by Brad Meltzer
It was quiet out here. The sound of the wind was soothing. And most important, it was safe.
Tonight, though, Nola could feel it—something was wrong, like the wind was blowing the wrong way. A storm was coming.
She’d been living with Royall for four years now, and unlike those first few months, most days now were incident free. Were there blowups? She was eleven. Of course there were, like the night she walked into the living room and scared off a buyer of something that Royall was hoping to sell.
A storm came that night. A storm Nola had never seen before.
But again, nights like that were rare. By now, Nola was an expert in Royall. Or at least an expert in avoiding him.
There was a scratch against the pavement outside. Nola sat up in the backseat. The block was empty. She checked the house. The lights were off. An hour ago, she saw Royall come back from the bar, stumbling inside. He should be asleep by now.
The lights were off. TV was off too. Definitely asleep.
Lying back down, Nola pulled up the covers and checked her digital watch, a gift from Royall after a particularly good week. He was making money now. It started a few years ago when Royall began creating and selling counterfeit driver’s licenses. Then he added fake electric bills, phone bills, and the other paperwork that documents a person’s life. Royall was good at it too. A master, like Picasso. His specialty wasn’t just creating the documents; he’d make them look worn, match them to torn-down buildings that no one could check. For a price, Royall would build you more than a fake ID; he’d truly create a new identity.
His first real client was an old pal from junior high, an ex-con who wanted to restart his life from scratch. But then Royall found a real market for his talents in an immigrant community outside of Philadelphia. And of course, he used that skill for Nola, putting together a fake birth certificate so she could enroll in school.
In the backseat, Nola took another look at her digital watch. Almost 2 a.m. She could feel the exhaustion pressing heavily on her brain. But try as she might, sleep still wouldn’t come.
A half hour later, Nola pulled a worn, folded wad of paper from her pocket. She carried it everywhere, for years now, though she rarely used it. It was faded and fraying, like homework left in the wash, but there was no mistaking it—the old greeting card the LaPointes had put in her luggage. The message inside read: This will make you stronger. But as Nola peeled it open and reread it for the first time in at least a year, it did nothing of the sort.
For another hour, Nola tossed and turned, fighting with the seat belt in her back, then sitting up to again recheck the house.
It was still dark, completely quiet. Royall was unconscious.
By morning, Nola would realize she was wrong. There was no storm coming.
Sometimes, when you’re eleven years old, it’s just hard to sleep in the backseat of a car.
28
Fort Belvoir, Virginia
Today
Zig woke up in a car. Head ringing.
Where’m I?
He licked his teeth and looked around. Driver’s seat. Alone. The world was blurry, like he was peering at it through gauze. He kicked open the door, not even realizing he was doing it.
The car…it was the gray car, the one he drove onto the military base. Behind him…the museum where…it was like Indiana Jones in there and—
Nola.
Nola did this. Attacked him with a…what in the hell was it?… some sort of Taser glove. She was supposed to be hiding outside the base, waiting for Zig to open—
Mothertrucker. The safe— The green tin—
Zig patted his chest, then his front pockets, like someone searching for his keys. Then he remembered.
He spun around. There. Down near the tire and the blood, on the pavement. There was the green tin. It was open, but still mostly filled with fancy oil crayons. A few were scattered nearby. But like before, nothing else was in there.
The tin was untouched. Nola didn’t care about it.
And now, Zig had that feeling he’d get when he was putting the finishing touches—the uniform and all the medals—on a corpse, when the minor problems were gone and you finally got to see the full picture.
Stupid old man. Nola wasn’t after the metal tin…or even the crayons inside. So why’d she send Zig to break into her office safe?
To see who else would show up. Zig was nothing more than bait. And now, thanks to his naivety—and his eagerness to pay his debts…to come to the rescue…whatever it was—Nola had what she needed.
Zig did too. What was the word Wide Eyes called her? A monster. He said Nola was the one who put that plane in the ground.
Did Zig believe it? He didn’t want to believe it, and the truth was, there was no logic in that statement. Nola had gone to Alaska for a reason… She saw something out there…or found something…something that kept her off that plane. So why’d he even care whether Nola was innocent? Why was he still chasing her? Why’d he even come here?
He told himself he wanted the truth. Then he told himself that he owed Nola for what she did to protect his daughter. Then he told himself what he told himself every day. He pictured those dead young soldiers—innocent souls—being carried in their flag-draped caskets this morning…their sobbing parents…plus the Librarian of Congress and that young woman whose body Zig worked on last night. Kamille Williams. Twenty-seven years old. From Iowa. Her body was taken—by someone—this afternoon, someone who knew their way around Dover, someone with access to the highest levels of military security. Wasn’t that what this was about? Or was this all just a way for Zig to protect his own past, that as long as he saw Nola as innocent and undamaged—as the hero who saved the day—he could also keep his own daughter preserved in whatever perfect memory vault he’d been storing her in for the past decade?
Zig didn’t have the time to sort through it all right now. All he knew was that he had to see this through—he needed these answers, needed to repay this debt. That was the right word now. Need. Regardless of how personal it was all becoming, someone put that plane down in Alaska, murdering seven people. And as far as Zig could tell, there was only one person who seemed to know why.
Now he just had to find her.
From his pocket, Zig pulled out his phone and swiped to an app called RFTrack.
On-screen, a small red triangle appeared, then a single word:
Scanning…
Back at Dover, when a new fallen arrives, the very first order of business is to attach state-of-the-art RFID tags so that each body can be catalogued and tracked. Especially with mass fatalities, Dover’s top priority was to make sure that no bodies would ever be lost or misplaced. That’s what Zig was counting on when, during the drive to Nola’s office, he slipped a spare RFID tag into the pocket of her winter coat. C’mon. She’d asked him to sneak into a guarded military base. Zig was stupid, but he wasn’t that stupid.
Connecting…
The red triangle blinked. A map appeared on-screen.
Location Identified.
Zig squinted at the map, remembering the days when he didn’t need reading glasses. He knew those streets. Washington, DC. And that five-sided building.
The Pentagon.
Nola—what the hell are you up to now?
29
Washington, DC
Wide Eyes was unconscious. Then he was awake.
“H-How’d…?” He looked around, blinking, still lost. “Wh-What is this?”
Nola was sitting across from him—sketching in a notepad, legs crisscrossed Indian style—in a leather recliner that was bolted to the floor.
“M-My clothes…” Wide Eyes looked down, realized he was naked. “Why’d you—? You took my—” He looked around some more. “Is this a boat?”
It was. Nola didn’t like boats, didn’t trust them. But she understood their benefits. Back during World War II, FDR used to have his most secret meetings on a boat—called “the floating White House”—that used to sail around the Po
tomac. Why? Back then, being on a boat was one of the best ways to guarantee no one else was listening.
It was no different today. In downtown DC, when the military brought in high-ranking officials, they didn’t put them up in hotel rooms. Hotels in DC had eyes and ears everywhere—even in the bathrooms, despite what people think. Instead, Uncle Sam owned apartments in Crystal City, townhomes near the Capitol, and yes, even a few boats, which they stored at a little-known dock off the Pentagon Lagoon known as the Columbia Island Marina.
“I know the tricks…taking my clothes…you think this’ll intimidate me?” Wide Eyes asked, now realizing his hands were tied to his armchair. He took a breath. He was a pro. Knew enough to not lose his cool. “Nola, I’m not your enemy.”
“Now you’re lying, Markus,” she said, calling him the name she found on his CAC, the common access card that all military use as ID. No driver’s license. No credit cards. No insurance papers. Nothing else in his wallet.
He sat up straight as she said Markus. That’s his real name. He was still trying to play cool, but Nola saw the way he was tugging against his restraints, favoring one arm. Left-handed. She looked down at her sketch pad, back at him, then back down to add a few more lines. He was built—wide like an elephant—but one of his arms was thicker, more muscular than the other. Undisciplined. As she sketched his legs, they weren’t nearly as bulky as his upper body; he was skipping leg days in the gym, focusing on his chest, arms—the parts people notice. Vain.
“Okay, I get it, you got my wallet. Probably my phone too.”
Right about that. Burner phone. No calls or contacts in it.
“I also found your gun, Markus. Beretta M9. Spec Ops favorite,” Nola said, happy to have his gun in her pocket. After zapping Zig with the electroshock glove she made by hand, it was fried, its wires burnt. Better to have a real weapon.
On her sketch pad, Nola added shading along Markus’s cheeks. He had beautiful cheekbones—like Zig’s—though now Nola was cursing herself for still thinking about Zig, much less his facial features.
She didn’t like Zig, found him sentimental and self-important. Like a dad who, at his daughter’s graduation, shouted her name louder than all the other dads, thinking that it’s all for his daughter, not realizing it’s all about himself. People like that? Assholes. Nola knew that. But if that was the case, why was she spending so much mental energy thinking about him? Indeed, since the moment Zig got roped into this, she couldn’t get him or his daughter, who, yes, she did right by that night, out of her brain. It was, she realized, her own weakness—some leftover memory from her childhood bringing out the most maudlin version of herself.
“Nola, you listening?” Markus interrupted. “If you think I’m answering your questions—” He cut himself off, angled his legs to hide his private parts. “You understand this is torture?”
She understood.
Nola often found herself contemplating the concept of torture. How could she not? At its core, wasn’t it just a way of exploiting other people’s weaknesses? The problem was, Hollywood movies and overcaffeinated novels always got it wrong. Today, most people thought torture relied on pliers, hacksaws, and a metal tray full of dental tools. In reality, the simpler methods were far more effective. Like taking someone’s clothes.
“I told you, I know how it works,” Markus added, licking sweat from the dimple of his top lip. “You put on the heat, didn’t you?”
Right again. Nola had cranked the thermostat up to 85. Markus was damp and sweaty, his body now convincing his brain that maybe it was time to start panicking. There were other methods too, honed over the past century, like injecting salt water into someone’s veins and watching them find new levels of pain. Or making them drink a mix of water and benzene—found in any cigarette lighter—which caused stomach cramps, an onset of the shits, and delirium. Pre–World War II, before we knew about amphetamines, nothing was more effective. Even the operatives with the highest threshold for pain—the Russians, Mexicans, the Vietnamese—it was the only thing they feared. Truth serum was a lie. But with a shot of lighter fluid…once delirium hit? That’s when you’d get your answer.
“Think this scares me?” Markus challenged, taking another lick of sweat from his lip. Big as he was—as big as an elephant—he didn’t look so fearsome now.
“Markus, I’m not good at talking to people. It’s why people don't like me. Why they’re afraid of me. But some days…it’s smart to be afraid.”
Markus shook his head, forcing a grin. “I was in Yemen…in Libya! I was pulling out our boys who got their hands chopped off. You make it as hot as you want! I ain’t answering none of your questions!”
He was right about that too. Or at least partly right. But like any good interrogator, Nola knew that once the pain starts sinking in, you can’t ask dozens of questions. However. You can get a shot at one. With the right lever, you can move anything. Including an elephant.
“That was smart, Markus, carrying this burner phone,” Nola said, pulling out the cheap flip phone that she found in Markus’s pocket. “What was dumb, though, was parking your car behind the dumpsters and leaving your real phone under your floor mats, thinking no one would find it.”
Markus stiffened. The dimple in his top lip filled with a brand-new pool of sweat.
“I work at Fort Belvoir. It’s my home, Markus. If you really wanted to stay out of sight, you should’ve hopped the wall. When you bring your car on base, people can see you coming. And see what you brought with you.”
From her opposite pocket, Nola pulled out a second phone—also a flip phone, though this one was older, with real wear on it.
Markus’s face, his chest, his thin arm and thick one—everything went white. “That’s not mine,” he stuttered.
“This isn’t a court of law, Markus. It’s a truth factory.” She headed toward him. “So tell me: How do you think your boss will react when he hears that you blew all his security protocols and stupidly left the phone that you last called him on sitting in your car, ripe for the taking? In fact…”—she flipped open the phone, her finger ready to hit the Send button—“maybe I should just tell him myself.”
“DON’T! Please! He would— I got a kid—”
“You don’t have a kid. I looked you up. You’re about to be kicked out of the truth factory.”
“If he finds out— You don’t understand!”
“I think we can both agree I very much understand. So answer me,” Nola said, leaning in so close they were nose-to-nose. “I need a name. His real name. Tell me who Houdini is.”
30
Where’s she now?”
“Pentagon. At their marina,” Zig said, holding the steering wheel with one hand, his phone with the other. On-screen, he studied the red triangle. “She’s moving now. Fast. I think she got into a car.”
“Maybe she’s leaving,” Master Guns said through the speakerphone, his deep baritone echoing through Zig’s car. Zig hadn’t called him; Master Guns called on his own. But he was still clearly lost. “You think she’s meeting someone?”
“I think they already met,” Zig said, hitting the gas and steering toward the highway exit. He was less than a mile away, his body pressed against the driver’s door as he veered around a loop that led him onto the George Washington Parkway. On his left, the Potomac was a pool of black ink with the Washington Monument in the distance, a tiny exclamation point.
“Ziggy, we don’t need you confronting her.”
“Who’s we?”
“Me. I don’t want you confronting her.”
“Then why’re you saying we?”
“Don’t start, Ziggy. I’m trying to keep you safe. And y’know how I know you’re not safe? Because we just got a call from Nola’s boss…”
“There you go using we again.”
“You’re not listening. Her boss—Barton—he called to check your credentials, Ziggy. Said the parking lot was filled with blood. Said you went to Nola’s workplace. Introduced yourself as
an investigator. That’s my job. Not yours.”
With his foot still on the gas, Zig headed for the first exit, which dumped him into the parking lot of the marina. On-screen, the red triangle was on his far left. Zig looked out his window. It was late. Dark. He didn’t see any cars moving. The lot was as big as a football field. Still too far away.
“You told me you were just going to your old funeral home, the one in Ekron,” Master Guns added.
“I know how this looks, but when I got there, when I saw her— I’m telling you, I don’t think Nola’s our enemy here.”
“What’d she say to you, Ziggy—something about your daughter?”
“She didn’t.” That was the truth, though Zig was now replaying those moments with Nola, the way she was sketching so furiously, the anger that seeped off her…and her clear determination to put her hands around the neck of whoever was behind this. “I’m not wrong about her.”
“She put a Taser to your head!”
“If she wanted me dead, I’d be dead. She knew someone was watching. She just needed me to lure him out.”
“Oh, to lure him—that’s much better!” Master Guns took a breath, like a wolf about to blow Zig’s house down. “Y’know what else her boss at the museum said about her? He said Nola was dangerous, that everywhere she went, she brought destruction, which is exactly what we’re seeing here. She’s making you emotional, Ziggy—and you’re putting your life at risk in the process.”
“You tell him we need him now! That’s an order!” a female voice interrupted through the phone, yelling in the background.
Zig knew that voice. Colonel Hsu. Top commander at Dover. And top of the list of people who would have his head if she knew what he was up to.
“You let Hsu listen this entire time?”
“Do you have any idea what’s going on here? We’re getting hourly calls from the Secret Service, plus half-hourly calls from some Ivy League snot whose first name is Galen. You know who Galen is?”
