by Brad Meltzer
But why would they be coming for him now? What was he paranoid about?
Hazel clicked through his computer, looking for documents that might be of interest, but everything she came up with initially looked like homework assignments. Darren apparently was enrolled in a night class at Spokane Community College, a course in genealogy.
Complex guy, Hazel thought.
He had a family tree assignment for Stephen Colbert, with effusive notes in the margin from the instructor: GOOD JOB! GO TO THE THIRD COUSIN—COULD GET JUICY!
He had other family trees for Barbara Bush, Henry Winkler, even Jesse James.
And then, he had three more.
One for himself:
Darren Nixon.
Born 1979 in Sirte, Libya.
Mother: Mona Haql, changed her name to Nixon upon immigration to the U.S. in 1983 (Deceased).
Father: Unknown.
There was a tree for Hazel’s father:
Jack Nash.
Born 1946 in Rochester, New York.
Mother: Patricia Nashier (Deceased).
Father: Cyrus Nashier (Deceased).
And one final tree:
Hazel Nash.
53
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
The Bear watches Skip Nash eat lunch.
Skip is sitting under a cabana, poolside at the Al Qasr. The resort sits directly on the beach, overlooking the Persian Gulf, nothing to disturb the discerning traveler but blue sky, the sound of lapping waves, and the smell of coconut oil, yet there’s an infinity pool, just in case that’s not enough.
A lithe young man and a lithe young woman, both in white polo shirts, each with impossibly long legs stretching out of tan shorts, appear as if by magic every few minutes, drop off food and drinks, pour glasses of water, then disappear again, until you think of them and they magically reappear.
It makes The Bear think one could almost forget about the ongoing wars stirring across the region, the beheadings, the crucifixions, the drone strikes, the journalists being flayed alive, the tourists happy to come visit the resorts of the United Arab Emirates and forget it all. So perhaps it is no surprise that even a dead American named Arthur Kennedy, dressed like a Revolutionary War soldier, could be kept out of the local press. Better to keep that quiet—send it directly to the Americans—than to risk the money of tourists from the West staying away.
Still, Arthur Kennedy is now a problem, a bother for someone else, as it was designed.
Not that Skip Nash seems bothered.
The Bear found him online. There were three photos of Skip at the airport in Los Angeles, on his way to London, two in Heathrow Airport, then one as he got into a private car in Dubai and headed to the resort.
He shouldn’t be surprised Skip came here. He’s tracking the death of Arthur Kennedy. But for Skip to come so quickly means someone told him where Kennedy was scheduled to stay.
The Bear looks down at his phone, swipes back to the photo of Skip getting into the car at the airport. It was curious that he was traveling without his sister. He tried to imagine a situation by which they would be separated, what the FBI agents who had controlled Jack Nash were thinking.
Perhaps The Bear didn’t understand their motives as well as he thought.
Perhaps he didn’t understand Hazel. That seemed impossible. She’d been injured, sure, but that wouldn’t change her fundamental nature.
Perhaps it didn’t matter. Skip was here. It changed The Bear’s focus, altered what he thought was true, but not the imperative.
The only question is, who else knows that Skip is here? Then, on Twitter, a post from @MarcoPolo69: a photo of Skip sitting in his cabana, drink in one hand, phone in the other, a chewed straw jutting from his mouth. A nasty, disgusting habit.
“Is there anything you’d like, sir?”
The Bear looks up from his phone. The young man in the polo shirt is before him. His gold nametag says he is called Marco. He has a tray in his hand, a leather order book open and ready.
He has a bright, white smile. Good dental care. No pimples on his skin.
A man who has made some money for himself. Surely not just from dropping off drinks to tourists.
“Do you recognize that man?” The Bear asks, nodding toward Skip.
Marco looks over his shoulder, then back at The Bear. “I don’t recognize anyone,” he says, in a way that makes The Bear understand that Marco recognizes everyone. His English is perfect. Barely any accent.
“Tell me your age, Marco,” The Bear says.
“Sir?”
“You asked what I’d like. I would like your age.”
“Twenty-two,” he says.
“What is your real age?”
Marco shifts his weight. “Sir?”
“You’re lying. I’d like you to not lie. That is the second thing I’d like. What is your real age?”
“Twenty-seven,” he says.
“Do you have a family of some kind?” The Bear asks. Marco looks like the sort of man who is untethered by such things as wives and children, the sort of man who seems parentless, as if he sprang from the dirt one day fully formed.
“Doesn’t everybody?” Marco says.
“I’d like you to treat my friend over there like your family. That means his privacy shouldn’t be violated.”
Marco looks over his shoulder at Skip, who is taking a photo of himself, then back at The Bear. “He doesn’t seem to care much about privacy.”
“I care.” The Bear reaches into his pool bag, comes out with five one hundred dollar bills. “I’d like you to not recognize me,” The Bear says and hands Marco the cash.
“No problem,” Marco says, fully engaged now. Not betraying the slightest bit of skepticism, anger, or fear. What kind of people must come to a resort like this, The Bear wonders, that this is a normal day for this man? “Anything else you’d like?”
Skip has gotten up from his cabana and walks to the edge of the pool, looks around, like he’s waiting for someone to join him.
“Yes,” The Bear says, and then hands him another five hundred dollars. “I need a small favor. I’d like the straw that gentleman was chewing on. And a few other items.” He takes Marco’s pen from his tray, writes down a brief list, hands it to him. “Those possible?”
“Possible, yes,” Marco says.
The Bear writes down the address of the house he’s staying in, a few miles away. “Delivered here. Do you know this place?”
“I don’t think so,” Marco says. “Maybe you can help me find it?”
He hands Marco a few more bills.
“Oh, yes,” Marco says, “I know this place.”
The Bear didn’t like to get his hands dirty. It was much easier to have others do these small jobs. But greed? He did not appreciate greed. Marco would learn that in time.
54
Spokane, Washington
Hazel’s birthday was written there: December 18th. Born in Los Angeles, California.
Her brother’s name was there: Nicholas “Skip” Nash.
Her father’s name was there: Jack Nash.
And of course, her mother’s name was there: Claire Nash.
Yet as Hazel read and reread her family tree, as laid out by Darren Nixon, she couldn’t take her eyes off that final line:
Mother: Claire Nash.
Why didn’t it say Deceased?
She flipped back to her father’s family tree, to her grandparents:
Patricia Nashier (Deceased).
Cyrus Nashier (Deceased).
But under her own family tree, there it was:
Mother: Claire Nash.
Her mother was dead. Wasn’t she?
Hazel clicked through the other family trees, searching for one for Skip. Shouldn’t there be one for Skip? She wanted to see if Skip’s tree said the same. Maybe it was just something Nixon accidentally left out. But as far as she could tell, the only Nash family trees Nixon had made were for herself and her father. Nothing for—
&nb
sp; Click.
“Hazel, I was really hoping it wouldn’t come to this,” a male voice said.
When Hazel turned, there was a gun in her face, just as she had known there eventually would be.
55
You’re not listening,” Agent Rabkin said, his gun trained on Hazel. “If you move, I will shoot you.”
“Nice to see you too,” Hazel said. She put her hands in the air.
Rabbit had a duffle bag at his feet. He unzipped it, came out with a pair of zip ties, tossed them at Hazel. “Put these on.”
“How?”
“It’ll come back to you, I’m sure.”
Hazel wrapped the ties around her wrists, then yanked them tight with her teeth. “Satisfied?” she asked. “Or do you want me to do my ankles too?”
“We’re not adversaries, Ms. Nash. I’m trying to be your friend.”
“I don’t have a lot of friends who make me zip-tie myself,” Hazel said. “Or threaten to shoot me.”
“I’ve looked up some of your friends. Where’s your pal the pilot?”
“I sent him home.”
“If he comes waltzing in here,” Rabbit said, glancing around, studying the whiteboards, “he’s going to get shot. He’s not my problem.”
“I told him everything I know. So if something happens to me, he truly is your problem, the way I see it.”
It’s how Rabbit saw it too. But the fact was, if Hazel really was as dangerous as Moten and Dr. Morrison said, she would’ve left a trail of damage behind her these past few days. So maybe she’d changed, or maybe she hadn’t. That wasn’t Rabbit’s job. His job was to close this loop and figure out who killed Jack Nash and Darren Nixon.
Rabbit scanned the room. Hazel had been here for at least an hour. She could’ve poured bleach on the computer, wiped all the whiteboards clean. Instead, she was sifting, still probing.
Rabbit holstered his gun. On the computer screen was a family tree with only a few staircases of names. Rabbit’s ex-wife had been the archivist for their own family’s history, a hobby Rabbit didn’t understand, constantly digging into the past, trying to figure out who begat whom, as if it had any real relevance to life today.
“Hazel, back at the hospital, you said people used to write their histories in bibles. I don’t suppose any of the histories in these family trees have the contents from Benedict Arnold’s bible?”
“I think they all do, in a way,” Hazel said. “All part of the same obsession.”
“Which is what?”
“Figuring out the past. Our dead man, Nixon…he’s a pretty good genealogist.”
Rabbit leaned toward the laptop screen. Though Hazel’s wrists were tied, she moved her hands up and clicked on another file: the family tree for Darren Nixon. Rabbit read it once, twice, three times. It didn’t make sense. “Libya?”
“I thought the same,” Hazel said.
“And Nixon did this?”
“Far as I can tell.”
Rabbit reread it again. “It’s wrong. Darren Nixon was born in Spokane.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve read his file,” Rabbit said.
“Files can be faked.”
“Kennedy’s too?”
“Kennedy?” Hazel asked.
“The other victim. Arthur Kennedy.”
“You’re joking, right? Those’re their names, Nixon and Kennedy? You think that’s just coincidence?”
Rabbit knew she was right. Nixon and Kennedy were tied together, then tied again with Jack Nash.
“Maybe they had their own mission with the government. Or maybe another government.”
“You’re watching too many of your dad’s shows. If Nixon was some foreign sleeper agent and was killed, he wouldn’t have been left in some park in Canada. One day, he would have just been gone. He was raised right here. His records go back to childhood. Immunization forms, grades in the local public school. He lived here.”
“Maybe he did,” Hazel said. “But have you seen his birth certificate?”
“I would’ve known if he was a Libyan national. That would’ve been flagged.”
“What about his mother?” Hazel asked.
Rabbit started to say something, then stopped. He didn’t have anything on Darren’s mother. Only that she was dead. He’d need to get access to the government databases to cross-check Mona Haql with Mona Nixon. Figure out where the hell she came from, who she was married to, who Nixon’s father might be.
At least he had one parent on record, unlike Arthur Kennedy, whose parents didn’t seem to exist.
“You found this all here?” Rabbit asked.
Hazel pointed to the whiteboards. “Darren Nixon was a smart man. Not so bright, maybe, if he’s setting buildings on fire and living in this town for this long. But he’s a fine researcher. He makes good logical leaps.”
“To what?”
“I think,” Hazel said, “he figured out that my dad was doing work for the government. Maybe even something in his homeland of Libya.”
Rabbit turned and looked at one of the whiteboards, then turned to the one that was behind them. Moten had told him that Jack Nash had done some favors for their office, even done some shows on topics that made Uncle Sam look good. But to see these countries: Lebanon, Iran, the USSR, Afghanistan, Iran, and yes, Libya. So many enemies. Why spend so much time in places we were so hated?
Something started to wiggle free in Rabbit’s mind.
He reached down to his ankle, came up with a tactical knife.
“Show me your hands,” Rabbit said.
“Now you believe me?”
Rabbit stayed silent.
“Agent, when we were back in my dad’s house, and you told me not to interfere in the investigation”—she extended her hands, cuffs at Rabbit’s chest—“you knew I’d come to Spokane, didn’t you? Was that your test? To throw out some clues and see what I’d do?”
“Ms. Nash, I don’t think for one second that you knew what you were going to do, so far be it from me to make my own guesses about your life.”
With a single zzt of his knife, Rabbit slit through the left cuff, freeing Hazel’s hands.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
“No. Not at all,” she said without hesitating.
“Then maybe you won’t believe this,” Rabbit said. He slit the other cuff. “I think it’s time to figure out who killed your father.”
56
Hazel watched as Agent Rabkin stood there for a long time, studying the whiteboards, his jaw working, grinding his back molars.
They called it bruxism.
Habitual grinding was found in people worldwide, across cultures and throughout time. In mummies pulled out of graves in Egypt and frozen bodies dug up in the Aleutians, you could see the same wear pattern in their jaws as in the mouths of finance guys in Manhattan who were put into the ground yesterday.
Hazel was tempted to tell Rabbit to relax, it wasn’t worth the stress on his body. We’re all going to end up in the same place eventually; better not to wear his teeth into pegs first. But right now, she didn’t think he deserved any favors.
“So these episodes…?” Rabbit finally said, pointing to the ones Nixon had circled on the whiteboards.
“They’ve got nothing in common—not ghosts, or aliens, or even Benedict Arnold, since my father didn’t do a single episode on him.”
“Then what are all of these B.A. notes?”
Hazel didn’t answer.
“You don’t know, do you?” Rabbit asked.
“And you do?” she said.
From the look on Rabbit’s face, he was just as lost.
If she wanted, they could keep playing this game, sparring to see who knew what. But Hazel knew that if Rabkin really was the enemy—if he had anything to do with Darren Nixon’s death—she wouldn’t have been in those plastic cuffs. She’d have a bullet in her head. Butchie too. And they would’ve never been allowed in the air. You couldn’t board a commercial flight with a bottle
of water. The FBI wasn’t going to let suspected murderers into the skies above.
“Tell me why you let me come here,” Hazel finally said.
“It was my boss’s idea. He said you’d either burn the place down or we’d at least be able to cross you off the suspect list. Personally, I think he was interested in what you said about the photos of Nixon’s body.”
“Your boss sounds like a manipulative prick.”
“Isn’t that the job of being boss?”
Rabbit waited for Hazel to laugh. It never came.
She didn’t trust Agent Rabkin. Not yet. But he seemed different now. Like he was off script. He’d put a gun on her a few minutes ago, but hadn’t patted her down. Which meant he wasn’t scared of her, wasn’t worried she was going to do something to him or try to run.
It meant, she realized, that he trusted her. He was lost because she was lost.
“So these B.A. notes don’t mean anything to you?” Hazel asked.
“Maybe Nixon thought that’s where your dad was looking for the bible. In fact,” Rabbit said, looking down at Nixon’s family tree, then up at the whiteboards, “based on when the name change happened, it looks like Nixon’s mother was in Libya when your dad and Skip did their episode there. Nixon would’ve been there too.”
“He would have been a toddler,” Hazel said. “He wouldn’t have any memory of the place.”
“Maybe not. But his mother surely would.”
There it was. That’s what Hazel was looking for. “Tell me, Agent Rabkin, what was my dad really doing in Libya?”
“That’s classified,” Rabbit said absently, still studying the boards.
“I thought you wanted to solve this thing.”
“No, I mean, it’s truly classified. I don’t know either. The information I gave you, that’s exactly what they gave me.”
“Who does know?”
“Above my pay grade. All they told me was that your dad did us a few favors: When he was filming a show in Yugoslavia once, they invited him to stay in some government palace. We apparently had him bug his own room. Then, a month later, the Secret Service launched a money laundering sting in that same room, were able to listen in, and voilà, they had all the proof to show some dirty player in the Yugoslavian government. Once, in Mexico, he did the same thing with the DEA for an ambassador who was helping run drugs between Phoenix and the border. But Iran? And Libya? Like I said, above my pay grade.”
