The President's Shadow

by Brad Meltzer

  “You really are lost, aren’t you, Beecher?” Ezra asks.

  “I thought— For you to chase us here…to be searching for my father’s files…?”

  Ezra smiles, his laugh long gone. “Why would I want your dead father’s files? I told you before, for centuries, the mission of the Knights has never changed: We keep this country safe. So ask yourself the question: When it comes to that safety, who’s the one walking time bomb who wants to slaughter the President and put us all at risk?”

  Oh, God.

  On my right, I finally make out what Nico’s whispering. “I’m the sinner… I’m the sinner.”

  Ezra points his gun at his real target. “This isn’t about the Ring, Beecher. Or even about you.”

  Without another word, Ezra takes aim at Nico Hadrian. And pulls the trigger.

  93

  Don’t…!”

  Too late. Ezra’s finger squeezes the trigger.

  Diving to my right, I’m still in mid-syllable as I grab the scuba tank of oxygen and leap in front of Nico. I hold the tank to my chest and shut my eyes.

  Tot, I’m sorry I won’t be there for you.

  Afraid to hit the scuba tank, Ezra jerks the pistol upward just as the gunshot goes off. There’s a black puff of smoke and a sulfurous smell. The musket ball whizzes above us, hitting with a deafening crack. Shards of shattered brick rain down on our heads. The brickwork is so old and damaged, half the ceiling comes with it, drizzling pieces on all of us.

  “Are you that much of a moron?” Ezra growls. “Get out of the way, Beecher.” He aims his gun straight at me. I’m still standing directly in front of Nico.

  “You know what happens if you do it,” I warn, holding the oxygen tank at my chest.

  “That’s who you want to protect? Nico? The poster boy for lunatics who’s been on a murdering tour all week? Did Clementine tell you? He killed a retired colonel! Pulled the skin from his fingers! You think he’s not taking another shot at the President? Ask him yourself. Nico, do you want President Wallace dead?”

  Behind me, Nico’s blinking brick dust from his eyes. As Clementine rubs his back, he’s staring down at the floor, muttering to himself. “…ere should just be four. Always four. Take the sinner away…that’ll leave four.”

  “Are you even hearing him right now?” I ask Ezra. “There’s a reason we have courts. And insane asylums. Nico may be crazy, but he has rights.”

  “That’s what you want for him? He’ll get his day in court and then what? Escape again?”

  “So you should shoot him in the head? That’s your solution?”

  “I’m not having a morality debate about our judicial system, Beecher. In the Knights, we have one way to deal with things. The Culper Ring has another. But I promise you this, from Nazi scientists to Lee Harvey Oswald, the world is a far safer place with us in it.”

  “Then take your shot,” I challenge, still holding the oxygen tank at my chest.

  Ezra’s jaw shifts to the side. “In the movies, when you puncture an oxygen tank, it explodes. But in real life, it’s not a bomb—it just lets out a hiss.”

  “All I know is that at the end of Jaws, this is what they used to take out the big shark. So I don’t care how much MythBusters you watch, I got faith in Spielberg. Take your damn shot.”

  “You think I won’t?”

  “I know you won’t. And y’know why? Because if you were all about keeping America safe, you’d have already risked your life and pulled the trigger. But Ezra…or Kingston…or whatever the hell your name is now…you’re not in this for safety. You’re in it for glory. That’s your flaw. This isn’t about the good of the country, or doing what’s right. You crave status. That’s why you thought your roommate’s life was so great. That’s why you wanted his dead, rich grandfather for your own. And that’s why you carry that dumb photo in your wallet that Clementine told us about. You’re as shallow as any other spoiled shit who thinks that a photo with the President means that you’re a member of the private club. So know this: The Knights of the Golden Circle weren’t hunted for their philosophy. They were hunted because they’re selfish elitists who think they know how to run the world better than the rest of us. And that’s why you’ll always lose. You’re not fighting for what’s right. You’re fighting for yourself.”

  Ezra presses his lips together into a thin line. “You done yet?”

  “I think so.”

  Cocking his head to the side, Ezra lowers his gun, aims at my leg, and pulls the trigger. A puff of smoke erupts from the pistol. A bee sting bites my thigh. I see the hole—the size of a quarter—before I register the pain. Blood, charred skin, and bits of my pants run down into it. In shock, I stick my finger in it. There’s a hole. He shot me, I think as time unlocks and starts rolling forward.

  “Fuuuh…!” I shout, grabbing my thigh.

  “—eecher! Beecher!” Marshall shouts, still down on the ground, trying to get my attention. He points to the scuba tank. “Don’t let go of the—!”

  Too late. My leg’s on fire. I crumple in pain. The oxygen tank tumbles from my hands.

  No. It’s pulled from my hands. I’m hunched forward, in mid-fall. Next to me, Clementine’s just a blur. In one fluid movement, she races in, rips the scuba tank out of my hands, and heads straight for her target: straight at Ezra.

  Clemmi, don’t! I shout in my head.

  Nico grabs at her arm, trying to hold her back.

  She’s already moving too fast. Barreling toward Ezra, she holds the oxygen tank out in front of her like a shield.

  Enraged and without even hesitating, Ezra raises his gun, points it at her, and again pulls the trigger.

  There’s another puff of black smoke as the musket ball hurtles directly at the scuba tank.

  The impact isn’t loud. But it is devastating.

  94

  There’s a vicious pop. By the time I hear it, the punctured oxygen tank is already at lift-off, the sudden release of pressure turning it into a steel-plated bottle rocket that erupts upward.

  I try to yell something. Clementine and Ezra are knocked backward, floating in mid-air.

  It all happens so violently and so fast. With the dungeon’s low ceiling, the scuba tank has nowhere to go. In an eyeblink, it pummels into the roof, then ricochets and reverses course, pulverizing the ground, then rising back up again, zigzagging with reckless ferocity.

  Zuung…zuung…zuung…

  I was wrong before; it isn’t a bottle rocket. It’s a thrashing, tumbling missile. Ceiling, floor, ceiling. Each impact hits like a wrecking ball that’s whipped back and forth. Up above, the ceiling ruptures and gravity does the rest. Bricks vomit from above, followed by jagged hunks of sandstone and two hundred years of dust.

  Down below, it’s even worse. The scuba tank hammers the limestone floor with a thunderclap, and the whole room shakes. Before I even know what’s happening, the ground tilts, and Clementine and Ezra start to tumble. I hear Clementine screaming, Nico too. He’s yelling, still reaching out for her, but I can’t see anything. The sand and soot are too thick as they rain down from above. For half a second, the world turns ash gray. Then, in the same half-second, it’s over.

  Across the room, the metal scuba tank lies there, lifeless.

  Up above, the ceiling continues to spew a few thin waterfalls of dust and debris that rain like an hourglass.

  What the hell was—?

  “Where’d they go?” Marshall calls out, covered in dust and coughing uncontrollably. Still on the ground, he points across the room. Clementine and Ezra are… Where are they?

  Ignoring the heartbeat that’s throbbing in my leg, I climb to my feet. As I blink through the dust cloud, I start running toward—

  “Clemmi…?”

  At first, I thought she was just knocked over. But as I reach ground zero, she and Ezra… They’re not there. I wave my hand, fanning the dust. In the ground… There’s a jagged hole the size of a bathtub, filled with bricks, debris, and—


  “Beecher…? Beecher, I’m here!” Clementine coughs, her voice faint and far away. “Down here.”

  Squinting through the dust, I can barely see. The limestone floor is cracked open. I follow Clementine’s voice. One of the wide slabs of limestone is snapped and broken away, revealing what looks like a shallow room underneath.

  “Clemmi, listen to me. Tell me what you see!”

  “I-It looks like a tunnel,” she calls back.

  Of course. I almost forgot where we were. Two hundred years ago, this was the dungeon. Some of the prisoners must’ve burrowed underneath to make their escape, all of it hidden under the slab of rock.

  “I can’t feel my leg! There’s something wrong with my leg!” she yells, clearly in pain. She’s lisping more than ever, like the impact took the rest of her teeth.

  “We need to get her out of there,” Marshall insists, fighting to his own feet. He can barely stand. The blood from his newest wound soaks the side of his shirt.

  I look at Nico, the only one of us who wasn’t knocked over. He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t even acknowledge I’m there. But within seconds, he’s by my side, grabbing shattered bricks and chunks of rock from the pile.

  “Here. I think she’s here,” I tell Marshall and Nico, pointing to the far right side of the hole.

  “Beecher, you need to hurry! Ezra’s up…he’s up and moving!” Clementine yells. She’s breathing heavily, like her lungs don’t work. “I can…I can see him moving! He’s crawling down the tunnel…trying to get away!”

  We all furiously start trying to dig her out. Marshall races to the opposite side of the hole, using his good arm to move a hunk of the brick ceiling that’s still stuck in place. His own blood drips onto the floor. As we lift the bricks away, I hear a soft clicking. Something skitters from the hole. I see the thick tail first, then shiny black eyes. There’re two…three… No. There’re dozens of them: fat black rats.

  “There’s something else in here, Beecher! Something’s touching me!” Clementine shouts.

  “It’s a rat, just a little one,” I tell her as a dozen of them swarm to the surface, making the whole floor look like it’s moving. I jump and high-step as they scurry past us, racing out of the dungeon. Nico and Marshall barely react.

  “Ezra’s still crawling! He’s getting away!” Clementine shouts.

  We yank at another layer of bricks.

  “No! Not like that! It won’t work!” she screams.

  We quickly see why. Underneath the bricks, there’s a massive slab of sandstone—like a serrated surfboard—that’s slicing diagonally down the hole. It plummeted from the ceiling, and no question, it’s what’s pinning Clementine in place. I give it a shove. It weighs a ton. Won’t budge.

  “You’re not moving it!” she scolds.

  By now, the dust is settling. I again peer into the hole, noticing the putrid smell of sulfur. I can’t see all of Clementine—chunks of floor and layers of rubble form a maze of debris with no clear view—but as we tug another chunk of limestone out of the way, I see just her face. She’s at least six feet down, looking up at me.

  Her mouth wilts open. Her teeth are gone. It doesn’t look like a single tooth is left after the explosion and the fall. Her face is black, and two streams of blood form a Y from her nostrils. But what undoes me is that look in her eyes. I’ve known Clementine since grade school. I’ve seen her giddy and excited, angry and enraged, shocked and surprised. I’ve seen the way her eyelids get heavy when you kiss her. And the way they’d screw tight, like the aperture of a camera, when she knew her mother was drunk. But I’ve never seen her defeated. Until now.

  Her ginger brown eyes stay wide, trying to sell me calm. It’s not working. “You need to…you need to find Marshall’s gun,” she tells me, fighting for each breath.

  “What’re you—?”

  “Just find it!” she insists. “When we were falling…I saw Ezra drop it. Look around!”

  Marshall, Nico, and I all glance to different parts of the room. It’s a chaotic wreck, filled with loose bricks, chunks of rocks, and piles of dirt. But that means shiny metal weapons stand out even more.

  There.

  “I see it! I got it!” I call back, scooping the gun up and heading back to the hole. “You want me to lower it down there?”

  “There’s no time. You need to…you need to stop Ezra. Point it here and shoot!”

  “Wha? I can’t even see him. How can I—?”

  “Just shoot, Beecher! Point and shoot!”

  Confused, I squint deep into the hole. Her weight shifts and the floor seems to shift with her. Underneath the slab of limestone, she’s covered in what looks like black sand. It’s all over her, filling most of the jagged hole that connects with the tunnel. The sulfur smell. I finally place it.

  “Gunpowder,” Marshall says.

  I nod. They used to store it in the bastions all around the island. Over the years, it must’ve seeped down to the tunnel. She’s swimming in gunpowder.

  I start putting the rest together. If I fire the gun, when the bullet hits the ground and sparks, all that gunpowder will—

  Clementine looks up from the hole, taking a long, labored breath that sounds like her last. “I know what I’m doing, Beecher.”

  Further down the tunnel, I hear Ezra scrambling, scratching through the dirt and sand.

  “He’s…he’s already around the corner,” she adds. “If this leads to the beach— It’s the only way to stop him.”

  “By starting a firestorm? All that gunpowder in a contained space… When you light it, that whole tunnel will turn into a cannon. You’ll be—”

  “I’ll be in the exact same place where we all know I’m headed,” she lisps, her voice cracking. She’s wheezing now, starting to fade. With her free hand, she pulls her wig from her head. “Look at me. Look at what little is left.”

  I stare down at her toothless mouth and her sweaty bald head. It looks extra pale—and even more like a cancer patient’s—thanks to the blood and dirt on her face. She doesn’t look like she’s dying. She looks like she’s already dead. “We can still get you out of there.”

  “No, Beecher…you can’t,” she wheezes. “Not this time. You rescued me enough. Now please…for once…let me do right by you. We’re running out of time.”

  I don’t move. If I’ve learned one thing over the years, it’s that every person you encounter brings out a different part of you. From youth to adulthood, even when she was hurting me, Clementine brought out my best. Whether I liked it or not.

  “I know you can’t do this,” she says. “Give the gun…give the gun to Marshall.”

  “But if we—”

  “Give the gun to Marshall!” she screams, tears pouring from her eyes and a blood bubble popping from her nose.

  Before I can say a word, Marshall tugs the pistol from my hand, staring down at Clementine. As they exchange a glance, Clementine nods, fighting for another breath. She doesn’t have long.

  Marshall’s plastic face is unreadable as ever, frozen by his scars. But some things don’t need to be seen; they can be felt. When they rode down here on that train, something happened between them.

  “You don’t need to do this,” he says.

  “I do. You saved me for a reason. Here’s your reason,” she insists, more demanding than ever. “This is your chance. If you don’t stop Ezra now, he’ll…he’ll keep coming for you, hunting you.”

  “I can protect myself,” Marshall says.

  “And who’ll protect Beecher?”

  “I don’t need protection!” I insist.

  “And what about my dad? Who’ll protect him?” she adds, glancing at Nico, who’s still hopelessly pulling bricks from the hole. As Clementine’s voice again gives way, it’s the first time I realize she’s not just fighting for us. She’s fighting for him. “When they lock Nico back up in that mental hospital, you think…you think anyone will argue when Ezra comes knocking? They’ll be happy to see him dead,” she says. “He’s my da
d. Please…if I do nothing else…let me save my father.”

  Marshall stands there, his gun still flat at his side. “You’re making a rash decision.”

  “I’m making the only decision I have left! The sole reason…ahuuh…the sole reason I came to your place was because I knew my life was over. I know I won’t have years in the future. I don’t even have weeks! I just want the time that I did have to count for something. Is that so bad? To want to count for something?”

  Marshall still doesn’t move.

  She doesn’t let up. “I…ahuuh…I know you understand, Marshall. I know you’ve been here—and I know that after all the burn treatments, and the fighting, and the pain—I know that all you really want, even now, is peace,” she lisps, rubbing her hand over her own bald head. “Let me have my peace. Please. It’s my time. If we stop him now, think of how many people you’ll be saving from pain.”

  Marshall’s posture shifts just slightly. It’s the one thing he understands better than anyone. Pain.

  “You’re sure you know what you’re doing?” he asks.

  Clementine takes a labored breath. She forces a weak smile. “We all have a before and after to one moment,” she says. “Let this be yours.”

  Marshall takes two steps back. Thanks to the rocks that cover Clementine, the blast should go out toward Ezra, but now Marshall has a safer angle in case some of it goes up. We still hear Ezra crawling and scratching in the tunnel. Marshall’s out of time. So is Clemmi.

  Marshall’s hand is shaking as he raises the gun. He points it down the hole, toward the gunpowder-filled tunnel. Six feet below us, Clementine shuts her eyes. Marshall’s finger curls around the trigger and—

  Nothing.

  “I can’t. If I do it— I can’t put you through those burns,” Marshall says, lowering the gun.

  “You have to! He’s getting away!” Clementine pleads. “Don’t deny me this!”

  I still hear Ezra crawling, but the sound is starting to fade.

  In a blur, the gun is ripped from Marshall’s hands. Holding it tight, Nico points the pistol down, aiming toward his daughter.