The Pocket Watch Plot

THE POCKET WATCH PLOT April 1865. Jefferson Davis gives identical pocket watches to a Confederate Colonel and a Major and sends the men off with half a ton of gold to bury north of Richmond. He orders them to write down the location, cut the directions in two, and conceal one half inside each watch until called upon to retrieve the gold for the Southern cause. September 2011. The Colonel's heir, Davis Lee Monroe, now owns one of the watches and half the directions. He learns that the other watch may have been inherited by Jason Spears, a disreputable lawyer, who has put it up for auction. Monroe wants the gold to fund political candidates sympathetic to modern-day secession. He hires Nick Mercante to investigate and bid on the watch. Spears subverts the auction by removing the other half of the directions from the watch. Nick then forms an alliance with two others who have been victimized by Spears-Alison McKenna, his jilted fiancée, and Peter Rutledge, his target in a baseless lawsuit. Playing their own game of deception, Nick and his allies manipulate Spears to get his half of the directions, but Spears has plans of his own to get Monroe's half. In a surprising climax Nick discovers the location of the gold, Spears confronts Monroe and the last gunshot of the Civil War is fired.