Брэд Мельтцер - The Fifth Assassin

Naturally, Wallace again insisted on keeping to his schedule. He wanted to stick to the Lincoln Memorial event and the early meal that would precede it at Café Milano. But as the director of the Secret Service explained, there’s a reason the President isn’t in charge of his own protection.

“I heard it’s a Class 3,” another agent called out, referring to the Service’s code name for a mentally unstable attacker.

Another agent nodded. Based on where they were headed—to one of the few places more secure than the White House—someone was definitely trying to knock down the old man.

Even so, as the agents approached their individual lockers, they weren’t panicking, yelling, or rushing around. They weren’t grabbing for guns or weapons or bulletproof vests. There’d be plenty of weapons waiting for them at their destination. In fact, at this moment, as the metal lockers clanged open, the only thing the agents were grabbing was a change of clothes. Suits and ties were being replaced by khakis and casual dress shirts, to match the attire of where they were going—the safest place to hide the leader of the free world, the same place they hid George W. Bush during the days after 9/11 and countless other Presidents during times of possible attacks: the private presidential compound known as Camp David.

One by one, A.J. watched as the casually dressed team bolted from the room. The Secret Service was doing their part. And now A.J.—still wearing his suit and tie as he headed upstairs to the Oval—was ready to do his.

82

Nico thinks he’s smart.

And he is.

He’s smart enough to fool the doctors at St. Elizabeths, and the nurses, and to somehow pass secret messages—and clearly some advice—to the Knight who’s been killing pastors and imitating past assassins. And he’s smart enough to know that if he wants to keep those secret messages secret, he should hide them in something that no one would look at twice, like a playing card that he uses as a bookmark.

But as I sit at my kitchen table, squinting down at the slightly beat-up ace of clubs and examining the front and back of it, I do everything I can to put Tot out of my mind. Mac said he’s still in surgery. He said I shouldn’t come to the hospital, that the best way for me to help was this —with the card—especially as I think about the leather book that Nico was hiding it in.

I saw it when he first put it down on the glass table in the public meeting area. It wasn’t a history book. It was a novel from the early 1900s—a bestseller called Looking Backward . In it, a young Bostonian named Julian West goes to sleep in 1887 and wakes up in the utopia of the year 2000. But the only reason I know the book—or why anyone still remembers it—is because, as I learned last night when I looked up the third attack, it was the favorite novel of assassin Leon Czolgosz. Looking Backward was the book he read and reread for eight years, right up until it inspired him to kill President McKinley.

Yet as I study the nicked and slightly bent ace of clubs, the only thing I really care about is whatever message I have to believe is hidden in it somewhere. When I first met Nico, he told me he was the reincarnation of George Washington. That was his way of telling me how special he is. But it’s also my way of knowing how Nico thinks.

Back during the Revolutionary War, no one was better at sending secret correspondence than George Washington. As the leader of the Culper Ring, he helped invent numbered codes that were so uncrackable, versions of them are still in use by the CIA to this day. He used hourglass-shaped masks that, when placed on top of a handwritten letter, would block out certain sections of the letter to reveal a hidden message.

But George Washington’s favorite magic trick was always the same: invisible ink. As I learned when I first joined the Culper Ring, invisible ink dates back thousands of years, from Egypt to China, using organic liquids like the juice from leeks or limes. Indeed, as every kid in a science fair knows, all you need to do is heat the paper, and voilà—you’ll see the hidden writing. But as Washington understood, it’s not much of a secret when all you need to crack it is a nearby candle.

As a result, Washington and the first members of the Culper Ring got rid of the heating process and changed it to a chemical one. Washington would write in an invisible ink, called the agent . And when the recipient applied a different chemical, called the reagent , it’d reveal the hidden message. As long as the British didn’t have the reagent, they’d never crack the code.

As I raced back home, Immaculate Deception said that I should pour lime juice, lemon juice, any juice I could find across the front of the ace of clubs. But he’s missing the point.

No question, Nico’s not doing this alone. Whether Marshall is the Knight or not, Nico must be getting help from someone in the hospital. Someone is sneaking these cards to him, or at least sneaking him books with new cards tucked inside them. But that doesn’t mean Nico can get whatever liquid or juice he needs at the exact moment he needs it. No, for Nico to really communicate with the Knight, he needs a reagent that’s always available. And that’s when it hits me. Forget lime juice, lemon juice, or even apple juice—even in an insane asylum—there’s only one liquid that Nico always has access to.

Grabbing a nearby piece of Tupperware, I race to the bathroom and unzip my pants. One short but incredibly satisfying pee later, the Tupperware is filled with warm urine that sloshes in a mini-tide as I carefully make my way back to the kitchen.

Standing over the sink, I lower the ace of clubs into the Tupperware. Nothing happens. Nothing at all. And then…

Pale purple letters bloom upward, like alphabet soup letters rising from the broth.

There’s no cryptic warning. No special instructions. Just two words that make me feel like someone’s using a hole-punch on my stomach.

I read them again, and again. I don’t know if Nico was sending them to the Knight or, more likely, that the Knight is somehow bragging to Nico, but I do know this: These two words were intended for only Nico and the Knight to see—the location where the Knight plans to make his final stand.

Camp David.

83

A.J. watched the entire argument.

Of course, the President didn’t participate in the argument. He was at his desk, signing letters with his head down. No, when it came to the big arguments with the Secret Service, Wallace had staff wade into the mud.

Within seconds, those staffers were livid. The heads of the Service weren’t surprised. Staff was always annoyed when they heard POTUS wouldn’t be where they wanted him.

But as the chief of staff pointed out, this wasn’t just about Wallace’s safety. It was about the entire country. As they all knew, the President’s schedule was published every day for the world to see. So when the press suddenly spots members of the White House Military Office out on the South Lawn, rolling out three giant circles with huge Xs on them… and then a Black Hawk helicopter armed with missiles and countermeasures swoops in, takes the President and his family out of there, and upends said schedule with no notice… there’s not a person on this planet who won’t know something is intensely wrong.

“But something is wrong,” the head of the Service pointed out. “We’ve got an active threat—that’s why we need the EA movement,” he explained, referring to the Emergency Action that came with the Black Hawk.

“That’s fine, but you go running to Camp David with an unannounced EA movement and you know what the press will scream? Terrorist attack,” the chief of staff argued back. “From there, financial markets plunge, people panic, and investors start buying stock in ammunition companies and businesses that make body bags.”