The President's Shadow (28 page)

I
t wasn’t… None of it was real.

Hunched over the metal desk, flashlight still clamped in his armpit, Alby was frantically flipping through files. The pinch in his neck squeezed like a vise. Beads of sweat dripped from his nose, from his chin, from his forehead. But he couldn’t turn away.

The funding had come from the army, something called the Divisi
on
of Military Psychology
. They’d been doing it for years. According to the file, one time they followed students across campus, watching surreptitiously as each student came upon someone lying facedown in a mud puddle. Would the student save the victim or keep walking? The army wanted to know whether there was a way to predict how people would react. And most important, if they could
change
that reaction.

The more Alby read, the more it all made sense. The pay stubs…the talent agency… Every person on the plane, from the elderly couple behind him to the flight attendants who’d checked up on him, they were all hired and paid for—actors playing a role.

That meant the plane crash…the gas truck that ran into them…even the black smoke that came rushing from the back… None of it was real. As he thought about it now, he had never seen real flames. Just smoke and screaming.

Based on what he was reading, it was all a test to see how they—how Nico, Timothy, and Alby—would react in a crisis. During orientation, the colonel had told all the Plankholders that they’d been selected for a reason. That much was true. But as Alby continued to flip pages, what made his stomach churn and made his colon feel like it was about to burst, were the words in front of him:
bystander apathy…narcissistic tendencies…indifference toward others… We’ve identified twelve of them.

Alby clenched his buttocks, the pain pressing from within.
Narcissistic tendencies. Twelve of them.
He reread it again and again. From what he could tell, Flight 808 was most definitely a test. But it wasn’t a test to find
heroes
. It was a test to find cowards…to find the selfish…to find those who would run from a burning plane without helping anyone who needed it.

That’s who he and his fellow soldiers were. Not the bravest. Or the most daring. In Dr. Moorcraft’s words, the greatest secret of the Plankholders was simply that, to the best of the army’s assessment,
they were the ones who cared about no one but themselves
.

As Alby again read the words, a thin stream of diarrhea trickled down his leg. Not because they called him a coward. But because he knew they were right.

“
Timothy, you need to see this!
” Alby hissed, clutching a stack of files.

Behind him, Timoth
y
didn’t answer. Back by the doorway, it was completely silent.

“Timothy…?”

Alby started running for the exit. But as he turned the corner, a brand-new shadow was waiting there for him.

Colonel Doggett took a single step forward. Alby took two steps back. “I really wish you hadn’t done that,” Doggett offered.

W
ith each ste
p
, my shoes fill with sand, and the waves continue to grind. Years ago, when we were all in fifth grade, we used to play a game called RCK: Run, Catch, and Kiss. We’d run from the girls. If you got caught, you got kissed. The smart ones, like me, would get caught on purpose. Marshall never did. He was the fat kid. No matter how slowly he ran, he never got kissed.

Today, though, Clementine can’t take her eyes off him. Neither can Mina. He’s a half-step behind us. He’s fighting to keep up, but from the way he’s holding his arm, this is harder than h
e
thought. He’s in real pain. Anyone else would stop. He keeps going, jaw clenched.

As we cut around a fallen palm tree, Marshall motions up with his chin. Three stories above us, half a dozen massive twenty-five-ton Rodman cannons are spread out along the top ledge of the fort, each its own vast hiding spot. I take the hint: Out here in the open, we’re easy targets.

“Inside,” I say, making a sharp left, then right, as I dart into one of the nearby brick rooms.

“Casemates,” Mina says, well aware of the history.

Almost all of Fort Jefferson is made up of open, connected gun rooms known as casemates. Side by side, each with its own masonry archway, the casemates form a brick catacomb that weaves throughout the fortress. The whole network is filled with sand and dead leaves.

Marshall slows behind me. He spots something up ahead.

Mina and I see it too, in a small pile of sand. A footprint.

Clementine’s unfazed. That’s what she was looking for.

Up ahead, a brown-and-white National Park sign points us toward
Dr. Mudd’s Cel
l
, with an arrow that sends us to the left. I ignore it, staying on the main hallway and looking f
or
—

There. Dead ahead. A narrow corridor with white-painted bricks snakes deeper into the fort. According to the files, these back rooms are called bastion magazines. It’s where all the gunpowder used to be stored—barrels and barrels of it—in rooms with thicker walls, no windows, and an angled, maze-like entrance. That wa
y
, there’d be
less chance for a stray spark and a boom.

“Marshall, if the room’s locked…”

He steps ahead of me, fishing through his pockets for a lockpick.

We make a left, then a quick right in the white brick labyrinth when a loud roar erupts from outside the fort.
Rrrrrrrrrrrr.
We all stop where we are. I know that sound: an airplane engine.

Even Clementine stops.

“Think that’s our pilot leaving?” Mina asks.

“Or a new plane arriving,” I say. “Either way—”

Duuump.

Marshall plows into the heavy wooden door at the end of the hallway. The sign on it say
s
:

“Marshall, wait…!”

Too late. The door was unlocked. As it swings open and crashes into the wall, he’s already inside.

Racing behind him, I smell mildew and wet books. There’s a bright green hue from two glowing light sticks that sit atop a pyramid of boxes. On one wall is the grouper cam equipment, including an outdated server stack, extra lenses, and piles of snorkels, wet suits, oxygen tanks, and diving gear. The rest of the brick room is a mess of rusted metal bookshelves, unmatched file cabinets, and metal lockers like you see in high school. But more than anything else, on every spare shelf, there’re jugs of water, military-size jars of peanut butter, and at least fifty cans of dried fruit, nuts, corn, even baby food.

This isn’t just the fort’s best storage area…

“It’s their hurricane shelter,” Marshall announces.

Mina and I share a glance in agreement. In almost every government building, old bomb shelters have become storage sheds.

Behind us, Clementine’
s
still scanning the pale green room. She’s not looking for some
thing
. She’s looking for some
one
.

“Someone’s been eating our porridge,” Mina says, heading toward one of the tall, rusted file cabinets in the back. Marshall limps behind her. The middle drawer is stuck open like a tongue. On the shorter cabinet next to it, two stacks of files are piled six inches high, sagging toward each other. Most of the pages are in brown accordion folders. The rest are in hanging files, pulled straight from the cabinet.

“Beecher, you need to see this,” Mina says as she starts flipping through the files.

My heart punches my ribcage. I race toward the cabinet, grabbing a fistful of files and sliding my backpack off my shoulder.

Marshall limps sideways, pulling open the other cabinet drawers. There are a few files in there, lots with pink carbon paper, but as he flips through them…

“These are from the fifties, before our fathers got here,” he says.

He opens other drawers and says something else, but I’m too busy speed-reading.
Bendis, Brian
…
DeConnick, Matthew
…
Fuerstman, Alan
… Wasting no time, I flip to the back.
Pagano, Ralph.
No. Must be in the other stack. I switch piles, reaching for the last alphabetical file. It stands out like it’s on fire. Even in a hurricane, everyone can find their own name.

White, Albert.

My father.

M
y hands start shaking. The waves continue to churn.

The rest of the files are pinned against my chest.

“Beecher, don’t do this now,” Mina warns. “Fill the knapsack. Let’s go!”

I know she’s right. No matter how long I’ve waited for this moment, this isn’t the time to speed-read. There’ll be time to read later. But as I flip the folder open, I swear to God, it’s like I’ve conjured my father himself, his ghost rising up next to me, staring over my shoulder.

Don’t read it
, my father pleads.

I’m sorry, Dad. I have no choice.

The front sheet is a dark photocopy that looks like onion skin
, wrinkled and wavy from the moist air. My eyes scan the top of the page, trying to put words together, but nothing makes sense. My brain’s pumping too fast.

He was shorter than me. I stand up straight, feeling taller than I’ve ever felt in my life. My eyes fill with tears.

“
Are you nuts!?
” Marshall asks, smacking the stack in my hands and motioning toward my backpack. “Read it later! Time to go!”

Next to m
e
, Mina starts pulling files from the cabinet drawer that’s below my dad’s.

Whacked back to reality, I hold tight to my stack of files and toss Mina the backpack, replaying each detail.
5' 9". Hair: Blond. Eyes—

“Something’s wrong,” Clementine blurts behind us.

We all spin toward her. Frozen in the doorway, she’s still searching the room. From the look on her face, her dad was supposed to meet her here.

“If he got here first… If he found the files…” she stutters. “Why would he just leave them?”

“Because he’s a sociopath,” Mina mutters.

“Watch your mouth, Giganta!” Clementine shouts, her voice surprisingly shaky.

“Both of you,
stop
,” I insist. “Maybe he wanted us to grab the files ourselves.”

“Or maybe there’s nothing in them,” Clementine counters, swaying in place and starting to panic. I keep forgetting. She’s not searching for answers in these files; she’s searching for a cure.

“Clemmi, don’t do that. You don’t know that,” Marshall says. He rushes to her side, holding her by the elbow. “Maybe he’s somewhere else on the island.”

“Where else would he be?”

“You tell me. Is there another place he mentioned?”

She shakes her head. “H-He told me— He said to meet him here.”

“And there’s no other spot he might—?”

“There’s a chapel,” I announce.

“A what?”

“On the second floor. I saw it on the plans. There’s a chapel,” I repeat. They know what I’m getting at. Years ago, when Nico took a shot at the President, he was convinced God Almighty had asked him to fire the bullet. He also thought God
sent him on a mission to battle the Freemasons, murder the First Lady, and add feather after feather to his cuckoo’s nest. To Nico, chapels are catnip.

“We should check the chapel,” Mina agrees, still pulling files from the lower drawers. She’s not leaving until she gets them all.

I follow behind Clementine as—

Dkkkkk!

The cat jumps from Clementine’s arms. We all look to the left.

Dkkkkk!

The sound’s coming from outside the room. It’s a brutal, rasping noise, like a pounding or a hammering. Whatever it is, we’re definitely not alone.

Dkkkkk!

As always, Marshall reacts first. He goes to race from the room, toward the source, but the way he’s hobbling, he’s not moving too quickly.

“He needs help. He’s been poisoned!” Clementine tells me as Marshall disappears around the corner.

“Poisoned?”

“Beecher, just help him,” she pleads. I can’t tell if she’s talking about Marshall or her dad. Either way, she starts to run. She barely gets anywhere. Her teeth are pale red. Her gums are bleeding.

“Clemmi, your mouth…”

She wobbles off balance. She can barely stay on her feet. “You need to help him,” she insists, knowing I’ll be faster. “Marshall needs you, and if Ezra’s here…”

I still don’t move. I want to leave her. I know I should leave her. But I—

Dkkkkk!

“I’m not your girlfriend, Beecher! Just
go
,” Clementine begs, her voice cracking.

I turn back to Mina, who’s still pulling the files. She’s staring our way, eyes wide with sadness.
Listen to her
, Mina tells me with just a look, knowing that even Clementine can’t lie about this one.

You sure?
I ask with a glance.

“I’ll get the files. Go,” Mina says, pulling another stack from the drawers.

“You need to get them all. Every scrap of paper.”

“You think you’ve got the patent on uptight archivists?” Mina says. She motions to the stack I’m holding, with Marshall’s dad’s file, Nico’s file, and the one for my dad. “Want me to take those?”

I shake my head. No one’s taking these but me.

“
We need to help him!
” Clementine shouts, already limping out the door.

“Mina, thank you for this. I mean it,” I say as she starts stuffing files into the backpack.

Glancing around, I search for a weapon. Near the scuba gear, there’s a skinny oxygen tank that looks like a shortened baseball bat. It’s the best I’ve got. Still holding the files, I grab it and take off, following Clementine.

I pass her within seconds, cutting out into the brick hallway and weaving back through the white-painted maze. Clementine can barely keep up.

“Just go!
Please!
” she pleads as I pick up speed.

Dkkkkk!

The noise is a chopping sound, like someone’s taking an axe to a car…or something metal.

Dkkkkk!

“You okay?” I call out to Marshall, who’s just ahead of me, hobbling in the main alcove.

Out of breath, he points to the right, where the sound’s coming from: Dr. Mudd’s cell. But just as I turn, the chopping stops.

If Ezra’s already here—

“
Go! Don’t look at me! Go!
” Marshall hisses.

I hold the oxygen tank like a club, running faster than ever. Unlike in the rest of the fort, the floor starts slanting downward. The brick hallway narrows, then narrows again as I run though archway after archway, brick room after brick room. It’s getting darker too. There’re windows down here, but not many.

Back during the Civil War, this was the entrance to their dungeon, the place where they locked up all their prisoners, including Dr. Mudd and the other Lincoln conspirators.

Dkkkkk!

“
Nico, that you…?
” I call out in a whisper.

No answer.

In the main parts of the fort, all the bricks look beaten and worn. Back here, they’r
e
practically falling from the ceiling and walls. A single narrow window, barely a few inches wide, tells me why. The fort is almost two hundred years old, and this is the side of the island that got hit hardest by the hurricane. Chunks of brick are scattered along the floor.

Up ahead, there’s one last archway. Just above it, a
n
antique brown plank of wood is bolted to the wall. In faded white letters is a hand-carved message:

They’ve got the Dante quote wrong, but as I pass the sign and enter the actual dungeon, I see how right the warning is.

The bricks in here aren’t just red. Up by the corners of the ceiling, they’re sooty and black, like they’ve been through a fire. On the floor is a strip of bright yellow
CAUTION
police tape, lifeless on the ground. We’re not supposed to be back here. And neither is he: the man with the buzzed black hair whose back is to me.

Nico.

In the corner of the wide room, he doesn’t turn around. He’s got a shovel in his hand, but it’s like he doesn’t hear me. The thing is, he hears everything.

He leans to his right, like someone’s whispering in his ear. I almost forgot. His imaginary friend.

“Nico, it’s me,” I say. “It’s—”

Dkkkkk!

With his back still to me, Nico wields the shovel like a battering ram, jamming it hard into the wall. Shards of red-and-black brick splinter and fall, raining across the stone floor.

“Nico, we need to get out of here,” I tell him.

“Show some respect,” he says, his voice a barbed-wire growl. “Don’t you know where you are? Your father died in this room.”