The Willard (19 page)

“I do not think, as a matter of fact. She seemed perfectly sure of her own mind when she told you about it.”

“Well, I just don’t know about that, Mrs. Fordham.”
Maybe the old woman really is senile. She can’t actually be defending such behavior by a proper young lady
, he thought. “My mother says suffragists are malcontents who need to find husbands and be about the business of their homes and children and not out gallivanting around trying to be men.”

Olivia bristled at the thought that her own great-grandmother held such antiquated opinions.

“Perhaps it would serve you best, Mr. Asher, if you didn’t share your mother’s opinions with the young ladies of today. I believe you will find they might disagree more often than not.”

James looked momentarily chastised. “I just wish I could talk to Miss Webster again. I think I might make a better impression the second time around. Although I suppose my splashing you with dirty water was really my first impression and the argument the second. I doubt if she’ll give me a third try.” He stood and collected his hat.

“If you’ll excuse me, Mrs. Fordham, I really should be getting back to Capitol Hill to see if my brother needs my assistance. I apologize again for the difficulty this afternoon and I hope that when you see Miss Webster again you will pass along my best wishes and sincerest hope for her happiness.”

Olivia thought the young man looked like he was in danger of a decidedly unmanly crying episode, but he straightened himself up and before she could think of anything to say he bid her goodbye and took his leave.

She had struck out with her grandfather. Now she’d have to face her grandmother and, if memory served, attempting to change her mind about anything could be a daunting proposition.

C
HAPTER 39

CATHERINE PARKER

1865

Catherine hailed a carriage and asked for the Surratt boarding house. The driver said he knew the way, but wondered if she was sure she wanted to go there.

“It’s not in the best neighborhood, ma’am. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather wait for your husband?”

She was sick of being asked about a husband or a proper chaperone to accompany her where she needed to go. She wondered what this pimply-faced kid would think if she told him she had flown high up in the sky here to the city on a big metal airplane that brought her all the way from Ohio without a male escort.

“I’m quite certain I want to go there, thank you very much.” She sat back on the seat and braced herself for the bumpy ride to 541 H Street.

“Here you are, ma’am. This is the Surratt boarding house,” the driver told her.

“Wait for me, no matter how long I’m inside,” Catherine told him and walked away before he could argue.

She pushed the door open and heard a bell ring that had been hanging on the knob. A young lady came out and seemed surprised to see Catherine standing there.

“Can I help you?” asked the girl.

“I’m looking for someone who may be staying here,” Catherine responded. “He’s an actor named John Wilkes Booth.” She had no idea what made her ask for him.

The girl seemed surprised. “I know of him but he doesn’t stay here ma’am. I believe he lives in a hotel.” Catherine searched the girl’s face for some sign she was hiding something but couldn’t detect a lie.

“Is Mrs. Surratt here?”

“No ma’am. I’m Anna. Mary Surratt is my mother,” the girl answered.

For a moment Catherine was stunned. She wasn’t sure what she would find when she came here, but for the first time she was face-to-face with someone connected to the conspiracy. Granted, she was the daughter, but her mother was THE Mary Surratt, the only woman hanged for her role in the killing of the president. The woman whose tavern had been used to store the guns for John Wilkes Booth to aid in his escape from the city.
I need to put that on my list
, Catherine remembered.

“She’s not here, but she should be back in a few hours. Would you like to wait?” Anna asked.

“No, I was just hoping to locate Mr. Booth. You’re sure he isn’t staying here?”

“Ma’am, people like Mr. Booth don’t stay in places like this.” She glanced around and dropped her voice to a whisper. “I have heard that he stays at the National Hotel when he’s in town,” she blushed.

Of course. She’s a fan. He’s like Ryan Gosling to this girl
.

Catherine could sense the young girl was telling the truth. She didn’t know where Booth was and her blush gave away her secret admiration. If Booth was planning something sinister, this girl knew nothing of it.

“I’m sorry to have bothered you. I’ll be on my way,” Catherine said as she reached for the doorknob.

“Do you have a message for my mother?”

Catherine paused as more of her history lessons came to mind.

Mary Surratt is going to be hanged for her part in the assassination. The young girl standing in front of me will plead for her mother’s life. History will never be sure how much involvement Mary had, if she even knew what the men were doing. I can save her. I can tell Anna to get her mother out of town. Whatever she’s done so far, nobody has been hurt. It’s not too late!

And then she remembered Chase’s words of warning. She stood, aching to tell Anna something that could save her mother and save the life the young girl herself knew.

“No. No message,” Catherine said. Quickly she walked out the door, hanging her head like the coward she was.

C
HAPTER 40

TOM KELLY

1962

The evening of October 23 passed with Tom Kelly sitting on a sofa in the Oval Office explaining to the President of the United States and his brother, the nation’s top law enforcer, how he had systematically breached the communication pathway between the world’s two superpowers. In spite of much arguing and posturing, Bundy and McCone had been dismissed from the room before the explanation began in earnest, but not before Director McCone assured Tom Kelly he would make sure the full weight of the government was brought to bear against him. Tom had a fleeting thought that for the rest of his life he would probably pay the price for crossing the nation’s top spy by being constantly harassed by a CIA grunt whose only job was to make his life miserable.

If I don’t go to federal prison or get obliterated by a nuclear bomb first, of course
.

“Start at the beginning,” said the attorney general. “And forget for the next few hours that you’re talking to an officer of the court. I need the full truth.”

Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound
.

“Three years ago, I had an idea for a film based on the KGB so I started doing research and found out pretty quickly that there was a more interesting angle to the story. It happened sort of by accident. I was exchanging letters with a professor at Yale who was granted asylum by the U.S. fifteen years before.
He was giving me background information on the growth of the KGB and the changes in the country since the establishment of the Soviet Union. His parents had vivid memories of the overthrow of Nicholas II, and they had shared stories with him of life under the imperial system. They had intimate knowledge of that life because his father was a groundskeeper at Tsarskoe Selo, home of the imperial palaces. When the Romanovs were placed under house arrest, his father continued to work for the family during the time they stayed there. Nicholas sometimes slipped him coded messages to carry to the outside. He was taking them to supporters of the Tsar who responded with messages about what was happening outside the palace gates. These messages warned the Tsar of ominous rumors about the fate of the family. This was during the time the Romanovs sought asylum in England. They were related to the British royal family as descendants of Queen Victoria. King George V was fond of his cousin the Tsar, but the First World War was still raging and the king was leery of revolution in his own country. He believed that while cousin Nikki might lose his crown, he wasn’t in danger of losing his life, so he denied the request for sanctuary. Loyalists in St. Petersburg believed the Tsar was in mortal danger and their missives became more and more fevered. Before a viable solution could be reached, the Tsar and his family were moved and eventually ended up at a house in Ekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains. Some of the servants went with them and died alongside them when the entire family was executed in the basement a few months later. The professor’s father had begged to be allowed to go with them to continue to serve the Tsar, but it was believed that Nicholas sensed the danger to come and refused to allow him to go along because he had a young son at home. The son was the professor with whom I was now communicating.

In the years following the assassination of the imperial family, the professor’s father had reached out to the loyalists with
whom he had exchanged the Tsar’s messages. They got together in secret to write a comprehensive history of the last months, believing the monarchy would be restored and the murderers brought to justice. The secret history filled two volumes and his father was given responsibility for hiding them. When his son was ready to defect to the United States he knew the government would be looking at his family carefully and their secret might be discovered. Enough time had passed that he realized the old system was gone for good and he recognized an opportunity to get the books out of the U.S.S.R. so their story could be preserved without threat of discovery. The books went with the professor on his journey to America. Incidentally, his parents were found dead in their home seven months later and the house had been torn apart. The secret hiding place where the books had been kept had been pried open. Thankfully, the books were safe in Brooklyn by that time.”

The president had been listening intently and now posed a question to Tom. “I get the feeling there was more to the books than some dusty history. Am I correct, Mr. Kelly?”

“You are, Mr. President. The books were full of names, addresses, dates, and most importantly, code ciphers. The history was extensively documented, but that’s not what made the books so dangerous to possess years after the revolution. It was the data on the writers themselves and the organization that had grown from their small beginnings that changed the course of my research and has implications in this room today.”

“What was in the books?” asked the attorney general.

“The books were the founding documents of a secret group of loyalist informers, spies, code breakers, and messengers. They styled themselves as the counterpoint to the emerging secret police, the Cheka, which eventually became the KGB. Their goal was to be ready to go fully operational to help rebuild the old Russia when the time came, but it never came.” said Tom.

“So, a secret group formed out of the rubble of the last Tsar’s government and they existed for several years hoping to see their old way of life returned,” Robert Kennedy mulled the idea over.

“Not exactly, sir. The passing of the original group, including the groundskeeper didn’t mark the end of the mission,” answered Tom.

“What happened to them?” asked the president.

“They regrouped, sir. Over time new contacts were recruited and placed in all the major cities of the Soviet Union as well as in rural villages. They’re even active in Siberia. It was through their network that I infiltrated the ‘official’ clandestine chain of communication between our nations. They call themselves обходной канал информации. It translates in English to
Back Channel
. They’ve kept up with advances in spycraft and technology and years ago they established a new headquarters.”

“Where?” asked the president?

“New Haven, Connecticut, sir.”

C
HAPTER 41

CALVIN WALKER

1963

At five o’clock in the morning, Calvin finally got out of bed to get ready for his day. He hadn’t slept a wink and he couldn’t be still any longer. A few minutes before six, he folded Dr. King’s handwritten speech draft and put it in his pocket. He hoped it would be enough to get Fish to trust him and give up the information he needed.

By the time he met Tiny across the street from the Willard the scene was pretty spectacular. Buses were backed up on both sides of 14
^th
Street, discharging their passengers for the walk to the Washington Monument where the march was scheduled to begin. Billed as the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,” the event had brought people from across the country to the nation’s capital. Tens of thousands had already gathered and by the time the speeches were scheduled to be delivered more than 250,000 would line the National Mall. Most of the attendees were black, but there were thousands of white people and some of other races as well. It was their inclusion that rankled the more radical groups including Kifo.

Calvin and Tiny skirted the gathering crowd and walked back to the apartment where the group was huddled together. Fish didn’t look surprised to see Calvin. He still feared the man was an undercover police officer or FBI agent, but he was intrigued enough by the possibility of getting close to Dr. King that he let the situation play itself out. He would decide soon
whether or not to continue with Calvin or have him dispatched by one of his eager lieutenants.

Calvin approached Fish and held out the sheets of paper.

“What’s this?” Fish asked.

“It’s the proof you asked for. That is the speech Dr. King will deliver today at the march. I was with him last night when he was working on it.”

“And where was this?”

“At the Willard Hotel,” Calvin responded.

The answer was apparently humorous to Fish and when he chuckled his acolytes followed suit. “So you and Dr. King were just sittin’ around writin’ speeches in that fancy place next door to the White House? They must have a colored wing I never heard of.”

“It’s the truth, Fish,” Tiny said. It was only the second time Calvin had heard the man’s voice. “I stayed there too and they had the softest bed you ever did lay down on and I ate dinner three times and didn’t pay for none of it.”

“And what was Williams doing while you were eatin’ dinner three times?”