The Fifth Assassin (16 page)

“I hear you, Tot. And I appreciate the warning.”

“Can I ask you a different question?” Tot interrupts. “I know I know the answer to this, but if Marshall
was
trying to kill the President, you sure you’re ready to stop him?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m just saying, we all know how you feel about President
Wallace. So with this second pastor that was shot at Foundry Church… First we had John Wilkes Booth… now Charles Guiteau… This isn’t just a single act anymore. It’s a pattern of dead Presidents. So tell me, Beecher: If that pattern kept going toward our current President—”

“Who said that’s where it’s going?”

“You telling me it’s not? Someone just meticulously re-created two assassinations,” he says, his voice getting slower. “And there are only two more presidential assassinations to imitate. So. If this is going where we both think it’s going, and it led to President Wallace having a steak knife at his throat, would you really want to stop it?”

“Would you’ve really picked me if you didn’t know the answer?”

“I said I knew the answer. I’m just trying to get you ready,” he says, his voice more serious than I’ve ever heard him. “I know the President is a piece of garbage, and I hate him just as much as you do, but this is what we do in the Culper Ring, Beecher. Whatever our feelings, we protect the Presidency.”

“I’m not a killer, Tot.”

“And I’m not saying you are. But you have to admit: If Marshall did have his hand on that steak knife—if you just stood there and watched—boy, that would really kill a few birds with one knife.”

For a moment I sit there, my eyes still on the red taillights in front of us. “That’s what you really think of me?” I finally ask.

“Doesn’t matter what I think. What matters is, based on the direction these murders are headed, this
will
happen, Beecher. And when it does, you need to be ready with your decision.”

I’m still silent as he slows the car and veers right, into the wide driveway filled with flagpoles that hold both U.S. and military flags. The black metal gates are already open, revealing a bulletproof security shack that, a year ago, used to be swarming with armed guards. These days, there’s just one, dressed in full army camouflage and armed with nothing more than a clipboard. In the grass, on our right, is a sign welcoming us to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, home to one of the country’s most famous and respected veterans’ hospitals.

“They still haven’t shut it down?” I ask as Tot rolls down his window.

“The hospital’s closed. They moved most of it to Bethesda. But that’s not all they had here.” Tossing a smile at the guard, he adds, “We’re here to see Dale Castronovo. We should be on the list.”

I don’t like it here
, I think to myself as we drive through the dead-empty streets that snake across what looks more like a college campus than a military base: lots of brick buildings with pillars in front, lots of open green spaces. But no one’s in sight. Truly no one. “You sure it’s even safe here?”

Tot doesn’t answer, and I get the picture. Doesn’t matter if it’s safe. We need what they have.

Up ahead, there’s a five-story 1970s-era gray concrete building with a U-shaped front driveway. As we turn into the U, a light outside the building flicks on, revealing a tall and severely skinny woman. Dale.

Unlocking the front door, she’s wearing a preppy plaid sweater, stone-washed jeans from the late 1980s, thick glasses, and three pens clipped in her pants pockets. I know an archivist when I see one. Who better to run the army’s private medical museum?

“You got a real ghost town up here, Dale,” Tot says as we get out of the car.

“Okeeyeah, you have no idea,” Dale replies with a rat-a-tat-tat laugh that sends puffs of her frozen breath through the air. “You ready to see the body of Abraham Lincoln?”

O
ut in the cold and speedwalking up 23rd Street, Secret Service agent A.J. Ennis remembered that when Clementine first reached out and demanded Nico’s files, the President told him to
schedule a doctor’s appointment
, which A.J. knew meant
have Palmiotti handle it
.

When Clementine wanted the meet-up out in Michigan, the President said, “schedule another doctor’s appointment.”

And this morning, when everything first went wrong—with Marshall… with Beecher… with everything at St. John’s Church—the President kept his same refrain: “Schedule a doctor’s appointment.”

In A.J.’s mind, President Wallace was being safe. But he wasn’t being smart. Sure, to Wallace, Palmiotti was like a brother. But as A.J. learned all too well when his mother died and the fighting started with his siblings, no one can disappoint you more deeply than family.

More important, as A.J. reported back to the President after lunching with Palmiotti at Wok ’n Roll, the doctor wasn’t the man he used to be.

Maybe it was the shooting, maybe it was from one too many personal sacrifices, or maybe—as A.J. had seen on so many staffers when they left the White House—Palmiotti’s ego simply couldn’t handle the fact that the President was moving on without him.

Whatever the case, reassurances from Palmiotti were no longer that reassuring. So when the call came in about another pastor being shot—this time at Foundry Church—A.J. of course brought it to the President. If this was what he thought… if the snowball was already moving this fast… it had to be dealt with. Immediately.

“Sir, just tell me what to do,” A.J. had asked in the side room off the Oval Office, where President Wallace kept a small refrigerator and his stash of frozen Snickers bars. “Should I schedule another doctor’s appointment?”

Unwrapping a Snickers, the President didn’t say anything. Not one word.

A.J. heard him loud and clear.

Twenty minutes later, A.J. marched toward the monstrous beige brick building that took up most of the block. He didn’t bother slowing down, even as the automatic doors slid open and a puff of indoor heat warmed his face.

Letting his training take over, he scanned each sector left to right, then up and down: A black granite reception desk up ahead. A single security guard on the right. Back in Beltsville, the very first lessons of Secret Service training had taught him to look for the person who wasn’t acting like the other members of the crowd. Find the person who was fidgety, or sweaty, or who was patting his own chest, a well-recognized tip-off that he was carrying a weapon. But right now, the few men and women who were pacing and waiting by the leather sofas all had similar looks of anxiety, even desperation.

He expected as much. Especially here.

“Welcome to the George Washington University Hospital,” the woman at the front desk announced. “Are you looking for a doctor or a patient?”

“Patient,” A.J. said. “A pastor.”

M
arshall didn’t go to the front gate.

The front gate meant a guard, which meant being seen, which meant being remembered. Worst of all, if the guard made a phone call, it would let them know he was coming.

Instead, as the sun faded from the sky, Marshall pulled his SUV around to the back of Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Most people knew Walter Reed for its hospital. A few, like Beecher, knew it housed a medical museum. But what most people forgot was that, like any army facility of its size, Walter Reed also had barracks and apartments. Soldiers lived here. And made a mess here. And needed that mess cleaned up by a privately run garbage service, which, true to army form, arrived and exited through a maintenance entrance around back. There was no guard stationed there, just a gate with a well-hidden keypad. Sometimes, even generals wanted to come and go without being seen.

None of it was news to Marshall. He’d been here two weeks ago, in the exact same spot: standing outside the metal gate, eyeing the keypad.

Electric gates like this all operated over radio frequency, usually between 300 and 433 megahertz. But to get inside, you didn’t need to find some top-secret frequency. You simply needed a way into the powder-coated metal access box below the keypad.

Fortunately, Marshall was good with locks. As good as anyone. With nothing more than two slivers of metal, the tiny lock turned and the access box popped open, revealing a circuit board. From there, it was like operating a light switch. When you flip a light switch on, a small piece of metal is lowered into place, connecting
two wires. When that connection happens, the power starts flowing.

It was no different here. Holding a strip of eighteen-gauge wire that was thinner than a paper clip, Marshall touched it to two metal screws on the circuit board. As the electricity began to flow, the metal gate jumped, then rolled wide open.

Same as two weeks ago.

Stepping inside, Marshall didn’t even attempt to hide. This was a nearly empty army facility. How hard could it be to find a 1966 pale blue Mustang?

A
ll around us, the display cases of the museum are covered with white sheets. Cardboard boxes are stacked like crooked pillars in every corner. The museum is in the process of moving. At the center of the room, Tot and I are both staring down, squinting into one of the few uncovered glass cases, like the ones that hold jewelry at department stores. But what’s inside is far more valuable than diamonds.

The two circular flat velvet discs have their own glass tops. Little flecks of white sit at the center of each disc: They look like human teeth that’re broken in half. There’s a larger chunk too.

“Abraham Lincoln,” I whisper.

“Abraham Lincoln’s
skull
,” Dale clarifies, showing that, like every archivist, she’s a stickler as she points down at the old bone fragments. “Or at least what’s left of it.”

“Why do you even
have
this?” I ask, unable to look away.

“That’s what we do,” Dale says, sounding almost cocky as she runs her fingers down the Def Leppard lanyard that holds her ID around her neck. As she twirls it, I spot a stack of concert tickets tucked behind her ID. I’m not gonna ask. “Back in 1862, when they founded us as the Army Medical Museum, our job was to document the effects of war on the human body. So the Smithsonian was sent all the cultural items. And we were sent all the human body parts, including the pieces of Abraham Lincoln.”

“And the shirt with his blood on it. And the bullet,” I say excitedly as I race from case to case. Speed-reading as I go, I can’t help but think that the exhibit would be better served if it started with—

There it is. The final item in the final case: the small silver slug of metal that resembles a wobbly lead gumball.

The bullet that killed Abraham Lincoln.

“Tot, you need to see this.”

He’s back by the open doors of the exhibit. “Do I need to close these?” he calls out.

“Doesn’t matter,” Dale says with a wave. “We’re the only ones here.” Following behind me, she motions down to the bullet.

I hold my breath as I read the description.
This handmade ball of lead, fired from a Philadelphia Derringer pistol, was removed from Lincoln’s brain during autopsy by Dr. Edward Curtis.

Dale doesn’t say a word. Dr. Curtis’s own words are laminated on a card just below the bullet, in a letter he wrote to his mother. He explains that when they took out Lincoln’s brain to track down the bullet, he was lifting the brain from the skull and
suddenly the bullet dropped out through my fingers and fell, breaking the solemn silence of the room with its clatter, into an empty basin that was standing beneath. There it lay upon the white china, a little black mass no bigger than the end of my finger—dull, motionless and harmless, yet the cause of such mighty changes in the world’s history as we may perhaps never realize.

I’m still holding my breath. On my left, Dale isn’t playing with her lanyard anymore. Even today, there’s no way to know all the changes to history that came from John Wilkes Booth’s actions that day. But whoever’s killing these pastors now, if they really are working toward the current President, I can’t help but think they’ve got their own idea.

“Tell me about the Lincoln mask,” I say, finally breaking the silence.

Pointing us to the left, toward a nearby case, Dale yanks on the eggshell-colored sheet, revealing another glass museum case. An empty one.

“I came in two weeks ago and—poof—it was gone.” From a nearby display case, Dale grabs a file folder, flips it open, and pulls
out a blown-up color photo of what used to be in this case: a plaster mask. There’s no mistaking who it is—the pointy nose, the high cheekbones—even in full plaster, we all know Abraham Lincoln. But unlike the mask from Marshall’s apartment, the one in this photo has plaster over the eyes. Marshall’s had holes cut into it. So someone could see through it. More important, this one is yellowed and old. Marshall’s was pristine and white.

“Look familiar?” Tot asks, as I replay what Marshall told me. That he supposedly found the mask in a garbage can a few blocks from the crime.

“Dale, if someone stole the mask, how hard would it be to make another cast from it?” Tot adds, already knowing what I’m thinking.

“That was the whole point. Once the cast existed, people could use it to make busts of the President without having to bother him. They even used it to make the big statue in the Lincoln Memorial. What’s odd is, ours is just a copy of the original.”

“So what you’re saying is that this mask isn’t even the most valuable thing here?” Tot interrupts in a tone that tells me he already knows the answer.

“Exactly… okeeyeah… that’s
exactly
my point!” Dale insists a bit too enthusiastically as she readjusts her glasses. “Lincoln’s bone fragments and the bullet that killed him, those things are priceless. But to take a reproduction plaster mask and some random pieces of Booth. How does that make any—?”

“Booth?” I blurt. “You mean as in
John Wilkes Booth
?”

Dale looks at Tot, then over at me. “Back then, in the 1860s,” she explains, “we were sent
everybody
.”

“So you also have pieces of John Wilkes Booth,” Tot says, full of fake excitement. “And those pieces were stolen too?”