The Book of Fate - Brad Meltzer [42]
Nico was rocking fast—forward and back—as his tears rained down in thick drops to the sheet of paper that held his mother’s final dinner order. “When she died . . . that was . . . she died for my sins! Not his!” he wailed like a ten-year-old boy, his entire belief system shattered. “She was supposed to die for my sins!”
And that’s when The Three knew they had him.
Of course, that’s also why they picked him in the first place. It wasn’t difficult. With The Roman’s access to military files, they focused on the records of Fort Benning and Fort Bragg, which housed two of the army’s top sniper schools. Add the words dishonorable discharge and psychological problems, and the list narrowed quickly. Nico was actually third. But when they did some more digging—when they saw his religious devotion and found his father’s group affiliation—Nico went right to the top of the list.
From there, all they had to do was find him. Since all transitional housing and homeless shelters receiving government funds must submit the names of those using the facility, that part was easy. Then they had to prove he could be controlled. That’s why they took him back to his dad’s mobile home. And gave him the gun. And told him that there was only one way to set his mother’s spirit free.
During sniper training, Nico was taught to shoot between heartbeats to reduce barrel motion. Standing over his father, who was sobbing for mercy on the peeling linoleum floor, Nico pulled the trigger without hesitation.
And The Three realized they had their man.
All thanks to nothing more than a single sheet of paper with a fake hospital meal log.
As the traffic light blinked green, The Roman turned left and slammed the gas, sending his back wheels spinning and bits of slush spraying through the air. The car fishtailed on the never-plowed road, then quickly settled under The Roman’s tight grip. He’d put in far too much time to lose control now.
In the distance, the old storefronts and buildings gave way to rusted black metal gates that fenced in the wide-open grounds and were supposed to make the neighborhood feel safer. But with twenty-two patients escaping in the last year, most neighbors understood that the gates weren’t exactly living up to their expectations.
Ignoring the chapel and another towering brick building just beyond the gates, The Roman made a sharp right and stayed focused on the small guardhouse right inside the main entrance. It’d been almost eight years since the last time he was here. And as he rolled down his window and saw the peeling paint on the black and yellow gate arm, he realized nothing had changed, including the security procedures.
“Welcome to St. Elizabeths,” a guard with winter-grizzled lips said. “Visitor or delivery?”
“Visitor,” The Roman replied, flashing a Secret Service badge and never breaking eye contact. Like every agent before him, when Roland Egen first joined the Service, he didn’t start in Protective Operations. With the Service’s authority over financial crimes, he first spent five years investigating counterfeit rings and computer crime in the Houston field office. From there, he got his first protective assignment, assessing threats for the Intelligence Division, and from there—thanks to his flair for criminal investigations—he rose through the ranks in the Pretoria and Rome offices. It was raw determination that helped him claw his way up through the Secret Service hierarchy to his current position as deputy assistant director of Protective Operations. But it was in his after-hours work as The Roman where he reaped his best rewards. “I’m here for Nicholas Hadrian.”
“Nico’s in trouble, huh?” the guard asked. “Funny, he always says someone’s coming. For once, he’s actually right.”
“Yeah,” The Roman said, glancing up at the tiny cross on the roof of the old brick chapel in the distance. “Pretty damn hysterical.”
21
Palm Beach, Florida
Anyway, it’s just a cute little squib with you and Dreidel eating at the Four Seasons,” Lisbeth says as Rogo squeezes in next to me and puts his ear to the phone. “Sorta