is in your possession, fate has not willed it so.

My son, take up the burden of a Founder. Find a way to hide what you alone now know, and keep it safe until the day dawns when our nation needs what has been concealed. May that time never come. But if it does, let us pray that there will be found those who will pledge their lives and their sacred honor to serve this fledgling country, just as I, and even the man I must face tomorrow, protected it in birth and watched over it in infancy.

I commend your mother, your brothers, and your sisters to your care.

Your affectionate father,

Alexander Hamilton

It hadnt been a typical summer vacation.

So far, Sam had grappled with the controls of an airplane that was diving out of the sky, about to pancake itself on the Nevada desert. Hed fallen over a waterfall in an inflatable raft. Hed been chased up a tree by a grizzly bear and trapped inside a burning building.

And now he was staring death in the face once more.

Watch out for that guy! The one on the bike! he blurted out as a crazy man in neon spandex zipped between a green van and the taxi where Sam, along with his friends Marty and Theo, was riding. I meanno, watch out for that truck!

It was a big truck. The taxi swerved to the left and darted around it. The driver had one hand on the wheel. With the other, he was digging around for something inside his ear.

Marty, squashed between Sam and Theo in the back seat of the cab, nudged him in the ribs with her sharp elbow. Sam, chill. This is just regular Manhattan traffic. Its not even rush hour.

If it were rush hour, wed probably be stuck in a traffic jam, Sam said, flopping sideways against Marty as the taxi swung back to the right. Nobody ever died in a traffic jam! The cab screeched to a stop for a red light, and Sams body was flung forward against his seat belt.

How much farther? Theo asked. He had one hand braced on the back of the seat in front of him. It was hard to tell much about how Theo felt just by looking at him; he could face imminent death or blow out the candles on his birthday cake with the same stony expression on his deep brown face. But as the taxi jerked into motion once again, Sam thought even the big guy was starting to look a little queasy.

Marty, however, leaned back in her seat, hardly taking any notice of the cars and trucks and vans and buses flashing by their windows, the sidewalks packed with hurrying people, the stores advertising burritos and pizza and manicures and cut-rate cell phones and dry cleaning and T-shirts and baseball caps and Statue of Liberty key chains. She didnt even crane her neck to see the skyscrapers looming overhead.

For Marty, this was everyday stuff. She was home.

Sam wouldnt admit it to her, even under torture, but he was a little impressed. For him, everything outside the window was nearly as exotic as the sweeping desert of Death Valley or the towering Rockies of Glacier National Parkboth of which hed visited in the past few days.

New York was definitely nothing like the neighborhood of two-story houses and neatly mowed lawns where hed lived all his life. There, he knew every kid on the block, and the coolest thing to do was walk down to the gas station for a Slurpee. Here, things were different.

Maybe about fifteen minutes, the taxi driver said, answering Theo. You kids sure you want to go to some church? Most of the time when I pick visitors up at the airport, they want to go to the Empire State Building or Times Square, somewhere like that. Or how about that big pop star, whats his name? You kids know who Im talking about. Dustin Somebody. Fever, thats right. Dustin Fever. Some big concert going on, right? Seems like kids your age would be more interested in that than in some old church.

Dustin Fever. Ugh, Marty said under her breath. She wrinkled her nose and then straightened her glasses. Her smooth black hair, which made her fair skin look even paler, had been chopped off in a straight line above her shoulders. It swung back and forth as she shuddered.

Just the church. We really like churches, Sam said lamely. Its the architecture. Yeah. Were way into architecture.

Your call, kid, the driver said with a shrug, and he lazily spun the wheel to the right as a tour bus swung into the lane ahead of them. The taxi accelerated to pass the bus, and Sam found himself face-to-face with a giant poster of Dustin Fever on its side. The pop stars teeth, each the size of a paperback book, were about three inches from Sams eyes.

But Sam had to admit that the driver seemed to know what he was doing. Hed gotten them here from JFK airport, and nobody was dead so far.

Of course, that could change at any minute.

Once, Sam thought as the cab driver clamped his foot down on the accelerator, hed worried about homework and algebra tests. Now he worried about sudden death.

Then he had to admit that was a lie. Hed never worried about algebra tests and homework. But still, hed always known that tests and homework were sort of there , to be worried about he if wanted to. That had all changed since hed gotten the silver envelope telling him hed won the American Dream Contest.

Sam had thoughtand his parents still thoughtthat his prize was an educational trip to historic sites across the United States. But in fact, hed been thrown into a terrifying race to find seven historic artifacts hidden by the Founding Fathers of his country.

Not that Sam knew or cared all that much about history. It wasnt really his thing. But puzzlesSam did know about puzzles. That was why hed won the contest, after all. And that was the reason hed been picked to help find those seven artifacts, the ones that were supposed to lead to some kind of crazy super-weapon invented by Benjamin Franklin himself.