The President's Shadow Read online

  “They protect the Presidency,” Marshall gasped. The thorn in his lung felt like it was slicing downward.

  “They try to protect the Presidency. But everything has its limits. In the end, Hickey was found guilty and became the first person to be executed for treason in what would be these United States. To send a clear message, George Washington made every member of the military attend the hanging. Twenty thousand men watched as Hickey swung by his snapped neck. Fair punishment, right? Except for this: Hickey was the only one punished. The other conspirators—the mayor, even the governor—all the big shots—walked free. As usual. Some say it’s because there wasn’t enough evidence, others say Washington didn’t want another political fight.”

  “If you have a point, make it.”

  “I looked you up, Marshall. Three years in the marines, then dismissed for not following orders and conduct unbecoming an officer. They asked you to do something you didn’t like, didn’t they? Is that how you got those burns, or did they come from civilian life?”

  Still on his belly, Marshall held tight to his wound, his heart beating through his armpit. He scanned around for the gun, but he saw nothing but broken glass.

  “The military trained you well, though. So let’s stick with that training,” Ezra added. “What’s the most important punch in a fight?”

  Marshall didn’t answer.

  “You know this: the first one,” Ezra said. “So when Governor Tryon’s group tried to kill George Washington—and got to walk away scot-free!—let’s just say not every member of the Culper Ring thought they should be so forgiving. Don’t forget, this was 1776. The height of the Revolutionary War. Think of the stakes. They took a potshot at our leader. If you’re trying to keep our country safe, do you turn the other cheek…or do you answer them back and let them know they can’t do that again? Within the Ring, the men began to talk. And as with any group, it’s like a plate glass window—once there’s a fracture, it slowly begins to spread…until eventually, there’s a break.”

  “I get it,” Marshall grunted through gritted teeth, trying to remember his training. “That splinter group became the Knights of the Golden Circle.”

  “You make it sound so simple. I’m not sure they even had a name back then. They were just a few men in the back room of a tavern. Then they added a few more men. Then they had their own meetings, their own discussions. And finally, their own solutions.

  “A few years later, Governor Tryon was found dead from an unnamed illness. And y’know who else was found dead? His son, then his daughter. Tryon’s group never threatened our country again.”

  Down on the ground, Marshall stared at the stain of blood that was widening across his shirt. “There’s no victory in murdering children.”

  “There’s also no victory in having your enemies slit your throat in the middle of the night. Don’t act like you don’t understand. As a marine, you took an oath to keep this country safe. For over two hundred years, the Knights have done the same thing—by staying in the shadows and taking on the battles no one else wants,” Ezra explained, his voice picking up speed.

  “Look at…look at…look at the end of World War II. The U.S. government was spending millions recruiting the Nazis’ top scientists to keep them from working for our enemies. At one point, four of the Nazis’ senior bomb-builders were trying to sneak into the Soviet Union. Three others were making their way to our then-enemies in Egypt. Thanks to the Knights, none of them made it. Was that a hard decision? Absolutely. But was it the right decision? The safety of two hundred million Americans versus seven backstabbing Nazis determined to kill us? What would you have done, Marshall?” he asked. “The only reason this country’s been able to live in peace for so long is because someone’s out there making those tough choices.”

  “I liked your speech better when Jack Nicholson was up on that wall, shouting it at Tom Cruise.”

  “Don’t pretend you’re not who you are. Soldiers are always soldiers. They need the fight.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “I’m right. I see the way you’re no longer searching under the car, trying to find your gun. You’re no longer picking apart what I’m wearing. Look me in the eye and tell me you’re not thinking about the Knights’ mission. Right before 9/11, in the hours before those planes flew into the World Trade Center, hundreds of Saudi families left the U.S. in the middle of the night, like they knew what was coming. The Saudi government, with all their oil, walked away scot-free under sovereign immunity. You think that’s the right reaction by our leaders? Is that the country we’re supposed to be?”

  Marshall’s only answer was the huffing of his breath.

  “I know you’ve wrestled with those same hard decisions. You brought that gun with you today,” Ezra said. “When you came here with Clementine, were you planning to put me under citizen’s arrest, or a solution grounded in a bit more justice?”

  For a full minute, Marshall stayed silent. He rolled onto his side, feeling the thorn in his lung. “You said the Culper Ring hunted the Knights. Why?”

  “Jack Ruby.”

  Marshall scowled. “You’re officially insane.”

  “Trust me, when I read the diaries, I was just as doubtful. But you need to understand, for over two hundred years, from John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey Oswald, there have always been those who have used the Knights’ name for their own benefit. Booth claimed to be a Knight, though most think it was just a distraction. Oswald was rumored to be one too. Neither of them were true Knights. But in those days after JFK’s death, while our country was still reeling from watching the President’s head explode, LBJ didn’t turn to the Culper Ring. He turned to the Knights and called on a man who would become one of our most famous members.”

  “You’re saying Jack Ruby was a Knight?”

  “He did what had to be done to keep this country safe. Look at the facts: If Ruby hadn’t fired that famous shot, young communist Lee Harvey Oswald would’ve had a trial that dragged on for months, where he’d rant against our government and pull our attention away from the Soviet threat. Can you imagine putting Jackie Kennedy on the witness stand, where the sleaziest defense lawyers in the world would’ve turned her into a sobbing mess as they forced her to watch, along with the rest of us, the exact moment when her young husband’s brain was spit across her bright pink suit? C’mon, Marshall, answer me honestly: With the Cold War at stake, what was truly better for our country: spending another year reliving JFK’s assassination and being emotionally torn apart, or putting the entire incident squarely behind us?”

  Down on the ground, Marshall stared at Ezra, not saying a word. But he still heard the advice his captain had given him when he first enlisted: I’d rather be judged by eight of my peers than carried in a coffin by eight of them.

  “We can’t change who we are,” Ezra added. “You’re different than Beecher. You see what he’ll never see. My grandfather saw it too. The Culper Ring is a perfectly designed shield. And sometimes the President needs a shield to protect him. But sometimes he needs something more aggressive. Something from the shadows.”

  Silent, Marshall managed a small grin.

  “I know you see it. I knew you would. So let me make it official,” Ezra said, reaching his hand out to help Marshall up. “Will you join me as a member of the Kn—?”

  The gun erupted with a pop, and a burst of blood catapulted forward. Ezra never saw it coming. He was in mid-turn as Clementine stood behind him, swaying and fighting to stand as she pulled the trigger. The bullet should’ve hit Ezra in the back of the head, but as he spun, it blazed through his right cheek, splitting the skin and taking some bone with it.

  “Ahhhh! My face!” Ezra screamed, stumbling forward and tripping over Marshall, who could barely hold his head up. “You crazy bitch! I’ll kill you!”

  As Ezra continued to stagger, Marshall rolled onto his back, revealing a wide pool of blood below him.

  “Please tell me you know he’s full of shit,” Clementine stu
ttered, limping toward Marshall.

  “S-Shoot him again. Don’t let him go,” Marshall insisted. His face was gray. Each breath was a hard wheeze.

  Struggling to keep her balance, Clementine pulled the trigger again, her bald head shiny with sweat. The shot missed, and a neighboring storefront’s glass window shattered. An alarm screamed. That would bring the police.

  She stumbled over to Marshall, kneeling at his side. “Oh God—what’d he do to you?” The blood kept coming, pouring from his armpit.

  “Don’t…don’t let him go!” Marshall yelled, trying to move, but getting nowhere.

  In the distance, Ezra turned the corner, still clutching his face as he ran from the plaza. Clementine’s own legs were throbbing. Her face and arms were dotted with cuts. She could either give chase or help Marshall. It was no choice at all.

  Hobbling and darting for the herbal shop, which had bandages and medical supplies, Clementine yanked on the door. But as she stepped inside and was embraced by the smell of sandalwood incense, there was no sign of the nurse in the sage green uniform. Or her white cat.

  “Please, I need help!” Clementine screamed, tasting her own blood in her mouth. Don’t pass out, she told herself. “Someone’s been shot!”

  No one answered.

  Wasting no time, Clementine speed-limped, doing her best to run to the breakroom in back. The refrigerator door that hid the sterile area was wide open. Yet it wasn’t until Clementine stepped inside that she remembered: That door’s never open.

  “Mrrrr,” the skinny white cat murmured from the far left-hand corner.

  Clementine jumped at the sound, spinning to find the chubby Asian doctor hunched facedown over the rolling medical cart. The nurse in the sage green uniform was right next to him, facedown over the makeshift dental chair. A thin but crooked dark line ran down both their spines, seeping though the back of their shirts like a skunk stripe.

  Blood. From the wet black holes in the back of their heads, neither had known what hit them.

  “Prrrd,” the cat called out in a trilling sound that was more insistent. At the nurse’s left foot, there was a splatter of blood. The cat kept circling near it, trying to get closer to her owner, yet avoiding the blood.

  Sirens sounded in the distance.

  Run! Clementine told herself. But instead, her first instinct was…

  “C’mere!” she called out, her whole body aching as she scooped up the cat and held him against her chest. Behind her, the drug closet was locked. She rummaged through a few open cabinets, grabbing bandages, gauze, and anything else that looked helpful.

  “Don’t fight me, cat!” she warned. As she hobbled back through the herbal shop and out the front door, the sirens doubled in intensity.

  “Marshall, we need to go,” she called out, reaching down and grabbing the metal bridge with her fake teeth. She tossed everything, including the cat, into her rental car’s open window.

  Marshall didn’t move. His face was pasty, his half-open eyes looking waxy and wet, like he wasn’t in there.

  “Marsh, don’t do that! Don’t leave me!” Clementine shouted, grabbing him by his good arm and trying to drag him toward the car. He was too heavy.

  The sirens were only getting louder.

  64

  Baltimore, Maryland

  And you’re sure you didn’t see him?” Director Riestra asked.

  “You think I don’t know what he looks like?” A.J. pushed back. “I checked the alley myself. Both of them,” he added, pointing to each of the empty brick alleyways. Truth is, A.J. was still surprised at his decision to let Beecher go. He hadn’t planned it. Like any hasty choice, it’d been more gut than brains. “If Beecher was here, he already got away.”

  “You keep saying that. But when I got in the apartment, Mrs. Young’s bedroom window was still open. She said Beecher had just run out.”

  “And again, maybe he went up to the roof. Maybe he’s faster than we thought. I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  Riestra readjusted his round eyeglasses, then made a little popping noise with his mouth. “For me, y’know what the greatest feature of the Secret Service is, A.J? Our exactitude. When you’re on protective detail, it’s a perfectly oiled machine. You do eight-hour shifts, then you get to go home for a rest, then, to make sure you’re always fresh, you come back and rotate to a new position where you start all over and do it again. Morning shift, afternoon shift, midnight shift. It’s like a Model T Ford. Whatever part you’re plugged into, the machine works exactly the same.

  “Of course, we have to keep an eye on the rotation system. So sometimes you work the one-spot and get to be on the left shoulder of the President, sometimes you do advance work before he gets there, and sometimes you’re stuck babysitting the press or watching monitors in a basement,” Riestra added. “But when I looked at the past few weeks, you know what I found? You, A.J., always seemed to pull that one-spot. Day after day, week after week, you always got that same assignment: left shoulder of the President. And when I dug a little deeper, do you know why you got that spot?”

  A.J. stood there, his posture stiff as oak. In a corner of the alley, a swirl of dead leaves spun in a mini-whirlwind.

  “I looked it up; it was fascinating,” Riestra said. “You got that spot because the chief of staff personally put in a request for you. But y’know what I also know? The chief of staff doesn’t know you all that well, which tells me that that request came from someone even higher up the totem pole. And considering how high the chief of staff sits, well…who else does that really leave to make a request like that?”

  “Sir, I’m not sure what you’re—”

  “You’re in my damn way, asshole. I know you’re lying about Beecher. I know you saw him come off that fire escape. So whatever private thing you’ve got going with the President—I don’t care if he keeps you around so you can go down on him every day—”

  “Sir, that’s not—”

  Riestra grabbed A.J.’s shoulder, pinching the skin on his neck hard. Pulling him close, Riestra whispered, “You have no idea how close you are to having the very worst day of your life. I don’t care if you know God Almighty. When I ask you something, don’t lie to me. We clear?”

  A.J. nodded. He smelled cigarettes on Riestra’s breath.

  “I’m putting you back on training duty,” Riestra added, storming toward the front of the building. “If Wallace wants you, he can come get you.”

  Standing there in the alley, mentally replaying the slow-motion end of his career, A.J. wasn’t surprised. This day had been coming. From the moment the President had asked him for that first favor back in Ohio, A.J. had known he was out on a moral tightrope. It’s hard to say no when the most powerful man in the world asks you personally. But with each passing request, that rope was slowly twisting into a noose.

  A.J. was tempted to call Francy, or former White House doctor Stewart Palmiotti, or even the private number that would connect him to Wallace himself. Instead he stood there, drenched in the alchemy of loss and embarrassed relief that follows the death of someone who’d been suffering for too long. In the corner, the whirlwind of leaves continued to swirl. At the far end of the alley, Director Riestra headed for his black sedan.

  It was that annoying little detail—of Riestra ducking into his car—that floated there, nipping at the back of A.J.’s brain. If Director Riestra cared about the buried arms, shouldn’t he be upstairs, talking to Mrs. Young? Shouldn’t he be getting more details about the victim? Instead, the director of the Secret Service got in his car—alone, without his own chief of staff—and drove away.

  Huh, A.J. thought. There’s one other person who would really want to know that.

  65

  Twenty-nine years ago

  Devil’s Island

  Today it was the cannons. Just as it had been the day before, and the day before that.

  “Here, use this,” the marine guard named Dominic said, handing Alby a long metal pole with a mo
on-shaped metal scraper at the end of it.

  For three days now, the Plankholders had been in charge of cleaning and restoring the island’s twenty-five-ton Rodman cannons. Back during the Civil War, only 320 of these massive cannons had been produced. Fort Jefferson had six—all still intact—one at each of the six bastions, pointed out from the roof of the six-sided fort.

  Back then, each cannon could fire a cannonball over three miles, all the way to Loggerhead Key, making these the most powerful guns in existence. During the 1900s, the iron carriages that they were mounted on were sold off as scrap metal by the military. But since the cannons themselves were too heavy to move, they’d been sitting here, rusting in the salty, sandy terreplein for decades.

  Three days ago, Alby and the Plankholders had used hydraulic jacks to prop each cannon up, one by one, then wedged stacks of wood under them so they could roll them onto granite blocks and point them even farther out over the parapets.

  Two days ago, they’d used hammers and putty knives to scrape away the rust pustules and half-inch-thick corrosion that coated the exterior surface of each cannon, especially where it’d been lying in the sand.

  Today, six of them, including Alby and Nico, were armed with long moon-shaped scrapers, which they’d use like giant Q-tips to reach into the fourteen-foot-deep mouth of each cannon. One cannon was filled with dead birds and crabs. Another had ancient bottles in it. All had thick coats of rat droppings and plant debris. For six hours, Alby baked in the sun, fighting to scrape it all away.

  According to the guard, when they finished, a small electronic device the size of a shoebox would be inserted into each cannon, then the muzzle would be covered. Supposedly, it’d help them track any changes in the cannon’s temperature or humidity, for preservation purposes. They’d know if an animal got inside. Or even a dead body, Dominic explained with his panting laugh.