The Book of Fate - Brad Meltzer [109]
“That far from here?” O’Shea asked as the cabbie looked at him in the rearview.
“You can walk if you want.”
Micah hopped inside, tugging the door shut.
“We’ll drive,” O’Shea said as he tossed another twenty onto the armrest. “Fast as you can.”
“Like your life depended on it,” Micah added.
64
With my knees digging into the carpet, my chest pinned against the coffee table, and the weight of my face pressed against the photographer’s loupe, I study a black-and-white profile shot of the President and First Lady as they leave Cadillac One, their chins up toward the astonished crowd. Like the best White House photos, the moment is flush with the pomp of the presidency mixed with the humanity of the players involved.
Manning has his hand on the small of his wife’s back, gently edging her out of the limo and into his world. As she leaves the car, one foot already on the pavement of the racetrack, she’s in mid-blink, frozen awkwardly between the private quiet of the limo and the public roar of the crowd. For support, the First Lady holds the hand that the President’s extended to her. But even in that moment—her holding him, his fingertips on the curve of her back— whatever tenderness exists between husband and wife is swallowed by the fact that instead of looking at each other, both smile up to the fans in the stands.
“These are unreal,” Lisbeth says, flipping through the notebook of 8 x 10s in her lap.
I glance over to see what she’s looking at. She’s about ten seconds ahead of my sequence, moments after the last shot was fired and Manning was pulled down by the swarm of drivers, guests, and Secret Service agents. In her photo, people in the stands scream and scurry in every direction, their hair spiked as they run.
In mine, they’re enraptured and calm, completely immobile on the edge of their seats. In Lisbeth’s, I hear the screams. In mine, I hear the thrill of their first true look at the President and his wife. There he is . . . There he is . . . There they are . . .
Ten seconds apart. Ten seconds to change everyth— No. It didn’t change everything. It changed me.
An electronic ring interrupts the thought as I quickly trace the noise to the cell phone we borrowed from Lisbeth’s coworker at the paper. Pulling it from my inside jacket pocket, I see Pres. Manning Library on caller ID. At least he’s smart enough not to call from his—
“They’re all in it together,” he insists before I can even say hello. “That’s how they pulled it off.”
“What’re you—?”
“It’s just like we said, Wes—you can’t do this without help.”
“Slow down . . . who’re you talking about?”
“The Three—that’s what Boyle called them. But they’re not what you—”
“Who’d you get this from? Dreidel or someone else?”
“My—”
“Does Dreidel even know?”
“Will you shut the hell up and let me tell you!?” Rogo shouts through the phone. I turn to see if Lisbeth hears, but she’s too lost in the 8 x 10s.
Catching his breath in the silence, Rogo starts at a whisper. Wherever he is, he’s definitely not alone. “They started as a myth, Wes. Like some old law enforcement ghost story. You’ve heard it for years: politicians bitching and moaning that all our law enforcement groups don’t work well together—that the FBI won’t share information with the CIA, who won’t share with the Secret Service. The result leaves half the agencies complaining that they’re in the dark. But there are some who argue—not publicly, of course—that the lack of coordination isn’t such a bad thing. The more adversarial they are, the more each agency is a check on the other. If the CIA does something corrupt, the FBI is there to call them on it. But if they all got together and ganged up against us . . . well, y’know what kinda power’s in those numbers?”
“Wait, so now you’re trying to tell me that someone’s convinced thousands of our country’s top, most trusted agents to suddenly switch sides?”
“Not thousands,” Rogo says, his voice still a whisper. “Just three.”
Climbing from