The Book of Fate - Brad Meltzer [127]
Nodding to himself, O’Shea reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a black ostrich-skin wallet and matching CIA badge. As he flipped it open, he took one last look at the picture in Micah’s driver’s license. From the messy brown hairstyle and the crooked bottom teeth, the photo had to be almost a decade old. Before the teeth were fixed. Before the hair got meticulously slicked back. Before they were making real money.
O’Shea didn’t like lifting his old friend’s wallet, but he knew it’d buy him at least a day in IDing the body. Though right now, as he readjusted his shoulder holster and rechecked his gun, all he needed was an hour or so to wrap things up and leave this life behind.
They’d created an alter ego for Egen as The Roman. Certainly, O’Shea could create something new for himself.
“How fast you think you can get there?” Paul asked through the phone.
Grinning to himself, O’Shea tossed Micah’s IDs from the dock into the water. They floated for half a second, then sank out of sight. “At this rate? I’ll be in and out lickety-split.”
76
Try calling him again,” Dreidel said as he spun the acid-free archival box around and checked the dates on its typed spine: Boyle, Ron—Domestic Policy Council—October 15- December 31.
“Just did,” Rogo said, working his way through his own stack and checking the last few boxes in the pile. “You know how Wes gets on the job—he won’t pick up if he’s with Manning.”
“You should still try him agai—”
“And tell him what? That it looks like Boyle had a kid? That there’s some note referencing May 27th? Until we get some details, it doesn’t even help us.”
“It helps us to keep Wes informed—especially where he is right now. He should know that Manning knew.”
“And you’re sure about that?” Rogo asked. “Manning knew about Boyle’s kid?”
“It’s his best friend—and it’s in the file,” Dreidel said. His voice cracked slightly as he looked up from the last few boxes. “Manning definitely knew.”
Rogo watched Dreidel carefully, sensing the change in his tone. “You’re doubting him, aren’t you, Dreidel? For the first time, you’re realizing there might be a crack in the Manning mask.”
“Let’s just keep looking, okay?” Dreidel asked as he tilted the final two milk-crate-sized boxes and scanned the dates. One was labeled Memoranda—January 1-March 31. The other was Congressional AIDS Hearing—June 17-June 19. “Damn,” he whispered, shoving them aside.
“Nothing here either,” Rogo said, closing the last box and climbing up from his knees. “Okay, so grand total—how many boxes do we have that include the May 27 date?”
“Just these,” Dreidel said, pointing to the four archival boxes that they’d set up on the worktable. “Plus you pulled the schedule, right?”
“Not that it helps,” Rogo replied as he waved Manning’s official schedule from May 27. “According to this, the President was with his wife and daughter at their cabin in North Carolina. At noon, he went biking. Then lunch and some fishing on the lake. Nothing but relaxing the whole day.”
“Who was staffing him?” Dreidel asked, well aware that the President never traveled without at least some work.
“Albright . . .”
“No surprise—he took his chief of staff everywhere.”
“. . . and Lemonick.”
“Odd, but not out of the ordinary.”
“And then those same names you said were from the Travel Office—Westman, McCarthy, Lindelof—”
“But not Boyle?”
“Not according to this,” Rogo said, flipping through the rest of the schedule.
“Okay, so on May 27th, barely two months before the shooting, Manning was in North Carolina and Boyle was presumably in D.C. So the real question is, what was Boyle doing while the cat was away?”
“And you think the answer’s in one of these?” Rogo asked, circling the tops of the four boxes with his hand.
“Those’re the ones that have date ranges that include May 27th,” Dreidel said. “I’m telling you,” he added as he flipped off the top of the first box, “I’ve got a good feeling. The answer’s in here.”
“There’s no way it’s in here!” Rogo moaned forty-five minutes later.
“Maybe we should go through them