The Willard (28 page)

C
HAPTER 65

CALVIN WALKER

1963

As he lunged at the man with the detonator, Calvin’s life seemed to morph into slow motion. He felt his feet leave the ground and saw the man turn to him with a look of panic on his face. He held the box in his left hand and as Calvin soared through the air at him he brought his right hand up and put his finger over the button.

At that moment, Calvin felt something hot hit him in the abdomen. It ripped and tore through him, blazing a path through his flesh. At the same time he felt the skin on his legs heating up and being torn from the bone. The wind was knocked out of him and he saw blood spraying everywhere. He didn’t feel anything else, nor did he comprehend the blood that now seemed to be all around him was actually pouring from multiple wounds to his own body. He had been too late, and as he lay dying the last thought that went through his mind was of his family all together the last time they visited Lookout Mountain.

C
HAPTER 66

OLIVIA FORDHAM

1913

Edward Chase arrived at the Jefferson Suite with a bottle of wine and two exquisite glasses.

“It’s not ladylike in 1913 to get drunk,” Olivia said dryly.

“Is that a concern for you?”

“Hell, no. I just wanted you to know I recognize that. Come in, Edward.”

They sat in the first parlor and toasted the end of the long day.

“I don’t suppose Victoria sent a message for you to deliver?” Olivia asked.

“No. She hasn’t come downstairs since she got in.”

“If she hasn’t done it by now she probably won’t. I guess that means I’ve failed at least part of the task.”

“I’m never told for sure what the task is, Olivia. Perhaps it was only to get her to stay and be part of the march. Maybe that’s all you had to do and I believe you’ve done that.”

“But you know that’s not all.”

“I know.”

“Have you ever had anyone fail what they’ve been sent back to do?”

Chase looked away. He
had
experienced a failure. Many years had passed since it had happened, but the consequences were catastrophic and he couldn’t tell her that. He didn’t have to. She could almost read his mind.

“Have you ever had someone negate their own existence?”

He kept sitting there staring into his glass. “No. I’ve never seen this happen before.”

“And you don’t know what will happen to me.”

“I don’t.”

“What usually happens when this is over?”

“Typically, you would fall asleep again and wake up back where you were when this all started. You would lose no time and go about the business you came for. Some people don’t even realize they’ve been anywhere. Most just think they’ve had a vivid dream, but others assume they had too much wine with dinner or some bad fish,” he said in a halfhearted attempt to lighten the mood.

“What about the others? There have to be some who question the experience.”

“Yes, there are some. Occasionally they seek me out to see if I give anything away and other times they go back to the scene of the experience to see if they can make sense of it.”

“Have any gone to the lengths you went to in order to understand it? To maybe become like you?”

“None that I know of. And I hope that never happens. I’m not sure if this is a life I would wish on another person.”

They were silent for a few moments, each lost in private thought. Olivia spoke first.

“So maybe I just won’t wake up. Just cease to exist.” She paused. “Will there be any sign I was ever here in the hotel? What happens to my things?”

More silence.

“There won’t be any sign of me anywhere, will there? No life lived in New York. No business, no institute. I guess with my health condition I eventually wouldn’t remember those things anyway. I guess I always thought someone would.”

“I can’t say for sure, Olivia, but I have to believe that there’s still a chance we’re missing something.”

“It’s been bothering me that the story I always heard about my grandparents meeting involved a carriage accident. I remembered it because I thought it was special that they lived in a time people still traveled around in carriages. It didn’t happen that way yesterday so maybe this whole thing was already decided.”

“I’m so sorry, Olivia. It’s my fault that you’re here and if I could change this please know I would do it in a second.”

The man looked distraught and Olivia felt for him. Strangely, she felt peaceful about her own situation.

“I don’t think I would change it Edward. I never knew my grandfather and I could never have imagined my grandmother as a young, impressionable girl full of fire and zeal. I don’t know how much more of life as I’ve known it I really had left anyway so this has been a gift in a way.” She reached out and touched his hand. “You cannot blame yourself, my dear friend. Tomorrow I will spend another day with my grandmother and I’ll watch her becoming the woman she grew to be.”

“This is not over, Olivia. I will spend every moment tomorrow looking for that missing element.”

“Please do. And if you don’t find it we must both accept it and move on.”

He stood to leave and asked if there was anything else she needed for the evening.

“I’m fine, but I would appreciate if you could send up the maids to help me dress in the morning. There is a splendidly fashionable concoction in the closet and I can’t think of a better day to wear it.”

“Consider it done. Goodnight, Olivia.”

“Goodnight, Edward.”

C
HAPTER 67

CATHERINE PARKER

1865

The shouting. The screaming. “Sic semper tyrannis!”
Thus always to tyrants
. Catherine had seen Booth’s awkward landing on the stage and heard him shout his battle cry. She heard the agonized screams of Mary Lincoln and the shouts of Major Rathbone. The outer door to the state box had been barred from the inside and Rathbone swung it open, screaming for help and bleeding. Confusion reigned as the audience tried to figure out what had happened. Was this part of the play? Soon enough it was obvious it wasn’t and panic set in. Catherine saw Laura Keene run to center stage and plead with the audience to remain calm. Booth had disappeared backstage and the realization was becoming clear that the president had been attacked. The call for a doctor rang out and a man ran into the box.

Without thinking, Catherine got to her feet and started walking as though she was being drawn to the scene of the crime. She entered the box and pressed herself against the back wall watching the surreal images play out before her. Major Rathbone was standing against the front rail of the box wrapping his bleeding arm. Mary Lincoln had been moved from her husband’s side when the doctor got there. She was seated on the settee alternating between moments of shock and others of agonizing keening. Clara Harris was by her side doing all she could to comfort the traumatized woman. And there, on the
floor at her feet, was the president. He was so tall he seemed to take up most of the floor space. Blood seeped into the red carpet as the doctor probed his body looking for the wound. He soon found it, a single hole in the president’s skull. Dr. Leale removed the clot that had formed and the blood flowed more quickly. The face Catherine knew so well from photos was drawn and pale. She could see the life draining from him. The doctor spoke, but to Catherine’s ears it sounded like he was underwater.

“His wound is mortal. It is impossible for him to recover,” he said simply.

Just then Laura appeared in the doorway. In a strange turn of events she moved to the president’s side. The doctor backed away and Laura Keene, the most famous actress in the world, cradled the president’s bleeding head in her lap while his wife sobbed at the news he had been fatally injured.

The roaring in Catherine’s ears got louder and louder until all she could hear was the sound of her own heart beating.
Do they know this is my fault? That I could have stopped it? That I’m the reason this man’s blood is spilling onto the floor and this woman who has suffered the loss of two children is now facing the tragedy that will finally send her over the edge? They don’t even know my name, but this is my doing
. She wanted to faint, maybe even to die. Anything to stop the rising sense of shame and remorse she felt. The cries of Mary Lincoln condemned her by their very rawness.

Some men arrived to carry the president from the box to a place where he could be more comfortable. A place to die away from the scene of violence. Catherine felt herself moving toward Laura. As she laid the president’s head down on the floor and backed away Catherine was there to help her to her feet. Laura looked at her with unseeing eyes and the two women embraced. Catherine felt Laura’s knees buckle and as she started to fall Catherine caught her and lent her support as she walked her out of the state box to a seat in the dress circle.

The president was carried down the stairs and across the street to a boarding house. Catherine knew from the history books that he would languish all night and die early the next morning. There was nothing she could do now. Her deed was done and the blood could never be washed from her hands.

As the crowd left the theatre to stand in the street outside the boarding house, the cast of the play and the theatre staff became concerned about repercussions. They hustled the rest of the patrons outside and locked the doors. Laura had been in shock and was led away by one of her dressers. Catherine watched her walk away and then left with the other patrons. Laura had not looked back. Though she could not have known, Catherine felt her only friend knew she was to blame. Out on the street now herself she couldn’t bear to stand with the crowd. As she made her way from the vicinity of the theatre she waded through a mass of people just arriving as the news spread. Word was getting around about Secretary of State William Seward being attacked at his home. Rumors were rampant, some true and others clearly embellished. But nothing could be worse than the truth. She was bumped and jostled for several blocks until she broke free and for the second night in a row she walked the streets of the nation’s capital alone.

C
HAPTER 68

TOM KELLY

1962

“Run it again, Ethan. Tell me why you think it could be him,” Tom said as he paced from one side of the room to the other.

“It’s the pacing. The messages only take into account one line of communication when clearly there are two going on simultaneously. Everything in ‘channel one’ checks out with ‘channel two’ but everything in ‘channel two’ doesn’t check out with ‘channel one.’” He picked up a stack of messages and laid them out two at a time, side by side until he had two columns of seven messages each.

“Here, look at the way these line up. The time stamps are within a couple of minutes of each other and they relate to one another, see?” Ethan asked.

“Right,” Tom answered.

“But these four,” Ethan pulled four slips of paper from the columns and put them in a grouping of their own. “These don’t relate at all to the others. There’s a check and balance going on everywhere else, but not with these. And it’s not just what they say, it’s how and when they say it.”

Tom leaned over the four messages and instantly he saw what Ethan was talking about. The thought crossed his mind that he was taking advice from a teenager using highly classified documents, but he figured it wasn’t the strangest thing that had happened to him all week to be sure. And he couldn’t argue with
what he was seeing. Maybe he’d just been too tired to see it before. Or, more likely, he didn’t want to see it.

“I’m not sure there’s another explanation, Mr. Kelly. Maybe if you let me take this to the guys at the White House they can make sense of it,” Ethan offered.

Tom didn’t say it out loud, but suddenly it all made perfect sense to him. And the last thing he wanted was for the men at the White House to know until he could be absolutely sure. Even then, he had no idea what would happen when he told them.

“Ethan, I’m starving. Could you go down to the lobby and ask the concierge, Mr. Chase, to send up a meal for the two of us? I need a few minutes to gather my thoughts and I’ll prepare something for you to take to the White House.”

Ethan went downstairs to find Chase. Tom sat on the edge of the bed trying to gather his thoughts as he had said he would do, but his mind could only conjure up one word over and over. Treason.

C
HAPTER 69

CALVIN WALKER

1963

Something had gone terribly wrong at the Lincoln Memorial. As the police secured the area, Fish climbed down from his perch in the tree. He had to get away before he was rounded up, but his retreat couldn’t go as planned because of Calvin’s interference.

As he had watched from the tree Fish had seen Calvin trailed by a police captain and a couple of beat cops. They appeared to be searching for him, scouring the area where he had been standing when Calvin threw his punch. They were also paying close attention to the ground, obviously looking for the duffel bags. Fish had been content to let them look all they wanted. The closer they got to the stage the better he liked it because they were putting themselves right where the blast zone was going to be.

Everything was going according to plan and when Mahalia Jackson’s song had started Fish could hardly contain his excitement. He glanced at the areas where he knew his boys would be with their duffels and, although he couldn’t pick them out in the crowd he knew without a doubt they would be ready when the time came. They were just like him, completely devoted to the cause. Actually, they were even better because they were willing to give their lives for it. Fish wasn’t ready to take things that far. He didn’t have a death wish. What good was changing things in society if he wouldn’t be around to enjoy
the fruits of his labor? No, Fish was content to let his foot soldiers bleed if necessary. Of course, he fed them fiery rhetoric about how they would all, himself included, be lauded as heroes for the cause if they were to die in pursuit of their goals. They were simpletons, he thought. He was the leader, the one with the ability to lead the troops through battle after battle until they won the war. He was too valuable to give himself up so easily. He could always find more foot soldiers. He was the general.