The Fifth Assassin

by Brad Meltzer

  “But something is wrong,” the head of the Service pointed out. “We’ve got an active threat—that’s why we need the EA movement,” he explained, referring to the Emergency Action that came with the Black Hawk.

  “That’s fine, but you go running to Camp David with an unannounced EA movement and you know what the press will scream? Terrorist attack,” the chief of staff argued back. “From there, financial markets plunge, people panic, and investors start buying stock in ammunition companies and businesses that make body bags.”

  “If you want, I can leak the details about the assassination threat.”

  “Oh, that’s far better. So the whole world thinks that the President is running like a scared kid?”

  At that moment, President Wallace looked up from whatever letter he was signing. Without a word, the argument was over.

  Twenty minutes later, A.J. stood outside on the South Lawn of the White House, watching as the First Lady and the President’s son climbed aboard the waiting helicopter. As a compromise, it was their standard copter, instead of the armed Black Hawk, which meant the press would see this as a regular administrative lift instead of an emergency one.

  And the stated reason for the trip? That was the far more subtle compromise. The press was told that Wallace’s son was feeling pressure at school, and they begged reporters to keep it quiet to protect the son’s privacy. Of course, reporters wouldn’t keep anything quiet. Not anymore. But now Wallace looked like the perfect dad—taking the family to Camp David so he could help his kid through a hard time. As the chief of staff knew, when everything went sideways, there was no better cover than family.

  With a muffled whup-whup-whup, the blades of the helicopter began to twirl, and the wheels leapt off the South Lawn. On most days, reporters would be watching from a roped-off press area. Today, by the time the first member of the press even realized what was happening, the President’s copter had everyone on board.

  Craning his head back and squinting against the sudden gust of wind, A.J. watched as Marine One rose into the gray sky. Through the window in the back of the helicopter, he could see Wallace’s young son pressing his forehead against the bulletproof glass, looking down at the fire truck that always pulled onto the South Grounds when the helicopter took off.

  A.J. knew why the fire truck was there: It was filled with foam in case of a sudden crash.

  There could always be a crash.

  A.J. couldn’t disagree.

  And he knew, so soon, that the real crash was about to begin.

  84

  Mac, he’s gonna kill Wallace at Camp David!”

  “Beecher, you need to listen to me,” Immaculate Deception’s robotic voice demands through my phone.

  “No, you don’t understand,” I say, using my cell to snap a photo of the ace of clubs as it floats there in the Tupperware. “The Knight—”

  “You mean Marshall.”

  “Stop saying that… you don’t know that.”

  “I do know that. Just like Tot knew that. In fact, the only person who doesn’t seem to know it is you.”

  My hand shakes as the camera makes a ka-chick sound, blurring the photograph of the playing card. Just the mention of Tot’s name makes my whole body shrink. My God, if he’s not okay…

  “I get it, Beecher—whatever you did to Marshall all those years ago… whatever happened… you don’t want it to be your old friend. But it’s time to be realistic. After all that’s happened—”

  “Tot’s what happened! And Camp David is what happened! I found the message!”

  “I did too,” Mac shoots back. “They’re pulling the trigger at noon.”

  My camera phone makes another ka-chick sound as I snap another photo. “What’re you talking about?” I ask.

  “That’s the kill time. Twelve p.m.”

  “I don’t understand. How do you—?”

  “His medical reports. I’ve been tracking these YouTube cat videos Nico’s been watching. The nurses do patient reports every shift, and those reports get filed online, which means…”

  “You hacked the reports.”

  “They’re using steganography. Do you know what that is?”

  “Hidden writing.”

  “Exactly. But in today’s world, y’know what’s even harder to track than hidden writing? Hidden videos. Think about it—when it comes to stopping terrorists from sending each other emails, our government tracks certain words across the Internet: Bomb. Bomb materials. How to make a bomb. The NSA has the best word-tracking software in the world. But when it comes to videos, there’re no words for them to track.”

  “Can’t they see what’s in the video?”

  “Ah, now you’re getting closer. Y’know who Mike McConnell is?”

  “He ran the NSA. Then director of national intelligence.”

  “Exactly. And back during Desert Storm, McConnell was so busy, his daughter kept saying, ‘I only see you on national TV—you need to tell me you love me during one of your press conferences.’ McConnell said he couldn’t. So his daughter told him to do it like Carol Burnett: Tug your earlobe, which was Burnett’s secret way of saying I love you to her grandmother. So that’s what McConnell started doing. During press conferences… on 60 Minutes… all throughout Desert Storm and his entire career, he’d tug his ear, and his daughter would get the secret message. The one message not even the best NSA software can crack.”

  “So what’s that have to do with Nico?”

  “I checked the other videos that Nico’s been watching, and if the time logs are right, before the second pastor was killed, Nico watched a video of a cat named Cutey Cute Lester—”

  “Cutey Cute Lester?”

  “I know it’s a stupid name, Beecher. But as the cat rolls back and forth, in the background of the video, the cat’s owner taps the front of his foot against the carpet exactly nine times… then he taps his heel a quick twenty-five times…”

  “The second pastor was shot at exactly 9:25.”

  “Then in yesterday’s video, his foot taps just nine times.”

  “Nine o’clock,” I say, noting the time of the shooting at the hospital this morning. As another pang hits my stomach, I look down at the ace of clubs with the words Camp David on it. “Mac, you found another video, didn’t you?”

  “Uploaded twenty minutes ago. This time, the cat owner taps his foot twelve times, Beecher. Noon today. And when I looked back at the President’s official schedule—which yes, they just changed after the shooting—that’s the same time that Wallace was scheduled to be leaving with his daughter from…”

  “Café Milano,” I say, referring to the restaurant that I caught Marshall casing yesterday. The one where he said he’d carve out the President’s larynx with a steak knife.

  “I know you see it, Beecher. That’s why Marshall was at the restaurant. He was looking for the best angle to put a bullet in the President’s brain. The only question now is, with the schedule being changed, if the President’s not going to the restaurant—”

  “Camp David,” I blurt. “They’re taking the President to Camp David.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “I’m sure,” I say, reading from the playing card and still picturing that thin grin on Marshall’s face. That knowing grin. The kind of grin that makes me wonder if, from the moment everything started, this is where Marshall always planned for it to end. Create a big enough emergency, and they’ll always send the President to Camp David.

  I glance down at my phone to check the time. It’s almost ten. Barely two hours. “Mac, if this is right—we need to let people know!”

  “Let who know? Tot’s in the hospital.”

  “Then call the other agents! Call every Culper Ring member you can find!”

  At that, Immaculate Deception goes quiet.

  “What? What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “Beecher, how many members do you think are in the Culper Ring?”

  “I don’t know. A lot.”

 
; “Define a lot.”

  “Fifty…?”

  He doesn’t respond.

  “Less than fifty?” I ask.

  Again, he doesn’t respond.

  “Less then forty?” I add.

  “What did Tot tell you?” Mac asks, his robot voice slower than ever.

  “Mac, this isn’t funny. How many members are there?”

  Through the phone, there’s a loud click, like a radio being turned off. Instead of Mac’s robot voice, a female voice—an older woman—says, “Beecher, my name is Grace Bentham. You need to get out of your house.”

  “W-What’re you—? Who the hell is this?”

  “It’s Mac,” the old woman replies as I realize I’m hearing Immaculate Deception’s real voice. “My name is Grace. I’m trying to save your life.”

  85

  One hour earlier

  St. Elizabeths Hospital

  Washington, D.C.

  Nico didn’t realize the guards were there until they grabbed him from behind, clutching his neck and dragging him down toward the gravel parking lot.

  “You’re letting him go! Don’t let him go!” Nico screamed, still kicking wildly.

  Beecher punched the gas, his tires spun, and a windmill of loose gravel flew through the air.

  “He’s the monster! Not me!” Nico howled as the car sped off, fishtailing out of the parking lot.

  “Nico, catch your breath!” Nurse Rupert yelled. Between him and the guard, their weight was too much. Like a cleaved tree, Nico tumbled backward.

  With a crunch and a thud, his shoulders slammed down into the frozen gravel. Bits of rocks and dust coughed into the air. It didn’t stop him from thrashing, trying to free his arms, his legs, anything to break free.

  “Guys! Some help!” Rupert shouted.

  Within seconds, two more guards caught up to them, joining the fray. Trained in a variety of restraining holds, they weren’t punching or hitting Nico. They grabbed at his wrists, going for pressure points.

  Nearly blind from the spray of dust, Nico only saw a muddy blur, but in the distance he heard a new voice… a voice he knew… running toward him.

  “Don’t hurt him!” Dr. Gosling yelled in his familiar southern accent. “He’s not fighting you!”

  Gosling was right. The fight was over. Even for Nico, four against one was too much.

  “Nico, listen to me—he’s gone,” Rupert said, down on his knees, holding on to Nico’s shoulder and working hard to keep his voice calm. It was the only way to talk to Nico. “Whoever that was… whoever you’re chasing… he’s gone. Look…” Grabbing Nico by the ear and lifting his head, Rupert pointed him to the main road. Nico blinked hard to see. There was no missing it. Beecher’s car blew past the guard gate and out from the hospital grounds.

  With a final snort, Nico let his head collapse back into the gravel. His body went limp.

  So did the rest of the group.

  “Action’s over! Let’s get him inside!” Rupert called out.

  In a mess of murmurs and curse words, the guards slowly and angrily peeled themselves off the pile.

  “Nico, you’re a real pimple on my ass,” one of them said as he accidentally stepped on Nico’s fingertips.

  Nico didn’t yell or complain. Behind him, as he lay there in the gravel still buzzing from adrenaline, he heard the sound of Velcro straps. They were bringing the stretcher. The one with the restraints. Nico knew the consequences of fighting, just like he knew what else was coming.

  A mosquito bite of pain pricked him in the thigh. At the nurses’ station, they called it a “B-52,” a mix of Haldol, Ativan, and a few other antipsychotics that put you to sleep for the next eighteen hours.

  “Find out who that was!” a guard shouted on one side of him.

  “I don’t care how dangerous the job is!” Dr. Gosling shouted on the other, more pissed than ever. “You know our regs—there’s no manhandling the patients!” From the proximity of his voice, Nico knew Gosling was the one administering the shot.

  “You got the other arm secure?” Rupert asked, still kneeling next to him.

  The Velcro bit hard against Nico’s wrist. He stared up at the gray sky, waiting for the foggy light-headedness that came with the sedation.

  It never came.

  “Nico, close your eyes,” Dr. Gosling said, warmly patting the chest of his most famous patient.

  Nico did what he was told. He closed his eyes. Yet as the stretcher tipped forward, then back, then was lifted in the air—as the nurses carried him back toward the building—Nico was surprised that instead of feeling groggy he felt wide awake. And better than ever.

  86

  Now

  But how’re you—? How can—?” I stop myself, pressing my phone to my ear and looking around my kitchen like I’m seeing it for the first time. “You’re a woman?”

  “The front door, Beecher. Grab your stuff and get outside,” says the woman who, for two months now, has been calling herself Immaculate Deception. From the way she says my name—Beech-ah—she’s got a hint of an old Boston accent. The fancy private school kind.

  Rushing to the kitchen table, I hunch over my laptop and enter her name into Google. Grace Bentham. I add the words computer expert to narrow it down.

  “Don’t Google me, Beecher.”

  “Wait… are you…? You hacked my computer too?”

  “No—I hear the clicking of your keyboard. I’m not deaf,” she tells me.

  She says something else, but I’m too lost in an online profile from the Boston Herald. According to this, Grace Bentham is…

  “I’m seventy-two years old,” she adds. “I met Tot during my navy days.”

  I continue reading. A seventy-two-year-old former navy officer. Rear admiral. Bigshot back in the day. As I skim through the article, it says she was a pioneer in the computer field… one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, whatever that is. Earned her the nickname Amazing Grace. In fact, according to this, she’s the one who actually invented the term debugging when she found an actual moth in a Harvard Mark II computer and then pulled it out. But if that’s who’s looking out for me—a bunch of seventy- and eighty-year-olds…

  “How many people are in the Culper Ring?” I ask her.

  “Beecher, this is a conversation that’s better saved for—”

  “How many!?” I insist.

  She goes silent. But not for long. “Seven.”

  “Seven!?”

  “Seven. Including you. That’s all that’s left.”

  That means there were more. “Did something happen to the rest of them?”

  Like before, Amazing Grace doesn’t answer.

  “What happened to them, Grace?”

  Again, no answer.

  “Grace, is someone hunting the members of the Culper Ring? Is that what this is about?”

  “Beecher, don’t forget that one of the key strengths of the Ring used to be its small size. George Washington barely had half a dozen members. Then over time, there were dozens of us, nearly a hundred at our height. But don’t you see? That’s why Tot picked you. As they hunted us down, Tot was determined to rebuild.”

  A needle of pain pierces my throat at just the mention of Tot’s name and everything he’s done for me. No way will his work stop here.

  “There’s four of you: Tot, you, the Surgeon, the one you called Santa… plus me is five. Who are the others?” I demand.

  “Listen, I know you’re upset.”

  “No, upset is what happens when you get a speeding ticket, or your girlfriend dumps you. I risked my life here! I risked my life thinking I was being protected by the team from Mission: Impossible! Instead, I got invited to an AARP meeting!”

  “Beecher, don’t underestimate us. You have no concept of the battles we’ve fought. And won. So I hear every word you’re saying, but please… What matters right now is getting you to safety. If you want to have this argument, grab your stuff, run out the front door, and head for the safehouse th
at Tot showed you. At the post office. Let’s have this fight from the safety of your car.”

  “But you just said… at noon today… That’s when the Knight—”

  “Marshall. The Knight is Marshall.”

  “… that’s when Marshall is going to kill President Wallace,” I add, saying the words for the very first time. And finally believing them.

  “So what do you propose we do?” Grace asks.

  “Me? I have no idea. But at the very least, we need to report this. Call the Secret Service. Tell them what’s going on.”

  “And you think that’ll help?” she challenges. “Beecher, if you call the Secret Service and tell them you know about an impending attack, there’s only one thing I can guarantee: By the time you hang up, a set of Secret Service agents will be driving to your house and you’ll be the number one suspect. And in two hours, when the Knight finally pulls that trigger and your prediction comes true, you—Beecher White—will be the very first name linked to that attack.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “It is true. And y’know what’ll make it even more true? When they find the security footage—which you know exists—of you sniffing around that restaurant in Georgetown yesterday. I told Tot not to let you near Marshall—but you couldn’t see it, could you? When you trailed Marshall to Café Milano, that was exactly what he wanted. He had you—on camera—right at the potential murder scene the day before the President was scheduled to be there. And he had you there for the same reason he let you into his apartment… and let you put your fingerprints all over that Abraham Lincoln mask that you so conveniently thought you ‘found.’ And then, when you put that all together—the video, the fingerprints, the Lincoln mask, plus this phone call you’re about to make—you know what they call that in court? Exhibit A. Exhibit B. Exhibit C. Exhibit D.”

  I start to say something, but as we both know, there’s nothing left to say.