“Until I put him in the limo.”
“Until Nico put a bullet in his hand and chest,” he says, turning back to face me. “From there, they rushed him to the Marshals Office, who patched him up, shuttled him from city to city, and put him straight into the highest levels of WITSEC. Naturally, he didn’t want to go, but he knew the alternatives. Even if it wrecks families, it saves more lives than you think.”
I nod as the President stands from his oversize seat. The way he leans on the armrest to slowly boost himself up, he’s more tired than he’s letting on. But he doesn’t ask me to leave.
“If it makes you feel better, Wes, I think she regretted it. Especially what happened with you.”
“I appreciate that,” I tell him, trying to be enthusiastic.
He studies me closely. I’m good at reading him. He’s even better at reading me. “I’m not just saying that, Wes.”
“Mr. President, I never thought otherwi—”
“We prayed together before bed. Did you know that? That was our ritual — ever since we first got married,” he explains. “And during that first year? She prayed for you every night.”
The number one mistake most people make when they meet the President is they always try to extend the conversation. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime moment, so they’ll say the dumbest things to make it last forever.
I stand from my seat and motion to the door. “I should really get going, sir.”
“Understood. Go do what you have to,” he says as he crosses around from his desk. “I’ll tell you what, though,” he adds as he follows me to the door. “I’m glad she made you a pallbearer.” He stops and catches his breath. “She should only be carried by family.”
Halfway through the doorway, I turn around. I’ll carry those words with me for the rest of my life.
But that doesn’t mean I believe them.
He reaches out to shake my hand, and I get the full double-hand clasp that he usually saves for heads of state and presidential-level donors. He even lingers a moment, engulfing part of my wrist.
Maybe it was unspoken. Maybe he figured it out. For all I know, she could’ve even told him outright. But one thing is clear — and it’s the only thing he said that can’t be argued: Leland Manning is not a moron. He knew Boyle was planning to say no to The Three. So when Boyle went down, he had to’ve suspected they could’ve gotten someone bigger.
As I head out through the living room and toward the front door, I spot the huge black-and-white photo of the view from behind his desk in the Oval. Sure, those four years were great. But for him, it would’ve been even better to have four more.
“Let me know if you need anything,” the President calls out from the living room.
I wave good-bye and say a final thanks.
The Cowardly Lion may not have courage. But he’s certainly got a brain.
He knows I was running around with a reporter. He knows she’s waiting for my call. And most important, he knows that when it comes to political touch, the best touch is when you don’t feel it at all.
For eight years, I haven’t felt anything. Right now I feel it all.
“Got everything you need?” the bald agent asks as he opens the front door.
“I think so.”
Stepping outside, I pull my phone from my pocket, punch in the number for her hospital room, and head down the red brick path. When Herbert Hoover left the White House, he said that a former President’s greatest service is to remove himself from politics and public life. Time for me to do the same.
“You speak to him?” Lisbeth asks, picking up on the first ring.
“Of course, I spoke to him.”
“And?”
At first, I don’t answer.
“C’mon, Wes, this isn’t the gossip column anymore. What’d you think of Manning?”
Up the path, outside the garage, half a dozen brand-new agents watch me carefully as the closest one tries to usher me toward the Suburban. Outside the front gate, the wolf pack of reporters shake their heads inconsolably as they scramble together video montages to honor the fallen First Lady. With her death comes the inevitable outpouring of sadness and support from commentators who spent their entire careers ripping her to pieces. I can already hear it in their hushed, reverential tones. They loved her. Their viewers loved her. The whole world loved her. All I have to do is keep my mouth shut.
“It’s okay,” Lisbeth says. She knows what the press’ll do to my life if I’m the one who spills it. “I’ll just tell them to go with the original story.”
“But what abou—?”
“You already fought your battle, Wes. No one can ask any more of you than that.”
I pull the phone close to my mouth and once again remind myself that every opportunity I’ve had in my life came directly from the Mannings. My words are a whisper. “Have them send over your laptop. I want you to write it. People need to know what she did.”
Lisbeth pauses, giving me plenty of time to take it back. “You sure about this?” she finally asks as a Secret Service agent with a flat nose opens the back door to the Suburban.
Ignoring him, I walk past the car and head straight for the tall wooden gate and the swelling crowd of mourners outside.
“And, Lisbeth?” I say as I shove the door open and the firing squad of cameras turns my way. “Don’t hold back.”
116
A rare Italian snow sprinkled down from the dusty sky as the man crossed Via Mazzarino and lowered his chin toward the lapels of his herringbone wool coat. His hair was blond now — short and barely grown in — but he was still careful as he approached Sant’Agata dei Goti, the fifth-century church that seemed to hide on the narrow cobblestone street.
Passing the front entrance but not going inside, he glanced up at the facade. The relief above the door was an ancient carving of Saint Agatha holding her severed breast on a plate, the victim of torturers who’d attacked her when she refused to renounce her faith.
“Praise Him,” the man whispered to himself as he cut right, followed the signs to the side entrance on Via Panisperna, and quietly marched up the bumpy brick driveway that was blanketed in the light snow.
At the end of the driveway, he wiped his feet on the battered welcome mat, shoved open the brown double doors, and winced as the old hinges shrieked. Inside, the smell of damp wood and rose candles welcomed and transported him right back to the old stone church where he grew up, right back to the Wisconsin winters of his childhood, right back to when his mom passed.
The hinges shrieked again — and he winced again — as the door slammed shut behind him. Wasting no time, the man scanned the empty pews, eyed the empty altar, then glanced between the Oriental granite columns that ran down the center aisle. No one in sight. His eyes narrowed as he listened. The only thing there was a single hushed whisper. Praise Him. Just like it was supposed to be.
Feeling his heart punch inside his chest, he raced toward his destination, tracing the faded colors of the mosaic floor to the mahogany stall on the far right side of the altar.
As he got closer, he followed the faint whisper from inside. He’d never been here before, but when he saw the picture in the travel brochure — he knew to always trust fate.
Unbuttoning his coat and taking one last glance around, he kneeled in front of the mahogany stall. The whispering stopped. Through a square cutaway in the booth, a small burgundy curtain was pulled shut, and the priest inside stopped praying.