by Brad Meltzer
“It’s because,” Jack told her, “he actually believes.”
But how’d Jack get here—today—with his son, in the palace of a dictator in Libya?
Jack blamed Egypt, which is where he and Skip were filming an episode, a real episode, about the riddle of the Sphinx, or the labyrinths of the pyramids, or whatever else they could get B-roll for. They’d use it in half a dozen episodes over the next year. He took Skip as a treat—his first trip abroad—a reward for his recent hard work.
But then Jack got the call from Moten last night in Cairo saying they needed to make a stop in a city called Sirte, on the coast of Libya. Libya, of all places! Of course, Jack said no. Not with Skip there. No way.
Moten wouldn’t hear it. This was bigger than Skip, bigger than Jack, bigger than anything they’d tried before. They’d been contacted by the brother-in-law of Muammar al-Gaddafi, who had something to offer, something that would keep millions of people safe.
“Another page of Benedict Arnold’s bible?” Jack had asked.
“Not just any page. The page. The big one—the one we’ve been searching for, Jack. This could help us win a war,” Moten had said, which was exactly what the officers had said two centuries ago, when George Washington made his trade and sent back the so-called “belongings” of Benedict Arnold.
“I won’t do anything that puts Skip in jeopardy,” Jack told Moten.
“You think anyone wants Skip getting hurt?” Moten said. “I wouldn’t ask if lives didn’t depend on it. This is how you’ll change the world, Jack.”
So here they were, in Libya, pretending to film a show about dragons and preparing to trade for the most valuable page of the bible. It was the opportunity of a lifetime.
“I’m bored,” Skip says.
“Settle down,” Jack tells him. His son is fidgeting between Jack and Ingrid at an absurdly long black table inside an ornate dining hall. Ingrid had told Jack to leave Skip at the hotel. Jack trusted the hotel even less. At least here he could keep an eye on Skip himself.
“How much longer? I’m bored,” Skip said.
He was only seven years old. He should be starting second grade this week. Instead, he was waiting on a meet and greet with the brother-in-law of a known killer.
“Maybe we can get some juice for the boy,” Ingrid says, pleasantly, to their hosts, though Jack thinks the sum total of her patience is nearing zero.
“See this table?” the Libyan official asks. Except she’s not Libyan. She’s a six-foot Ukrainian woman named Yusra. Jack had thought it was just some insane rumor that the dictator of Libya surrounded himself with lethal Eastern European women, like some bad Bond villain, but no, in fact, it was true. “You might be interested to know it is the largest table in all of Africa. It was handcrafted using Brazilian rosewood, which is exceptionally rare. It has been stained by using actual ox blood.”
“In real life?” Skip says.
“Yes, absolutely,” Yusra tells him.
“Do you know how much longer?” Jack asks.
“Ten minutes,” Yusra says, which is what she’s been saying for an hour and a half.
“Then you should bring him some juice,” Ingrid says.
“In ten minutes, if His Eminence is not yet arrived, we will certainly have some juice, yes.”
“Let’s do three minutes,” Ingrid says.
“It is not a negotiation, Ms. Ludlow,” Yusra says.
But Jack knows: Everything is a negotiation, everything has a rub, especially here.
Last night, Jack reassured his wife, “Claire, he’ll be fine.” Jack’s hoping he’s right.
Even now, Jack thinks, Skip seems happier out here in the wilds than he ever does at home. Calmer. Centered. More like a normal kid. His fidgeting now feels like a welcome change from his worry and anxiety about the world. Boredom, Jack can handle. Existential pain? He’s not so great with that.
Besides, Skip is about to have a story he’ll be able to tell for the rest of his life.
70
National Archives
Washington, DC
Today
I don’t understand what this is,” Rabbit said.
“You see the signature, yes?” Beecher the archivist asked.
Of course. Right at the top, handwritten. I Benedict Arnold Major General do acknowledge…
“It’s not his will, is it?”
“It’s called an Oath of Allegiance,” the archivist explained, his white-gloved hand touching the corner of the mottled parchment, which was the size of an envelope. “When the war began, George Washington had all the officers of his army swear that they’d be loyal to the cause. He needed their promise. In fact, we still use these oaths in our modern army, when our officers have to swear they’ll defend the Constitution. But back then, at Valley Forge, all the officers lined up and signed on the dotted line.
“See this number here,” he added, pointing to the handwritten “5” in the top right-hand corner. “That was the order they signed the oaths. The first person to sign was…”
“George Washington,” Rabbit said.
“Exactly. We have his here too. It’s labeled with a number 1 in the corner. But think of that moment. These men lined up, all of them ready to swear their allegiance to our new country. Washington is first. Then comes two, three, and four. And then fifth in line is this man, who takes his pen and writes his name—Benedict Arnold—on this very sheet of parchment.”
Rabbit leaned toward the document, which indeed said that Benedict Arnold would defend the United States against King George, the British, and all their heirs.
“We usually only take this out when a bigwig comes. Y’know, like the President…or my college roommate’s kids.”
“It’s definitely interesting,” Rabbit said. “But I’m also wondering, your catalogue downstairs said you have some of the letters that Benedict Arnold wrote directly to George Washington.”
“We have over sixty of them, some digitized, some originals.”
“Do you have the one where he asks George Washington to return his belongings to him?”
“Excuse me?”
If Rabbit wanted to know what Jack Nash was chasing, he needed to know more about this bible and what was really sent. “After Arnold went on the run, he wrote a letter to George Washington asking for his books and supplies. Do you have that letter?”
“I know that particular letter, but it’s at the Library of Congress. Here at the Archives we have a digitized copy.” Beecher was annoyed now—he’d gone out of his way to pull this document. He looked at his watch. It was an old Hamilton watch with a JFK half-dollar as the face of it. “All of the Founders’ letters are accessible online,” Beecher said, pointing to a nearby computer terminal.
“Listen, I’m not trying to waste your time. I’m just wondering…It’s for a case we’re working on…Is there any sort of document that might show exactly what Washington sent to him?”
“I know Arnold was hiding on a ship called the Vulture. There should have been a shipping manifest at the time.”
“Yes, yes. Something like that.”
“If it even exists, I bet it’s more likely in England. I could see about getting a scan, though. Is there something specific you’re wondering about?”
“To be honest,” Rabbit said, “I’m most interested in Benedict Arnold’s bible. Do you know anything about that?”
“No. I’ve never even contemplated it. Is that an actual thing?”
“It is. To some people.”
It was the simple question that kept circling around Rabbit’s mind. If Hazel’s father had spent his life looking for Benedict Arnold’s bible, if Darren Nixon was poisoned because he had some theory about it, if Arthur Kennedy had died for it too…why did no one else seem to care about it?
In Dubai, Skip was about to announce to the world that he was going to go in search of the bible, and Rabbit imagined that the news would be met with…silence. Who cared enough to look for the book if it didn’
t even make it into one of Jack Nash’s House of Secrets episodes? He knew the legend Moten had told him, if a footnote in history could be called a legend at all, that when Benedict Arnold asked for his belongings, what he was really after was his bible—and what was written in it. But what Rabbit didn’t know was how Washington responded to Arnold’s request. What had Washington sent back?
“Hmm,” Beecher said, standing there for a moment. Then he looked up, twinkle in his eye. “Be right back. I’ve got an idea.”
71
Twenty minutes later, Rabbit was still waiting, eyeing the double doors at the far end of the reading room that were marked Staff Only, thinking how odd it was that words on a door stopped people from so much.
“Sorry it took me so long,” Beecher the archivist announced, coming out through the doors. “Good news is, I think I found something.”
Rabbit expected another archival box, but the only thing in Beecher’s hand was a yellow Post-it.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“A phone number. For the head of special collections for Sterling Library at Yale.”
“Yale?”
“So odd, right? One of the most revered colleges in America, and it’s an architectural ode to a country—England—that used to be our mortal enemy. In two hundred years, will there be new American universities built to resemble the crumbling streets of Kabul?”
Rabbit was lost. “I’m not sure I—?”
“Benedict Arnold was from Connecticut. They’ve got one of the best Arnold collections in the world. If you hurry, you can catch her. She’ll be happy to talk. They don’t get many calls up there.”
* * *
“I appreciate your patience,” the librarian known as Carrie said through videoconference.
Rabbit watched her onscreen as she set a file down on the table. Carrie was in her mid-fifties and looked like she’d robbed a Casual Corner in 1979.
Rabbit didn’t like teleconferences, but as Beecher explained when he brought Rabbit into this conference room on the fourth floor of the Archives, this was the best—and fastest—way to see the Yale collection up close.
“So this is what we have regarding his belongings.” Carrie pointed at one of three stacks of paper. “You have the contents of the home he shared with his wife Peggy Shippen and their son Edward near West Point. Most of which was eventually burned, as you might imagine.”
Carrie pointed at the second stack, another catalogued list of items, like a giant ancient grocery list. “Then you have the contents of his office at West Point, all of which were retained and pored over, looking for evidence. But as you’ll see, what they found there was primarily books, documents, and, funny enough, a pair of slippers.”
And then the third stack. “Those were the items his wife and son took with them when they were banished from the Colonies, which is mostly the clothes on their back.”
Rabbit sat there, reading through the document list that she’d emailed.
“Where did you find this information?”
“I believe these items are actually there at the Archives, though they just have so much stuff there, it’s easy to get drowned,” Carrie said, flashing a small smile and a bit of librarian pride. “They’re part of his trial documents. We have a copy here as well.”
“Is there a list of what Washington sent to Arnold?”
“No,” Carrie said, “but from the remaining household items, it doesn’t seem to be a significant number of things. President Washington was a gentleman, though. Can you imagine? Sending your greatest enemy his belongings?”
“A different time,” Rabbit said, still reading the list. Here were the minutiae of an eighteenth-century life, Benedict Arnold’s as boring as anyone’s: Clothes. Pots. Pans. Furniture. Rugs. Two hundred and thirteen books, though none listed by title. Candles. Salted meat. Pounds of sugar. Bottles of Madeira.
“Any mention of a bible?”
“A few,” Carrie said. “He had four bibles in his office at West Point, which is not unusual for the time. His wife and son had a bible with them when they departed for the Vulture.” She pulled out an old newspaper clipping from a clear protective sleeve. “I found this in a search, a witness narrative that appeared in a paper in New York, saying that Peggy clutched a bible to her chest as she got on the boat to depart. Of course, we can’t verify the authenticity, but what a vision. I suspect he would have had several more bibles in his home. The ones that weren’t burned were probably stored somewhere or given away. So he might have had, gosh, ten bibles. That wouldn’t be odd.”
“Ten?”
“Maybe more,” Carrie said. “Don’t forget, he got his start as a bookseller and even owned a bookshop at one point. He could very well have had twenty, for all we know.”
“So, there’s no record of a bible with Arnold’s handwriting, or a family tree in it? Nothing like that?”
“Oh, there’re probably several,” she said. “What we have access to here, it’s just a small percentage. The Arnold family tree is a long one, so many of his personal items have been kept and passed down over the years.”
“You have that collection there?”
“Yes, both his family and strangers have donated things over decades. Clothing, personal papers, even a plate or two. People are always interested in touching something real, so we’ve been actively acquiring. Indeed, that’s the benefit of being in New Haven. People turn things up in the walls or attics of their house all the time. You’d be surprised. We have many local benefactors.”
A thought occurred to Rabbit. “Do you happen to know my friend Arthur Kennedy?”
Onscreen, Carrie brightened. “We love Arthur! How do you know him?”
“He’s a dear old friend,” Rabbit said.
“Oh, then you’ll love this…”
72
Hartford, Connecticut
The last time Hazel Nash saw Ingrid Ludlow was last night, in a YouTube clip. Ingrid chain-smoking in a darkened library while Jack examined documents using a magnifying glass, like he was Sherlock Holmes. The two of them were in a castle in Transylvania, searching for actual vampires.
The clip was from 1986, Ingrid looking like she’d escaped an episode of Dynasty, her hair an ode to Linda Evans or to cubist art. She was wearing a silver overcoat; Jack was in a sweater with too many colors, a black trench coat with the collar up, as if maybe that would stop any bloodsucking fiend from getting to him.
Now standing in the lobby of a psychiatric hospital, watching Ingrid being led down the hall by an orderly, his tattooed arm looped through hers, Hazel wished for a moment that vampires were real and could maybe give Ingrid back her youth and beauty.
Ingrid limped on her right leg, and her left leg dragged half an inch behind, like maybe she’d had a hip replacement that didn’t quite take, and though Ingrid had glasses on, Hazel could see her eyes darting about.
“You’re coming back?” the orderly asked Ingrid.
“A few days,” Ingrid said.
“I look forward to it.” He handed Hazel a set of car keys. “She still has her license, but me personally? I wouldn’t let her drive.”
When the orderly was gone, Hazel said, “Wait. They let you just walk out of here?”
“Sweetheart,” Ingrid said, and she straightened herself up a bit, eyeing the keys in Hazel’s hand, “this was a tune-up—from when I heard your dad died. I checked myself in, I can check myself out. Now, you comin’ or not?”
73
The Bear is three cars ahead of Hazel as she pulls onto the interstate, headed toward New Haven.
Now The Bear knows for sure.
He knew Hazel would come here.
Now he knows where she and Ingrid are going.
He’s close to them now. Closer than he’s been in some time.
The Bear doesn’t like surprises, then thinks, Does anyone?
Certainly not a surprise like the brutal one that’s coming.
74
National Archives
/>
Washington, DC
You know how Arthur is,” Carrie the librarian said about Kennedy. “He never wants credit for anything.” She looked around the room, pointed to the wall. “He donated that.” She turned the teleconference camera, aimed it at a framed document. “It’s a bill of sale, signed by Benedict Arnold, for a brigantine.”
Rabbit leaned in, squinting at the screen. It was almost impossible to read the document until Carrie readjusted the camera and pulled in. There at the bottom was Arnold’s distinctive signature: a wide loop through the arm of the B, a period, and then his last name in precise script, every letter perfectly readable. “When is this from?” Rabbit asked.
“Before the war. Which makes it less interesting to some.”
“He was just a man then,” Rabbit said.
“That’s precisely what Mr. Kennedy said. Though that reminds me, I haven’t seen him for a bit. He usually comes in once or twice a month.”
“He’s traveling,” Rabbit said.
“Oh?”
“Last I heard, he was abroad,” Rabbit said. “Shopping for antiques. Dubai.” Where Rabbit should be headed right now. A 6 p.m. flight.
Another thought came to Rabbit then. “Has anyone else ever come to look for this information? Anyone who might also be interested in your collection?”
“Truth is, aside from local students during term paper time, we don’t have many—” She cut herself off, flipping to the archival box that held the old newspaper clipping they’d been looking at. “Here, we can check right here.” Attached to the outside of the box was a sleeve with a computer printout tucked into it. “According to this list, in the last six months, beside Mr. Kennedy, only one other person has requested this document.”
Carrie held the printout up to the screen. Rabbit read it, then read it again, the same name listed three days in a row.
Darren Nixon.
Rabbit felt the tip of his tongue go numb, realized he’d been pinching it between his teeth for the last minute, that if he wanted to, he could bite right through it now, his body prepared for trauma, a bit of fight and flight at the same time.