The Book of Fate by Brad Meltzer

money addicts in Palm Beach.”
    This time, I’m the one who’s silent. A waiter approaches and fills Dreidel’s cup with coffee.
    “You guys talked about divorce?” I ask.
    “Can’t.”
    “Why not?”
    “Why do you think?” he challenges.
    I look over at the file folder that’s lying between us on the table. The handwritten tab says
Fundraising.
    “I thought you said you were down here on business.”
    “And that’s not business?” he asks.
    A few months back, Dreidel called the President to tell him he was running for State Senate in the 19th District in his home state of Illinois. But when it comes to impending elections, “happily married father” polls far better than “recently divorced dad.”
    “See, and you thought you were the only one with problems,” Dreidel adds. “Now assuming that was Boyle, you want to hear how he cheated death, or not?”

 
    14
    I sit up straight in my chair. “You actually found something?”
    “No, I called you here to waste your time.” With a deep sip of coffee, Dreidel’s a different man. Like anyone in the White House, he’s always better when he’s in control. “So back to the beginning . . . the real beginning . . . On the day the two of you got shot at the speedway, you remember how long the drive was to get you to the hospital?”
    A simple question, but I don’t give him an answer.
    “Just guess,” he says.
    I grit my teeth, surprised by how hard the memory hits. I can still see the ambulance doors closing on Boyle . . .
    “Wes, I know you don’t want to relive it, I just need—”
    “I passed out,” I blurt. “From what they said, the ambulance took about four minutes . . .”
    “It was three minutes.”
    “Pretty fast.”
    “Actually, pretty slow considering Halifax Medical Center is only a mile and a half from the speedway. Now guess how long it took for the ambulance that drove there with Boyle, who was—no offense—a whole lot more important than you were to the administration, not to mention far more injured?”
    I shake my head, refusing to play along.
    “Twelve minutes,” Dreidel blurts.
    We sit in silence as I take it in.
    “So?” I ask.
    “C’mon, Wes.
Twelve minutes
for a speeding ambulance with a critically injured White House senior staff member to travel a mile and a half? The average person
walks
faster. My grandmother walks faster. And she’s dead.”
    “Maybe they got stuck in the panicking riot outside.”
    “Funny, that’s exactly what
they
said.”
    “They?”
    From the briefcase that’s leaning against the side of his chair, Dreidel pulls out a bound document about half as thick as a phone book. He drops it on the table with a thud that sends our spoons bouncing. I recognize the congressional logo immediately.
Investigation into the Assassination Attempt on President Leland F. Manning.
Congress’s official investigation into Nico’s attack. Dreidel leaves it on the table, waiting to see if I pick it up. He knows me better than I thought.
    “You never read it, did you?” he asks.
    I stare at the book, still refusing to touch it. “I flipped through it once . . . It’s just . . . it’s like reading your own obituary.”
    “More like Boyle’s obituary. You lived, remember?”
    I brush my hand against my face. My fingertips rise and fall in the craters of my scars. “What’s your point?”
    “Play the numbers, Wes. Two trains leave the station at almost the exact same time. Both race for the hospital. It’s a matter of life and death. One takes three minutes. The other takes twelve. You don’t see a problem there? And if that weren’t enough, remember what the real security screwup was that Congress ripped our doctors apart for?”
    “You mean bringing the President’s wrong blood type?”
    “See, that’s where they always got it wrong. When Congress did their investigation, they tore out what little hair they had left in their heads because they found pints of O-negative blood along with the