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Perlmutter shook his head. "Another man was shot in the barn that burned. The autopsy and identification were cover-ups. Booth got away and lived for a number of years, eventually committing suicide in Enid, Oklahoma in 1903."
"I read somewhere that Stanton burned Booth's diary," said Pitt.
"That's true," replied Perlmutter. "The damage was done. Stanton had inflamed public opinion against the beaten Confederacy. Lincoln's plans to help the South back on its feet were buried with his double in a grave in Springfield, Illinois."
"This mummy in the rocking chair," whispered Giordino, staring in rigid awe, "sitting here in the remains of a Confederate warship covered by a sand dune in the middle of the Sahara Desert is truly Abraham Lincoln?"
"I'm positive of it," answered Perlmutter. "An anatomic examination will prove his identity without doubt. In fact, if you'll recall, grave robbers broke into his tomb but were caught before they could steal the body. What was not revealed but quickly concealed was that the officials who prepared the body for reinterment discovered they had a substitute on their hands. Word came down from Washington ordering them to keep quiet and to fix it so the grave could never be opened again. A hundred tons of concrete were poured over the coffins of Lincoln and his son Tad to prevent future ghouls from desecrating the grave, so they said. But the real truth was to bury all evidence of the crime."
"You realize what this means," Pitt asked Perlmutter, "don't you?"
"Do I realize what what means?" he muttered dumbly.
"We are about to alter the past," Pitt explained. "Once we announce what we've found here, the most tragic event in United States history will be irrevocably rewritten."
Perlmutter stared at Pitt in near horror. "You don't know what you're saying. Abraham Lincoln is revered as a saint as well as a humble man in American folklore, history books, poems, and novels. The assassination made him a martyr to be revered through the centuries. If we expose Stanton's fake assassination of him, his image will be shattered, and Americans will be the poorer for it."
Pitt looked very, very tired, but his face was set and his eyes bright and alive. "No man was admired more for his honesty than Abraham Lincoln. His moral principles and compassion were second to no man. To have died under such deceitful and unconscionable circumstances was against everything he stood for. His remains deserve an honest burial. I have to believe he would have wanted the future generations of the people he served so faithfully to know the truth."
"I'm with you," Giordino affirmed steadily. "I'll be honored to stand next to you when the curtain goes up."
"There will be a negative uproar," Perlmutter gasped as if a pair of hands were around his windpipe. "Good God, Dirk, can't you see? This is a subject best left unknown. The nation must never know."
"Spoken like an arrogant politician or bureaucrat who plays God by denying the public the truth under the misguided ploy of national security, not to mention the crap about it not being in the national interest."
"So you're going to do it," Perlmutter said in a stricken voice. "You're really going to cause a national upheaval in the name of truth."
"Like the men and women in Congress and the White House, Julien, you underestimate the American public. They will take the disclosure in stride, and Lincoln's image will shine brighter than ever. Sorry, my friend, I won't be talked out of going through with it."
Perlmutter saw it was no use. He clasped his hands on his global stomach and sighed. "All right, we'll rewrite the last chapter of the Civil War and stand in front of a firing squad together."
Pitt stood over the grotesque figure, studied the ungainly long arms and legs, the serene, weary face. When he spoke, it was in a soft, barely audible voice.
"After sitting cooped up in here for a hundred and thirty years, I think it's time old Honest Abe came home."
June 20, 1996
Washington, D. C.
The news of Lincoln's discovery and the Stanton hoax electrified the world as the body was reverently removed from the ironclad and flown back to Washington. In every school of the country, children memorized and recited the Gettysburg Address as their grandparents had.
The nation's capital pulled out all stops on celebrations and ceremonies. Five living Presidents stood in the Capitol rotunda and paid homage at the open casket of their long-dead predecessor. The speeches seemingly went on forever, the politicians climbing over each other to quote Lincoln if not Carl Sandburg.
The sixteenth President's mortal remains would not go to the cemetery in Springfield. By presidential order a tomb was cut into the floor of his memorial immediately below his famous white marble statue. No one, not even the congressional representatives from Illinois, considered protesting the interment.
A holiday was declared and millions of people across the country watched the festivities in Washington on television. They sat transfixed in awe at actually seeing the face of the man who had led the country through its most difficult times.
Little else was shown from morning until night as regular network programming was temporarily rescheduled. News program anchor persons had a field day describing the event, while other newsworthy stories fell by the wayside.
Congressional leaders, in a rare display of cooperation, voted funds to salvage the Texas and transport her from Mali to the Washington Mall, where she would be preserved clay. Her crew was buried in the Confederate Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, with great pomp and a band playing Dixie.
Kitty Mannock and her plane returned to Australia where she was glorified and given a riotous down-under welcome. She was entombed in the Military Museum in Canberra. Her faithful Fairchild aircraft, after restoration, was to sit beside Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith's famous long-distance aircraft, the Southern Cross.
Except for a few photographers and two reporters, the ceremony honoring the contributions of Hala Kamil and Admiral Sandecker for their efforts in helping halt the spread of the red tides and preventing the projected extinction of life almost went unnoticed. The President, between speeches, presented them with medals of honor awarded by a special act of Congress. Afterward, Hala returned to New York and the United Nations, where a special session was called to pay her homage. She finally succumbed to emotion during the longest-standing ovation ever given by the General Assembly.
Sandecker quietly went back to his NUMA office, worked out in his private gym, and began planning a new undersea project as if every day was the same.
