(This was inspired by the Fan Fic contest Part 6 http://www.comicvine.com/forums/fan-fic/8/character-creation-contest-6-for-score-and/745856/#153 Taking a historical event, changing its outcome and adding superheroes. Part 1 is here http://www.comicvine.com/forums/fan-fic/8/what-if-for-score-and/747974/#12) There may be more
**
I do find it distasteful, lying in wait to kill a man. I would much prefer to face him front on or in the heat of battle, not hiding in an alcove waiting like a bandit. But it is for the greater good. If his plan were to succeed, then who knows what calamities the nation will face?
He’s been on our horizon for some time. Two years back he was charged with making treasonous remarks and I quote “wished the President and the whole damned government would go to hell". He was heavily fined but you know someone like him would pop up again, a proverbial rotten apple. Last year he was implicated in a kidnap plot, but with the war raging nothing could be done. Plus as a popular actor he had the people’s ear at times. He made several unexplained trips to Montreal, my agents trailed him. He was a crackpot, but something about him made the hair on my neck stood up. In quieter times my course of action may have never come to this…quieter times, those days are long gone I feel.
He started writing to New Hampshire Senator John Hale’s daughter, Lucy. From letters intercepted we knew what he was up to. It was a cunning, bold plan. He and his co-conspirators, Louis Powell, George Atzerodt and David Herold, would strike a decisive blow killing the President, the Vice President and the Secretary of State simultaneously throwing the government and the country into turmoil and chaos, the South could possibly rise again and we’d be back in another civil war! That shall not pass.
My agents have reported that Powell was intercepted on route the Secretary’s house where he had a “tragic horse accident”, dragged to death with his foot stuck in the stirrup. Atzerodt who was on route to kill Andrew Johnson had a change of heart and got drunk in the Kirkwood Hotel bar where the Vice President keeps quarters; where he was knifed by an “unknown assailant wearing a grey coat” while Herold will awaken to find himself in the hold of a missionary boat bound for Kowloon which will hopefully teach him the error of poor friendships.
Which leaves John Wilkes Booth, possibly the most dangerous of the group! An actor with Southern leanings and delusions of importance. He’s mine. I wait in the alcove behind the Presidential Box of Ford’s Theatre. Cocked and loaded pair of Colt Dragoon’s in my pockets, guns designed to kill horses which should put this animal down. I catch him out of the corner of my good eye, skulking up the stairs. He heads for the door, passing right past my position. I should just gun him down, but every man deserves to see who his killer is.
“John Wilkes Booth?”
He jumps, startled like a rabbit and turns. He glares at me not sure of what to make of me, a one eyed black man lurking in a hallway.
“What do you want, boy?”
I can feel his hatred, the words like poison spat from his mouth as he spoke to me like I was a dog. I try not to enjoy this.
“On behalf of President Lincoln” I draw my guns and put four shots into his chest as the theatre erupts with laughter, covering part of the sound of my booming guns. Booth hits the wall and slides down to the floor, gasping for air, blood leaking from the holes in his chest. He tries to speak but I am tired of listening to racists and jam the barrel of my Dragoon into his mouth. “Please die quietly; the President is watching a play”
The door to the Presidential Box flies open, Major Rathbone with sword drawn and ready for action. Behind him the President has rolled his sleeves up ready for fisticuffs.
“All under control Major,” I assure him as Booth slips to his eternal rest “Nothing to see”
Major Rathbone fires off a salute “Very good General”
“Was this the man you told me about Nicholas?” The President stepped forward, I salute him but he waves it off.
“Yes Mr President”
“I owe you a great deal General Fury.” He extended his long hand to mine.
I firmly take his hand “All part of the job sir”
**
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