The Midnight Ride by Ben Mezrich

Author:Ben Mezrich
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2022-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

It took a moment for Hailey’s eyes to adjust as she stepped deeper into the base of the granite monument. It was more than just the shift from the bright sunlight of the park to the dim interior of the hollowed out stone obelisk; the contrast was somehow temporal, like she’d just stepped through a portal back to an era when Paul Revere, Daniel Webster, and Lafayette were more than just names in a book. When the Revolutionary War was still fresh enough in people’s memories that it was still real to them, three dimensional, not flat like written history.

The air felt cold and dank against her cheeks as she glanced to her left, where the circular staircase that ascended to the top of the tower, 221 feet above, began, but there was something also electrifying about the thought that perhaps people who had fought in that war had breathed this same air; though she knew from her research that it was unlikely. Though Lafayette had laid the cornerstone in 1825, it had taken another fifteen years for the obelisk to be finished—mainly because the foundation in charge of building the monument had quickly run out of money. They had been forced to sell off plots of land surrounding the obelisk, which was the reason the monument now sat on less than four acres of grass, rather than the eighteen acres originally reserved for the site.

It was clear to Hailey that the brain trust behind the monument had been determined to follow through with their grand ambitions, which again raised the question: Why were they so keen on memorializing a fairly insignificant battle that the Revolutionaries lost?

The puzzle nagged at her, as Nick stepped next to her in the dim light. He was watching as the last pair of tourists—a middle-aged man in plaid shorts and his teenaged son, earbuds in and a bored look on his face—started up the curved steps toward the summit. When Nick moved to follow, Hailey held out a hand, stopping him.

“I’m not a fan of heights. So, it’s a good thing that what we’re looking for is right here, in the base.”

“Thank God,” Nick said. “That looks like a long way up. How many steps to the top?”

But Hailey was already pushing him directly ahead. Just a few feet in front of them stood a doorway cut into the interior cylinder that ran up the center of the monument. The doorway was narrow—if a set of iron bars wasn’t blocking the way, a man Nick’s size would have had to pull in his shoulders to fit through.

To Hailey’s surprise, there was someone standing in front of the barred doorway. Even though the man’s back was to them, he looked out of place; you didn’t see many sightseers—or, for that matter, state park employees—in brightly colored, body-hugging cycling gear. Stranger still, as Hailey moved closer, she saw that the man was carefully working what appeared to be an aging skeleton key into the lock halfway up the bars.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.