The First Assassin (7 page)

“That is indeed what it says here.”

“I am an old man,” said Bennett. “It is doubtful that I will survive more than a few years.” He handed his guest another document. “This is an unsigned codicil. It was drafted the day I received the letter saying you would come for a meeting. It amends the will you have just read to provide half of my property to a person who completes a certain unnamed task to my satisfaction. if I am still living, or of Mr. Hughes, if I am not.”

The visitor looked it over. “This does leave matters a bit open-ended,” he said. “But I think we can work with it.”

“I figure a man in your line of work has the ability to enforce legitimate contracts if others do not,” said Bennett.

“You need not worry about it coming to that, however. We are men of honor. Mr. Hughes has every incentive to make good on our promise. He wants the result it will obtain as much as I do.”

“Then perhaps this is settled,” said the guest.

“You find our terms acceptable?”

“I do.”

“Excellent,” said Bennett. “Now, in terms of the planning—”

The visitor interrupted. “I will plan everything myself. In fact, you will not hear from me again until I have completed the assignment. I will not tell you where I am going or how I will accomplish it. But it will be done, and it will be done in a timely manner.”

“How will we keep track of you?” asked Hughes, speaking for the first time.

“You won’t.”

“We won’t?”

“No. There is nothing you can provide me.”

“That may not be true,” said Bennett. “I have a friend in Washington who may be of some assistance. She is an ally to our cause, and she has resources you may find helpful. I won’t insist on it, but I believe it would be a mistake not to make use of her.”

“Who is she?”

“Her name is Violet Grenier. She is near the center of the city’s social life. She knows many things about many people. Some call her the most persuasive woman ever to live in Washington. She will almost certainly have intelligence you will want to know.”

The visitor said nothing. Bennett took this as a sign to continue.

“I have taken the liberty of writing her a letter of introduction,” he said, handing an envelope to his guest. “I suggest you give it to her and see what she can do for you.”

The visitor studied the envelope. It was sealed. He turned it over in his hands several times before looking up.

“Very well,” he said at last. “I will consider making contact with this woman. In the meantime, I believe this concludes our business. You will know when I have succeeded. Sometime after that, you will see me again.”

He stood up to leave, but Hughes stepped into his view. “This may sound strange, but who are you?”

The visitor shot a look at Bennett.

“It may be best that you not know more than you already do,” said Bennett.

“What is your name?” Hughes persisted. “What if we need to contact you through Mrs. Grenier? How are we to do that? There must be some name that we can use.”

The visitor glared at Hughes, and it made the young man feel small. Hughes could see a vein in the guest’s forehead throbbing. He was suddenly afraid of this man.

“You need not answer him,” said Bennett.

The guest did not move. Hughes felt himself withering. Then the guest smiled, though not in a kindly way. His eyes seemed to threaten.

“You may call me,” he said, pausing briefly, and then speaking with a full Spanish trill, “Mazorca.”

The sky was overcast as Mazorca stepped off the porch of the Bennett house. He was satisfied with the arrangements made inside. It was quite a bit of land. When he completed the job, he would gain a small fortune. Mazorca had every intention of collecting.

He walked toward the water, where a few people strolled around the Battery. Off in the distance was Sumter. The day before, on the ship sailing into Charleston Harbor, Mazorca had seen it up close. He could tell immediately that it would not survive a coordinated attack. It was meant to serve as one part of a harbor defense rather than stand on its own. Its enemies were expected to come from the sea, not from the land. If the guns of Fort Moultrie started pounding away, Sumter’s fall would be only a matter of time.

Mazorca halted at the Battery’s edge. Green water lapped against the seawall. He stood motionless for a while, watching the waves roll up and down. He thought about the job that lay ahead. The objective was a familiar one. Yet it also felt like the most ambitious assignment he had ever accepted. There was much to learn, much to plan. He would enjoy the test and savor the success.

The papers in his pocket—the will, the codicil, and the letter to Grenier—pressed against his chest. He pulled them out, reviewed them, and put them back. Then he looked down at the water again. Its constant flow fascinated him. He stared at it for a few minutes, engrossed in the way that some people are when they stare at a fire.

About thirty feet to his right, Marcus placed a cap on the lens that had been pointing at Mazorca for half a minute. As Mazorca turned around and walked toward King Street and the heart of the city, he did not see Marcus. Nor did he see Lucius pat the boy on the back.

SUNDAY, APRIL 14, 1861

The wagon creaked forward, inch by inch. Somebody had taken everything he could manage to remove from his home and piled it onto the cart. The heap of trunks and furniture soared twelve feet off the ground. Two horses strained to pull this load toward the base of the Long Bridge, where Fourteenth Street and Maryland Avenue converged. It was incredible to think they had gotten the wagon to move at all.

For Colonel Rook, the sight was no novelty. The slow evacuation of Washington by Southerners had been going on for weeks. Some packed lightly because they did not think they would be gone for more than a few months. Others, like this man, seemed to take everything they owned.

Rook was convinced that even more people would leave now: the fall of Fort Sumter was inevitable. On Friday, the rebels in South Carolina had started firing. There were rumors the next day that Major Anderson had surrendered, but nothing was confirmed. Rook knew it was just a matter of time. Without provisions, Anderson could not withstand a siege. Sumter was finished.

The wagon crawled closer to the aptly named Long Bridge. The Potomac River was nearly a mile wide here, and the Long Bridge was the only direct route out of the city and into Virginia that did not involve getting into a boat. Rook had his men keep a tally of how many people left each day. It was usually just a handful. Across the weeks, however, the numbers added up. He thought this information was helpful, but even more useful was talking to people before they set foot on the bridge. When he could, Rook liked to conduct the interviews himself. It was a good way to gather intelligence.

“Good morning, sir,” hailed Rook as the wagon came to a stop right before the bridge. A man sat in front of his big load, and a slave beside him held the reins. The man looked annoyed at having to stop.

“Where are you bound?” asked Rook.

“Richmond.”

“Looks like you expect to be there some time.”

“Quite a long time.” The Southern accent was unmistakable.

“And why is that?”

The man glared at Rook as if the colonel were an imbecile. He hopped off the wagon and swept an arm toward the half-assembled city of Washington. “This will be gone in a few weeks—all of it,” he said. “The city will look like an earthquake had wrecked it. I don’t intend to be here when that happens.”

The man paused, but Rook said nothing. He knew from experience that interviews often produced their most valuable information when subjects were allowed to speak without interruption.

“Friends have written to me for months with a single message: ‘Robert Fowler, get yourself out of that city.’ When I heard that Fort Sumter had come under fire, I knew they were right. I regret leaving behind my house, and I couldn’t possibly take all of its contents. But Virginia will secede very soon, as will the rest of the South. This is a time for choosing sides. Surely, Colonel, you must know that Washington is not adequately defended. When Virginia and Maryland withdraw from the Union, it will be surrounded and it will suffocate.”

Fowler was about to get back on his wagon when Rook spoke.

“What makes you so certain Virginia and Maryland will secede? They haven’t yet.”

“No, but they will. I don’t intend to be here when trouble comes.”

“Do you have a family?”

“My wife and children boarded a train for Richmond yesterday. I plan to join them. Now, sir, I’d like to be on my way.”

“Of course,” said Rook. “You may go.”

Fowler climbed back onto his wagon. The slave tugged at the reins. The horses strained for a moment, and the wagon’s wheels began to turn.

Rook watched them go. He took a piece of paper from his pocket and made a mark on it. Then he thought of the man’s words: “This is a time for choosing sides.” The colonel’s eye wandered upriver, to the right, and settled on a big house that overlooked the Potomac from the Virginia side. This was the home of Colonel Robert E. Lee, and almost everybody in the army wondered what this talented young officer would do when his own time for choosing came.

The sound of a racing horse pulled him from these thoughts. “Colonel! Fort Sumter has given up!” shouted a sergeant as he dismounted. “We just received the official word by telegraph. Anderson gave up yesterday and the firing has stopped. The formal surrender is today.”

“This will stir things up.”

“Yes it will, sir.”

Sergeant Frank Springfield was young, though mature beyond his years. He looked ordinary—brown hair, medium build—except for one thing. He had the bushiest mustache Rook had ever seen. It was so thick above his lip that Rook wondered if the man could breathe through his nose.

Originally, Rook had been skeptical of him: Springfield was an abolitionist, and Rook regarded all abolitionists with suspicion. In his mind, too many of them were radicals who placed the interest of their cause above national unity. Yet Springfield had impressed Rook as an unusually competent aide. It was just like him to hear about Sumter and track down his superior officer. Many men of his rank would not have bothered unless they had been ordered. This ability to take the initiative was why Rook had posted Springfield at Willard’s prior to the inauguration, and why he had come to rely on him even more in the weeks since then.

“Thank you, Sergeant. Will you accompany me to the Winder Building?”

The two men got on their horses and headed north on Fourteenth Street. They soon reached an open field, where a few cows and sheep grazed. The truncated Washington Monument was on the left. To their right was the Smithsonian Institution, a dark red castle that looked like it belonged in medieval Europe. About a mile beyond was the unfinished Capitol. Neither man paid it much heed. They were distracted by the stench of what lay ahead: the canal. It was really an open sewer pit that cut through the city. People emptied all kinds of raw waste into its filthy waters. They occasionally dumped dead animals. The smell would have been bad even if water had flowed through it rapidly, but sometimes the water appeared not to move at all. Attempts to dredge it had failed—the abominable thing kept silting up. Rook and Springfield spurred their horses to pick up the pace and were glad to get beyond the canal’s foul reek.

They turned left and passed just south of the White House. Then the Winder came into view. At five stories, it was one of the taller buildings in the city. It was more functional than magnificent, and that was to Rook’s liking. In a city cluttered with potted streets and stinking sewers, functionality was nothing to take for granted.

It occurred to Rook that unscheduled meetings might take up a good part of his afternoon, now that Sumter had fallen. There would be talk of war. “Sergeant, would you mind riding out past Georgetown and inspecting the Chain Bridge for me? I’m afraid I may not be able to get there today.”

“Yes, sir,” said Springfield. Rook watched him trot another two blocks to Pennsylvania Avenue, turn left, and disappear behind a building. The colonel passed his horse to an attendant and went inside.

“I just heard about Sumter,” he said when he saw Locke. Rook figured that the news might allow the two men to hold an actual conversation.

“General Scott is not here,” said Locke. “He’s meeting with the president.”

Then Locke raised his eyebrows. “That coward Anderson. I think he’s a traitor for giving up so easily. He didn’t put up any kind of fight.”

So there would be a conversation—a disagreeable one. Rook bristled at hearing the word
traitor
applied to Anderson. He knew many Northerners would criticize the fort’s commander for his decision. Some of the press commentary on Sumter noted that Anderson, like Rook, was from Kentucky—a slave state. Until recently, the major had even owned slaves himself. At West Point, he had been a close friend of Jefferson Davis. His loyalty was under severe scrutiny, and many would doubt it after this new turn of events. But Rook was not convinced. If Anderson were disloyal, what did that make the men who had fired upon him?

“I don’t think he’s a traitor,” said Rook. He recounted Sumter’s plight: low on ammunition, running out of food, no chance of resupply. “Besides, the fort was not built to repel an attack mounted from the guns on shore. Major Anderson was in a terrible position. Under the circumstances, I think he probably did as well as anybody could.”

“As well as he could for whom?” asked Locke, scornfully.

“Men are picking sides right now, and it looks to me as though Anderson has chosen his. He’s from Kentucky, you know.”

Locke is trying to provoke me, thought Rook. Anderson had been ordered to Sumter several months earlier specifically because of his commitment to the Union. Some Northern newspapers had questioned the choice, especially as the crisis in Charleston escalated, but Rook knew that they talked without really knowing what they were saying. That was typical of newspapers. Locke himself should have known better.

“Anderson is a good man. If the federal government cannot rely upon men who feel the tug of divided loyalties but nonetheless stand for the Union, then the United States truly is doomed,” said Rook.

“Feeling a tug, Colonel?”

Rook felt the urge to punch him, but he settled for words rather than fists. “Watch what you say, Locke.”

The general’s aide rolled his eyes and sighed loudly. He returned to the newspaper spread across his desk. An awkward silence fell over the room.

A few minutes later, Scott ambled in. “Both of you,” he said sharply, “come into my office.”

The general collapsed into his usual chair. He looked worn out and distressed. “Tomorrow, the president plans to ask the states for seventy-five thousand soldiers to help put down the insurrection,” he said. “I hardly need to tell you that this will be controversial. I suspect that we will lose several states over it, including Virginia. What a blow that will be.”

Scott frowned. “Virginia has symbolic importance. She is the mother of statesmen: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and so many others. The prestige of her entering this so-called Southern Confederacy is immeasurable. I’m afraid that losing her may take a military toll as well. It will be difficult to field an army of raw recruits without some of Virginia’s sons at the helm. Worse yet, our capital will become instantly vulnerable. Can you imagine if Maryland leaves too? This city will be like an island surrounded by an ocean of enemies. Colonel Rook, I would like you to put all of your resources behind defending the city from military attack. Do this exclusively. It is clearly the most important threat we now face.”

Rook wanted to reply, but Locke blurted out a question. “Who will lead Lincoln’s army?” he asked.

“As you know, I’m too old for another campaign,” said Scott. He patted his belly. “I’m not fit for one either. I think the best candidate for the job is Colonel Robert E. Lee. He proved himself to me firsthand in Mexico. I marked him back then as a man with a bright future. He displayed his skills again when he captured John Brown at Harper’s Ferry a year and a half ago. I’m going to sleep on it, but I believe that tomorrow I will recommend him to the president.”

“I think that is a very fine idea,” said Locke.

“He’s from Virginia,” said Rook. “Do you think he will remain loyal?”

“It is possible for Virginians to remain loyal,” snapped Locke. “The general is for the Union.”

“Of course,” said Rook, irritated that Locke would try to twist his words. “The general has made his loyalty quite plain. Lee has not announced his intentions. He has put off his own time of choosing.”

“If Lincoln takes my advice and makes the offer to Lee, that will force the question,” said Scott. “It may even inspire him to do the right thing. He is the best man for the job.”

The general looked at both men. “I would like some time alone now. Is there anything else to discuss?”

“I do have a small suggestion,” said Rook. “Let’s not forget about the personal security of the president.”

“Oh please, Colonel,” said Locke, full of contempt. “Now is not the time for this.”

Scott shook his head. “I can assure you that the president feels entirely secure. This morning he walked to the Presbyterian Church on New York Avenue, attended a service, and walked back—without any kind of escort.”

“I’ve had a couple of men keeping an eye on secessionists. I believe their activity should continue.”

“I just gave you an order to concentrate on the city’s defenses,” said Scott. “I expect you to obey.”

“We need to orient our defenses in two directions—toward an outside threat as well as an inside threat,” persisted Rook. “I know that we can’t place more men around the president. I’m talking about something else: investigating people who may pose a threat to the president, following the same rationale that allowed me to place undercover agents in the lobby of Willard’s two months ago.” Rook reached into his pocket and produced a slip of paper. He rose from his seat and handed it to the general. “I’m not talking about a long list of names. With your approval, I would like to begin surveillance of these people and others like them.”

Scott looked skeptical. He studied the list for a moment. “Why is Robert Fowler crossed off?”

“He left the city this morning. I saw him depart by the Long Bridge myself, just before coming here.”

Scott continued to examine the list. “How did you come up with these names?”

“I just wrote down a few prominent secessionists, or people who are known to hold secessionist sympathies. I only mean to use a handful of men who are already under my command.”

Scott looked up from the list. “Just the other day, the president mentioned to me the problem of what he called the ‘secesh dames.’ It’s a peculiar term, but that is how our president talks. Anyway, I notice that your list is composed entirely of men.”

“Is there a woman you would add to it?”

“Violet Grenier is certainly a ‘secesh dame.’ She is also one of the few Southern sympathizers who maintain friendships on both sides of this controversy.”

“So let me check on her. It might be helpful to know who is within Mrs. Grenier’s circle of influence.”

“Snooping on ladies?” said Locke, sounding exasperated. He looked at the general. “This is absurd.”