The President's Shadow (9 page)

M
arshall didn’t smell it at first. He knew it was coming, though.

Flashing a fake ID and a matching smile, he blew past the young security guard who clearly bathed in Axe body spray.

As he headed past the hospital’s gift shop, it was the whiff of Mylar balloons and fresh flowers.

Even as he followed the crisp white hallway past the visitor waiting area in George Washington University Hospital, all he could smell was the usual mix of old couches, bleach
and disinfectant.

But again, he knew it was coming. Every hospital smelled of it, even if most patients didn’t know where the smell was coming from.

Sure enough, as he reached the entrance for the emergency room and its automatic doors slid wide, there it was.

Silverol.

At just a whiff of the ointment’s harsh antiseptic and metallic smell, Marshall’s throat went dry and his brain raced back to those first days in the burn unit when they’d lie to him and say that by rubbing Silverol into his red-and-yellow open flesh and the skin hanging off it, the pain would go
away.

It wasn’t their only lie. When they first brought him in, Marshall’s left arm was so swollen, blood stopped flowing to his hand. A doctor appeared at his bedside with a dozen different scalpels. He told Marshall that he needed to cut into his skin so he could drain all the liquid and reduce the swelling. The catch was, since Marshall’s lungs were so damaged, they needed to do the operation in his hospital bed. No anesthetic.

“Don’t worry,” the doctor had reassured him. “All the nerves in your arm are dead. You won’t feel it.”

He was wrong.

Two male nurses held down Marshall’s arms and legs.

His nose was charred away. One of his eyes was so off-center from his fa
ce, it looked melted. Out of the other, Marshall watched as the scalpel cut into his arm, starting at his shoulder, down to his wrist. Each slice looked precise, but felt like it was being done with a rake.

“
This is my death! No more!
” he screamed, the pain so raw he couldn’t breathe.

“Marshall, listen to me,” the doctor insisted. “Count from ten to one for me. That’s all. Count from ten to one, and I promise we’ll be done.”

It wasn’t much of a consolation, but at least the end was in sight.

“T-T-Ten…” Marshall began, slowly counting and screaming as the scalpel dug into his skin. “
Ahuh
…n-nine…”

“There you go…” the doctor said, halfway down Marshall’s biceps.

“E-E-Eight…oh God…”

Slowly, over the next few seconds, the doctor sliced downward, finishing the last of his five incisions. Sure enough, the counting helped. The end was finally approaching.

“T-Two…” Marshall said. And the
n
… “Wh-Wh-One.”

At the time, Marshall’s face was burned so badly no one could tell he was trying to smile.

The doctor didn’t smile back. “Okay, Marshall,” he said, grabbing a new scalpel. He glanced at the nurses, who quickly tightened their grip. “Now to your fingers.”

Marshall screamed so loud, and the pain was so electric, he eventually passed out.

Looking back, Marshall knew the doctors and nurses were only doing their best. If he had known they’d be slicing his fingers, he’d have never made it through the first part. And as he found out later, that operation was the only thing that’d stopped them from amputating his arm.

Still, today, as Marshall took his first step into the emergency room and the metallic smell of Silverol invaded his airways, his head went light and the rakes dug back into his arm. All around him,
curtained rooms were filled with the sick and injured. He was walking so fast, the curtains on each passing room followed in his wake. But even with his candle-wax skin, he didn’t attract attention. There’s always a rush in the emergency room.

“Dr. Lemont, please call your office,” the intercom announced from above. There was no Dr. Lemont at the hospital. Marshall knew what it meant.

He still didn’t run. Panic only brought attention.

In the back corner of the room, past the graveyard of spare wheelchairs and gurneys, Marshall ducked into a narrow corridor, following it around to the right. It dead-ended at a beige metal door with a bright red sign that read
Authorized Personnel Only
. Unlike most doors in the hospital, this one had no glass in it. Instead of a PIN-code lock, it had a black, square proximity-reader just above the doorknob. A little sticker in the corner read
DOC
.

Department of Corrections.

In select city hospitals, there are designated rooms in case the local prison has an inmate who needs surgery or has a life-threatening illness. In Washington, D.C., that room connects to the emergency room—and, if the Secret Service needs it, can also be commandeered for a far more private patient.

Pulling a key fob from his pocket, Marshall pressed it into place. The door popped open.

“You’re
late
,” Francy announced, clutching her datebook at her side.

Marshall didn’t answer. As the door shut behind him, he was still focused on the fading Silverol smell…and the familiar figure standing just behind Francy’s shoulder.

“Trust me, we’re having one of those days too,” the President of the United States said, stepping forward and wringing his own hands. “Now can we talk about our friend Beecher?”

C
lementine knew she wasn’t safe. She had that feeling in the back of her throat, the same feeling from when she was twelve years old and the older men would come check on her in the dressing room while her mom was singing onstage. Back then, thos
e
men had a hungry look in their eyes. A look of inevitability.

It was the same look Ezra had today. Not for Clementine. For their mission. For what he promised her here, in the empty strip-mall parking lot off Wilson Boulevard.

“Don’t. Not yet,” Ezra insisted, grabbing her wrist as she went to open the door of his gray rental car. His slitted eyes homed in on the digital clock of the car’s dashboard. 3:54 p.m. “These are people of precision,” he warned. “You walk in early, they’ll walk away.”

Pulling free of his grip but still scanning her surroundings, Clementine didn’t like this corner of the lot, where every passing car on Wilson Boulevard could see what they were doing. Yet as she readjusted her brown wig, she knew that was the point. The best place to hide was usually in plain sight.

“Can I ask you a question?” she said, staring straight ahead at the only storefront with a bright red
Closed
sign. All the other stores were open. “Why’re you doing this?”

“I told you. The role of the Knights—”

“No, forget the Knights. I’m talking about
you
. Why’re
you
doing this?”

Sitting up straight, Ezra followed her gaze out the front windshield, his white eyelashes glowing in the sun. He had the posture of a private-school boy, and that haughty cockiness in his voice that said he wasn’t ashamed it was private school. From his breast pocket, he took out a fine leather wallet. Like his black overcoat, suede shoes, even his belt…it was all brand-new. It took money to look this effortless.

“See this picture?” he said, handing an old photo to Clementine. “That’s
me
,” Ezra explained, pointing to a little boy, barely three years old, who you could only see from behind. In the photo, young Ezra’s tiny hand reached upward, excited, as he shook hands with an older man whose leathered skin and slicked pompadour Clementine recognized instantly.

“Ronald Reagan,” she blurted.

“I was three years old. Reagan was out of office by then. This was taken at the opening of his library.”

Clementine stared down at young Ezra shaking Reagan’s hand. “Don’t tell me you’re doing this for the Gipper.”

“You asked why I’m committed to this. There’s my reason. For
him
,” Ezra said, pointing to the side of Reagan, at a salt-and-pepper-haired man standing by young Ezra’s side.

Clementine had missed the figure at first. But there he was, in mid-laugh, his graying hair defying gravity as he bent sideways, holding a proud hand on young Ezra’s shoulder. He was beaming.

“This your dad?” Clementine asked.

“My grandfather, Tanner Pope. Taught me how to saddle a horse properly, served twenty-five years with the Secret Service, and was on President Reagan’s personal detail, including the day Reagan was shot.” Looking over at Clementine, he added, “He was also, like his father, and his father before him, a member of the Knights of the Golden Circle.”

Clementine looked back at the photo and the way the old man’s mouth curved open in mid-laugh. Her own father—Nico—had told her stories of the Knights. From John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey Oswald, all four presidential assassins had supposedly been Knights. Nico saw himself as a self-made Knight too. Truth is, she’d thought it was her father’s typical ravings, but to hear Ezra tell it… “Does that mean your dad was also—?”

“I don’t think my father even
heard
of the Knights. He never had a chance,” Ezra said. “Twenty-two years ago, long before my father could join, the last generation of Knights were hunted down. Slaughtered like dogs. I’m guessing they spared Grandpa Tanner since that’s when he had his first stroke. But his legacy…the work of the Knights…”

“I get it,” she interrupted, spotting the hunger in his eyes. “You want my father to help you rebuild.”

“Something like that,” he said, calmly plucking the Reagan photo from her hand. He propped it up on the steering wheel, his thumb over Reagan’s face so it was only him and his grandfather. “Don’t look at me like I’m crazy, Clementine. Haven’t you ever wondered, when you’re lying there in bed, after you shut
the TV and the house goes quiet, and you’re just staring at the ceiling—don’t you ever wonder if you’re meant for something
greater
?” His eyes stayed on the picture. His thumb now covered his grandfather too. “When I was three years old, my grandfather took me to meet the most powerful man in the world. Don’t tell me it wasn’t for a reason.”

Feigning agreement, Clementine stared at the old photo on the steering wheel. She didn’t like Ezra. Didn’t trust him. But what bothered Clementine most was the simple fact that she
understood
him. The way Ezra’s eyes so desperately begged at the photo, was it any different from the emotional undertow that had caused Clementine to spend the last year searching for her father? These last few months had cost her her soul. She’d become a murderer—she’d taken someone’s life—all in the name of finding answers from Nico, making a connection with Nico, and of course, finding a cure for herself from Nico.

Even now, as her father ran off yet again, promising that he’d return with a solution for her cancer, Clementine knew she shouldn’t believe him. But she couldn’t help herself. It was a basic rule of life: Parents are full of promises; children are full of needs and longing. The perfect ingredients for disappointment.

As she sat there in the passenger seat, Clementine came face-to-face with another basic rule of life: It’s far easier to judge others than to judge yourself. Indeed, the more she heard Ezra talk about his grandfather, the more she saw her own misplaced expectations for her father. No, not just
misplaced
. They were hopeless. Even ridiculous. For months now, Clementine had thought her father would have answers. It was time to admit, Nico didn’t—and never would.

“You’re really in pain, aren’t you?” Ezra asked.

Clementine didn’t move. She gulped down a swirl of blood as her back teeth floated in her mouth. If she wanted help, medical or otherwise, Nico couldn’t help. He wanted to. But she’d need to get that help herself.

And she would. If nothing else, Ezra was at least good for that.

On the dashboard,
the digital clock blinked to exactly 4:00
p.m. Across the parking lot, through the glass door of the closed storefront, a pale figure in a white doctor’s coat appeared, then disappeared just as fast.

Clementine closed her eyes and swallowed the pain, along with another pool of blood.

“Just remember,” Ezra added, popping the door and heading outside. “Once we’re done here—”

“Don’t worry,” Clementine shot back. “In my family, we always keep our promises.”

I
t took three fingers before Nico believed him.

“
Nico, please… on my granddaughter’s life
—
Fahhhh!
” Doggett screamed, twisting in his bed as Nico squeezed the needle-nose pliers and peeled a thin ribbon of skin from the colonel’s thumb.

“
That was smart, starting with the thumb
,” the dead First Lady pointed out, knowing it was the least sensitive of all the fingers.

Nico nodded, holding tight to the colonel’s wrist. If he went too big, too fast, Doggett would pass out.

“
I swear to God, Nico! If I knew the answer, you think I wouldn’t
—
? Guhhhh!
” Doggett screamed again. And again. A swell of snot and tears rolled down his face. It got particularly loud when Nico moved on to Doggett’s ring finger.

“You don’t wear a wedding band, but I see the indentations,” Nico said, using the tip of the pliers to grab a sag of loose skin. “Did your wife die or did she leave you?”

Doggett was sobbing now, barely hearing the question.

With another sharp tug, Nico raised the pliers above the colonel’s chest, like a kid playing the game
Operation
.

Slowly releasing his grip, Nico opened the pliers just enough to add another thin ribbon of finger-skin to the bloody pile he was building on the colonel’s chest.

“
I think he just said his wife’s name
,” the dead First Lady said.

Nico nodded, eyeing the original wedding photo on Doggett’s bedroom wall. The bond between husband and wife could be profound. But it was nothing like the love for one’s own child.

“
I-I-I don’t know how to save your daughter
,” Doggett pleaded, his voice barely a whisper.

By the time Nico started peeling Doggett’s pointer-finger—the most sensitive of all the fingers—there was no mistaking the tart smell of urine that pooled in the seventy-year-old colonel’s bed.

“Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name…!” Doggett cried.

Nico smiled at that. The Lord’s Prayer. He glanced down at the carpet, tempted to kneel and—

“
Don’t do it
,” the First Lady warned. “
Finish the job. There’ll be time for praying later.
”

Of course she was right. And sure enough, as Nico continued to peel the skin from the colonel’s third finger—as Doggett begged and prayed and continued to insist that he didn’t know how to save Clementine—Nico finally did believe him.

“A-All these years…I knew you’d come,” Doggett muttered, barely conscious. “I knew it’d be you.”

“Who else?” Nico asked. “Who else knew the details of what you did to us?”

Colonel Doggett clenched his eyes, refusing to look at the pile of skin on his chest. His body was shaking, his arm a bloody mess. “Tabatchnick. Dr. Adrian Tabatchnick.”

“
Who?
” Nico asked, not recognizing the name.

“Dr. Moorcraft. From the island. Tabatchnick is the new name they gave to Moorcraft…”

Nico sat up straight, chin out, nearly dropping the pliers.
Hnnn
. All those years in St. Elizabeths, he’d never even considered it.

Dr. Moorcraft was still alive.