The President's Shadow

by Brad Meltzer

  A blast of hot salty air sent the first flood of sweat down his brow to his eyes. Alby ran down the concrete steps and glanced across the grassy courtyard. Over by the furnace, there were flickering blades of light. Flashlights.

  Three days from now, the official report would say that Alby should have waited for the rest of his unit. But he didn’t. Instead, he started running. Slowly at first, just a jog.

  He tried to convince himself that all this was normal. Last night, they’d used flashlights while lugging bags of coal into the furnace’s firebox. They used flashlights again when they lit the oven for the first time, just to be sure it worked. A black cloud of smoke had wafted upward as all the Plankholders cheered.

  Today, at 4:56 a.m., no one was cheering.

  “Julian, that you?” Alby asked, squinting through the dark and counting three different shadows by the back of the brick furnace.

  A blast of white light blinded him as a flashlight turned his way.

  “I told you to keep ’em inside!” a deep voice shouted.

  “Get him out of here!” another barked.

  Alby knew that voice. Colonel Doggett.

  Squinting and putting up a hand to block the light, Alby couldn’t see anything. But he smelled it.

  When Alby first left the barracks, the warm air had blown it the other way. But as he got closer, he tried to place the smell. It was putrid and sweet, so lush it punctured his nose and went straight to his tongue. He couldn’t put words to it, but everyone knows when they smell something foul.

  A belch of black smoke spiraled up from the redbrick chimney.

  “Julian…” Alby whispered, running toward the furnace.

  “Take him out of here! Now!” someone shouted.

  The flashlights twisted and turned, adding a dull glow to the black smoke that was now pouring from the furnace’s back door as well as its cross-shaped windows. Whatever was burning inside, it was big.

  “Julian…!” Alby shouted as a set of strong hands grabbed him by the biceps. Alby’s arms were so slick with sweat, he managed to slip free, running forward for a better view. He nearly tripped over a discarded army boot. It was charred and burnt.

  “Julian… Oh, God… What’d you do…!?”

  Another set of hands grabbed him. Then another.

  “Get off me! He’s my friend!” Alby shouted, thrashing wildly, the smoke pouring over him. They were all starting to cough.

  Alby was close to the furnace. The coal door was still vomiting smoke from the back as a familiar and wide shadow turned Alby’s way. A glint from the flashlight lit his Santa face. Colonel Doggett didn’t say anything else.

  With a final tug, Alby was jerked backward, his boots dragging through the garden of loose leftover bricks.

  “Lemme go!” Alby screamed, still coughing, still thrashing, still determined to get a look inside.

  It never came.

  The black smoke spun and twirled, dissipating as it reached the ocean. Across the dark courtyard, the guards yelled, forcing the Plankholders back into their barracks. And for the rest of his short life, Alby White never forgot the putrid and sweet odor that filled his nostrils that night.

  48

  Today

  Washington, D.C.

  Doc, how’s it look?” Director Riestra calls out at the screen.

  We’re all staring at the laptop, crowded around like kids in a dorm room. Onscreen, there’s nothing but an empty chair in the command center. In the background, there’s the faint flush of a toilet.

  “Doc?” Riestra repeats.

  From the right, Dr. Yaeger appears, his gloved fingers pinching the edges of the damp white index card. His white eyebrows knit together, still confused.

  “What’s it say?” Riestra asks.

  “You tell me.” As the doctor turns the sheet around, the once-white index card is now marked by a pale purple…

  “Are those letters?” Riestra asks.

  Everyone leans in. Onscreen we see:

  “Morse code?” Francy says.

  “It’s not Morse code,” Riestra says definitively.

  “Hebrew?” his deputy asks.

  “Not Hebrew either.”

  “It’s not even English. Except for the S,” the doctor adds.

  “It’s a code,” I blurt.

  “A code!? Thanks for that, Langdon,” Riestra challenges.

  I ignore him. Francy is looking my way. I’m locked on the screen as my eyebrow starts twitching.

  “You recognize it, Beecher?” the doctor asks.

  I barely move.

  “Is it something Nico’s used before?”

  “Not Nico. Though I bet Nico knows it,” I say, leaning in closer. “It’s an old substitution cipher, from the Civil War. It came from the papers of a man named George Washington Bickley.”

  Francy turns my way. It’s a ridiculous name, and one hard to forget. “In the late 1800s, Bickley was the leader of…”

  “The Knights of the Golden Circle,” Francy says.

  I nod, my eyes still locked on the cipher.

  Francy takes out her phone, motioning to help me look it up online.

  I shake my head. Like I need a phone.

  “You can read it then?” Riestra asks. “What’s it say?”

  I squint, seeing my own reflection onscreen. Symbol by symbol, I replace each with a letter. With just seven spaces, I’m guessing it’s a name. Or, knowing Nico, some cryptic, obscure location. But as the letters fall in place and I read the word for myself, my windpipe constricts.

  “It looks like a message,” I say, thinking about the President.

  “Beecher, tell us what it says!”

  “It’s a single word: goodbye.”

  49

  Ten days ago

  Carter Lake, Iowa

  Still in his bathrobe as he stepped out into the cold, the doctor wasn’t thinking about his high blood pressure. He wasn’t thinking about his daughter’s divorce. He wasn’t even thinking about his recent battle with acute pancreatitis, which had left him a diabetic with a whole new set of problems.

  Instead, as the doctor left his front door and strolled down the long driveway in his daily hunt for the morning newspaper, he was thinking of the girl with fake boobs who always flirted with him at the dry cleaners.

  It was hard enough getting old. Even harder doing it in the suburbs. Maybe he’d drop off another rumpled shirt today just to see how much she’d lean over the counter.

  Reaching the foot of the driveway and pushing his sturdy Arthur Ashe glasses up on his face, the doctor was so lost in the thought of her chest, he didn’t even notice the man who was waiting for him, standing next to the mailbox.

  “It’s better for the environment if you read online,” Nico said in his steady monotone, handing the doctor his morning Wall Street Journal.

  The doctor locked glances with the man whose life he had destroyed all those years ago on the island.

  Nico stood there, posture perfect, chin out.

  Dr. Moorcraft swayed slightly, then fell sideways, fainting and crumbling onto the asphalt.

  Nico dragged him inside by his ankles.

  50

  Today

  Crystal City, Virginia

  The KGC,” Clementine said, standing at the sink and wiping the blood from her lips. “Ever hear of the Knights of the Golden Circle?”

  “I know your dad’s obsessed with them,” Marshall said. “He thinks John Wilkes Booth was a member. And Lee Harvey Oswald.”

  “John Wilkes Booth apparently was a member. So was Jesse James. But forget my dad a second. After Ezra approached me, I looked them up. Back during the Civil War, dozens of groups like the Knights sprang up all over. People across the South were enraged, and they needed an outlet. But unlike the Freemasons and other secret societies that focused on centuries-old traditions, the Knights of the Golden Circle wanted something far more practical: They wanted the Union to lose so they could preserve slavery. That’s basica
lly their story: They were a bunch of racists who wanted their own “golden circle”—a chunk of land including Mexico and the Caribbean—to call their own. When the Civil War ended, some say the Knights disbanded. Others say…”

  “That they escaped and went underground. Beecher told me about your dad’s obsession.”

  “Forget my dad! You think I don’t know how crackpot his theories are? Mental illness doesn’t just run in my family. It sprints. But I’m telling you, Marsh…”

  “Marshall.”

  “I’m telling you, Marshall, here’s an unarguable historical fact: After the Civil War—after John Wilkes Booth fired that bullet into Abraham Lincoln’s brain—the Knights of the Golden Circle disappeared. Maybe they regrouped in the sixties; maybe they didn’t. But here’s one thing I know for certain: If Ezra has his way, they’re coming back—and they’re coming for the Culper Ring.”

  Marshall didn’t move as she said the words.

  “C’mon, Marshall, you think you’re the only one who spent time with Beecher? I know about the Ring.”

  Marshall still didn’t react. He didn’t trust her, but he could still get information. “Why did Ezra send you here?”

  “Have you listened to a word I said? Ezra wants nothing to do with me. He only helped me so I’d make the introduction.”

  “Introduction to what?”

  “Not to what. To who.” Reading Marshall’s confused expression, she added, “Pretend your personal mission in life is to rebuild the Knights of the Golden Circle. Who’s the number one—and hardest to find—presidential assassin you want on your side?”

  Looking down, Marshall lowered his knife and retracted the blade. “Nico,” he whispered. “Ezra wants to recruit your dad.”

  Clementine spit more blood into the sink. She didn’t have to say another word. There was only one reason Ezra and the Knights would want a big gun: They were hunting big game.

  “They’re going after the President,” Marshall said.

  “Not just the President. Think about Beecher and the Culper Ring. Their job is to protect Wallace—”

  “You think Ezra cares about Beecher and the Ring?”

  “Marshall, all Ezra cares about is the stupid Ring! He blames the Culper Ring for hunting down the Knights. He thinks they’re lawless animals who robbed his family of its rightful legacy. You should see the picture he carries with him—the haunted look in his eyes when he shows you the photo of him and his grandfather in the Oval Office meeting Reagan. The scariest thing about Ezra is he wants to be remembered. He wants a place in history. So whatever Ezra’s got planned—whether he’s hitting the President or Beecher or all of them at once—he’s not going for something small. He wants Hiroshima.”

  Still trying to make a picture from the pieces, Marshall was tempted to ask her about the arm buried in the Rose Garden, but something told him not to. Instead, he eyed the way Clementine gripped the edge of the counter, like she needed it to hold herself up. “That still doesn’t tell me the real reason you’re here,” he said.

  “I already—! Look at me…I’m dying!”

  He stared at her. “I believe you when you say that.” They held each other’s gaze. “What I don’t believe is your sudden concern with the welfare of Beecher or Wallace or pretty much anyone but yourself.”

  “And so, what? You think I made this all up? Do you have any idea what I’ve been through? Look at this—! This is— This is—” She reached into her front pocket and held out a small white object in her open palm. “This is the tooth I lost in the elevator when I sneezed on the way up here. I’ve got half a dozen of these things at this point. I’ve been keeping them in the ashtray of my rental car, and if I take too wide a turn, I hear them rattling like dice.”

  “Clementine, I know you’re—”

  “You don’t know anything! And you of all people should!” she yelled, pointing to her own face. “My gums are gray! I spent the last two weeks in a makeshift dental chair trying to keep my jaw from collapsing! And you know what I finally realized? I can’t stop it. No matter how much I pray or beg or try to pretend this is all God’s will—” She took a breath, still holding on to the counter. “We all have our mountains to climb, don’t we? This is the end of mine. And if that’s the case…I don’t know… When the curtain comes down, don’t you want your last act to be something good?”

  Marshall stood there, noticing for the first time the red tint on her teeth. “That’s an excellent speech. It really is,” he said. “But don’t insult me with the I’m-just-trying-to-earn-my-angel-wings talk. I’ve taken a man’s life before. I know you have too. And once you’re a killer…once you give away that part of your soul…some dirt won’t ever come off.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m lying about Ezra,” she shot back. “You know that’s true.”

  “So why’d you bring this all to me instead of taking it to Beecher?”

  “Because I need to stop hurting him.” From the palm of her hand, she dumped her tooth on the counter. “When I was lying there in that dental chair, it’s the one thing I realized in my moment of clarity: Every time I get near Beecher, I cause him pain. If this is the end of my mountain, I need to do better by him.”

  “That’s the first true thing you’ve said today.”

  “You’re wrong,” she insisted. “And you were wrong about Kathy Stankevich too. I didn’t pick a fight with her. She told everyone my mother slept with Craig Andrade’s dad.”

  “I thought your mom did sleep with Craig Andrade’s dad.”

  “Of course she did. But c’mon…it’s still my mom,” Clementine said, picking up her tooth and sliding it back in her pocket. “I can help you get Ezra. Let me prove it to you.”

  “I thought you didn’t know what he was planning.”

  “I don’t,” she said, glancing down at her watch. “But if we hurry, I know where he’ll be.”

  51

  We need to move him,” Francy insists, referring to the President.

  Riestra holds up a pointer-finger, never taking his deep-set eyes off me. “Beecher, are you sure that’s what it says? Goodbye?”

  “Check the code yourself.” I hold up my phone, where I pulled the code up to make sure I got it right. “Back during the Civil War, the Knights of the Golden Circle—”

  “I know who the Knights are. And I know the Culper Ring took them apart. But if Nico thinks he’s part of them—or is trying to rebuild some new version…”

  “Len, we really need to move him,” Francy repeats.

  “What if this isn’t a threat, though?” I ask. “What if Nico’s trying to tell us something different?”

  “He buried an arm in the Rose Garden, then one in Camp David with the word goodbye in it!” Francy shoots back.

  “She’s got a point, Beecher,” Riestra agrees. “In our line of work, that’s a very particular threat.”

  “Or maybe it’s simply someone sending a very particular body,” I say, pointing back to the screen. “One arm—sure—that’s a message. But when it’s two arms from the same person—”

  “What makes you say it’s the same person?” the doc interrupts, suddenly suspicious.

  “You saying I’m wrong?” I challenge. “I saw the corpse’s fingertips…the black ink… Are you telling me you didn’t fingerprint both arms and run them through your system? Testing DNA takes a few days; running a fingerprint takes two minutes.”

  The doctor’s—and Riestra’s—silence gives me the answer: The two arms definitely came from the same body. No doubt, the buried body parts trace back to a particular person…though the top medical examiner and the head of the Secret Service wanted to keep that fact to themselves.

  “Why didn’t you tell me the arms were from the same body? Does that mean you have an ID too?” I finally ask.

  “You do realize this isn’t your investigation, Beecher? It’s ours.” Riestra adds a quick laugh. He’s got his smile back in place, like we’re old pals. “I mean, it’s not like I’
m asking you to share what you found with any other archivists you might’ve run into.”

  He never mentions Mina’s name or the fact that I was inside Secret Service headquarters, but as he flashes his white picket teeth, there’s no doubt in my mind. He’s head of the Service. He knows I’ve been in his building.

  “Ever hear the name Kingston Young?” Riestra challenges.

  I shake my head.

  “You’re sure? Kingston Young,” Riestra repeats, lowering his chin and staring at me over the rims of his glasses.

  “I’d remember a name like Kingston. Who is he?”

  Riestra stares at me for another solid twenty seconds. “Apparently, someone who’s missing both arms,” he eventually says, the lightness in his voice telling me I’ve passed his test. “According to the fingerprints, Kingston is the man those arms trace to. Police say he died two weeks ago,” he explains. “Now in the spirit of reciprocity, Beecher, have you got anything you want to share with me?” He puts on a frozen smile.

  I can’t help but think that this is just another test. Maybe that’s the reason Riestra brought me here. I didn’t think Mina would rat me out, but maybe she did. Maybe he already has all the details about White Eyelashes, the orange lapel pin, and of course the Reagan Secret Service agent named Tanner Pope, who also apparently died a little over two weeks ago. If that’s the case, it won’t hurt to share. Still, I hear Tot’s voice in the back of my head repeating the very first lesson he taught me when he invited me into the Ring: Always trust my gut.

  Across from me, with his white picket smile in place, Riestra readjusts his round glasses. They’re still a little crooked.

  “You know everything I know,” I tell him.

  Leaning forward, Riestra rests both elbows on the table, which shifts from his weight. “Darryl, move him,” he says to his deputy, referring to the President. “And to the new place we discussed.”

  “But sir—”

  “To the place we discussed,” Riestra growls, low enough that the room goes silent.