The Fifth Assassin Read online

  Instead, as the sun faded from the sky, Marshall pulled his SUV around to the back of Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Most people knew Walter Reed for its hospital. A few, like Beecher, knew it housed a medical museum. But what most people forgot was that, like any army facility of its size, Walter Reed also had barracks and apartments. Soldiers lived here. And made a mess here. And needed that mess cleaned up by a privately run garbage service, which, true to army form, arrived and exited through a maintenance entrance around back. There was no guard stationed there, just a gate with a well-hidden keypad. Sometimes, even generals wanted to come and go without being seen.

  None of it was news to Marshall. He’d been here two weeks ago, in the exact same spot: standing outside the metal gate, eyeing the keypad.

  Electric gates like this all operated over radio frequency, usually between 300 and 433 megahertz. But to get inside, you didn’t need to find some top-secret frequency. You simply needed a way into the powder-coated metal access box below the keypad.

  Fortunately, Marshall was good with locks. As good as anyone. With nothing more than two slivers of metal, the tiny lock turned and the access box popped open, revealing a circuit board. From there, it was like operating a light switch. When you flip a light switch on, a small piece of metal is lowered into place, connecting two wires. When that connection happens, the power starts flowing.

  It was no different here. Holding a strip of eighteen-gauge wire that was thinner than a paper clip, Marshall touched it to two metal screws on the circuit board. As the electricity began to flow, the metal gate jumped, then rolled wide open.

  Same as two weeks ago.

  Stepping inside, Marshall didn’t even attempt to hide. This was a nearly empty army facility. How hard could it be to find a 1966 pale blue Mustang?

  40

  All around us, the display cases of the museum are covered with white sheets. Cardboard boxes are stacked like crooked pillars in every corner. The museum is in the process of moving. At the center of the room, Tot and I are both staring down, squinting into one of the few uncovered glass cases, like the ones that hold jewelry at department stores. But what’s inside is far more valuable than diamonds.

  The two circular flat velvet discs have their own glass tops. Little flecks of white sit at the center of each disc: They look like human teeth that’re broken in half. There’s a larger chunk too.

  “Abraham Lincoln,” I whisper.

  “Abraham Lincoln’s skull,” Dale clarifies, showing that, like every archivist, she’s a stickler as she points down at the old bone fragments. “Or at least what’s left of it.”

  “Why do you even have this?” I ask, unable to look away.

  “That’s what we do,” Dale says, sounding almost cocky as she runs her fingers down the Def Leppard lanyard that holds her ID around her neck. As she twirls it, I spot a stack of concert tickets tucked behind her ID. I’m not gonna ask. “Back in 1862, when they founded us as the Army Medical Museum, our job was to document the effects of war on the human body. So the Smithsonian was sent all the cultural items. And we were sent all the human body parts, including the pieces of Abraham Lincoln.”

  “And the shirt with his blood on it. And the bullet,” I say excitedly as I race from case to case. Speed-reading as I go, I can’t help but think that the exhibit would be better served if it started with—

  There it is. The final item in the final case: the small silver slug of metal that resembles a wobbly lead gumball.

  The bullet that killed Abraham Lincoln.

  “Tot, you need to see this.”

  He’s back by the open doors of the exhibit. “Do I need to close these?” he calls out.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Dale says with a wave. “We’re the only ones here.” Following behind me, she motions down to the bullet.

  I hold my breath as I read the description. This handmade ball of lead, fired from a Philadelphia Derringer pistol, was removed from Lincoln’s brain during autopsy by Dr. Edward Curtis.

  Dale doesn’t say a word. Dr. Curtis’s own words are laminated on a card just below the bullet, in a letter he wrote to his mother. He explains that when they took out Lincoln’s brain to track down the bullet, he was lifting the brain from the skull and suddenly the bullet dropped out through my fingers and fell, breaking the solemn silence of the room with its clatter, into an empty basin that was standing beneath. There it lay upon the white china, a little black mass no bigger than the end of my finger—dull, motionless and harmless, yet the cause of such mighty changes in the world’s history as we may perhaps never realize.

  I’m still holding my breath. On my left, Dale isn’t playing with her lanyard anymore. Even today, there’s no way to know all the changes to history that came from John Wilkes Booth’s actions that day. But whoever’s killing these pastors now, if they really are working toward the current President, I can’t help but think they’ve got their own idea.

  “Tell me about the Lincoln mask,” I say, finally breaking the silence.

  Pointing us to the left, toward a nearby case, Dale yanks on the eggshell-colored sheet, revealing another glass museum case. An empty one.

  “I came in two weeks ago and—poof—it was gone.” From a nearby display case, Dale grabs a file folder, flips it open, and pulls out a blown-up color photo of what used to be in this case: a plaster mask. There’s no mistaking who it is—the pointy nose, the high cheekbones—even in full plaster, we all know Abraham Lincoln. But unlike the mask from Marshall’s apartment, the one in this photo has plaster over the eyes. Marshall’s had holes cut into it. So someone could see through it. More important, this one is yellowed and old. Marshall’s was pristine and white.

  “Look familiar?” Tot asks, as I replay what Marshall told me. That he supposedly found the mask in a garbage can a few blocks from the crime.

  “Dale, if someone stole the mask, how hard would it be to make another cast from it?” Tot adds, already knowing what I’m thinking.

  “That was the whole point. Once the cast existed, people could use it to make busts of the President without having to bother him. They even used it to make the big statue in the Lincoln Memorial. What’s odd is, ours is just a copy of the original.”

  “So what you’re saying is that this mask isn’t even the most valuable thing here?” Tot interrupts in a tone that tells me he already knows the answer.

  “Exactly… okeeyeah… that’s exactly my point!” Dale insists a bit too enthusiastically as she readjusts her glasses. “Lincoln’s bone fragments and the bullet that killed him, those things are priceless. But to take a reproduction plaster mask and some random pieces of Booth. How does that make any—?”

  “Booth?” I blurt. “You mean as in John Wilkes Booth?”

  Dale looks at Tot, then over at me. “Back then, in the 1860s,” she explains, “we were sent everybody.”

  “So you also have pieces of John Wilkes Booth,” Tot says, full of fake excitement. “And those pieces were stolen too?”

  Tot’s not stupid. He knew about the Lincoln mask and the Booth part long before we got here. But for him to keep the Booth part from me… to hold it back… I’ve known Tot since my very first day at the Archives. In the Culper Ring, I put my life in his hands. Why would he lie about—?

  He shoots me a look and I get the rest.

  Marshall.

  Back at the restaurant, he was worried I’d tell Marshall.

  You’re wrong, I say to him with just a dirty look.

  Doesn’t matter, he replies with his own look.

  But it does. Trust always matters.

  “Can we see it?” Tot asks, motioning for Dale to lead the way.

  “Absolutely,” she says, her Def Leppard lanyard twirling as she leads us to the last remaining body parts of John Wilkes Booth.

  41

  St. Elizabeths Hospital

  Washington, D.C.

  Nico knew all about steganography, which was Greek for hidden writing.

  H
e knew of its history in ancient Greece, where they wrote messages on wooden tablets, then covered the tablet in wax, which made it look blank. It wasn’t until the tablet was delivered and the wax was scraped away that the hidden message was revealed.

  Nico knew that’s what made it different from cryptography, which was all about secret codes. Steganography had nothing to do with codes. In steganography, the message isn’t scrambled. It’s simply hidden so no one knows you’re sending a message at all.

  “You’re joking, right?” Nurse Karina asked as she stood behind Nico.

  Nurse Rupert didn’t bother to answer, standing right next to her.

  Ignoring them both with his back to them, Nico sat at a blond wooden desk, staring blankly at a computer screen, both of his palms flat on the desk. Along the left wall of the room was a working stove, a microwave, a washer/dryer, and a toilet, each item right next to the other.

  The room was used for ADL skills—Activities for Daily Living—which meant that patients came in here to learn how to survive in the actual world. Staff taught them how to turn on a stove, wash their clothes, and even the most basic of tasks, like keeping a clean toilet.

  For a few patients, including Nico, it also included minor computer privileges.

  “And that’s what he likes?” Karina whispered.

  “That’s it. It’s his favorite,” Rupert replied.

  From the angle they were at, they had a clear view of Nico’s monitor, which held a YouTube video called “Cutey Cute Lester.”

  Onscreen, a fluffy and adorable tabby kitten named Lester rolled back and forth across a plush gray carpet, like he had an itch he couldn’t reach. In the background, the cat’s owner tapped his foot, laughing along with him.

  “So the man who shot the President also likes cat videos?” Karina asked.

  “Sometimes he prefers one called ‘I’m Just a Cat and I’m Doing Cat Stuff.’ Though personally, I prefer Lester. Look at that range…”

  Onscreen, Lester the kitten was stretched out on his back, his front left paw looking like it was waving right at the viewer.

  Nico stared at the screen, thinking of ancient Greece, where Herodotus told the story of a secret message that was tattooed onto the shaved head of a slave and concealed by his grown-back hair. The message stayed hidden until the slave arrived at his destination and shaved his head again. Perfect steganography.

  Almost as perfect as George Washington using invisible ink and writing between the lines of his own handwritten letters.

  Almost as perfect as what Nico—and the dead First Lady—were staring at today. The video uploaded by a user named LedParadis27.

  “That’s all he does? He sits here and watches cat videos?” Karina asked.

  “We call it his kitty porn. But yeah—ever since they stopped letting him feed the cats next door, you wanna keep Nico calm, this is how you do it.”

  “So how long does he—?”

  Before Karina could finish, Nico stood from his seat, picked up his book, and headed past them.

  “I need to go to the bathroom,” he announced, the dead First Lady right behind him.

  “I think it’s on the left… down the hall,” Rupert said, pointing him out into the main section of the clinic. The building was still new to them all. “Oh, and Nico—y’know you can leave the book here if you want.”

  Nico looked at him blankly. Then he looked at the female nurse.

  Saying nothing, Nico headed for the restroom that was just down the hall. Onscreen, the kitty named Lester was still rolling and wriggling wildly, fighting to scratch the itch on his back. All the while, the cat’s owner tapped his foot, presumably laughing.

  Yes, Nico knew all about steganography. And now, thanks to the Knight, he finally had the newest message.

  Flicking his ten of spades bookmark, all he had to do was write back.

  42

  As the lock clicks and the metal door slowly yawns open, the smell hits me first.

  It’s bitter, like vinegar mixed with mothballs and the smell of rain. I know it immediately. Formaldehyde.

  The sign on the door reads Wet Tissue Room. I don’t know what wet tissues are, but I’m sure this is what they smell like.

  “Sorry, I should’ve warned you,” Dale says, reading our expressions. “I don’t even smell it anymore.”

  Before I can reply, the motion sensor lights pop on, and the worst part hits: I see where the smell is coming from.

  There are jelly jars of all shapes and sizes—each filled with pale yellow fluid and stacked on shelf after shelf, from floor to ceiling. This is an archive. Just like the one Tot and I work in. But instead of books, these shelves… this whole room… it’s filled with—

  From inside the jelly jar, a mucusy gray ear is listening to our every word.

  “Now you know why we moved all the Booth stuff back here,” Dale explains as we reach the back corner of the room. “After the break-in—” She cuts herself off, stopping at a metal map cabinet. Like the ones we have at the Archives, it has a half dozen wide drawers that are only a few inches tall. “We figured, who’d be sick enough to break into here?”

  I keep my eyes locked on Dale, refusing to see the hundreds of pale yellow body parts that’re floating in the jelly jars all around us.

  “So you were saying about John Wilkes Booth?” I nudge.

  “Yeah. No. Sorry, we had two parts of him,” Dale says, pulling open the middle drawer of the map cabinet, which is lined with a thin sheet of white foam board. On it is a clear plastic cube with a brownish-white piece of bone preserved inside. Running diagonally through the bone is a bright, sky blue plastic probe.

  “Booth’s spinal cord,” Tot says as if he’s asking a question. But like before, he knows the answer.

  This time, though, so do I. After Booth was shot at Garrett’s Barn, they did a quick autopsy, then buried him secretly so he wouldn’t become a martyr. What I didn’t know was that they kept some of his body parts.

  “The blue probe shows the actual path of the bullet,” Dale adds, handing me the cube. “Many think that’s the actual killshot that did him in.”

  “So this is the prize of the collection,” Tot says.

  “Exactly, and like before, instead of taking the priceless artifact, they instead stole this…” From her file folder, she pulls out a color copy of a dark gray vertebra that’s mounted on a round wooden stand.

  “Booth’s cervical vertebra. He was hit there too,” I say, noticing where the bone is jagged and sharp.

  “Were there any signs of a break-in?” Tot asks.

  “That’s the thing,” Dale says. “No windows smashed, no doors kicked open, no fingerprints, no nothing. It’s like a ghost himself came in and walked off with everything.”

  Tot glances my way. He doesn’t have to say Marshall’s name. In the last forty-eight hours, who else have we encountered who knows how to break into a military installation?

  “Here’s what still doesn’t make sense, though,” Dale says. “Whoever it was that broke in, why’d they take a random Booth vertebra, but leave the far more priceless killshot?”

  “And why’d they take a replica Lincoln mask, but not the actual bullet that killed him?” Tot asks.

  “He wants them alive,” I blurt.

  They both turn my way.

  My eyes stare down at the plastic cube and the chunk of spine that’s locked within it.

  “I’m not following,” Tot says.

  “You said this was the killshot, right?” I ask, holding up the cube.

  Dale nods, just as confused.

  “And in your display case, the bullet that shot Lincoln. That was the killshot too, right? The bullet from Lincoln’s brain.”

  “He left both of those here,” Tot says, starting to see where I’m going.

  “But the plaster mask, even if it’s a replica… that was made when Lincoln was alive,” I point out. “And the same with this,” I add, motioning to the color photocopy of Booth’s stolen ve
rtebra. “Booth was alive when he got hit here.”

  “So you think whoever broke in is ignoring the pieces from when Lincoln and Booth were dead…” Tot says.

  “… and stealing the pieces from when they were alive,” I point out.

  Tot rolls his tongue inside his cheek. He’s not there yet. But he’s close. “Why, though?”

  “Y’mean besides the fact that you have to be utterly insane to steal people’s body parts? Think of yesterday at the church,” I say, referring to all the work the killer put into re-creating Booth’s crime. “Maybe he’s not just copying Booth. Maybe… I don’t know… what if he wants Booth alive?”

  “Or wants to be like him,” Tot points out.

  “Or be like all of them.”

  As the words leave my lips, there’s a faint noise from outside the closet.

  I stand up straight, turning at the sound.

  Tot shoots me a look. He heard it too.

  “That’s just our air conditioner,” Dale reassures us, adding a laugh. “It does that every time someone tells an old spooky story.”

  It’s an easy joke designed to calm us down, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling like there’s a snake coiled around my spine, slowly winding and climbing up my own vertebrae. It’s one thing to copy John Wilkes Booth, but to actually want to be that monster, or mimic him. I’m not sure what bothers me more: the thought of someone sick enough to even imagine such a thing… or the thought that that person might be Marshall.

  “It’s the same with Guiteau,” Dale adds, referring to the assassin who shot President Garfield.

  “Pardon?” Tot asks.

  “What you said, about stealing pieces from when Booth and Lincoln were alive… Whoever stole it, they did the same with Guiteau.”

  On my left, Tot again rolls his tongue inside his cheek. “You have Charles Guiteau’s body too.” He’s trying to act unsurprised. But I see the way he’s running his fingers down his bolo tie. He may’ve known about Lincoln—and Booth—but Tot had no clue that the body of President Garfield’s killer was also here.