It fell upon Springfield to take Portia to the rail station in Washington. He was also the one to tell her that her grandfather probably was dead—information he had gleaned from the intercepted letter Bennett had sent to Grenier.
“When I went runnin’ from the plantation, I knew that I might not see my family again,” she said. “Then I watched Joe die. Now I’ll have nightmares about what Bennett did to my grandfather. I’ll get over the pain of gettin’ to Washington ’cause that’s just my body hurtin’. I’m not sure I’ll ever get over the other parts.”
“You’re a hero, Portia.”
“There are a lotta heroes, Sergeant, and some gave up more than me. Make sure it ain’t in vain.”
They stood in silence for a few minutes. When the conductor ordered passengers aboard, Springfield helped her with the bag and said good-bye. From the platform, he watched the train chug forward. Portia was on her way.
As the caboose left the station, Springfield turned and gazed at the Capitol. Plans called for a female figure—a statue of freedom—eventually to crown its dome. As he walked toward Massachusetts Avenue, Springfield said a quick prayer. He asked that by the time the statue was completed, all of Portia’s people would have their liberty.
Just then, from near the Capitol, Springfield heard a loud commotion. Was it shouting? He took off in a sprint.
“And that’s why we’re going to leave the top off the dome of the Capitol,” said Lincoln, with a big grin on his face. “You men must have proper ventilation!”
The federal soldiers erupted in laughter, cheers, and applause. Rook, Clark, and Grenier stood to the side. The colonel did not like seeing the president in the open, but he could not deny that Lincoln was in fine form. He talked to the troops with an easy camaraderie, demonstrating the political skills that had taken him to the White House.
When the men stationed in the Capitol had heard that Lincoln was coming for an impromptu visit, they streamed out of their temporary homes in the offices and committee rooms of senators and representatives. They assembled on the east side of the building, eager to greet their commander-in-chief. The new arrivals from New York were there, many of them bleary-eyed from a lack of sleep. The soldiers who had come to Washington before them joined in as well.
“Consider yourselves lucky,” said Lincoln when the clamor died down. “Most people have to win an election to take a seat in the House!”
The men howled with delight again.
Grenier scowled. “Can we go now?” she asked. The question sounded like a demand.
Her destination, the new prison in the Old Capitol, was visible across the lawn and on the other side of First Street. Rook had thought about ordering transportation for her, but in the end he decided that they would walk. She did not seem to pose any kind of danger—not with Clark accompanying them on the march down Pennsylvania Avenue.
When they had rounded the Capitol and headed for the prison, they saw hundreds of blue-coated soldiers moving into formation on the eastern front of the building. At first, Rook assumed that they were going to drill. But then a carriage arrived. When it halted, John Hay stepped out, followed by Lincoln. The soldiers cheered him—the heavy majority appeared to be firm Lincoln men. A group of civilians began to gather nearby as well.
With any luck, thought Rook, the threat of Mazorca had passed, just as Grenier had claimed. Nobody had seen him since the day before. He was clearly on the run, with his boardinghouse and refuge raided, his picture distributed, and everyone seemingly on the lookout. Perhaps he had slipped away in the middle of the night. Mazorca could be far from Washington—either gone forever, or possibly biding his time in some local haunt until he believed the city had let down its guard again.
“I cannot listen to this obnoxious man any longer,” snapped Grenier. She turned her back to Lincoln.
“Then don’t listen,” said Rook. “But we aren’t going anywhere for a few minutes.”
The colonel caught the attention of Hay, standing with the president about a hundred feet away. Lincoln’s secretary knew what Rook was thinking. He shrugged his shoulders and threw up his hands, palms open wide, to indicate helplessness.
Just then, Springfield appeared. He was almost out of breath.
“I heard this hubbub from the train station—thought it was worth investigating,” said the sergeant.
“Did you ship the package?” asked Rook.
“Yes. The train left a few minutes ago.”
“Good. Stay here with our friend,” he said, tipping his head toward Grenier. “I want to mingle a bit.”
The crowd was growing larger. Rook estimated that a thousand people gathered in Lincoln’s vicinity, and more kept arriving from the homes and stores nearby. A group of soldiers—a band carrying musical instruments—organized themselves near the steps. Rook walked toward them and climbed up for a better view.
Below, on the lawn, an officer from New York approached Lincoln. They exchanged a few words, and the president nodded.
“I’ve been asked to swear you in,” said Lincoln, speaking as loudly as he could manage. “Would you like that?”
The soldiers burst out in approval. In New York, they had been sworn in for thirty days of service. But that was not long enough. Rook knew that one of their first orders of business in Washington was to swear in for ninety days.
“Before I do, allow me a few words,” said Lincoln. Shushes and calls for quiet rippled through the crowd. Suddenly the racket in front of the Capitol dropped to almost total silence. “I have desired as sincerely as any man that our present difficulties might be settled without the shedding of blood,” said Lincoln. “I will not say that all hope is yet gone, but if the alternative is presented whether the Union is to be broken into fragments and the liberties of the people lost or blood be shed, then I know you will stand for Union.”
The throng roared its approval. The leaders of the Seventh Regiment broke their men into companies. Taking direction from Lincoln, they raised their right hands and swore in the name of God to be good soldiers. When it was done, they cheered again and congratulated each other. The band broke into “Hail Columbia,” and many of the men sang the words. Their voices swelled when they hit the chorus:
Firm, united let us be,
Rallying round our liberty,
As a band of brothers joined,
Peace and safety we shall find.
As Rook hummed the tune, he watched the commander of the Seventh Regiment of New York lead Lincoln toward the Capitol. Apparently they were going to walk its halls. Their progress was slow, as soldiers and civilians approached Lincoln to shake his hand. The officer tried to fend them off, but Lincoln kept obliging. The president seemed utterly at ease. Rook noticed that rather than clenching hands, Lincoln kept grasping men at their fingers. The colonel realized that it was probably the only thing the president could do to prevent his hand from becoming sore from all of the squeezing.
Within a few minutes, Lincoln was near the steps, close to Rook as well as close to the spot from which he had delivered his inaugural address. A crowd continued to swirl around him. From the side, Rook noticed a man of the cloth advance toward the president. He was probably the pastor from one of the churches on Capitol Hill.
His presence reminded Rook of Lincoln’s words on March 4. Toward the end of his speech, the president had commented that both Northerners and Southerners believed that they had justice on their side. If that was true, he said, then both should have the patience in “the Almighty Ruler of nations” to let justice prevail. Yet Lincoln was also resolute: “You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect, and defend’ it.”
Rook recalled the pledge he had made to himself on that day: he had vowed to protect and defend Lincoln, even with his own life.
When the pastor’s head swiveled briefly in Rook’s direction, a flicker of recognition gripped the colonel. He wore a hat, so Rook could not see
the ear. Was it the shape of the chin? A look in the eyes? The pastor turned away before Rook could be sure of anything. Yet something told him to make good on his promise right now.
Mazorca adjusted the brim of his hat another time. It already flopped down well enough to hide his ear, but he wanted to be sure. Staring over his spectacles, which he had let slip to the end of his nose so that they would disguise his face but not distort his vision, Mazorca saw Lincoln standing just fifteen feet away. The president was pumping hands and listening to a soldier say how proud he was to have cast his first presidential vote for him.
When the band struck up “Yankee Doodle,” Mazorca realized that he had found his moment. He might not get this close again. One shot. He knew he could get away. The noise and the crowd would create the confusion he needed. And nobody would suspect a preacher who clutched a Bible.
He had thought seriously about giving up. After descending the Washington Monument early in the morning, he walked to the edge of the Potomac River. Unsure about what to do, he headed east, toward the Capitol. He passed a few people who took no particular heed of him. With his hat pulled down tight, his collar up, his spectacles on, his cheeks covered in stubble, and his eyes cast to the ground, he avoided suspicion. The Bible—or a book that appeared on the outside to be a Bible—was a fortunate coincidence because it matched his outfit. Mazorca did not like to rely upon luck, but in this case he welcomed it.
Luck seemed to strike again as he went by the Capitol. Soldiers were gathering by the hundreds. He did not want to go anywhere near them, but he stopped to watch. A few minutes later, a carriage pulled up. A tall man in a black stovepipe hat got out. Mazorca did not believe in fate, but Lincoln’s sudden appearance gave him pause. Rather than conceding defeat, he decided to claim victory.
He listened to Lincoln’s jokes, his brief remarks, and his swearing-in of the soldiers. It was impossible to get close enough. He needed to arrive at almost point-blank range, and ideally when the crowd was starting to break up. If all eyes were locked on Lincoln, there was no way Mazorca could succeed.
Then it happened. The soldiers fell out of rank, the band struck up a tune, and a mass of people swarmed the president. Most were soldiers, but not all—and Mazorca plunged in behind a few civilians. He noticed that Lincoln was heading toward the Capitol. He worked through the crowd to get in position for the president to walk right past him.
When Lincoln was a dozen feet away, Mazorca fixed his hat a final time. He reached for his book’s yellow ribbon and jerked it. The music muffled the click of the gun’s cocking. When Lincoln was ten feet away, Mazorca grabbed the red ribbon and held it taut. With the book at waist level, he slanted it slightly upward so that its bullet would rip into Lincoln’s chest. A soldier stood in front of him, blocking his shot. When Lincoln was five feet away, the soldier reached out to shake the president’s hand.
“Sir,” shouted the soldier, “I believe that God Almighty and Abraham Lincoln are going to save this country!”
Mazorca took half a step to his right. He remained behind the soldier, but the book had an angle. He pulled hard on the ribbon. The gun went off.
Rook did not hear the shot—nobody did, amid the noise of the crowd and the music of the band—but he felt the bullet dig into his left arm. What he heard, instead, was laughter: Lincoln had made another one of his wisecracks, telling the soldier who was shaking his hand, “Private, I believe you’re half right!”
At first, Rook merely felt the bullet’s impact. Uncertain about the pastor’s actual identity, he had tried to force his body in front of the president. When he saw the man turn and move away swiftly, he knew it was Mazorca. He wanted to point and yell, but it was too late: the searing pain of his wound made him clench his teeth and double over. Lincoln kept walking and his pack of followers streamed by Rook. Nobody knew that a shot had been fired or that the colonel had been hit.
When Rook stood upright, he saw Mazorca darting toward a door beneath the Capitol steps. The assassin opened it, went in, and slammed it shut. Rook raced after him, stumbling at first and then gaining his stride. He finally yelled, “Get that man!”—but still nobody heard. He removed his pistol from his holster as he approached the door. Reaching to open it, he felt the pain tear through his left arm. Somehow, he pulled the door open. The sound of running footsteps echoed down a hallway.
Rook chased after them. He figured that he had at least one advantage over Mazorca: he knew his way around the Capitol, and Mazorca presumably did not. It was a large building, and Rook certainly did not know every twist and turn, but he had a general sense of its layout. He knew where its passageways led, where its staircases went, and where its exits were. From what he could tell, Mazorca had bolted through a foyer, turned right where it intersected with a long hall, and was running toward the Senate side of the building.
Rook hurried to the intersection and stopped. He could still hear Mazorca’s footsteps, but he did not want to present himself as a target. On the ground, a book lay open—except that it was not really a book. Its pages were hollowed out. The gun was inside, with ribbons attached for cocking and firing. A hole on the bottom edge of its carved-up pages made Rook realize that this was the gun that had shot him moments before. Mazorca must have discarded it as he ran.
The sound of the footsteps grew fainter. Rook knew he needed to keep moving. He peered around the corner, down the long hallway. Mazorca was not in view. About forty feet in front of him, resting on the ground, he saw the black hat that Mazorca had worn.
The pain in his arm intensified. Rook tried to massage the wound, but the gun in his hand made it impossible. He knew he had to keep moving. If he stayed where he was, he would lose Mazorca. Again.
He sprinted down the hall past a series of closed doors that led to committee rooms. He still heard footsteps ahead, reverberating off the walls. It sounded like they fell on steps.
Rook knew exactly where Mazorca was headed: those stairs led up to a wide hallway just outside the Senate cloakrooms. When the colonel arrived at the staircase, he trained his pistol on the steps, but Mazorca was nowhere in sight.
Climbing the steps slowly, Rook kept looking upward. His arm throbbed, and he could feel blood begin to soak the sleeve of his uniform. It was not gushing out the way it would from hitting a major artery, but the warm dampness was becoming apparent. He did all he could to block the sensation from his mind.
At the top of the steps, Rook gained a view of the area just outside the Senate cloakrooms—it was technically a hallway, but it was wide enough to feel like an actual room. The bedding of soldiers covered the floor. The men who slept here were outside.
Rook wondered if Mazorca had gone to the right, through one of the cloakrooms and into the Senate chamber itself. Then he heard a door shut down a hallway to his left. If it was Mazorca, it meant that he was in the large room where the Supreme Court met. It was sometimes called the Old Senate Room because senators had used it before moving into their more spacious chamber at the north end of the building.
As he ran toward the room, Rook wondered why Mazorca would have chosen the door. If he meant to escape, there were better choices. Then he understood: ahead, in the rotunda, came the sounds of soldiers filing back into the Capitol. The assassin apparently wanted to avoid them. A new thought troubled him: if Lincoln had walked up the steps on the outside of the building’s east front, however, he might very well be in the rotunda with them. Was it possible that Mazorca would have another chance to shoot the president?
The thick wooden doors outside the Old Senate Room were shut. Rook moved to open one of them. The door was heavy, and he might have leaned into it with his shoulder but for his injury. He turned the knob and forced it open with his foot.
Inside, he saw the majestic chamber—a semicircular room with a vaulted ceiling. Yet it was in a state of disarray, with desks and chairs shoved to one side to make room for soldiers who needed a place to sleep. Rook raised his pistol and stepped inside. The door swun
g shut behind him. He did not see Mazorca, but there was no shortage of places to hide.
Something glinted on the ground, catching his eye. Rook looked down. It was a pair of spectacles. His mind had registered nothing more than that when he sensed movement on his left. Mazorca emerged from behind a pillar and rushed toward him with a large knife in his hand. Instinctively, Rook tried to raise his left arm to block the attack, but the pain from his gunshot wound was so sharp that his knees buckled.
The move might have saved his life. Mazorca’s dive was too high. The slash of his knife missed Rook entirely. Off balance, he fell to the floor. Meanwhile, Rook hopped to his feet and pointed his pistol directly at Mazorca, who rolled from his side to his back. The knife was still in his hand.
“Drop it,” shouted Rook.
Mazorca closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, he also appeared to loosen his grip on the handle of his knife. Instead of letting it fall, however, he flipped it up, grabbed the blade, and tried to throw it.
Rook pulled his trigger three times. Mazorca shuddered as each bullet hit its mark. The knife dropped harmlessly to the ground. The assassin’s body jolted. Then it slumped. It did not move again.
“There you are!” yelled Springfield from across the rotunda. The large room beneath the Capitol’s open dome was filling with soldiers. Lincoln had just passed through and was walking down a hallway toward the House chamber, away from Rook. The colonel gripped his left arm, as if by holding it he would lessen the pain.
The First Assassin Page 37