The President's Shadow (17 page)

T
oday, i
t
was cannonballs. Or at least it was supposed to be.

At 4:40 a.m., Alby’
s
alarm ripped him from a dream where he was doing that trick he used to do in the kitchen: walking with his three kids—his two daughters and young Beecher—wrapped around his ankles, dragging them playfully along. In the dream, though, he was walking into the ocean, all of them sinking from the weight and drowning.

For the past week, as they were finishing the brick furnace, he’d spent his breaks on the edge of the island, staring out at the blue-green ocean and telling himself the work was making him stronger. On some days, he believed it.

This morning, as he rolled out of bed and joined the line for the bathroom, Alby still felt the soreness in his arms, his back, and especially his blistered hands.

“That was too late,” Arkansas said, referring to last night, when the guards had kept them working on the brick furnace until one in the morning.

Alby nodded, stepping into the shower and keeping the water cold. Except for the officers’ quarters, there was no air conditioning on the island, so the instant Alby turned the shower off, warm beads of sweat pooled across his forehead, poised to run into his eyes.

His diarrhea was getting worse, which he blamed on the food. So was the throbbing at the base of his skull, which he blamed on his lack of sleep. But the morning’s roughest hit came when Alby got back to his cot and noticed that next to him, Julian’s bed was already made, like it hadn’t been slept in.

“
Julian, you here?
” Alby called out, glancing around the room, which was a blur of young men pulling on tank tops and tying bootlaces. The heat was so ruthless, the sergeant had stopped making them wear full uniforms.

No one answered.
Where the hell was he?
Alby replayed last night. Julian had been in the barracks, reading, as always.

“Anyone seen Julian?” Alby said to no one in particular.

“
Let’s go
—
barracks empty!
” Timothy shouted as the group of young Plankholders began to scramble down the aisle that separated the two long rows of beds. They knew the consequences if they didn’t arrive as one unit.

Fighting with his bootlaces, Alby hopped to the door, noticing that one person wasn’t moving at all.

“Nico, you coming?” Timothy called out.

Nico didn’t look up. He was sitting on his cot, elbows on his knees, boots still untied.

“What’re you doing? What’s wrong?” Timothy asked.

“Something bad happened,” Nico whispered.

“Nico, I know it’s early. We’re all tired—”

“You’re not listening,” Nico said. “My hearing. I can hear things. Something bad happened. Outside.”

“What’re you talking about?” Timothy asked.

Alby didn’t hear the exchange. He was already halfway out the door, still scanning for…

“
Julian! You out here…?
” Alby shouted into the morning darkness.

A blast of hot salty air sent the first flood of sweat down his brow to his eyes. Alby ran down the concrete steps and glanced across the grassy courtyard. Over by the furnace, there were flickering blades of light. Flashlights.

Three days from now, the official report would say that Alby should have waited for the rest of his unit. But he didn’t. Instea
d
, he started running. Slowly at first, just a jog.

He tried to convince himself that all this was normal. Last night, they’
d
used flashlights while lugging bags of coal into the furnace’s firebox. They used flashlights again when they lit the oven for the first time, just to be sure it worked. A black cloud of smoke had wafted upward as all the Plankholders cheered.

Today, at 4:56 a.m., no one was cheering.

“
Julian, that you?
” Alby asked, squinting through the dark and counting three different shadows by the back of the brick furnace.

A blast of white light blinded him as a flashlight turned his way.

“
I told you to keep ’em inside!
” a deep voice shouted.

“
Get him out of here!
” another barked.

Alby knew that voice. Colonel Doggett.

Squinting and putting up a hand to block the light, Alby couldn’t see anything. But he smelled it.

When Alby first left the barracks, the warm air had blown it the other way. But as he got closer, he tried to place the smell. It was putrid and sweet, so lush it punctured his nose and went straight to his tongue. He couldn’t put words to it, but everyone knows when they smell something foul.

A belch of black smoke spiraled up from the redbrick chimney.

“
Julian…
” Alby whispered, running toward the furnace.

“
Take him out of here! Now!
” someone shouted.

The flashlights twisted and turned, adding a dull glow to the black smoke that was now pouring from the furnace’s back door as well as its cross-shaped windows. Whatever was burning inside, it was big.

“
Julian…!
” Alby shouted as a set of strong hands grabbed him by the biceps. Alby’s arms were so slick with sweat, he managed to slip free, running forward for a better view. He nearly tripped over a discarded army boot. It was charred and burnt.

“Julian… Oh, God… What’d you do…!?”

Another set of hands grabbed him. Then another.

“
Get off me! He’s my friend!
” Alby shouted, thrashing wildly, the smoke pouring over him. They were all starting to cough.

Alby was close to the furnace. The coal door was still vomiting smoke from the back as a familiar and wide shadow turned Alby’s way. A glint from the flashlight lit his Santa face. Colonel Doggett didn’t say anything else.

With a final tug, Alby was jerked backward, his boots dragging through the garden of loose leftover bricks.

“
Lemme go!
” Alby screamed, still coughing, still thrashing, still determined to get a look inside.

It never came.

The black smoke spun and twirled, dissipating as it reached the ocean. Across the dark courtyard, the guards yelled, forcing the Plankholders back into their barracks. And for the rest of his short life, Alby White never forgot the putrid and sweet odor that filled his nostrils that night.

D
oc, how’s it look?” Director Riestra calls out at the screen.

We’re all staring at the laptop, crowded around like kids in a dorm room. Onscreen, there’
s
nothing but an empty chair in the command center. In the background, there’
s
the faint flush of a toilet.

“Doc?” Riestra repeats.

From the right, D
r
. Yaeger appears, his gloved fingers pinching the edges of the damp white index card. His white eyebrows knit together, still confus
ed.

“What’s it say?” Riestra asks.

“You tell me.” As the doctor turns the sheet around, the once-white index card is now marked by a pale purple…

“Are those letters?” Riestra asks.

Everyone leans in. Onscreen we see:

“Morse code?” Francy says.

“It’s not Morse code,” Riestra says definitively.

“Hebrew?” his deputy asks.

“Not Hebrew either.”

“It’s not even English. Except for the S,” the doctor adds.

“It’s a code,” I blurt.

“A code!? Thanks for that, Langdon,” Riestra challenges.

I ignore him. Francy is looking my way. I’m locked on the screen as my eyebrow starts twitching.

“You recognize it, Beecher?” the doctor asks.

I barely move.

“Is it something Nico’s used before?”

“Not Nico. Though I bet Nico knows it,” I say, leaning in closer. “It’s an old substitution cipher, from the Civil War. It came from the papers of a man named George Washington Bickley.”

Francy turns my way. It’s a ridiculous name, and one hard to forget. “In the late 1800s, Bickley was the leader of…”

“The Knights of the Golden Circle,” Francy says.

I nod, my eyes still locked on the cipher.

Francy takes out her phone, motioning to help me look it up online.

I shake my head. Like I need a phone.

“You can read it then?” Riestra asks. “What’s it say?”

I squint, seeing my own reflection onscreen. Symbol by symbol, I replace each with a letter. With just seven spaces, I’m guessing it’s a name. Or, knowing Nico, some cryptic, obscure location. But as the letters fall in place and I read the word for myself, my windpipe constricts.

“It looks like a message,” I say, thinking about the President.

“Beecher, tell us what it says!”

“It’s a single word:
goodbye
.”

S
till in his bathrobe as he stepped out into the cold, the doctor wasn’t thinking about his high blood pressure. He wasn’t thinking about his daughter’s divorce. He wasn’t even thinking about his recent battle with acute pancreatitis, which had left him a diabetic with a whole new set of problems.

Instead, as the doctor left his front door and strolled down the long driveway in his daily hunt for the morning newspaper, he was thinking of the girl with fake boobs who always flirted with him at the dry cleaners.

It was hard enough getting old. Even harder doing it in the suburbs. Maybe he’d drop off another rumpled shirt today just to see how much she’d lean over the counter.

Reaching the foot of the driveway and pushing his sturdy Arthur Ashe glasses up on his face, the doctor was so lost in the thought of her chest, he didn’t even notice the man who was waiting for him, standing next to the mailbox.

“It’s better for the environment if you read online,” Nico said in his steady monotone, handing the doctor his morning
Wall Street Journal
.

The doctor locked glances with the man whose life he had destroyed all those years ago on the island.

Nico stood there, posture perfect, chin out.

Dr. Moorcraft swayed slightly, then fell sideways, fainting and crumbling onto the asphalt.

Nico dragged him inside by his ankles.

T
he KGC,” Clementine said, standing at the sink and wiping the blood from her lips. “Ever hear of the Knights of the Golden Circle?”

“I know your dad’s obsessed with them,” Marshall said. “He thinks John Wilkes Booth was a member. And Lee Harvey Oswald.”

“John Wilkes Booth apparently
was
a member. So was Jesse James. But forget my dad a second. After Ezra approached me, I looked them up. Back during the Civil War, dozens of groups like the Knights sprang up all over. People across the South were enraged, and they needed an outlet. But unlike the Freemasons and other secret societies that focused on centuries-old traditions, the Knights of the Golden Circle wanted something far more practical: They wanted the Union to lose so they could preserve slavery. That’s basically their story: They were a bunch of racists who wanted their own “golden circle”—a chunk of land including Mexico and the Caribbean—to call their own. When the Civil War ended, some say the Knights disbanded. Others say…”

“That they escaped and went underground. Beecher told me about your dad’s obsession.”

“Forget my dad! You think I don’t know how crackpot his theories are? Mental illness doesn’t just
run
in my family. It
sprints
. But I’m telling you, Marsh…”

“Marshall.”

“I’m telling you, Marshall, here’s an unarguable historical
fact
: After the Civil War—after John Wilkes Booth fired that bullet into Abraham Lincoln’s brain—the Knights of the Golden Circle disappeared. Maybe they regrouped in the sixties; maybe they didn’t. But here’s one thing I know for certain: If Ezra has his way, they’re coming back—and they’re coming for the Culper Ring.”

Marshall didn’t move as she said the words.

“C’mon, Marshall, you think you’re the only one who spent time with Beecher? I know about the Ring.”

Marshall still didn’t react. He didn’t trust her, but he could still get information. “Why did Ezra send you here?”

“Have you listened to a word I said? Ezra wants nothing to do with me. He only helped me so I’d make the introduction.”

“Introduction to what?”

“Not to
what
. To
who
.” Reading Marshall’s confused expression, she added, “Pretend your personal mission in life is to rebuild the Knights of the Golden Circle. Who’s the number one—and hardest to find—presidential assassin you want on your side?”

Looking down, Marshall lowered his knife and retracted the blade. “Nico,” he whispered. “Ezra wants to recruit your dad.”

Clementine spit more blood into the sink. She didn’t have to say another word. There was only one reason Ezra and the Knights would want a big gun: They were hunting big game.

“They’re going after the President,” Marshall said.

“Not just the President. Think about Beecher and the Culper Ring. Their job is to protect Wallace—”

“You think Ezra cares about Beecher and the Ring?”

“Marshall,
all
Ezra cares about is the stupid Ring! He blames the Culper Ring for hunting down the Knights. He thinks they’re lawless animals who robbed his family of its rightful legacy. You should see the picture he carries with him—the haunted look in his eyes when he shows you the photo of him and his grandfather in the Oval Office meeting Reagan. The scariest thing about Ezra is he wants to be remembered. He wants a place in history. So whatever Ezra’s got planned—whether he’s hitting the President or Beecher or all of them at once—he’s not going for something small. He wants Hiroshima.”

Still trying to make a picture from the pieces, Marshall was tempted to ask her about the arm buried in the Rose Garden, but something told him not to. Instea
d
, he eyed the way Clementine gripped the edge of the counter, like she needed it to hold herself up. “That still doesn’t tell me the real reason you’re here,” he said.

“I already—! Look at me…I’m
dying
!”

He stared at her. “I believe you when you say that.” They held each other’s gaze. “What I don’t believe is your sudden concern with the welfare of Beecher or Wallace or pretty much anyone but yourself.”

“And so,
wha
t
? You think I made this all up? Do you have any idea what I’ve been through? Look at this—! This is— This is—” She reached into her front pocket and held out a small white object in her open palm. “This is the tooth I lost in the elevator when I sneezed on the way up here. I’ve got half a dozen of these things at this point. I’ve been keeping them in the ashtray of my rental car, and if I take too wide a turn, I hear them rattling like dice.”

“Clementine, I know you’re—”

“You don’t know
anything
! And you of all people
should
!” she yelled, pointing to her own face. “My gums are gray! I spent the last two weeks in a makeshift dental chair trying to keep my jaw from collapsing! And you know what I finally realized? I can’t stop it. No matter how much I pray or beg or try to pretend this is all God’s will—” She took a breath, still holding on to the counter. “We all have our mountains to climb, don’t we? This is the end of mine. And if that’s the case…I don’t know… When the curtain comes down, don’t you want your last act to be something good?”

Marshall stood there, noticing for the first time the red tint on her teeth. “That’s an excellent speech. It really is,” he said. “But don’t insult me with the I’m-just-trying-to-earn-my-angel-wings talk. I’ve taken a man’s life before. I know you have too. And once you’re a killer…once you give away that part of your soul…some dirt won’t ever come off.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m lying about Ezra,” she shot back. “You know that’s true.”

“So why’d you bring this all to me instead of taking it to Beecher?”

“Because I need to stop hurting him.” From the palm of her hand, she dumped her tooth on the counter. “When I was lying there in that dental chair, it’s the one thing I realized in my moment of clarity: Every time I get near Beecher, I cause him pain. If this is the end of my mountain, I need to do better by him.”

“That’s the first true thing you’ve said today.”

“You’re wrong,” she insisted. “And you were wrong about Kathy Stankevich too. I didn’t pick a fight with her. She told everyone my mother slept with Craig Andrade’s dad.”

“I thought your mom
did
sleep with Craig Andrade’s dad.”

“Of course she did. But c’mon…it’s still my mom,” Clementine said, picking up her tooth and sliding it back in her pocket. “I can help you get Ezra. Let me prove it to you.”

“I thought you didn’t know what he was planning.”

“I don’t,” she said, glancing down at her watch. “But if we hurry, I know where he’ll be.”