The Book of Fate

by Brad Meltzer

  As I’m about to roll out, there’s a faint creak on my left. Hushed . . . like corduroy rubbing together. Craning my neck and peering out from under the car, I search the pocked concrete floor of the garage. The sound’s long gone. But something else takes its place.

  I know it from years of people’s stares. It’s even worse in public places—at a movie or in the supermarket—when they’re trying to pretend they don’t care. There’s no scientific term to explain it. But I feel it every day. At this point, I’ve probably honed it. That haunting tug at the back of your skull . . . the nearly telepathic scream that demands you turn around. That indescribable feeling when you know you’re being watched.

  A single set of footsteps echoes through the garage, followed by the mild roar of another engine.

  Right on time.

  Tires churn and brakes squeal as the car flies in reverse up the ramp, backing halfway into my Toyota’s now-empty parking spot. Rolling out from my hiding place, I’m face-to-face with a full row of Grateful Dead bumper stickers, which lurch to a stop barely an inch from my forehead.

  “Hey, magic man—David Copperfield called . . . wants to know if you can still sub for him next Thursday?” Lisbeth says, leaning out the driver’s-side window.

  Most people would laugh, which is the only reason I force a grin. She doesn’t buy it for a second. Fake smiles are a gossip columnist’s bread and butter. Climbing to my feet, I brush the dirt from my clothes.

  “If it makes you feel better, Wes, all the hiding and rolling under cars? That was the scary part.”

  She waits for some plucky response like I’m some lantern-jawed action-movie hero. “That’s not even true,” I tell her.

  Shaking her head, she studies me carefully. “Is it actually against the law to try and cheer you up?”

  Again, she waits for a smile. Again, I don’t give it.

  “Just get in the car, Wes. The only way we’re pulling this off is if we move fast.”

  She’s right about that. Hopping in the passenger seat, I slam the door as Lisbeth tosses me a silver cell phone with a little ladybug sticker on it.

  “I traded with a friend who writes for the gardening section,” she explains. “Now we’re untraceable.”

  Refusing to celebrate, I flip open the phone and punch in the number.

  “It’s a beautiful day in President Manning’s office. How can I help you?” the receptionist answers.

  “Jana, it’s Wes. Can you put me through to Oren?”

  “Hiya, Wes. Of course—transferring you to Oren right now.” There’s a soft click, two chirps, and then . . .

  “This is Oren,” my officemate answers.

  “How we looking?”

  “They’re getting it set up right now,” he replies. He’s even faster than I thought. “All you have to do is go pick it up.”

  I nod to Lisbeth. She rams the gas. And away we go.

  56

  Got everything you need?” the secretary asked The Roman as he left Bev’s office and trudged across the presidential seal carpet in the main reception area.

  “Apparently so,” The Roman replied, hiding his bandaged hand from view. “Though I—”

  The receptionist’s phone rang on her desk. “Oop—excuse me,” she said, putting on her headset. “It’s a beautiful day in President Manning’s office. How can I help you?”

  The Roman headed for the door.

  The receptionist waved good-bye, never taking her attention away from the caller on her headset. “Hiya, Wes. Of course—transferring you to Oren right now . . .”

  The Roman stopped midstep, the toe of his left foot digging into the head of the eagle on the presidential seal. A thin grin returned to his face as he pivoted around.

  Tapping a few buttons on her phone, the receptionist sent the call on its way and looked up at her guest. “I’m sorry . . . you were saying?”

  “Just that I need some directions,” The Roman replied, pointing left, then right. “Which way is Oren’s office again?”

  “Second on your right. See it?” the receptionist called out.

  The Roman nodded. “You’re an angel.”

  He paused outside the office and waited for the click of Oren hanging up his phone. With a sharp rap of knuckles against the door, he stepped inside and flashed his badge. “Oren, right? Agent Roland Egen. United States Secret Service.”

  “Everything okay?” Oren asked, already halfway out of his chair.

  The Roman shrugged. “You have a few minutes to chat?”

  57

  Standing outside the Mediterranean cypress plank doors set into an arched coral stone entryway, I ring the pearl doorbell and offer a smile for the security camera that stares down at us.

  “Who’s calling?” a delicate female voice asks through the intercom, even though she just buzzed us in three minutes ago when we first pulled up to the twenty-foot-tall hedges and wrought-iron gate that protect the estate.

  “Mrs. Sant, it’s Wes Holloway,” I say into the intercom. “From President Manning’s office.”

  With a click, the front door opens by remote control. Ten feet away, a young woman with perfectly arched eyebrows, sheer lip gloss, and flowing blond hair straight out of a shampoo commercial strolls toward us through the anteroom. She’s wearing a peach cashmere sweater with a low enough V-neck to reveal why she’s a trophy wife. And like the best trophies in town, she has breasts that are perfect and real, just like the diamond bracelet that engulfs most of her wrist.

  Anxious to be out of sight, I go to step inside. Lisbeth tugs on the back of my button-down, keeping me in place. Protocol says I’m supposed to wait to be invited in. And with money this big, protocol rules.

  “So nice to see you again,” Mrs. Sant says in an Australian accent, even though we’ve never met. Like most Palm Beach wives, she knows better than to take a chance.

  Finally reaching the doorway, she studies my face, then glances over my shoulder at Lisbeth’s beat-up car. Again, perfect Palm Beach. Judgment first, niceties later.

  “I take it the President’s not with you,” she adds, still staring at our car. It’s not until she’s done with me that she even notices Lisbeth.

  “No, he’s actually meeting us in—”

  “Ms. Dodson?” she asks excitedly, grabbing Lisbeth’s hand as if she were proposing marriage. “I met you that night at the Alsops—oh, I’m sorry,” she adds, patting her own chest. “Cammie Sant—my husband’s Victor,” she explains as if that’s all the introduction she needs. “Oh, what a treat! I read you every day! Come in, come in . . .”

  I don’t know why I’m surprised. When you cover society, part of the job is having society suck up. But instead of reveling in the moment, Lisbeth shrinks from it, consciously slowing down so she’s a full step behind me as we enter the anteroom.

  “Oh, and that mention you did of Rose DuVall . . . good for you. We all knew it was her husband who dragged the kids to court.”

  Next to me, Lisbeth looks away, fighting to avoid eye contact. At first, I thought it was modesty. But the way her face falls . . . the way she anxiously scratches at the freckles on her neck . . . I know shame when I see it. Especially when it comes from not meeting your own personal expectations.

  “Oh, and please ignore the mess,” Cammie adds, leading us through the sumptuous Mediterranean-style living room and pointing to the white billowy painter’s cloths that’re draped over every piece of artwork on the walls. “The jury’s coming tomorrow.”

  Two years ago, the previous owners of Cammie’s spectacular fourteen-bedroom, twenty-thousand-square-foot home were brutally gunned down by their only son. With the parents dead, the house was sold to Cammie and her husband, an heir to the Tylenol fortune, who, according to the stories, were so desperate to make a splash in the P.B. social scene, they swooped in and bought it for twenty-seven million even before they wiped the chalk marks off the wide, cypress plank floors.

  “The sheets were Victor’s idea,” Cammie exp
lains. “You know, with the jury set to walk through the old crime scene, we just thought . . . when it comes to the collection . . . we don’t need everyone knowing how many Francis Bacons we have.” She raises her eyebrows at us.

  I nod, staring at the stark white sheets. Traveling with the President, I’ve been to plenty of billionaires’ homes with a Rembrandt or Monet or Warhol on the wall. Some’ll even have two or three. But here . . . as we pass from the living room, through the library, through the blood-red billiard room in back, I count at least thirty covered pictures.

  “Of course. Of course, you’d want to be discreet,” Lisbeth says, finally looking up.

  Stopping short at the double French doors that lead out back, Cammie spins around at the word discreet. A lesser clubwoman would take it as a threat. It’s not. And Cammie’s not lesser at anything. Tugging on the bottom of her peach sweater, she smooths it over her flat stomach and smiles to herself. It’s every hostess’s dream: being owed a favor by the local gossip queen.

  “Listen, I have some errands to run—what a pleasure meeting you,” Cammie adds, happily excusing herself. “Tommaso’s out back. He’ll take perfect care of you.”

  With a flick of the antique brass doorknob, the French doors swing open, leading us out across a stone path that takes us past the saltwater pool, through an expansive formal garden, and into a fruit orchard filled with the sweet smells of grapefruits, tangerines, and Persian limes.

  “Am I shallow for hating her perfect, yoga-trainered ass?” Lisbeth asks as we pass one of the lime trees. “Or should I just be content in despising her for the mere fact that I now owe her one?”

  “If you wanna get technical, we actually owe her two,” I say, pointing to our destination.

  Beyond the orchard, beyond the stone amphitheater, even beyond the football-field-sized patch of meticulously mowed grass that runs down toward the water, sits a pristine, 160-foot, three-deck, black-and-cream-colored mega-yacht that towers over every other boat floating behind it on the calm currents of Lake Worth. The Pequod, it says in fine gold script along the transom at the stern. It’s not until we’re right alongside it that I even appreciate how big the yacht is—from front to back, it’s gotta be three eighteen-wheelers parked end-to-end.

  “You sure it’s fast enough?” Lisbeth asks, craning her neck back and shielding her eyes from the sun.

  She’s not talking about the boat. As fast as we need to move, we don’t have time for a pleasure cruise. Nor can we afford to risk heading to the local airport and getting tracked by our IDs and airline tickets. I take two steps back to get a clearer view of our target. It sits on the rear sundeck with its three still blades arched slightly downward.

  A car would take over four hours. A seaplane would take an hour and forty minutes. But a French-built, twin-engine helicopter with no boarding, taxi, or wait time since it’s parked on a yacht? We’ll be there in an hour, easy. Plenty of time to get what we need and be back at Manning’s house tonight.

  “She’s gorgeous, no?” a man calls out in a heavy Spanish accent. Sticking his head over the railing, Tommaso stares down at us from the edge of the deck. “The President is joining us, yes?”

  “No,” I say, still craning my neck up. “He’s meeting us there.”

  Tommaso shrugs it off without a care. In a pilot’s navy blazer and a blue-and-white-striped shirt, he’s dressed as staff, which means he’s used to spoiled honchos changing their minds at the last minute. “Come, let us go,” he adds, motioning palms-up to a metal staircase that leads up to the main deck. Within seconds, we’re aboard.

  That’s why I called Oren in the first place. When we went to Saudi Arabia, Oren found a sheik who was happy to loan the President his jet. When we flew to North Carolina for vacation, he found an heir of the Kentucky Fried Chicken family to do the same. It’s not snobbery. It’s Oren’s job. As director of travel, he’s there to collect the name of every person who says the phrase that’s uttered most often to every former U.S. President: Let me know if you ever need anything.

  On most trips, the President just needs privacy. Today, I need the same.

  Naturally, Oren was hesitant. But when I told him that I was having trouble breathing . . . that Nico’s escape . . . just seeing his face on the news . . . and the pains in my chest . . . Please, Oren, you know I never ask. I just need to get away . . . as fast as possible . . .

  Forget the presidency—the most powerful cards to play are pity and guilt. One phone call later, recent donors and NBFs Victor and Cammie Sant were honored, just honored, to offer up their personal helicopter for the President and his staff. No questions asked, no flight plan to file, no possible way to be traced.

  “Welcome to the Pequod,” Tommaso says as we reach the top of the metal stairs and climb on board the yacht. Across the sundeck-turned-landing-pad, he twists a latch and opens the door to the matching black and cream helicopter. “Ready to ride the white whale?”

  “Palm Beach Tower, thees copter two-seven-niner-five-Juliett lifting off,” Tommaso says into his radio.

  “Seven-niner-five,” a radio voice calmly crackles back. “Depart at your own risk.”

  Lisbeth looks to me as she hears the words through the intercom, then raps her knuckles against the Plexiglas divider that separates our cabin—with its four leather club chairs—from the two seats up by the pilot. “At our own risk?” she calls to Tommaso, flipping a switch on the intercom.

  “Is fine, miss. Regulation,” he explains as he pushes a button to start the first engine.

  Behind us, just above our heads on the back of the helicopter, an exhaust pipe clears its throat, hacking itself awake. I jump at the sound, which rings louder than a gunshot.

  A few seconds later, Tommaso hits another button, starting engine two. A second exhaust pipe explodes with a sputter. I jump again, searching over my shoulder, even though I know no one’s there. My eyes blink over and over and over.

  “Take a breath,” Lisbeth says, reaching over from her seat and grabbing my wrist. The whole helicopter starts vibrating as the blades begin to spin. Vrrrrrrrr . . . rrr . . . rrr . . . like a race car whipping around the track.

  “Just pretend it’s Marine One,” she adds, referring to the helicopter I used to ride at the White House.

  I turn to the wide window on my right and hold my breath. It doesn’t help. A tidal wave of nausea pirouettes through my stomach.

  Vrrrrrr . . . rrr . . . rrr . . . the blades pick up speed. Leaning closer to the window, I press my forehead against the glass. The blades whip so fast, they disappear above us.

  “Wes, I swear to you, there’s no one out there. We’re in good shape.”

  She thinks I’m staring at the lush grounds that lead back to the Sants’ Mediterranean mansion. Or that I’m scanning every tree, shrub, and Greek Revival statue looking to see if we were followed. But as the helicopter pitches forward and lifts off the landing pad, the only thing I see in the window is my own reflection.

  “And you wanted to sit inside all day,” Lisbeth reminds me, hoping to reassure as we climb straight up into the blue sky and the Sants’ yacht shrinks below us. “Bye-bye, rich people with perfect lives who make me feel inadequate and fat—we’re off to endanger ourselves!”

  Staying silent, I keep my forehead pressed to the window. At the sandy tip of the Palm Beach inlet, where Lake Worth flows into the Atlantic Ocean, the glowing blue-green water expands to the horizon, its colors more mesmerizing than a peacock’s tail. It barely registers.

  “C’mon, Wes—you’ve earned a smile,” Lisbeth adds, her voice still racing. “We’ve got a lead on The Roman, some hints into the crossword, Rogo and Dreidel are on their way to dig up the scoop on Boyle, and we, in a mad stroke of your own genius, are now flying on a three-million-dollar whirlybird to the one person who was in the absolute best position to show us what happened that day. I’m not saying you should order the confetti and schedule the victory parade, but you definitely can’t just sit there and sulk
.”

  With my head still pressed against the glass, I shut my eyes and replay the video. She’ll never understand.

  “Listen, I know it was hard watching that tape . . .”

  I press even harder.

  “. . . and just to see yourself without the scars . . .” Unlike most, she doesn’t shrink from the issue. I can feel her looking—not staring—right at me. The helicopter banks into position, heading south down the golden coastline, then quickly cutting right and heading inland, southwest over the carpeted green waves of the country club golf course. At five hundred feet, we’re about as high as a plane coming in for a landing. Golf carts scurry like tiny white ants across the grass, while the course’s sand traps dot the landscape like dozens of round beige kiddie pools. Within minutes, the beachfront homes and breathtaking yachts of Palm Beach give way to the mossy, mosquito-filled brown marshes of the Everglades. It changes so damn quickly.

  “I’m just saying,” she adds, “whatever you’ve been through . . . it’s still the same you.”

  Staring out the window, I watch as the tall strands of sawgrass peek out and sway in the Everglades’ shallow brown waters. “It’s not about my face,” I blurt.

  Ignoring my reflection and pulling back slightly, I use the polish of the window to stare over my shoulder. Behind me, Lisbeth doesn’t move, still watching me carefully, with no hesitation as she studies my face.

  “You saw the tape,” I add. “The way I stepped out of that limo . . . waving to the crowd . . . the swaggering sway in my shoulders . . .”

  “You’re better off. You looked like Dreidel.”

  “See, but that’s the point. When I see that tape . . . when I see the old me . . . I don’t just miss my face. What I miss—what I mourn—is my old life. That’s what they took from me, Lisbeth. You can see it on the tape: A twenty-three-year-old cocky kid strutting like only a twenty-three-year-old cocky kid can. Back then, when I imagined my future, from the White House to—I was rocketing so high, I couldn’t even pick the next coordinate. The whole damn world was possible. I mean, that’s the promise, right? I run and run and run this race—and then, in one stupid day, with one stupid ricochet . . .” My chin starts to quiver, but after all these years, I know exactly how to grit my teeth to bury it. “. . . I find out I’m never getting any further th-th-than . . . than halfway there.” The quivering’s gone. It’s not much of a victory. “That’s my life. Halfway there.”