The Fifth Assassin (6 page)

That didn’t mean it was easy. The physical recovery took longer than expected; Clementine had shot him straight through the neck. Plus, there was that incident when he asked if he could contact Lydia—his girlfriend—to say a more proper goodbye. But A.J. knew how Palmiotti was when it came to President Wallace. Palmiotti didn’t just
love
Wallace. He
needed
him. That was the right word.
Need.
And the President needed him back.

“We can definitely use your help. He needs your help,” A.J. said, leaning hard on the word
He
.

“And he’ll have it. I can fix it,” Palmiotti promised.

“That’s what you said a week ago.”

Palmiotti stopped at that. “So the church—Is it really that bad?”

“Bad enough that
he
called
me
.”

“He called
you
?”

“Look around, Doc,” A.J. said, standing at the southern end of Lafayette Park and turning from the tall marble columns of the White House, back toward the double-tiered bell tower of St. John’s Church. “Do you have any idea what you’ve unleashed?”

F
orget it, Beecher. He’s long gone,” Tot says, slowly making his way down the brick steps to join me outside. Up the block, there’s nothing but passing cars along H Street.

“You think he’s our killer?”

Tot shakes his head. “Sneaking back into his own crime scene with cops in the building? Even crazy people aren’t that crazy.”

“So he’s police?”

“He’s a fed. Or something worse. Look,” he says, tossing me the two pieces of the microphone pen. “Motion-activated so it doesn’t need a battery. Hairline mic that amplifies through the pen chamber. You don’t buy that at the local spy shop.”

“Fed money,” a mechanical voice says through Tot’s speakerphone. I didn’t realize his phone was even on, much less that Immaculate Deception was listening in. “Ask Santa. I bet he can tell us where it’s from.”

Two weeks back, I heard them mention
Santa
. At first, I thought Tot was being facetious. But I’m thinking I just found another Culper Ring member: Santa, the guy who brings them the best high-tech toys.

“Mac,” I call out, “how many Thin Mints will it cost me to have you look up details on my old friend Marshall?”

“I’ve been looking since you found that John Wilkes Booth peephole. You’re a bigger nerd than I thought, by the way. Nice job, though,” Mac replies. “Marshall’s got no credit cards… no phone records… and he files his tax return through a P.O. box. Guy definitely likes his privacy.”

“What about his cell phone?” Tot asks.

“Already tried. He’s using a Trustchip.”

“What’s a Trustchip?” I ask.

“Encrypted. Expensive. Usually for big companies or government contractors,” Mac explains. “Whoever he is, he’s not playing around. I can’t see calls or messages in or out.”

“Can’t you just turn on the phone’s speaker and we’ll listen in?” Tot asks.

“Checked that too. Headphone in.”

It was the first trick Mac taught me when they brought me into the Culper Ring: In any smartphone, it’s easy for someone to remotely turn on your speakerphone. But if you want to thwart it, you plug something into the headphone jack since speakers get disabled when headphones are enabled.

“What about a home address?” I ask.

“Apartment in Crystal City, Virginia.”

“Then there we go,” I say. “Next stop: Crystal City.”

“And that’s your big idea? Just walk up to Marshall and ask him if he’s the murderer?” Tot asks.

I shake my head. I haven’t seen Marshall in over a decade. I have no idea if he’s working with Clementine, or the President, or even if he’s the one imitating John Wilkes Booth. But right now a man is dead—and since it was my name that was found in Marshall’s pocket, I’m now tied to whatever the hell is really going on here.

“I know there’s something you’re not saying about this guy, Beecher. And I appreciate you trying to be proactive, but if Marshall’s our killer, he’s gonna be dangerous. You can’t just go knock on his front door.”

I totally agree. “Who says we’re gonna knock?”

July 2, 1881

Washington, D.C.

P
resident Garfield was scheduled to be on the 9:30 a.m. train. Like most Presidents, he was running behind schedule. It was hot in Washington—every summer was always brutal in its own way—and on top of that, Garfield was exhausted. Though he’d spent barely four months in office, he already knew it was hard being President.

And so he was making this train trip. His first stop would be at his alma mater, Williams College, to attend commencement. And then he was heading to northern New England for a well-earned vacation.

He never made it out of the station.

At 9:20, his carriage pulled up to the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Depot at what is currently Constitution and 6th Street in downtown D.C. Behind him, in a second carriage, were his two sons, Harry and Jim.

Realizing he had a few minutes, Garfield decided to stay in the carriage, catching up with his friend and secretary of state, James Blaine. During the election of 1880, both Blaine and Garfield were among the Republican nominees, but it was Garfield who was picked as the true compromise candidate—the man who would unite the various party factions.

As they sat there in the carriage, Blaine was calm, playing with his cane and tossing it over and over in the air. At the time, the
Secret Service wasn’t in charge of presidential protection yet. With his top hat and gray traveling suit, the President eventually stepped down from the carriage, leading his friend and family into the station.

Inside, among the Cabinet members who were waiting to see him off was Robert Todd Lincoln, the eldest son of the first slain President.

Entering the nearly empty station with a few minutes to spare, President James Garfield was calm. He was relaxed. And he had no idea that a slight five-foot-five-inch man named Charles Guiteau had arrived an hour earlier and was hiding in the washroom.

Unlike John Wilkes Booth, Guiteau wasn’t an actor. He hadn’t prepared any final, memorable lines.

Waiting for the President to pass, Guiteau was silent as the two-hundred-pound commander in chief marched through the station. Without a word, Guiteau rushed the President from behind, pulled out the small, snub-nosed British Bulldog pistol that he’d bought a month earlier, and fired at the President’s back.

The first shot seemed to graze Garfield’s arm, so Guiteau stepped closer and fired again.

That shot hit President Garfield in the back, above the waist. The President sank to the floor. His top hat was crushed, his gray traveling suit covered in blood.

Still silent, the assassin Guiteau tucked his gun into his pocket and walked quickly to the exit. Outside, a D.C. cop heard the two shots. Racing to investigate, the officer yanked open the door just as Guiteau slammed into him. The officer didn’t let the flustered man pass.

“I have a letter to send to General Sherman!” Guiteau blurted, speaking his first words. Within seconds, a ticket taker and depot watchman grabbed Guiteau from behind, tackling the man who had just shot the President.

Inside, Garfield’s younger son, Jim, was bawling, the older son trying to comfort him. People were screaming, begging for a doctor as blood spread across the station floor.

By noon that day, as the news of the shooting traveled, President Garfield, who just months earlier had been put in office as a result of political compromise, was suddenly a leader of enormous stature.

The nation prayed that Garfield might live—and he did, though he never recovered. Dwindling from two hundred pounds down to a hundred and twenty, President Garfield died in bed two months later.

At the time, some said God was judging the nation. Others said Guiteau was part of a grand, power-grabbing plot.

The assassin Guiteau never hid the truth: He told them he was trying to prevent another civil war. No one believed him.

But he was right—and he said it best: “God makes no blunders… He selects the right man every time for the right place; and in this He always successfully checkmates the Devil’s moves.”

John Wilkes Booth had done his job as the Knight of Spades. And now the Knight of Diamonds had completed his task.

Today

Washington, D.C.

T
oday was a perfect day to kill a President.

The Knight knew it as he stood in the cold on the corner of 16th and P Streets, ignoring the passing cars of early commuters and staring at the wooden double doors of his newest destination, the massive Neo-Gothic castle known as Foundry United Methodist Church. This would go better than the mess last night at St. John’s.

Without a doubt, he could’ve waited—could’ve pushed it back a day… but now… with Beecher already involved… No. History had already been written. It couldn’t be changed.

President Garfield was shot at exactly 9:25 a.m.

The Knight glanced down at his watch. Less than an hour to go.

That’s how it was written.

That’s how it had to end.

Diagonally across the street, a lanky black man in a puffy black-and-red winter coat approached the huge 1904 granite building with its limestone trim and wood-framed windows. At the front door, he pulled out a set of keys. Church custodian, right on time.

Twirling a sucking candy around his tongue, the Knight watched as the custodian disappeared through the right-hand door just like he did every morning. It’d take him at least ten minutes to enter the PIN code, shut off the alarm, and walk through the building, turning on the lights. Otherwise, Foundry Church was now open.

Walking calmly across the street, the Knight couldn’t help but appreciate his current location. By definition, a foundry is a factory for casting metal, which is exactly what Henry Foxall was doing when he built cannons and guns for the U.S. government in the early 1800s. But it wasn’t until the War of 1812 that Foxall had his moment with God. As the British were burning the White House, the rumor was that their next target was Foxall’s munitions factory. So Foxall made a vow that day: If God would spare his operations, Foxall would build something in God’s honor.

That night, a violent thunderstorm appeared from nowhere, stopping the British from advancing any farther. Two years later, Foundry Church was born.

Over the years, it became the place where FDR took Winston Churchill for Christmas services in 1941, and later it was the Methodist home for Bill Clinton when he was President. But to this day, its greatest role was as the true church of Abraham Lincoln.

Since St. John’s was right across the street from the White House, Lincoln used to duck into it for quick prayers. But it was the Foundry, straight up 16th Street, one mile from the White House, where Lincoln became an official church director.

The Knight liked that. God’s message couldn’t be clearer.

Climbing the concrete steps outside, the Knight reached for the front door, but as he gave it a tug, a burning bolt of pain seized his right shoulder. His newest tattoo was still sensitive, and unlike the small spade and the JWB initials, for John Wilkes Booth, that was on the web of his hand, the marking on his shoulder—the one worn by the second Knight, the assassin Charles Guiteau—was far more complex: the shield, plus the fabled bird… and of course the red diamond. It took hours, and over thirty needles, to reproduce the mark.

But again, that’s how it was written. That’s how it had to end.

Inside the church, he climbed another short set of steps and made a quick left, scanning the empty desks and cubicles in the narrow church office that sat behind a long wall of glass. The custodian was still on the far right side of the building, opening the chapel.

The Knight knew this place even better than St. John’s. And this time, he wouldn’t be limited to a one-shot revolver. In his right pocket, he felt the British Bulldog pistol. It had a white ivory inlaid grip and five bullets in its chamber.

Back in 1881, on the day Guiteau bought his gun, the owner of the shop told him that he could save money if he bought the same pistol without the white ivory handle. Guiteau wouldn’t hear of it. He knew that when the act was done, this was a gun that would be on display. The elegant inlaid grip was the only choice.

From there, Guiteau left nothing to chance, spending nearly a month trailing President Garfield and learning his schedule. He even followed Garfield to church, peering through the window to see if he could shoot him in his pew.

Today, the Knight was no different. In less than an hour, history would be made. He’d put in the time. And bought the antique gun. And paid for the specially made inlaid handle. Most important, he’d mastered every detail of Foundry Church, from the building’s layout to every employee in it.

On his left, as he reached the end of the hallway, the Knight peered into the office suite, eyeing his eventual destination—the private office of the new pastor, who everyone knew came in at exactly 9 a.m.

On his right, he shoved open the door to the men’s room and made his way to the back stall, which had a sign reading
Out of Order
on it. He had put the sign there two days ago. Lifting the tank cover off the toilet, he pulled out the plastic bag that held a white plaster mask—a duplicate of the death mask made from Abraham Lincoln’s face, but with eyeholes cut into it—that he’d hidden during the dry run.

A glance at his watch told him he was right on time. In sync with his predecessor. In sync with God’s plans.

At 9:25, the next lamb—perhaps the most vital lamb—would take his fall.