by Brad Meltzer
“My father lives in a mental institution and tried to shoot a President. I’m used to crazy. Just say it, Beecher.”
“I’m trying to figure out if Marshall killed someone while pretending to be John Wilkes Booth. There. That looney-tunes enough for you?”
Clementine takes two steps away from me, clutching her wig at her chest. “What’d you just say?”
“I know. And if we’re right about what’s going on, it’s not just Booth. There’s also Charles Guiteau, who—”
“I need to go,” Clementine insists, finding the tag on the inside of her wig and sliding it back on her head.
“What? Where’re you going?”
“I need to go, Beecher.” She’s patting her blonde locks back into place. Even with the hair, she looks paler than I’ve ever seen her.
“Clementine, please… What’re you not telling me?”
“What you said—about Booth… and Guiteau… Is that true? Marshall’s copying old killers?”
“I have no idea. Maybe it’s Marshall. I pray it’s not. But we know that pastors are dying, and whoever’s doing it, they’re copying old presidential assassins.”
“No, Beecher. They’re not.”
“What’re you talking about?”
She covers her eyes with her hand. “Oh, God, it’s happening again!”
“What’s happening again?”
“You need to listen to me, Beecher. Please,” she begs, clearly terrified. “When I spoke to Dr. Yoo, he told me. There was someone else. Someone who did this, who copied John Wilkes Booth… and Guiteau… and all the rest. He did it years ago. And now, this killer you’re looking for… He’s not just copying the original assassins.” She takes a breath, barely able to get the words out. “The killer is copying my father. He’s copying Nico.”
61
George Washington?” Tot asked. “You’re telling me these are George Washington’s personal playing cards?”
“Washington was a big card player—always playing whist,” the Diamond explained. “When it came to these particular cards—with the so-called eagle on them—Washington was, without question, their biggest purchaser. Every few months, he’d order the same deck from the same printer and cardmaker.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I didn’t either—until I had to fill an entire exhibit on the historical significance of playing cards. And what was most interesting—at least to me—was what else was going on as George Washington was buying all these playing cards. Don’t forget, we may see the Revolution as this idealized American victory, but not everyone was thrilled with changing the power structure.
“George Washington may’ve picked a fight with the British, but suddenly there were all these other groups pointing guns at his head: locals who preferred the old way of doing things, Indians who were forced to pick a side, even wealthy families who just didn’t want to lose what they had. It affected everyone who had a vested interest in the status quo—including small selfish groups who won’t even reveal themselves until their power is threatened,” the Diamond said, motioning back at the ace of spades with the eagle symbol.
“You’re talking about the Knights?”
“I’m talking about the church—or at least a small subset that these sacred Knights were a part of. Even with all the colonials’ Puritan values, territories dedicated to self-determination aren’t always good for church business.”
“So what’s that have to do with playing cards?”
“According to the curator at Mount Vernon, Washington knew how many of these factions were working against him. And when it came to that faction within the church, he even knew how they communicated—hiding secret messages in the same way Washington hid his own… in books and in letters… But one of the great tricks of the church was also hiding things in…”
“Playing cards,” Tot said, his knees suddenly aching far more than usual.
“In 1777, y’know how many decks of these cards George Washington ordered for himself?” the Diamond asked, his finger hovering above the ace of spades, but never touching it. “Six dozen. That’s seventy-two packs! Just for himself!”
“You think he was looking for something?”
“Or that he found something—or at least found the way these so-called sacred Knights communicated. Look at how it played out: Right as Washington’s big order for cards was placed in 1777, the church suddenly asserted itself, coming to Morristown and asking Washington to issue an order to all his troops. You know what it said?”
Tot nodded. Of course he knew what it said. “It forbade all his officers and soldiers to play cards and other games.”
“They said it led to moral indecency—but that’s a pretty particular request, don’t you think: no more playing cards? It’s like they didn’t want Washington to see what they were doing. Washington had no choice. It was still the church. But have you seen George Washington’s diaries at the time? He never stops playing cards. Never. Instead, he keeps writing about these specific playing cards. Over and over. Like there was something special about them.”
“You think he knew that this faction of the church, that these Knights, were using the cards to send messages?”
“George Washington was not a stupid man. He knew who he was fighting. And he knew how they were communicating. Some say that’s when he started to smoke them out. That he even put together his own little spy ring…”
“The Culper Ring.”
“Exactly. Some say that’s why the Culper Ring was born. To protect Washington and hunt the Knights.”
“That’s not true,” Tot insisted, surprised by his own reaction. “That’s not why the Culper Ring was founded.”
“It doesn’t matter why they were founded. All that matters is that the mission of the Knights never changed. They were watching. And when it came to protecting the church from any perceived ‘king,’ the Knights knew one thing: George Washington was wielding the power of the state in a brand-new way. And he wasn’t going anywhere.”
As the Diamond said the words, Tot couldn’t help but think of the current President, and of Beecher and Marshall. But he was also thinking of his own mentor, Kermit, and all the stories that Tot only heard in whispers: the stories no one would talk about—of the horrors unleashed by the so-called Knights of the Golden Circle.
“Can I ask you a question, Daniel? Even assuming this whole thing isn’t some old campfire tale, assuming that these original Knights, or some variation of them, somehow continued to exist all the way to George Washington’s time—you think there’s a chance, or more important, any proof, that they could’ve lasted even longer than that?”
“Define longer.”
“You said the battle between church and state was the ultimate civil war, so let’s say, to our Civil War. To Lincoln’s time. Or maybe even to, I don’t know… 1963.”
The Diamond stared across the art table, studying his old friend. “Tot, I’m going to ask you this only one time: This killer you’re chasing that you can’t tell me about…? Is he trying to kill the President of the United States?”
“Daniel…”
“You’re mentioning Lincoln, and then the year JFK gets assassinated. How am I not supposed to ask?”
“You are supposed to ask. But if I thought that was about to happen, you’d have fifty Secret Service agents in here asking you this question instead of me. All I care about is: Could these Knights, whoever they are, whatever they stand for, could they possibly survive long enough to exist today?”
“Isn’t that the point? That’s why they picked the symbol.”
“What symbol?”
“This one!” the Diamond said, pointing down to the ace of spades.
“Y’mean the eagle?”
“You keep calling it an eagle, but have you actually looked at it?” He taps a finger against the head of the bird. “The tuft of feathers on an eagle’s head goes down, flat against the neck. The feathers here curve up. This isn’t an eagle, Tot. It’s a
phoenix.”
“A phoenix,” Tot whispered, rolling his finger into his beard and still remembering Kermit’s words: that the Knights were gone, completely defeated.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Tot. Whoever you’re chasing here, it doesn’t matter if they were around for Lincoln, or JFK, or anyone else. What matters is they think they were. So if these Knights are now trying to take a shot at the current President—and start a new civil war—now you know who you’re facing. This isn’t a fight to them. This is their destiny. In their eyes, like the phoenix and their church predecessors, they’re holy warriors who can never be killed.”
62
No. That’s impossible,” I say.
“It’s not. It happened,” she shoots back.
“But how can—? The killer we’re chasing—How could he possibly be copying Nico?”
“Because that’s what Nico did.”
“I don’t understand. All those years ago, when Nico shot at the President… It was during a NASCAR race. What does John Wilkes Booth have to do with NASCAR?”
“You’re missing what I said, Beecher. When Nico took those shots at the President, that was the end of Nico’s journey. What I’m talking about is his beginning.”
Watching me digest the statement, and everything else she’s said, Clementine stands by the front door, once again taking off her jacket.
“Was this in the file Palmiotti gave you?” I ask.
“You think they’d give me something like that? No. This was from the doctor.”
“Dr. Yoo.”
“He wasn’t there when the plankholders first started—he came after the experiments began. In South Carolina. In Charleston—at the Naval Shipyard.”
“My dad wasn’t in the navy. He was army.”
“So was mine. But from what Yoo said… this wasn’t just about the navy. It was about privacy.”
I nod, well aware that throughout history, when it was time to brief the President of the United States in true privacy, they’d put him on a ship since it was the one place they could guarantee he’d be alone.
“Nico was barely eighteen,” she explains. “Yoo said that even back then, they knew Nico was having trouble adjusting to life as a soldier. That’s why Dr. Yoo was brought in. He was an addiction specialist—one of the first to realize that methadone was a good way to help soldiers fight heroin addiction. But when it came to what they were giving Nico, no one had ever seen anything like it. One week, he’d be happy and easygoing; the next week, he’d stop sleeping… stop eating… and suddenly they’d find half a dozen dead possums all around the naval base.”
“Possums?”
“No one could explain it. Until one morning at breakfast, when Nico took a spoonful of his morning cereal and calmly announced he was killing them. With his bare hands and a cinderblock. That’s when Yoo was called in.”
“So what do possums have to do with John Wilkes Booth?”
“Nothing,” Clementine says, her eyes following me as I pace. “In fact, everyone thought Yoo had it all under control and that everything was back on schedule. But what they didn’t know—and couldn’t possibly know—was that a few months later, a hunter in the South Carolina woods was shot in the back of the head at around 10 p.m. while hunting coyote. Police assumed another hunter did it by accident. Then a month after that, a second man was shot in the back of the head—caught him right behind the earlobe—while he was out on a night jog.”
“Also at around 10 p.m.?”
“No one thought twice about it, but yes, around 10 p.m. Again, because it was South Carolina, they assumed another hunting accident. But soon after that, there was a third man shot in the back of the head, point-blank, in a local movie theater. Exact time of death was 10:11 p.m.”
“The exact time John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln.”
“Don’t you see?” she asks, starting to pick up the books that fell when she crashed into the bookcase. She knows I need the order. “Nico was practicing, Beecher. Working out the details so he could work his way toward the perfect kill.”
“And nobody put it together?” I ask, slotting an old red leather book into place. “Were all the deaths out by the shipyard?”
“No. That was the problem,” she says, gathering the last few books and a small picture frame. “They were all spread out. The first was over seventy-five miles away in Hampton County. The second was in the opposite direction. And the last one was right outside of Charleston. It got even harder when the fourth body turned up—this time in Georgia. A thirty-three-year-old dental equipment salesman was getting off his Amtrak train, and as the train pulls out of the station, he gets shot in the back…”
“Like Guiteau shooting President Garfield…”
“… and a month after that, up in one of the mountain areas of North Carolina, as the local county fair is shutting down, a drunk soybean farmer has to pee, so he darts behind one of the loading trucks… and gets shot in the belly…”
“Like Czolgosz shooting President McKinley at the World’s Fair…” I say, slotting another book into the bookcase.
“The whole thing didn’t come to a head until months later, when, back in Hampton County, some poor retired priest—”
“A priest? That’s what—”
“I know. Just listen. While the priest was working his garden, he got shot in the back of the head with something called a CE 573—a 6.5-millimeter caliber metal-jacketed bullet. Based on the way the priest’s head exploded, they think a sniper picked him off from something like two hundred and fifty feet away.”
“Or two hundred and sixty-five feet to be exact.”
She nods, cradling half a dozen books and waiting for me to finish. “No one else came close to connecting the killings—until the local sheriff started thinking that a shot like that, from two hundred and fifty feet, could only be made by someone who’s military. From there, he started making phone calls to all the local area military bases, where the young administrative assistant who picked up the phone happened to notice that the time of death was exactly 12:30 on the nose. For most people, that wouldn’t mean much. It’s a standard time. But for this assistant, who was a certifiable JFK conspiracy enthusiast, it was a clarion call. He not only knew that 12:30 was the exact time that President Kennedy was shot, but that a 6.5-millimeter caliber bullet was the exact one that traveled two hundred and sixty-five feet and was used by…”
“Lee Harvey Oswald,” I say, slotting a book onto the top shelf. It hits with a thunk.
“On a hunch, the investigative folks checked Nico’s locker. And his belongings. All were clean. Until they ran a metal detector over his mattress and found, burrowed deep inside it, a Mannlicher-Carcano bolt-action military rifle.”
Now I’m the one nodding, recognizing the rifle that Oswald used on JFK. My brain swirls, thinking about the current killer going after rectors and pastors. But that still doesn’t explain…
“Why’d they let Nico go?” I ask. “If they knew he did it, how come they didn’t tell anyone? Or arrest him?”
“Back when it was open, do you have any idea what the navy used to use the Charleston Shipyard for?”
“I assume to dock our ships?”
“Yes, of course that’s where we docked our ships. And when our ships and submarines were there, they’d also clean them, upgrade them, whatever they needed for upkeep. But according to Dr. Yoo, there was also something called the Weapons Station.”
“We have some of their files in the Archives. They upgrade the ship’s weaponry.”
“Again, yes,” Clementine says, still cradling the half dozen books that she picked up from the floor. “But even within the Weapons Station, there’s a hierarchy. Some places did regular weapons. Others did nuclear weapons. And then there was Subgroup 6.”
“Subgroup 6? That sounds like a fake name.”
“It’s real. Look it up. At one point, it was run by Admiral Thomas Coady, whose goal was to take Subgroup 6 and use it to produ
ce the one weapon more dangerous than even a nuclear weapon.”
“Which is?”
“The ultimate weapon, Beecher: the human weapon.”
At the bookcase, Clementine dumps the stack of books on a chest-high shelf.
“You think that’s what our dads were working on?” I ask.
“No, not at all. My dad, your dad, and Marshall’s dad were eighteen- and nineteen-year-old grunts. Subgroup 6 didn’t hire children. Think about it: When you’re putting together your top-secret team, you choose people you know. Veterans with experience. For Admiral Coady to bring our dads there, c’mon, Beecher. You know what they call an eighteen-year-old who’s drafted into something that top-secret? They were the experiments. The guinea pigs.”
Her words pop the imaginary membrane I didn’t even realize I kept around myself whenever she’s around. I’ve kept it there as a shield. But as the membrane ruptures and reality seeps through it, there’s nothing more emotional than hearing her talk about my own dead father. And the unspeakable things that might’ve been done to him. No one wants to hear that their dad was in pain.
“I know it’s a nightmare, Beecher. It’s a nightmare for me too. But now you know why they couldn’t let him be arrested. Whatever they put inside Nico—whatever they’d invested in him—if their top lab rat showed up on the front page of the newspaper with a story about how he was a homicidal maniac copying Lee Harvey Oswald, every eyeball in the country would’ve been staring at Subgroup 6. And that was a risk no one in the program was willing to take.”
I look down at the note—the suicide note—that I’m still gripping in my hand. “You think that’s why my dad died? Because of some cliché military cover-up?”
“No… I don’t think so. From what Dr. Yoo said, your dad died a year later. When Nico flipped, the Subgroup was split up. Nico got punished internally, locked away for nearly a year until they were convinced that whatever they put inside him was out of his system. Everything else was wiped.”
“And when Nico shot the President, none of this came out?”