The Book of Fate

62

We’re looking for Kara Lipof,” Rogo said, stepping into the messy room that was as wide and long as two side-by-side bowling lanes.

“Two to the right,” a male archivist with a phone number written on his hand said as he pointed his thumb two desks away.

Housing all eight archivists in a shared space with nothing but a metal bookshelf to separate each desk from the one next to it, the room was littered with paper on every desk, shelf, chair, computer monitor, mini-fridge, and window ledge. Fortunately for Rogo, the paper didn’t cover the plastic nameplate on the front of Kara’s desk.

“Kara?” Rogo asked warmly, always preferring to charm.

From behind her desk, a woman in her early thirties with auburn hair and a trendy floral-print blouse looked up from her computer screen. “Can I help you?”

“I hope so,” Rogo replied, adding a smile. “I’m Wes Holloway — from the personal office. I spoke to you yesterday about Ron Boyle’s files.” Before she could register any difference in Wes’s and Rogo’s voices, Rogo added the one thing guaranteed to get her attention. “The President wanted to know if you’d pulled them together yet.”

“Yes… of course,” Kara said, fidgeting with the piles on her desk. “It’s just… I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were coming to pick them up.”

“You said there were 36,000 pages to copy,” Rogo added, keeping the smile as he repeated the details Wes gave him. “We figured if we came down here and flipped through them first, we’d save you on the Kinko’s bills.”

Kara laughed. So did Dreidel, just for effect.

“You have no idea how much you’re saving my life right now,” Rogo added. “Thanks to you, I’ll actually live to my twenty-third birthday. Okay… twenty-fifth. Twenty-ninth, tops.”

“Don’t go turning me into a saint just yet,” Kara said, pulling out a thin manila folder. “Faxing you a crossword was one thing — but if you want access to Boyle’s full file, I need an official FOIA request, plus authorization that—”

“See, that’s the tickle,” Dreidel interrupted, putting a hand on Rogo’s shoulder and trying to get him to step aside. Rogo didn’t budge. “If the President makes an official request, people take notice. They start thinking something’s happened. That there must be news with Boyle’s case. Next thing we know, Boyle’s family wants to know what the government’s hiding. We say nothing, they say everything, and that’s how conspiracies are born. So how about saving all of us the migraines and instead treating this as an unofficial request? As for authorization, I’m happy to sign for it.”

“I’m sorry… do I know—?”

“Gavin Jeffer,” Dreidel replied before she could even finish the question. “Y’know… from here…”

Pointing a finger down toward her desk, Dreidel stabbed a piece of library letterhead just next to where his name appeared along the left margin.

To this day, it was Dreidel’s greatest get. In order to build the Manning Library, a separate foundation was set up with a board of directors that included the President’s closest friends, biggest donors, and most loyal staff. The select group included Manning’s daughters, his former secretary of state, the former CEO of General Motors, and — to almost everyone’s surprise — Dreidel. It took surgically precise phone calls and begging in all the right places, but those were always Dreidel’s specialties.

“So the files?” he said to the archivist.

Kara looked to Rogo, then back to Dreidel. The way she flicked her thumb against the edge of the manila folder, she was clearly still on the bubble.

“Kara, if you want, call the President’s office,” Dreidel added. “You know Claudia’s number.”

“That’s not what I—”

“It’s not like we’re talking about NSC staff,” Dreidel said, continuing to pound away as he referred to the National Security Council. “Boyle’s domestic.”

“And dead,” Rogo said, bouncing on his feet to keep the mood upbeat. “C’mon, what’s the worst that happens? He suddenly comes back to life?”

For the second time, Kara laughed. For the second time, Dreidel pretended to.

“And you’ll sign off on it?” she asked Dreidel.

“Gimme the form and I’m your man. And if it makes you feel better, I’ll have President Manning write you a thank-you note personally.”

Shaking her head, she stood from her desk. “This better not get me fi—”

Rogo’s phone rang in his pocket. “Sorry,” he said, fishing it from his pants and flipping it open. Caller ID said PB Sher. Off. Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office.

“I’ll catch up in a second,” he said to Dreidel and Kara as they headed for the door. Turning to the phone, he answered, “This is Rogo.”

“Hey, fatty, we missed you in court today,” a man teased with a high voice and unforgivable New York accent. Rogo knew it instantly. Deputy Terry Mechaber. Palm Beach County’s number one writer of illegal U-turn tickets… and Rogo’s oldest friend in law enforcement.

“Yeah, receptionist was sick, so I had to stay back and kiss my own butt this morning,” Rogo replied.

“That’s funny, because I just spoke to your receptionist. Sounded like her lips were just fine — especially when she said you’d been gone since this morning.”

For a moment, Rogo was quiet. “Listen, Terry—”

“I don’t wanna know, I don’t wanna hear, I don’t wanna read about it in tomorrow’s paper,” Terry said. “And based on this fight you’re picking, I don’t even wanna see the bad TV movie with the scene of me passing this along to you.”

“Wh-What’re you—?”

“The Three… y’know, the guys you asked me to run through the databases here…”

“Wait, you found something?”

“Yeah, here in the Florida DMV, we have records of all the international bad guys. No, I passed it to my partner’s sister’s brother-in-law, who’s been spending the last few years doing some high-tech computer job I still don’t understand for DOD.”

“Dee-oh-dee?”

“Department of Defense,” Terry replied, his voice slow and serious. “And when he ran The Three through there, well, remember the time when that eighteen-wheeler hauling all that rebar triple-flipped on I-95, sending metal javelins through the air and impaling nearly everyone in the ten nearest cars behind it?”

“Yeah…”

“It’s worse than that.”