The president looked up at Wilkie. “What was that, John?”
“Mr. President, there’s no way in heaven, hell, or Washington you’re going inside that tomb without the Secret Service.”
“John, you saw the terms in that letter. We have no choice,” Taft conceded. “If we’re to get any information out of these villains, we need to make them think they have me beaten.”
“We can do more than that,” Nellie added. “Will, I want you to continue with our plans for a second party at the mansion tomorrow. One that’s open to the public. We must not let anything appear out of the ordinary.”
“Are you mad?” snapped Wilkie.
“Don’t speak to my wife like that,” Taft reprimanded.
“I’m sorry, Mr. President, but we must be realistic! Do you have any idea how difficult it’s going to be to provide adequate security after what happened today?”
“I have no doubt it will be taxing,” Nellie continued. “That’s why you must do it. We need to make our enemies think it would be impossible for my husband to sabotage their meeting.”
“Madam President,” Wilkie stressed, “I am sorry, but this is too dangerous. For all we know, this could all be a trick to assassinate the president during Yale’s commencement.”
“If they wanted my husband dead, they would have killed him hours ago. Also, at no point in that letter did they threaten his life. I believe they need my husband alive.”
“Well, so does the United States!” Wilkie insisted.
“Excuse me,” Robert interrupted, “but I think I know a way we can ensure Secret Service protection within the Skull and Bones tomb.”
HAMMOND
WILL! THE MAJOR BRIEFED ME ON EVERYTHING. I AM SPEECHLESS. HOW CAN I HELP?
TAFT
JACK, HOW DID YOUR STUDENTS EAVESDROP ON SKULL AND BONES MEETINGS?
HAMMOND
WHAT?
TAFT
LAST YEAR, YOU SAID SOME STUDENTS FIGURED OUT HOW TO SNOOP ON ALL OF YALE’S SECRET SOCIETIES. HOW DID THEY DO THIS?
HAMMOND
DO YOU HAVE A MAP OF THE UNIVERSITY IN FRONT OF YOU?
TAFT
YES, WE HAVE SEVERAL.
HAMMOND
GOOD. THE FIRST THING YOU NEED TO DO IS ENTER THE STEAM DEPARTMENT. IT IS THE SMALL BUILDING TO THE WEST OF THE PEABODY MUSEUM.…
Chapter XXII
Commencement
June 20, 1911, went precisely as Nellie Taft planned. While the president greeted guests at the White House with the best fake smile of his career, his wife was upstairs quietly managing one of the most daring military operations in history. Major Butt was in frequent communication with the United States Military Academy at West Point, briefing its Ninth Cavalry soldiers on their upcoming mission. Robert Todd Lincoln was hard at work with the War Department modifying Airship One. Chief Wilkie patrolled the White House grounds with more than a thousand soldiers and every Secret Service agent in the city, pausing only once to check on Washington Asylum Hospital’s newest mental patient. Unfortunately, the lunatic ex-consul did not know anything about Yale University, silver skulls, or pocket watches. At sunset, Attorney General Wickersham was summoned to the White House along with Vice President James S. Sherman and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, who agreed to remain in Washington in the event of disaster.
And lastly, when chauffeur George Robinson was briefed on the role he might have to play in the upcoming operation, he laughed, said “I was raised on steam!” and went straight back to work in the White House garage.
June 21 was Commencement Day.
* * *
Just as Wilkie predicted, President Taft squirmed throughout Yale’s two hundred tenth commencement, feeling unusually vulnerable. Whether this had anything to do with the split in his trousers, we will never know. Fortunately, the president was wearing his academic robe that afternoon. There were numerous moments throughout the ceremony when Taft’s eyes nervously moved across the many windows and rooftops surrounding him. Whether someone was pointing a rifle at him or not, the president knew he was being watched. He even suffered a lack of appetite during the alumni luncheon as he pondered the possible civilian casualties. However, when Yale President Arthur Hadley offhandedly mentioned that the campus should be deserted by nightfall, Taft relaxed a bit and requested some dessert. If this was to be his last meal, he wanted it to be something sweet.
As sundown approached and the university cleared, the president of the United States went on a final walk through Yale campus before relieving his men. Taft’s dedicated Secret Service agents regretfully abandoned their president at Yale’s Old Campus and boarded the evening train for New York City. Exposed and completely alone save for the silver skull his agents left with him, Taft sat on a bench between Chittenden Hall and the Art School as he composed himself. He closed his eyes, filled his lungs with crisp New England air, and waited. For the first time since this horror began, old Big Lub felt relaxed.
Then, the clock towers and churches throughout New Haven tolled ten. Taft opened his eyes and rose from the bench, walking northwest with Yorick in his hands. He looked this way and that along High Street and, after glancing just a second into the night sky, crossed the road. In front of him was the tall brownstone Egypto-Doric fortress better known throughout the university as Skull and Bones Hall. The Tomb.
The president passed under the Tomb’s vaulted entrance and knocked on its tall doors. The left door opened outward. After waiting patiently with Yorick, the puzzled president leaned forward and asked, “Hello?” There was some murmuring, and then the other door opened. Taft smiled. He had grown quite wider since his Yale days.
Four tall men in military garb walked outside and surrounded Taft. “Mr. President?” one of them asked.
“Yes?”
The four men forced Taft into the Tomb. Once its large doors slammed shut, the villains proceeded to pound the daylights out of the president.
Chapter XXIII
“He’s in.”
Several hundred feet in the air above New Haven, a wireless radio operator sent an encrypted message to the West Wing of the White House.
AIRSHIP ONE
HE’S IN.
Seconds later, the West Wing aboard Airship One received a reply.
WHITE HOUSE
COMMENCE.
The operator looked out the door and gave a thumbs-up to Major Butt, whose summer uniform included an eye patch this evening. The major nodded and threw open the double doors behind him, plodding through its darkened corridor until he reached the airship’s main deck. The vast expanse was devoid of light, but all the major had to do was switch his patch from one eye to the other to see clearly. Staring back at him was Chief Wilkie, Robert Todd Lincoln, over a dozen Secret Service agents, and all one hundred soldiers from the Ninth Cavalry’s West Point detachment. The Buffalo Soldiers carried 1903 Model Springfield rifles specially modified with Maxim silencers. The Secret Service agents had their trusty Colt Police Positive Specials holstered. Major Butt wore his M1911 and Army officer’s sword on his belt. And Robert Todd Lincoln was armed with his wits and a gold pocket watch.
Major Butt gave the order: “It’s time.”
The New Haven raid of 1911 sprang into action.
Twenty soldiers from the Ninth Cavalry dropped ropes from Airship One and descended upon Yale as quietly as leaves in a summer breeze. Their primary targets were the Steam Department and Boiler House in the center of Library, York, Elm, and High Streets. Sixteen men raced toward the buildings while the remaining four provided security for the Secret Service agents sliding down after them. Robert Todd Lincoln and a delighted Chief Wilkie were the last men to jump, the former securely strapped to the latter as if he were a knapsack. Wilkie smiled on their way down, thinking Mr. Lincoln was afraid of heights. In truth, Robert was more concerned about his most important contribution to the operation: Airship One. As the two slid down the line, Robert forced himself to look upward. The titanic zeppelin, which Capt
ain Wigmore’s engineers had spent a whole day repainting black, appeared completely invisible in the evening sky. Robert’s eyes widened with awe. His confidence was renewed.
Once the two hit the ground and separated, Wilkie quickly surveyed the scene. Satisfied, the Secret Service chief lit himself a cigar. The men above him saw this signal and raised their ropes while sharpshooters filled every window on the zeppelin. Airship One assumed guard duty while Wilkie deployed his men. “Sloan, Wheeler, Jervis: I want you looking after Mr. Lincoln like he’s your mother’s mother. The rest of you: Work your way into Herrick Hall and get a good look at the Kent and Sloane Laboratories. If there’re any bad eggs around the Tomb, they’re probably nesting in those buildings. Keep your heads down, mind your flashlights, and for the love of Roosevelt, keep quiet. If so much as a duck farts, this whole operation could play out worse than Little Bighorn. Is that understood?”
The men nodded.
“Good boys.” He grinned. “Now, make your parents proud you went to Yale.”
The agents disappeared into the night while Wilkie looked over at Sloan, Wheeler, Jervis, and Robert. “This is a nice school,” their ringleader observed. “I always wanted to go to clown college. If the five of us stick together like the Ringling Brothers, we might make it out of this circus alive.” Wilkie drew his pistol and puffed a large cloud of smoke. “Let’s go.”
The five hurried to the Boiler House, which the Ninth Cavalry had already moved in and out of. “What’s the good word?” the chief asked Sergeant William H. Hazel.
“The Boiler House is secured, but it looks like there may be enemies inside the Steam Department.”
“How can you tell?” asked Wilkie. The building appeared dark and there was no smoke coming from its chimney.
“We found some footprints around the Boiler House that all lead to the Steam Department. Also, we found this.” The sergeant handed Wilkie a bullet cartridge. “There’s a whole case of these in the Boiler House.”
Wilkie took out his flashlight and studied the shell. It was a 7.65mm Belgian Mauser cartridge with “F N” stamped on its base. “Fabrique Nationale,” he read.
“Whoever these men are,” said the sergeant, “they ain’t American.”
As Wilkie mulled this, a gunman on the top floor of the nearby Peabody Museum set the iron sights of his Belgian Mauser on the American with the flashlight.
Chapter XXIV
The Tomb
Within this dusty, stuffy, and soundproof piece of Yale history, the twenty-seventh president of the United States was getting pummeled within an inch of his sorry life.
Actually, not really.
Being six foot two and three hundred fifty pounds provides a man with a unique advantage when it comes to absorbing punches. Since Taft walked into this ambush blessed with a thick layer of muscle under his blubbery armor, the only thing he hoped to avoid was getting hit in the head. Naturally, this applied as much to the silver skull he carried as to his own.
Also working to the president’s advantage was that these four thugs were mercenaries, not boxers. The men tired so quickly that, to Taft, the whole affair might as well have taken place underwater. He even cracked one of the men’s hands by moving his head to dodge a punch, forcing the thug to painfully land his knuckles against a stone wall. Taft knew he could probably kill these men in less than a minute, but he would not. He could not. He needed to take their abuse and smile at every insult they hurled at him. He had to buy all the time he could so that maybe, just maybe, he could walk out of this tomb a bit wiser about their plot against America.
Unfortunately, near the tail end of this melee, one of the bullies punched Taft below the belt. The president dropped the silver skull and keeled over, instinctively crying, “Foul!”
These villains fought dirty. And to make matters worse, they were just getting started on poor Taft.
* * *
Just as John Hays Hammond described to Robert Todd Lincoln on the airship, the most remarkable thing about Skull and Bones Hall is how unremarkable it looks on the inside. Despite having doubled in size since Taft’s Yale days, the Tomb in 1911 more closely resembled an antique shop after the great San Francisco earthquake. A vast forest of doors lined its halls, each one leading to a closet filled with an assortment of unsorted junk. The whole building was overflowing with decaying books, old trinkets, rusted military antiques, dusty furniture, and countless curiosities stolen from rival fraternities. Such was the vast treasure horde of Skull and Bones and the greatest secret of the society: its lack of any particularly meaningful secrets.
That is, until recently.
Why was this location chosen for this unexpected meeting? Its purpose became evident once the four thugs dragged the battered president into the dining hall. Surrounding the great hall were group photographs of many Bonesmen of yore, including a young Will Taft and three of his brothers. However, far more outstanding were the two paintings hanging across from each other at the dining table’s midpoint. The president smiled smugly as the brutes forced him into the chair with William Huntington Russell behind it. Russell was one of the cofounders of Skull and Bones and a man whom Taft admired. He was one of the founders of the Republican Party and a personal friend of John Brown; he founded the Connecticut militia, served as their general during the Civil War, and died defending birds from cruel boys in a park just a stone’s throw from the Tomb.
However, as Taft looked at the wall across the table, his smile disappeared. Hanging in front of him in full view was a portrait of Skull and Bones’s other cofounder. A man who served as secretary of war and then attorney general for President Ulysses S. Grant: something Taft was quite proud of. The man was also the first U.S. official to confront tsarist Russia on its horrendous treatment of Jews, some of whom he personally helped immigrate to America. Both the president and Mrs. Taft were quite proud of this as well.
Looking down at the president with the eyes he always loved was Alphonso Taft. His father.
Wilkie was right, Taft realized. These men were trying to get inside his head, and they were doing a good job at it.
After rooting through Yorick, one of the four brutes slammed the silver skull on the table. Against its reflective surface, Taft saw his own unhappy face.
Chapter XXV
The Secret Passage
“What are you doing, Wilkie?” Major Butt brooded from the airship. The Secret Service chief was distracting every portside sniper with his flashlight.
“Sir!” called one of the sharpshooters. “The museum! Fourth-floor window!”
The major turned his binoculars to the Peabody Museum, where he saw a rifleman aiming at Robert and Wilkie.
The officer spun around and blew his whistle.
Three powerful searchlights blinded the gunman at the window. As he shielded his eyes, the sharpshooters aboard Airship One opened fire. Wilkie’s agents and the Ninth Calvary on the ground turned to see six well-aimed bullets tear through the man. As he fell backward, dead, the sniper’s Mauser tumbled out the window.
Wilkie’s cigar fell from his mouth. “Duck!” he shouted, pulling Robert Todd Lincoln onto the grass.
The Mauser hit the ground and discharged, shattering a window at Pierson Hall. The noisy gunshot echoed throughout all corners of Yale campus. Faster than Wilkie could curse about it, a column of armed men rushed out of the Steam Department. Gunmen filled the windows of Pierson Hall along York Street, the Peabody Museum along Elm and High Streets, and the two laboratories Wilkie was concerned about on Library Street. None of these men were with the Ninth Cavalry.
Wilkie and his rescue team were surrounded and completely exposed.
But then, every single searchlight aboard Airship One switched on, shining thick pillars of light on the hostiles as if the night sky had exploded. As the enemies stared skyward, aghast, Wilkie and his men raised their weapons.
Just before they pulled their triggers, the airship emitted a mighty roar. It sounded like Gabriel’s horn on
Judgment Day with a hint of tuba to it.
BRRRRRRRAAAAAWWWWRWRRRMRMRMMRMRMMMMM!
All the enemies around the Steam Department fell lifelessly, as did many snipers in the surrounding buildings. Airship One’s booming foghorn not only distracted every villain on the battlefield, it artfully obscured the gunfire that cut them down.
“INSIDE!” Wilkie screamed, leading the charge through their fallen enemies.
Secret Service agents and the soldiers with the Ninth Cavalry stormed the Steam Department, killing the few remaining gunmen inside it. As the warriors emptied their weapons and took defensive positions within the building, Wilkie and his agents raced to its basement.
“See anything that can destroy a city?” Wilkie threw to Robert as they hustled.
“No.”
“Do you think it’s all a bluff?”
“No!”
“Any idea where the president’s son is?”
“Jesus Christ, John. I don’t know!”
Wilkie sneered at these responses. “Mr. Lincoln, we’re going to need some good news and fast if we’re to make it out of this meat grinder!”
“Mr. Wilkie!” hollered Agent Barker from the basement. He pointed the chief to a large metal door covered with chipped yellow paint.
“There it is,” said Robert.
“Best news I’ve heard all day!” Wilkie grinned.
The Secret Service agents gave their chief the light and space he needed to pick the lock. However, as Wilkie worked, something about the basement’s earthen floor troubled Robert.
“Someone’s been here.”
The men looked down to see fresh footprints in the soil where Wilkie had not stepped. One set of the footprints disappeared under the door.
The Great Abraham Lincoln Pocket Watch Conspiracy: A Novel Page 19
