The Book of Fate

by Brad Meltzer

  “Deal,” she says.

  Rogo makes a double okay sign with his fingers. Perfect, he mouths.

  “So my breakfast with Dreidel . . . ?” I ask.

  “Breakfast? Come now, Wes—why would anyone care what two former staffers had on their morning toast? Consider it officially dead.”

  22

  You know we never ask for anything, Lisbeth, but if you could keep us out just this once . . .”

  As she listened to Wes’s words, Lisbeth sat up in her seat and began to spin the phone cord, jump-rope-style. From the forced pause on the other line, Wes sounded like he was ready to trade. “We’d owe you one,” he offered, right on cue. Lisbeth stopped the phone cord’s spinning. Sacred Rule #4: Only the guilty trade. Sacred Rule #5: And the opportunists.

  “Gimme ten minutes face-to-face with Manning on the night of the surprise party,” she said, knowing that like any good publicist, he’d knock the time in half.

  “Five minutes is the most he’ll sit for.”

  “Deal,” she said as she started rifling through the thick stack of invites on the far corner of her desk. Opening concert at the opera. The annual craft bazaar at the Sailfish Club. Baby naming at the Whedons. It had to be here somewhere . . .

  “So my breakfast with Dreidel . . . ?” Wes asked.

  Still flipping through the stack, Lisbeth was barely paying attention. “Breakfast? Come now, Wes—why would anyone care what two former staffers had on their morning toast? Consider it officially dead.”

  Manning’s surprise party—and her promised five minutes—weren’t for at least another month. But that didn’t mean she had to stay away until then. Especially when there were so many other ways to get in close. Slamming down the phone, Lisbeth never took her eyes off the stack. Reception for the Leukemia Society, Historical Society, Knesset Society, Palm Beach Society, Renaissance Society, Alexis de Tocqueville Society . . . and then . . . there . . .

  Lisbeth yanked the rectangular card from the middle of the stack. Like every other invite, the design was understated, the printing was meticulous, and the envelope had her name on it. But this one, with its cream-colored card stock and twirling black calligraphy, also had something more: An Evening with President Leland F. Manning. Benefiting 65 Roses—the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Tonight.

  She didn’t mind the fake stalling from Wes and Dreidel. Or the nonsense about Manning’s so-called surprise party. But once Wes asked her to kill the piece . . . Sacred Rule #6: There were only two kinds of people in a gossip column—those who want to be in there, and those who don’t. Wes just put himself on the don’t side. And without a doubt, the don’ts were always far more interesting.

  Picking up the phone, Lisbeth dialed the number on the invite.

  “This is Claire Tanz,” an older woman answered.

  “Hi, Claire, this is Lisbeth Dodson from Below the Fold. I hope it’s not too late to RSVP—”

  “For tonight? No, no . . . oh, we read you every day,” the woman said just a bit too excited. “Oooh, and I can call the President’s staff and let them know you’ll be there . . .”

  “That’s okay,” Lisbeth said calmly. “I just got off the phone with them. They’re already thrilled I’m coming.”

  23

  T hree and a half minutes, Nico told himself as he watched the gray Acura cut through the snow and pass along the service road just outside his second-story shatterproof window. Pulling up the sleeve of his faded brown sweatshirt, he glanced down at the second hand on his watch, counting to himself. One minute . . . two . . . three . . . Nico closed his eyes and began to pray. His head bobbed sixteen times. Three and a half . . . Rocking slowly, he opened his eyes and turned to the door of his room. The door didn’t open.

  Perched atop the rusted radiator just inside his window, Nico continued to rock slowly, turning back to the falling snow and bowing the A-string of his well-worn maple violin. The violin had a tiny four-leaf clover inlay in the tailpiece, but Nico was far more interested in the way the fiddle’s strings perfectly crossed the ebony bridge as they ran up the fingerboard. When he first arrived at St. Elizabeths, he spent his first two weeks sitting in the exact same place, staring out the exact same window. Naturally, the doctors discouraged it—“antisocial and escapist,” they declared.

  It only got worse when they examined Nico’s view: on his right, a burned-out brick building with an army crest on it (“too symbolic of his military past”); on his left, the edges of the Anacostia River (“don’t reward him with a quality view”); and in the far distance, at the very edge of the property, half a dozen fenced-in fields with hundreds of crumbling headstones from the Civil War to World War I, when army and navy patients were still buried on the property (“death should never be a focal point”). Yet when Nico mentioned to a nurse that the dogwood tree just outside his window reminded him of his childhood home in Wisconsin, where his mother played cello and the wind sent the tree’s branches swaying to the music, the doctors not only backed off, they got someone to donate the fiddle with the four-leaf clover inlay. “Positive memories were to be encouraged.” Nico knew it was a sign. Just as God had written in the Book. As God had sent them. The Fiddlers Three.

  Eight years later, Nico still lived in the same room, surrounded by the same small bed, the same nightstand, and the same painted dresser that held his Bible and red glass rosary beads.

  But what Nico always kept to himself was that while he did study the dogwood, and it did remind him of early days with his mom, he was far more focused on the well-worn service road that ran just in front of it, up from the main gate, across the property, and around to the parking lot that led to the entrance of the John Howard Pavilion. The tree was surely a sign—Christ’s cross was built from a dogwood—but the road in front of it . . . the road was the path of Nico’s salvation. He knew it in his heart. He knew it in his soul. He knew it the very first day he saw the road, littered with weeds and grass that cracked and clawed through its beaten, asphalt hide. Every year, the ground buckled slightly as the weeds shoved a bit further. Like a monster, Nico thought. A monster within. Just like the monsters who killed his mother.

  He didn’t want to pull the trigger. Not at first. Not even when The Three reminded him of his father’s sin. But as he stared down at the proof—at the delivery log from the hospital . . .

  “Ask your father,” Number Three said. “He won’t deny it.”

  Rocking to himself as he stared out the window of the hospital, Nico could still hear the words. Still smell his dad’s sweet cigar smoke. Still feel the sharp Wisconsin wind cracking his lungs as he hopped up the metal front steps of his dad’s mobile home. He hadn’t seen his father in almost six years. Before the army . . . before the discharge . . . before the shelter. Nico didn’t even know how to find him. But The Three did. The Three helped him. The Three, God bless them, were bringing Nico home. To punish the monster. And set things right.

  “Dad, she was supposed to die for my sins!” he’d shouted, tugging the door open and rushing inside. Nico could still hear the words. Still smell the cigar smoke. Still feel the ball of his finger tightening on the trigger as his father begged, pleaded, sobbed—Please, Nico, you’re my— Let me get you help. But the only thing Nico saw was his mother’s photograph—her wedding photo!—perfectly preserved beneath the glass top of the coffee table. So young and beautiful . . . all dressed in white . . . like an angel. His angel. His angel who was taken. Taken by the monsters. By the Beasts.

  “Nico, on my life—on all that’s holy—I’m innocent!”

  “Nobody’s innocent, Dad.”

  The next thing Nico felt was his foot slipping across the peeling linoleum floor, which was soaked with . . . soaked with red. A dark red puddle. All that blood.

  “Dad . . . ?” Nico whispered, flicks of blood freckled across his face.

  His dad never answered.

  “Don’t doubt yourself, Nico,” Number Three told him. “Check his ankle. You’ll find their mark.”


  And as Nico moved in—ignoring the bullet hole in his father’s hand (to make him feel Jesus’s pain) and the other bullet hole in his heart—he lifted his father’s leg and pulled down his sock. There it was. Just as Number Three had said. The hidden mark. Hidden from his son. Hidden from his wife. A tiny tattoo.

  The compass and a square—the most sacred of all Masonic symbols. Tools of the trade for an architect . . . tools to build their doorway . . . plus a G for the Great Architect of the Universe.

  “To show he’s of them,” Number Three explained.

  Nico nodded, still reeling from the fact his father had kept it secret for so long. Yet now the monster was slain. But as Number Three pointed out, thanks to the Masons, there were more monsters fighting to get out. More Beasts. Still, by fighting now—by serving God—he could turn his mother’s death into a blessing.

  The Three called it fatum. Latin for fate. Nico’s destiny.

  Nico looked up as he heard the word. Fate. “Yes . . . that’s what she— Like the Book.”

  Right there, Nico knew his mission—and why his mom was taken.

  “Please . . . I need to— Let me help you slay the monsters,” Nico volunteered.

  Number Three watched him carefully. He could’ve dumped Nico right there. Could’ve left him . . . abandoned him . . . chosen to continue the fight by himself. Instead, he said the one thing only a true man of God could.

  “Son, let us pray.”

  Number Three opened his arms, and Nico collapsed inside. He heard Number Three’s sobs. Saw his tears. No longer just a stranger. Family. Like a father.

  Fatum, Nico decided that day. His fate.

  Over the next month, The Three revealed the full mission. Told him of the enemy and the strength on their side. From Voltaire to Napoleon to Winston Churchill, the Freemasons spent centuries cultivating the most powerful members of society. In the arts, they had Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach. In literature, Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling, and Oscar Wilde. In business, they grew with funding by Henry Ford, Frederick Maytag, and J. C. Penney.

  In the United States, they built their power to new heights: From Benjamin Franklin to John Hancock, eight signers of the Declaration of Independence were Masons. Nine signers of the U.S. Constitution. Thirty-one generals in Washington’s army. Five Supreme Court chief justices, from John Marshall to Earl Warren. Year by year, century by century, the Masons collected those with the greatest influence on society: Paul Revere, Benedict Arnold, Mark Twain, John Wayne, Roy Rogers, Cecil B. DeMille, Douglas Fairbanks, Clark Gable, even Harry Houdini. Was it any coincidence that Douglas MacArthur became General of the Army? Or that Joseph Smith founded an entire religion? Or that J. Edgar Hoover was given the FBI? Or even that Buzz Aldrin was on that first rocket to the moon? All of those landmarks. All of them by Masons. And that didn’t even consider the sixteen times they took the White House: Presidents George Washington, James Monroe, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, LBJ, Gerald Ford . . . and most important, The Three explained, President Leland F. Manning and the monster known as Ron Boyle.

  One month after the day they met, The Three revealed Boyle’s sin. Just like they did with Nico’s father.

  Still rocking to himself and strumming on the A-string, Nico heard the throat-clearing grunt of tires scraping uphill against the ice. A black SUV rumbled into view, its windshield wipers swatting snow aside like a bothersome fly. Nico continued to strum, well aware that black SUVs usually meant the Service. But as the car cut in front of the dogwood, Nico saw that the passenger seat was empty. Service never came alone.

  Three and a half minutes, Nico told himself as he studied the second hand on his watch. By now, he had it timed perfectly. Three and a half was the average. For his doctors, for his nurses, even for his sister before she stopped coming to visit. She’d always need an extra thirty seconds to steel herself, but even on the worst days—on that dark Sunday when he tried to hurt himself—three and a half minutes was more than enough.

  Nico glanced down again at the second hand on his watch. One minute . . . two . . . three . . . He closed his eyes, bobbed his head, and prayed. Three and a half. Nico opened his eyes and turned to the door of his ten-by-fifteen room.

  The doorknob twisted slightly, and the orderly with the bloodshot eyes appeared in the doorway.

  “Nico, you decent? You got a visitor,” the orderly called out.

  Eight years watching. Eight years waiting. Eight years believing that the Book of Fate could never be denied. Nico could feel the tears flood his eyes as a man with pale Irish features and midnight-black hair entered the room.

  “Nice to see you, Nico,” The Roman said as he stepped inside. “Been far too long.”

  24

  Manning Presidential Library. How can I assist you?” the receptionist answers.

  “I have some questions on presidential records,” I say, checking for the second time that the door to my office is closed. Rogo said I could use his office to make the call, but between lunch and all our chatting, I’ve already been gone too long.

  “Let me transfer you to the archivist of the day,” the receptionist adds.

  With a click, I’m on my way. And while I could just call the head of the entire library, like Rogo said, better to keep it low-key.

  “Kara speaking. What can I help you with today?” a soft female voice asks.

  “Hi, Kara. This is Wes over in the personal office. We’re trying to get some of Ron Boyle’s old files for a tribute book we’re working on, so I was just wondering if you could help us pull some of those together?”

  “I’m sorry, and your name again?”

  “Wes Holloway. Don’t worry . . . I’m on the staff list,” I say with a laugh. She doesn’t laugh back.

  “I’m sorry, Wes, but before we release any documents, we need you to fill out a FOIA request stating who it’s for—”

  “President Manning. He requested them personally,” I interrupt.

  Every law has exceptions. Cops can run red lights. Doctors can illegally park during emergencies. And when your name is Leland Manning, you get any sheet of paper you want from the Leland Manning Presidential Library.

  “J-Just tell us what you need. I’ll start pulling it together,” she offers.

  “Fantastic,” I say, flipping open the thick loose-leaf binder on my desk. The first page is labeled Presidential Records and Historical Materials. We call it the guide to the world’s biggest diary.

  For four years in the White House, every file, every e-mail, every Christmas card that was sent out was logged, copied, and saved. By the time we left Washington, it took five battle-sized military cargo planes to haul the forty million documents, 1.1 million photographs, twenty million printed e-mail messages, and forty thousand “artifacts,” including four different Cowardly Lion telephones, two of which were handmade with the President’s face on them. Still, the only way to find the needle is to jump into the haystack. And the only way to figure out what Boyle was up to is to pull open his desk drawers and see what’s inside.

  “Under White House Staff, let’s start with all of Boyle’s records as deputy chief,” I say, flipping to the first few pages of the records guide, “and naturally, all of his own files, including correspondence to and from him.” I flip to the next tab in the notebook. “And I’d also like to get his personnel records. Those would include any work complaints filed against him, correct?”

  “It should,” the archivist says, now suspicious.

  “Don’t worry,” I laugh, hearing the change in her voice, “that’s just to vet him so we know for sure where all the skeletons are.”

  “Yeah . . . of course . . . it’s just—what do you need these for again?”

  “A book the President’s working on—about Boyle’s years of service, from the White House to the shooting at the speedway—”

  “If you want, we have the actual clip—y’know, with Boyle . . . and that young man who got hit in the face . . .”

  When J
ohn Hinckley tried to kill Ronald Reagan, he hit the President, James Brady, Secret Service Agent Tim McCarthy, and police officer Thomas Delahanty. We all know James Brady. McCarthy and Delahanty became Trivial Pursuit answers. Just like me.

  “So how fast do you think you can pull that together?” I ask.

  She pants slightly into the phone. It’s the closest thing she’s got to a laugh. “Let me just . . . fourteen, fifteen, sixteen . . . you’re probably looking at something like eighteen linear feet—or about . . . let’s see . . . 36,000 pages.”

  “Thirty-six thousand pages,” I repeat, my own voice sinking. The haystack just got eighteen feet taller.

  “If you tell me a little bit more what you’re looking for, I probably can help you narrow your search a little better . . .”

  “Actually, there’re a couple of things we were trying to get as soon as possible. The President said there were some other researchers on the book who were working with the library. Is there a way to tell us what files they pulled so we don’t overlap?”

  “Sure, but . . . when it comes to other people’s requests, we’re not supposed to—”

  “Kara . . . it is Kara, right?” I ask, stealing one straight from Manning. “Kara, it’s for the President . . .”

  “I realize that, but the rules—”

  “I appreciate the rules. I really do. But these are people working with the President. We’re all on the same side, Kara,” I add, trying not to beg. “And if I don’t find this, then I’m the person who didn’t get the President his list. Please tell me you know what that’s like. I need this job, Kara—more than you’ll ever realize.”

  There’s a long pause on the other line, but like any librarian, Kara’s a pragmatist. I hear her typing in the background. “What’re their names?” she asks.

  “Last name Weiss, first name Eric,” I say, once again starting with Boyle’s old Houdini codename.