The Escape Artist

by Brad Meltzer

  “Twenty minutes tonight! No damn stopping!” he barked, throwing the fish head at her. It wasn’t until it hit her in the back—THWAP!—and landed in the dirt, that she realized he’d pulled it from the trash.

  “And don’t you cry! Show strength! Not a tear!” Royall added.

  Nola stared down at the fish, cursing herself for cleaning up dinner so quickly. And then this thought: I’ll never cry. Not for you.

  “You’re thinking something now, aren’t you?” Royall challenged. He could read people fast, a skill he used to make a massive profit on that wicker furniture, as well as the two hundred odd-lot mattresses he bought at auction last week. He was smart, almost brilliant in the way he could find what people wanted. The problem was his temper and the poor choice of friends that came with it, which explained the three hundred mini-refrigerators, all of them broken, that he got stuck with last month. Royall licked the corner of his mouth, licked it again. “You got something to say, say it. C’mon, my little nigger! Say it!”

  For a moment, Nola stood there, shovel in hand. Don’t say it, she told herself. But she couldn’t help it. “Today’s my birthday.”

  If Royall was surprised, he didn’t show it. “So what do you want, a cake? Presents?”

  Nola waited a minute, weighing whether she should just stay quiet. “The phone,” she finally said, against her better judgment. “If the LaPointes call—”

  “The LaPointes threw you away. They’re not calling.”

  “But my brother—”

  “I bought you those stamps. Has your brother written back? Has anyone written back? They’re not calling you.”

  “Maybe they don’t have our new number.”

  “They have it. They’re not calling.”

  “But if they do, I can speak to them, right?”

  “Just dig the damn hole,” Royall said. Heading back toward the house, he added, “Happy damn birthday.” The door slammed shut behind him.

  Out in the yard, Nola stood there, alone, stabbing the point of the shovel into the head of the fish. “It’s my biiiirthday!” she said in a high voice, mimicking herself and hating the fact she’d mentioned it. And really, that was the cruelest cut of Royall’s punishment: Nola’s developing belief that this was her doing, her fault. I should dig another hole just for that.

  Fifteen minutes later, her hands were on fire, and a bead of sweat hung from her nose. Stomping the blade into the soil, she scooped out a mound of dirt. Then another. As she’d learned months ago, it was hard to dig a hole, or at least to get down very deep. During winter, it’s even harder.

  A phone started ringing in the distance. Nola turned at the sound coming from the house. Naturally, her first thought was of the LaPointes. Could it be them? Not likely.

  It rang again, sounding louder on the second ring.

  Probably one of those surveys. They always called at dinnertime. Or maybe it was one of Royall’s girlfriends, the one who touched her clothes a lot. Or the fat one with the cigarette breath and the honey skin. Like Nola’s.

  The phone rang again. Royall still didn’t pick up.

  Their cordless phone had Caller ID. If Royall wasn’t picking up… No. He wasn’t that cruel, was he? She shook her head. He wouldn’t do that. Even to her.

  The phone rang again. And again.

  Please…just pick up.

  The phone went silent. Thank God. He picked up. He actually—

  Riiiiiiing.

  He hadn’t picked up. They were calling back.

  Nola wanted to run inside, wanted to rip the phone from the wall, see who was there. But if she left her spot…if she stopped digging the hole…

  Riiiiiing.

  She was breathing heavily now, panicking, like her lungs were filled with crushed glass. Gripping the shovel, she looked around for help—

  That’s when she spotted the tree. On her left, past the new wicker furniture, a pecan tree, thick as a manhole, though starting to bow like a parenthesis. But what Nola noticed immediately was a dark patch at its base. To most, it looked like a knot, a small burl, even a bruise. But Nola saw it for what it was. Rot.

  Later tonight, when she was lying in bed, she’d have no logical explanation for what she did next. But out in the backyard, as the phone let out another loud shriek, all she knew was that she wanted to hit something.

  Storming toward the withered tree, she cocked back the shovel like a baseball bat, eyed the oval mark, and swung wildly.

  Direct hit.

  Riiiiiiiing.

  She swung again. And again.

  With each impact, the metal spade bit into the bark, splintering the black rot. With each chop, fragments of wood flew through the air. But a shovel isn’t an axe.

  Still, Nola kept swinging, faster and faster. A piece of skin tore open on her palm. She didn’t feel it, didn’t feel anything, including the tears that were skating down her cheeks.

  Riiiiing.

  “Y-You don’t give children away! Why would you give me away!?” she sobbed, winding up once more and swinging at—

  Krrrrrrk.

  The old tree flinched. Then it was moving, falling, bending really, as it tumbled straight at her.

  “NOLA, MOVE!” Royall shouted behind her.

  She was frozen, the tree just a few inches away.

  “I SAID…MOVE!” Royall yelled, tackling her at full speed. Her head snapped to the right, both of them falling to the left as the tree toppled. She was still holding the shovel, which got slapped from her hand as the tree hit it.

  They fell to the ground together, crashing into the dirt, his arms around her.

  Her first thought was of Royall. He saved her.

  But then she thought of the tree itself. At a height of over twenty feet, it was taller than she was, stronger than she was. She shouldn’t have been able to take it down. But by going for that spot, that black decaying rot, she’d felled it.

  She always knew she had a gift for finding weakness. But tonight was the first time Nola Brown had used that gift to find her strength.

  9

  Dover Port Mortuary

  Today

  Kneeling to get closer, Zig felt his age in his knees and his back. On the baby blue prep mat, most of the items were singed from the fire: a Keith Haring wristwatch, two charred boots, and half a dozen small pieces of Nola’s Army uniform where they’d cut away the burnt edges. There were also a set of silver cuff earrings, a toe ring with a sun design, and a pair of aviator sunglasses missing such a big triangular chunk that the left lens looked like Pac-Man.

  As Zig pulled the tray toward him, a faded black hair tie brought back the memory of his Maggie’s red hair tie, which sat there, stranded, next to his toaster, for the better part of two years now.

  Crouching down farther, he checked the shelf below to make sure he wasn’t missing anything. Nope, this was all of it. But as Zig scanned the items one last time, what stood out most was what wasn’t there: No phone. No wallet. But most of all: No dog tags.

  Zig shook his head; he should’ve seen this one coming. When the Army issues dog tags, you get two sets. At least one tag goes around your neck; the other, in case your head is separated from your body, usually gets threaded into the laces of your boots. It’s rare to lose both—unless someone takes them on purpose.

  Pulling her boots from the shelf, Zig saw that the laces on the left boot had been sliced. Based on the nylon bootlace shavings sprinkled across the mat, it was recently too.

  Another ping came from the computer desk behind Zig. Yet another email. He turned to double-check. The door was still shut. No one was there. But with all of Nola’s IDs missing, he had to wonder: Was someone trying to convince the world Nola was dead? Or was the real goal to hide the identity of whomever that burned body really belonged to?

  As Zig placed the boots back on the shelf, he noticed a small pile of uniform remnants and— No. They weren’t just scraps of fabric. From the pile, Zig pulled out—

  At first, he thought
it was another folded note, like the one he found last night. But as he touched it… This wasn’t paper. It was thicker and textured. Canvas.

  Zig carefully unfolded it; it was the size of a sheet of paper. It was also damp, like it had been in the snow or a puddle. That’s why it had survived without getting burned.

  As Zig peeled the canvas open, colors jumped out. Rich purples, muted shades of orange, and camouflage olive and brown. This was more than a simple picture; it was a painting. A portrait, in thick pastels, of a woman in army greens staring straight at Zig, her head tilted. She had sad, hollow eyes, a flat nose, and her earrings… Zig glanced back at the shelf. They were the same silver cuffs.

  The knot in Zig’s throat felt like he’d swallowed a stapler. He knew this woman. He knew her instantly. He’d spent six hours stitching her back together last night. But what caught his attention now was the signature at the bottom of the painting, in white block letters: NBrown.

  Nola, you painted this?

  Behind him, he heard another ping. Zig assumed it was another email. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

  As he turned, all he saw was a blur. Then a burst of stars.

  10

  “—ou hear me, sir?” a hot voice blasted in Zig’s face. “Sir, you okay!?”

  Zig nodded, blinking awake. Whoever was yelling, his breath smelled like maple syrup. As the world came back into focus, Zig looked around. He’d had a dream about his daughter. A good one. He relished the good ones. Now he was on his back. How’d I get on my back?

  “Sir, we need you to stay where you are,” Maple Syrup told him. He was a soldier, a young one with big nostrils. Full fatigues. Early twenties. Uniform told Zig the kid was Army, last name Zager. “You passed out.”

  “I didn’t pass out.”

  He put a hand on Zig’s chest. “Please, sir, stay where you are,” he insisted. He wasn’t trying to help Zig up. He was trying to keep him down.

  Zig pushed the kid’s hand aside and tried to sit up. A stab of pain shot through him like a spear. Zig touched his own jaw, just below his ear. It was swollen but not bleeding. Whoever had done this knew their anatomy—and also knew that when a boxer gets punched in the face, it’s a mini-stroke. Pick the right spot and you get a knockou—

  Wait. The painting… Where’s the painting?

  Zig checked the floor, then the shelves. The burnt army boots, the cuff earrings, the Pac-Man sunglasses—they were all on the blue prep mat, exactly where he first found them. Even the scraps of her uniform were back in a neat stack. But the painting of the woman, the one signed by Nola…

  Mothertrucker.

  Zig closed his eyes, trying to picture the painting in his head. It was a portrait—a surprisingly good one—but nothing more than that. Still, for someone to sneak in here and crack him in the head to swipe it… You don’t take a risk like that unless it’s a risk worth taking.

  Zig turned back to Maple Syrup. “How’d you get in here?” he barked.

  “In where?” Maple Syrup asked.

  “In here. The door was closed. Who let you in?”

  “The door was open,” he insisted as Zig replayed that too. The door was closed. Zig could swear it was closed. Behind him, the desk lamp was still on.

  “Why’d you come in here?” Zig said. “This room—Personal Effects—it’s off-limits.”

  “The colonel… She asked me to take them around—”

  “Take who around?”

  The kid pointed over his shoulder. There was a German shepherd out in the hallway, followed by two men in suits. Nonmilitary. They weren’t from Dover. One of them had an earpiece.

  Secret Service, Zig realized. He studied the dog. If they were already sniffing for bombs…

  “What time is it?” Zig asked. Climbing to his feet and searching for balance, Zig scrambled for the door, pulled out his phone, and opened the web browser to— According to the Board, Marine One had landed six minutes ago.

  The President of the United States was already here. Fortunately, Zig knew exactly where he was going.

  11

  This was the hardest part of Zig’s job.

  He was standing in the hold of a cargo plane, a massive C-17 transport that felt like a flying warehouse, even as it was parked on the flight line just behind his building. On most days, the plane could carry three SuperCobra helicopters or even an Abrams tank. Today, as the December wind tore through the back of the plane, its payload was far more precious: six American-flag-covered caskets—they were actually called transfer cases—each filled with a body bag covered in ice to preserve the contents. All six were lined up side by side on the back loading ramp like red, white, and blue piano keys.

  Hup-hup-hup-hup.

  Zig heard them before he saw them, out on the runway. The six-man carry team in camouflage fatigues and bright white gloves, marching in perfect precision, two by two, with their team leader behind them. They headed straight toward Zig.

  Hup-hup-hup-hup.

  From Zig’s angle in the back of the plane, he spotted the maestro himself, President Orson Wallace, standing down on the runway in his black overcoat. His eyes were focused straight ahead, his arms were flat at his sides, and his salt-and-pepper hair was neatly trimmed as the carry team marched past him.

  Hup-hup-hup-hup.

  Zig had seen President Wallace and his perfect hair before. Ever since Obama opened Dover to the press, every commander in chief had felt the need to make a visit. But this wasn’t a typical presidential visit. Wallace was here to see a friend, which meant Zig needed to keep his eyes open and get in close.

  Within the last twenty minutes, someone had attacked Zig in Personal Effects and stolen Nola’s painting. Whoever it was, they were probably still here somewhere.

  It didn’t hurt that, as always, Zig was the first one signed up to be on today’s mortuary advance team. In his pocket were two dozen loose threads he’d pulled from the six American flags draped over the transfer cases that served as caskets. Zig had just re-ironed every flag, replacing the ones from the plane with new flags that had elastic borders, like a fitted bedsheet, to make sure that when it came to the bodies of the six fallen soldiers on this plane, every detail was perfect. Now all he had to do was wait.

  Hup-hup-hup-hup.

  Across from Zig, tucked into the opposite corner of the plane, was Master Guns. Master Guns shot Zig a look, then glanced meaningfully at the VIPs who were lined up on the runway, next to the President. The attorney general was there, along with the commander of the Army Special Forces, two brigadier generals, and of course, their boss, Colonel Hsu herself.

  Master Guns didn’t have to say it. Over the past six months, they’d held dignified transfers for over two hundred fallen soldiers. Colonel Hsu hadn’t shown up for a single one of them. Until today, when the President arrived.

  She should be here for them all, Zig said with a dirty look. No heart.

  Click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click!

  Below the left wing of the plane, a dozen photographers in the press pool snapped a few hundred photos of the President just standing at attention, shoulder to shoulder with the other VIPs. When the President visits, everyone comes running. No way was Hsu missing this. But considering she was the last person who’d seen Zig before he got cracked in the head, Zig was eyeing her even more closely.

  Look who else, Master Guns said with a glance. At the end of the VIP line, there was a muscular, dark-skinned black man in a pinstripe suit and round vintage glasses that softened his face. Master Guns mouthed a single word: “Riestra.”

  Leonard Riestra, director of the Secret Service.

  Hup-hup-hup-hup.

  A metal thumping echoed through the hull as the carry team stepped onto the loading ramp and marched up toward the flag-covered cases.

  “Secret Service?” Zig mouthed, cocking an eyebrow. Master Guns nodded imperceptibly.

  Last year, when a Georgetown professor was killed in Qatar,
the head of the CIA showed up at Dover to pay his respects. Clearly, “professor” wasn’t quite the right description. At Dover, secret squirrels were here all the time. Zig and Master Guns had seen the heads of the FBI, Department of Defense, and even FEMA. But in all their years, they’d never seen the head of the Secret Service.

  Kuuunk.

  The carry team stopped on cue and stood at attention inside the plane, surrounding the flag-covered cases. Behind them, up the loading ramp, the chaplain followed. Since the back of the plane was open to the winter air, everyone was freezing. No one complained—not when there were six men and women who’d just lost their lives.

  “Let us pray,” the chaplain offered as all heads bowed toward the six bodies. No one said a word. No one moved. “Almighty God, we th—”

  Th-thunk. Th-thunk.

  At the sound, the chaplain looked up. Zig and Master Guns turned. Up the metal loading ramp, the most powerful man on the planet—President Orson Wallace—surprised everyone by walking calmly toward the bodies, his long black overcoat billowing behind him like a magician’s cape.

  Master Guns threw a quizzical look at Zig.

  Zig had no idea what the President was doing. No one did.

  Click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click, came the cameras.

  The carry team stayed where they were. So did their team leader, who knew never to break protocol. All of them stood there in the back of the plane, Zig off on the side. The only one who moved was the chaplain, who shifted slightly to the left to make room at the top of the ramp for the one person no one could say no to.

  “Mr. President…” the chaplain said, though it came out like a question.

  “Which one?” Wallace asked, motioning with his chin at the cases.

  The chaplain looked at Zig.

  “Where’s my friend?” the President of the United States whispered, his voice catching. His head was tilted and his gray eyes sagged. Everyone knows what the President looks like, but Zig had never seen him look like this.