The Fifth Assassin

1

The Knight knew his history. And his destiny. In fact, no one studied those more carefully than the Knight.

Rolling a butterscotch candy around his tongue, he pulled the trigger at exactly 10:11 p.m.

The gun — an antique pistol — let out a puff of blue-gray smoke, sending a spray of meat and blood across the wooden pews of St. John’s Church, the historic building that sat directly across the street from the White House.

“Y-You shot me…” the rector cried, clutching the back of his shoulder — his collarbone felt shattered — as he reeled sideways and stumbled down the main aisle.

The blood wouldn’t stop. But the Knight’s gun hadn’t delivered a killshot. At the last minute, the rector, who’d been in charge of St. John’s for nearly a decade, had moved.

The Knight just stood there, waiting for him to fall. The stark white plaster mask he wore ensured that his victim couldn’t get a good look at his face. But the rector still had his strength.

Sliding his gun back in his pocket, the Knight moved calmly, almost serenely down the aisle, toward the ornate altar.

“Help! Someone… please! Someone help me!” the rector, a sixty-year-old man with rosy cheeks, gasped as he ran, looking back at the frozen white mask, like a death mask, that followed him.

There was a reason the Knight had picked a church, especially this church, dubbed “the Church of the Presidents” because every President since James Madison had worshiped here.

It was the same with the homemade tattoo on the web of skin between his own thumb and pointer-finger. The Knight had finished the tattoo last night, using white ink since it was invisible to the naked eye. It took five needles, which he bundled together and dipped in ink, and four hours in total, puncturing his skin over and over, wiping away the blood.

The only break he took was right after he had finished the first part — the initials. Then, from his pocket, he had pulled out a yellowed deck of playing cards, thumbing past the hearts, clubs, and diamonds, stopping on… Spades.

In the dictionary, spades were defined as shovels. But when the four suits of cards were introduced centuries ago, each one had its own cryptic meaning. The spade wasn’t a tool to dig with. It was the point of a lance.

The weapon of a knight.

“I need help! Please… anyone!” the rector screamed, scrambling frantically and making a sharp right through the double doors and down the long hallway that led out of the sanctuary.

The Knight’s pace was perfectly steady as he followed the curved hallway back toward the church offices. His breath puffed evenly against the white plaster mask.

Up ahead, from around the corner, he heard a faint beep-beep-boop of a cell phone. The rector was trying to call 911.

But like his hero, who had done this so long ago, the Knight left nothing to chance. The plastic gray device in his pocket was the size of a cell phone, and could kill any cell signal in a fifty-yard radius. Cell jammers were illegal in the United States. But they cost less than $200 on a UK website.

Around the corner, where the main church offices began, there was a dull thud of a shoulder hitting wood: the rector realizing that the doorknob had been removed from the front door. Then the loud thunderclap of an office door slamming shut. The rector was hiding now, in one of the offices.

In the distance, the faint sound of police sirens was getting louder. No way was the rector able to call 911, but even if he was, the maze had nothing but dead ends left.

Looking right, then left, the Knight checked the antique parlor rooms that the church now used for AA meetings and for the “Date Night” services they held for local singles. This side of the building, known as the Parish House, was nearly as old as the church itself, but not nearly as well kept up. Throughout the main floor, every one of the tall cherry office doors was open. Except one.

With a sharp twist of the oval brass doorknob, the Knight shoved the large door open. The sirens were definitely getting louder. In the far left corner, by the bookcase, the rector was crying, still trying to pry open the room’s only window, which the Knight had nailed shut hours earlier.

Moving closer, the Knight glided past a glass case, never glancing at its beautiful collection of fifty antique crosses mounted on red velvet.

“You can’t do this! God will never forgive you!” the rector pleaded.

The Knight stepped toward him, taking hold of the rector’s shattered shoulder. Under the mask, he rolled a butterscotch candy around his tongue. From his belt, he pulled out a knife.

One side of his blade had the words “Land of the Free/Home of the Brave,” etched in acid, while the other side was etched with “Liberty/Independence.” Just like the one his hero had over a century ago.

Taking a final breath that gave him a sense of weightlessness, he clenched his butterscotch candy in the vise of his back teeth.

“W-Why’re you doing this?” the rector pleaded as the sirens grew deafening.

“Isn’t it obvious?” The Knight raised his knife and plunged it straight into the rector’s throat. The butterscotch candy cracked in half. “I’m getting ready for the President of the United States.”

2

There are stories no one knows. Hidden stories.

I love those stories. And since I work in the National Archives, I find those stories for a living. But at 7:30 in the morning, as the elevator doors slide open and I scan the quiet fourth-floor hallway, I’m starting to realize that some of those stories are even more hidden than I thought.

“Nothing?” Tot asks, waiting for me outside our office. The way he’s rolling his finger into his overgrown beard, he knows the answer.

“Less than nothing,” I confirm, holding a file folder in my gloved open palms and double-checking to make sure we’re alone.

Aristotle “Tot” Westman is my mentor here at the Archives, and the one who taught me that the best archivists are the ones who never stop searching. At seventy-two years old, he’s had plenty of practice.

He’s also the one who invited me into the Culper Ring.

The Ring was started by George Washington.

I know. I had the same reaction. But yes, that George Washington.

Two hundred years ago, back during the Revolutionary War, Washington built his own private spy ring. Not only did it help him win the war, but it helped protect the Presidency. The Ring still exists today, and now I’m a part of it.

“Beecher, you knew he wasn’t gonna make it easy.”

“I’m not asking for easy; I’m looking for possible. It’s like there’s nothing to find.”

“There’s always something to find. I promise.”

“Yeah, you’ve been making that promise for two months now,” I say, referring to how long it’s been since Tot and I started coming in at 7 a.m. — before any of the other archivists show up — privately digging through every presidential file we can find.

“What’d you expect? That you can look under P and find everything you need for Evil President?” Tot challenges.

“Actually, Evil President would be filed under E.”

“Not if it’s his first name. Though it does depend on the record group,” Tot clarifies, hoping the bad joke will lighten the mood. It doesn’t. “The point is, Beecher, we know the hard part: We know what Wallace and Palmiotti did; we know how they did it; and when they were done with their baseball bat and razor-sharp car keys, we even know they put a young man into a permanent coma and left him to die. Now all we have to do is prove it. I’m thinking we should start picking up the pace.”

As Tot says the words, he runs his fingertips down the metal strands of his bolo tie, which he doesn’t realize is as socially extinct as the Scottsdale boutique where he bought it back in 1994. The thing is, I know Tot. And I know that tone.

“Why’d you just say we need to pick up the pace?” I ask.

At first, Tot stays quiet, rechecking the hallway.

“Tot, if you know something…”

“One of our guys,” he begins, using that phrase he saves for when he’s talking about other members of the Culper Ring. “One of them spoke to someone in the Secret Service, asking what they knew about you. And y’know what the guy in the Service said? Nothing. Not a sound. You know what that means, Beecher?”

“It means they’re worried about me.”

“No. It means the President already knows how this ends. All he’s doing now is working on his cover story.”

Letting the words sink in, Tot again rechecks the hallway. I tell myself the proof is still in the Archives… somewhere… in some file. It’s no small haystack.

The National Archives is the storehouse for the most important items in the U.S. government, from the original Declaration of Independence to Jackie Kennedy’s bloody pink dress… from Reagan’s original “Evil Empire” speech to the tracking maps we used to catch and kill bin Laden. Over ten billion pages strong, we house and catalog every vital file, record, and report that’s produced by the government.

As I always say, that means we’re a building full of secrets — especially for sitting Presidents, since we store everything from their grade school report cards, to their yearbooks, to, the theory goes, old forgotten medical records that might prove what President Wallace really did that night twenty-six years ago.

“Have you thought about ordering his marathon files?” Tot asks.

“Already did. That’s what came this morning.”

For two months now, we’ve sifted through every puzzle piece of President Wallace’s medical history, from back in college when he was in ROTC, to the physical exam he took when his daughter was born and he bought his first insurance policy, to the X-rays that were taken back when he was just a governor and he ran the Marine Marathon despite having a hairline fracture in his foot. That fracture brought Wallace national attention as a politician who never quits. We were hoping it’d bring us something even better. Yet like every medical document related to the President, everything comes back empty, empty, empty.

“He can’t hide it all, Beecher.”

“Tell that to FDR’s medical records,” I reply. Tot doesn’t argue. Back in 1945, forty-eight hours after Franklin Delano Roosevelt died, his medical records were stolen and destroyed. No one’s found them since.

“So if Wallace’s marathon X-rays were a bust, what’s that?” Tot asks, pointing to the file folder that I’m still holding in my open palm.

“Just something I pulled from our Civil War records. A letter from Abraham Lincoln’s son talking about his years in the White House.” Tot knows that when I’m nervous, I like to read old history. But he also knows that nothing makes me more nervous than the most complex history of all: family history.

“Your mom called while you were down there, didn’t she?” Tot asks.

I nod. After my mom’s heart surgery, I asked her to call me every morning to let me know she was okay. My father died when I was three. Mom is all I’ve got left. But as always, it wasn’t my mom who called. It was my sister Sharon, who lives with and takes care of her. Every two weeks, I send part of my check home, but it’s Sharon who does the real work.

“Mom okay?” Tot asks.

“Same as always.”

“Then it’s time to focus on the problem you can actually deal with,” Tot says, motioning toward the main door to our office and reminding me that whatever President Wallace is planning, that’s where the real damage will be done. But as we step inside and I spot two men in suits standing outside my cubicle, I’m starting to think that the President’s even further along than we thought.

“Beecher White?” the taller of the two asks, though the way his dark eyes lock on me, he has the answer. He’s got a narrow face; his partner has a wide one that he tries to offset with a neatly trimmed goatee. Neither looks happy. Or friendly.

“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.

Cool story, right? It’s not the only one. According to the Surgeon, Mac isn’t a retired tech genius. He’s a nineteen-year-old social misfit who, like every talented hacker who gets caught by the U.S. government, is hired to work for the U.S. government. The Girl Scout cookies are really for his sister.

I don’t care which story is true. All I care is that when trouble hits, no one’s faster than the Immaculate Deception.

Tot hands me his phone over the cubicle partition. Onscreen is a photo of a man with buzzed black hair, standing against a light gray wall. My accuser Ozzie’s mugshot. He looks about my age, but it’s hard to tell since his face… his right eye sags slightly, making him look permanently sleepy — and the way his face is lumpy, like it’s coated with a shiny putty… I think he’s a burn victim.

Then I notice his eyes. They’re pale gold like the color of white wine.

Behind me, the door to our office opens as one of our fellow employees arrives. I barely hear it. My skin goes so cold, it feels like it’s about to crack off my body.

There’s only one person I know with gold eyes. And as I study the photo, as I look past the burns… No. It’s impossible. It can’t be him.

But I know it is.

Marshall.

3

Marshall didn’t hear the rip.

Like any fifth-grade boy, he was moving too fast as he kicked open the passenger door. Even in the small and usually slow town of Sagamore, even before his dad put the car in park, Marshall was out in the cold, racing around to the back of the car and using all his strength to pull his dad’s wheelchair from the trunk.

Barely ten years old, the youngest in his grade, Marshall was always told he was chubby, not fat — that his weight was perfect, but his height just needed to catch up. He believed it too, anxiously awaiting the day that God would even things out and make him more like his fellow fifth graders: tall like Vincent or skinny like Beecher.

Marshall was a polite kid — almost to a fault — with a mom so strict she taught him that if he had to pass gas, he had to leave the room. Discipline ran deep in the Lusk household, and the central discipline was taking care of Dad.

“At your service, sir,” Marshall announced, making the joke his dad always cringed at as he rolled the wheelchair to the driver’s-side door.

“On C,” his father said, turning his body and giving the signal for Marshall to lock the chair’s wheels and hold it in place. “A… B…”

“C…!” Marshall and his dad said simultaneously. Marshall’s father used all the strength in his arms to pivot out of the driver’s seat, toward the wheelchair, swinging what was left of his legs through the air.

In medical terms, Timothy Lusk was a double amputee. On the night of the accident, as he drove his pregnant wife to the hospital, a brown minivan that was being driven by a woman in the midst of an epileptic fit plowed into their car. Blessedly, Marshall was born without a scratch. Timothy’s wife, Cherise, was fine too. The doctors cut off Timothy’s crushed legs just below the knees.

“Careful…” Marshall said as his dad’s full weight tumbled from the car and collided with the wheelchair. He hated it when his dad rushed, but his father was always annoyed and impatient at being cooped up in snowy weather. Even though neighbors helped to shovel the Lusks’ walk, it didn’t mean they could shovel the entire town. For anyone in a wheelchair, winter was a bitch.

“Are you holding it?” his dad barked as his landing in the seat sent the chair skidding back slightly, sliding across the last bits of slush on the ground. The stump of his left leg slammed into the metal base of the armrest.

“I got it,” Marshall called back, readjusting his thick glasses and maneuvering the chair to mount the curb. Twenty years from now, every new street would be outfitted with a curb cut, and wheelchairs would weigh barely twelve pounds. But on this day, in Sagamore, Wisconsin, the curbs were unbroken and the wheelchairs weighed fifty.

In one quick motion, Marshall’s father popped a wheelie that tipped him back.

Gripping the wheelchair’s pushbars, Marshall angled the front wheels onto the curb. Now came the hard part. Marshall wasn’t strong, and he was overweight, but he knew what to do. With his palms underneath the pushbars, he shoved and lifted, gritting his teeth. His father pumped the wheels, trying to help. Marshall’s palms went red, with little islands of white where the pushbars dug in. It took everything they had…

Kuunk.

No problem. Up the curb, easy as pie.

“Galactic,” Marshall muttered.

From there, as his dad rolled in front of him, there was no plan for where they were going. His father just wanted out—strolling down the main drag of Dickinson Street… an egg sandwich at Danza’s… maybe a stop in Farris’s bookshop. But all that changed when Marshall’s father said, “I gotta go.”

“Whattya mean?” Marshall asked. “Go where?”

“I gotta go,” he said, pointing down. But it was the sudden panic in his father’s voice that set Marshall off.

“You gotta poop?” Marshall asked.

“No! I gotta pee.”

“So don’t you…?” Marshall paused, feeling a rush of blood flush his face. “I–Isn’t that what the bag’s for…?” he asked, tapping the outside of his own left thigh, but motioning to the leg bag his father wore to urinate.

“It ripped,” his father said, scanning the empty street and still trying so hard to keep his voice down. “My bag ripped.”

“How could it rip? We haven’t even—” Marshall stopped, glancing back at their car. “You tore it when you got out of the car, didn’t you?”

Racing behind his dad and grabbing the pushbars, he added, “Now we gotta get back in the car and go all the way home…”

“I won’t make it home.”

Marshall froze. “Wha?”

His father stopped the wheelchair, keeping his head down and his back to his son. He’d say these words once, but he wouldn’t say them again: “I can’t make it, Marshall. I’m gonna have an accident.”

Marshall’s mouth gaped open, but no words came out. For most of his life, because of the wheelchair, he had been nearly at eye level with his father. But he’d never noticed it until this moment.

“I can help you, Dad.” Grabbing the pushbars, Marshall spun the wheelchair around, running hard up the sidewalk. The closest store was Lester’s clothing store.

His father was silent. But Marshall saw the way he was shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

“Almost there,” Marshall promised, running hard, his head tucked down like a charging bull.

There was a loud krunk as the legs of the metal wheelchair collided with the concrete step.

“I need help! Open up!” Marshall shouted, rapping his fist against Lester’s glass door. The small bell that announced each customer rang lightly at the impact.

“Dad, tip back!” Marshall yelled as Dad popped a wheelie, and one of the employees, a thirtysomething woman with bad teeth and perfectly straight brown hair, opened the store’s front door.

“It’s an emergency! Grab the front of the chair!” Marshall yelled as the woman obliged, bending down. He jammed his own palms underneath the pushbars. “On C…” he added. “A… B…”

There was another loud krunk as the back wheels of the chair climbed the first step, wedging just below the second.

“Almost there! Just one more!” Marshall said.

“I’m not gonna make it,” his father insisted.

“You’ll make it, Dad. I promise, you’ll make it!”

“Sir, you need to stop moving,” the employee added, getting ready to lift again.

“Here we go,” Marshall insisted, his voice cracking. “Last one. On C…!”

“Marsh, I’m sorry… I can’t.”

“You can, Dad! On C…!” Marshall pleaded.

His father shook his head, his eyes welling with tears. As he clutched the armrests of his chair, his hands were shaking, like he was trying to claw his way out of his skin… out of the chair… Like he was trying to run from his own body.

“A… B…”

With one final krunk, the wheelchair slammed and bounced over the store’s threshold, a wave of warmth embracing them as they rolled inside.

In front of them, Marshall saw a crush of customers, almost all of them moms with kids, weaving between the rows of clothes racks, all closing in on them.

It was all okay.

“Hold on, I think something spilled,” the employee announced.

The sound was unmistakable. A steady patter that drummed against the wood floor. When he heard it, Marshall didn’t look down. He couldn’t.

“Oh God,” the employee blurted. “Is that—?”

“Pee-pee…” A five-year-old girl began to giggle, pointing at the small puddle growing beneath Marshall’s father’s chair.

From where he was standing, behind the wheelchair as he clutched the pushbars to keep standing, Marshall could see only the back of his father. For years, he had wondered how tall his dad actually was. But at this exact moment, as his father shrank down into his seat, urine still running down and dripping off the stump of his leg, Marshall knew that his father would never look smaller.

“Here…” a quick-thinking customer called out, pulling tissues from her purse. Marshall knew her. She worked with his mom at the church. The wife of Pastor Riis; everyone called her Cricket. “Here, Marshall, let us help you…”

In a blur of guilt and kindness, every employee and customer in the shop was doing the same, throwing paper towels on the mess, making small talk, and pretending this kind of thing happened all the time. Sagamore was still a small town. A church town. A town that, ever since the Lusks’ accident, always looked out for Marshall… and his mom… and especially for his poor dad in that wheelchair.

But as the swell of women closed in around him, Marshall wasn’t looking at his father, or the puddle of urine. The only thing he saw was the blond boy with the messy mop of hair staring at him from the corner of the store, back by one of the sale racks.

It was one thing to be mortified in front of a roomful of strangers. It was quite another to be mortified in front of someone you know.

“Marshall, we called your mom. She’s on her way,” the pastor’s wife leaned in and told him.

Marshall nodded, pretending all was okay. But he never took his eyes off the blond boy in the corner — his fellow fifth grader named Beecher, who wouldn’t look away.

There was concern and sadness in Beecher’s eyes. There was empathy too. But all Marshall saw was the pity.

4

Wait, you know him?” Tot asks as I stand in his cubicle, staring down at Marshall’s mugshot. My legs are stiff, my body’s numb, and my skin feels like all the blood in my veins suddenly went solid.

“Beecher—”

“His name’s not Ozzie. It’s Marsh. Marshall. In seventh grade, we used to call him Marshmallow.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Not since junior high.”

“And did he know her?” Tot asks.

I look up from the phone. I thought this was a trap by the President. But from Tot’s question, he’s also worried it’s a trap by her—the other person who happens to come from our small town.

Clementine.

My childhood crush, my first kiss, and the girl who, two months ago, was the one who uncovered the President’s ruthless attack and tried to blackmail him with it.

I know. I need better taste in women.

“You think Clementine—?”

The door to our office opens behind us. The other archivists are starting to arrive. I scratch the back of my blond hair and hold up a finger. Time to take this outside. As we head back into the hallway, it’s now swirling with the morning crowds. The Secret Service agents are long gone, but we both stay silent, beelining for the metal door that takes us into the dark library stacks at the heart of the National Archives. Motion sensor lights pop on, following us as we pass row after row of book-filled shelves.

“You think Clementine had something to do with this murder?” I ask, still keeping my voice down as I make a sharp left, following behind Tot as he stops at our usual hiding spot, a rusty metal table at the end of the row.

“She had something to do with the last one, didn’t she?” Tot asks. “Last time she showed up, she used your access at the Archives to blackmail President Wallace. Then she shot and killed Palmiotti, disappeared with the proof of the President’s attack, and nearly destroyed your life in the process. You really want to see what she does for an encore?”

“You don’t know there’s an encore.”

“Beecher, her father is Nico Hadrian,” he says, referring to the assassin who once tried to put a bullet in a President and now has a permanent room at St. Elizabeths mental institution. “You know Clementine’s coming back. She knows about the Culper Ring. So if she’s still going after the President—”

“She didn’t go after him. She was blackmailing him for information about her dad.”

“And you believe that? Didn’t she also say she was dying of some newly discovered cancer, and that your own dead father is actually alive?”

“She was lying about my father!”

“I know she was, and I also know how much that one hurt. Clementine isn’t just a manipulator, Beecher — she’s a hunter, no different than her dad. She went after the President, she killed Palmiotti, and she’ll happily do it again. The only reason she reached out to you is because she needed a fall guy. Just like now,” Tot says, his gray beard glowing in the darkness of the stacks. “C’mon, you knew it was just a matter of time. Clementine wasn’t blackmailing the President for money. She wanted information about her own dad, which you know she’s still craving. So if she’s trying to offer something to the President, or simply to take a crack at you for stopping her last time, wouldn’t this be the perfect way to do it: help the President get you caught up in a murder that you can’t get out of? All she has to do is connect with her old friend Marshall—”

“They’re not old friends,” I say.

“They didn’t know each other?”

“If they did, they weren’t close.”

Tot thinks on this, digesting the information. “You do realize that your hometown is full of crazy people, right?”

I nod, still holding Tot’s phone and staring down at Marshall’s mugshot. From the puttylike texture that makes his face droop, to the way his right eye sags, Marsh looks at least ten years older than me. And the victim of ten times the suffering.

“So if Clementine doesn’t have a hand in it, you think the President put Marshall up to this?” Tot asks.

“I have no idea. All I know is, two minutes after you tell me the President’s about to kick me in the face, I’m suddenly being accused of a crime that should be handled by the D.C. Police, but is magically in the hands of the Secret Service. And did you hear what those agents said? The cops arrested Marshall for murder, but he’s somehow already out on the street? Doesn’t that seem a little smelly to you?”

“Maybe he posted bail?” Tot offers.

“He didn’t post bail,” a robotic voice says through Tot’s phone. Immaculate Deception.

I shoot Tot a look. “You let him listen the entire time?”

“There’s no record of bail being posted,” Mac interrupts. “All it says is released. Either they had nothing on him, or Marshall’s got big friends who don’t mind calling in big favors.”

Tot doesn’t have to say it. This is it. The President’s hitting back.

When I started at the Archives, I learned that good archivists follow the rules, while great archivists follow their hunch.

“They said he killed a preacher?” I ask, still staring down at Marsh’s mugshot.

“Yeah, with your name in his pocket. Why?”

“No reason.”

Tot’s blind in one eye, but he still sees all. “Beecher, I know that look. And I know that brain of yours never lets anything go — it’s what makes you a great archivist. But whatever you’re thinking with Marshall, you need to stop remembering. This isn’t your childhood friend anymore.”

Of course, Tot’s right. I look at Marsh’s burned face now, almost like a mask. Then my mind flips back to Wisconsin, scouring old memories and searching for connections. Maybe this is another trap by Clementine. Or the President, who wants to shut me up and still blames me for the death of his best friend. Or maybe he’s after the Culper Ring. But as Marsh’s dead eyes stare back at me—

“I can get us into the crime scene,” Immaculate Deception announces through Tot’s phone.

He acts like it’s good news. And it is. The more information, the better. But in my head, I’m still replaying Tot’s earlier warning: that the President already knows how this ends. So as we rush out of the stacks and the automatic lights pop on in our wake, I can’t shake the feeling that everything we’re now doing…

… is exactly what the President wants.

5

There’s a band of yellow police tape covering the side door. Tot’s too old to duck under it. He tugs it aside, letting it flap in the air like the tail of a kite. I follow slowly behind him, into the scene of the crime.

As we enter St. John’s Church, it looks like an old colonial house filled with office furniture.

“Y’mind signing in for me?” a friendly voice calls out.

On our right, a guy with tightly cropped blond hair and an athletic build that stretches his dark suit approaches us with such an authoritative stride that even Tot takes a step back.

“We’re here to see Hayden Donius,” Tot says, though I don’t recognize the name.

“Just sign in. Clipboard’s over there,” he says, pointing to an antique side table, his arm muscles flexing from the motion. “Here’s a pen; don’t steal it,” he jokes, shoving a blue-and-orange University of Virginia pen into Tot’s hands.

In a blur, he’s gone, leaving Tot and me alone with…

“Hayden Donius…” a tall man with a soft voice and an out-of-date, gray, three-piece suit says. With an anxious both-hands handshake, he introduces himself as the executive director of the church. “And you’re the friend of—”

Tot nods, cutting him off. The two men exchange a long glance, and I remember what Tot said when he first invited me into the Culper Ring. Their membership is small, but their friends are many.

“I–I truly… we appreciate you coming…” Hayden says, his voice shaky as Tot breezes past the side table, ignoring the sign-in sheet and eyeing the wide window on our right.

I see what Tot’s looking at. Through the window, past the barren trees of Lafayette Park, there’s a perfect view of the city’s most famous landmark. The White House. Home of President Orson Wallace.

“Pretty darn close to the murder,” I say with a glance.

Tot nods, well aware of how fishy this is — and how familiar.

Two months ago, it was Clementine. Today, it’s Marshall. Two murderers, both from my same tiny hometown, and both this close to the President of the United States. It gets even worse when I think about how fast they let Marshall out of jail even though he’s supposedly a murder suspect. Even if Tot didn’t tell me the President was gunning for me, how many people have pull like that?

“We should get started,” Tot says, knowing that the only way to stop the President is to prove what he’s really doing.

Leading us inside, Hayden looks tired, like he’s been up all night.

I glance around. There are barely six offices in the entire church. This place is small. The rector who had his throat slashed wasn’t just some coworker. He was Hayden’s friend.

“Sorry, fellas,” a young black policeman says as we approach the office at the end of the main hall. “Detectives said no one gets inside until they’re back from lunch and the techs are done.”

“But that’s my office,” Hayden protests. “I need to be able to do my job.”

The officer nods but doesn’t budge. “They say no one, they mean no one. I don’t make the rules until they give me the suit and tie.”

He waits for us to argue, but from our spot near the doorway, we can see everything inside: Two evidence technicians — one Asian, one bald — flit around the office, making notes and taking a few final photographs. In the corner, a few yellow plastic evidence placards are marked with a directional arrow that shows the blood spatter sprayed across the bookcase and the window. That’s where the killer slit the rector’s throat.

It’s all in the police report that Mac got for us on the way here. One shot in the back; throat slashed in the front. Hayden heads up the hallway toward the actual church and pews, but it’s not until we reach a set of open double doors, with a strip of yellow police tape across them, that he suddenly slows down.

To bring us in here, he’s breaking the rules. Breaking the law. Luckily, he knows that some things are more important.

“Promise you’ll be fast,” he begs as I lift the police tape and rush inside. The ceiling rises, revealing ornate balconies, the wide dome, and the stained glass windows that fill the Church of the Presidents with a kaleidoscope of morning light. The room stretches back with half a football field worth of pews, but it’s the familiar church smell of rose candles, old books, and stale air that takes me back to childhood and fills me with memories of my own dead father.

“They think the killer started here,” Hayden says, leading us up the aisle. On both sides of us, on the armrest of each pew, a small gold plate identifies donors. Every pew is spoken for, except for the one that’s about a third of the way from the altar: Pew 54. The gold pew plate reads simply, The President’s Pew.

“I’m surprised the President doesn’t sit in the front row,” Tot says.

“Blame James Madison,” Hayden explains. “When he was President, they gave him first dibs on one of the pews, but he said, ‘Pick one for me.’ So they put him as a person of the people. Right in the middle, like everyone else.”

“And President Wallace abides by that?” I ask.

“He’s only been here once. Some leaders worship more than others. But even Presidents want to be a part of history.” As he says the words, he points inside the pew. On the floor, there are four kneelers with needlepoint cushions for people to pray on. Each cushion has a different name in bright gold letters: George W. Bush. Barack Obama. Leland Manning. And an ancient one — the very first one from two hundred years ago — that says James Madison.

“Where’s the one for President Wallace?”

“You only get it when you leave office,” Hayden says, still anxious to keep us moving as he strides toward the back of the room. In every pew are more kneelers. Ronald Reagan. Woodrow Wilson. Bill Clinton. Harry Truman. At one point in time, every single one of them came into this room and bent a knee to God. It should be humbling. But as I picture our current President — and the power he threatened to level against me — I don’t even want to think about it.

As we reach the very last row, the last two pews are roped off by more police tape, where the killer took his first shot at the rector. More placards with little arrows on them mark the blood spatter along the pews and wood floor. This time, though, I know the pew we’re looking at — the one that’s more famous than all the others combined.

The Lincoln Pew.

It’s the last pew, the very last row. Back in the 1860s, Lincoln used to walk across the street from the White House, sneak into this pew in the back, and then disappear before the church service was over. The gold plaque on the wall reads: He was always alone.

“So the killer shot at the rector from this pew?” Tot asks.

Hayden says something, but I don’t hear it. I study the pew… the wooden bench… the hardwood floor. But the closer I look… Something’s not right.

“Okay, you’ve seen the pew. Now can we go?” Hayden begs.

I don’t move.

“Beecher, what’s wrong?” Tot asks. “You see something?”

I don’t answer.

Next to me, Tot rolls the pen he’s still holding against the tip of his beard. Following my sightline, his good eye scrolls along the bench, up to the stained glass window that hangs above it, then over to the back wall of the church, which is flush with the back of the pew. He still doesn’t see it.

“We need to go,” Hayden says. “The detectives made me call all our employees. They said everyone had to stay home, so if they find you here…”

“Hayden, I need two minutes,” I tell him.

“You said you’d be quick!” Hayden says to Tot.

“Hayden,” I bark, raising my voice just enough that he turns my way. “Listen to me. Do you know who Joseph B. Stewart is?”

Hayden pauses, confused. “Who?” he asks, checking over his shoulder. “Is that a congregant?”

“Listen to me,” I insist. “On the night that Lincoln was shot in Ford’s Theatre, Joseph B. Stewart was the only member of the audience who actually got up out of his seat and chased after John Wilkes Booth. Think of it a moment. The President is dying. A single metal ball is shot into Lincoln’s brain and lodges behind his right eye. Of course, hundreds of people start screaming, but in that moment, Joseph B. Stewart keeps his wits, gets up from his front-row seat, and jumps across the orchestra pit to try to grab Booth as the assassin darts across the stage. Stewart actually hopped across the chair tops as he ran after him. And yes, Booth got away. But for those first days after the shooting, it was Joseph B. Stewart who was America’s hero.”

“I don’t see your point,” Hayden says.

“The point is, he’s now forgotten by history, but when he was faced with that challenge, he did what was right. So now it’s your turn, Hayden. I need two minutes here. You really want to kick us out?”

Hayden stands there, motionless, digesting every word.

“Just please…” Hayden begs, once again checking over his shoulder. “Be quick.”

6

I dart toward the back of the church and head past the police-taped area, into the small anteroom that leads out to the public entrance.

“Beecher…!” Tot calls out, speed-limping behind me.

I don’t slow down.

“Beecher… will you—? What’d you find?”

“Tot, on the night of Lincoln’s assassination in Ford’s Theatre, John Wilkes Booth didn’t just come in and pull the trigger. Tell me what you know about the precautions he took.”

He knows the story. “He drilled a hole in the door.”

“Exactly. Hours before the play started, Booth went up to Lincoln’s box and drilled a peephole in the right side of the door so he could see inside and make sure there were no guards. And what else?” I ask.

“He took a long, narrow piece of pine — the neck of an old music stand — and he hid it in the box so that once he was inside, he could use it to bar the door.”

“And what about the weapons?”

“Forty-four caliber, single-shot Derringer pistol. But since it only had that one shot, he also brought a knife that—” Tot cuts himself off, knowing what it said about the rector in the police report. Shot once in the back; throat slit in the front. “Wait. You really think—?”

“Look for yourself,” I say, reaching up toward an old framed watercolor that hangs on the wall. The picture shows the church back when it and the White House were the only two buildings on the block. But as I pull the frame from the wall…

There it is.

Just under the nail that holds the picture in place is a small round peephole. Even from here, I can tell it goes through the wall and into the Lincoln Pew.

“That’s when I started looking for this…” I add, pointing to the church’s main doors — and the metal urn that serves as an umbrella stand. There are two stray umbrellas in there. Plus one long, narrow piece of pine.

“Oh my,” Hayden whispers.

“So you think your friend is a John Wilkes Booth copycat?” Tot asks.

I stay silent, still sifting through the details. Between the time of death… the way it was set up… and all that preparation to make it just right… This is more than a copycat. This is a full-on re-creation. And if it’s a re-creation…

No.

Pulling out my phone, I scroll through my emails.

Tot watches me carefully, tapping the pen against his beard. “Beecher, tell me what you’re not saying.”

“On that night that John Wilkes Booth pulled the trigger, every single detail — large or small — is accounted for,” I say, still scrolling through my phone. “How Booth planned it… the coconspirators he worked with… the type of drink he had at the saloon next door…”

“Whiskey with water,” Tot says.

“But what’s the one detail, the only one in nearly a hundred and fifty years that no one — and I mean no one—can account for?”

Tot doesn’t even pause. “How Booth got past the White House valet.”

“Bingo. How Booth got past the White House valet.”

Reading the confused look on Hayden’s face, I explain, “Back then, security in Ford’s Theatre was beyond pathetic. The police officer who was supposed to be guarding Lincoln’s private box actually left his post so he could get a better view of the play. So when Booth finally made his way up there, the only one standing guard was Charles Forbes, Lincoln’s White House valet. Historians agree that, at that moment, Booth stopped and spoke to the valet. They agree that Booth showed the valet a card. But the one thing no one knows is what was on the card. What’d Booth show him? What’d it say?”

“Some say it was a letter,” Tot points out. “Others say it was Booth’s business card, which, since he was a famous actor, would certainly open doors.”

“But again, the reason the valet stepped aside and let Booth into Lincoln’s private box was because of whatever was on that magic card.”

Tot knows me long enough to know I’m not done.

“Don’t tell me you know what’s on that card, Beecher.”

I shoot him a look, motioning down to my phone. “Remember that thing that they found in the suspect’s pocket?”

He nods. I’m talking about Marshall having my name and phone number.

“Well, I take notice when people have that on them. So when we were driving here, I had Mac send me the full list of his belongings. Look what else he had with him…”

I push a button on the phone, and an image pops open onscreen. I hold it up to Tot, making sure he gets a good look.

Tot squints. Hayden leans in.

“Old playing cards?” Hayden asks.

“A full deck of them,” I say. “Nineteenth-century, from the look of them.”

“I still don’t see what this had to do with John Wilkes Booth’s mystery card.”

“Well, God bless the D.C. Police for cataloging each and every item, because when I went through their full list, there was actually one card missing from the deck: the ace of spades.”

7

Beecher, you lost me,” Tot says.

“The deck of cards,” I say. “It’s missing its ace of spades. He’s carrying a deck of cards where one card is missing!”

“Okay, so unless we’re fighting the Riddler, is that supposed to mean something?”

“Look around…!” I say, pointing from the peephole, to the pine bar in the umbrella stand. “This guy—”

“You mean Marshall.”

“We don’t know it’s Marshall. But whoever he is, he’s meticulously re-created every last detail of Abraham Lincoln’s murder, which, let’s be clear, only happened because John Wilkes Booth was let inside the building after flashing some mysterious long-lost card. And now the one guy we’re looking at happens to be carrying, of all things… long-lost cards.”

“Can I just say,” Hayden interrupts, still struggling to follow, “even if this is the historical card you’re speaking of, who would he even give it to? The church was locked last night. No one was here.”

“What about this morning?” I ask. “He could’ve left it for someone. Were you the first one in?”

“I’m always the first one in. And I told you, when they called me last night, I notified every employee and asked them all to stay home today.”

“What about the guy with the sign-in sheet?” I ask.

“Excuse me?” Hayden says.

“When we walked in… the guy… the one in the cheap suit…” Tot says, holding up the pen he gave him. “He told me we had to sign in.”

“I thought he was—” Hayden stops. “Hold on. He’s not a detective?”

My shirt sticks to my chest. “They said all the detectives were at lunch,” I point out.

Tot looks down at the pen. I’m not sure what he’s staring at. I may know Lincoln history, but he’s been at this far longer than I have. On a hunch, he unscrews the pen as fast as he can. The front half holds the thin metal pen tube. But in the back half… there’s a small red wire connected to an even smaller transmitter. A microphone. We’ve been holding a microphone the entire time.

Tot shoots me a look.

I run full speed, racing back down the aisle of the church and toward the staff offices in back. Whoever this guy is, he couldn’t have gotten far.

8

When we walked in… the guy… the one in the cheap suit…” the older man known as Tot said. “He told me we had to sign in.”

“I thought he was — Hold on. He’s not a detective?”

Crossing through the slush on H Street and entering the well-plowed edges of Lafayette Park, Secret Service agent A.J. Ennis kept his pace slow and steady, barely even registering the “cheap suit” comment. Instead, following his training and staying focused on the problem at hand, he turned up the volume on the thin receiver that was tucked into his jacket pocket.

For A.J., it was simple enough to slip them the pen with the transmitter. He’d actually stolen the idea from an overwrought mystery novel he read a few years back where some plucky investigator did the same.

In the novel, the investigator saved the day and, naturally, rode off into the sunset. But A.J. knew that life, especially his current life, was no longer that simple.

“Dammit,” he muttered to himself, seeing the No Signal message on the receiver and running his hand along the back of his buzzed blond hair. They had found the transmitter. Most people never found it, which told A.J. that what they warned him about was right. Beecher and Tot weren’t novices. But then again, neither was A.J.

There was a reason A.J. had been sent to the church. It was the same reason A.J. was the one who accompanied President Orson Wallace out to Camp David, and on that off-the-record visit back in Ohio that tested his loyalty to the President. Luckily for A.J., he had passed.

It wasn’t all luck, of course. As a kid in Johnson City, Tennessee, A.J. Ennis used to dream of being Jacques Cousteau. But when his father got sick and his mother went bankrupt, young A.J.’s dreams became far more realistic.

Not for long. After Business School at Duke and three tedious years as an investment banker, the explorer once again reemerged, knowing that there were more exciting things to chase than money. As he applied for the Secret Service, luck had nothing to do with his getting hired or promoted, or how quickly he made his way over to the President’s Protective Detail. The Service knows talent when it sees it.

What it didn’t know was that thirty years ago, A.J.’s father was one of President Orson Wallace’s dearest friends from law school. A.J. never pointed out the connection or took advantage of it, but he knew it made him lucky.

It made the President’s best friend, Dr. Stewart Palmiotti, even luckier, since after the funeral, A.J. was the one who helped Palmiotti set up his new identity.

Yet the luckiest of all?

A.J.’s phone vibrated in his pocket. Caller ID said “King’s Copiers,” a copy shop in Maryland that had closed at least two years ago. Maybe even three.

“A.J. here,” he said, picking up.

There was silence on the other end.

“You were right about the church,” A.J. said.

There was no reply.

“They’re both there. I saw him. It was definitely Beecher.” Before another bit of silence hit, A.J. added, “I know it’s not ideal, sir. But it doesn’t mean it’s a total disaster. We can still—”

There was a click. The President of the United States hung up.

With a flurry of tapping, A.J. dialed another number.

The phone rang once… twice…

Palmiotti picked up without even saying hello. “Where’ve you been?” he asked. “Do you need me down there? I can be there in—”

“Don’t come down here.”

“But I can—”

A.J. wanted to scream at him. But in these past few months, he knew what Palmiotti had been through, and what he’d sacrificed to keep their secret safe. With the fake funeral, Palmiotti now had a second chance. That’s how he saw it. This was his chance to make it all right.

That didn’t mean it was easy. The physical recovery took longer than expected; Clementine had shot him straight through the neck. Plus, there was that incident when he asked if he could contact Lydia — his girlfriend — to say a more proper goodbye. But A.J. knew how Palmiotti was when it came to President Wallace. Palmiotti didn’t just love Wallace. He needed him. That was the right word. Need. And the President needed him back.

“We can definitely use your help. He needs your help,” A.J. said, leaning hard on the word He.

“And he’ll have it. I can fix it,” Palmiotti promised.

“That’s what you said a week ago.”

Palmiotti stopped at that. “So the church — Is it really that bad?”

“Bad enough that he called me.”

“He called you?”

“Look around, Doc,” A.J. said, standing at the southern end of Lafayette Park and turning from the tall marble columns of the White House, back toward the double-tiered bell tower of St. John’s Church. “Do you have any idea what you’ve unleashed?”

9

Forget it, Beecher. He’s long gone,” Tot says, slowly making his way down the brick steps to join me outside. Up the block, there’s nothing but passing cars along H Street.

“You think he’s our killer?”

Tot shakes his head. “Sneaking back into his own crime scene with cops in the building? Even crazy people aren’t that crazy.”

“So he’s police?”

“He’s a fed. Or something worse. Look,” he says, tossing me the two pieces of the microphone pen. “Motion-activated so it doesn’t need a battery. Hairline mic that amplifies through the pen chamber. You don’t buy that at the local spy shop.”

“Fed money,” a mechanical voice says through Tot’s speakerphone. I didn’t realize his phone was even on, much less that Immaculate Deception was listening in. “Ask Santa. I bet he can tell us where it’s from.”

Two weeks back, I heard them mention Santa. At first, I thought Tot was being facetious. But I’m thinking I just found another Culper Ring member: Santa, the guy who brings them the best high-tech toys.

“Mac,” I call out, “how many Thin Mints will it cost me to have you look up details on my old friend Marshall?”

“I’ve been looking since you found that John Wilkes Booth peephole. You’re a bigger nerd than I thought, by the way. Nice job, though,” Mac replies. “Marshall’s got no credit cards… no phone records… and he files his tax return through a P.O. box. Guy definitely likes his privacy.”

“What about his cell phone?” Tot asks.

“Already tried. He’s using a Trustchip.”

“What’s a Trustchip?” I ask.

“Encrypted. Expensive. Usually for big companies or government contractors,” Mac explains. “Whoever he is, he’s not playing around. I can’t see calls or messages in or out.”

“Can’t you just turn on the phone’s speaker and we’ll listen in?” Tot asks.

“Checked that too. Headphone in.”

It was the first trick Mac taught me when they brought me into the Culper Ring: In any smartphone, it’s easy for someone to remotely turn on your speakerphone. But if you want to thwart it, you plug something into the headphone jack since speakers get disabled when headphones are enabled.

“What about a home address?” I ask.

“Apartment in Crystal City, Virginia.”

“Then there we go,” I say. “Next stop: Crystal City.”

“And that’s your big idea? Just walk up to Marshall and ask him if he’s the murderer?” Tot asks.

I shake my head. I haven’t seen Marshall in over a decade. I have no idea if he’s working with Clementine, or the President, or even if he’s the one imitating John Wilkes Booth. But right now a man is dead — and since it was my name that was found in Marshall’s pocket, I’m now tied to whatever the hell is really going on here.

“I know there’s something you’re not saying about this guy, Beecher. And I appreciate you trying to be proactive, but if Marshall’s our killer, he’s gonna be dangerous. You can’t just go knock on his front door.”

I totally agree. “Who says we’re gonna knock?”