by Brad Meltzer
“I still have no idea what they’re up to! I don’t know what Bluebook is!”
“But that’s why you stayed. Look at the timeline. You met Kamille and painted her picture. Your job was done. You had a seat on that plane and should’ve been on that flight that was leaving Alaska. But then you got that knotty feeling in your gut. It happened after you painted Kamille; maybe she said it while she was sitting for you… Something told you there was a better story if you stuck around—maybe a better painting even. All you had to do was stay. So at the very last minute, you got off the plane, gave your seat to Kamille—”
“I didn’t give her anything! She begged me for it!”
“But that’s why you went to Alaska, isn’t it? To paint Kamille’s portrait—she’s the one who tried to kill herself.”
“I brought her joy! My painting— It made her happy! She loved it so much, she begged me to keep it! Then she begged me again to take my spot on the plane! She was trying to see her fiancé!”
“And the next thing you know, just as you’re starting to snoop around, the plane plummets from the sky. And now you realize your gut was right.” He paused, letting it sink in.
Sitting in bed, Nola stared straight ahead—refusing to look at Zig—focusing on a peeling section of Southwestern tribal-pattern wallpaper. Her pen was still in her hand. But it wasn’t anywhere near the pad of paper.
“Nola, before you blame yourself—”
“Why’d you protect me before?” Nola blurted.
Zig looked at her, confused.
“Back in the insurance shop. With the grenade…when The Curtain threw it… you jumped on me and tipped the table to protect us.”
“I thought you were unconscious.”
“I was awake,” she shot back, still staring straight ahead. “If that grenade went off—”
“The grenade wasn’t real.”
“You didn’t know that. If it went off, the shrapnel would’ve ripped through you. I’m asking you a question, Mr. Zigarowski. Why’d you risk yourself for me?”
A long, weighty silence took the room. Zig stood there, between the two twin beds. The air was so quiet, he heard the running water through the pipes and the cycling of the toilet.
He shrugged. “Why’d you do what you did at the campfire?” He took a deep breath. “It just seemed like the right thing. I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
Nola paused. “Is this about your daughter, or me?” she asked.
A new silence took hold, a far deeper silence as the air itself grew heavy and thick. It was the kind of silence that came not just from a lack of sound, but a lack of movement. In his ears, Zig heard a high-pitched hum, like in the embalming room.
For a minute, Zig stood there, swaying just slightly. His voice was barely a murmur. “I don’t know.”
In the bed, Nola was still looking straight ahead, staring at nothing in particular. “Horatio,” she announced.
“Wha?”
“That’s him. He’s the one,” Nola explained. “Back on the boat, I got his name. That’s who Houdini reports to—the real string-puller behind Operation Bluebook.”
“So he—?”
“He’s the one who hired The Curtain, ordered the plane crash, and murdered Kamille. They call him Horatio.”
67
Am I supposed to recognize that name?” Zig asked.
“Horatio,” Nola repeated. “It’s the name of another magician.”
“Like a modern magician or—?”
“From the 1800s,” Nola said, climbing out of bed and standing there a moment to get her bearings. She blinked a few times, light-headed from the blood loss.
She headed for the bathroom, sat down, and peed with the door open. Zig looked away, though he still caught an unwanted glimpse of her in the mirror above one of the dressers.
“So this Horatio…?”
“Where’s my gun? I saw you grab it,” she said, still in her underwear and a bra as she opened and shut the shower curtain, then stepped back into the room and did the same with the closet. She ran her fingers across the top shelf as well as the headboard of each bed. Then she opened every drawer in each of the two dressers.
“No one knows we’re here,” Zig insisted, eyeing the way her white hair ran down, covering the scars on her upper back. But it couldn’t obscure all of them. She wasn’t thin; she was muscular, like a boxer. And the way she was moving—favoring her left hand—she was working hard to hide it, but she was in pain.
“Where’s my gun?”
“I put it in the trunk of the car.”
Nola stared at him a moment, studying his face. Then she turned to the mattress, lifting it from the box spring. Underneath was her gun, exactly where Zig had hidden it.
She shot Zig a look…and climbed back into bed. As she sat there, Indian style, Zig couldn’t avoid her underwear.
“Maybe you could…cover yourself up?” he suggested.
She didn’t. Instead, she was focused on her gun, quickly fieldstripping the pistol. Within seconds, she ejected the magazine and pulled off the slide and guide rod, then inspected the feed ramp and the grooves inside the barrel.
“Can we please get back to Horatio?” Zig asked.
“During the Civil War, Horatio G. Cooke was a well-known rope escapist,” she explained, still working on the gun. “So much so that his skills caught the attention of a man named Abraham Lincoln.”
“Is this for real?”
“Look it up. President Lincoln was so impressed, he had two generals and a senator tie up young Horatio, who was just eighteen at the time. When Horatio escaped, Lincoln made him an offer, asking him to personally work for Lincoln in the war.”
“So he was Lincoln’s spy?”
“Officially, they called him a scout—but yes, Horatio was sneaky, a secret weapon—which is what Lincoln needed back then. Soon after, Horatio started working for the Union, and when he saved his scouting party from capture, he and Lincoln actually became friends. According to what I found online, on the night Abraham Lincoln was shot, Horatio Cooke was one of the people in Ford’s Theatre…and one of the very few by Lincoln’s bedside when the President died.”
“I’ve never heard of this guy.”
“Neither had I,” Nola confessed, already done putting the gun back together. She racked the slide to make sure all was working. “What makes the story even more memorable is that after Lincoln died, Horatio continued to do magic, continued to work for the government, and also turned his attention to exposing fake mediums. By the time he was an old man, he even befriended an up-and-coming magician named…”
“Don’t say Harry Houdini.”
Nola was still staring down at the gun, like Zig wasn’t even there. “I couldn’t make this up if I wanted to.”
“So in real life, you’re telling me Houdini and Horatio were friends?” Zig asked.
“Friends and fellow magicians. And from what I can tell, they both traveled around the country exposing anyone who claimed they could talk to the dead. Apparently, they both lost people close to them—and weren’t ever able to move past it.”
Looking to his left, Zig studied his own warped reflection in the curve of the motel’s old TV. “You said the real Horatio worked for Abraham Lincoln. Did the real Houdini have any connections to presidents?”
Nola looked up from her gun. “He knew Teddy Roosevelt. Also met with Woodrow Wilson too. Why?”
“You said Horatio was Lincoln’s secret weapon. Was Houdini one too?”
“So now the White House has an army of undercover magicians? You’re watching too much History Channel.”
“I’m not talking about an army. I’m talking about a single magician, someone whose specialty is doing exactly what you said this guy Rowan Johansson—using the code name Houdini—was doing in the Army: making very big problems disappear.”
Nola thought about that. Zig did too. A century ago, the real Horatio and real Houdini spent quality time with the most powerful men in
the world. And now, today, this modern Horatio and Houdini were using them as namesakes, moving loads of cash, and were ruthlessly determined to keep a lid on whatever was really going on in Alaska. Whatever they were up to, they were definitely covering—
“The big move covers the small one,” Zig blurted.
Nola shot him a look.
“Just a— It’s a magician saying,” Zig explained, suddenly picturing President Orson Wallace barely two days ago, during his surprise visit to Dover, heading down the back of the plane and carrying the transfer case with his dead pal’s remains. The whole world was watching Wallace, including every single person at Dover. But no one was watching the President’s friend.
“Abracadabra,” Zig muttered, thinking about his visit to the magic shop. Pulling out his phone, he opened a browser and quickly typed three words into Google: Houdini and Nelson Rookstool.
The big move covers the small one.
“What if…?” Zig started speaking before he even had the full thought. Then he saw what popped up on-screen. “I don’t believe it,” he added, scrolling and trying to speed-read. “They have everything…his letters, his playbills…even his—” He looked up at Nola. “When Harry Houdini died, guess what government agency got all his books and papers?”
“The Library of Congress.”
“Wait. You knew that?”
Nola nodded. She’d looked it up days ago.
“He owned one of the largest libraries in the world on psychic phenomena, spiritualism, magic,” Zig read from the site, “and returning from the dead.”
“There is no return from the dead,” Nola said.
“Not literally—but think about it. We know one magician worked for Abraham Lincoln. From there, it sounds like the real Harry Houdini also did undercover work for the government. So if you were the President and you wanted to make sure no one found out about your favorite secret program, would you put it in the White House, the Pentagon, or would you hide it in some lesser-watched government location where no one would ever look?”
Nola started sketching again as Zig stared down at the website for the Library of Congress.
“Maybe that’s why Nelson Rookstool was on the plane. In fact, maybe that’s why the President appointed him,” Zig added, his voice at full speed. “If the leader of the free world goes to Alaska, the whole world watches. But if the Librarian of Congress goes there—”
“Stay with Horatio.”
“Just listen! Houdini donated all his books to the Library of Congress for a reason. What if that’s the home base for Operation Blueb—”
“Horatio’s our focus!” Nola growled.
Zig turned. Her face was red, her fists clenched. Silent Nola was no longer silent.
Confused, Zig asked, “Don’t you want to know what Bluebook is?”
“I don’t give a turd. You give a turd. What I want are the people who put that plane down. I got Houdini, so Horatio…whoever he is… They murdered seven people! They killed Kamille! They were trying to kill me!”
Flicks of spit left Nola’s lips as she said the words.
Zig just stood there, at the foot of the twin beds, watching her catch her breath. In all the time they’d been together, she was an expert at being quiet. Now she was smoldering.
Back at the insurance place, Zig convinced himself that when it came to killing Houdini, Nola had no choice. It was self-defense. Now he wasn’t so sure.
“Nola, as you track this guy Horatio—when you finally find him—what are you planning to do to him?”
Nola didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.
Zig knew. Deep down, he always knew. For Nola, this wasn’t about Operation Bluebook, or a government cover-up, or even the dead innocents on that plane. It was about revenge.
“I’m telling you right now,” Zig added, “whoever Horatio is, killing him won’t solve anything.”
Nola was still silent, staring straight down at the reassembled gun in front of her.
“And just so you know, I’m not helping you commit murder,” Zig said.
Still no response.
Zig thought about calling the cops, or someone at the FBI, maybe even Colonel Hsu’s commanding officer, the general in charge of Dover. But at his core, Zig was all too aware of this unarguable truth: Whoever he turned Nola over to, wherever they locked her up, her real name would eventually be put in the system. Once that happened, some bad folks who were looking for her would quickly find her. And once that happened, wherever Nola was being hidden, that wouldn’t be a place she’d be walking away from. Ever.
“If you have something to say, just say it, Mr. Zigarowski.”
“Why’re you still here?” Zig blurted.
Her dark eyes slid his way.
“I mean it,” he said. “I stopped your shoulder from bleeding. I patched you up. I even got you a sweatshirt from the lost and found at the front desk—it’s a size too big, but if you put it on, it’ll do the job. Every other time I’ve seen you, you leave as fast as you can. Even now, you could’ve darted outside and stolen my car…or just slipped away while I was cleaning the blood from your coat. But for some reason, you’re still sitting here, staring down at your gun, which is out of bullets. So tell me, Nola. Why’re you still here, much less putting up with all my questions?”
With a clench of her feet, Nola cracked her toe knuckles. “Because you’re the one who can get me on that plane.”
Zig was confused. “What plane?”
In her right hand, Nola picked up the notepad she’d been drawing in. She held it up, giving Zig his first good look at what she’d been sketching: the Suunto watch. Nola had drawn it over and over, each watch showing a digital time, a few letters—and a ten-digit number.
“You did these by memory? Or did you copy them down?” Zig asked.
She didn’t answer. But as Zig looked closer, he could see that all the letters and numbers were different, each representing its own grid based on latitude and longitude.
“You know where Horatio is, don’t you?”
Silent Nola didn’t say a word. Until. “I need you to get me on that plane, Mr. Zigarowski.”
“Nola, this isn’t—”
“Please. Listen. I know where Horatio’s hiding. I need you to get me to Alaska.”
68
Homestead, Florida
Ten years ago
This was Nola when she was sixteen.
It was the morning after she found the old letters. Royall was in the kitchen, flipping through a glossy magazine for high net worth individuals that Mr. Wesley had given him (Dream it to live it!) and eating his peanut butter on toast. He was up early. On a Sunday. That was her first sign something was wrong.
Nola kept her head down, cradling Dooch in her arms. At night, the skunk slept at her feet—even hesitantly followed her to the bathroom this morning, which brought Nola a silent thrill and sense of love she’d never experienced before. She tried focusing on that, hoping that maybe Royall would stay away.
“What do you want for breakfast?” Royall asked, a smile on his face.
That was her second sign. He was being nice. Wasn’t licking his lips either. Not drunk, not hungover. Whatever Royall was planning—whatever punishment was coming for Nola finding those letters—he was taking his time.
“Just…I guess…cereal, I guess.”
“Coming up.”
Royall grabbed a box of Lucky Charms, poured it in a bowl, even took out the milk. He poured some for Nola, and some for Dooch, who had leapt down from Nola’s lap and was now walking in small but meaningful circles around the edges of the milk bowl.
“Pwwp, pwwp, pwwp,” Royall said, squatting down and making kissy noises, trying to draw the skunk closer. “That’s for you—drink up.” Dooch stayed where he was—by the milk bowl—cocking his head and adding a sour expression of judgment.
“So where you going today?” Royall asked Nola, his eyes still on the skunk.
“To a friend’s.” Nola knew better
than to tell Royall about Ms. Sable. “She’s got some toys and extra food for Dooch. A little cat bed too.”
“Oooh, you want a cat bed?” he babytalked to the skunk. “Go…drink…yummy,” he added, motioning to the milk bowl.
Dooch just stood there, not taking a sip.
“Maybe you want some cheese. You want cheese?” Royall said, reaching for the refrigerator.
“We should run,” Nola interrupted, scooping up Dooch and heading for the door. “Be back later.”
Usually, Royall couldn’t muster a goodbye. But today…
“Enjoy the sunshine,” he announced. “It’s beautiful out.”
He was right. Outside, the weather was gorgeous, the sky a pastel blue that reminded Nola of an iceberg. Deep down, though, Nola knew…she could feel it in her soul. No matter how much the sun was shining, a merciless storm was on its way.
69
Mitchellville, Maryland
Today
Nola told him she was hungry.
That was all it took. She said she wanted a hamburger, and Zig was on it, headed for the door to get them some dinner.
As Zig slid an arm into his jacket, Nola was sitting in bed, combing through the Twitter feeds of every Washington, DC, news site, looking for mentions of the shooting—or of finding Houdini’s body—back at Powell Insurance.
“Still nothing?” Zig asked.
Nola shook her head, still scrolling. They both knew what was happening. For a shooting to stay this quiet, it’s because, yet again, someone high up was working to keep it quiet.
“I’ll keep looking,” Nola said as Zig headed out.
Yet as the door slammed behind him, Nola opened a new browser, typed in YellowPages.com, and clicked on the button marked Find People. From there, she entered a name she hadn’t thought about in years:
Lydia Konnikova
Ekron, PA
An address and number quickly appeared on-screen. Same address, Nola thought. No surprise.
She clicked on the number. The phone rang three times before—
“Good evening, this is Lydia,” a quiet and tired female voice said.
