The Great Abraham Lincoln Pocket Watch Conspiracy

by Jacopo della Quercia

* * *

  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 Captain 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.

  “They know about the steam tunnels?” asked Wilkie with alarm.

  A worried Robert Todd Lincoln rubbed his beard. All of a sudden, their well-thought-out plan appeared poised for disaster. “John, this is the only viable passage into the Tomb. The only other option is to besiege the building with the president still inside it.”

  As Wilkie pondered this, the monotonous din of Airship One’s epic foghorn shook the building.

  The chief lit a fresh cigar. “Flashlights, gentlemen! We’re going underground.”

  Wilkie raised his pistol and kicked open the door to Yale University’s vast labyrinth of steam tunnels.

  Chapter XXVI

  The Gentleman

  A bandaged hand adjusted the silver skull on the table so that it was staring straight at the injured president. Taft followed the man’s arm to see the angry thug whose hand he broke earlier. He was also the same villain who felled the president with a low blow.

  “I’ll have you know that such behavior is most unsportsmanlike,” chided a fat-lipped and bruised Taft.

  The thug responded by slapping the president across the face.

  The dining table at Skull and Bones Hall stretched about ten feet in both directions from where Taft sat at its middle. Although the president was not bound, he was in no position to escape. On the opposite side of the table, the thug with the bandaged hand joined his three companions. The four men flanked the painting of Alphonso Taft with shotguns aimed at the president.

  As Taft looked them over, a grandfather clock beside the bandaged thug tolled 10:15 P.M. Moments later, Taft could hear the faint sound of footsteps approaching. A door beside his father’s portrait opened, and a gray figure emerged through its darkened portal.

  A tall, thin man about Robert Todd Lincoln’s age, maybe older, entered the dining hall with a cane and took a seat across from t
he president. He was bald with sparse white hairs and a feathery Van Dyke beard. He had a scaly neck, sunken eyes, and a prominent nose that pointed outward like a beak. Never before had Taft seen a man more closely resemble a vulture. Or more specifically, a vulture in a gray suit hovering above a silver skull. The president glared at this man he had every reason in the world to hate, but for all his anger, he could not help glancing at the portrait of his father hanging over him. The man in the gray suit noticed this and grinned as if he had been waiting all day to see this happen.

  Still smiling and without breaking eye contact, the man reached into his jacket and produced a black box with gold lettering on it. The writing was in French. The stranger opened the box and gently placed it beside the silver skull.

  “Chocolates?” he offered.

  Taft winced. The man’s voice was uncomfortably overfriendly, as if he was trying to win the confidence of a child for purposes unknown.

  “What are they?” Taft asked, thinking the treats might be poisoned.

  The man’s eyes widened. “They’re … delicious, Mr. President! Please, try some!” The stranger picked up a chocolate and bit into it with his pinkie raised.

  Taft strained his eyes and ears in a vain attempt to decipher the man before him. He spoke in a strange, indiscernible accent that rendered his place of origin a mystery. The president detected a slight French accent as well as a hint of Russian, but the man looked like he could be Greek or Turkish. Where did he come from? His every pore oozed maliciousness, and yet he presented himself in a way Taft imagined any culture would find sophisticated. Charismatic, even. The president was beginning to feel that he was not speaking to a kidnapper, but to a seasoned dignitary. The man was an ambassador, but to whom? To whose flag did he owe allegiance? Did he even have a flag?

  Or was he a gentleman without a country?

  A frustrated Taft stared at the chocolates and then back to the man across the table. His opponent’s eyes glowed eagerly as he discerned the president’s conflict. However, once Taft remembered something Nellie mentioned earlier, he picked up a chocolate and studied it. It looked and smelled delicious. Quite delicious.