The Book of Lies by Brad Meltzer Page A

the passenger side of the White House. Down the tall grass of the embankment, there’s another canal that runs parallel to the road. When we were hiding on the other side . . . There was another splash.
    “Gator food,” my father says, pointing over the fence.
    “That’s what I would do.”
    I wait for him to ask why, but to’ve abandoned me this long, my dad’s got plenty of heartless in him. He doesn’t need help developing the picture: Ellis is a cop. He did his homework. My dad’s a convicted murderer . . . I’m a disgraced agent . . . There’s no question who’s the easiest to blame for this. And why he asked my dad to hand him Timothy’s gun.
    “He’s got my prints on one of the weapons,” my father says.
    “You think he didn’t drive my van all around the port, making sure the eyes-in-the-sky got a good look? Ten seconds’ worth of homework before ICE realizes I’m the one who snuck into the port with Timothy. . . .”
    “On behalf of a shipment that’s tied to your father,” my dad adds.
    Which brings us right back to the gun. We’re both silent as it all seeps in. Forget what happened with Mom. Ellis just has to point his cop finger our way. Once they hear we killed a federal agent—we’re repeat offenders. They don’t make bags small enough that’ll carry our remains.
    “We should follow the truck,” my dad suggests, looking out toward the dark road. “He didn’t have that much of a lead.”
    “Yeah, maybe,” I reply.
    “
Maybe?
The only way to prove what actually happened is by finding what’s really in that—”
    I turn away. That’s all he needs.
    “You know what’s in that truck, don’t you, Calvin?”

18
    S tay, girl. . . . That’s my girl,” Ellis said to Benoni, adding a quick scratch between the dog’s ears. In the passenger seat of the truck, Benoni was breathing calmly now—but with her ears pinned back and her eyes narrow and intently fixed out the window, it was clear she was just simmering.
    After setting the odometer back to zero, Ellis grabbed an old pair of bolt cutters from the toolbox behind his seat, shoved open the driver’s door, and climbed down from the cab of the truck. He was still annoyed that he’d let Cal get away, but when he’d heard Benoni cry like that—the way she was shaking on the ground—family had to come first.
    Most important, as he glanced around the empty rest stop and walked around to the back of the truck, he had what he wanted. And thanks to his police uniform, surprise was most definitely on his side. Especially with Timothy. But that was the benefit of taking on a partner—there was always someone else to blame things on. As his grandfather wrote, the mission was bigger than a single man. Finally, after the headache in China and Hong Kong and Panama and here—finally—mission accomplished.
    He dialed quickly on his cell, then pinched the phone between his chin and shoulder and lifted the bolt cutters to the metal seal that looked like a silver bolt at the back of the rust-colored container. The phone rang in his ear . . . once . . . twice . . . He knew the time—it was six a.m. in Michigan—but this was victory.
    There was a loud
cunk
as the bolt cutters bit down and snapped the seal.
    “Judge Wojtowicz’s line,” a female voice answered. “You need him to sign a warrant?”
    “No warrants. This is a personal call. For Felix,” Ellis said, knowing that using the Judge’s first name would speed things up. With a twist of the thin metal bars on the back of the container, Ellis unlocked the double doors.
    He knew how he got to this moment. His grandfathers—in their commitment to the Leadership—began the quest. For all Ellis knew, his mother had searched, too. But the research had survived only because of the water-stained diary.
    The word
Schetsboek
was embossed in faded gold on the front. Dutch for “Sketchbook.” Flipping through it that first time, Ellis had stopped on a page dated February 16, 1922, on