The Fifth Assassin Read online

  Tot saw her legs first. She wasn’t moving. Just from the awkward way her knees were bent, Tot knew Chaplain Elizabeth Stoughton was dead.

  She was crumpled on her side—like she’d tried to curl into a fetal position, but never quite made it. At her stomach, a puddle of blood soaked her blouse, still blooming and growing up toward her chest and over toward her right breast.

  Next to her body, an older man with sandy blond hair was down on his knees, like he was hit too. He was breathing hard, trying to say something. Tot knew the man—from the photo Immaculate Deception had sent: the pastor who was shot yesterday. Pastor Frick. Time was twirled so tight, Tot barely heard him. It was all still underwater.

  Still, Tot saw his hands… they were up in the air. Like he was being robbed and someone was pointing a gun at him.

  “B-Behind you…” Pastor Frick cried, pointing behind Tot.

  Slowly turning, Tot looked over his own shoulder.

  It was too late.

  Pfft.

  The silenced gunshot bit like a hornet, drilling into Tot’s head. Right behind the ear. Just like JFK.

  A neat splat of blood spit against the nearby wall.

  Tot tried to yell something, but no words came out. As his knees gave way, he saw the Knight’s eyes, and it all made sense.

  The world blurred and tipped sideways. His bones felt like they were turned to salt. As Tot sank, deflated, onto the carpet, his last thoughts were still about the smell of coffee. And how good it’d be to finally see his wife.

  79

  Now

  Beecher, I need you out of there!” Immaculate Deception’s computerized voice barks through my phone.

  “But if Tot’s—If he’s been shot—”

  “You’re not listening to me, Beecher! Another pastor—the female one from the hospital—is dead! That’s the third victim! Tot’s the fourth! Four victims… If we’re right, you know who the Knight’s going after next!”

  My mind leaps back to the President—and to Marshall—and to the restaurant he was casing in Georgetown. “You need to look at Café Milano—see when Wallace is going there,” I blurt. “I’ll go to the hospital. If Tot needs help—”

  “You can’t help Tot now!” Mac explodes in full panic. “I spoke to the surgeon—the doctors just brought him in, but… the way the bullet entered his head—His heart’s beating, but his brain function… I don’t think they’re finding brain activity. You need to get out of there and—”

  “Nico, stay where you are!” the guard yells behind me.

  “S-Something’s wrong,” Nico whispers. “It was just here a moment ago. I saw it.”

  I spin back to the benches and the sycamore tree. Nico’s right where I left him. The guard’s a few feet behind him. But as Nico looks down and flips through the leather book he’s been holding…

  “My card—the bookmark,” Nico says. “I’m missing my playing card!”

  “Beecher, get outta there,” Immaculate Deception says.

  “He took it! Benjamin took it!” Nico insists, pointing at me. “He took my card!”

  “What? I didn’t take anything,” I say, backing away from Nico, toward the front of the building. “I don’t know what card you’re talking about.”

  “The playing card! You stole it! Wh-When I dropped my book… you picked it up and handed it back to me,” Nico growls, taking his first steps toward me.

  “Nico, don’t move!” the guard shouts, pulling a high-tech walkie-talkie from his belt. He doesn’t talk into it. He just pushes a button.

  On my right, through the glass windows that look back into the hospital’s main lobby, I see the guard who ran the X-ray rushing through the lobby. A male nurse is right behind him.

  As Nico starts plowing at me, I back up even farther, glancing around for Clementine…

  “I know you have my card!” Nico shouts.

  I check the benches, the trees, even around the corner of the building.

  Clementine’s nowhere to be seen.

  80

  Nico, if you don’t stop, you’re gonna lose ground privileges! Mail privileges too!” the guard yells from behind him.

  On my right, the X-ray guard and a male nurse come racing out of the hospital’s front doors.

  “Rupert, he stole my bookmark! He has my ace of clubs!” Nico yells at the nurse.

  “I swear to you—I don’t know what he’s talking about,” I say.

  The nurse takes one look at Nico, then turns back to me. “Empty your pockets,” the nurse tells me.

  “Me? I didn’t—?”

  “Empty them. Now.”

  Frozen at the front of the building, I reach into my pockets, pulling out my wallet, keys, and a small thumb drive that carries a backup of my computer. I do the same with my coat pockets. There’s chapstick, a set of gloves, and an old taxi receipt, but otherwise…

  “Nothing, see? Check them yourself,” I say, stepping toward the nurse.

  “Stay where you are,” the nurse warns, motioning me back.

  “He’s a liar!” Nico shouts.

  “Nico, I need you to get control,” the nurse says.

  “He has my card! Check his pockets!”

  “Please—check them again!” I insist.

  “Kid, I need you out of here. Nico, get control,” the nurse says, throwing a look to the nearby guard.

  Backing away, I’m already past the main doors, toward the concrete path that’ll take me to the parking lot. But as Nico starts to follow, the nurse and the guard grab him by the biceps…

  “He’s the Knave!” Nico growls. “Don’t you see!? You’re letting the Knave get away!”

  Breaking free from the nurse, Nico tries to run, but the X-ray guard has a stronger grip.

  I don’t care who wins this fight. I sprint toward the parking lot, fishing the car keys from my pocket.

  “I know you’re the Trickster, Benjamin. I know you have my card!” Nico roars as another guard arrives and they fight to drag him down. I hear an unnerving thud. Someone cries out in pain. As I turn the corner, into the gravel parking lot, I don’t even bother looking back.

  “Nico—!” the male nurse shouts.

  Skidding across the gravel and cutting between two parked cars, I dart for the small silver car I drove here. Clementine’s rental.

  I glance around, searching for Clementine. Still no sign of her, but I take an odd relief from the fact that if Tot was shot at the hospital at the exact same time that Clementine was here with me… that means she can’t be the Knight. She can’t. But at just the thought of it… Tot was shot!

  Inside my skin, I feel another, smaller version of me shrinking within myself. Please God, don’t let him die.

  With a pop of the locks, I rip the door open and slide inside as momentum sends my phone tumbling out of my grip and into the small gap between the seats.

  Stabbing the key into the ignition, I try to start the car, but my hands… my whole body… I can’t stop shaking or thinking of Tot.

  On my left, a hollow thud hits the driver’s-side window. I jump so high, my head smacks into the lowered sun visor.

  Tuuuump.

  I turn just as Nico’s fist collides with the glass. It hits at full speed, his knuckles flattening at the impact. He’s trying to punch his way in, though the car doesn’t budge. From the sound alone, it has to hurt—like punching concrete. Nico doesn’t feel it. But as he winds up for another punch, he’s pulled backward, off balance.

  The hospital guards grab him from behind, clutching his neck, his shoulders… anything to bring him down.

  Nico howls like a captured bear, still trying to stay on his feet.

  I slam the gas and a wave of loose gravel somersaults into the air.

  “You’re letting him go! Don’t let him go!” Nico pleads, still screaming as I take off and watch him slowly shrink in the rearview mirror.

  Skidding out of the parking lot and back onto the unpaved dirt road that runs toward the sign-in gate, I’m stil
l searching bushes… trees… anywhere for Clementine. I know I won’t find her.

  As I approach the small guardhouse, I slow down and add a friendly wave, praying that the guards who’re fighting Nico are still too busy to have put the word out.

  From the guardhouse, a uniformed guard waves back, but I still don’t take a breath until I reach the end of the dirt road, out of the hospital grounds, and turn back onto the main city street.

  Halfway up the block, I hit a red light and the car bucks to a stop. As I clutch the steering wheel, my heartbeat pumps in my fingertips. In the rearview, no one’s coming. No one’s following. I’m clear.

  “Beecher…! Beecher… you there!?” Immaculate Deception’s voice squawks from below the seat. My phone’s still on. “Beecher, you okay!?”

  I’m not okay.

  Tot was hit in the brain.

  Clementine’s missing.

  And the Knight—if I’m right—is about to try and kill the President of the United States.

  But as the traffic light blinks green, I keep hearing Nico’s words in my head: I know you’re the Trickster, Benjamin. I know you have my card!

  He’s wrong about me being the Trickster. But he is right about one thing.

  Reaching into my jacket pocket, inside one of my gloves, I pull out the single playing card with the familiar black club at the center of it. The one I palmed as I handed Nico his book.

  The ace of clubs.

  You were right, Nico—I’ve got your stupid card.

  And if I’m right about what’s hidden on it—and the fact that he was using it to communicate with the Knight—I may not be able to stop destiny…

  But I’ll be able to find out where the Knight is headed next.

  81

  Change of plans—everyone into your gear!” the shift leader called out as half a dozen suit-and-tied Secret Service agents poured into the command post that was just below the Oval Office.

  Sitting on one of the benches in the corner of the locker room, A.J. watched as his fellow agents scrambled around him, undoing their ties and kicking off their shoes. For any President, the schedule was set weeks in advance. To make even a minor change meant moving staff, security, press, advance teams, communication systems, and for off-site events—like today’s at the Lincoln Memorial—aerial and ground protection. So for the Service to be making all these last-minute changes on Presidents’ Day, something big was definitely going on.

  “He fighting with his wife again?” an agent with black hair and a chunky gold class ring from Ohio State asked.

  “No, this one came from headquarters,” another agent replied, pulling off his tie and hanging it in his locker.

  At this point, A.J. knew that word hadn’t trickled down to the field guys yet. But no question, the emergency cord had been pulled. It had to be. When the higher-ups heard that a third pastor had been killed—plus an old man who was shot in the back of the head like JFK—action had to be taken. The target needed to be moved.

  Naturally, Wallace again insisted on keeping to his schedule. He wanted to stick to the Lincoln Memorial event and the early meal that would precede it at Café Milano. But as the director of the Secret Service explained, there’s a reason the President isn’t in charge of his own protection.

  “I heard it’s a Class 3,” another agent called out, referring to the Service’s code name for a mentally unstable attacker.

  Another agent nodded. Based on where they were headed—to one of the few places more secure than the White House—someone was definitely trying to knock down the old man.

  Even so, as the agents approached their individual lockers, they weren’t panicking, yelling, or rushing around. They weren’t grabbing for guns or weapons or bulletproof vests. There’d be plenty of weapons waiting for them at their destination. In fact, at this moment, as the metal lockers clanged open, the only thing the agents were grabbing was a change of clothes. Suits and ties were being replaced by khakis and casual dress shirts, to match the attire of where they were going—the safest place to hide the leader of the free world, the same place they hid George W. Bush during the days after 9/11 and countless other Presidents during times of possible attacks: the private presidential compound known as Camp David.

  One by one, A.J. watched as the casually dressed team bolted from the room. The Secret Service was doing their part. And now A.J.—still wearing his suit and tie as he headed upstairs to the Oval—was ready to do his.

  82

  Nico thinks he’s smart.

  And he is.

  He’s smart enough to fool the doctors at St. Elizabeths, and the nurses, and to somehow pass secret messages—and clearly some advice—to the Knight who’s been killing pastors and imitating past assassins. And he’s smart enough to know that if he wants to keep those secret messages secret, he should hide them in something that no one would look at twice, like a playing card that he uses as a bookmark.

  But as I sit at my kitchen table, squinting down at the slightly beat-up ace of clubs and examining the front and back of it, I do everything I can to put Tot out of my mind. Mac said he’s still in surgery. He said I shouldn’t come to the hospital, that the best way for me to help was this—with the card—especially as I think about the leather book that Nico was hiding it in.

  I saw it when he first put it down on the glass table in the public meeting area. It wasn’t a history book. It was a novel from the early 1900s—a bestseller called Looking Backward. In it, a young Bostonian named Julian West goes to sleep in 1887 and wakes up in the utopia of the year 2000. But the only reason I know the book—or why anyone still remembers it—is because, as I learned last night when I looked up the third attack, it was the favorite novel of assassin Leon Czolgosz. Looking Backward was the book he read and reread for eight years, right up until it inspired him to kill President McKinley.

  Yet as I study the nicked and slightly bent ace of clubs, the only thing I really care about is whatever message I have to believe is hidden in it somewhere. When I first met Nico, he told me he was the reincarnation of George Washington. That was his way of telling me how special he is. But it’s also my way of knowing how Nico thinks.

  Back during the Revolutionary War, no one was better at sending secret correspondence than George Washington. As the leader of the Culper Ring, he helped invent numbered codes that were so uncrackable, versions of them are still in use by the CIA to this day. He used hourglass-shaped masks that, when placed on top of a handwritten letter, would block out certain sections of the letter to reveal a hidden message.

  But George Washington’s favorite magic trick was always the same: invisible ink. As I learned when I first joined the Culper Ring, invisible ink dates back thousands of years, from Egypt to China, using organic liquids like the juice from leeks or limes. Indeed, as every kid in a science fair knows, all you need to do is heat the paper, and voilà—you’ll see the hidden writing. But as Washington understood, it’s not much of a secret when all you need to crack it is a nearby candle.

  As a result, Washington and the first members of the Culper Ring got rid of the heating process and changed it to a chemical one. Washington would write in an invisible ink, called the agent. And when the recipient applied a different chemical, called the reagent, it’d reveal the hidden message. As long as the British didn’t have the reagent, they’d never crack the code.

  As I raced back home, Immaculate Deception said that I should pour lime juice, lemon juice, any juice I could find across the front of the ace of clubs. But he’s missing the point.

  No question, Nico’s not doing this alone. Whether Marshall is the Knight or not, Nico must be getting help from someone in the hospital. Someone is sneaking these cards to him, or at least sneaking him books with new cards tucked inside them. But that doesn’t mean Nico can get whatever liquid or juice he needs at the exact moment he needs it. No, for Nico to really communicate with the Knight, he needs a reagent that’s always available. And that’s when it hits me. Forget lime
juice, lemon juice, or even apple juice—even in an insane asylum—there’s only one liquid that Nico always has access to.

  Grabbing a nearby piece of Tupperware, I race to the bathroom and unzip my pants. One short but incredibly satisfying pee later, the Tupperware is filled with warm urine that sloshes in a mini-tide as I carefully make my way back to the kitchen.

  Standing over the sink, I lower the ace of clubs into the Tupperware. Nothing happens. Nothing at all. And then…

  Pale purple letters bloom upward, like alphabet soup letters rising from the broth.

  There’s no cryptic warning. No special instructions. Just two words that make me feel like someone’s using a hole-punch on my stomach.

  I read them again, and again. I don’t know if Nico was sending them to the Knight or, more likely, that the Knight is somehow bragging to Nico, but I do know this: These two words were intended for only Nico and the Knight to see—the location where the Knight plans to make his final stand.

  Camp David.

  83

  A.J. watched the entire argument.

  Of course, the President didn’t participate in the argument. He was at his desk, signing letters with his head down. No, when it came to the big arguments with the Secret Service, Wallace had staff wade into the mud.

  Within seconds, those staffers were livid. The heads of the Service weren’t surprised. Staff was always annoyed when they heard POTUS wouldn’t be where they wanted him.

  But as the chief of staff pointed out, this wasn’t just about Wallace’s safety. It was about the entire country. As they all knew, the President’s schedule was published every day for the world to see. So when the press suddenly spots members of the White House Military Office out on the South Lawn, rolling out three giant circles with huge Xs on them… and then a Black Hawk helicopter armed with missiles and countermeasures swoops in, takes the President and his family out of there, and upends said schedule with no notice… there’s not a person on this planet who won’t know something is intensely wrong.