by Brad Meltzer
“You in your office?” Waggs asked.
“Uniforms,” Zig said, scanning the single sheet of paper he was holding in his other hand. At Dover, it was called a rip sheet—a printout of all the medals and badges a fallen service member would wear in their casket. In this room, uniform specialists would assemble and iron the uniform, collect and polish the medals, and get everything ready to dress the corpse. Today, though, Zig decided to give it a little personal touch.
At the top of the rip sheet was one name:
Rookstool, Nelson
VIP/Librarian of Congress
1. Superior Civilian Service Award
No surprise, Zig thought, pulling a bright silver medal with a crimson ribbon from its wire hook. Presidential friends always got good hardware.
2. President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service
Also no surprise. Eisenhower established the award so Presidents could single out government service. But the third and final medal on the list…
3. Secretary of the Army Award for Valor
Zig paused, reaching the wire rack and pulling out the gold medal with its red-and-blue ribbon. “Waggs, did Rookstool ever serve?”
“Pardon?”
“Nelson Rookstool. Librarian of Congress. Yesterday, when his body came off the plane, he was received as a civilian, but was he a vet? Afghanistan? Iraq? I don’t know, even National Guard or something?”
Through the phone came the hushed clicking of a keyboard. “Nope. Never in the military,” Waggs finally said. “Nothing in the Bureau, CIA, or other agencies either. He’s full muggle his whole life. Why you asking?”
Zig pulled the gold medal close, eyeing the engraved five-pointed star. Above it was the word VALOR. “They’re awarding Rookstool a medal for valor.”
Waggs didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. Even in the world of secret squirrels, medals for valor were for bravery, which usually meant combat—or at least for doing something in the field.
“You think when Rookstool was on that plane,” Waggs began, “whatever he was doing in Alaska—he wasn’t just there as a librarian?”
“That’s the question. Maybe he really was bringing literacy to rural Eskimo communities. Or maybe, considering the names of the dead Houdini assistants who were staffing him on the plane, he was on a mission we still haven’t figured out yet.”
“Speak for yourself,” Waggs shot back.
“Wait. You found the Houdini folks?”
“And I found Markus Romita.”
“Who?”
“Last night at Fort Belvoir. The guy who attacked you outside Nola’s office. Wide eyes. Hit you with a telescoping baton.”
“How’d you—?”
“His CAC,” Waggs explained, referring to his military ID. “He had to swipe it to get into Fort Belvoir. But when I checked their records, Markus was the only visitor on base who didn’t hand his guest pass back at the end of the night. Find him and you’ll have your best shot for figuring out who’s really doing these Houdini tricks.”
“Waggs, you’re getting sneakier in your old age, y’know that?”
“You said Nola ambushed him. I’m guessing she dumped him in his trunk and drove off base.”
“Any idea where he might be now?”
Waggs paused. “Would you be surprised if I said, ‘A morgue in Virginia’?”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes. Police found Markus dead early this morning—tied to a chair on a boat…”
“…in the Pentagon marina. I was there last night.”
“Which probably means that when they run their security tapes, cops are going to be knocking on your door, anxious to ask a few questions.”
“I never touched him…didn’t even know he was there…”
“Said the man who drove there alone and therefore has no alibi. I told you from the start, Ziggy, you’re headfirst in quicksand. Nola slit his throat.”
“No way. She wouldn’t—”
“Do not tell me this girl is innocent. Everywhere she goes, she brings one thing with her: Death. Death on a plane. Death on a boat. She’s like a walking Agatha Christie novel, and you’re playing the part of the plucky and well-meaning investigator who dies right before the ending because he’s too blind to see the noose that’s wrapping around his neck.”
Staring down at Rookstool’s shiny medal for valor, Zig watched his own face twist and shift in its reflection. Did he think that Nola was innocent, incapable of any harm? Of course not. His head was still ringing from that zapping she gave him. Plus Nola’s boss’s words: She’s a gun. A weapon. But ever since Zig saw her back in Ekron—at the funeral home—the way Nola reacted to the note and the plane crash… Some things can’t be lied about. Whatever else was going on, no way did Nola put that plane down. Nola, you were right. Keep running. Deep down, he knew it now more than ever. That was a warning.
Right there, Zig felt an old thought coming back. Previously, he called it a need. But now he saw it more clearly, recognizing it from so many mourners. When it came to Nola, Zig didn’t just have a need to know what happened. He had a need to see her in her best light, a need to prove her innocent, a need to prove he was right about her that night at the campfire. It was, he knew, a blind spot. But that didn’t mean it was wrong.
“She knew what she was doing after Markus’s attack,” Zig added. “If Nola wanted me dead, I’d be dead already.”
“And that makes her a hero? That she slit his throat but not yours?”
“For all we know, Markus is the one who put the plane down!”
At that, Waggs went silent.
“Oh, Waggs, you looked Markus up, didn’t you? If you found something—”
“What I found is he’s no pushover. Markus was Special Forces, spent some time at Fort Lewis, then an ugly discharge—though he was clearly still working for someone since as of yesterday, he had an active ID card.”
“And if he had an active ID…”
“…then we can see his last assignment. Took me a while, but apparently, he was working on something called Operation Bluebook.”
“Never heard of it.”
“No one had. I checked every database—JWICS, JIANT, even Room 11,” she added, referencing the cyberwarriors who hacked for the NSA, CIA, and a few secret others. “This was clearly above what’s usually above top secret. All I was able to find was an address in Washington, DC. 278 H Street SW.”
“Sounds like a storefront.”
“It is. It’s a business that’s been around since the early 1960s.”
“And it has something to do with Houdini?”
“You tell me. 278 H Street is home of the Conjuring Arts Eclectic Studio.”
“Alakazam.”
“The last place your attacker was stationed? It’s an antique magic shop.”
38
Homestead, Florida
Eleven years ago
This was Nola when she was fifteen.
Once again, she was sitting in the back—in the art room—on a three-legged stool that wobbled.
“Take one, pass them back,” Ms. Sable said, handing a stack of index cards to Sophie Michone, the smiley student government treasurer who would one day grow up to be the person in her office who, when everyone played Powerball together, would be the one who got left out.
“Pass ’em back,” Smiling Sophie repeated to the other students at her four-person workbench. Then her best friend, Missy F., passed them to Harold at his four-person workbench, who passed them to Lazy Eye Justin at his four-person workbench, who walked them to Nola, sitting at her own four-person workbench all by herself.
“Don’t even try to touch me, Scuzzy,” Justin whispered as he handed Nola the stack of index cards, then flinched as she reached for them. “I heard they put you here to keep you from fighting.”
“Eat a fart,” Nola growled.
This wasn’t the first time Nola had been singled out for her art. When she was five, her kindergarten teach
er told the LaPointes that she was coloring “too hard,” breaking all the crayons, especially the purples. But even then, Nola was determined. If it’s purple, it’s gonna be purple.
“Everyone have one? Good,” Ms. Sable said, waving her own index card like a white flag. “On this card, I want you to write down the most important thing in your life. For some of you that will be your family; others—I know—you’re teenagers, you hate your family. It can be something different: A boyfriend. Girlfriend. Your dog. A grandparent. A prized possession. The. Most. Important. Thing,” she reiterated. “Also, there’s no judgment here. It can be a personal philosophy, it can be something you love—Harold, don’t look at Sophie for help. Write your own answer. And I know, this is high school—your favorite thing can be sex for all I care,” she added as the room let out a few nervous giggles. “Or it can just be the one item in your house that you’d grab if everything caught fire.”
“Can I ask a question?” Smiling Sophie said, Nola noticing that Sophie always prefaced her questions with permission for those questions. “Will anyone else see what we write?”
“Glad you asked,” Ms. Sable said, her arms now crossed, her card tucked into her armpit. “No. You will never show me what’s on your card. You will never show anyone what’s on your card. If it makes you feel better, you can shred it and throw it in the trash for all I care.”
“Then why even bother writing it down?” Missy F. asked.
“Because this is art! Art doesn’t exist in your head. It exists when you express it, when you let it out—when your pencil hits paper; when your brush hits the canvas. But to create good art, well…whatever you write on this little index card? The most important thing in your life? That’s your point of view.”
Ms. Sable stopped, letting the words sink in, something that Nola noticed she did a lot, using silence to make you think. In Nola’s own house, sudden silence meant one thing. Anger. And an imminent explosion.
“Whatever you draw,” Ms. Sable continued, “it must relate to what’s on this card. Your point of view is what makes you special, it’s what makes your art special. Only you can view the world your way. That sounds like a yoga quote, but it’s gospel. Does that make sense?”
Nola watched the other students shift in their seats. It didn’t make sense to most of them. Nola wasn’t sure it made sense to her either.
“For example,” Ms. Sable added, “when I did this same exercise in art school, I was about to get married. On my card, I wrote: Being Married. Don’t judge,” she warned as the class again nervously laughed. “God forgive me, but back then, all my art had two of everything in it. Two palm trees, two rivers, once I even painted two full moons, which doesn’t even make scientific sense—especially when you consider how quickly that marriage fell apart. However! That was my point of view.”
Missy F.’s hand shot into the air. “So it has to be something you love?”
“It absolutely does not have to be something you love. It can be something you want, something you dream of, something you can’t stop thinking about. The only requirement is that it is what you care about most on a daily basis.”
Waste of time, Nola thought, glancing to her left, where Justin the jerkwad was rolling his eyes, shooting a look at one of his friends.
“Waste of time,” Justin whispered to Sophie.
For a moment, Nola sat there, realizing just how powerful her own spite of Justin’s spite was. She stared down at her index card, tempted to doodle a picture of Justin, maybe with a few knives stuffed into his eyes. Instead…she looked up at Ms. Sable, who quickly made eye contact.
Just try it, her teacher pleaded with a glance.
Justin snickered, whispering something to his friends.
Grabbing the card, Nola scribbled something quick, then folded it up and stuffed it in her pocket.
Thank you, Ms. Sable said with another glance. “Everyone else, when your card’s filled out, take one of these,” she added, handing out 9x12 pieces of sketch paper. “Whatever you wrote, here’s where you put it to work. Make some art.”
For the next forty minutes, Nola kept her head down, hunched over her paper as she sketched, stippled, and colored her newest creation.
At the front of the room, Ms. Sable took the teacher’s stroll that all teachers take, pausing over a few students, offering silent nods, but never coming near the back of the room, never coming near Nola.
As the bell rang, Nola was still drawing, her pencil moving at hyperspeed.
Driiiiiiiing.
Nola looked up. Ms. Sable wasn’t at the front. She was behind her, staring down. Unreadable.
“It’s not done yet,” Nola insisted.
“Nola…” Ms. Sable said, and already Nola could hear the insults, the mistakes, everything bad that was about to be mentioned. “…I don’t know what to say. Nice work. Beautiful start.”
“Beautiful?” Nola stuttered, not even realizing she said it out loud, like it was a word she didn’t understand, or from another language.
On the page was a glorious sky, wide and inviting, with ethereal clouds that were rendered with such uncanny, photorealistic detail, they looked like you could touch them. On the far right, so small you barely noticed it, was a lone bird.
“Blackbird?” Ms. Sable asked.
“Raven.”
Ms. Sable nodded. Cliché for sure, but c’mon. Nola was fifteen and a goth. Also, there was something familiar about the raven, something elegant. It was in mid-flight, its wings wide as it arced up through the sky, like nothing could stop it.
“Okay, I kinda want to salute this,” Ms. Sable said, putting a hand on Nola’s back and adding a squeeze that was the closest thing to a hug that Nola could remember.
“Toldja you have a knack,” Ms. Sable said.
Nola felt a smile lift her cheeks. In the coming months, especially when things went bad, Ms. Sable would become the most important person in young Nola’s life.
But of all the things she’d find out about Nola, Ms. Sable would never learn about the six words that were written on the index card stuffed in Nola’s pocket:
He watches me when I sleep.
39
Washington, DC
Today
You look lost,” a female voice called out.
“No, I was just—” Zig paused, looking around. “Okay, I’m definitely lost,” he said, scanning the pockmarked street that dead-ended here—in a parking lot for a beat-up soccer field. “You don’t happen to know where 278 H Street is?”
“Store or apartment?” asked a young African American girl, thirteen years old, earbuds still in her ears as she walked off the field.
“Store. The Conjuring Arts.”
“Wha?”
“It’s a magic shop.”
“Yesyesyes…the place where all those white people got jumped.”
Zig turned, cocking his head.
“I’m kidding. I’m funny,” the girl said, pretending to laugh at her own joke, but really still laughing at Zig. “This isn’t a bad neighborhood, y’know.”
She was right about that. A decade ago, this area was dominated by drug dealers, gangs, and vacant lots. But when Major League Baseball announced Nationals Park five blocks away, a neighborhood sprouted from nowhere, filling the Ballpark District with new apartment buildings, shops, and even a five-acre waterfront park with views to rival Georgetown. Nevertheless, that didn’t mean there weren’t a few back alleys and side streets that should still be avoided as the sun started to fade, including this one, on the back of the junior high school.
“That your school?” Zig asked, wondering if Hsu had finally realized he snuck off base.
“I go to private school,” the girl said dryly. “St. Peter.” For a moment, she stood there, twirling her earbuds like she was enjoying herself. “You still looking for that magic shop?”
“More than I can possibly express right now.”
She laughed and pointed to her left. “Head toward Third Street. Betw
een the tall apartment buildings, there’s a little side alley. It’s sorta smushed in there, next to the old pawnshop that no one ever goes to.”
Two blocks later, Zig spotted a hand-painted sign bolted to a lamppost: Pawn by Yolanda 2—This Way!
The sun was fading, the sky a gray purple, but even from here, Zig could see what was waiting for him. Down the narrow street was a line of painted white brick storefronts, all at the base of two-story row houses, like old five-and-dimes. Two were closed, protected by metal roll-down grates. But the third…
Zig headed straight for it. In the front window was a vintage neon sign shaped like a fanned deck of cards showing an ace of spades. The neon was dusty, like it hadn’t been lit in years. Same with the faded Open sign that looked like it hadn’t been touched since Nixon was President, which Zig was starting to realize was probably the point.
Some places were designed to make sure you look right past them.
The Conjuring Arts Eclectic Studio was one of them.
“You ready?” Zig asked into his phone after dialing a quick number.
“Listening and recording,” Dino said on the other line. “Just say the word parachute. I’ll call the cops.”
Nodding to himself, Zig slid his phone into his breast pocket and stepped inside the magic shop.
40
Arlington, Virginia
Nola knew this parking lot was safe. Overhead, she didn’t need to check for surveillance cameras. There weren’t any. It was a detail of pride for the owners of the restaurant. But also one of necessity.
Sandwiched between a 7-Eleven and a takeout Chinese place, the Crystal City Restaurant was named like a restaurant. It was built like a restaurant, complete with its brick facade and Christmas wreaths on its trendy outdoor barn lights. It even showed up on credit cards and company receipts like a restaurant. But really, the Crystal City Restaurant in Arlington, Virginia, was a strip club—the nearest one to the Pentagon and therefore one of the least videotaped blocks this close to our nation’s capital.
