The Fifth Assassin

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  For my dad,

  Stewie Meltzer,

  who lived loud,

  loved hard,

  and always knew

  where to find a good deli

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Here’s what I love: I love sitting at my desk, staring at the blank screen, and beginning that conversation with my imaginary friends. But no matter how many books I write, here’s one of the few things I know for sure: Imaginary friends are indeed vital, but when it comes to actually writing these books, it’s my real family and friends, including you, dear reader, who make it possible. So tremendous thank-yous to the following: My first love and first lady, Cori, who made me dig deep during what has been one of the hardest years of my life. My love for her is truly profound. Jonas, Lila, and Theo are my best blessings of all. To quote a dear friend: “Nothing in life lives up to the hype… except being a parent.” Especially to these three. I love them with everything I have. Jill Kneerim, the friend and agent who took me in when I was twenty-four years old, and who has been with me since; Hope Denekamp, Caroline Zimmerman, Ike Williams, and all our friends at the Kneerim & Williams Agency.

  Here’s what else I know for sure: With the loss of my parents, this book had no choice but to be about growing up. So let me thank the one person who grew up next to me: my sister, Bari, who reminds me of every insane and wonderful thing our parents taught us. Also to Bobby, Ami, Adam, Gilda, and Will for standing there with us.

  Of all the people in here, there’s one who needs to be singled out: Noah Kuttler. Noah plots with me, schemes with me, argues with me, and basically spends every free moment challenging me to be the writer I wish I was. Thanks, pal, for always pushing the craft and for never ever letting me down, intellectually or personally. Ethan Kline has stood by my side since we first used the Xerox machine at work to make copies of The Tenth Justice. He, along with Dale Flam, Matt Kuttler, Chris Weiss, and Judd Winick are the vital readers who take my early drafts and help me find the actual book.

  When it came to researching Presidents and their assassins, I owe major thanks to the following: First, President George H. W. Bush, who was generous and kind enough to again answer all my questions, the most macabre ones I’ve ever asked him. Special colonial shout-out to the man himself—George Washington—for inspiring so much in here. Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero is one of the nicest and most welcoming hosts around. Also at the National Archives, which everyone should go visit, Paul Brachfeld, Susan Cooper, Matt Fulgham, Miriam Kleiman, and Trevor Plante again helped me conjure my inner Beecher. I bothered them over and over, and they never complained. Our friendship has been the best result. Special thanks to Michael Guidry, who protects so many and for whom I have so much respect; Brian White and all my friends at the Department of Homeland Security’s Red Cell program for again helping take this idea even further, and Eljay Bowron, Jim Mackin, Max Milien, Robert Pearce, and Larry Sheafe for making me respect the Secret Service even more.

  Additional thanks to Michael Rhode and the staff of the National Museum of Health and Medicine for letting me hold the bones of John Wilkes Booth; John Nolan, John Piper, and John Ryan for helping me explore my inner break-in artist; Alan Brown, whose honesty helped me see life from a wheelchair; Hayden Bryan and Senior Minister Dean Snyder invited me into their churches; Ron Decker and the American Playing Card Company made me look at cards in new ways; Bob Gourley, Bob Flores, Roy Judelson, Marc Marlin, Adam Meyers, Adam Mikrut, and Jeff Phelan were the best tech experts; Patrick Canavan, Jogues Prandoni, Richard Warsh, and Steve Baron for the St. Elizabeths details; my confidants Dean Alban and Arturo de Hoyos for their great historical insight; my first history teacher, Ellen Sherman; and the rest of my own inner circle, who I bother for every book: Rabbi Steven M. Glazer, Jo Ayn Glanzer, Jason Sherry, Mark Dimunation, Dr. Lee Benjamin, Dr. David Sandberg, Marie Grunbeck, Nick Marell, and Brad Desnoyer; special thanks to those who anonymously taught me about Camp David. More Archives research came from Kimberly Gentile, Richard “Chip” Sandage, Morgan Zinsmeister, the memory of John E. Taylor, and all the archivists who sent me cool stuff. The books The Manner of Man That Kills by L. Vernon Briggs; Stalking, Threatening, and Attacking Public Figures, edited by Meloy, Sheridan, and Hoffmann; Murdering McKinley by Eric Rauchway; The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau by Charles E. Rosenberg; Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell; A History of Playing Cards by Catherine Perry Hargrave; and my favorite, Manhunt by James L. Swanson, were vital to this process. Yes, Grace is a homage to the real Grace Hopper. Finally, Anne Twomey, Farris Rookstool III, Jeff A. Benner, Paul Bardunias, and Laura Simo, along with the great people at Mount Vernon, lent their expertise to so many different details; our family on Decoded and at HISTORY, including Nancy Dubuc, Dirk Hoogstra, and Russ McCarroll for giving me the opportunity of a lifetime; Rob Weisbach for being the first to say yes; and of course, my family and friends, whose names, as always, inhabit these pages.

  I also want to thank everyone at Grand Central Publishing: David Young, Emi Battaglia, Matthew Ballast, Sonya Cheuse, Martha Otis, Bruce Paonessa, Karen Torres, Lindsey Rose, Caitlin Mulrooney-Lyski, Evan Boorstyn, the nicest and hardest working sales force in show business, Bob Castillo, Mari Okuda, Thomas Whatley, and all my dear friends there who have spent so much of their lives changing mine. I’ve said it before, so here it comes again: They’re the real reason this book is in your hands. Special mushy thank-you to Mitch Hoffman, who helps ask the hardest questions and who is always family. Finally, I want to thank Jamie Raab. In the current publishing industry, it’s so easy to do the same thing over and over again. Jamie never does. She continues fighting the most vital fight of all: the fight for what she loves. I owe her for so much. Thank you, Jamie, for your faith.

  PROLOGUE

  Washington, D.C.

  Some funerals are filled with questions. Others are filled with answers. This one was filled with secrets.

  The funeral was set for 9 a.m., but it was running late. Everyone knew why.

  Shifting in the packed pews, over two hundred mourners tried to be nonchalant, but they still kept glancing toward the back of the church.

  They weren’t looking for the coffin. Dr. Stewart Palmiotti’s dark wood coffin had already been rolled to the front of the church, by the pulpit. They weren’t looking for Palmiotti’s family. His ex-wife, who had caused so much heartache, and his girlfriend Lydia, who had given him so much happiness, were both in the front row, on opposite sides. Relatives, friends, and coworkers filled in the rest. Typical funeral.

  Here’s what wasn’t typical: Each mourner was forced to walk through a metal detector before they were allowed inside.

  This was Washington, D.C. Everyone knew what that meant.

  He was coming. The only he that mattered.

  The President of the United States.

  Naturally, the Secret Service waited until everyone was in their seats. Then, with no warning at all, the back doors closed, then popped open.

  “Your speech, sir,” one of his aides whispered, handing him a binder with the eulogy.

  Gripping the binder and annoyed that the aide had been seen by the mourners, the President stepped forward as e
very head turned his way. Usually, when he entered a room, they’d play “Hail to the Chief.” Today the room was silent.

  Clenching his jaw and keeping his famous gray eyes staring straight ahead, President Orson Wallace walked alone down the main aisle, as if he were in a wedding of one.

  He was used to being stared at. That was part of the job. But as he headed farther down the aisle, even the most powerful man in the world wasn’t ready for the sudden breathlessness that overtook him. The reality of the moment pressed against his chest. This was the funeral of his best friend.

  It’s one thing to be stared at by strangers. This was a roomful of family and friends, people who used to call the President by his first name.

  Growing up in Ohio, Palmiotti and Wallace went from grade school, to high school, to college at the University of Michigan, always together. When Wallace was elected governor, Palmiotti followed. They were together on that night they never talked about anymore. And when Wallace won the White House, someone mentioned that when George H. W. Bush was elected President, he appointed a dear friend as White House doctor, understanding that sometimes the best medicine was simply having someone to talk to. Especially someone who knew you well. And knew your secrets.

  The President liked that. On the day of Wallace’s Inauguration, Dr. Stewart Palmiotti was made head of the White House Medical Unit, with an office adjacent to the West Wing.

  “All those things you did for him… You know he loved you,” Palmiotti’s girlfriend Lydia whispered as the President finally reached the front row. Her voice… her body… everything was shaking as she stood from her seat and embraced Wallace.

  Returning her hug, but staying silent, the President slowly made his way to the far end of the front row, pretending he didn’t see their twelfth-grade history teacher in the crowd.

  But the President’s real pain didn’t come from spotting old friends. It came from the certain knowledge that he was responsible for all this.

  True, the President didn’t pull the trigger. But it was the President who sent Palmiotti after the archivist: Beecher.

  It was Beecher who had learned what the President and Palmiotti had done on the worst night of their lives, back in college, twenty-six years ago. It was Beecher who found out that they had buried a baseball bat and car keys into the face of a man from their hometown. And that Palmiotti and the future President, along with Wallace’s sister, had shattered the man’s eye socket, punctured his face, and driven bits of his skull into his brain, causing irreversible brain damage.

  Worst of all, it was Beecher—and the group he worked with—who would never let it go… never stop searching… not until they could actually prove what happened that night years ago.

  Beecher and his so-called Culper Ring.

  They were the ones who could do the real damage—the ones who knew Wallace and Palmiotti’s secret. Yet that wasn’t the only secret the President was keeping.

  Taking his seat at the far end of the aisle, the President of the United States eyed his best friend’s coffin.

  Almost on cue, his phone vibrated in his pocket. Looking down, President Wallace pulled it out just enough to read the newest text onscreen:

  How’s my funeral going? Dr. Stewart Palmiotti asked.

  PART I

  The First Assassination

  “What will Miss Harris think of my hanging on to you so?” Mary Lincoln asked, holding her husband’s hand.

  “She won’t think anything about it,” Abraham Lincoln replied.

  They were the last words Lincoln spoke before

  John Wilkes Booth put a bullet in his brain.

  1

  Today

  Washington, D.C.

  The Knight knew his history. And his destiny. In fact, no one studied those more carefully than the Knight.

  Rolling a butterscotch candy around his tongue, he pulled the trigger at exactly 10:11 p.m.

  The gun—an antique pistol—let out a puff of blue-gray smoke, sending a spray of meat and blood across the wooden pews of St. John’s Church, the historic building that sat directly across the street from the White House.

  “Y-You shot me…” the rector cried, clutching the back of his shoulder—his collarbone felt shattered—as he reeled sideways and stumbled down the main aisle.

  The blood wouldn’t stop. But the Knight’s gun hadn’t delivered a killshot. At the last minute, the rector, who’d been in charge of St. John’s for nearly a decade, had moved.

  The Knight just stood there, waiting for him to fall. The stark white plaster mask he wore ensured that his victim couldn’t get a good look at his face. But the rector still had his strength.

  Sliding his gun back in his pocket, the Knight moved calmly, almost serenely down the aisle, toward the ornate altar.

  “Help! Someone… please! Someone help me!” the rector, a sixty-year-old man with rosy cheeks, gasped as he ran, looking back at the frozen white mask, like a death mask, that followed him.

  There was a reason the Knight had picked a church, especially this church, dubbed “the Church of the Presidents” because every President since James Madison had worshiped here.

  It was the same with the homemade tattoo on the web of skin between his own thumb and pointer-finger. The Knight had finished the tattoo last night, using white ink since it was invisible to the naked eye. It took five needles, which he bundled together and dipped in ink, and four hours in total, puncturing his skin over and over, wiping away the blood.

  The only break he took was right after he had finished the first part—the initials. Then, from his pocket, he had pulled out a yellowed deck of playing cards, thumbing past the hearts, clubs, and diamonds, stopping on… Spades.

  In the dictionary, spades were defined as shovels. But when the four suits of cards were introduced centuries ago, each one had its own cryptic meaning. The spade wasn’t a tool to dig with. It was the point of a lance.

  The weapon of a knight.

  “I need help! Please… anyone!” the rector screamed, scrambling frantically and making a sharp right through the double doors and down the long hallway that led out of the sanctuary.

  The Knight’s pace was perfectly steady as he followed the curved hallway back toward the church offices. His breath puffed evenly against the white plaster mask.

  Up ahead, from around the corner, he heard a faint beep-beep-boop of a cell phone. The rector was trying to call 911.

  But like his hero, who had done this so long ago, the Knight left nothing to chance. The plastic gray device in his pocket was the size of a cell phone, and could kill any cell signal in a fifty-yard radius. Cell jammers were illegal in the United States. But they cost less than $200 on a UK website.

  Around the corner, where the main church offices began, there was a dull thud of a shoulder hitting wood: the rector realizing that the doorknob had been removed from the front door. Then the loud thunderclap of an office door slamming shut. The rector was hiding now, in one of the offices.

  In the distance, the faint sound of police sirens was getting louder. No way was the rector able to call 911, but even if he was, the maze had nothing but dead ends left.

  Looking right, then left, the Knight checked the antique parlor rooms that the church now used for AA meetings and for the “Date Night” services they held for local singles. This side of the building, known as the Parish House, was nearly as old as the church itself, but not nearly as well kept up. Throughout the main floor, every one of the tall cherry office doors was open. Except one.

  With a sharp twist of the oval brass doorknob, the Knight shoved the large door open. The sirens were definitely getting louder. In the far left corner, by the bookcase, the rector was crying, still trying to pry open the room’s only window, which the Knight had nailed shut hours earlier.

  Moving closer, the Knight glided past a glass case, never glancing at its beautiful collection of fifty antique crosses mounted on red velvet.

  “You can’t do this! God will never fo
rgive you!” the rector pleaded.

  The Knight stepped toward him, taking hold of the rector’s shattered shoulder. Under the mask, he rolled a butterscotch candy around his tongue. From his belt, he pulled out a knife.

  One side of his blade had the words “Land of the Free/Home of the Brave,” etched in acid, while the other side was etched with “Liberty/Independence.” Just like the one his hero had over a century ago.

  Taking a final breath that gave him a sense of weightlessness, he clenched his butterscotch candy in the vise of his back teeth.

  “W-Why’re you doing this?” the rector pleaded as the sirens grew deafening.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” The Knight raised his knife and plunged it straight into the rector’s throat. The butterscotch candy cracked in half. “I’m getting ready for the President of the United States.”

  2

  There are stories no one knows. Hidden stories.

  I love those stories. And since I work in the National Archives, I find those stories for a living. But at 7:30 in the morning, as the elevator doors slide open and I scan the quiet fourth-floor hallway, I’m starting to realize that some of those stories are even more hidden than I thought.

  “Nothing?” Tot asks, waiting for me outside our office. The way he’s rolling his finger into his overgrown beard, he knows the answer.

  “Less than nothing,” I confirm, holding a file folder in my gloved open palms and double-checking to make sure we’re alone.

  Aristotle “Tot” Westman is my mentor here at the Archives, and the one who taught me that the best archivists are the ones who never stop searching. At seventy-two years old, he’s had plenty of practice.

  He’s also the one who invited me into the Culper Ring.

  The Ring was started by George Washington.

  I know. I had the same reaction. But yes, that George Washington.