The Willard (11 page)

“Olivia, for the people who do these things to do them, they have to suspend part of what they know as reality. Each one has to be willing to go forward with nothing but the unbelievable notion that the impossible is possible.”

“It’s like faith,” Olivia said.

Chase didn’t know if she was a woman of faith or not. Her causes had always been secular in nature and he didn’t know her personally well enough to determine her private views. But she seemed to grasp that to accept what he was telling her she would have to be willing to accept what cannot be proven.

The worry seemed to disappear from her face and Chase could see that she was relaxing. She couldn’t explain what was happening. She didn’t know if it was real or her imagination. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do or how she could be of use one hundred years in the past. And she didn’t care. In the same way she agreed with Robert Fordham that their lives could be best lived together, she decided to lean in to what Chase was telling her. The rest would have to sort itself out.

“What do you need me to do?” she asked.

“In a few days, Woodrow Wilson will be inaugurated as President of the United States. Before that date, thousands of women are planning to come to Washington to demand the right to vote. Two weeks ago, sixteen of them left New York City on horseback and on foot bound for the city. They need your help.”

Olivia was silent for a moment. She smiled when she spoke next.

“Well, they’re in luck, Edward. They sound like my kind of broads.”

C
HAPTER 19

CATHERINE PARKER

1865

When Catherine came around, the first thing she noticed was a playbill for
Our American Cousin
. Edward Chase had placed it beside her on the settee in order to wave the smelling salts under her nose. As she pulled herself together he handed her his handkerchief so she could dab at the water she’d spilled on her dress. It was still damp from the soaking she got from the carriage. Chase didn’t speak at first and she took her time tending to her dress before she faced him again.

“You were saying something about . . .umm . . .an assassination I believe?” It seemed she could hardly form the words.

Chase searched her eyes but couldn’t tell what she was thinking. He’d been in this situation many times and he knew he had to go slowly. Rushing headlong into his explanation would only cause her to shut down or, worse yet, bolt for the door. He knew they didn’t have that kind of time. They only had forty-eight hours to go before their date with destiny and there wasn’t time to find another person to handle the situation. It had to be Catherine. He gave her a brief explanation of what it meant to have a tear in the fabric of history and how critical it was to make sure everything happened as it had originally. That meant that she had been brought here to see that the president’s assassination was not thwarted.

Catherine had been silent, taking in Chase’s words all the while trying to wrap her mind around them.
He’s saying it again. He’s saying I have to make sure the president is assassinated. Perhaps the most beloved president of all time. The man who preserved the union. The one who freed the slaves. The same person who said ‘four score and seven years ago’ and other stuff like that. The president who was very famously shot and killed already and yet he wants me to make sure it happens again? What the hell kind of dream is this? It has to be a dream. It must be
.

“Mr. Chase, let me see if I understand you. I came here today, and by today I mean in 2016, to attend a job interview. An interview for a job that could change the course of my life, mind you. And now I’m sitting here in a long, dirty dress having just met an actress while I was out dodging horses and buggies on muddy streets and you’re telling me I’m about a century and a half in the past and that I’m just going to walk out of here in my buttoned shoes and go make sure somebody kills the president who has been dead for 151 years. Is that about it? Because if it is, I think one of us needs some medical attention.”

A hint of a smile crossed Chase’s face. “Ah, sarcasm. The twenty-first century practice of stating the absurd. I recognize it.”

Catherine didn’t smile back. She wasn’t giving in so easily to this man who appeared to be deranged.
How does a fancy place like this end up with a nut job for a concierge?

She sat in silent defiance.

But he didn’t make the cars disappear. Or the paved streets. And certainly not the top of the Washington Monument
.

She tentatively decided then to give him a chance, not because she was prepared to believe what he was saying, but because she didn’t have any other choice.

“All right, I’ll play,” she said as she picked up the playbill resting between them. She saw the name LAURA KEENE in big, bold letters. The star of the show.

“She was nice to me,” Catherine said, almost to herself. “She helped me after a carriage flew out of an alley and splattered me with all this mud.” She looked down at her bedraggled attire and thought she must look a mess.

Chase nodded his agreement. “She’s a nice lady and a very well-known actress. I suppose you might say she’s the Jennifer Aniston of this time. I heard about what happened behind the theatre this afternoon. That’s where you were, you know? That’s the alley behind Ford’s Theatre. Evidently a bit of a kerfuffle erupted between Ms. Keene and Mrs. Aberdeen. It wasn’t the first time Mrs. Aberdeen has made a hasty retreat about town with her carriage. I’m sorry you got caught in the flying mud, but it’s serendipitous that you met Ms. Keene. You’ll have easy access to the theatre through her.”

“So she knows about this? She knows I’m. . . .not from here?” Catherine asked.

“No, she has no idea. She was just going through rehearsals this afternoon. She’s played this theatre many times, but there are a few areas of the stage that have limited sight lines for some of the seats in the house so they were doing some new blocking. She doesn’t know what’s going to happen. She doesn’t even know the president will be in the theatre in two days. He has not replied and there is even a rumor that he left town to attend the ceremony for the raising of the United States flag over Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Major Anderson hauled it down that awful night four years ago and this will be the first time the union colors have flown over the fort since. No, the president will not make his plans known until the day of the performance when it becomes clear his wife wants to attend with Major Rathbone and Clara Harris.”

“Just like that?” Catherine questioned him with a snap of her fingers. “Shouldn’t there be Secret Service crawling the place already and getting ready to lock everything down? I know times
were different, but I didn’t think the president ever went anywhere on the spur of the moment.”

“Remember back to your junior high history, Ms. Parker. No president had ever been assassinated before Mr. Lincoln so there is no Secret Service yet. The president comes and goes just as you or I. Even during the war he rode his horse to and from the Soldier’s Home outside of the city with just a single sentry most of the time. And now the war is over. Peace is the order of the day for the first time in four contentious years and people are breathing easier. Lincoln is being hailed a hero. He really should be safer than ever.”

Catherine jumped in. “Then that’s wonderful news! All we have to do is keep him home from the theatre and the Great Emancipator lives to oversee Reconstruction. Simple, right?” Catherine’s comment was dripping with sarcasm. “If this is really 1865 and I’m going to be hanging out with the leading lady at Lincoln’s last play then why would I do anything OTHER than wave my arms around and tell everyone who’ll listen that John Wilkes Booth is up to no good and save the president’s life?”

“You’re right. You could do that and you’d save a great man’s life. But you could also do what the entire Confederacy could not. You might destroy the United States of America.”

C
HAPTER 20

TOM KELLY

1962

Tom nearly tripped a woman on her way through the revolving doors. As he entered the lobby of the Willard he saw Edward Chase walking toward him.

“What’s going on?” The words were out of Tom’s mouth before the two met halfway across the lobby.

“Mr. Kelly, please lower your voice. I assure you I can explain everything.”

“There was something wrong with those bath salts in my room. I think they had some kind of drug in them. I’m walking around in a dream state and I have a very important meeting in a few hours that I can’t afford to mess up. You need to get somebody in here, a doctor or somebody, to help me,” Tom was nearly pleading as he ran his hand back and forth through his hair.

“This way, Mr. Kelly.” Chase led him through a doorway off the lobby into the Round Robin Bar. “Please have a seat,” he said as he poured him a glass of water from a carafe behind the bar.

“I could sue this hotel, you know! How many people take a bath in this place and end up passing out? I could have drowned!” The more he talked the more upset he became but Chase remained calm.

“You are not high, Mr. Kelly. You are in perfect health. The bath salts were a mixture of the finest lavender, heather, and moss from Ireland. There was nothing in them that would cause you any distress,” the concierge assured him.

“Then I suppose you have an explanation for whatever the hell is happening to me? Is that right, Chase?”

“It is. But I’m afraid you are going to have to indulge me for a rather lengthy explanation. Please drink some water and try and calm down. The meeting with your investors is not in jeopardy. However, the fate of the world is and you are here to do something about it.”

Tom stared at the concierge for a long time, waiting for him to either break up laughing or offer further explanation. He did neither. After a few deep breaths and a full glass of water Tom was no closer to figuring out what was happening.

“All right, I’m listening. Start talking,” he said to Mr. Chase.

“Today is October 23, 1962. Last night, President John F. Kennedy went on national television to announce the buildup of offensive missile sites by the Soviet Union on the island of Cuba. He also announced a blockade around the island to stop any Soviet ships attempting to deliver further supplies to Cuba that could make the weapons operational. You know this event as the Cuban Missile Crisis and you know that it ended peacefully with the Russians turning their ships around and the missile sites being dismantled. That’s how it happened the first time.”

“What do you mean, ‘the first time’?” asked Tom.

“Something has happened to the fabric of history, Mr. Kelly, and a significant change has taken place in the run up to the finale of the “game of chicken” as you refer to it. The first time the Soviets blinked. They pulled back and war was averted. This time the course of events has been altered. That’s why you’re here. You have to find out what has changed and fix it. And before you ask the question let me answer it; if you don’t fix
it, a first strike order will be issued by one of the nations. Given the circumstances, once it is ordered it cannot be rescinded.”

C
HAPTER 21

CALVIN WALKER

1963

It was now 9:30 in the morning. For the third time since he woke up, Calvin was walking to the elevator on his floor. He still hadn’t had a cup of coffee. The clothes Chase had left with him were fairly nondescript. There was nothing thuggish about them, but they also didn’t look like they had come from an expensive store. They were meant to blend in where he was going. To that end, Calvin had taken off his gold wedding band with the row of diamonds across the top. He hated thinking that it might be stolen.

When he got to the lobby Edward Chase was waiting for him. The concierge said he had arranged for a taxi to take Calvin to the general area where the addresses he had given him were located. He warned him that it could be hard to get a taxi on the way back and that he should be careful to get out of the area before it got too late. Calvin didn’t understand why getting a taxi in D.C. would be a problem. They were known to be pretty much everywhere looking for fares.

“Mr. Walker, you have to remember this is 1963. Just the color of your skin will be enough for most taxis to pass you by in the better neighborhoods and where you’re going they are scarce indeed because the area has a reputation for violence.”

Awesome. This is sounding better and better all the time
. Calvin got into the cab and headed for the first address on his list in
Washington’s Southeast quadrant. The driver dropped him off a few blocks away and said he would go no farther.

Once on the sidewalk, Calvin got his bearings and started walking in the direction of his first stop. On the way there he wondered what kind of heinous activity could be taking place at this time of the morning. In his mind, these things happened in the dark of night, not before lunch on a Tuesday. The neighborhood was a busy one. Mothers were pushing their children in strollers along the sidewalk and stores seemed to be doing good business as he passed by their open doors. Nothing looked particularly dangerous to him. He walked straight for a few blocks and navigated west for a couple more. He’d ventured into the residential areas where he saw people sitting on the steps of walk-ups that had seen better days and in doorways of apartment buildings. Most were men who should have been at work by this time of day, but they seemed to have nowhere to be. There were also quite a few young people in their teens and twenties who eyed Calvin with suspicion as he passed. He was feeling like the farther he walked from where the taxi driver had dropped him off the more sinister the area felt. One other thing he’d noticed in the six blocks he’d walked was that he hadn’t seen a single white face. It was the opposite of the nearly all-white environment near the Willard. He couldn’t explain why but he felt much more out of place here where the faces looked like his own than he had when he walked up 14
^th
Street with Edward Chase, and he was ashamed of his reaction. Just about the time he had decided to turn back he came to the first address on the note. He wasn’t sure what the protocol was for dropping in on a group of radicals so he rang the buzzer until someone released the door and he walked up to the second floor. He did the only thing he knew to do. He knocked. After a few more minutes of knocking and listening for any sound that would betray the inhabitants he decided there was nobody there and he went back to the street. He really wanted to leave the area but
the other address was only a block away so he vowed to give it one more try and then hightail it back to the Northwest.