The Book of Fate by Brad Meltzer Read Free Book Online

first.
    I replay the moments backstage at the speech. The metal clang as he banged into the coffee table. The panicked look on his face. Up till now, I assumed that when I saw him, he was in the process of breaking in. But now . . . him being here last night . . . and using that decade-old codename . . . Boyle’s no idiot. With all the fake names to choose from, you don’t use that name to hide. You use it so someone can find you. I twist the kaleidoscope and a new picture clicks into place. Sure, Boyle could’ve been breaking in. But he could’ve just as easily been invited. The problem is, considering that the only people on this trip are me and three Secret Service agents who never even worked in the White House, there’s only one person left who would’ve recognized that old codename. One person who could’ve known Boyle was coming—and invited him inside.
    I glance back at the President just as he finishes his final autograph. There’s a wide smile across his face.
    A knot of pain tugs the back of my neck. My hands start shaking at my sides. Why would . . . how could he do that? Ten feet away, he puts his arm around an Asian woman and poses for a photo, grinning even wider. As the flash explodes, the knot in my neck tightens like a noose. I clamp my eyes, straining to find the lake from summer camp . . . grasping for my focal point. But all I see is Boyle. His shaved head. The fake accent to throw me off. Even the sobs of his daughter, who I apologize to every time I see her grieving during the anniversaries of the event.
    For eight years, his death has been the one wound that would never mend, festering over time with my own isolation. The guilt . . . everything I caused . . . Oh, Lord, if he’s actually back . . .
    I open my eyes and realize they’re filled with tears. Quickly wiping them away, I can’t even look at Manning.
    Whatever Boyle was doing there, I need to figure out what the hell is going on. In the White House, we had access to the entire military. We don’t have the military anymore. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have my own personal reserves.
    I pull out my satellite phone and dial the number from memory. The sun should just be coming up in Washington.
    Accustomed to emergencies, he picks up on the first ring. Caller ID tells him who it is.
    “Let me guess, you’re in trouble,” Dreidel answers.
    “This one’s serious,” I tell him.
    “It involve your boss?”
    “Doesn’t everything?” Dreidel’s my closest friend from the White House, and more important, knows Manning better than anyone. By his silence, it’s clear he understands. “Now you got a second? I need some help.”
    “For you, my friend, anything . . .”

 
    5
    Paris, France
    W ith mayonnaise?” the thin woman with the red bifocals asked in a heavy French accent.
    “Oui,” Terrence O’Shea replied, nodding respectfully, but disappointed that she even asked. He thought his French was flawless—or as flawless as FBI training could make it—but the fact she asked the question in English and referred to the garlicky
aïoli
as “mayonnaise” . . . “Excusez-moi, madame,” O’Shea added, “pourquoi m’avez vous demandé cela en anglais?”
Why did you ask me in English?
    The woman pursed her lips and smiled at his largely Swiss features. His thin blond hair, pink skin, and hazel eyes came from his mother’s family in Denmark, but his fat, buckled nose was straight from his father’s Scottish side—made only worse by a botched hostage rescue back from his days doing fieldwork. As the woman handed O’Shea the small container of french fries drenched with mayo, she explained, “Je parle très mal le danois.”
My Danish is terrible.
Reading O’Shea’s thin grin, she added, “Vous
venez
de Danemark, n’est-ce pas?”
You
are
from Denmark, yes?
    “Oui,” O’Shea lied, taking a strange joy in the fact she didn’t spot him as American. Then again, blending in was part of the job.
    “J’ai