Брэд Мельтцер - The Fifth Assassin

Once again, Nico leans back and to the side. Final advice from his imaginary friend. This time, he disagrees with her.

“Please, Nico,” Clementine pleads. “Tell us when the next murder is.”

Holding his wrist out, Nico glances at his watch like a proper butler checking teatime. “The murder already happened. Ten minutes ago.”

My phone again starts to vibrate. My throat goes so dry, I can’t feel my tongue. As I pull my phone out, caller ID shows me a randomly generated number from an area code that doesn’t exist. Only one person has that.

“Beecher, you need to get out of there,” Immaculate Deception demands in his computerized voice.

“What’re you talking about? What’s wrong?”

“You haven’t heard, have you?”

“Heard what?”

He pauses, leaving me with the high-pitched squeal that leaks from my phone. “Beecher, when was the last time you heard from Tot?”

PART IV

The Fourth Assassination

“You know, last night would’ve been a hell of a night to kill a President.”

—President John F. Kennedy,

three hours before he was shot

He was the fourth President murdered in office.

78

Ten minutes earlier

Stepping out of the elevator, Tot was thinking about coffee.

Not the taste of it. The smell of it.

He didn’t smell it now; hospitals smelled of ammonia and bleach, not fresh-roasted coffee grinds.

But as Tot speed-limped up the first-floor hallway, trying to move as quickly as he could to the chapel in back, he couldn’t help but think about the smell of coffee from all those years ago—after his wife’s brain aneurism—when she was the one in the hospital. Back when she was first admitted, the doctors said it wasn’t that bad, that she’d recover. But when her liver and kidneys began to fail and the paralysis started causing bedsores, Tot didn’t need a medical degree to know what was coming.

The doctors wanted her transferred to hospice, but one of the senior nurses in the unit knew Tot from the Archives. Tot helped the nurse find the documents that proved her great-great-grandfather—a slave at the time—fought during the Civil War. She made sure Tot’s wife stayed in that private room in the ICU.

Over the course of the next week, Tot would sit at her bedside, staring at the plastic accordion tube that ran down from his wife’s neck—the feeding and breathing tube—that was still spattered with blood from where it entered her throat. He watched his wife’s weight plummet to less than a hundred pounds, her skin sagging against her cheekbones. She didn’t even know Tot anymore. When they could rouse her… if they could rouse her… the only question she could answer was, What’s your sister’s name?

But for Tot, the very worst came in those final days, when the nurses began stocking the room with open coffee cans filled with freshly ground beans. At first, Tot didn’t understand. Then he realized… the coffee cans were there so he couldn’t smell what was happening to his wife’s body.

It was that lingering thought—of cheap Chock Full O’ Nuts French Roast—that nibbled through Tot’s brain as he reached the far end of the hallway and approached the stained glass door of the chapel.

Grabbing the door-pull of the chapel and determined to refocus on the task at hand, he let the memories of his wife dissipate. He tried thinking about what Immaculate Deception had said, that all of the Knight’s victims were clergy members who had spent at least some time with the President. As Tot just found out, the hospital pastor—Pastor Stoughton—had done the same when President Wallace was here last year. But as Tot gave the door-pull a tug, the smell of coffee still lingered.

“Pastor Stoughton?” Tot called out, stepping inside and smelling… he knew that smell too… that burnt smell like fireworks or…

Gunpowder.

“Pastor, are you—?”

Tot almost tripped on the coat-rack, a wooden one. It was lying diagonally across the carpet. Like someone had knocked it over.

As he stepped over it, he heard breathing. Heavy breathing. Like someone panting. Or crying.

Feeling time harden into slow motion, Tot headed deeper into the room. It was difficult to walk, as if he were moving underwater. As he looked around to his right, he saw the blood—small drips of it, like a barely spilled soda dotting the light beige carpet. Behind that was her body.

Tot saw her legs first. She wasn’t moving. Just from the awkward way her knees were bent, Tot knew Chaplain Elizabeth Stoughton was dead.

She was crumpled on her side—like she’d tried to curl into a fetal position, but never quite made it. At her stomach, a puddle of blood soaked her blouse, still blooming and growing up toward her chest and over toward her right breast.

Next to her body, an older man with sandy blond hair was down on his knees, like he was hit too. He was breathing hard, trying to say something. Tot knew the man—from the photo Immaculate Deception had sent: the pastor who was shot yesterday. Pastor Frick. Time was twirled so tight, Tot barely heard him. It was all still underwater.

Still, Tot saw his hands… they were up in the air. Like he was being robbed and someone was pointing a gun at him.

“B-Behind you…” Pastor Frick cried, pointing behind Tot.

Slowly turning, Tot looked over his own shoulder.

It was too late.

Pfft.

The silenced gunshot bit like a hornet, drilling into Tot’s head. Right behind the ear. Just like JFK.

A neat splat of blood spit against the nearby wall.

Tot tried to yell something, but no words came out. As his knees gave way, he saw the Knight’s eyes, and it all made sense.

The world blurred and tipped sideways. His bones felt like they were turned to salt. As Tot sank, deflated, onto the carpet, his last thoughts were still about the smell of coffee. And how good it’d be to finally see his wife.

79

Now

Beecher, I need you out of there!” Immaculate Deception’s computerized voice barks through my phone.

“But if Tot’s—If he’s been shot—”

“You’re not listening to me, Beecher! Another pastor—the female one from the hospital—is dead! That’s the third victim! Tot’s the fourth ! Four victims… If we’re right, you know who the Knight’s going after next!”

My mind leaps back to the President—and to Marshall—and to the restaurant he was casing in Georgetown. “You need to look at Café Milano—see when Wallace is going there,” I blurt. “I’ll go to the hospital. If Tot needs help—”

“ You can’t help Tot now! ” Mac explodes in full panic. “I spoke to the surgeon—the doctors just brought him in, but… the way the bullet entered his head—His heart’s beating, but his brain function… I don’t think they’re finding brain activity. You need to get out of there and—”

“Nico, stay where you are!” the guard yells behind me.

“S-Something’s wrong,” Nico whispers. “It was just here a moment ago. I saw it.”

I spin back to the benches and the sycamore tree. Nico’s right where I left him. The guard’s a few feet behind him. But as Nico looks down and flips through the leather book he’s been holding…

“My card—the bookmark,” Nico says. “I’m missing my playing card!”

“Beecher, get outta there,” Immaculate Deception says.

“He took it! Benjamin took it!” Nico insists, pointing at me. “He took my card!”

“ What? I didn’t take anything,” I say, backing away from Nico, toward the front of the building. “I don’t know what card you’re talking about.”