Springfield ran over. Clark was with him.
“Where is he?” asked the sergeant.
“It’s done,” said Rook.
“You found Mazorca?”
“He’s dead.”
The sergeant explained that he had seen Rook chase a man into the Capitol and assumed the worst. He and Clark tried to catch up, but they started out too far away. By the time they entered the Capitol, they had no idea where Mazorca and Rook had gone.
“You’ve been shot,” said Springfield, noticing Rook’s wound for the first time.
For a moment, Rook said nothing. He just stared, first at Springfield, then at Clark, and then back at Springfield. “Where is Violet Grenier?” he asked.
The two soldiers looked at each other. They had forgotten. That was when Rook knew: she was gone.
EPILOGUE
SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1861
Langston Bennett was surprised to hear the sound of gravel crunching beneath the wheels of a carriage. He had not expected visitors. Hughes remained confined to his bed, though after three weeks at the Stark farm he finally had moved back to his own plantation. Bennett had paid him a couple of visits but still had not given the young man the excoriation that he thought he deserved for letting Portia slip away.
Perhaps it was a man seeking employment. Ever since Tate had quit—abruptly, and immediately following the burial of that runaway Big Joe—he had let it be known that he wished to hire an experienced overseer. So far, nobody had come to him for the job. Many of the men in the region were gripped with war fever. They were signing up to fight the North.
A minute ticked by as Bennett waited for Lucius to walk through the door and announce a guest. Then he remembered that the old slave would not appear again. Bennett was still unaccustomed to his absence. He had made no attempt to replace him.
Bennett rose from his desk and hobbled to the front door. He opened it and looked upon one of the people he least expected to see: Violet Grenier.
“Hello,” he said, somehow making the greeting sound more like a question.
“Good afternoon, Langston,” said Grenier. “It has been an exceedingly long journey. Are you going to invite me in?”
He did, and they settled into chairs in Bennett’s office.
“This is certainly a surprise, Violet,” said Bennett. “I anticipated a letter, not a visit. It has been quite some time since you wrote. I feared that something had happened.”
“You wouldn’t believe how much has happened—everything and nothing, all at once.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mazorca is dead.” She handed him a Brady’s reproduction of the photograph. Bennett stared at it and sighed.
Grenier told her story: Mazorca’s arrival, his pursuit, and his disappearance. She neglected to say that she had been arrested or that she had escaped during the tumult on April 26—she simply said that life in Washington had become too difficult for someone of her views. Bennett did not probe her on this point.
“How do you know Mazorca is dead?” he asked.
“I suspect strongly that Rook and his men killed him and then covered it up. The entire episode has been kept out of the papers. It’s just rumors, really—about a lunatic who was shot in the Capitol and then given a pauper’s burial. Nothing is confirmed, but it hardly matters. The bottom line is that Lincoln is still alive.”
“How unfortunate,” said Bennett. “It is such a shame to have failed.”
Grenier narrowed her eyes and put her hand on Bennett’s knee—the one above the false leg. “Mazorca failed,” she said. “We have not.”
Bennett looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
She smiled wickedly. “The war is young.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The First Assassin is a work of fiction, and specifically a work of historical fiction—meaning that much of it is based on real people, places, and events. My goal never has been to tell a tale about what really happened but to tell what might have happened by blending known facts with my imagination. Characters such as Abraham Lincoln, Winfield Scott, and John Hay were, of course, actual people. When they speak on these pages, their words are occasionally drawn from things they are reported to have said. At other times, I literally put words in their mouths. Historical events and circumstances such as Lincoln’s inauguration, the fall of Fort Sumter, and the military crisis in Washington, D.C., provide both a factual backdrop and a narrative skeleton. Throughout, I have tried to maximize the authenticity and also to tell a good story.
Thomas Mallon, an experienced historical novelist, has described writing about the past: “The attempt to reconstruct the surface texture of that world was a homely pleasure, like quilting, done with items close to hand.” For me, the items close to hand were books and articles. Naming all of my sources is impossible. I’ve drawn from a lifetime of reading about the Civil War, starting as a boy who gazed for hours at the battlefield pictures in The Golden Book of the Civil War, which is an adaptation for young readers of The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War by Bruce Catton. Yet several works stand out as especially important references.
The first chapter owes much to an account that appeared in the New York Tribune on February 26, 1861 (and is cited in A House Dividing, by William E. Baringer). It is also informed by Lincoln and the Baltimore Plot, 1861, edited by Norma B. Cuthbert.
For details about Washington in 1861: Reveille in Washington, by Margaret Leech; The Civil War Day by Day, by E. B. Long with Barbara Long; Freedom Rising, by Ernest B. Ferguson; The Regiment That Saved the Capitol, by William J. Roehrenbeck; The Story the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell, by Thomas P. Lowry; and “Washington City,” in The Atlantic Monthly, January 1861.
For information about certain characters: With Malice Toward None, by Stephen B. Oates; Lincoln, by David Herbert Donald; Abe Lincoln Laughing, edited by P. M. Zall; Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries of John Hay, edited by Tyler Dennett; Lincoln Day by Day, Vol. III: 1861–1865, by C. Percy Powell; Agent of Destiny, by John S. D. Eisenhower; Rebel Rose, by Isabel Ross; Wild Rose, by Ann Blackman; and several magazine articles by Charles Pomeroy Stone.
For life in the South: Roll, Jordan, Roll, by Eugene D. Genovese; Runaway Slaves, by John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger; Bound for Canaan, by Fergus M. Bordewich; Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, written by himself; The Fire-Eaters, by Eric H. Walther; and The Southern Dream of a Caribbean Empire, by Robert E. May.
For background on Mazorca: Argentine Dictator, by John Lynch.
This is the second edition of The First Assassin. Except for a few minor edits, it is no different from the first edition.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The AmazonEncore edition of The First Assassin would not exist but for readers of an earlier edition, which I published on my own through a print-on-demand service. They made The First Assassin a self-publishing success story. Their support was indispensible and is much appreciated.
At AmazonEncore, I’m indebted to Terry Goodman for having faith in this novel, Sarah Tomashek for helping promote it, Emily Avent and Jessica Smith for copyediting.
I’m also thankful for the advice and encouragement of friends, especially David Bernstein, Michael Carlisle, Ben Domenech, Robert Ferrigno, Vince Flynn, Andrew Klavan, Michael Long, Rich Lowry, Brian Meadors, Erika Meadors, Kristina Phillips, and Brad Thor.
Brendan Miller, Josie Miller, and Patrick Miller provided many distractions and delays, for which I am grateful.
My wife Amy has mattered most. This book is hers as much as mine. It would not exist without her encouragement and love.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John J. Miller is a journalist who writes for National Review, the Wall Street Journal, and other publications. He is the author of several books of nonfiction, including The Unmaking of Americans: How Multiculturalism Has Undermined America’s Assimilation Ethic; Our Oldest Enemy: A History of America’s Disastrous Relationship with France; and A Gift of Freedom: How the J
ohn M. Olin Foundation Changed America. The First Assassin is his debut novel. A native of Detroit, he lives with his family in Prince William County, Virginia. To learn more about John J. Miller and his work, visit his website at www.HeyMiller.com.
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