The Escape Artist

by Brad Meltzer

  “He’s—” The chaplain pointed to the left. There.

  The President glanced down at the case.

  According to every news article about the plane crash, Nelson Rookstool wasn’t just a law school pal. When Wallace initially ran for governor, Rookstool held one of the first political fundraisers for him. Wallace eventually appointed him to lead the Library of Congress. But it wasn’t until this moment, as the President of the United States pressed his lips together and fought to stand perfectly still, that Zig actually believed these two men were friends. Zig didn’t know Wallace personally. But Zig knew grief.

  “My apologies, father,” the President said to the chaplain. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  The chaplain nodded. “Almighty God,” he began for the second time, “we thank you for the freedom we enjoy in our nation as we welcome our fallen home this morning…”

  Within seconds, the President straightened his shoulders, his barriers already back in place.

  “Amen,” Zig said in unison with the other voices as the carry team lined up, facing each other on opposite sides of the first flag-covered case, the one with a small bar code that read Lt. Anthony Trudeau, a twenty-five-year-old kid from Boone, Colorado, with a six-month-old daughter.

  “Ready…lift,” the team leader called out as everyone, including the President, again held their breath. In slow, perfect synchrony, each member bent down, his white gloves gripping a handle on Trudeau’s case.

  In addition to Librarian Rookstool, there were three Library of Congress staffers, an Army lieutenant, and an Air Force pilot who also went down with the plane. The woman identified as Nola had jumped out of the plane early, so her body got here yesterday. Everyone else had to be individually removed from the wreckage, so their bodies were just arriving now.

  “Ready…up,” the team leader said as they lifted the remains of Lieutenant Trudeau. With the body itself, plus the ice, each case weighed over four hundred pounds. Since Trudeau was Army, the oldest service, he came off the plane first.

  “Ready…face,” the leader added as the team turned sideways, facing the back ramp. Down on the runway were the open back doors of a white van, which looked more like an ice cream truck, that would transport the bodies to the mortuary for the medical examiners. After the autopsies, Zig and his crew would clean them up for official burial.

  As the carry team headed down the ramp, the photographers took a quick set of shots—click-click-click-click-click-click—and went silent.

  It was so unnaturally quiet that Zig could hear the popping of ice cubes inside the metal cases. He heard the President breathing through his nose. Then, as Lieutenant Trudeau finally left the plane, he heard a low heart-wrenching sob.

  Ahhhuhhh.

  Master Guns looked at Zig, who stood at perfect attention, staring straight ahead. They both knew where it was coming from. On their far right, under the opposite wing from the press, the families of the victims were roped off in a small area, getting their first good look at their children’s coffins.

  It wasn’t a loud outburst. Military families were too tough for that. But there was no hiding that sound—the sound that haunts every funeral—hollow, shaking gasps that reach down so deep, they come from the mourner’s soul.

  When you lose a parent, you’re an orphan. When you lose a husband, you’re a widow. But as Zig had learned fourteen years ago, when you lose a child, they don’t have a name for that.

  Uhhuhhuhh, a family member sobbed. Master Guns again glanced Zig’s way. Zig kept his stance, eyes facing front. It was freezing in the plane, but he felt a bead of sweat rolling down his armpit, toward his ribcage.

  “Present arms!” the leader called out from the runway. On cue, the carry team marched forward, and all the VIPs in line raised their hands in a salute. This was the moment when mothers and fathers saw it…and finally believed it.

  There was another high-pitched gasp in the distance. Zig could feel Master Guns staring at him, just like he could feel the bead of sweat. For the first few years after Zig’s daughter died, every ceremony at Dover brought a ferocious flood of his own worst memories: the sound of shoveled dirt as it landed on her casket…his own toes like rocks as he stood there in the grass…the endless round of back-pats from mourners who didn’t want to disturb him at the graveside. Back-pats!

  These days, those memories were buried, dulled by repetition. It was a good thing, Zig told himself, a benefit of being at Dover and attending over a thousand funerals. Replication brought acclimation; he’d been through this before.

  Zig stared straight ahead. The bead of sweat was gone. Now he could focus on Nola. Just Nola. Whatever it took, he would do right by her—not just for him, but for his daughter. He owed Nola—and Maggie—forever.

  Down on the runway, the carry team stopped, marched in place, and turned toward each other at the back of the white van.

  “Ready…step!” the leader announced as they all slid the flag-covered case into the van and onto the metal rollers that spun and clanked. A high-pitched whimper—a howl, really, that could only come from a mother deprived of her duties—echoed across the runway. Zig was so focused on the sound that he didn’t even realize how hard he was clenching his jaw. He never broke stance.

  One by one, the team repeated the process, transferring each flag-covered case from the plane into the van. Soon, there were only four cases left, the four civilians.

  Now it made sense. The President didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. Stepping toward the flag-covered case, he shot a look at one of the uniformed carry-team members, who was smart enough to get out of the way. Here’s why the President came. This had nothing to do with a photo op. Wallace wanted to be a pallbearer for his friend.

  “Ready…lift,” the team leader announced as the President—now part of the carry team—bent down, grabbing the metal carry-bar. “Ready…up.”

  The leader of the free world didn’t hold back, tugging hard on the back left corner of the case. He wasn’t wearing white gloves. From the weight, his knuckles went pale. Even if his hands were bleeding, he wasn’t letting go.

  “Ready…face.”

  The President turned and marched down the back of the plane, he and five soldiers carrying his dead friend.

  Click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click.

  Colonel Hsu stood straighter than ever. She knew this was the pic.

  Zig rolled his eyes, catching the attention of Master Guns, who motioned down at the President, or more specifically, at who the President himself was looking at. It happened in a split second, but Zig couldn’t miss it. As the carry team filed past the VIPs and toward the van, President Wallace shot a quick look to the head of the Secret Service, who shifted uncomfortably in mid-salute. Maybe it was nothing—there were a thousand reasons these two men would look at each other. But in the back of his head, Zig kept seeing the note—Keep running—which begged the question: Running from who?

  “Ready…step!” the leader barked as the President pushed his friend’s body onto the rollers and into the van.

  “Order…arms!” he added as they all lowered their salutes, slowly, over a long three seconds.

  Click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click.

  It was a moment made for the history books, or at least as clickbait for tomorrow’s websites. But what caught Zig’s eye was what else the President was glancing at. As the carry team finished their salutes, President Wallace turned away from the van, looking back at something below the wing of the plane. Or someone, Zig realized.

  Ziggy, don’t, Master Guns warned with a glare.

  Zig was already moving, sliding subtly to his right, toward the far side of the ramp, which gave him a perfect view of the spectators in the crowd.

  Diagonally down, sticking out from under the wing of the plane, was an area for
Dover employees. In front was his sixty-year-old, egg-shaped supervisor, Samuel Goodrich, as well as Lou, short for Louisa, the one female mortician, who had lost both parents when she was young and grew up playing Funeral with her Barbie dolls.

  Next to them, and held back by an actual velvet rope, were staffers from every Dover department: Accounting, the Chaplain’s Office, Behavioral Health Care, Legal, even Mrs. Howell from Veteran Affairs, all of them craning their necks to see the President.

  Mixed into the crowd, Zig even spotted Dr. Sinclair, the slender, meticulously dressed medical examiner who had done Nola’s autopsy last night—and had to sign off on those fake fingerprints.

  Was it really so terrible for the President to be looking into the crowd? Probably not. In fact, the more Zig considered it, it seemed almost absurd to think of the President of the United States as having some sort of personal hand in this. The Librarian of Congress was his friend. Why would Wallace be here, or link himself to this, if his whole goal was to do harm? Unless, of course, Zig had it wrong. Maybe instead of searching through the crowd, what if the President suddenly saw someone down there—someone he recognized—someone who shouldn’t be showing his or her face?

  From this height, Zig was three stories up, making it feel like he was watching an NFL game. It was hard to read expressions, but from this angle… Wallace wasn’t focused on Dover’s staff. He was eyeing a different group—the group that was even closer to him on the runway—in front of the staff, in front of the VIPs, in front of everyone. The families.

  Of course.

  He almost forgot. All the victims’ families were here, which meant…

  Zig turned back to Master Guns.

  Master Guns scowled at him: No.

  Zig nodded yes. He had an idea. A really bad idea.

  12

  Sorry, Mr. Zigarowski,” said the twentysomething private with short blond hair that was wispy, like a baby’s, “I don’t have anyone checked in for a Nola Brown.”

  The kid was telling the truth, or at least the truth that was currently on his computer screen. “What about tomorrow?” Zig asked, leaning with both palms on the welcome desk of what looked like a fancy bed-and-breakfast and smelled like one too. Fresh potpourri; leather reading chairs; logs burning in the fireplace. “Anyone checking in tomorrow?”

  “Not that I see,” Blond Hair answered, scanning the reservations for what was known as Fisher House, a plush and serene eight-thousand-square-foot “hotel” with nine beautifully decorated suites. Anywhere else, it’d be a perfect vacation spot—a sprawling one-story stone getaway complete with white columns out front—but every military family understands that Fisher House is the last place you want to be invited.

  Years ago, if a family member died and you came to Dover for the ceremony, you’d spend one of the worst nights of your life in a cheap motel. Until Fisher House opened. Billed as a “home away from home” and built on the base itself, Fisher House offered a free place to stay in a tasteful environment, staffed by grief counselors, supervised by a full-time chaplain, and stocked with toys for little kids whose twenty-three-year-old fathers were never coming home again.

  “You sure her family was checking in?” the private asked again, using that soft, hushed voice that people reserve for hotels and funerals. Here, they specialized in both.

  “Maybe they canceled? Can you see cancellations?” Zig asked, slowing his own voice down and turning on the charm. Yesterday, the body identified as Nola had arrived at Dover. If Zig wanted to know more about her, his best bet was tracking down whichever family members cared enough to make the trip.

  “Sorry, sir,” Blond Hair replied. “I don’t have any visitors for her. Or cancellations.”

  “What about her PADD?” Zig asked.

  The private looked up from his computer screen, forcing a nervous grin. “Sir, you know I don’t have access to that.”

  Now Zig was the one forcing a grin. This was what he was really after. When you enlist in the military, one of the first things the government makes you do is pick out a PADD—a Person Authorized to Direct Disposition—a loved one who’ll decide whether you’re buried in your uniform or civilian clothes, or if you want a metal casket or a wooden one. Most people designate a parent or a spouse. Special Ops folks tend to pick a close friend. Nola was still alive and out there. Whoever she picked, it’s someone she’s close to, someone she might even be reaching out to right now.

  “Son, how long you been with us here?” Zig asked.

  “Since the summer.”

  That sounded right. Every few months, new recruits rotated through Dover. Most kids couldn’t handle being around bodies for longer than that.

  “On the night of my fortieth birthday, I celebrated here on base,” Zig said. “Same with my fiftieth. So Private Grunbeck,” he added, reading Grunbeck’s name tag, “I know you’ve got Nola’s PADD.”

  “That doesn’t mean you get to change the rules. Sir.”

  Zig was reminded why the dead were so often better company than the living: They don’t lie, they don’t complain, and they don’t talk back.

  “I appreciate the help,” Zig said, thinking he could still get what he needed from Grunbeck’s supervisor.

  “And if you’re looking for Captain Harmon, he’s in a private ceremony with all the visiting families. He can’t be disturbed,” Grunbeck said.

  Zig scratched at the scar on his chin, remembering the bar in Pennsylvania where he got it. He was nineteen then, fighting to impress a girl. Now he was older, and fighting for something far more important. Grin firmly in place, Zig leaned forward, palms down on the kid’s desk. “Son, I believe it’s time you learned some lessons in—”

  “—JUST WANT TO SEE HIS BODY!” a female voice sobbed as the automatic doors to Fisher House slid open. Behind Zig, a woman in her late forties, with graying black hair, dressed in an old, deflated, black winter coat, stumbled in. Zig recognized her from the presidential ceremony, the family right in front. Her son was the first body off the plane. Now she was shouting at the sky, like she was yelling at God Himself. “WHY WOULD THEY—!? HE’S MY ONLY—! WHY CAN’T I SEE HIS BODY!?”

  Every staffer in Fisher House trains for this moment. Grunbeck had trained for it too. But the private just stood there, frozen, behind the welcome desk. Indeed, the only one moving was—

  “Ma’am, let me help you,” Zig said, striding toward her. “I can help you.”

  “YOU CAN’T!” she screamed, shoving Zig back. “YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTH—!”

  “I know your son is named Anthony. Can you tell me about Anthony?”

  The woman stopped at her son’s name. Her eyes flicked back and forth, hollowed and dead. The Dover look, they called it.

  “Julie, what in the holy hell you doin’?” a big man with a square face and a camouflage US Army baseball cap called out. He turned to Zig. “Get away from my wife!” He was tall—at least six foot three—but the way he was hunched…and slurring his words… he nearly crashed into one of the oversized leather chairs in the lobby. Drunk, though Zig couldn’t blame him for that.

  “Sir, I was just talking about your son, Anth—”

  “Don’t you say his name! You got no right!”

  “Sir, if you just slow down, we can help you.”

  “By what? By giving me more of these?” the man shouted, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a fistful of crumpled pamphlets with titles like The Weight of Grief and Tragedy Assistance. “This is paper! It makes nothing better!” he screamed, tossing the pamphlets in Zig’s face.

  Zig kept silent. Morticians may ease some pain, but they don’t make anyone happy. Finally, he said, “Tell me about Anthony.”

  “Don’t you—! I want to see my son! Why can’t we see him!? It’s like they’re hiding something! We didn’t even know he was in Alaska—and now they want an autopsy!?” the father blurted, swaying in place, his eyes glazed.

  “I promise, you will get to see him. When the autopsy’s done, we
’ll clean him up and—”

  “NOW! I want to see him now!” the man exploded through tears of rage.

  His wife was crying now too, sobbing as she took a seat on a nearby glass coffee table. “T-Today…it’s our anniversary. Anthony was flying home to celebrate,” she whispered, her voice so soft it was drowned out by a pop and crackle from the fireplace.

  “You take us to see our son!” the dad added, reaching into his other pocket and pulling out a…

  “Gun!” Grunbeck shouted.

  “Stuart…no!” the woman yelled. “Don’t…!”

  Too late. Stuart pointed the barrel of the .38 straight at Zig’s face. “You take me to see my son! Now!”

  Zig didn’t move, didn’t even raise his hands. Instead, he stayed locked on Stuart’s eyes, which were different than his wife’s. Not just lost. Desperate.

  “Sir, I promise you one thing. That won’t get you what you want. This is a military installation. People who pull guns here get shot. Now if you could please put the gun down—”

  “DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!”

  Behind the welcome desk, the panicked young private started to run. Stuart followed him with his gun, tracking Grunbeck across the lobby.

  Grunbeck froze mid-step, hands in the air.

  The man kept his gun on Grunbeck, his finger now gripping the trigger.

  “Listen to me,” Zig said. “That boy you’re aiming at…he’s twenty-five years old. That’s the same age as your son, isn’t it? Twenty-five?” The man didn’t reply. “Sir, I know you’re in pain—”

  “You know nothing about my pain!”

  “You’re wrong. I know all too well how—” Zig heard his own words, wondering where they were coming from. He had a rule: He didn’t talk about her at work. But here he was… “I lost my daughter too.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Fourteen years ago. Five thousand two hundred twenty-seven days.”

  For a moment, the drunk man stood there. His body, his arm, the gun in his hand all started to shake. Zig knew that look too. No one loved God and hated God as much as a mourner.