The First Assassin (13 page)

Rook raised his hand to his mouth so nobody could read his lips. “Keep moving forward,” he said.

He and Clark walked past the stairs. Now their backs were to Davis and Stephens. If the Southerners were testing them, turning around would blow their cover. If they kept walking, however, they might lose their quarry for good. Rook knew he had to make a decision. He casually stuck his hand in a pocket and found a penny.

All of a sudden, he halted and bent over. “Look at this,” he said, trying to sound surprised as he touched the ground. He made a great show of holding up the penny, as if he wanted to study its design in the light. From the corner of his eye he was able to see the top of the steps. He could see the soldiers, but not Davis and Stephens. Rook and Clark raced up the steps, taking two at a time. “This isn’t going to be easy indoors,” said Rook when they arrived at the top.

They passed through a doorway and almost immediately were in the Capitol’s rotunda, which was open to the sky. A massive wooden scaffolding rose from the center of the room, reaching toward the hole where the dome was supposed to rest. More than a hundred feet above his head, Rook could see a few men clinging to the planks and moving a giant crane. They were continuing the slow work of construction. President Lincoln had insisted that their efforts not stop, because they held symbolic importance to a divided nation.

As Rook gazed at the scene overhead, he saw one of the workers move off the scaffolding, grab a rope attached to a cornice, and lower himself to the ground in a matter of seconds. To the colonel, it was an incredible feat of acrobatics. He had seen it before, but it still impressed him. Others in the room had become used to it. Just a few feet from where the fellow had landed, a group of soldiers did not even look up from their card game. Elsewhere, men occupied themselves by reading and napping.

Rook studied the scene for a moment but did not see Davis or Stephens immediately. “There they are,” whispered Clark. “On the far side of the scaffolding.”

Davis was running his hand along a thick beam supporting the crane. He pointed upward and said something to Stephens. It appeared as if they were thinking about climbing the steps that spiraled up the middle of the scaffold. Then Davis shook his head. The Southerners studied the rotunda for a few more minutes. Rook tried to stay out of view. Then he realized they were not looking at people. They were examining the room itself. When they were done, they exited through an opening on Rook’s left, which led toward the House of Representatives, on the south side of the building.

Rook did not want to follow them too closely, so he stood still for a moment and then moved cautiously toward the passageway with Clark. When they got there, Rook stood to one side, gestured for Clark to stay back, and peered down a long corridor. Soldiers were hammering wooden boards into place along both sides of the hall, apparently to protect the statues that lined it. Rook could see all the way to the House doors, but Davis and Stephens were nowhere in sight. Could they have gone so far in so little time?

Before Rook had a chance to wonder where they went, he heard the patter of footsteps on his right. In his haste, he had overlooked a small doorway that led to a curving staircase. Davis and Stephens must have used it. But had they gone up or down? He could not tell. He supposed it was even possible that they had separated. Rook knew from previous visits to the Capitol that up led to congressional offices and down led to the basement. He went up and ordered Clark down.

Compared to the grand space of the rotunda and the long hallway to the House of Representatives, the staircase was cramped. Rook could see only a dozen or so steps in each direction before they curved out of view. He climbed cautiously, not wanting to bump into Davis and Stephens. He also treaded lightly, not wanting to make a sound.

The staircase led to new opening, where a private stood at attention. He was the first soldier Rook had seen that day in the Capitol who actually appeared to be on duty. He could not have been a day older than twenty years.

“Excuse me,” said Rook, “did a couple of men come this way just now?”

“No, sir,” said the soldier. “It’s been quiet up here for a while.”

Rook offered a swift word of thanks, turned around, and descended the winding staircase. A moment later, he was with Clark in the Capitol basement. A long hallway stretched to the right. On their left, a large room occupied the space directly below the rotunda. It was full of thick support columns. The light was poor. They heard someone talking in a part of the room they could not see.

“…and they’re planning to build a set of bakery ovens over here.”

Rook recognized the voice of Lieutenant Easley, a man assigned as a liaison to the troops housed in the Capitol. He knew that Easley was working with architects to find suitable places for building ovens that would serve the troops. Rook was about to step forward and ask Easley if he had seen anyone pass when a deep Southern accent stopped him cold.

“So your deliveries will come in over here?”

Easley, still out of sight, answered that they would and added that they were going to stockpile flour in a warren of rooms nearby. It sounded as if he were giving Davis and Stephens a guided tour of the basement. Sometimes Rook could hear what they were saying; other times their words fell out of earshot. This went on for several minutes. Then came silence. Either they had left the room or the conversation had ended. Rook was about to step forward when Easley, heading straight for the staircase, nearly bumped into him.

“Pardon me,” said Easley.

“Good afternoon, Lieutenant.”

Easley looked up. “Colonel Rook? Is this an inspection? You’re not in uniform.”

Rook would have preferred not to encounter Easley at all. He wondered if he could bluff his way through a conversation.

“Why, yes, that’s exactly right. When I’m dressed up, sometimes I worry that I’m not seeing things as they truly are—you know, everybody standing at attention and acting as they think they should rather than as they usually do.”

“Very clever, sir,” said Easley as he straightened his spine.

“Who were those men you were just with?” asked Rook.

“They are traders. I found them walking around the basement. They looked lost. People don’t come down here much, except for soldiers. When I asked if they needed help, one of them asked a bunch of questions about selling flour and produce to the troops.”

“They asked about food?”

“Yes. They wanted to know how much the soldiers would need, who would pay for it, where they might deliver it. They aren’t inspecting things with you, are they, sir? I answered their questions as best as I could, which probably wasn’t very well.”

“Oh no, they’re not with us. Don’t worry about that.”

Rook asked Easley to show him where the men went. The lieutenant led him through the big room beneath the rotunda, around one of its thick columns, and pointed toward a portal on the left-hand side. “They went that way, to the west front of the building. They can’t be more than a couple of minutes ahead of you.”

“Thank you very much, Lieutenant. You may be on your way.”

As Easley left, Rook opened the doors and looked out. Trees dotted the landscape between the Capitol and the other buildings of Washington. Their branches were just starting to bud. Several hundred feet in front of them, walking straight toward the Avenue, were Davis and Stephens.

“Do you really think they’re traders?” asked Clark.

“They’re either traders or traitors,” said Rook.

Rook and Clark continued their pursuit. They stayed far behind Davis and Stephens, but always in sight. When they reached the Avenue, they picked up their pace slightly, remaining a couple of blocks behind the two men. Rook expected Davis and Stephens to return to Brown’s, ending their jaunt from where it had started. But when they reached Sixth Street, they kept walking. They had somewhere else to go.

As they marched up the Avenue, crossing street after street, Rook and Clark closed the gap. By the time they reached Willard’s, at Fourteenth Street, they were just half a block behind the two men. At Fifteenth Street, however, the massive Treasury Department prevented them from continuing in a straight line. They turned right and slipped out of sight.

When Rook and Clark reached the corner, Clark glanced backward for a quick view of the Capitol, more than a mile away. For a moment, he imagined what the scene would look like when the dome was finally finished and Pennsylvania Avenue properly paved. It would present a grand vista for the nation—a commercial street framing the country’s chief political building.

“It’s odd how the Treasury stands where it does,” said Clark. “It blocks the view between the White House and the Capitol.”

“The city’s designers originally had planned an unobstructed view,” said Rook. “But twenty years ago, Andrew Jackson insisted on the construction of the big building right where it is. And so it went up.”

Davis and Stephens were back in sight, moving north on Fifteenth. They crossed F street and then G street. They turned left, rounding the State Department and heading for Lafayette Park. They cut through it diagonally, right beneath the statue of Jackson. At the northwest corner of the park, they paused for the first time since leaving the Capitol. They seemed indecisive. Davis pointed one way, Stephens another.

Suddenly, they began walking on east on H Street, along the northern edge of the park. They stopped at the intersection of H Street and Sixteenth Street. Again, they paused. Stephens appeared to want to go back in the direction from which they had just come. Davis, however, pointed to a building on the north side of the street. He crossed H Street and Stephens followed. They marched up the steps and knocked on the front door. A moment later it opened and they entered.

Rook could not see who let them in. The building was a private residence. He did not recognize it. He ordered Clark to stay put and walked to the corner of H and Sixteenth streets for a better look. It stood three stories tall, with a facing of red brick, a black door, and a series of dark windows. Nothing about it was especially distinctive. To Rook, who did not appreciate the finer points of architecture, it was just another fine home in the best section of the city. He did not want to pass right in front of it, for fear of someone noticing him, but he approached close enough to check the home’s address.

Rook walked back to Clark, who was not alone—Springfield was with him. The sergeant had been carrying out his orders of keeping a watch on the area and its inhabitants.

“Do you know who lives in the building they entered?” asked Rook.

Springfield squinted in the direction of Sixteenth Street. “Exactly which one did they go into?”

“The address is 398 Sixteenth Street.”

Springfield nodded. “I suppose that’s not much of a surprise,” he said.

“Why not?”

“That’s the home of Violet Grenier.”

Mazorca had seen impressive mansions before, and the White House was not one of them. Compared to several that he knew, it was a modest country house—a big box of a building whose plain shape was broken only by a columned portico jutting from the structure’s north side. After a moment, Mazorca realized it had the architectural effect of making the two-story house appear much smaller than it really was. The president’s home may not have looked magnificent, but it certainly was large.

People often stopped and stared at the White House. Mazorca, however, did not want to attract any special attention. He began a slow, clockwise walk around a circular gravel driveway that swooped by the portico, where he saw visitors coming and going as they pleased. There were a couple of soldiers by the front door, beneath the overhang. They stood against the wall like sculpted bas-reliefs and did not move to prevent a single person from entering. Mazorca wondered what they thought they were guarding, because he could not tell.

For a moment he considered going into the building. It would have been easy. He had read that the building was more or less open to the public. The cheap guidebooks to Washington that he had been reading sometimes described the custom as a testament to the strength of American democracy. Whatever it was, Mazorca thought it was a weakness.

Maybe he could just walk in right now. Then he reminded himself that the purpose of this visit was simply to have an initial look at the White House exterior. He counted the windows: there were eleven facing north on the second story, all in plain sight except for one on the left, which was obscured by a tree. Smaller trees covered the view of most of the windows on the first floor. A decorative iron fence stood between the driveway and the house, with an open gate in front of the portico. The black fence was so short that any able-bodied person might have hopped over it without much trouble. It seemed even less useful than the guards.

Small sheds flanked the White House. A conservatory was on the right. A bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson, with his right hand placed over his heart, stood before the mansion in the middle of the driveway. Bright flowers surrounded the granite pedestal block. They were freshly planted, judging from the overturned soil.

A soldier approached from Pennsylvania Avenue. He was a private. The man was about to pass Mazorca when they both heard a loud commotion coming from the portico. Dozens of men poured out the front door. They were a rowdy bunch, whooping and boasting and knocking each other around. Mazorca stepped onto the grass to let them go by. The soldier did the same.

There must have been a hundred of them. Many had pistols stuffed in their belts. Others had big knives. When they reached Pennsylvania Avenue, they turned right, turned right again on Fifteenth Street, and eventually disappeared behind the State Department and Treasury.

As they left the White House grounds, the soldier turned to Mazorca.

“Are you one of Jim Lane’s men too?” he asked.

“Excuse me?”

“I suppose not. You don’t really look it.” The soldier pointed toward the vanishing horde. “The ‘Frontier Guards.’ At least that’s what they call themselves. They’re more like a mob. They arrived yesterday from out West and spent the night here. They couldn’t have been more out of place. There are a lot of them—two or three times the number that just passed by. They say they’re here to protect President Lincoln.”