The Book of Lies

by Brad Meltzer

  It’d been nearly four months since he left his hometown in Lithuania. Four months without his wife. His parents. His children—two daughters. He knew bad times were ahead when he was drafted into the Russian army. It was always bad for Jews in the army, which was why so many tried to bribe their way out. Mikhel’s father had tried the same—selling his gold, his wife’s rings, even the family Bible. For all Lithuanians, there was mandatory army service for at least five years. But the Jews were taken for ten, twenty, sometimes as long as twenty-five years. Mikhel’s father begged and pleaded to keep his boy safe. But the Segalovichs were poor. And the poor went into the army.

  In the beginning, Mikhel committed himself to hard work. Maybe he’d make cavalry or even sergeant. But he learned quickly. A Jewish sergeant giving orders to Russians? Never. Even in the cavalry—they weren’t giving sabers and pistols to a poor uneducated Jew. No, the Jews were beaten and practiced on. Low infantrymen to sweep stables and live in feces. That’s all Mikhel would ever be.

  Until Sweden.

  Back then, they called the trips scientific expeditions. It was how the Russians discovered the Bering Strait, as well as the mammoth fossils in Siberia. Mikhel heard the rumors . . . the search for an imperial treasure . . . the ancient carving known as the Book of God. But when Mikhel heard that he was chosen, that he and a dozen other Jews from different units were being allowed to leave the Russian Empire for this expedition, he knew what his group really was. A suicide squad.

  They didn’t expect the group to survive. Didn’t expect them, in that winter, to even make it to Sweden. Most of them didn’t. But the youngest, Mikhel, did.

  He wasn’t a hero. Indeed, he was simply the kid in charge of the horses and dogs. So when they finally found the cave—the makeshift tomb left behind by the monks—Mikhel was told to keep watch outside.

  He did his job. He stood, in his unlined Russian riding boots, knee-deep in the snow. He waited in the icy silence, wondering what was happening inside. And then Mikhel heard the screams.

  “Hopen problemen, eh?” a Belgian teenager teased, laughing as he ran past Mikhel vomiting in the alleyway. “Heaps of problems, eh?”

  Ignoring the child, Mikhel spat violently at the ground, clearing the last bits of vomit from his lips. Tucked between two modern houses, he knew this wasn’t a perfect hiding spot, but it was the one with the best view of Avenue Louise.

  Still clutching the handle of his leather hold-all, Mikhel studied each and every lime and sycamore tree that lined the main avenue. He eyed the two motorcars rumbling through the square. He even checked the windows of the blue-grained stone house across the street. He knew he had been followed. They had to be close. So from here on in, for Mikhel, it was simply a question of timing.

  According to the pocketwatch they gave him, it was exactly half-past ten in the morning. He didn’t hear the warning sounds, but if he wanted to pull this off . . . no question, he had to have some faith.

  Bursting from the alleyway, he darted straight toward the pushcarts and milk wagons that filled the square. Sure enough, the kling-ting of the electric tram tickled the air. On his right, the tram’s bright red carriage hummed and stuttered along the tracks that ran up Avenue Louise. Just as they had promised.

  At this hour, the passengers were few. The suspicious would have no place to hide. Cutting behind a fruit wagon with a large striped umbrella, Mikhel, for the fourth time, checked over his shoulder. All clear.

  “Huelp nodij met uw kossers?” a porter in a crisp linen smock asked as the tram pulled up to the platform. “Help with your luggage?”

  Mikhel shook his head, refusing eye contact. No. He hadn’t brought it this far to let the hold-all out of sight.

  He took a final scan of the platform. Except for the porter, he was the only one there. He still waited until the last minute to hop aboard.

  “Welkom, meneer. Eerste of tweede klas?” asked a ticket collector with a thick mustache.

  Mikhel didn’t understand.

  “Eerste of tweede klas?” the collector repeated again, this time motioning to the back of the tram, which was divided into two sections. One with cushions. One without. “First or second class?”

  Mikhel had spent his whole life knowing the answer to that one. “Second class,” he whispered, handing over threepence.

  The change was a halfpenny, and the collector paused a moment, hoping that Mikhel would let him keep it.

  Mikhel opened his palm. The collector shot him a look. Mikhel didn’t care. To get from Sweden to here . . . He had nothing left. Nothing but the items in the hold-all.

  Walking to the back of the mostly empty tram, Mikhel followed the directions they’d sent along with the pocketwatch. He took a seat in the second to last row and held tight to the leather case in his lap.

  At the next stop, he waited for them to appear. An old woman with a silk shawl boarded. She sat up front.

  For nearly an hour, it stayed the same. Local Belgians coming on, getting off, as the tram grumbled past groves of chestnut trees and into the suburban countryside.

  At their next stop—nearly at Waterloo—the old woman with the shawl got up and left the tram. As they started moving again, Mikhel looked around. He was the only passenger left.

  “Kak dela?” a voice asked behind him in perfect Russian. “How are you?”

  Mikhel jumped, nearly dropping the hold-all. Sitting behind him—how the hell’d they get behind him?—were two men in gray and black wool coats and matching dark hats.

  “Vy gavareeteh pa anglisky?” Mikhel asked as he turned anxiously in his seat. “Do you speak English?”

  “Odin jazyk nedostato˘cno,” replied the one with the thick glasses. “One language is never enough.”

  Mikhel nodded. Their Russian was flawless. The Americans were not as uneducated as the empire always said.

  Looking toward the front of the tram, Mikhel saw that the collector was now seated and facing front. Neither he nor the tram driver bothered looking back.

  “They’re with you, too, aren’t they?” Mikhel asked in Russian.

  Thick Glasses stayed silent.

  Mikhel shifted in his seat. Not uneducated at all.

  “Sounds like you had quite an adventure,” Thick Glasses began. “And to be the only one to walk away from it—you must be quite an expert fighter, huh?”

  Staring out at the blur of sycamore trees, Mikhel could still feel the burn of Swedish snow in his boots. The dogs had reacted first, barking and pressing against their restraints. Outside the cave, Mikhel didn’t move. He panicked, just standing there, frozen as the snow, as the fighting began.

  At first the screaming was all in Russian. But there was French . . . German, too. And then, above all else, a foreign tongue—one he still didn’t recognize.

  Mikhel wanted to help. He wanted to rush in the cave and save them. But when the gunshots started . . . The snow was so cold in his boots. All he had to do was move. But all he did was stand there. Stand there until the screaming stopped.

  “I got lucky,” he whispered to Thick Glasses.

  “I didn’t think you Jews believed in luck,” the man in the gray coat shot back with an extra dollop of sarcasm.

  Mikhel’s eyes narrowed at the man’s small nose and burning blue eyes. Clearly, they had anti-Semites in America, too.

  “I still don’t know who they were,” Mikhel said. “The ones who killed my unit.”

  The two men in hats exchanged a glance. The one with the small nose shook his head. But Thick Glasses ignored him.

  “They’re known as the Thule Society,” he began. “The group you encountered was what’s known as Thule Leadership. That’s their symbol,” he added, pointing to the small brand—the knife and the quarter-moon—burnt into the front flap of the leather hold-all.

  “And that language they were speaking . . . What was it?” Mikhel asked.

  Again, there was a pause. “It’s an incantation.”

  “Y’mean like religion?�
�

  “No, Mikhel. Like magic.”

  Mikhel sat with this a moment. Back in Sweden, when the shooting and the screaming and the fighting had stopped, Mikhel had released one of the dogs, which sprinted straight for the mouth of the cave. But Mikhel didn’t go in himself until the dog returned safely.

  It was then, slowly, that he finally made his way inside. He saw the carvings along the cave walls . . . the odd symbols and stick figures. The deeper he went, the more bodies he found. Not everyone was dead. At least three or four were still breathing, still crawling to get out. But all the blood . . . from the fight . . . There was so much shooting. They weren’t breathing for long.

  For the second time at the cave, Mikhel wanted to run. He tried to run and leave. But again, he couldn’t. Instead, he stood there, seized by the carnage as he re-created the scene inside. It was there—at the far end of the cave, where Abram and Mendel lay facedown—where the ambush happened. Where his friends fought back. And where he spotted, way in the back, the small flickers of flame from a knocked-over torch.

  As the cave’s only light source, it was impossible to miss. But as he got closer . . . the smell . . . It wasn’t wood that was burning. No, it was like burnt tires, but sweeter. Like leather.

  Like a tanned leather hold-all being licked by flames.

  Mikhel still didn’t know what possessed him to pull it out.

  “But you brought the totems?” Thick Glasses asked.

  “Only if you brought my paperwork,” Mikhel replied, still clutching the hold-all as he pretended to stare out at the sycamore trees.

  It was cold outside. But not as cold as Sweden.

  From the inside pocket of his coat, Thick Glasses handed over a folded pale envelope that was closed with a string tie. Mikhel opened it and examined the contents. The Secret Service were men of their word.

  “The ship is called the Statendam. It leaves from Rotterdam,” Thick Glasses explained.

  “Where?”

  “In the Netherlands. Don’t fret—we’ll have a broad carriage take you. The ship will get you to New York. From there, we’ve selected a place called Cleveland, Ohio.”

  “You’ll like it,” the other man said with a grin. “Best Jewish city in America.”

  “What about my family?”

  “All the paperwork is inside. Your wife, daughters . . . They’ll join you soon. New lives for all,” Thick Glasses promised.

  “And in return?” Mikhel asked.

  “If we need you, we know you’re there,” Thick Glasses said. “In today’s world, we need a few Russians we can count on.” Once again staring at the leather hold-all, he added, “Now about the totems . . .”

  No question, the Americans were smart. Mikhel put the case on the floor and slid it backward under the seat.

  The tram began to slow down as it pulled into the next station.

  “Agent Westman, this is your stop,” the tram driver called from the front.

  But neither agent moved, both still rummaging through the items in the hold-all.

  “Mikhel, I see four items here,” Thick Glasses said, looking up.

  “That’s correct,” Mikhel replied.

  “Your message said there were five,” the other man insisted. “Five totems.”

  Mikhel stared at him calmly, taking in the man’s burning blue eyes. The tram bucked to a stop. “No,” he said. “There were only four.”

  No question, the Americans were smart. But that didn’t mean Mikhel Segalovich was stupid.

  “Sirs, you need to leave,” the tram driver insisted. “Your transport is waiting.”

  The two men stood from their seats and headed for the front.

  “Have a good life, Mitchell,” Thick Glasses called out as he carried the hold-all. Reading the confusion on Mikhel’s face, he added, “Only way to start a new life is with a new name. An American name. Mitchell Siegel.”

  “Mitchell Siegel,” Mikhel repeated, saying it aloud. “It sounds . . . silly.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Thick Glasses replied in English as he stepped off the tram. “Good-bye, Mitchell. See you in the land of opportunity.”

  Today

  Miami, Florida

  “I don’t get it,” Scotty said, looking up at the two agents. “Mitchell . . . Mikhel . . . whatever his name was—he kept one of these . . .”

  “Totems. A sacred family object.”

  “. . . he kept one of the totems for himself?”

  “It took years for the Thules to figure it out—especially with the second name change at Ellis Island,” the FBI agent named Aldridge explained. “Their Leadership is patient, though. In their eyes, they’d already waited centuries, so what was a few more decades? And once they realized Mitchell was alive—and that we were hiding him—according to the files, we lost a half dozen agents as they tightened their noose.”

  “You seem pretty interested in all this for just an assistant, though,” the other agent added. “I’m surprised Agent Molina had you making these calls instead of calling herself.”

  “It’s been a crazy day,” Scotty replied as his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He knew it was Naomi. But he wasn’t picking up just yet. “Who were these Thule guys, anyway?” he asked the agents.

  Agent Aldridge shook his head. “It’s not the who they were that you have to worry about. It’s who the Thules became.”

  58

  Try it now.”

  “I thought it needed to soak,” I tell my dad.

  “Try it now,” he repeats as all three of us hunch like Macbeth’s witches, our foreheads almost touching, over the plastic motel ice bucket that sits on the round Formica table. Inside the bucket, a single comic book panel stares back at us, floating for nearly forty minutes in the soapy, pungent mixture of warm water, vinegar, and fabric softener. The panel is an unpublished work by the creators of Superman, which makes it irreplaceable. But if Ellis is right, it’s what’s glued behind it that makes it priceless.

  “Any luck?” my father asks as I dip both hands into the bucket and try to peel away the layers of wallpaper. It’s like trying to unpeel two stuck stamps. The liquid makes it slippery—it gives just slightly—but it’s not there yet.

  “Don’t rip it,” my father warns.

  “I’m not. I was—” I shoot him a look. “You’re the one who said, Try it now.”

  “Let’s all just find a moment,” Serena pleads, doing her usual push for quiet and calm. “If Jerry Siegel really had Cain’s book—this Book of Lies—let’s just worry about finding it, yes?”

  She points her nose at the ice bucket, where I stare down at the submerged panel.

  No question, that’s what the newspaper boy’s arm is covering. The Book of Lies. But I’m not believing anything until I’ve seen the rest of the panels.

  “Try it now,” my father says for the third time.

  With my hand in the bucket, I rub the corner of the wallpaper between my thumb and pointer finger. It’s mushy now, sliding away from the panel underneath. With a pinch, I peel back the top layer slowly, like a stubborn Band-Aid.

  The wallpaper tears slightly, but not much. I pinch the opposite corner and start peeling the other way. The longer the wallpaper sits in the water, the more the glue dissolves and the easier it becomes.

  “Can you see anything?” my father asks, almost butting foreheads with me.

  Actually, I can.

  And just like that—with a final tug of the Band-Aid—it’s done.

  The top panel—with the newspaper boy running from the bullets—is completely free, revealing a second panel underneath.

  A gunshot.

  “It’s just like the curator said,” my father points out as we all stare into the ice bucket. “In this first Superman story—Jerry Siegel put his dad’s real killer in it.”

  “Can you feel how many more panels there are?” Serena asks.

  I’m already peeling away the next layer, which shows the newspaper boy running toward a building. I
have to squint to read it, but— “There’s an address. . . .”

  “184 King Street. Is that where Mitchell Siegel was shot?” my father asks. “We need a map.”

  “I can try on my phone,” Serena offers.

  “I threw your phone away,” my dad says.

  “What?”

  “In the house—when you hit Naomi—Cal screamed your name,” my dad explains. “The moment Naomi wakes up, she’ll be looking for you. I tossed it on the way over here. Sorry—we’ll buy you a new one when all this is done.”

  I nod in agreement. For once, he’s got it right.

  Turning back to the panels, I peel the final one away. If we’re lucky, we’ll get a face or a name. If Jerry really did put his father’s killer in here, we need to know who we’re up against—and how they got this Book of Lies.

  But as the final panel of wallpaper gives way, all we’re left with is . . .

  “That’s it? A man in some cave?” my dad asks as I slap the final piece of wet wallpaper against the table. “That’s no murderer.”

  “Maybe that’s a clue,” I point out.

  “It’s not the newspaper boy anymore. This guy’s older. Could that be part of it?” Serena asks.

  “Maybe that’s where it started,” I add, already rearranging the panels. “The Cain book is supposedly ancient, right? Maybe they found it in a cave or something. Maybe that 184 King Street building is where the killer tried to hide. Something like— Something like this.”

  “How does that make sense?” Serena asks. “It doesn’t even read right.”

  “It’s not right,” my dad insists. “If all we’re supposed to get is the address and some random cave, then why include the close-up of the gun and the dodging bullet panels? What’d the curator say? When this story got rejected, Siegel or Shuster supposedly tore the whole thing to shreds. But of those shreds, these four panels, for some reason, got saved. That isn’t happening without a good reason.”

  “Maybe it’s like the KKK thing,” Serena suggests. Reading our confusion, she reaches for a pamphlet on Superman history that she pulled from the museum gift shop. “In here. It’s . . . here,” she says, flipping to the page. “In the late 1940s, as a way to destabilize the Ku Klux Klan and make them think they were being infiltrated, the Superman radio show was covertly given the secret passwords that the Klan used to call and organize meetings. They were aired as part of the broadcast. Regular listeners had no idea. But the Klan knew. From there, they started infighting, looking for the snitch. The show hid it right in front of everyone.”