The President's Shadow

by Brad Meltzer

“So that file…”

  “Beecher, whatever else you think of me, I’m a man of my word. You did your part with Ezra. Now it’s up to me to bring my part of the bargain.”

  Still holding the lemonade, the President gets up from the sofa and reaches for the thick file. “I know you saw some of it. Here’s the rest,” he says, handing me the accordion folder. “The real story of what happened to your father.”

  99

  The first pages in the file are the same: my dad’s hair and eye color, his height and weight. Each word on the page is marked with an indentation from a typewriter. These aren’t old copies like on the island. They’re originals.

  After that is page after page of handwritten reports. Some are medical and show my father’s heart rate and blood pressure. Others are behavioral, filled with descriptions like “exhibiting a strong response to angry and threatening stimuli.”

  One of the last pages is a death certificate. Under Cause of Death, it says the same thing they told my mother thirty years ago: accidental drowning from automotive accident on military bridge.

  Unlike last time, my hands aren’t shaking as I read this one. “Nico told me how he really died,” I say to the President.

  He stays quiet as I flip through the rest. The accordion folder has a few files in it. The one after my dad’s is marked Operation: Plankholder.

  I pull it out, slowly thumbing through it. These are copies, but nearly every page is covered with black horizontal lines—all redacted.

  The next folder in the file is labeled Sagamore, Wisconsin. My hometown, where Clementine, Marshall, and I all grew up. The pages in there are redacted too. It makes no sense. What’s our town have to do with all this?

  I look over at Wallace, who’s leaning on the front corner of his desk and staring down at the cream-colored carpet. He’s taking no joy from this.

  “Why’s there a file on Sagamore?”

  The President shifts his weight, still staring down.

  “I appreciate the dramatic pause,” I tell him. “But we both know you read the un-redacted version.”

  “Beecher, does the name Dr. John Karlin mean anything to you?”

  I shake my head.

  “Dr. Karlin passed away a few years back. He had a doctorate in mathematical psychology, trained in electrical engineering, and was a professional violinist.”

  “Is he the one who did the experiment on my dad?”

  “He had nothing to do with your dad. Or your town. He was a social scientist who worked at Bell Labs. After World War II, as they were developing phones, Dr. Karlin was the person who figured out how numbers should be arranged on the keypad of a phone: 1-2-3 in the top row, 4-5-6 below that…”

  “I know how keypads look.”

  “But do you know why they’re set up like that? It’s because Dr. Karlin studied people’s limits. He figured out that the 1-2-3 setup creates the most accuracy when people dial. Back then, they were worried people wouldn’t be able to remember even seven digits for a phone number. So Karlin looked at round and square buttons…and whether to put the numbers in a circular or rectangular pattern.

  “To this day, that 1-2-3 setup is an internationally accepted design, used on calculators, ATMs, door locks, and vending machines across the world. And it all came from this modest guy out in New Jersey. He even figured out the optimum length of a phone cord by secretly cutting down his coworkers’ cords each night to see what length it was when they finally complained. And you know what he proved? That studying human factors and limits always beats market research. Forget our strengths. If you want to know us, learn our limits.”

  “I assume there’s a reason you’re telling me this.”

  The President hits me with the kind of look that forced the leaders of Pakistan back to the peace table. “Dr. Karlin’s research wasn’t just used by Bell Labs. Folks in our military were paying attention too. You have to understand, for over a century, the army had spent a few billion trying to answer one simple question: Out of a thousand soldiers, how do you identify which one will step up and be the true leader? We still don’t have a definitive answer. But thirty years ago, knowing that our weaknesses are as important as our strengths, a small group within the military asked a different but related question: Could they identify which soldiers were likely to be the weak ones? Could they recognize and detect our bad soldiers? And—most important—could they take that bad soldier and turn him into a great one?”

  “You’re telling me my father was the bad soldier they studied?”

  “Forget good and bad. We all have heaven and hell in us. Y’know who said that?”

  “Oscar Wilde.”

  “And he was right,” the President says. “So with an eye on Dr. Karlin’s telephone research, this group began studying the limits of our own soldiers. The injections that your father and the Plankholders got were supposed to bring out the truest version of themselves. It was just an amplifier.”

  “An amplifier of what?”

  “Of who they already were. Think about it, Beecher: What’s more valuable to a standing military? Knowing how to find the strongest of us, or knowing how to weed out the weakest?”

  I shake my head, knowing the rest. Nico told me about the shots and what they did on the island. But as I look down at the folder marked Sagamore… “I still don’t understand what this has to do with my hometown.”

  Wallace glances to his left, at the oil painting of Abraham Lincoln. “Beecher, this is just you and me now. Just us,” Wallace says. “You hear me?” He’s not trying to cover his ass. For the very first time in our relationship, the President of the United States seems absolutely concerned.

  I nod, holding tight to the file folder. I try to take a breath, but it feels like my chest won’t expand. There are four curved doors in the Oval Office. It’s the first time I notice all of them are closed.

  “These weren’t good people,” Wallace explains. “What they were doing with the Plankholders…the early reports saw it as a success. Even the death of your father, sick as it sounds, convinced them they were on the right track. From there, the program grew in scope. Instead of just identifying weakness, they started wondering if they could predict it. Is selfishness a learned trait? Is it traceable? Could it even be hereditary? To find answers, they needed more than just a few weeks on an island. For the true science behind it, they needed a place to observe repeated actions over time. Over a long time,” the President explains, a deep crease burrowing between his eyebrows. “Like decades.”

  I glance down at the folder marked Sagamore. “Wait. You’re telling me—?”

  “Haven’t you ever wondered how your family…and Clementine’s family…and Marshall’s family all wound up in the same small town? That’s a hell of a coincidence, don’t you think, Beecher?”

  I try to take another breath. My lungs are punctured, deflating.

  “The big secret wasn’t your father,” the President says. “The secret was the town itself.”

  I shake my head in disbelief.

  “On the lives of my children, I wish it weren’t true,” he adds. “But ask your mother how she found Sagamore. If I had to guess, she’ll say that one of the army’s grief counselors told her about this great new community in Wisconsin. They probably helped her get the loan for your house, calling it a military death benefit. Then within those next months, when Marshall’s dad and Nico were done with their service, they were steered there too. The first pastor at your church was a former army chaplain. He wrote weekly reports. I read the file, Beecher. There were three towns used, all in the Midwest. Yours was focused on troublemakers and rule-breakers.”

  I clench my jaw.

  “Within a year, in one of the other towns, some kid from Arkansas started finding pustules around his anus. Soon it developed into a cancer no one had ever seen before. By the time Nico started hearing those voices in his head, the program was shut down and defunded, though one of the doctors—someone named Moorcraft—always filed an ann
ual report that gave updates on the offspring.”

  “Offspring?”

  Tightening his gaze, Wallace explains, “For a while, it looked like he might even be right. Before Clementine and Marshall left high school, they both had arrest records. Marshall even managed to get kicked out of the marines. Maybe it was nature, maybe it was nurture, but at the extremes, the genetics predicted all of it—the apples had fallen right next to the trees. Except for one thing, Beecher: They were wrong about you.”

  The President sits there, still leaning on the edge of his desk. He’s waiting for me to yell or scream in shock. Instead, I sit there, with newfound calm, taking in every detail, every syllable. He’s not stupid. I’m too quiet.

  “You already knew all this,” the President says.

  I shoot him a look. He shoots one back. Like all Presidents, he doesn’t like not being in charge.

  “Who told you?” he challenges.

  “When the Archives sent you the files, they had to digitize them,” I explain.

  “So your Culper Ring— You had the Ring’s hacker break into our system?”

  “Your system’s a fortress. The Archives was much easier.”

  I wait for him to lash out. Instead, he looks uneasy. “Beecher, if you’ve known all this for a week, why didn’t you say something?”

  “Believe me, I will. What those scientists did to Nico and my father…even to me and those in our town… You can’t do that.”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “I know you didn’t. But right here…at this moment…I needed to know what you would do.”

  “So this was my test?” Wallace asks. “You wanted to see if I’d tell you the truth?”

  “Do you have any idea how many lives were cratered by these experiments? Clementine died! Nico went insane! My own father was made so sick and paranoid, he locked himself in a burning jail cell! So excuse me for being pessimistic, but this government I’ve been fighting so hard for— What the hell kind of government does something like that?”

  “The same kind of government it’s always been: one comprised of the people, by the—”

  “No. I’ve heard your stump speech. All I care about now is making this right.”

  “We’ll never make it right. I know you know that. Families were ruined. We didn’t take care of those who trusted us with their lives. No matter how much restitution we give—and we will give it—money doesn’t make this right. There is no making it right. All we can do is make it known.”

  I shoot him a doubtful look. I thought for sure he’d bury it.

  “Beecher, remember when President Clinton apologized for the WWII Tuskegee syphilis experiments? Or when Obama apologized for when, during the 1940s, we purposely gave hundreds of Latin Americans sexually transmitted diseases? Whatever else happens, we’ll take our rightful responsibility. If you want, I can make you one of the founders on the independent investigative committee that’s being put together. The announcement is being written as we speak. And the apology. I just thought you’d want to hear it first.”

  I hear the words, but they don’t make sense. It’ll create a shitstorm for his office. “You’re really going public with this?”

  “Don’t look so surprised. Sometimes we actually do the right thing around here. Like saying thank you to those who helped us when we needed it.” He motions my way, never looking more serious. “I mean it, Beecher. What you’re building with your life and with the Culper Ring… I told you last week: There’s a reason Tot picked you. We all have heaven and hell inside us. But what you have, is something more.”

  I sit up straight, confused.

  “I’m telling you the truth. You did good here, Beecher. You always do good. And you always will.”

  It’s the perfect speech delivered by the perfect speaker. In this town, people would kill for flattery like that. But as I fit the final pieces in their respective places, there’s still one thing running through my brain. “Can I ask you a question?” I finally add.

  “I’d be surprised if you didn’t.”

  I look past the President and out the windows, where the morning sun lights the Rose Garden on fire. “Why’d you send me to stop Ezra?”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “When Ezra was first here…when he first snuck inside…you said Ezra made you an offer. He was all ready to kill Nico, which is great for you, since Nico’s the escaped sociopath who wants you dead. So if that’s the case, why not let Ezra do the job?”

  Wallace cocks his head, like I’m speaking Cantonese. “Because it’s wrong,” he insists.

  “I know it’s wrong, but—”

  “But what? You know what I did back in college, so you think I’m still that much of a monster?”

  Even I have to admit, it sounds silly as he says it.

  “None of us are who we are on our very worst days,” he adds. “I know you know that.”

  I think of my own dad. I know it all too well. Just like I know we’ll all have regrets we can never make up for.

  “Listen,” the President says, though for the first time, it doesn’t sound like a command, “a few months back, when Nico escaped St. Elizabeths, my daughter wouldn’t leave the third floor of the Residence for a week because she thought he was coming here to put bullets in us. On every single one of those days, I wanted Nico dead. The Knights would’ve made it even easier. But that’s not how we do things here. We don’t bury old military experiments from thirty years ago. And we don’t let citizens execute other citizens—regardless of how much they deserve it.”

  I stay still, eyeing the Rose Garden. He doesn’t move from his corner of the desk. But that doesn’t mean there’s no movement.

  “Beecher, when I was twenty years old, I did a horrible thing that I still regret every day of my life. I mean it: every day. But that doesn’t mean I’m the bogeyman you think I am. Tot, Marshall, even you…show me who’s perfect.”

  I replay Clementine screaming at us, sacrificing herself at the bottom of the hole.

  The President stands up and heads my way. “I was right about your defining characteristic: You always do what’s right, at least you try to. I want you and the Culper Ring to keep trying.”

  “So now we’re supposed to have a team-up?”

  “Despite what you think, I respect what the Ring stands for. I respect what George Washington designed. What you did with Ezra proves that. I’m just trying to make your life easier, Beecher. You know what my job is. Like Washington himself, when you need something, I can get things. And by things, I mean anything.”

  It’s a hell of an offer. With his help, the Ring can help people in a way I never thought possible.

  “We can do amazing things together,” he adds. “With you in charge, the Ring will—”

  “You’re about to give me an inspirational speech, aren’t you? I really don’t need one.”

  “Have you heard my inspirational speeches before? I’m really good at them. I mean, really good.”

  I laugh at that. A real laugh. “I think I’ll be okay.”

  “Then how about I just give you this?” From his pocket, he pulls out and offers…a handshake.

  “There’s no way you just made up that handshake thing right now,” I say.

  “It’s an old JFK trick. Helluva pickup line, though, huh?” the President of the United States asks with a warm smile. “Sometimes we don’t know that the most significant moments in our life are happening. It’s time to decide, Beecher. What’s your purpose in life: fighting me or helping others?”

  I stand from the sofa, still considering the offer. My whole life, I thought if I knew who my dad was, I’d know who I was. Now that I have the answer, all I know is this: We may have heaven and hell in us, but we choose who we are. And who we fight. “You can’t put us on assignments,” I warn him. “We decide which cases we take—the ones best served by the Ring—without interference.”

  “No interference. It’s your show,” he agrees. “When you need help, you�
�ll call. If not, I’ll be cheering from here. So what do you say, Beecher?”

  I don’t say anything. I stare down at his extended hand. And I shake it.

  100

  Waupun, Wisconsin

  Phone and keys go in the lockers. Wallet too,” the guard at the X-ray called out. “No money allowed inside.”

  “They told me I could bring a movie,” Marshall said, holding up a DVD case, then putting it on the conveyor belt.

  As Marshall and his DVD headed through the metal detector, he could feel them all looking at him: the X-ray guard, the guard at the main visitors desk, plus the sergeant who was stationed behind the bubble of bulletproof glass. For once, though, their stares weren’t about his face. Prison guards stare at everyone.

  “Wait there,” a voice squawked through an intercom. A metal door slammed behind him. In front of him, a sliding door was still shut, locking him in a narrow hallway. If there were any problems, here’s where—

  Kllk, the door announced, sliding open.

  “Welcome to Dodge Correctional Institution,” a female guard with a heart-shaped face announced. “You’re here for inmate 619216?” She shined a special flashlight on the back of Marshall’s hand to make sure he had the glow-in-the-dark check-in stamp from the front desk.

  Marshall nodded, knowing better than to give her any more information. Prison walls always have ears.

  “You been here before?” she asked, opening another door and leading him outside, through the frozen courtyard.

  “First time,” he said, eyeing the electrified gate and braids of barbed wire along the top. Even on a state budget, they could do better than that.

  At the large main building, the guard pulled out a ring full of keys for yet another metal door. Marshall noticed that on her left wrist was the faded green remnant of a laser-removed vine tattoo. If only all regrets went away as easily.

  “Just remember,” she said, tugging the door open as the stale smell of piss, rust, and body odor hit them in the face, “no talking to strangers.”

  Up the gray hallway, inmates in forest green scrubs checked Marshall out and headed to the left, following signs to rec and to the gym. “This way,” the guard said, leading him to the right, up a small ramp toward the only sign Marshall cared about: