by Brad Meltzer
“I swear, Calvin. I swear I’ll call you,” my dad promises.
The door slams shut, tires howl, and the car disappears—its red taillights zigzagging like twin laser beams into the darkness, and I scream after it, “You don’t have my phone number!”
“What’d he say?” Roosevelt calls out as the emergency doors whoosh open and he rushes outside. “He ask for your help with his shipment?”
I shake my head, feeling the knots of rage and pain and sadness tighten in my chest. I don’t know who the girl is, or where they’re going, or why they’re in such a rush at two in the morning. But I do know one thing: My father isn’t the only one who learned how to speak Spanish in Miami.
Por favor, yo espero que el cargamento ha sido protegido, the woman had said. Please tell me you protected the shipment.
My father said he was robbed and shot by some kid with big ears. But I saw the terror in his eyes when I started sniffing around his shipment—like he’s hiding the devil himself in that delivery. For that alone, I should walk away now and leave him to his mess. I should. That’s all he deserves. The problem is, the last time I stood around and did nothing, I lost my mom. I could’ve helped . . . could’ve run forward . . . But I didn’t.
I don’t care how much I hate him. I don’t care how much I’m already kicking myself. I just found my father—please—don’t let me lose him again.
When my father disappeared, I was nine years old and couldn’t do anything about it. Nineteen years make a hell of a difference.
I flick open my cell phone as my brain searches for the number. Fortunately, I’ve got a good memory. So does he. And like Paulo, he knows what he owes me.
“Cal, it’s two-fourteen in the morning,” Special Agent Timothy Balfanz answers on the other line, not even pretending to hide his exhaustion. “Whattya need?”
“Personal favor.”
“Mm I gonna get in trouble?”
“Only if we’re caught. There’s a container at the port I need to get a look at.”
There’s another two-second pause. “When?” Timothy asks.
“How’s right now?”
9
You should’ve stayed with the father,” the Judge said through Ellis’s phone.
“You’re wrong,” Ellis replied, staring from inside the hospital waiting room and studying Cal, who, through the wide panel of glass, was barely twenty feet away. There were plenty of reasons for Ellis to stay in full police uniform. But none was better than simply hiding in plain sight.
There was a soft whoosh as the automatic doors slid open and Roosevelt rushed outside to join Cal. As the doors again slid shut, Ellis could hear Roosevelt’s first question: “He ask for your help with his shipment?”
The shipment. Now Cal knew about the shipment.
“If Cal starts chasing it . . . ” the Judge began.
“He’s now talking on his phone,” Ellis said without the least bit of panic. “You told me you were tracking his calls.”
“Hold on, it usually takes a minute.” The Judge paused a moment. “Here we go—and people say the courts have no power anymore—pen register is picking up an outgoing call to a Timothy Balfanz. I’ll wager it’s an old fellow agent.”
Ellis didn’t say a word. He knew Cal was smart. Smart enough to know that Lloyd Harper was a liar. And that the only real truth would come from ripping open Lloyd’s shipment. It was no different a century ago with Mitchell Siegel. No different than with Ellis’s own dad. No different than with Adam and Cain. It was the first truth in the Book of Lies: In the chosen families, the son was always far more dangerous than the father.
“Ellis, if Cal grabs it first—”
“If Cal grabs the Book, it’ll be our greatest day,” Ellis said, never losing sight of his new target and following fearlessly as Cal ran toward his beat-up white van.
Even with his badge, Ellis knew better than to risk being spotted on federal property. That’s the reason he’d followed Lloyd to begin with. But with Cal now making calls—with the shipment and the Siegels’ fabled prize about to be returned—it was going to be a great day indeed.
10
You’re not being smart,” Roosevelt says through my cell phone.
“It’s not a question of smart,” I tell him as I pull the van into the empty parking lot that sits in front of the Port of Miami’s main administration building, a stumpy glass mess stolen straight from 1972. There’re a few cars in front—one . . . two . . . all three of them Ford Crown Vics. Nothing changes. Unmarked feds.
“It’s not safe, either, Cal,” Roosevelt insists.
He’s right. That’s why I left him at home.
With a twist of the wheel, I weave through the dark lot and the dozens of spots marked OFFICIAL USE ONLY. I got fired from official use over four years ago. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still have a way in.
“Cal, if you get in trouble—”
“You’re the first person I’ll call from jail,” I say, heading to the back of the lot, where I steer good ol’ White House into a corner spot underneath a crooked palmetto tree.
I hear him seething on the other end. “Lemme just say one last thing, and then I promise I’ll stop.”
“You won’t stop.”
“You’re right. I won’t,” he admits. “But before you trash your professional career for the second time, just think for a moment: If your father is setting you up—if this is all one big production number—then you’re doing exactly what he wants you to do.”
“Roosevelt, why didn’t you marry Christine? Or Wendy? Or that woman you went to visit in Chicago? You tie the knot and you know they’ll take you off whatever blackball list your name is on. But you don’t, right? And why? Because some fights are too important.”
“That’s fine—and a beautiful change of subject—but if you keep letting your nine-year-old, little hurt self make all your decisions in this situation, you’re not just gonna get yourself in trouble—you’re gonna get yourself killed.”
A burst of light ricochets off my rearview mirror. I look back as a white Crown Vic closes in from behind. There’s a slight screech, then a muted thunk as his front bumper kisses the back of mine and adds yet another scratch to the rear of the White House. Same jackass trick we used to do when we were rookies.
I wait for him to get out of the car, but he stays put. I get the message. This is his hometown. Forget my few years here. Tonight I’m just a guest.
“Roosevelt, I’ll call you back.”
Hopping out of the van, I put on a Homeland Security baseball cap, squint through the light rain, and then walk over to the passenger side of his car. It’s nearly three in the morning, when everyone in the world looks like crap—except Timothy, who, as I open the door, has a crisp white button-down and a perfect side part in his just trimmed brown hair.
“You’re sweating,” Timothy says, reading me perfectly as always.
I’ve known him since my very first days on the job—before we got promoted to agent (him first, of course, then me)—when we were both lower-level Customs inspectors who spent every day X-raying containers filled with everything from bananas to buzz saws to belt buckles. Even back then, when I’d be dripping in the Miami sun, his shirt didn’t have a wrinkle, which is probably why, when all the bad went down and I tipped off Miss Deirdre, even though he was right there next to me, Timothy never tumbled. He should’ve—he was always the bigger outlaw, and that night he had his own Miss Deirdre as well. But I don’t resent him for it. I told him I’d never tattle. And tonight, that’s the only reason he’s risking his job for me.
“Cal, if anyone finds out I’m bringing you inside—” He holsters the threat and reaches for a new one. “Is this really that important?”
“Would I ask if it wasn’t?”
He stays silent. He knows it isn’t just about finding some shipment. I’m searching for something far bigger than that.
Timothy’s blue lights—the movable siren that sits on his dash—rem
ind me of the consequences. I expect him to give me the weary glare. Instead, he tosses me an expired copy of his own ICE agent credentials. After 9/11, security at our nation’s ports got better. But it didn’t get that much better.
“We all set?” I ask.
“The hold is gone, if that’s what you’re asking.” Reading the panic in my reaction, he adds, “What? You said you wanted it cleared so you could check it outside.”
“I also said I wanted to get a look first,” I tell him, ripping open his car door. “I bet he’s already on his way.”
I look up at the tall light poles that peek out above the port’s nearby container storage yard. On top of each pole, there’s a small videocamera, along with chemical sniffers and shotgun microphones. Those are new.
“Don’t panic just yet,” he says.
I hop in, he hits the gas, and we head straight for my latest federal crime.
11
It was nearly four in the morning as Lloyd Harper flashed his ID and pulled the tractor truck with the long empty trailer through the main gate at the Port of Miami. Sure, he was tired—his side ached as the anesthetic wore off—but he knew what was at stake. When he got the e-mail notification that the hold was off, well, some rewards were better than cash.
He’d been at this long enough to know that juicy worms usually had a hidden hook. And he’d lived in Miami long enough to know that if he got caught, the payback would be unforgiving. But what the doctor said tonight: the pains he’d been having in his shoulders and chest, plus the way his hands started shaking over the past few years . . . He’d lost his wife, lost his family, in prison they took his dignity—life had already taken so much from him. Was it really so bad to try to get something back?
With a tap of the gas and a sharp right turn, Lloyd headed for the open metal fence of the shipping yard, where dozens of forty-foot metal containers were piled up on top of one another—rusted rectangular monoliths, each one as long as a train car.
But as Lloyd tugged the wide steering wheel, a lightning bolt of pain knifed his side. He told himself it was the bullet wound, but he knew the truth: just seeing Cal tonight—seeing the white hair and the heartbroken eyes—just like the ones that burned through him nineteen years ago. Tonight’s bullet wound was nothing. The sharpest pains in life come from our own swords. Lloyd had spent the past two decades building his shield, but this was one blade he couldn’t stop.
“I’m here for GATH 601174-7,” Lloyd called out his window as he read the container number from the yellow sheet.
Across the open lot, an older black man was sitting on a pyramid of three boxes as he read yesterday’s newspaper. He didn’t bother looking up.
“Excuse me . . . sir . . .” Lloyd began.
“I ain’t deaf. My shift don’t start till four.”
Lloyd glanced at the digital clock on his dash: 3:58. Typical union.
“Okay, whatcha need?” the black man called out two minutes later, approaching Lloyd’s truck and reaching up for the paperwork. “Lemme guess: Startin’ this early—y’r trynna make Virginia by nightfall.”
“Something like that,” Lloyd replied.
From there, it didn’t take long for the man to find the rust-colored forty-foot container with 601174-7 painted on the outside or to climb on his forklift and load it onto the back of Lloyd’s tractor trailer. To be safe, Lloyd came out to check the numbers for himself. And the seal they put on the back to make sure the container hadn’t been opened during transit.
As he was about to climb back in his cab, he took a quick glance around the metal towers of the container yard. No one in sight. Back in the driver’s seat, he checked again, peering in his rearview as he shifted the truck through the first few gears and headed for the exit. And he checked again as he drove toward the final security checkpoint—a three-story-tall radiation portal monitor that looked like an enormous upside-down letter U. The detector was new, designed to catch smuggled nuclear devices. Everyone who left the port had to drive through it. For a moment, Lloyd edged his foot toward the brakes.
He held his breath as he approached the detector. The truck bounced slightly. Slowly rolling forward, he kept his eye on the red and green bulbs that were embedded in the roof of the detector. Once again, a bolt of pain burned at his side. But when the green light blinked, he smiled, slammed the gas, and never looked back.
And that’s why, as the eighteen-wheeler climbed and lumbered over the bridge toward Miami . . . and as he stared into the darkness, searching for the coming sunrise . . . Lloyd Harper didn’t notice the white, unmarked Crown Vic that was trailing a few hundred feet behind him.
“Think he knows what he’s hauling in back?” Timothy asked.
“I don’t really care,” Cal replied from the passenger seat, never taking his eyes off his father’s truck. “But we’re about to find out.”
12
Guns or drugs—gotta be,” Timothy says as my dad’s eighteen-wheeler makes a slow, sharp left toward the entrance for I-95. We’re at least three football fields behind him, with our lights still off. But at four-thirty in the morning, with only a few cars between us, he’s impossible to miss.
“Maybe your dad’s container—”
“Maybe it’s not my dad’s. For all I know, he’s just another feeb doing a pickup.”
“But if you thought that, would you really have shown up at three in the morning? Or would he have shown up at four, fresh from his new bullet wound? I know you can’t bring yourself to say it—and I know it was just a random hold—but you should be worried about him,” Timothy says. “Don’t apologize, Cal. I got twin teenage girls—and no matter how much they hate me, only monsters would let their father take a beating. In fact, it’s not that different from Deirdre—”
“Can we just focus on what’s in the shipment? Please.”
To his credit, Timothy lets it go. And I try my best to ignore my crooked pinkies.
According to the bill of lading, GATH 601174-7 is a refrigerated container that’s (supposedly) carrying 3,850 pounds of frozen shrimp coming (supposedly) from Panama. My dad definitely gets credit for that. In the world of smuggling—drugs or anything else—you never know when you’ll be inspected. But if you want to improve your odds, pick a quiet, seafood-producing country (like Panama), fill the container with one of its top exports (like shrimp), and make sure it’s refrigerated (because once it’s listed as “perishable,” it’ll move twice as fast through inspection).
This isn’t just about some really good shrimp.
“Turn for the worse,” Timothy says, motioning to the truck.
The shipment was scheduled to be delivered to a warehouse in Coral Gables. That’s south of here. Which is why I’m surprised to see him heading for the on-ramp of I-95 North.
“Maybe he’s smuggling people,” Timothy says.
“It’s not people,” I tell him, surprised by my own defensiveness. “You said the shipment checked out fine. No buzzers ringing; no dogs barking. If he were smuggling people, audio would’ve picked up the heartbeats.”
“Then what? Plastic nuclear triggers? F-14 parts? Stolen Picassos? What can you possibly hide amidst four thousand pounds of frozen shrimp?”
I don’t bother answering. During our first year as agents, Timothy and I ripped open a suspicious crate and found two hundred snakes with their anuses sewed shut, their stomachs filled with diamonds they’d been forced to swallow. There’s no end to what people will try to hide.
Next to us on the highway, an orange taxi blows by us, then races past my dad and disappears in the horizon of night. “So you never looked him up?” Timothy asks.
“Pardon?”
“Your dad. All those years at ICE—you had access to computers that could find the addresses, phone numbers, and birthmarks of every known felon in the country. You never took a glance to see where your missing dad was living or what he was up to?”
I stare at the outline of my father’s truck in the distance and can’t help bu
t picture our client Alberto whispering to his father’s ashes in that rusted old RC Cola can. “No,” I say. “Never did.”
Timothy turns my way and studies me as I fidget with the stray wires that run down from the blue lights on his dash. There’s no end to what people will try to hide.
Twenty minutes later, the sky’s still black, my dad’s still ahead, and the highway—as we blow past the exits of Fort Lauderdale—is dotted with the first batch of early risers.
“You think he sees us?” Timothy asks as my dad veers toward the exit that sends us west on I-595.
“If he saw us, he’d try to lose us. Or at least slow down to get a better look.”
It’s a fair point. But as my dad once again clicks his blinker, I realize we’ve got a brand-new problem. The exit and highway signs say I-75, but every local knows the thin stretch of road known as Alligator Alley.
“Why am I not surprised?” Timothy asks as we follow the exit and no other cars follow behind us. “Cal, I need to call for backup.”
“And where do you plan on hiding me?” I ask as the grass and trees on the side of the road give way to miles of muddy swampland.
Connecting Florida’s east and west coasts, the narrow and mostly abandoned lanes of Alligator Alley plow straight through the mosquito marshes known as the Everglades. To protect the land, the road has no gas stations, though it is lined with metal fences to keep the ample alligator population from getting hit by cars and . . . well . . . eating people.
“There’s no way you’re leaving me out here,” I tell Timothy.
He doesn’t argue. He’s too busy realizing that at barely five a.m., with the December sky as black as the road in front of us, there’s no one on Alligator Alley but us. It’s like driving full speed through a cave.
“Cal, I have to put the lights on.”
“Don’t!” I shout as he reaches for the switch. My dad’s truck is still a good half mile in front of us—two faint red dragon’s eyes staring back from the depths of the cave. But with no other cars to hide behind . . . “He’ll see us.”
