The President's Shadow

by Brad Meltzer

  “Who approached you. Who got away from you,” Francy clarified, reaching for the TV remote connected by a thick cord to the hospital bed. “What’d he look like?”

  “Bald. Younger than me. White eyelashes,” Marshall said.

  “White?”

  “Looks as odd as it sounds. He’s also got a wealthy veneer. Shows it off. New money,” Marshall added. “I figured you had him on camera.”

  “A.J. tried,” Francy said, pressing a button as the TV sparked to life. She turned the volume up loud in case anyone was eavesdropping. But as the picture bloomed into view, showing Fox News talking about last week’s DUI for the secretary of education, she quickly switched to ESPN. “Whoever this man with the eyelashes is, even when he was fighting with you and Beecher, he stuck to the side of the statue where we don’t have eyes.”

  Marshall nodded. White Eyelashes wasn’t stupid. “You think he’s the one who buried the arm?” Marshall asked.

  “Who the hell else would he be?” President Wallace interrupted. “Two days ago, we’ve got a Marine Band member sneaking inside and using the alias of Lee Harvey Oswald. Two hours ago, we’ve got this guy lurking across the street and somehow also knowing how to stay out of sight. And on the way here, they told me that right now, the country of Brazil is on the verge of financial collapse and threatening to sink the whole region unless we step in and figure out a creative way to help. But yes, beyond all that, at five o’clock this morning, I got pulled out of bed by my terrified wife, who found a body part buried in our Rose Garden. This is the job, Marshall. You’re the one who saw him. We need you to find out who he is.”

  “I thought the job was taking down Beecher and finding you the members of the Culper Ring,” Marshall challenged. “Isn’t that why you asked me to weave my way back into his life?”

  At that, the President went silent, pretending to watch ESPN. Marshall wasn’t surprised. During the past few months, when it came to Beecher-duty, Marshall had met solely with A.J. The moment he saw the President—and saw that Wallace had looped in his longtime friend Francy—he knew something was clearly wrong.

  “Why’re we in a hospital?” Marshall asked. “Are you sick?”

  “I had a colonoscopy scheduled for this morning. All standard,” the President said, still eyeing sports highlights. “No one knows we canceled yet, but barring calls from the Brazilian president, the heads of Congress who don’t want to give them a dime, and whatever other disaster is already on my schedule, I’ve got about fifteen minutes to catch you up to date.”

  Marshall stood there, his eyes narrowing. The President didn’t need to be here to catch him up to date. “What about A.J? Where’s he?”

  “At the White House. They want to move the President as soon as we get back,” Francy said, sounding genuinely helpful as she pointed a hitchhiker’s thumb toward the room’s outer door, where Wallace’s bulletproof limo was waiting.

  Marshall made a mental note. It was one thing for them to be worried someone in the Service had let White Eyelashes in. It was another for them to be keeping A.J. out.

  “I’ve heard only good things about you,” Francy added. “Thanks for all the help as we readjust.”

  Marshall cocked his burned-away eyebrow. “Readjust?”

  Francy glanced at Wallace, whose dark gray eyes were still locked on ESPN.

  “I need you to stay away from Beecher,” the President said.

  “What? You told me—”

  “Don’t tell me what I told you. Listen to what I’m telling you now: It’s time to leave your friend alone.”

  “Why the change of heart?”

  The President just stood there, watching highlights from last night’s basketball games.

  “Is it because he’s suddenly helping you?” Marshall asked. “You think if this is all an inside job by the Service, now you need the Culper Ring to protect you?”

  The most powerful man in the world continued to watch basketball.

  “Or maybe you’re playing long ball,” Marshall continued. “That by bringing Beecher closer, you think you’ll have more control over him? Or better yet, that by the time Eyelashes is caught, the Ring will be right there for you to pick off however you like. Any of those sound right?”

  “Watch this shot,” the President of the United States said, motioning up to a long three-pointer from last night’s Celtics game.

  “Does Beecher still have the phone you gave him?” Francy asked. “The one that supposedly lets him listen in on A.J.’s calls?”

  Marshall nodded, but before he could say anything—

  “I appreciate your still keeping us updated, Marshall,” the President interrupted as Francy shut off the TV. “If you touch a hair on Beecher’s head, there won’t be even a stain of you left to identify. Are we clear?”

  Marshall bit at the chapped bits of skin on what used to be his lips. As the President turned to the door, Francy pulled a tri-folded sheet of paper from her datebook and handed it to Marshall.

  “What’s this?” Marshall asked.

  “What we promised you. For helping with Beecher,” the President said. “Despite what you think, I’m a man of my word. Whatever happened to Beecher’s father and yours, that’s the ship they were on,” the President explained. “Nico too. We’re trying to get the rest for you now.”

  Looking down, Marshall read the words on the page, then read them again. Here’s where all their fathers’ lives changed.

  The SS Needle’s Nest.

  “It won’t work,” Marshall blurted.

  “Pardon?”

  “What you’re planning with Beecher. Whatever you’re scheming—”

  Francy shot him a look.

  “I’m not trying to insult you. I’m just telling you, even if you think he’s your new best friend, when it comes to Beecher, don’t mistake niceness for weakness. He’s licking his chops for this fight.”

  “We appreciate the advice,” Francy said.

  “I don’t think you do. Right now, you’re in a chess match. But do you know who the world’s best chess masters play against to test their skills? Not seasoned vets. Seasoned vets always make the same rote moves. Instead, they practice against amateurs. And y’know why? Because amateurs are unpredictable. When you play an amateur, when you play someone as motivated as Beecher…?” Marshall’s voice became a whisper. “That’s who’ll make the move you’ll never see coming.”

  At the corner of the President’s mouth, a small crease deepened like a parenthesis. “Have you heard a damn word I said? We finally got Beecher playing for my side, which is where he should be. When we catch this prick who broke into my house…this guy with the white eyelashes…? This isn’t chess, Marshall. It’s war.”

  24

  Twenty-nine years ago

  Charleston, South Carolina

  They flew Alby out first thing in the morning. There was no warning, no heads up. Right before the hospital’s 4 a.m. shift change, two men in brown-and-green fatigues entered his room, handed him his own camo field jacket, and told him it was time to leave Oklahoma.

  “Where we going?” Alby asked.

  “You’ve been reassigned,” one of them replied.

  Within two hours, their C-130 four-prop plane touched down at the army airfield in Walterboro, South Carolina. Not counting the pilots and his two guides, Alby was the only one on board.

  * * *

  “So you’re White? You’re the last one, son,” a guard at the front gate said, making a note on his clipboard as Alby and his guides pulled into the Charleston Naval Shipyard, into the area known as Weapons Station.

  As the car made its way toward a two-story, cross-shaped building, Alby glanced out the side windows, then the back. It was just past nine in the morning, on a weekday, yet there was no one in sight. Every sidewalk and parking lot was empty. Still, Alby could feel it. Everyone knows when they’re being watched.

  “C’mon, you’re late,” another guard called out as the car bucked to a stop
in front of the building. Like everyone else in this section of the base, his fatigues had no nametag, no patches showing rank or branch of service. “You better hurry. Ship’s about to leave.”

  Ship?

  As they began to run, Alby reached into his pocket, feeling for the googly-eyed Charlie Chaplin button. It didn’t help. He knew his history, so he knew that when the military wanted to brief FDR, or Truman, or even modern Presidents, it put them on military boats as a way to guarantee privacy. But it also kept prisoners on ships, since out there, the laws didn’t protect them.

  “Can someone please tell me what’s going on?” Alby pleaded as he saw the name on the back of the ship. Needle’s Nest.

  Once again, he didn’t get an answer.

  25

  Today

  Washington, D.C.

  It’s definitely one of ours. I think from the eighties,” Mina says, pinching the orange lapel pin in her own fingers.

  “Is that bad?” I ask.

  “Depends where you got it. If it’s stolen…”

  “I didn’t steal it.”

  “I’m not accusing you, Beecher. I’m just saying, sometimes these pins come up in estate sales. An agent accidentally pockets one, then after they die, their relatives find it,” she explains as I follow her up the hallway, toward her ground-floor office. “For the most part, though, we try to keep the pins under pretty tight control.”

  On our right, I see why. I’ve never been here before. Along the wall is a glass display case labeled Fallen Heroes. It’s filled with thirty-six headshot photos, some color, some black and white. Below each photo is a star-shaped badge. These are the thirty-six men and women who gave their lives to the Service. I can’t help but read as we walk. The first agent died in 1902 in a streetcar accident while protecting Teddy Roosevelt; the most recent died in a field office during the Oklahoma City bombing. I get the message. Every day, these people risk their lives.

  As she reaches the end of the hallway, I’m still trailing behind her. “Can you tell me about the serial numbers on the back of the pin?” I eventually ask.

  She glances over her shoulder. She was holding back on that. I can’t tell if it’s a test or something else.

  “Can you first tell me where you got the pin?” she challenges.

  It’s a fair question, but my brain flashes back to the White House this morning. To bury that arm in the Rose Garden…to sneak it past security… The President wouldn’t say it, but I saw the look on his face. You don’t get that far without someone in the Service. I take another look at Mina and her honeycomb hair. I don’t care how well I know her, I’m not ruling out anyone yet.

  “Don’t look so suspicious, Beecher. If someone showed up in your office holding an old document they shouldn’t have, you’d be asking the same questions.”

  She’s right about that too. I clear my throat. “If I tell you where I got it, can you keep it to yourself?”

  “I’m an archivist. You think I have any other friends but you?”

  “Mina, I’m serious.”

  “So am I. Last month, what you did for James,” she says, referring to her brother.

  “I heard what happened. I hope you got my note.”

  “…and the donation to Wounded Warrior. You didn’t have to do that, Beecher. Just that tour of the Archives… You’ll never know what that meant to him.”

  “C’mon, you brought me a disabled vet whose dying wish was to see the Declaration of Independence. Like I could really say no to that.”

  “You’d be surprised what people said no to. You tell me what you need and I’m on it.”

  At the end of the hallway, I take a final look over my shoulder and whisper, “The pin came from one of our big supporters.”

  “Big donor?”

  “More like a big mouth. A few years back, he donated three different Benjamin Franklin letters to the Archives. Two were forged. So before we accept any more of his ‘gifts,’ even if it’s just a pin like this, we like to double-check the authenticity.”

  “Time. That’s why you were playing all cryptic? You think we don’t have crazy donors here?” she asks, turning the corner into a long rectangular room. “A few years back, a Texas millionaire tried to donate the Book Depository window that Oswald shot JFK from. Turns out, he had the wrong window. Another Texas guy had the real one, which shows you how crazy Texas is.”

  She says something else, but as I look around, I see that the far wall has a mural of a presidential motorcade with the U.S. Capitol behind it. The rest of the room is lined with photos of Presidents and archival exhibit cases filled with Secret Service artifacts. Old counterfeiting machines. A newspaper with a “Kennedy Dead” headline. Oswald’s rifle (definitely a replica). The pistol used to try to kill President Ford (definitely real). They even have documents from the very first assignment where the Secret Service was called in to protect a President: stopping grave robbers who were trying to steal Abraham Lincoln’s dead body.

  “Where do you go when you do that?” Mina blurts.

  “The what now?”

  “Wow. You don’t even realize it, do you? For two minutes you were just standing there, mouth gaping open like some Old World immigrant walking into Disney World.”

  I squint at the case on my right. “Is that the actual door from the limo when Reagan was shot?”

  “Kick-ass, right? Rumor is it was Reagan’s idea. The Gipper was a black belt in badassery. When he was President, did you know he used to carry his own gun?”

  “A thirty-eight,” I answer. “He’d hide it in his briefcase. Even take it on Air Force One.”

  She turns my way. “How’d you know that?” she asks, her voice lifting with excitement.

  I stare down at an antique pencil sketch showing the layout of a long hallway with instructions for where every agent should stand to protect President Wilson when he signed the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I. “It’s our history.”

  As I turn to face her, Mina tilts her head, eyeing me with a look I’ve never seen before. “You know anything about antique guns?”

  “My dad was in the military.”

  “Then you should love guns.”

  “I dunno. I’m a reader, not a fighter.”

  She half-smiles. “That’s cute. You’re a cute guy. Why have I never asked you out again?”

  “I’ve been wondering that myself. You should.”

  She stops at that. “I might. C’mon, Booksmart,” Mina says, turning back to the orange pin. “Let’s see if we can connect your old serial numbers.”

  26

  Twenty-nine years ago

  Charleston, South Carolina

  No. No way,” Alby said emphatically, standing on the dock right next to the boat. The Needle’s Nest.

  “You’re late, Private,” the guard said. “You better move with a purpose.”

  “If you want me to go down there, you need to tell me what’s down there.” He pointed to the bottom of the stairs, to the metal door that led to the boat’s lower cabin.

  When he’d first spotted the water and the long cement dock behind the cross-shaped building, Alby had expected a submarine, or even a coast guard cutter. Instead, bobbing at the end of the dock was a deep-sea fishing boat. It was huge, at least eighty feet. But it was old and rusted. “You’re crazy if you think I’m—”

  “Private, you really think this volunteer army is voluntary?” Grabbing Alby by the biceps, the guard dragged him down the stairs.

  At the bottom, the guard twisted a knob and opened the metal door, practically tossing Alby inside.

  “…as we officially welcome you to—” At the front of the room, a man with a round Santa Claus face was standing there like an exclamation point, his hands cupped on a podium. He looked like he had a great laugh, though he wasn’t laughing right now.

  Matching Santa Claus’s posture, Alby stood up straight and hesitantly stepped inside. A dozen heads turned his way. All young men, all Alby’s age. Fresh r
ecruits. Half were in uniform, and the rest were in jeans and black pullovers. They were sitting at three rows of desks, like in a classroom.

  Unlike the boat’s exterior, the quarterdeck down here had been recently finished. New blue carpet, new coat of paint. And a brand-new student.

  “You must be Private White. Colonel Doggett,” the exclamation point with the Santa face announced. “Welcome home.”

  As Alby headed to an open seat in the back, a familiar face with a perfect crew cut nodded a silent hello from the front row. The all-American from the plane crash. Nico was here.

  So was the Irish loudmouth, Timothy.

  But it wasn’t until Alby slid into his seat that he spotted the red hair on the kid directly in front of him. The fourth musketeer from the plane. The nervous redhead. Julian.

  Twisting in his seat, with his eyes dancing more nervously than ever, Julian glanced over his shoulder at Alby, but not for long.

  “As I was saying,” Doggett continued, hands still cupped on the podium, “when I first joined the military, I was told that when you enlist, it’s like driving at night without lights, without brakes, and you know that there’s a fork coming in the road. You don’t know where it is. But it’s there. It’s coming.” Staring out at the dozen young recruits, he added, “You all just hit the fork. You’re on it right now. And in these coming months, it’ll take everything you’ve got to steer through it. But the good news? These people you’re surrounded with? These’re the best brothers you’ll ever have,” he said as Alby glanced from Nico’s perfect posture to Julian’s sagging shoulders.

  A skinny black man with thick Arthur Ashe glasses stepped up to Alby’s left, knelt down on one knee, and motioned for him to roll up his sleeve. In his teeth, he held a loaded syringe like a dog’s bone.

  “Tetanus shot,” the man known as Dr. Moorcraft whispered.

  “I already got my tetanus,” Alby whispered back.

  “Just to be safe,” the man with the thick eyeglasses said, jabbing the needle into Alby’s arm.

  “Y’hear what happened to the others?” Julian asked, again glancing over his shoulder.