The First Assassin

by John J. Miller

  “I didn’t see the Seventh,” said Rook. “I’m glad that it has arrived.”

  “That’s too bad. You missed quite a parade. The best part was to see the president. He was relieved.” Scott emphasized the final word and looked at Seward, who nodded in approval.

  “I didn’t think this day could get any better,” continued the general. “If you bring me good news, though, it may indeed do just that!”

  “I’m afraid that I’m going to make it worse, sir,” said Rook.

  “I see.” The smile vanished from Scott’s face. He fell into a chair and gestured for Rook to do the same. Locke and Seward also took seats. The general’s eyes narrowed to slits.

  “What do you have?”

  Rook hesitated. “Sir, what I have to say might best be said to you alone,” he said, casting a quick glance at Seward. The general saw it and seemed to consider Rook’s request for the briefest of moments before rejecting it.

  “That won’t be necessary,” he said. “Secretary Seward is fully aware of the Mazorca situation and will soon present us with a valuable piece of data. Isn’t that right, Mr. Secretary?”

  “Yes, General, in a few moments anyway.” He made a motion to rise. “I could easily step out…”

  “Nonsense, sir!” thundered Scott with such force that Seward dropped back into his chair. “We will have a frank discussion about the Mazorca operation. It is indeed fortuitous that we are all here.” He looked directly at Rook. “Colonel, give us your report.”

  Rook described what had happened: the beginning of the surveillance, Mazorca’s murder of Tabard, and the raid that had revealed the whole operation as a failure.

  “No wonder you wanted to make your report to me alone. This is an embarrassment. We had him in our clutches, and you let him get away.”

  Rook bristled at the phrasing but let it pass. “The reason he got away is because he knew we were coming,” he said.

  The general raised his eyebrows in at least partial disbelief. Seward shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  “Mazorca has an informant—someone who may not know that he is passing information to a man who seeks to murder the president, but someone who nonetheless is doing it through his own sheer recklessness.”

  Rook paused. He wanted to read the general’s face. Did he harbor any suspicions? Scott merely sat still. His face was expressionless. Seward pursed his lips and scratched his chin. Locke made no attempt to conceal his disdain: he rolled his eyes and let out a mocking sigh.

  Scott broke the silence. “That is an extraordinary charge, Colonel. Do you have extraordinary proof to back it up?”

  Rook reached into a pocket and pulled out the letter Springfield had given him. He unfolded it slowly.

  “This may explain our problem,” said Rook, handing the letter to Scott.

  The general took the letter and read it in silence. Rook watched Scott’s eyes widen in astonishment as he read a few lines and checked the signature at the bottom. He let out a little gasp. “This is an unwelcome development,” he said. Then he read aloud, with disgust:

  Dearest Violet,

  So much to tell you! I have an amazing story to relate about the insubordination of Col. Rook and a group of prisoners that I personally released, acting upon intelligence from an unnamed source. It appears that the unauthorized surveillance of ordinary citizens was much more extensive that I had originally believed. Expect me Friday night. I will keep no secrets from you. I desire to tell you all—and I desire you.

  Most intimately,

  Sam Locke

  Scott glowered at Locke. “Is there anything you can possibly say for yourself, Colonel?”

  Locke buried his face in his hands. When he looked up, Rook could see his eyes turning red from tears. “Sir, it is an innocent mistake!”

  “Your dealings with Mrs. Grenier do not sound very innocent to me,” said the general, his voice rising in anger. “It would be bad enough if you were merely divulging sensitive information to a random whore—but here is the proof that you’re giving it away to a woman whom we now know is in league with the enemy!”

  “I’m sorry, I did not know,” sobbed Locke. “She seduced me.”

  “Get out of my sight,” sputtered Scott. “You are relieved of your rank and your duties. Leave this building and never come back.”

  As Locke rose and headed for the door, Scott turned to Seward. “This is a tremendous embarrassment. I personally guarantee you that I will get to the bottom…”

  He was going to say more but became distracted when Locke nearly crashed into a new figure in the doorway—a short man with dark eyes, thick black hair, and skin the color of bronze. He wore black clothes as well.

  Seward rose. “General, I believe that this man will have some answers for us.”

  Mazorca rolled the dress into a ball, tossed it into a half-empty closet, and shut the door. He hoped he would never have to see it again. The experience of wearing Tabard’s clothes was humiliating, but it could have been worse. Nothing would have been more humiliating than the defeat he had so narrowly avoided.

  His own clothes were ruined. A mirror confirmed it. Tabard’s blood had streaked across his shirt and pants. There was no way he could go out in public. He was annoyed at himself for letting it happen. He could have killed Tabard more cleanly. She had not even put up a fight and probably did not know what was happening to her before she was dead. He had taken her completely by surprise.

  The problem was that he had been caught by surprise as well. Someone had exposed him. He reviewed everything that had happened since his arrival in Washington. He had tried to cover his tracks, even murdering Calthrop when the smallest hint of possible detection surfaced. He wondered about whether Tabard was some kind of informant, but that seemed far-fetched. Then there was Grenier. Was she a weak link? Bennett had vouched for her. She must have been the author of that missing letter, because she was the only person who knew his whereabouts. He wished he could read it now. Had she tried to warn him of something?

  Before he could plumb these mysteries, he needed a change of clothes. At least this problem had an easy solution. Beneath the mirror sat a dresser. Several of its drawers were empty, but others contained shirts and pants for a man. Mazorca dumped them onto a bed and sorted through the piles. The closet held a few coats and ties. Within minutes, he found all that he needed. He stripped and changed, then threw his old clothes into the closet beside the dress.

  His next dilemma was only slightly less urgent. He was in the safe house at 1745 N Street that Grenier had recommended for a time of emergency. Was it truly safe? He could not be certain, and there were few things he disliked more than uncertainty.

  From a window, he looked at N Street. People across the city were leaving their jobs and heading home. Three soldiers strolled by. Mazorca figured they belonged to the New York regiment. They must have broken ranks and obtained some free time to explore the city they had come to defend.

  Mazorca left the bedroom and drifted down the staircase. In a closet by the foyer, he found a light coat with a pair of large pockets and a hat with a wide brim. A layer of dust covered them. Mazorca brushed them off and put them on. At the front door, he slipped his deadly book into one of the oversize pockets. He grasped the door handle and stepped onto the front porch.

  After closing the door and locking it with the key Grenier had given him, Mazorca turned to walk in the direction the soldiers had taken. He collided with a red-haired boy who was running home with a loaf of bread from the market. The boy, less than half the size of Mazorca, tumbled to the ground.

  “Watch where you’re going,” snapped Mazorca. He bent over and picked up his hat, which had fallen beside the boy. He placed it back on his head and continued on his way.

  For several moments, the boy sat on the ground and watched Mazorca go. Then he stood, grabbing his bread and brushing off a few specks of dirt. His parents would never know that he had dropped it. But there was something else that he suspected h
e would have to tell them. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the photograph that the soldier on Connecticut Avenue had given him—the picture of “a very bad man who needed to be found as soon as possible.”

  Rook did not recognize the man in the doorway to Scott’s office, but Seward clearly did.

  “Thank you so much for coming, Ambassador,” said Seward.

  “My pleasure, Mr. Secretary.”

  Seward put an arm on the ambassador’s back and swept the other one toward Scott and Rook, who also had risen.

  “Allow me to introduce Señor Don Luis Molina, the minister to the United States from the Republic of Nicaragua.”

  The men shook hands. Rook noted Molina’s firm grip. In a moment, all four were seated, facing each other.

  “I asked the ambassador to come here because he may have some information about Mazorca,” said Seward. “Before this morning, I had not heard the name. It is certainly unusual. I repeated it over and over—Mazorca, Mazorca.” He was enunciating the name, vibrating his tongue as he trilled the R.

  “I came to the conclusion that it sounded vaguely Latin, and specifically Spanish.”

  Here he paused, as if expecting a dollop of praise for his ingenuity. Nobody spoke, and he continued.

  “So I sent a note to Ambassador Molina, whom I first met last month, when he was formally received at the White House by President Lincoln. He speaks Spanish, and more to the point, he knows a great deal about the affairs of Spanish America. But best of all, he is a great friend of the United States.”

  Seward paused again. This time he looked directly at Molina, who nodded in acknowledgment.

  “So I sought the ambassador’s wise counsel and asked if he had ever heard this name, Mazorca. He replied in the affirmative, and we arranged this meeting.”

  “It is good of you to come,” said Scott. “What can you tell us about Mazorca?”

  Molina folded his hands in his lap. “I have not encountered this name in some time, and I certainly never expected to rediscover it here in Washington.”

  The ambassador spoke with an accent, but his English was good.

  “The name comes from Argentina. It is not my home, but I know something of it. Have any of you heard of Juan Manuel de Rosas?”

  Rook shook his head. The name meant nothing to him. Scott did not seem to be familiar with it either. Finally, Seward spoke, with some hesitance in his voice. “Was he the ruler of Argentina?”

  “That is correct,” said Molina. “He was a rancher who became a dictator. He moved in and out of power, but he dominated the politics of Argentina for more than twenty years until he was finally ousted, once and for all, in 1852. Today, Rosas lives in exile, in London. During his reign, Argentina fought with its neighbors. Inside the country, Rosas ruled by fear. One of his instruments of terror was a secret police force—a gang of thugs and killers. Its members were fanatically loyal to Rosas. Within their ranks, they were so closely united that it was said they were like the kernels on an ear of corn.”

  Molina illustrated the point by pressing his fingertips together. He squeezed them so hard that they turned red.

  “In your language, there is another word for corn,” he continued. “You don’t use it as much, but you know it. The word is maize. In my language, corn is called maiz and an ear is oreja. Put them together in an ear of corn, and you have la mazorca. This was the name that the secret police of Rosas used for themselves.”

  Seward straightened his back. “I see we’ve come to the right place,” he said with obvious satisfaction.

  “There is something else as well,” said Molina. “Mazorca is a joke—what I think you call a play on words or…” His voice drifted off as he searched for the term.

  “A pun,” said Rook.

  “Yes, a pun,” said Molina. “Mazorca also means mas horca.” He paused for effect. “Mas horca means ‘more hanging.’”

  “That is all very interesting,” said Scott. “But what does it have to do with our man here in Washington?”

  “I cannot answer with certainty. What I have said up to now is based on fact. It is all true. What I am about to say is speculative. But it is also reasonable.”

  “We’re all ears,” said Seward, who suppressed a chuckle when he remembered that this was no time for laughter.

  Molina ignored him. “During the final years of the Rosas period, the mazorqueros were less active than they had been previously. Yet they maintained a horrifying presence. The most ruthless among them was said to be a foreigner—an American. He arrived in Buenos Aires shortly after your country’s invasion of Mexico and conquest of Mexico City.”

  “We marched into Mexico City on September 14, 1847,” said Scott. “The country had become ours in just six months.”

  “Yes,” said Molina, replying to Scott. “It would have been shortly after that. It was always presumed that this most brutal of mazorqueros was a deserter or a criminal who had decided to venture south rather than return home.”

  “What happened to him after Rosas was deposed?” asked Seward.

  “Again, I do not know for certain. But I have heard that after the fall of the Rosas regime, this man left Argentina and sought occasional employment from individuals who required special services—sinister services, if you will. I was given to understand that those who seek him must approach intermediaries in Cuba.”

  “How can you be sure of all this?” asked Scott.

  “I am sure of nothing. But you will recall the recent history of my region—the internal strife that has plagued my country, combined with the external pressures of British colonialism and American filibusters such as William Walker. We have lived through turbulent times. We have known dreadful violence. And we have suffered from the acts of men who murder for money. If the Mazorca you are worried about right now is the same man who operated in and around my country just a few years ago, then I am truly fearful for the safety of your leaders.”

  “So our Mazorca is a professional killer—an assassin for hire,” said Rook.

  “I believe that is a sound assumption. It is certainly an assumption that will prevent you from underestimating him. He is most dangerous when he is underestimated.”

  Rook caught the eye of Scott, who quickly looked away. The general was chastened.

  “Be warned,” said Molina, leaning forward in his chair in order to emphasize his point. “This man is a destroyer of lives. He will let nothing stand between himself and those whom he has marked for death.”

  Beside the murky waters of Washington’s oozing canal, a woman leaned her back against a wall. Mazorca could see her only faintly in the dark. She held a small box in her arms, and her shoulders trembled. When she raised a sleeve to her face, Mazorca assumed that she had sneezed and was wiping her nose. But she continued to shake. Mazorca realized that she was crying. For several minutes, he watched her take turns between looking at the box and raising her head upward, toward the heavens.

  Mazorca stood motionless in a doorway, about thirty feet from where she wept. Eventually the woman suppressed her tears and approached the edge of the canal. The stench rising from the canal was strong enough to repel anybody who did not have a good reason for being there.

  The woman dropped to her knees and raised the box to her lips. Its top was open. She kissed whatever was inside. Then she set it down beside her and adjusted its contents. She appeared to pull out a small, rectangular object, flip it around, and set it back in. She fidgeted with the box for a few more seconds and then placed it in the water. For a moment it bobbed up and down and Mazorca thought it might sink. Yet it appeared to steady itself and began floating with the lazy current. By the time it had drifted in front of Mazorca, the woman was gone.

  Propelled by curiosity, Mazorca approached the canal and looked at the box. Tucked inside, swaddled in a blanket, was a newborn baby. The child’s eyes were wide open, but it did not cry. At its feet, Mazorca saw the rectangular object that the woman had shifted: a brick. Actually there we
re two of them, and their grim purpose was apparent. It did not occur to Mazorca that he might reach into the water and pull the box out. As the baby meandered by, he felt nothing at all.

  The child’s mother was obviously a whore, thought Mazorca. She did what whores so often do after giving birth, in their loneliness. The baby’s father might be a poor clerk or a rich senator. He had almost certainly vanished from the woman’s life long ago, just as suddenly as he had appeared, and he was not aware of what their brief encounter had created. Or what was now floating toward its doom.

  Such was the way of things in Murder Bay, the seediest part of Washington. It slouched between the malodorous canal and the business district on Pennsylvania Avenue to the north, in a triangular section of the city between Ninth and Fifteenth streets. The streets were grimy and narrow, the buildings dilapidated, and the inhabitants dissolute. For all of its drawbacks, however, the area offered a concentration of amusements and diversions that could not be found anywhere else in the city: drinking saloons, gambling halls, and dens of ill repute.

  Early on, Mazorca had learned to avoid the place. Although he was not above partaking of its vices, he wanted nothing to get in the way of his objective. Murder Bay posed too many risks: its cheap hotels weren’t safe, its alleyways were full of toughs and pickpockets, and its bars and bordellos were unwelcome distractions. Yet now he relied on the allure of its debauchery to help him reach his goal. Murder Bay was a magnet for certain types of men: young, far from home, unencumbered by the obligations of marriage and family. Soldiers were frequently all of these things at once. As day turned to night, they fell on Murder Bay in droves, intending to explore its decadent entertainments.

  On this night, New York’s Seventh Regiment contributed heavily to their numbers. Its members came from the upper crust of their city—they were the sons of bankers and shippers. They had endured a long journey, marched past the White House, and settled into rooms at Willard’s and other fine hotels along Pennsylvania Avenue. In the morning, they were supposed to report to their new quarters in the House of Representatives, an empty chamber ever since the congressmen left town immediately following the presidential inauguration. Yet this evening was entirely theirs, and many of the New Yorkers were eager to pursue very particular forms of rest and relaxation.