The Fifth Assassin

by Brad Meltzer

  A.J. didn’t move. At all. “Ma’am, we need to speak with him. Right now.”

  Julie stared up at A.J. It was easy saying no to staffers, and interns, and even to Secretary of Education Prebish, who brought his new wife and stepkids to the White House. But that’s different from saying no to the Service.

  Squeezing around her desk, she headed for the curved door that connected to the Oval. A.J. couldn’t help but notice the blown-up photograph that filled the wall behind her desk. It was a shot—a private one—of the President (in profile and in full suit) pitching a whiffle ball to his eight-year-old son as the two of them played on the South Lawn. Even in profile, it was easy to see the joy on Wallace’s face. Yet like any Secret Service agent, A.J. knew his protectee. He could also see that deep wrinkle that ran from his nose to his chin and burrowed a dark parenthesis around the President’s smile. It was a worried wrinkle—the kind of wrinkle that came with knowing the peace wouldn’t last. As A.J. was well aware, that crease was only getting deeper.

  On his left, Julie popped open the curved door. President Wallace was at his desk, on the phone. But as he glanced over at Julie, he could see who was standing right behind her.

  A.J. didn’t have to say a word.

  “Conrad, let me call you back,” the President said, hanging up the telephone.

  With that, A.J. stepped into the Oval and the curved door closed behind him.

  55

  I know you’re lying,” I insist.

  “I can’t always be lying, Beecher. Not about everything.”

  From my phone, I hear the 911 operator asking what my emergency is. I tell her I dialed wrong—that there’s no emergency—even though I see one standing right in front of me.

  “Just read the letter,” Clementine pleads, holding it out and trying to hand it over.

  I don’t reach for it. I can’t.

  “Just read it, Beecher. Judge for yourself.”

  I still don’t move. Across from me, Clementine waves the letter like a white flag. She can soften herself all she wants with the blonde wig and all; it’s still the same person living in that body. But the most compelling part of Clementine’s argument has nothing to do with her.

  “It’s your father,” Clementine says, still offering me the white flag. “How could you not at least read it?”

  I glance down at the inside of my wrist. Her nails left crescent indentations. They’ll fade soon. My questions won’t.

  “You’ll only regret it if you don’t read it, Beecher.”

  I snatch the sheet from her hand. From the poor quality of the photocopy, it looks like a fax. I try to read it immediately, scanning it once, then again—but the words don’t make sense. My hands start to shake, and I feel like a teenager trying to read the directions for a home pregnancy kit.

  Dear Teresa,

  My mother’s name. But what makes my body numb—what makes it feel like there’s a thin plastic sheet between my outer layer of skin and my inner layer of skin—is when I see the starkly printed “T” in front of the scribbly cursive “eresa.”

  My father died when I was three years old. He wasn’t around long enough for me to know his handwriting. But to this day, my mother keeps the last card he sent her—a Valentine’s card with Snoopy on it—in the giant hat box that she has in the corner of her bedroom and stores all of our loose photos and Polaroids in.

  My mom didn’t believe in photo albums. She wanted the photos out, so you could sift through them at any time. As an archivist, the disorganization still kills me. But as a son, I appreciated the opportunity to study the old Valentine.

  It didn’t say much. My dad wrote To My Valentine Teresa at the top, then let the card do the talking. But the way he wrote Teresa—printed “T,” cursive “eresa”—I studied that card for hours, down to the UPC barcode on the back and the price that was ninety-nine cents. I know that card. And I know my father’s handwriting when I see it. Blinking hard, I fight to read it.

  Dear Teresa,

  You win. As you always have. I still hear your words from that morning at the bus station. You were so scared I wasn’t coming back. I swore you were wrong. But I’m now all too aware that is not the case.

  I grieve for the pain I know this will cause you. And the damage to our babies. When you tell stories of me, please always mention that I loved them. I always will.

  I wish I could have made a better life for you. But with my passing, my menace to them—and to you—is gone.

  Please have Pastor Riis officiate at my funeral. And if this reaches you before Beecher’s birthday, please buy him something big and stupid.

  —Albert

  My entire life, I was told my father died in a car accident on a bridge in Wisconsin. The plastic sheet that feels like it’s between my layers of skin now seems like it’s expanding, cleaving me in half. My hand starts to shake even harder.

  Clementine, standing now, reaches out to comfort me.

  “Don’t touch me,” I warn her. “Where did you get this?”

  “Beecher, before you—”

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “Beecher, please. I know it’s hard. When you helped me find Nico—”

  “I didn’t help you find Nico! You found him yourself and then came to me, pretending you were clueless! Now what the hell is going on!?”

  She takes a half step back. “Did you look at the date?” she asks.

  I stare down at the note. My father died on July 20th. But this suicide note, or whatever it is, it’s dated July 27th. One week after he supposedly died.

  My tongue swells in my mouth. I try to breathe but nothing comes out. I know it’s a lie. Everything she says is a lie. “My father didn’t commit suicide,” I insist.

  “I’m not saying he did, Beecher. But don’t you—?”

  “He didn’t commit suicide! He wouldn’t do that!”

  “Beecher, I know this is a wrecking ball for you, but you have to—”

  “Don’t tell me what I have to do! You didn’t know my father! You never met him! He wouldn’t leave us like that!”

  “Beecher—”

  “He wouldn’t leave us!” I explode. “It wasn’t his choice! So for you to come here—to… to… to make a fake letter like that… I knew you were a monster, Clementine! But to use my dead father to manipulate me like that.”

  “I swear on my life, I’m not manipulating—”

  “You’re a liar! It’s always a lie!” I shout, shoving the sheet of paper back in her hands. She tries to hand it back, but I push it toward her. “You lied about Nico! You lied when you first approached me. And then all that crap about having cancer and how you’re dying? What’s not sacred, Clementine? What won’t you lie about? It’s like the bullshit wig you’re wearing right now!” I shout, grabbing at her phony blonde hair.

  “Beecher, get off!”

  “Why? What’s wrong with some truth for once?” I grab at her hair again, this time getting a grip on it. It goes cockeyed on her head. “What’s wrong with revealing the true you—?”

  I yank the wig from her head. But instead of revealing short black hair, she… she’s…

  Completely bald.

  56

  I’d say eighteenth century—y’know, if I were a guessing man,” the Diamond said.

  Tot’s good eye narrowed. “Daniel, don’t do that. You never guess.”

  “Agreed. And I never said I was guessing here,” the Diamond teased, waving the color copies that held pictures of the old playing cards, and tossing them onto the nearby light table.

  Tot didn’t care for show-offs. But he did care that when the Archives had to manually reweave the frayed corners of the original Bill of Rights, Daniel was the only man trusted to do the job. In the world of document preservation, no one was tougher than the Diamond.

  “I’d date them to somewhere in the 1770s, maybe 1780s,” the Diamond added. “But if you had the actual cards—or even that missing ace of spades…”

  “What�
�s so important about the ace of spades?”

  “That’s where cardmakers used to sign their work. Think of the cards you played with when you were a kid. The ace of spades used to have the company’s name on it: US Playing Card Company, or the guy on the old bicycle, or whoever it was that made it. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it’s where the printer signed them too. Depending on the year, though, these cards you have here might even date back to the… Hmmmm.” Spinning on his heel, the Diamond headed for the corner of the room, toward a bank of map cabinets and storage units. He stopped at one that held two stereobinocular microscopes and an array of tools and brushes, all lined up in size order, of course.

  “By the way, she said yes,” the Diamond added, pulling open the lower drawer of the file cabinet. Tot knew who he was referring to. The only thing that the Diamond loved more than old artifacts: Tot’s officemate. Rina.

  “We’re going on a date. A real one. Next Tuesday night.”

  “Tuesday night?” Tot asked. “Tuesday nights aren’t dates.”

  “It’s a date. Whatever you said to her, it worked. I owe you and Beecher big.”

  Tot hadn’t said a word to Rina. Neither did Beecher. But in the world of the Archives, where nerdy librarian love was far more common than people thought (You like old books? I like old books! Let’s date!), Tot knew better than to get in the way.

  “Where do you think I should take her?” the Diamond asked. “Are wine bars still considered cool?”

  “Daniel, can we please focus here? You were saying about the ace of spades…”

  “Of course, of course,” the Diamond said, kneeling down at the open bottom drawer of the cabinet and fingerwalking through the hanging files. Toward the back, he opened one and rummaged through it. Tot saw what was inside. Tons of loose…

  “Playing cards? Is there anything you’re not hoarding down here?”

  “You kidding? I’ve got Thomas Jefferson’s left shoe down here. If you put it on and it fits, you get to be President.”

  “Daniel…”

  “Playing cards. Got it. Anyway, most of these are from that exhibit we did on cards a few years back—back when Bill Clinton was playing hearts all the time. Turns out, he wasn’t the only card player. Back in World War II, the government used playing cards to send secret maps and messages to our POWs in Germany, since cards were one of the few things the enemy let them have. If the tax stamp was crooked on the pack, that meant it was a fixed deck. So our troops would soak those cards in water, then peel them apart, revealing secret maps to help them escape,” he said, pulling out a nine of clubs that had been peeled open. “In fact, years later, in Vietnam—”

  “Daniel, I know that playing cards have been used throughout history. What’s this have to do with the ace I’m looking for?”

  Still kneeling at the file drawer, the Diamond stopped, staring up at Tot. “Tot, you know I never mind helping you, especially in these cases I know you can’t tell me about. But don’t talk to me like I’m some college-kid researcher.”

  Tot took a deep breath, staring at the peeled-away nine of clubs. “I apologize, Daniel. I’ve just… It’s been one of those days.”

  “Is this like before? Are you and Beecher—? You hunting another killer?”

  Tot didn’t answer. He’d known the Diamond for years, for decades even. But he never talked openly about the Culper Ring. Or about the Ring’s real history and all the things he didn’t even share with Beecher. As always, though, the Diamond never missed a detail.

  “Tot, if you’re in danger, I can help you.”

  Tot stared back at him. “Sorry, you were about to say something. About my missing ace of spades…?”

  The Diamond shook his head, knowing better than to argue. “Y’know, Tot, you’re the reason people don’t like the elderly.”

  “Do you have the information or not, Daniel?”

  Reaching into the back of the file folder, the Diamond pulled out one final item—a single old playing card in a clear case. It had sharp corners rather than modern rounded ones. Yet what made the weathered ace of spades so memorable was the familiar symbol on it: the hand-drawn American eagle with wide wings and a lowered head.

  Tot’s chest tightened as he studied the image. It was the same eagle from the pack of old cards they had found on Marshall. The eagle from Guiteau’s tattoo. And the same eagle that was the symbol of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a group that Tot’s mentor swore didn’t exist anymore.

  “Like the magician says,” the Diamond added with a grin. “Is this your card?”

  57

  Clementine steps backward, her bald head down, her hand shielding her eyes.

  “Clemmi, I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  She looks up. It’s her glance that interrupts me.

  To see her like this, so pale, with no hair. Her face looks longer.

  In my hands, her wig feels dead, like a mound of straw. I hand it back. Holding it, she just stands there as I stare.

  “You really have cancer.”

  “I told you, Beecher. Not everything’s a lie.”

  The light in the living room reflects off her forehead. Her bald head looks so small. So fragile. And though she stands up straight and offers a half-smile, it’s like looking at any woman in a cancer ward. Since they have no hair, you can’t help but focus on their eyes—and then all you see, imagined or not, is the vulnerable sadness within them.

  “Have they given you a prognosis?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. I expect her voice to be quiet. It isn’t. “No one knows what it is. They said they’ve never seen anything like it. That’s why I’ve been searching so hard for”—her jaw shifts off center and she again hands me the letter from my father—“for Nico’s files. That’s how I found what your father wrote. The s—”

  “Don’t call it a suicide note,” I interrupt.

  “I won’t.”

  “And it doesn’t mean that’s how he died.”

  She studies me, not saying a word.

  I scan the letter that’s supposedly from my dad. The teeny letters running across the top say FedEx Office with a 734 area code.

  “What were you doing in Michigan?” I ask.

  She doesn’t answer.

  “Clementine, I’m feeling bad for you right now, and because of that—despite everything you did—I’m actually considering whether to listen to you.”

  “I was hiding, Beecher. I was going through the file I stole from the Archives, and I was hiding. First in Canada. Then I snuck into Michigan.”

  “And that was it?”

  “What else do you want there to be? How bad a person do you think I am? Oh, that’s right, you already told me. You used that word, the one they use for my dad. Monster.”

  I feel bad as she says it. And I feel even worse seeing her bald with cancer. “You still killed Palmiotti,” I tell her.

  She doesn’t speak, but I see that familiar wicked twinkle in her eyes.

  “What? How is that amusing, Clementine? You killed him. You shot him.”

  “Palmiotti’s not dead.”

  “I saw it happen! I saw you pull the trigger!”

  “And I saw him six days ago in a Target in West Bloomfield, Michigan, when I traded him the President’s file. They dyed his hair. He has a scar on his neck from where I shot him. And he still thinks pleated khakis count as a fashion statement. But he’s breathing just fine.”

  A burning pain stabs my chest, like someone just jammed a shovel in it and started digging. I look around, but the world is blurred. All I see is Palmiotti. When he was shot, I saw the blood… his neck… he was—How can—? “Oh no…”

  “Oh yes,” Clementine says, still smiling.

  “Th-That’s not possible.”

  “Beecher, he’s the best friend of the President of the United States. Anything’s possible. And if it makes you feel better, without Palmiotti giving me Nico’s file, I’d never have been able to track down the doctor.”
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  “What doctor?”

  “The military doctor. His name was in Nico’s navy records. Dr. Yoo. I found him in San Diego. All those years ago, he was the one who treated Nico… the one who looked after him while they did their testing. But he also—he treated your father, Beecher. He treated all of them.”

  “No. No way,” I say, refusing to be suckered. My father was older. He didn’t… he couldn’t have served with Nico.

  “They were plankholders together,” Clementine says. “That’s what the doctor called them. Plankholders. Y’know what that means?”

  I nod, feeling numb as I mindlessly stare at the patch of pale freckles on her bald head. I recognize the term from our navy files. “They’re the first crewmembers to serve on a ship.”

  “Yes—but in the army, they’re also the first members of a unit. The ones who launch it. Plankholders.”

  I look down at my dad’s handwriting. “So you just found this doctor and what? He conveniently told you all his secrets?”

  “No, he wouldn’t say much. He’s old. I think he’s sick. But he knew what they did to Nico. He knew it was wrong. And when I asked him for the paperwork… He didn’t have much. But he did have this,” she says, pointing back to my father’s note.

  “My father didn’t commit suicide,” I tell her for the third time.

  “Maybe not. But to even have a note like that—it’s time to ask the questions. Why’d your father write this suicide note? And how’d he write it a week after he supposedly died?”

  My brain cartwheels, fighting for balance. I try to tell myself this is just another Clementine trick. But as I look back at her, I know it’s not. It can’t be.

  “Maybe it’s something your father wrote and never used,” she suggests.

  I look at her, confused. “That doesn’t even make sense. Whatever you think that note is, my dad died a week earlier. How could they get the date of his death wrong?”

  “I don’t have the answer. I’m just saying, maybe he wrote the note—or even planned to use it—but then he died first.”