Брэд Мельтцер - The Fifth Assassin

“That’s me; I’m Beecher. And you are…?” I ask, though neither of them answers. As Tot limps and ducks into his own cubicle, I see that both my visitors are wearing gold lapel pins with a familiar five-pointed star. Secret Service.

I glance over at Tot, who smells the same rat I do.

“You mind answering a few questions?” the agent with the narrow face asks as he flashes his badge, which says Edward Harris. Before I can answer, he adds, “You always at work this early, Mr. White?”

I have no idea where the bear trap is, but I already feel its springs tightening. Last time I saw President Wallace, I told him I’d do everything in my power to find the evidence to prove what he and his dead friend Palmiotti did. In return, the most powerful man in the world leaned forward on his big mahogany desk in the West Wing and told me, as if it were an absolute fact, that he would personally erase me from existence. So when two Secret Service agents are asking me questions before eight in the morning, I know that whatever they want, I’m in for some pain.

“I like getting in at seven,” I tell the agent, though from the look on his face it isn’t news to him. I make a quick mental note of every staffer and guard downstairs who saw me hunting through presidential records and might’ve tipped them off. “I didn’t realize coming to work early was a problem.”

“No problem,” Agent Harris says evenly. “And what time do you usually get home? Specifically, what time did you get home last night?”

“Just past eight,” I say. “If you don’t believe me, ask Tot. He drove me home and dropped me off.” Still standing by the door with the priceless Robert Todd Lincoln letter in my hands, I motion to Tot’s cubicle.

“I appreciate that. Tot dropped you off. That means he doesn’t know where you were between eight last night and about six this morning, correct?” the agent with the goatee asks, though it no longer sounds like a question.

It’s the first time I notice that neither of these guys has the hand mics or ear buds that you see on the Secret Service agents around the President. These two don’t do protection. They’re investigators. Still, the Service’s mission is to protect the President. In the Culper Ring, we protect the Presidency. It’s not a small distinction.

“Were you with anyone else last night, Beecher?” Agent Harris jumps in.

From his cubicle, Tot shoots me a look. The bear trap is about to snap shut.

“Do you always wear gloves at work?” Agent Harris adds, motioning to the white cotton gloves.

“Only when I’m handling old documents,” I say as I open the file folder and show them the mottled brown Robert Todd Lincoln letter that’s still in my open palms. “If you don’t mind…”

They step away from my cubicle, but not by much.

As I squeeze inside and carefully place the Lincoln letter on my desk, I notice the odd slant of my keyboard and how one of my piles of paper is slightly askew. They’ve already gone through my stuff.

“And do you take those gloves home with you?” Agent Harris asks.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “but are you accusing me of something?”

They exchange glances.

“Beecher, do you know someone named Ozzie Andrews?” Agent Harris finally asks.

“Who?”

“Just tell me if you know him. Ozzie Andrews.”

“With a name as silly as Ozzie , I’d remember if I knew him.”

“So you never met him? Never heard the name?”

“What’re you really asking?”

“They found a body,” Agent Harris says. “A pastor in a church downtown was found murdered last night around 10 p.m. Throat slit.”

“That’s horrible.”

“It is. Fortunately for us, just as the D.C. Police got there, they nabbed a suspect. Named Ozzie. He was strolling out the back of the church right after the murder. And when they went through Ozzie’s pockets, this killer had your name and phone number in his wallet.”

“What? That’s ridiculous.”

“So you don’t know anything about this murder?”

“Of course not!”

There’s a long pause.

“Beecher, how would you describe your opinion of President Orson Wallace?” Agent Harris interrupts.

“Excuse me?”

“We’re not asking your political views. It’s just, with St. John’s Church being so close to the White House… you understand. We need to ask.”

I turn to Tot, who doesn’t just smell the rat anymore; now we see it. Two months ago, as the President buried his best friend, he swore he’d also bury me. I thought it’d come in the middle of the night with a ski mask. But I forgot who I’m dealing with. Tot said the President already had the bull’s-eye on my forehead, then suddenly two Secret Service guys show up? This is Wallace’s real revenge: Tie me to a murder, send in the Service, and keep your manicured hands clean as they snap my mugshot.

“Where is this Ozzie guy now?” I ask. “I’d like to know who he is.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize suspects get to make their own demands.”

“So now I’m a suspect? Fine, then let me face my accuser. Is he still in jail?”

For the first time, both agents go silent.

“What, you let him go?” I ask.

Again, silence.

“So you found the murder suspect and already let him walk? And now you think you can come here and pin it on me? Sorry, but unless you’re here to arrest me, we’re done.”

“Can you just answer one last—?”

“Done. Goodbye,” I say, pointing them to the door. For thirty seconds, they stand there, just to make it clear that it’s their choice to leave, not mine.

As the door slams behind them, I hear Tot whispering behind me.

“You’re the best, Mac. I appreciate it,” he says from his cubicle.

It’s the first time I realize Tot’s been on the phone the entire time, and when I hear the name Mac , I realize how much danger I’m really in.

When George Washington first created the Culper Ring, he picked regular, ordinary people because no one looks twice at them. His only other rule was this: that even he should never know the names of all the members. That way, if one of them got caught passing information, the enemy would never be able to track the others.

That’s the real reason why the Culper Ring has been able to exist to this very day—and why they’ve had a hand in everything from the Revolutionary War, to Hiroshima, to the Bay of Pigs. Before the OSS, or the CIA, these guys wrote the book on keeping secrets. So when it comes to other Culper members, there’s only one besides Tot that I’ve met face-to-face. He’s a doctor; they call him The Surgeon . That’s it, no name. He took four pints of my blood in case of emergency. But there’s one other member I’ve been warned about.

Tot calls him Mac —which is short for The Immaculate Deception —which is short for when it comes to hacking, if we need something, Mac’s the one who’ll get it . The only thing he asks in return is that we buy Girl Scout cookies from his niece.

“You owe me another box of Samoas,” Mac says through Tot’s cell.

“Y’mean Caramel deLites,” Tot says.

“I don’t care if they changed the name. They’re Samoas to me,” Mac says in the text-to-speech voice generator that draws out every syllable in the word sa-mo-as and makes him sound like a 1960s robot.

No one’s ever heard his real voice.

From what Tot says, Mac was one of the Seven. In case of a national emergency, if the Internet and our computer infrastructure go down, seven people in the U.S. government have the capability to put it back up again. Five of the seven need to be present to do it. Mac, before he left the government behind, used to be one of them.