The Book of Fate

by Brad Meltzer

  “What, so now I’m under house arrest? You can’t do that.”

  “Wes, I’ve got a homicidal paranoid schizophrenic on the loose, who, two hours from now, will feel a brand-new tingling on the right side of his brain as the drugs that help manage his psychosis slowly wear off. He already shot two orderlies and a security guard—all three in their hearts and, like Boyle, with stigmata through their hands—and that’s when he was on medication. So not only can I do whatever the hell I want, I’m telling you right now, if you try to take another little jaunt out of town, and I find out you have any involvement with this case—trying to contact Boyle, or Nico, or even the guy who was selling popcorn in the stands at the speedway that day—I will slap you with obstruction of justice charges and rip you apart faster than that nutbag ever did.”

  “That is, unless you want to tell us what message Boyle was bringing the President in Malaysia,” Micah offers, the mop-handle metronome smacking into his left palm. “C’mon, Wes—they were clearly trying to meet that night—and trying to maintain all the dirt they thought they’d covered up. You’re with him every day now. All we want to know is when they’re meeting again.”

  Like before—like any FBI agents trying to make a name for themselves—all they really want is Manning, who no doubt had a major hand in helping Boyle hide and lie to the entire country. I rat on him, and they’ll happily let me out of the mousetrap. The problem is, I don’t even know what I’m ratting about. And even when I try scraping deeper . . . Back at the beach, they mentioned Boyle’s ability to work people’s weaknesses. Fine, so what were Manning’s weaknesses? Something from their past? Or maybe that’s where The Roman and The Three came in. Whatever the reason, I’m not finding it out unless I buy some time.

  “Let me just . . . let me think about it for a bit, okay?” I ask.

  O’Shea nods, knowing he’s made his point.

  I turn to leave the closet but stop short at the door. “What about Nico? Any idea where he’s heading?” I add, feeling my fingers start to shake. I shove them into my pants pockets before anyone notices.

  O’Shea studies me carefully. This is the easiest moment for him to be a prick. He readjusts his U.S. Open baseball cap. “D.C. Police found his clothes in a Laundromat about a mile away from St. Elizabeths. According to his doctors, Nico hasn’t talked about Manning in years, but the Service is still adding double duty just to be safe.”

  I nod but still don’t take my hands out of my pockets. “Thanks.”

  Micah’s about to give me some good cop, but O’Shea puts a hand on his chest, cutting him off. “You’re not alone, Wes,” O’Shea adds. “Not unless you want to be.”

  It’s a perfect offer presented in the kindest way. But that doesn’t make it any less of a tactic. Tattling to the FBI . . . taking on Manning . . . all start a domino game that eventually sends me falling. From here on in, the only safe way out of this mess is finding the truth and wrapping myself in it. That’s the only bulletproof vest that works.

  In my pocket, my phone begins to vibrate. I pull it out and spot Lisbeth’s name on the caller ID. Good-bye rock, hello hard place. “It’s my mother,” I tell O’Shea. “I should go. She probably heard about Nico on the news.”

  “Be careful what you say,” Micah calls out.

  No doubt about that. Still, it’s a simple choice. Going with the FBI means they’ll ram me at Manning. But before I put the knife in Caesar’s back, I need to make sure I have the right target. At least with Lisbeth, I’ll buy that time to figure out what’s really going on.

  “Think about it, Wes. You’re not alone,” O’Shea calls back as I duck out of the closet. Back in the hallway, I wait until the third ring just to make sure I’m out of earshot.

  “Wes here,” I answer.

  “Where are you?” Lisbeth asks. “You okay? Did they tell you Nico—?”

  “Just listen,” I interrupt. “What you said earlier about finding stuff out for us . . . were you serious?”

  There’s a slight pause on the other line. “More serious than a Pulitzer.”

  “You sure? I mean, if you put yourself in this— You sure you’re ready to put yourself in this?”

  Now the silence lasts even longer. This isn’t some fifty-word favor about the First Lady’s new dress. However they did this—Boyle, Manning, the Secret Service—you don’t pull this off without help from people at the highest levels of government and law enforcement. That’s the fight she’s picking. Even worse, when the word gets out, they’ll be using all that power to make us look like lunatics who saw a ghost. And the worm in the apple is, with Boyle alive, Nico has the best reason of all to come back here and finish his original job.

  At the end of the hallway, I ram my hip into the metal latch of the door, which opens to the empty lobby of the theater. A rumble of laughter echoes from the auditorium. The Secret Service may’ve swarmed the back rooms, but from the sound of it, the President’s still killing onstage. On my right, a woman with white hair sells a four-dollar bottle of water to a man in a pin-striped suit. A set of two other Secret Service agents rushes through the lobby on a standard sweep. But what catches my eye is the slightly overweight redhead standing outside the theater, just beyond the tall plate-glass doors. Her back’s to me, and as she paces slightly in the cottony moonlight and presses her phone to her ear, Lisbeth has no idea I’m there.

  “This is why I became a reporter, Wes,” she says through the phone, her voice strong as ever. “I’ve waited my whole life for this.”

  “And that’s a nice speech,” I tell her, still watching from behind. “But you do know who you’re messing with, right?”

  She stops pacing and takes a seat on the edge of one of the half dozen concrete planters that serve as a barrier against any sort of vehicular attack on the Kravis Center. When Manning moved to town, they went up all over. But as Lisbeth scootches back, her body practically sags into it. She can barely keep her head up as her chin sinks down, kissing her neck. Her right hand still holds the phone, but her left slithers like a snake around her own waist, cradling herself. The concrete planters are built to withstand an impact from an almost five-thousand-pound pickup truck traveling over forty-five miles per hour. But that doesn’t mean they offer any protection against the sickening recognition of your own self-doubt.

  Lisbeth said she’d been waiting her whole life for this. I believe her. But as she looks out at the crush of Secret Service black sedans, their flashing red lights spraying crimson shadow puppets across the facade of the building, it’s clear she’s wondering if she has what it takes to make it happen. She sinks slightly as her arms cradle her waist even tighter. There’s nothing more depressing than when aspirations get guillotined by limitations.

  Standing alone in the lobby, I don’t say a word. Eight years ago, Nico Hadrian served me my own limits on a public platter. So as I watch Lisbeth sink lower, I know exactly how she—

  “I’m in,” she blurts.

  “Lisbeth—”

  “I’ll do it . . . I’m in. Count me in,” she demands, her shoulders bolting upright. Hopping off the planter, she looks around. “Where are you anyw—?” She cuts herself off as our eyes lock through the glass.

  My instinct is to turn away. She comes marching toward me, already excited. Her red hair fans out behind her. “Don’t say no, Wes. I can help you. I really can.”

  I don’t even bother to argue.

  35

  St. Pauls, North Carolina

  Nico told himself not to ask about the maps. Don’t ask for them, don’t talk about them, don’t bring them up. But as he sat Indian-style in the cab of the flatbed truck . . . as the olive wood rosary beads swayed from the rearview mirror . . . he couldn’t help but notice the frayed edge of paper peeking out from the closed glove compartment. Like the crosses he saw in every passing telephone pole and lamppost that lined the darkness of the highway, some things were better left unsaid.

  Focusing his attention through the front windshield, he
watched as the highway’s bright yellow dividing lines were sucked one by one beneath the truck’s tires.

  “You don’t have any maps, do you?” Nico asked.

  In the driver’s seat next to him, Edmund Waylon, a rail-thin man hunched like a parenthesis, gripped the wide steering wheel with his palms facing upward. “Check the glove box,” Edmund said as he licked the salt of his sour cream and onion potato chips from the tips of his blond mustache.

  Ignoring the scratch of Edmund’s fingernails against the black rubber steering wheel, Nico popped open the glove box. Inside was a pack of tissues, four uncapped pens, a mini-flashlight, and—tucked between a thick manual for the truck and an uneven stack of napkins from fast-food restaurants—a dog-eared map.

  Twisting it around as it tumbled open like a damaged accordion, Nico saw the word Michigan printed in the legend box. “Any others?” he asked, clearly disappointed.

  “Might be some more in the doghouse,” Edmund said, pointing to the plastic console between his seat and Nico’s. “So you were saying about your momma . . . she passed when you were little?”

  “When I was ten.” Studying the truck’s swaying rosary to bury the image, Nico leaned left in his seat and ran his hand down past the cup holders, to the mesh netting attached to the back of the console. Feeling the tickle of paper, he pulled at least a dozen different maps from the netting.

  “Man, losing your momma at ten . . . that’ll mess you up good. What about your daddy?” Edmund asked. “He passed too?”

  “Everyone but my sister,” Nico replied, flipping through the stack of maps. North Carolina, Massachusetts, Maine . . . It’d been almost twelve hours since he last had his medication. He never felt better in his life.

  “Can’t even imagine it,” Edmund said, eyes still on the road. “My daddy’s a sombitch—used to smack all of us . . . my sisters too . . . fist closed, knuckles right across the nose—but the day we have to put him in the ground . . . when a man loses his daddy, it cracks him in two.”

  Nico didn’t bother to answer. Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee, Indiana . . .

  “Whatcha looking for anyway?” Edmund asked with a quick lick of his mustache.

  Don’t tell him Washington, Nico insisted.

  “Washington,” Nico said, shuffling the maps into a clean pile.

  “Which—state or D.C.?”

  Tell him state. If he hears otherwise . . . if he sees the proof of the Masons’ sin . . . and their nest . . . The last hour approaches. The Beast is already loosed—communicating, corrupting Wes.

  “State,” Nico said as he reached around the console, tucking the maps back into the mesh netting. “Washington State.”

  “Yeah, now you’re outta my range. I’m all Northeast corridor and east of Mississippi.” Covering his mustache with his palm and hooking his nose in the groove between his thumb and pointer finger, Edmund slid his hand down, unsuccessfully trying to contain a long-overdue yawn. “Sorry,” he apologized, violently shaking his head to stay awake.

  Nico glanced at the football-shaped digital clock glued to the dashboard. It was almost two in the morning.

  “Listen, if you still need one of them maps,” Edmund said, “right as we pass I-20 in Florence, there’s one of those Circle ’n Stations with the big magazine sections—they got maps, travel guides, I swear I might’ve even seen an atlas or two. If you want, we can make it our next stop.”

  Nico asked the voices what they thought. They couldn’t be more excited.

  “Edmund, you’re a fine Christian,” Nico said, staring out at a passing telephone pole. “Your rewards will be bountiful in the end.”

  36

  As I pull into the parking lot at the back of my apartment building, I feel my phone vibrate and look down at caller ID. Crap. New York Times.

  Surprised it took them this long, I push the Send button and brace myself. “Wes here.”

  “Hey, Wes—Caleb Cohen. From the Times,” he announces with the forced familiarity of every reporter. Caleb used to cover Manning during White House days, meaning he called every day. But these days, we’re in the former-President rotation, which is barely a notch above second cousin once removed. Until right now.

  “You have a statement on the escape yet?” Caleb asks.

  “You know we never comment on Nico,” I tell him, following years of protocol. Last thing we need is to let some runaway quote rile up the mad dog.

  “No, I don’t mean from Manning,” Caleb interrupts. “I mean from you. You’re the one with the scars. Aren’t you worried he’s out there, ready to hit you with something harder than a ricochet?”

  He says it to get a rise, hoping I’ll blurt a quick response. That worked once, with Newsweek, right after the accident. I’m not twenty-three anymore.

  “Nice talking to you, Caleb. And if you want to talk again, don’t print a no comment from us either. Just say we couldn’t be reached.”

  I slam the phone shut, but as Caleb disappears, I’m swallowed by the haunting silence of the open-air parking lot, which is tucked just behind my apartment building. It’s almost midnight on a Thursday. At least fifty cars surround me, but no one’s in sight. Squeezing between two matching Hondas, I push the Door Lock button on my key ring just to hear the noise. It fades far too fast, leaving me alone with the reality of Caleb’s question: If Nico’s out there, what’s preventing him from coming back to finish the job?

  Glancing around the empty parking lot, I don’t have an answer. But as I study the tall, slender shadows between the twelve-foot shrubs that surround the lot, I suddenly can’t shake that awkward, stomach-piercing anxiety that I’m no longer alone. Ignoring the skeleton arms of overgrown branches, I scan the darkness between the tall shrubs, holding my breath to listen even closer. My only reward is the droning buzz of crickets who fight for dominance against the hum of the lot’s overhead lampposts. Catching my breath, I take a few steps.

  That’s when I hear the tiny metal jingling. Like coins rattling in a pocket. Or someone hitting a chain-link fence. I turn around slightly, scanning between the branches and spotting the fence that surrounds the parking lot and runs behind the hedges.

  Time to get inside. Spinning back toward the building, I speed-walk toward the yellow-striped awning that juts out over the back entrance. On my far left, the crickets fall silent. There’s a rustling by the group of hedges that blocks the view to the pool area. Just the wind, I tell myself as I pick up my pace and move even faster toward the awning, which seems almost submerged in darkness.

  Behind me, the rustling from the hedges gets louder. Please, God, just let me—

  My phone vibrates in my hand as caller ID shows me a 334 prefix. Washington Post. Last year, Manning, like LBJ before him, had a secret actuarial done to see how long he’d live. The way things are going, I can’t help but wonder the same about myself. And while I’m tempted to pick it up just to have some sort of audio witness, the last thing I need right now is another reminder that Nico’s out there, waiting.

  Shifting from speed walk to jog, I fumble through my shoulder bag and search for my house keys. I glance over my shoulder as the leaves continue to shake. Forget it. I go to full-fledged sprint. Under the awning, my feet slide against the blacktop. I ram the key into the lock and twist to the right. The metal door clicks open, and I slip inside, colliding with the shopping cart that people use to move their groceries. My knee slams into the corner of the cart, and I shove it out of the way, hobbling up the narrow beige hallway and into one of the lobby’s waiting elevators.

  Crashing against the brown Formica walls of the elevator, I jab the button for the fifth floor and smash the Door Close button like a punching bag. The elevator door’s still open. In the hallway, a broken fluorescent light sizzles at half-power, adding a yellow, mucusy pallor to the floor and walls. I close my eyes for some quick calm, but as I open them, the world goes black-and-white, my own personal newsreel. In the distance, a woman screams in C minor as Boyle’s ambulance doors bite
shut. No, that’s not . . . I blink again and I’m back. There’s no one screaming. As the door eventually rumbles shut, I touch my ear as my hand shakes uncontrollably. C’mon, Wes . . . hold it together . . .

  Pressing my back into the corner to keep myself upright, I grit my teeth to slow my breathing. The elevator rises with a lurch, and I focus on the indicator lights. Second floor . . . third floor . . .

  By the time I step out on the fifth floor, beads of sweat ski down across my rib cage. Leaving nothing to chance, I check the left side of the hallway before darting out and heading right.

  I run for apartment 527, ram my key in the lock, and twist the knob as fast as I can. Inside, I flick on every light I can find . . . the entryway . . . the living room . . . the lamp on the end table . . . I even double back to do the hall closet. No . . . better to leave it off. I flick it on, then off. On, then off. On, then off. Stop . . . Stepping backward and crashing into the wall, I shut my eyes, lower my head, and whisper to myself. “Thank you, God, for keeping my family safe . . .” Stop . . . “For keeping me safe, and the President safe . . .” Find a focal point, I tell myself, hearing the counselor’s voice in my head. “. . . for me and . . .” Find a focal point.

  Pounding myself in the ear, I stumble around, almost tripping over the ottoman from my parents’ old leather sectional sofa in the living room. Find her. Sprinting up the hallway that leads to the back half of the apartment, I run past the flea market picnic bench we put in our dining room, past Rogo’s room with the stack of unread newspapers outside the door, past the hallway’s life-size cutout of President Manning with a hand-drawn word balloon on his head that says I don’t remember how to drive, but I lovey that downwithtickets.com! and eventually make a sharp right into my bedroom.

  Tripping over a pile of dress shirts on the floor, I race for the square metal birdcage that sits atop my dresser. As the door slams into the wall, Lolo pulls back, wildly flapping her beige wings and bobbing her yellow head from side to side. Watching her reaction, I catch myself and quickly find my calm. Lolo does the same, lowering her wings and grinding her beak. Her head sways slowly as I catch my breath. Just seeing her, just the sight . . .