The Book of Fate (50 page)

Refusing to answer, the driver pulled his ID from his jacket pocket and shoved it toward the hidden camera stuffed into the tall shrubs.

The intercom went silent. Moments later, a metallic click released the magnetic lock, and the security gate swung open.

Slowly easing his foot against the gas, the man inched the car up the private brick driveway, where three suit-and-tie Secret Service agents turned and stared. When they didn’t approach his car, he knew they were getting the news of his arrival in their earpieces. And by the looks on their faces, they were unnerved by it. No one likes when the boss comes to check on things. But with Nico on the loose, they weren’t the least bit surprised.

With a tug to the left, he steered his car between the matching black Chevy Suburbans, then readjusted his leather shoulder holster and made sure the strap that held his gun in place was unsnapped. This wasn’t like his trip to the office. With the principals here, he needed to be ready. And if the reports were true—that a neighbor had already found Kenny’s and Micah’s bodies and that fingerprints were already making the rounds—well, this was now about much more than seventy million dollars in payouts and four more years in office.

It was so much easier back when they started. After War College, they spent the first six months doing nothing but running simulations and war-gaming. No need to rush. Better to make it a science. Take no chances, make no contact, and make sure nothing’s traced back. Of course, the key to that was creating The Roman, right down to the stolen thumb they snatched from a Tanzania morgue to use with the fingerprint cards required for every informant payout. From there, people would just be chasing a ghost. Once The Roman was “real,” the true work began.

It was Micah who struck gold first. As a CIA case officer stationed in Khartoum, he received a tip about someone in the Sudanese security agency trying to sell eleven pristine U.S. visas—all of them sterile and untraceable—to al-Zaydi, a known terrorist organization. According to Micah’s source, al-Zaydi was paying with its usual mode of untraceable African diamonds—$500,000 worth, which would be delivered in Taormina, Sicily, on October 15.

That morning, to communicate with his fellow members, Micah left piecemeal coded messages in the agreed-upon online chat rooms. Then he wrote up his full official report, which detailed only
one
of the facts—that the Sudanese security agency was rumored to be selling eleven visas. He intentionally left out the rest. That afternoon, O’Shea—in his position as an FBI Legat in Brussels assigned to working with foreign law enforcement officials—took full advantage of the info Micah had sent about the diamonds. Now knowing what to look for, and reaching out to overseas security agencies, he combed through foreign customs reports, eventually finding a suspected al-Zaydi member traveling through Italy—legally—with nearly $500,000 of diamond jewelry. That night, Secret Service Agent Roland Egen—as the resident agent in charge of the Service’s office in Pretoria, South Africa—put the cherry on top. Calling up his supervisor in the Rome office, he said, “I’ve got a source bragging about black market U.S. visas for sale—and that he’ll give us the time and place for the drop.”

“What kinda payoff does he want?” the supervisor had asked.

“Fifty thousand dollars.”

There was a short pause. “Who’s the source?”

“He calls himself The Roman,” Egen said with a grin.

Within minutes, the Service started vetting the tip. Throughout the community, they called it backstopping—checking with other agencies to corroborate the source. After Iraq, it was a necessity. And after the information-sharing from 9/11, the info came quick. Thanks to O’Shea, the FBI showed a similar report. Thanks to Micah, so did the CIA. All three pieces corroborating the same picture.

“Pay it,” Egen’s supervisor said.

Twenty-four hours later, Micah, O’Shea, and The Roman—by simply corroborating one another—split their first $50,000 payout. Not a bad day’s work.

Years ago, it was easier. But that was before they invited others to join in the game.

“Welcome, sir,” a brown-haired agent called out as the man left the car and marched toward the pale blue Colonial with the American flag above the door.

Halfway there, a fourth suit-and-tie agent approached from the front steps.

Well aware of the protocol, the man again handed over his ID, waiting for it to be looked at.

“Sorry, sir . . . I didn’t . . . You’re here to see the President?” the agent asked, anxiously handing the ID back.

“Yeah,” The Roman replied as he stepped inside the President’s home. “Something like that.”

97

W
anna try that one again?” Boyle growled in the back of the van as he dug the barrel of his gun into O’Shea’s temple.

“You can demand all you want, it’s the truth,” O’Shea said, spitting up blood and contorted by the lightning bolt of pain coursing through his shoulder. As he kneeled in the van, his voice was purposely soft. Boyle shook his head, knowing it was just a trick to bring his own volume down. O’Shea still pushed on. “I know this is emotional for you, Boyle, but you need t—”

“Where the hell’s my son!?”
Boyle exploded, shoving the gun so hard against O’Shea’s head, it sent O’Shea backward like a turtle on his shell. But even as he worked his way back to his knees, O’Shea didn’t thrash, panic, or fight. Boyle couldn’t tell if it was exhaustion or strategy. The only thing he knew was that, like a wounded leopard still locked on its prey, O’Shea never took his eyes off Boyle’s gun.

Eight years ago, Boyle’s hands would’ve been shaking. Today, he was perfectly still. “Tell me where he is, O’Shea.”

“Why, so you can wait outside his school—what is he, nine, ten years old now?—so you can wait outside his fourth-grade class and tell him you want visitation rights? You think your girlfriend Tawana—”

“Her name’s Tiana.”

“Call her what you want, she told us the story, Boyle—how you flirted during the campaign, how she followed you to D.C.—”

“I never asked her to do that.”

“—but you didn’t have any problem hiding her from your wife and daughter for almost four years. And then when she got pregnant—darn!—better do something about that.”

“I never asked her to get an abortion.”

“Oh, I’m sorry—I didn’t realize you were a saint.” In the distance, a pack of cars whipped past them on the highway. O’Shea curled downward and lowered his head for a moment, yielding to the pain. “C’mon, Boyle,” he stuttered as he looked back up, “you hid the kid from the entire world—insisted that they never approach you in public—and
now
you suddenly wanna take him to the father-son White House picnic?”

“He’s still my son.”

“Then you should’ve taken care of him.”

“I did take care of him!”

“No,
we
took care of him,” O’Shea insisted. “What you did was send fifty bucks a week, hoping it would buy food, diapers, and her silence. We’re the ones who gave her—and him—a true future.”

Boyle shook his head, already agitated. “Is that how The Roman sold it to you? That you were giving them a future?”

“She needed cash; we offered it.”

“Or, more accurately: You paid her to hide, then refused to tell me where they were unless I agreed to be your fourth turncoat,” Boyle said, his voice now booming. “So don’t make it look like you were
doing her any favors
!”

Pressing his chin down against his shoulder, O’Shea looked up from the floor, his hazel eyes glowing in the darkness of the van. A slow grin rose like a sunrise on his face. “Boy, we really picked the right push button, didn’t we? To be honest, when The Roman said you cared for her, I thought he was full of crap.”

Boyle aimed the gun at O’Shea’s face. “Where are they? I’m not asking you agai—”

Leaning back on his knees, O’Shea erupted with a deep rumbling laugh that catapulted from his throat and echoed through the van. “C’mon, you really think we kept track after all this time? That somehow we kept them as pen pals?”

As the words left O’Shea’s lips, Boyle could feel each syllable clawing straight through his belly, shredding every organ inside his chest. “Wh-What’re you talking about?”

“We killed you, jackass. Or at least that’s what we thought. For all I cared, from that moment on, Tiana and her little bastard could’ve moved right back to that dump where we found them in D.C.”

Hunched over, Boyle took a half-step back. His hand started to shake.

“Wait . . . oh, you . . . wait,” O’Shea said, already chuckling. “You’re telling me that in all the time you spent trying to track us down, that . . . that you never once considered the possibility that we wouldn’t know where they are?”

For the second time, O’Shea leaned back for a loud bellowing laugh. Then, without warning, he sprang forward, like a frog, with a ramming headbutt that plowed into Boyle’s chin before he even saw it coming. On impact, Boyle’s head whipped back, sending him crashing into the bucket seats.

“You feel that?!” O’Shea screamed, his eyes wide with rage. “This time I’ll kill you myself!”

Boyle shook his head no. Slow at first. Then faster. O’Shea charged forward like a truck. Boyle was already in mid-swing, lashing out with his right hand. And the gun he was still holding in it.

In a blur, the butt of the pistol slammed O’Shea like a ten-pound weight to the head. Colliding with the corner of his brow, it sent him tumbling sideways toward the wall behind the passenger seat. With his hands still tied behind his back, he didn’t have a chance. Already off balance, he turned just enough to hit the metal wall shoulder-first.

“That’s for my son,” Boyle snarled, buzzing with adrenaline.

O’Shea sank to the floor of the van. Boyle didn’t let up, rushing in and pressing the barrel of his gun against O’Shea’s forehead. “And this one’s for my daughter, you thieving piece of shit!”

Boyle cocked the gun’s pin and started squeezing the trigger.

O’Shea erupted with another haunting laugh. “Do it,” he demanded, his voice breathless and raw as he lay there, sprawled on his back. His chest rose and fell rapidly as his body twisted on the floor. Between the bullet wounds from the dog run and his current impact, the pain was overwhelming. “With these metal walls . . . go ahead . . . I-I’d love to see you risk the ricochet.”

Boyle glanced around at the walls of the van. “It won’t ricochet,” he insisted.

“You sure about that?” O’Shea gasped, fighting for air and kicking his heel against the metal floor. There was a loud deep thud. “Sounds . . . sounds pretty damn solid to me.”

Boyle didn’t respond. His hand twitched slightly as he tightened his grip on the trigger.

“That’s . . . it’s a frightening thought, isn’t it?” O’Shea asked. “Here you are all ready to wreck the few remaining shards of your life by becoming a killer, and . . . and now you have to worry if you’ll shoot yourself in the process.”

Boyle knew he was lying. He had to be.

“C’mon, Boyle—here’s your chance to blow my head off. Take your shot!” Defiantly, O’Shea leaned forward, pressing his forehead even harder against the gun.

Boyle’s finger rattled against the trigger as a dribble of blood ran from his nose to his top lip. This was it. The moment he’d begged for . . . prayed for . . . the revenge that had fueled him all these years. The problem was, O’Shea was still right about one thing: Whatever else they’d taken from him, whatever cold shell of himself they turned him into, he’d never be a killer. Though that didn’t mean he couldn’t have his vengeance.

Shifting his arm to the right, Boyle pointed the barrel at O’Shea’s still-seeping shoulder wound and pulled the trigger. A single bullet tore through O’Shea’s shoulder, taking another chunk of meat with it. To maximize the pain, Boyle kept the gun at an angle, hoping to hit some bone as well. From O’Shea’s scream—which faded into a silent breathless gasp as his eyes rolled back and he finally lost consciousness—it was more than enough to do the trick.

Kicking O’Shea onto his side, Boyle knelt down to the splatter of blood on the floor. Underneath the mess, through the metal floor of the van, was a small jagged bullet hole. Sticking a finger in and feeling the musty air outside, Boyle shook his head. Of course, it wouldn’t ricochet. Only the President’s limo is bulletproof.

Wasting no time, Boyle ducked into the front of the van and wriggled into the driver’s seat. Far to his left, another swarm of cars buzzed by on the highway. As he looked down, the digital clock on the dashboard said it was 6:57 p.m. Perfect, he thought as he punched the gas, spun the wheels, and sent bits of gravel chainsawing through the air. One more stop and it’d all be done.

98

H
aven’t these people ever heard of a parking lot?” Rogo asked as he drove past the landscaping by the frosted-glass entrance and veered around to the back of the white office building.

“There,”
Dreidel pointed out as they turned the corner. Around back, a wide lot was dotted with eight or ten cars.

“That’s a good sign, right? People still working?”

“Unless it’s just janitorial staff,” Dreidel said, eyeing the building through the passenger window.

“How many janitors you know drive brand-new Mustangs?” Rogo asked, parking next to a shiny black convertible Ford Mustang. “The only thing I can’t figure out is why they have all that space in the front of the building and instead put the parking lot around back?”

“Maybe it’s a zoning issue.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Rogo said.

“What, you still think it’s some kinda mob doctor?”

“All I know is, they’re about a block away from the Bada-Bing and the porn shop, there’s a funeral home next door, and that Mustang has a personalized license plate that says
Fredo.
”

Dreidel glanced down at the license plate, which read
MY STANG.
“Will you please stop? It’s a doctor’s office, Rogo. You can tell it from here.”

“Well, color me a stickler, but I’d still prefer to see it for myself,” Rogo added, flicking the car door open, hopping out into the drizzling rain, and running for the back door of the building. Halfway there, he looked straight up as a soft high-pitched whistle exploded into a deafening, rumbling earthquake. Another 747 coming in for a landing. Behind him, he noticed that Dreidel was at least ten steps behind.