“It is, and if you ask me, Jack’s sympathies are with the underdog, the new nations that are revolting against the old authoritarian ones.” Charlie smiled. “Jack is a rich man’s son—a patrician, you might say—but he’s a rebel at heart.”
Jackie was starting to like the character emerging from Charlie’s description more and more. She could identify with Jack’s desire to break free of the Old Guard’s narrow-mindedness and rigidity—it was the same battle she was waging with her mother. And fresh from her assignment in Paris, where she’d helped a princess save her small country from being carved up by more powerful neighbors, she felt for the underdog too.
Charlie’s mention of incipient rebellions against the old totalitarian order gave Jackie an opening to bring up the situation in Cuba. She wondered if Jack knew anything that could help her with her upcoming CIA mission, and she was curious to hear if Jack’s sympathy for the downtrodden extended to the plight of the poor there.
She approached the subject casually. “If Jack is so interested in political dissent, why doesn’t he visit Cuba?” she asked, after taking the last bite of her salad. “There are always newspaper reports about unrest there, and it’s a lot closer than Southeast Asia.”
Charlie laughed. “When Jack goes to Cuba, it’ll be to see a live sex show or to have a private romp at one of the hotels,” he said. He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Jack hasn’t stopped talking about that since a senator friend of his came back raving and offered to go there with him and show him around.”
Jackie was sorry she’d asked. Whatever Jack Kennedy did with other women was his business. All she was interested in, as far as the congressman was concerned, was carrying out the task Dulles had assigned her to do: persuade Jack to become a friend of the CIA. But Jack Kennedy was a fascinating man, and she had to admit that she was looking forward to their date Saturday night with the kind of anticipation that could get a girl in trouble if she wasn’t careful.
After lunch with Charlie, Jackie saw that the day was still delightfully temperate, so she decided to prolong her visit to Georgetown and take a walk over to the C&O Canal Towpath. She walked down Wisconsin, past the bustling intersection where the avenue met M Street—the epicenter of Georgetown activity. To her right was the campus of Georgetown University, and to her left, in the distance, could be found the White House. When she reached the towpath, she strolled along it until she found a nice empty bench overlooking the Potomac River, one of the best locales in the District to appreciate this beautiful day.
Once again, Jackie took out the book and the diary pages and began to read them where she had left off. Truth to tell, as excited as she had been to hear Charlie expound on the subject of Jack Kennedy, there was something in the back of her mind that kept returning to the unknown diarist and wondering what the rest of his pages would disclose about his fate.
She read on:
… April 15th, 1861… The President has declared war on the South. We will soon take these Johnny Rebs to the woodshed, and wherever we march we expect to leave a carpet of blood-soaked Butternut in our wake…
… September 12th, 1862… we have taken the fight to the enemy. This is where it all began, where John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in his grave. Let us pray that his ghost stirs this night to put the fright into the Johnny Reb.
… May 15th, 1864… we have met the enemy and they are—children… in the valley of the Shenandoah… This war has become sickening to me. And yet, we must fight on because our cause is just.
… July 29th, 1864… I have just come from the tunnel, where our sappers have almost finished their labor. A premonition has come to me: When we go into battle on the morrow, I fear that my life will be ended, but whether by rebel ball or bayonet I am yet to know. I have taken precautions and hidden these incriminating diary pages in this book, which I have liberated from the Washington College library. Its title reminded me of Maria Consuela. I am afraid that being a library thief has been the least of my crimes, which I expect