by Brad Meltzer
“Here he comes,” Dreidel whispers as Manning slowly leaves the limo, one hand already up in a frozen, celebratory wave. Behind him, with her own hand raised, the First Lady does the same.
“Now watch the President here,” Lisbeth says as each frame clicks by, and he slowly turns toward the camera for the first time.
On-screen, Manning’s grin is so wide, his top gums are showing. Same with the First Lady, who holds his hand. They’re definitely enjoying the crowd.
“Doesn’t exactly look like a man who knows shots are about to be fired, does he?” Lisbeth asks as Manning continues to wave, his black windbreaker bubbling up like a helium balloon.
“I’m telling you, he didn’t know it was coming,” Dreidel agrees. “I mean, I don’t care what they were prepared for, or how much of Boyle’s blood they had in the ambulance, there’s no way Manning, the Service, or anyone else is going to risk a head shot.”
“You’re still assuming they were aiming for Manning,” Lisbeth says as Albright appears on-screen, rising at a turtle’s pace from the limo. “I think Nico hit exactly who he wanted to hit. Just look at his escape from the hospital last night. Both orderlies shot through the heart and the palm of their right hand. Sound like anyone you know?”
On TV, at the center of a bushy mess of gray hair, a tiny bald spot rises above the limo’s roofline like the morning sun. Here comes Boyle.
“Now he’s the one who’s anxious,” Lisbeth says, tapping his face on the monitor.
“He was always miserable, though. Even on day one,” Dreidel replies.
I swallow hard as Boyle’s profile glows on-screen. The olive skin’s the same, but his thin, pointy nose is far sharper than the stubby nose job I saw him with two days ago. His jowls are longer now too. Even plastic surgery can’t stop the aging process.
“See, he’s not even looking around,” Dreidel adds as Boyle follows behind the President. “They’ve both got no idea what’s coming.”
“There you are,” Dreidel says, tapping the far right-hand corner of the screen, where you can barely see me in profile. As I leave the limo, the camera pans left—away from me—as it tries to stay with the President. But since I’m only a few steps behind, there’s a tiny shot of me gawking in the background.
“Man, you were a baby,” Lisbeth says.
The video flickers, and my head turns like a creaky robot toward the camera. It’s the first time we all get a clear look. In my right hand, my middle and ring fingers quickly knead at the heel of my palm. My eyes well up just seeing it. My face . . . God, it’s been so long—but there it is . . . the real me.
On-screen, President Manning’s hand rises to meet the NASCAR CEO and his now-famous wife. The First Lady adjusts her sapphire necklace, her lips spread in an eternal hello. Albright sticks his hands in his pockets. Boyle straightens his tie. And I chase behind them all, frozen midstep with my bag of tricks dangling from my shoulder and a sharp, cocky squint in my eyes.
I know what happens next.
Pop, pop, pop.
On TV, the camera angle jerks upward in a blur, panning past the fans in the stands as the cameraman ducks at the shots. The screen is quickly filled with the blue sky. But to me, it’s already fading to black and white. A boy in a Dolphins T-shirt screams for his mom. Boyle falls to the ground, facedown in his own vomit. And a bee sting rips through my cheek. My head whips back at just the thought of it.
The camera jerks again, sliding back down to earth, past the blur of fans running and shouting and stampeding from the stands. On the left side of the screen, Cadillac One rumbles and takes off. The President and First Lady are already inside. Already safe.
As the car leaves, the camera whizzes back and forth, searching the aftermath and sifting through the ballet of slow-motion chaos: Secret Service agents with their mouths frozen open in mid-yell . . . bystanders darting in every direction . . . and on the top right of the screen, just as the limo pulls away, a pale, skinny kid crashing to the ground, twisting in pain like a worm along the concrete, his hand gripping his face.
The tears tumble down my cheeks. My fingers press so tight into the heel of my palm, I feel my own pulse. I tell myself to look away . . . to get up and turn on the lights . . . but I can’t move.
On-screen, two suit-and-tie agents carry Boyle off the battlefield and to the ambulance. Since their backs are to us, it’s impossible to make them out. But in the swirl of dust behind the limo, I’m still lying on my back, pressing my face so hard, I look like I’m pinning the back of my head to the asphalt. And while it’s all in full color on TV, I still see it in black and white. A flashbulb goes supernova. My fingertips scratch against the sharpened metal in my face. Boyle’s ambulance doors slam shut.
“Wes, you with us?” Rogo whispers.
Why won’t they stop slamming shut—?
“Wes . . .” Rogo continues to whisper. He says it again, and I realize it’s not a whisper. His voice is loud. Like he’s yelling.
Something clenches my right shoulder, shaking.
“Wes!” Rogo shouts as I blink back to reality and find his meaty paw holding my shirt.
“No, no . . . yeah . . . I’m fine,” I insist, pulling my shoulder free of his grip. It’s not until I look around the conference room that I realize the videotape is no longer running. In the corner, Lisbeth flicks on the lights, looking back to see what’s going on.
“He’s fine,” Rogo insists, trying to block her view. “He’s just . . . just give him a second, okay?”
Heading back from the light switch, Lisbeth still continues to stare, but if she sees what’s going on, she’s kind enough to keep it to herself.
“So that basically accomplished a big fat nothing, huh?” Dreidel asks, still clearly annoyed we’re even here. “I mean, except for giving Wes a few brand-new nightmares to deal with.”
“That’s not true,” Lisbeth says, heading back to the opposite side of the table. Instead of sitting next to Dreidel, she decides to stand. “We got to see the agents that carried Boyle off.”
“Which means nothing since we can’t see their faces—not to mention the fact that since the Service clearly helped, I personally don’t think it’s safe asking any of their agents for help.”
“We would’ve gotten more if the camera weren’t swirling like my mom taking home movies,” Lisbeth points out.
“Yeah, that cameraman was a real jerk-off for ducking down and trying to protect his life like that,” Dreidel shoots back.
“Dreidel,” I interrupt.
“Don’t Dreidel me, Wes.”
“How ’bout if I Dreidel you?” Rogo threatens.
“How ’bout you sit back down and let the boy fight his own fight for once?” Dreidel pushes back. “Wes, no offense, but this was stupid. Except for getting inside juice for when Drudge-ette here writes her best-selling tell-all, there’s not a single good reason to come here. She could’ve just sent us the info we needed.”
“I was trying to help,” Lisbeth insists.
“This was helping? We’ve got a thousand unanswered questions, half a dozen absurd theories, and you wanna spend the day watching the one video that Congress, the public, and every conspiracy junkie in the world has combed through and still didn’t find anything suspicious? It didn’t even give us a good shot of Nico to see if there’s anything else we might’ve been missing.”
I shake my head. “That’s not—”
“He’s right,” Lisbeth admits from just behind Dreidel, who has to spin around to see her. She’s got her back to us as she stands in front of the big plate-glass window. “We didn’t get any good shots.” Turning back to us with that same crooked little smile from when she was picking fights with us last night, she adds, “Fortunately, I know exactly how to change that.”
54
Y’know there is a back entrance,” Micah pointed out, tucked into a Compacts Only parking spot and checking his rearview mirror for the third time in the last minute. Diagonally behind them in the
parking garage, Wes’s empty Toyota hadn’t moved. “I can take a quick look and—”
“No need,” O’Shea said from the passenger seat, his elbow perched on the edge of the car’s open window as he worked the morning’s crossword. “This is Florida—he’s not going anywhere without his car.”
“Unless he takes someone else’s. Remember that woman in Syria?”
“Syria was different. We needed her to run.”
“Why? So you had a good excuse to bring her in?”
“She would’ve killed you, Micah. You know that.”
“I was luring her in.”
“That’s your interpretation,” O’Shea shot back. “But if you try anything as hotheaded as Syria, I promise you right now, I’ll be the one putting the gun to your head.” Refusing to look up from the crossword, O’Shea pointed over his own shoulder with the back of his pen. “See that junk shop Subaru diagonally down at the bottom there . . . with the Grateful Dead stickers? We saw it last night. That’s Lisbeth’s. The one up here is Wes’s. Rogo’s is still in the shop. No one’s going anywhere.”
Unconvinced, Micah checked his rearview for the fourth time, then glanced over at O’Shea’s elbow resting in the open window. “You should close that up,” he said, motioning to the window. “In case he comes . . .”
“Micah, it’s seventy-two degrees here. In December. You know how cold it was in France? Let me enjoy the damn warmth.”
“But Wes could—”
“It’s under control.”
“Yeah, just like this,” Micah said, jabbing a finger at the photo of Nico on the front page of the newspaper that wilted across the armrest between them.
“What, you still think that was The Roman?” O’Shea asked.
“How could it not be? Boyle gets spotted . . . Nico gets out . . . hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?”
O’Shea nodded, finally looking up from the crossword. “But if he used Wes’s name to get in . . .”
“I’m just glad you got it purged from the official report. If that went out, the whole world would’ve swarmed Wes’s front steps, and we’d’ve lost our best—”
“Tsssttt!” O’Shea hissed, cutting Micah off. Behind them, a familiar voice echoed off the walls of the garage.
“—e should still call the office,” Wes said as Dreidel followed him up the concrete incline.
“Why, just to panic them?” Dreidel asked.
Studying their respective side mirrors, O’Shea and Micah watched the scene unfold diagonally behind them. From their spot in the garage, they had a perfect view of the passenger side of Wes’s Toyota. And it didn’t take anything more than that to notice Rogo was missing.
“Where’s the fat kid?” Micah whispered.
“Hitting on the girl?” O’Shea guessed.
Just as Wes stepped around to the driver’s-side door and opened the locks, his car keys slipped from his hand. Spinning to catch them, he twisted toward Micah and O’Shea, who didn’t flinch. From their angle in the garage, they were near impossible to spot.
There was a loud clink as the keys hit the pavement. For a fraction of a second, O’Shea saw Wes’s glance turn toward him. O’Shea still didn’t move. No way was Wes that good.
“What’s wrong?” Dreidel called out to his friend.
O’Shea stared in his passenger-side mirror and stood his ground. Next to him, watching his own rearview, Micah did the same. They’d been at this too long to panic.
“You hear something?” Wes asked.
“Don’t get paranoid,” Dreidel warned.
In the edge of his mirror, O’Shea could see the outline of the back of Wes’s head as he turned to his Toyota, picked his keys up off the ground, and slid into the car.
“No, you’re right,” Wes replied.
Within seconds, the Toyota’s engine grumbled to life and its wheels screeched against the concrete.
Following years of training, Micah waited before going for the ignition. At least until they heard the metallic thunk of Wes’s Toyota cresting over the speed bump just outside the garage.
By the time Micah and O’Shea reached the speed bump, Wes’s Toyota was pulling into traffic, making a sharp left back onto South Dixie.
“Any idea where he’s headed?”
“I’m guessing his office . . .”
“Guess again,” O’Shea said as the Toyota made another sharp left at the first traffic light—in the opposite direction of Manning’s office.
Carefully staying at least three cars back, Micah pulled his own quick left just as the Toyota blew past a sign for I-95. “He’s driving fast.”
“Maybe headed for the highway,” O’Shea guessed as the Toyota took off, shrinking in the distance. Calm as ever, Micah stayed tucked behind two minivans and a white Honda, never losing focus on the two heads in the front seat of Wes’s car.
Sure enough, a minute later, the Toyota veered left, following signs for I-95 South and hugging to the curve of the on-ramp at Belvedere Road. But as they merged onto the highway, Micah and O’Shea were surprised to see that Wes wasn’t picking up speed. He was slowing down.
“He’s at fifty-five exactly,” Micah said, checking the speedometer. “Think he’s trying to flush us out?”
Pointing to the nearest exit sign, O’Shea said, “Maybe he’s just headed home.”
“Strike one,” Micah said as the Toyota merged into the middle lane of the highway. “Okeechobee’s the other way.”
“What about the airport?”
“Strike two,” Micah said as Wes’s car chugged past the runways at Southern Boulevard. “Wanna go for a third?”
Falling silent, O’Shea reached outside his window and readjusted his side mirror.
“You got something?”
“Unclear,” O’Shea replied, studying the cars behind him. “Just don’t let him get too far.”
Tucked behind a car carrier filled with SUVs, O’Shea and Micah spent the next twenty minutes trailing Wes’s Toyota as it continued south on 95, past Lake Worth, and Lantana, and Boynton Beach, and Delray . . . cruising past each city, but never going more than sixty miles an hour, never weaving through traffic, never leaving the middle lane. Through the unwashed back window, with cars zipping past them on both sides, Wes and Dreidel sat perfectly still, never panicking or checking over their shoulders. It was almost as if they weren’t in a rush. Or didn’t have a place to—
“Pull up,” O’Shea blurted.
“What’re you—?”
“Let’s go—get up there,” he insisted, patting the dashboard and pointing through the windshield. “Now.”
Micah punched the gas, and O’Shea’s head snapped back, his sandy-blond hair bumping for a half second against the headrest. As their car slid out from behind the car carrier, it didn’t take Micah long to weave across traffic and pull right behind Wes.
For the first time since he got on the highway, Wes merged into the far left lane, speeding up just enough to keep pace with a convertible Mercedes on their right.
With another punch of the gas, Micah tugged the wheel to the left, plowing the car into the poorly paved emergency lane on the inside shoulder of the road. Pebbles, trash, and shards of shattered glass spun under the tires, swirling in the car’s wake. Careful to keep the driver’s side from scraping against the concrete divider, Micah had no trouble catching up to Wes’s Toyota, which was still barely doing sixty.
As they pulled neck and neck, Wes’s window slowly rolled down.
“Careful driving in that lane—it’s illegal!” Rogo shouted from the driver’s seat, tapping his thumbs against the steering wheel as the two cars whipped down the highway. The only other occupant was Dreidel, who refused to make eye contact.
“Son of a—”
Ramming the brakes at a sign marked Emergency Vehicles Only, Micah cranked the steering wheel toward the open patch of grass on his left, skidding into a U-turn and heading back the way they came.
At this rate, Wes already had at l
east an hour head start.
55
Flat on my back underneath a silver Audi, I press my chin to my chest and stare out between the back tires and sagging muffler into the silence of the Palm Beach Post’s parking garage. It’s been nearly fifteen minutes since Rogo and Dreidel pulled out in my Toyota. And nearly fourteen minutes since O’Shea and Micah’s blue Chevy slinked down the incline of the garage and trailed Rogo out to the street.
Based on the mic in my lapel pin, we knew we were dealing with pros. Dreidel said it was the FBI. We needed to see if he was right.
When Dreidel and I first came down to my car, I pulled out my keys and popped the locks. But it wasn’t until I gripped the door handle that I spotted his shadow underneath. Below the car, Rogo stuck his head out like a mechanic and pumped his eyebrows.
“You owe me a new suit,” he’d whispered from a puddle of grease.
All he needed was ten minutes of lead time to crawl on his stomach underneath the cars.
“You’re lucky I fit,” he’d said.
Looking up at the grease- and dirt-caked axle directly above me, he was right about that. Just like he was right that if we pulled it off fast enough, no one would notice.
I had to step back to give him some room, but from there, Rogo was a pro. I pulled open the car door just as he rolled out from underneath. Dropping my keys covered most of the sound. Even I started to get excited. Climbing to his knees, Rogo held up his fingers to count. One . . . two . . .
In one quick motion, I ducked down to pick up my keys just as Rogo popped up in my place and slid into my car.
“No, you’re right,” I’d called out from the ground to complete the illusion. With a quick roll, I went under the car next to mine, which is where I’ve been ever since. Houdini would’ve been proud.
Staring out between the back tires, I turn on my side, and my elbow slides through the grease. By now, Rogo should have O’Shea and Micah halfway to Boca Raton. Still, I’m not sure what’s worse. The fact that they were watching, or the fact we got rid of them. With Nico still out there . . . At least with the FBI around, I was safe.
