by Brad Meltzer
On any other day, Marshall would’ve apologized and offered to go back down. But today, as he stood there shivering in the kitchen with half a dozen porn magazines stuck to his chest, a twisted smile crept up his cheeks and only one thought filled his mind.
Wait till Beecher sees this.
92
Today
St. Elizabeths Hospital
Nico, you’re not being smart,” the dead First Lady warned.
Nico blinked a few times, walking quickly up the shiny new hallway. Since the moment he got out of the Quiet Room, the First Lady had been nervous. She thought it was a trap.
Nico knew she was wrong. With all that had happened—for the injection to have no drugs in it… for the door to the Quiet Room to be unlocked… No, this wasn’t a trap. This was a message—a simple, well-planned message that stood out like a bright red thread and stretched out in front of him, down the stark hallway. Nico knew he had to follow the thread. Just like he knew that only someone in the hospital could’ve left it. Indeed, as he chased the thread up the hallway, he realized there was only one person who could’ve—
“Nico, you hear that?” the First Lady asked.
Up on his left, around the corner, two orderlies walked the main hall of the hospital, complaining about how slow the elevators were in the new building.
“Nico, if they see you—”
Nico never broke his pace, marching forward without a care. Sure, the orderlies were close. But Nico knew they’d never leave the main hallway. How could they? With everything that was now set in motion… Would God really have brought them this far to let them be stopped by something so mundane?
Sure enough, as quickly as the orderlies arrived, that’s how quickly they disappeared, their voices fading into distant echoes.
“We’re clear—hurry—go!” the First Lady said, motioning him toward the main hallway.
This time, though, Nico stopped.
“Nico, what’re you waiting for? You know where we are?”
Nico knew exactly where they were. For two days now, since the moment they arrived, he’d been studying the new building. Yesterday, as they headed down to the labyrinth, he made note of the roving cameras and the sally port doors that secured each nurses’ station. On his way back from the library, he’d memorized which entrances required just card swipes, and which required card swipes and keys. On his way out to see Beecher this morning, he counted three guards at the main check-in desk, but only two at the visitors’ entrance.
Nico even spent an extra twenty minutes in TLC, pretending to relearn how to use a washer and dryer so he could listen in as the nurses bragged about the triple layer of security that now encased the back of the building and all the patient units. The first layer—on the exterior fire doors—was a silent alarm so that none of the other patients would know anything was wrong. The second layer came from thin wire fencing that ran horizontal with the ground. Yes, it looked easy to climb, but the moment you touched it, a hidden fiber optic wire sensed the shift in weight and sent every nearby camera spinning your way. And if by chance you got past that, the third and final layer was a twenty-foot-tall non-climbable fine-mesh fence that was woven so tight, human fingers couldn’t fit in the holes. Back in the army, Nico had learned his way around that: Grab two screwdrivers, stab the fence, and scale your way to the top. But as he well knew, why risk going over a fence when you can walk right through the side door?
Up ahead, the hallway cut to the right, revealing the brand-new U-shaped desk and swinging double doors that led out to the loading dock. He had been here yesterday. But today one of the double doors was propped open with a wastepaper basket.
“Nico, what’re you waiting for?” the First Lady asked. “Here’s our way out!”
Like before, Nico just stood there.
“I hear you breathing,” Nico announced.
The First Lady looked around. “Nico, what’re you talking about?”
“I know you’re here,” Nico added. “I hear you. You know I hear everything.”
Across the hall, past the U-shaped desk, a shadow shifted in the threshold of what looked like a bathroom, but was really a shower stall for patient delousing. Nico knew who was hiding inside. The friend who had left the bright red thread… and who was always looking out for him.
“Dr. Gosling, I need you to come out now,” Nico said.
Without a word, the shadows shifted again and Nurse Rupert stepped out into the hallway.
Nico blinked quickly, then cocked his head, confused.
“You’re not Dr. Gosling,” Nico said.
“Nico, please don’t make this harder than it is,” Rupert pleaded. “Now do you want to escape or not?”
93
We need to hurry,” Rupert insisted.
“But how could—? It doesn’t even—” Nico tried to get the words out, still staring at Rupert. “Dr. Gosling was the one who handed me the books, and was in my room—”
“It’s time to go,” Rupert said.
“But I saw Gosling put the needle in my thigh. He gave me the shot!”
Rupert lowered his chin, offering a dark glare as the daylight reflected off the bridge of his plastic eyeglasses. “And who do you think mixed that shot, Nico?”
Nico’s thick caterpillar eyebrows merged together. “So you serve the Knight?”
“Please don’t talk like Lord of the Rings. And don’t call him some stupid name like the Knight. He—”
“Call him the Knight. You work for the Knight!”
“He paid me to do a job; I do the job. That’s all it is, Nico. Now please prove to me you made progress here. I know you’re not a killer. Not anymore. Don’t prove me wrong.”
“But for you to risk your job like this—”
“Nico, two months ago, for a stupidly small amount of money that I thought would help my nephew, I snuck five hundred milligrams of methylphenidate out of the hospital’s pharmacy. Needless to say, the wrong people found out about it, including your so-called Knight. So this isn’t about my job anymore. This is about me staying out of jail.”
Nico blinked hard. He looked around, searching for the First Lady, but now… he couldn’t find her. Instead, all he saw was Clementine and the blonde wig that sat askew on her head. He closed his eyes, knowing that his fate, it was changing even now. Forget the Knight. Forget Wallace. Forget everything. After all these years, there was something else waiting for him on the other side of the hospital walls: his daughter. Clementine. For Nico, no other reward came close.
“Last chance, Nico. You want freedom or not?”
Nico turned toward the propped-open door that led out to the cement pad of the loading dock. Yes, the door was open, but through the doorway, past the cement pad, the exterior roll-top garage door was still closed. A high-tech keypad was embedded in the wall. To truly get outside—to open the garage door—he’d need an ID.
Nico glanced back at Rupert, noticing the ID badge that hung around Rupert’s neck.
“You do what you have to,” Rupert said, motioning down to the plastic-covered U-shaped desk. On top of the plastic was a single pencil. Freshly sharpened.
Nico hesitated. But not for long.
He reached down slowly for the pencil. Like a doctor choosing his favorite scalpel.
Rupert squinted, bracing himself. “Just do me one favor: Make it look like I gave you a good fight, okay?”
In one quick movement, Nico grabbed Rupert’s wrist and stabbed the pencil down toward Rupert’s forearm. There was a ftt as it bit through the hairy side of Rupert’s forearm, and a ttt as it burst out the bottom, looking like a trick arrow you find in a magic shop. A spray of blood hit Nico’s chest, the last few bits flicking two tiny dots on his chin.
“Nuuuhh!” Rupert screamed, thrashing wildly as his knees buckled.
Nico held tight to Rupert’s wrist, fighting to keep him in place and pulling the wound close to examine it. Maximum blood without hitting any major arteries, organs, or blood ves
sels.
“Don’t pull it out. It’ll make it bleed more,” Nico warned, lowering Rupert into a nearby desk chair.
“Th-That girl you were talking to this morning… that’s your daughter, isn’t it?” Rupert asked, his voice fading. “Is that what this’s really about?”
Nico looked down at Rupert, realizing he knew nothing about the President and what was coming. With a quick tug, Nico ripped the ID from Rupert’s neck and fished through his pockets, finding a set of keys. Now he had something to jam into the neck of the guard at the hospital’s main gate.
He headed for the open door of the loading dock.
Rupert clutched his own punctured arm, with the pencil still in it, toward his chest. “Y’know, Nico—even with all this, there’s only one thing I never lied to you about: You’re still a pain in my ass,” he called out, forcing a labored laugh.
Nico swiped the ID through the high-tech keypad. As the roll-top garage door slowly opened its mouth, a swirl of cold wind twirled through the loading dock. The sunlight was blinding as Nico strolled outside. Didn’t matter. Sliding one of the keys between his knuckles, he knew exactly where he was going.
94
One hour later
Make a right here,” Palmiotti says.
“You sure?” I ask, squinting through the windshield at yet another unmarked turnoff.
“Yes. I’m sure. Here,” Palmiotti insists.
I turn the wheel as hard as I can, nearly missing it. But as I’m learning, everything in the park is easy to miss. Indeed, as we weave our way up the mountain, there’re no warning signs, no directional signs, not even one of those diamond-shaped ones that reads Authorized Personnel Only. In fact, when it comes to the secrets of Camp David, the clearest secret is simply that if you don’t know where Camp David is, you have no chance of finding it.
“And another right here,” Palmiotti says as we turn onto another narrow road that’s just as perfectly paved as the last one. In a clean, straight line, all the snow is meticulously pushed to the sides. No question, Palmiotti knows where he’s going.
Originally built back in 1938 as a summer camp for federal employees, Camp David first came on the presidential radar when FDR’s doctors said that the White House was too hot for Roosevelt—that the President needed a cool-weather retreat. As they looked around, they realized that the camp, because of its elevation in the mountain, was always ten degrees colder than downtown D.C. Right there, the employees lost their camp and FDR gained what he called “Shangri-La,” naming it after a mountain kingdom in one of his favorite novels.
To no one’s surprise, when Eisenhower took over the presidency, he loved the retreat. But he hated the name, rechristening it after his grandson David. By now, Camp David has become far more than a presidential weekend house. In today’s world, it’s one of the only places where the President of the United States can truly leave the chaos of his life behind.
When it was first opened, FDR made twenty-two trips to Camp David. Ronald Reagan made one hundred and eighty-seven—and it wasn’t just because travel got easier by helicopter, or because the place has its own golf green, driving range, movie theater, swimming pool, and bowling alley. For any President, Camp David’s best perk is simply this: There’s no press allowed.
When Bill Clinton took office, he said his allergies prevented him from visiting Camp David. But when he heard that the press was barred from the retreat, his allergies were cured. It was no different for Barack Obama or George W. Bush, who personally spent well over a full year up here with no one watching.
Well, almost no one.
Up ahead, the empty road straightens out. But as we approach a patch of particularly tall trees, the sun gets swallowed by the treetops and a long shadow crawls over us. Within seconds, my ears are so cold they start to ache. But it’s not until I glance to my left that I feel the real chill.
I spot it immediately—in the forest—just beyond the first line of trees: a tall metal fence. Chain-link. Coated brown so it blends in with the forest.
I hit the brakes just to get a good look. According to Palmiotti, there are three different fences that surround Camp David’s one hundred and eighty forested acres—plus marine guards, Park Service guards, and of course the Secret Service. So the fact we’re even seeing this first fence…
“We’re close, aren’t we?” I ask Palmiotti.
He doesn’t answer.
I look at the clock. Twenty-five minutes to go.
As I turn toward Palmiotti, he’s once again staring in the rearview. But the way his eyebrows dive… He definitely sees—
A loud knock on my driver’s-side window makes me jump in my seat. I catch sight of someone else in the rearview.
They’re behind us. And on the sides of us. Within seconds. Two men in dark green parkas and matching dark sunglasses. The logos on their chest say National Park Service, but I’ve never seen Park Service guys with guns on their belts.
“Can I help you?” the officer outside my window asks in that tone that feels like a punch. He pulls off his sunglasses, revealing a scattering of acne on the bridge of his nose.
“We’re here to see the President,” I tell him.
Now he’s even angrier. He shoots a look at his partner, then back at me. “I need to see some ID. Now.”
“Actually, Officer, I think all you need to see is him,” I say, pointing to the passenger seat.
Next to me, Palmiotti ducks down just enough so that the officer gets a good look at him. Acne-face goes white, taking a full step back. To work security at either Camp David or the White House, they make you memorize flash cards with photos of every VIP. Even the perimeter guards know the President’s dead best friend when they see him.
“This is the part where you call your boss,” Palmiotti says.
The officer nods and pulls out his walkie-talkie.
95
Eighteen years ago
Sagamore, Wisconsin
And this was his?” Beecher asked.
“It was his,” Marshall said, sitting on the edge of the treehouse’s foldout bed and flipping through the pages of a magazine called Escort. “Now it’s ours.”
“So you’re telling me Pastor Riis likes to look at that—at some fake-boobied woman who plays tennis without her top on?” Beecher asked, a deep crinkle in his forehead as he sat next to Marshall and pointed at the photo of a woman pressing her breasts against the strings of a tennis racket.
“Beecher, please don’t ruin this for me. We’re twelve-year-old boys and I found a stash of porn. I want to keep looking at this until I’m blind.”
“That’s fair, but—” Beecher leaned in slightly as Marshall turned the page… to a shot where the tennis player was now completely nude. “Y’know, I understand why you’d take your shirt off to play tennis—but there’s something that makes no sense about taking off your bottoms.”
“Maybe it’s hot out there.”
“Maybe. But your bottoms…? There’s something that—Maybe it’s me, but that doesn’t seem very hygienic.”
“No, I agree. Especially when… look… that’s a clay court.”
The two of them leaned in, squinting to see.
“Definitely clay,” Beecher agreed, though the crinkle still wouldn’t leave his forehead. “Marsh, can I just say: I love that you found us all these free nudie shots, but we need to be smart and get rid of it.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“I’m talking about if Pastor Riis realizes we have these—”
“Then what? What’s he gonna do? Come and take them? He can’t do anything, Beecher! At least not without letting everyone know that they were his in the first place, which I guarantee he doesn’t want!”
“Maybe. But I’m telling you right now: No good can come from having the pastor’s collection of porn.”
“Will you stop worrying? No one even knows we have it.”
A loud thud hit the treehouse as Vincent Paglinni shoved the plywood door
open, barging inside. “Hey, Marshmallow, heard you got porn,” Paglinni barked, pumping his bushy eyebrows.
Behind him, he led three other kids—two of them a year older—into the treehouse. For a moment, Beecher thought Paglinni might’ve come to steal it.
“Y-You wanna look?” Marshall offered, handing him a copy of Leg Show.
Paglinni stood there for a moment, personally deciding whether he’d be friend or foe.
To Marshall and Beecher, it felt like an hour of silence.
“Aw, why the hell not?” Paglinni eventually replied, plopping into one of the flat beanbag chairs as his three friends grabbed their own copies.
Within twenty minutes, the treehouse was crowded again, crowded with more teenage boys than when it was first built almost a year ago. Good news traveled fast. But porn at puberty? That moved at light speed.
“Marshmallow, you are one righteous nutjob!” Paglinni’s best friend, a skinny redhead named Paul Mackles, announced as he flipped through a copy of High Society. In twelve years, that was the very first time Mackles ever spoke to him.
96
Today
Camp David
The agent with the small ears doesn’t say a word to us.
Instead, he motions for me to extend my arms outward, then waves a handheld metal detector up the back of my legs and along my back. He’s the second guard to wand me.
The first was at the front entrance to Camp David. Those guards didn’t say a word to us either, even when I told them that someone was going to try and kill the President in twenty minutes. They looked at Palmiotti, then over at each other. When problems got this big, the decisions were made elsewhere.
From there, the agent with small ears put us in a souped-up golf cart with all-terrain wheels and weaved us between trees and along a macadam hiking path to our current location: a modest ranch-style house with freshly painted shutters. At the front door, instead of house numbers, there’s a carved wooden sign that reads Elm.
