The Book of Lies

by Brad Meltzer

Genres: Thrillers

Synopsis

In chapter four of the Bible, Cain kills Abel. It is the world’s most famous murder. But the Bible is silent about one key detail: the weapon Cain used to kill his brother. That weapon is still lost to history.

    In 1932, Mitchell Siegel was killed by two gunshots to the chest. While mourning, his son dreamed of a bulletproof man and created the world’s greatest hero: Superman. And like Cain’s murder weapon, the gun used in this unsolved murder has never been found.

    Today in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Cal Harper comes face-to-face with his own family tragedy: His long-missing father has been shot with a gun that traces back to Mitchell Siegel’s 1932 murder. But soon after their surprising reunion, Cal and his father are attacked by a ruthless killer tattooed with the ancient markings of Cain.

    So begins the chase for the world’s first murder weapon. It is a race that will pull Cal back into his own past even as it propels him forward through the true story of Cain and Abel, an eighty-year-old unsolvable puzzle, and the deadly organization known for the past century as the Leadership.

Release date: September 2, 2008

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 352

Sample

1

Nineteen years later Hong Kong

Good girl—such a good girl,” Ellis said, down on one knee as his dog snatched the beef treat from his open palm. With a bite and a gulp, the treat was gone, and Ellis Belasco, with his sleek copper red hair, smiled proudly and added a strong authoritative pat to the back of his smoky brown pet’s neck. As the trainer said, attack dogs had to be rewarded.

“P-Please… my leg… he chewed my leg!” the thin Chinese man whined as he crawled across the worn beige carpet toward the hotel room door.

“To be clear, she chewed your Achilles’ tendon,” Ellis said, calmly standing up and brushing back his long European-style haircut—he was always meticulous—to reveal amber eyes framed by striking, lush eyebrows that almost merged on the bridge of his nose. Because of his rosy coloring, his cheeks were always flushed, as were his full lips, which he licked as he stared down at a small tattoo between his thumb and pointer finger.



His birthright was healing nicely.

For the past two months, Ellis had been tracking the ancient book from collector to collector—from the doctor in China whose death gave it away, to Zhao, the shipper, who schemed to deliver it elsewhere. Every culture called it by a different name, but Ellis knew the truth.

“I know you have it,” Ellis said. “I’d like the Book of Lies now.”

From the corner of the bed, Ellis reached for his small gray pistol.

“Nonono… you can’t— My fiancée— We just got engaged!” the young dockworker begged, scrambling on his one good knee as his other leg left a smear of blood across the carpet.

Ellis pressed the barrel of his gun against the man’s throat. It was vital he hit the jugular. But he knew he would. That was the advantage of having God on your side. “I paid what you asked me, Zhao,” Ellis said calmly. “But it makes me sad that someone else clearly paid you more.”

“I swear—the book—I told you where it’s going!” Zhao screamed, his eyes rolling toward the pistol as Ellis glanced out the hotel window, into the dim alley. The view was awful—nothing more than a blank brick wall. But that was why Ellis had Zhao meet him here. No view, no witnesses.

With a squeeze, Ellis shot him in the throat.

There was no bang, just a pneumatic hiss. Zhao jerked slightly, and his eyes blinked open… “Ai! Ai, that—! What was that?” he stuttered as a drop of blood bubbled from his neck.

The military called them “jet injectors.” Since World War I, they had been used to vaccinate soldiers quickly and easily. There was no needle. The burst of air was so strong, it drilled through the skin with nothing more than a disposable air cartridge and the one-use red nozzle that looked like a thimble with a tiny hole. All you’d feel was the snap of a rubber band, and the vaccine was in your blood. For Ellis, it was a bit overdramatic, but if he was to find the Book that had been taken from him… that had been taken from his family… He knew every war had rules. His great-grandfather left him this gun—or the plans for this gun, at least—for a reason. It took time and patience to build it from scratch. Ellis had plenty of both.

“Forty… thirty-nine… thirty-eight…” Ellis began to count, peeking under the wrist of his starched shirt and checking his new Ulysse Nardin watch.

“Wait…! The shot—! What’d you put in me!?” Zhao screamed, gripping the side of his neck.

“… thirty-seven… thirty-six… thirty-five…” Ellis said, his voice as serene as ever. “My family first encountered it in Belgium. Conium maculatum. Hemlock.”

“Are you—? You put hemlock—!? You put a poison—are you a fool!? Now you get nothing!” Zhao yelled, fighting hard as he thrashed and crawled toward the door.

In a way, Zhao was right. Shooting him was a gamble. But Ellis knew… it’s not a gamble when you know you’ll win. After unscrewing the empty hemlock vial, he replaced it with a vial filled with a cloudy yellow liquid.

“I-Is that the antidote?” Zhao asked. “It is, isn’t it!?”

Ellis stepped back, away from his victim’s reach. “Do you know who Mitchell Siegel is, Zhao?”

“Wh-What’re you talking about?”

“Thirty-one… thirty… twenty-nine… In 1932, a man named Mitchell Siegel was shot in the chest and killed. While mourning the death of his father, his young son Jerry came up with the idea of a bulletproof man that he nicknamed Superman.”

Mid-crawl, Zhao’s feet stopped moving. “M-My—! Wh-What’d you do to my legs!?”

Ellis nodded and stood still. To this day, scientists didn’t know why hemlock poisoning started in the feet and worked up from there.

“Such a dumb idea, right, Zhao—a bulletproof man? But the only reason Superman was born was because a little boy missed his father,” Ellis pointed out. “And the best part? The murder’s still unsolved. In fact, people are still so excited by Superman, they never stop to ask just why Mitchell Siegel was killed—or to even consider that maybe, just maybe, he might’ve done something that made him the bad guy in this story.… Twenty… nineteen… eighteen…”

“I can’t feel my legs!” Zhao sobbed as tears ran down his face.

“You think I’m the bad guy here, but I’m not,” Ellis said, putting away the empty vial, zipping his leather doctor’s case, and smoothing the sheets on the edge of the bed. “I’m the hero, Zhao. You’re the bad guy. You’re the one keeping the Book of Lies from us. Just like Mitchell Siegel kept it from us.”

“P-Please, I don’t know who the hell you’re talking about!”

Ellis crouched down next to Zhao, who was flat on his belly, barely able to catch his breath. “I want my Book. Tell me its final destination.”

“I—I—I told you,” Zhao stuttered. “W-We— It’s going to Panama.”

“And then where?”

“That’s it—Panama… ” he repeated, his nose pressed to the carpet, his eyes clenched in pain. “Just… the antidote…”

“You feel that tightening in your waist?” Ellis asked, looking down and realizing that his shoes could use a new shine. “Your thighs are dead, Zhao. Then it’ll climb to your testicles. Hemlock is what killed Socrates. He narrated his entire death—how it slithered from his waist, to his chest, right up to when his eyes were fixed and dilated.”

“Okay… okayokayokay… Miami! After Panama… they’re… it’s going to Miami! In Florida,” Zhao insisted. “The sheet… the lading bill… it’s… I swear… it’s in my pocket! Just make it stop!”

Ellis reached into Zhao’s pocket and extracted the sheet of light pink paper that held all the details of the shipment’s arrival.

… seven… six… five…

The dog began to growl. She could smell death coming. But Ellis ignored the noise, peacefully reading from the bill of lading: the container’s new tracking number, the receiver’s name (had to be fake)—everything the Leadership needed.

… four… three… two…

Still flat on his stomach and now with his mouth wide open, Zhao gave a final hollow gasp that sounded like the last bits of water being sucked down a drain. Ellis’s great-grandfather described the same sound in his diary—right after he mentioned there was no antidote for hemlock poisoning.

… one.

Zhao was nice—even kind when they first met at the doctor’s funeral—but the mission was bigger than Zhao. And based on what happened in 1900 with Mitchell Siegel, the mission had enough problems with witnesses.

Zhao’s tongue went limp, and his head slumped forward, sending his forehead against the carpet.

Ellis didn’t notice. He was already on his phone, dialing Judge Wojtowicz’s number.

“I told you not to call me here, Eddie,” answered an older man with a soft, crackly voice.

“Ellis. I’m called Ellis now,” he replied, never losing his composure. He spread out his left hand, admiring the tattoo.

“It’s five in the morning here, Ellis. What do you want?”

Ellis smiled—truly smiled—turning his full attention to the phone. “What I want is for you to remember just where you were when I found you, Judge. Your group—your Leadership—your dream was old and dead. Is that how you pictured your final years? Just another discarded, cobwebbed old man sitting in his cramped Michigan apartment and wondering why his glory days weren’t more glorious? You’re not even a footnote in history, Judge. Not even an asterisk. But if you want, I can put you back there. Maybe one day you’ll be a parenthesis.”

“My family has been in the Leadership since—”

“Don’t embarrass yourself, Judge. Family names don’t get you into Harvard anymore; what makes you think they’ll get you in here?”

There was a long pause on the line. “I appreciate your helping us with this, Ellis,” the Judge finally offered. Clearing his throat, he added, “You’re close to finding the Book, aren’t you?”

“And about to get even closer,” Ellis said, glancing at the pink bill of lading and studying the container’s new tracking details: when it left the port, when it’d arrive in Miami, even the truck driver who was responsible for the pickup.

HARPER, LLOYD.

“C’mon, Benoni,” he murmured to the dog.

He knew it was an odd name. Benoni. But according to the diaries, that was the name of Abel’s watchdog—the dog that was eventually given to Cain—and the only witness to the world’s first murder.

“You’re in for a treat, girl,” he said as he stepped over Zhao’s dead body and led the dog out into the hallway. “This time of year, the weather is gorgeous in Florida.”

As the dog ran ahead, Ellis never lost sight of her. He knew his history. Only with Benoni would he find the Book of Lies and solve the true mystery of the world’s greatest villain.

2

Two weeks later

Fort Lauderdale, Florida

My name is Cal Harper.

This is the second most important day of my life.

“Remove heem,” the manager of the French bistro calls out behind us.

“S-Sorry, Cal,” my client Alberto apologizes, his body shaking as I hook his arm around my neck and help him hobble back toward our van. From the stench on his breath, Alberto’s been drinking hard. From his fresh split lip, plus the tear in his ratty T-shirt, he’s been fighting, too. In his left hand, he clutches the dented, rusty RC Cola can that he carries everywhere.

Welcome to Fort Lauderdale beach. Just another day in paradise.

“You planning on helping here?” I call to Roosevelt, who’s reclining in the passenger seat of our dumpy white van.

“Ah’m mentoring,” Roosevelt calls back in a thick Tennessee drawl, nodding a hello to Alberto, who offers a gray-toothed smile in return.

“No, you’re sitting on your rear while I do all the work,” I point out.

“Whattya think mentoring is?” Roosevelt asks, lumbering out like an old mountain cat and slowly tugging open the side door of the van, a 1991 GMC Safari that another client christened “the White House.” (Roosevelt and Calvin in the same place? It’s downright presidential.)

“You got him?” I ask.

“Isn’t that why God put me on this planet?” Roosevelt says, his dyed-black, aging-hippie ponytail flapping in the salty ocean breeze. At forty-two, Roosevelt’s old enough to know better than the ponytail, but we all have our weaknesses. “Man, Alberto, you reek.”

To the few passing tourists still walking the beach, we probably look like mobsters. But our job’s far more dangerous than that.

“Listen, thanks for calling us instead of the cops,” I tell the restaurant manager, a middle-aged guy who looks like a ferret.

“I’m no schmuck,” he laughs, dropping his French accent. “Cops would take two hours. You take the trash out fast.”

He offers a handshake, and as I reach to take it, I spot a hundred-dollar bill in his palm. I pull back as if he’s offering a coiled snake.

“Just our way of saying thanks,” he adds, reaching out again for the handshake.

I don’t shake back. “Listen,” I insist, stepping toward him. It’s clear I’m not the most imposing figure—I slouch and have a shambling walk that’s all arms and legs and big hands—but I do have most of my dad’s height. Nearly six feet when I stand up straight. And the only time I do that is when I’m pissed. Like now. “Do you understand what I do?” I ask, my thick Adam’s apple pumping with each syllable.

“Aw, jeez, you’re gonna give me some self-important speech now, aren’t ya?”

“No speech. We take the homeless back to shelters—”

“And what? If you accept a tip it’ll make it less of a good deed? I respect that. I do. But c’mon, be fair to yourself,” he says, motioning to my faded black T-shirt, which is barely tucked in. “What’re ya, thirty years old with that baby face? You’re wearing secondhand sneakers and sweatpants. To work. When was the last time you got a haircut? And c’mon… your van…”

I glance back at the van’s peeling tinted windows and the swarm of rust along the back fender, then down at my decade-old sweatpants and my checkerboard Vans sneakers.

“Take the money, kid. If you don’t use it for yourself, at least help your organization.”

I shake my head. “You called my client trash.”

To my surprise, he doesn’t get defensive. Or mad. “You’re right—I’m sorry,” he says, still holding out the money. “Let this be my apology. Please. Don’t make it the end of the world.”

I stare at my sweatpants, calculating all of the underwear and socks I could buy for our clients with an extra hundred dollars.

“C’mon, bro… even Bob Dylan did an iPod commercial.”

“And once again, making the world safe for people who eat croque-monsieurs,” I say, yanking open the door of the van and climbing back behind the wheel.

“What the fudge, Cal? You didn’t take the money, did you?” Roosevelt asks with a sigh as he reaches into the brown bag on his lap and cracks open a pistachio shell. “Why you so stubborn?”

“Same reason you say dumb crap like ‘What the fudge.’ ”

“That’s different.”

“It’s not different,” I shoot back, looking down at the van’s closed ashtray. With a tug, I pull it open, spot the dozens of discarded pistachio shells he’s stuffed inside, and dump them in the empty Burger King bag between us. Roosevelt cracks another shell and leans for the ashtray. I shake the Burger King bag in front of him instead. “You were a minister, so you don’t like to curse—I get it, Roosevelt. But it’s a choice you make on principle.”

“You were a minister?” Alberto blurts from the backseat, barely picking his head up from the RC soda can with the plastic wrap on top. It took nearly six different pickups before Alberto told me that’s where he keeps his father’s ashes. I used to think he was nuts. I still do. But I appreciate the logic. I’m what my parents left behind. I understand not wanting to do the same to someone else. “I thought you were some special agent who got arrested…”

Twisting the ignition and hitting the gas, I don’t say a word.

“That was Cal,” Roosevelt points out as we take off down A1A, and his ponytail flaps behind him. “And we’ve talked about my ministry, Alberto.”

Alberto pauses a moment. “You’re a minister?”

“He was,” I offer. “Ask him why he left.”

“Ask Cal why he got fired,” Roosevelt says in that calm, folksy drawl that filled the church pews every Sunday and immediately has Alberto looking my way. “Losing his badge… y’know that’s what turned his hair white?” Roosevelt adds, pointing at my full head of thick silver hair, which is such a scraggly mess it almost covers the birthmark near my left eye.

“Nuh-uh,” Alberto says. “You didn’t get that from your momma or daddy?”

I click my front teeth together, staring out at the closed tourist T-shirt shops that line the beach. The only thing I got from my parents was a light blue government form with the charges against my father.

The prosecutor was smart: He went for manslaughter instead of murder… painted a picture of this six-foot-two monster purposely shoving a small, defenseless young mom… then for the final spit-shine added in my father yelling, “That’s it—you’re done!” (Testimony courtesy of every neighbor with an adjoining wall.)

My dad got eight years at Glades Correction Institution. The state of Florida gave me six minutes to say good-bye. I remember the room smelled like spearmint gum and hairspray. Life is filled with trapdoors. I happened to swan dive through mine when I was nine years old. That was the last time I ever saw Dad. I don’t blame him anymore, even though when he got out, he could’ve— I don’t blame him anymore.

“Gaaah,” Roosevelt shouts, his ruddy features burning bright. “You shoulda taken that restaurant money.”

“Roosevelt, the only reason he was offering that cash was so when he goes home tonight, he doesn’t feel nearly as guilty for sweeping away the homeless guy that he thought was bad for his fake French bistro business. Go pray… or send an e-mail to heaven… or do whatever you do to let your God weigh in, but I’m telling you: We’re here to help those who need it—not to give fudging penance.”

His lips purse at my use of the G-word. Roosevelt’ll joke about anything—his long hair, his obsession with early chubby Janet Jackson (so much better than the later thinner model), even his love of “Yo Momma’s So Fat” jokes as a tool for changing the subject during an awkward social situation—but he’ll never joke about God.

Staring out the side window, Roosevelt’s now the one clicking his teeth. “Making it a crusade doesn’t make it right,” he says, speaking slowly so I feel every word.

“It’s not a crusade.”

“Really? Then I suppose when you leave this job every night, your life is filled with a slew of outside interests: like that kindergarten teacher I tried to set you up with. Oh, wait—that’s right—you never called her.”

“I called her. She had to run,” I say, gripping the steering wheel and searching the passing side streets for possible clients.

“That’s why you set up a date! To make time so you can talk, or eat, or do something besides riding past mile after mile of gorgeous beach and spending all that time checking every alley for a homeless person!”

I look straight ahead as Roosevelt cracks another pistachio and tosses the shell in the bag. I never had an older brother, but if I did, I bet he’d torture me with the exact same silence.

“I know you can’t turn it off, Cal—and I love you for that—but it’s unhealthy. You need something… a hobby—”

“I have lots of hobbies.”

“Name one.”

“Don’t start.” I think a moment. “Watching cop shows on TV.”

“That’s just so you can point out inconsistencies. Name a real form of entertainment. What was the last movie you saw? Or better yet—” He grabs the notebook-size steel case that’s wedged between my seat and the center console. My laptop.

“Here we go,” he says, flipping open the computer and clicking the History button in my browser. “Seeing the Web sites someone goes to, it’s like looking at the furniture arrangement of their mind.”

On-screen, the list isn’t long.

“SmartSunGuide.com?” he asks.

“That’s a good site.”

“No, that’s where you get Florida traffic reports and the public CCTV cameras—to spot homeless clients who’re sleeping under an overpass.”

“So?”

“And this one: ConstructionJournal.com. Lemme guess: up-to-the-minute building permits, so you can find all the new construction sites.”

“That’s where our clients tend to sleep.”

“Cal, you not seeing the picture here? No interests, no news, no sports, hell, not even any porn. You’re a damn walrus,” Roosevelt insists, cracking another pistachio. “When it’s walking on land, walruses are the most lumbering, awkward creatures God ever gave us. But the moment it enters the water, that sucker is quicksilver. Fwoooo,” he says, slicing his hand through the air like a ski jump. “Same with you, Cal. When you’re working with clients, you’re in the water—fwoooo—just quicksilver. The problem is, all you wanna do is stay underwater. And even the walrus knows if it doesn’t come up for air, it’s gonna die.”

“That’s a very inspiring and far too visual analogy. But I know who I am, and I like who I am, and when it comes to ass-face restaurant managers who treat money as some green-colored rosary, well, no offense, but I’m not for sale. And we should never let our clients be, either.”

He rolls his eyes, letting us both calm down. “Can you be more predictable?” he asks.

“I was trying to be complex.”

“Complex woulda been if you had taken the guy’s money, given it to Alberto, and then told him to go back and use it to eat at the restaurant.”

I glance over at him. The pastor in him won’t let up. Not until I get the message. As I try to save whoever’s out there, he still thinks he needs to save me. I know he misses his parish, but he’s wrong about this one. It’s not a crusade. Or an obsession. I could leave this job tomorrow. Or the next night. Or the night after that. Tonight, though, isn’t that night.

“I’m still not for sale,” I tell him. “And you of all people shouldn’t be, either.”

Roosevelt leans back in his reclined seat and lets out a hearty laugh. “Yo momma’s so fat—”

“Roosevelt, I shouldn’t’ve said that—”

“—the horse on her Polo shirt… is real!”

“You used that last week.”

“Yo momma’s so fat, in elevators, it says: ‘Maximum Occupancy: Twelve Patrons OR Yo momma!’ ”

“Does that really make you happier?”

“Just take the money next time, Cal,” Roosevelt says as he twists a dial on the old, stolen police scanner we superglued to the dash. The cops don’t care. On homeless calls, they want us there first.

“—ave an eighty-six, requesting—zzzrrr—nearby units to Victoria Park,” a woman’s voice says as the scanner crackles to life. The park is less than a mile away.

Turns out this is the call I’d been waiting nineteen years for.

3

Cal… I need help!” Roosevelt screams.

My tenth-grade English teacher once told me that throughout your life, you should use only three exclamation points. That way, when you put one out there, people know it’s worth it. I used one of them the day my mom died. But tonight, as I sit in the van and hear the sudden panic in Roosevelt’s voice— Across the wide patch of grass known as Victoria Park, he flicks on his flashlight. But all I see is the bright red blood on his hands. No. Please don’t let tonight be another.

“Rosey, what the hell’s going on?” I yell back, clawing over the passenger seat, sticking my head out the window, and squinting into the darkness. He’s kneeling over our newest homeless client—“86” on the radio means “vagrant”—who’s curled at the base of a queen palm tree that stands apart from the rest.

“It’s a bad one, Cal. He’s a bleeder!”

A ping of rain hits the windshield, and I jump at the impact.

If this were my first day on the job, I’d leap out of the van and rush like a panicked child to Roosevelt’s side. But this isn’t day one. It’s year two.

“You got his Social?” I call out.

Kneeling at the base of the queen palm, Roosevelt tucks his flashlight under his armpit and rolls what looks like a heavyset man onto his back. As the light shines down—the lumpy silhouette—even from here, I can see the blood that soaks the man’s stomach.

“His wallet’s gone,” Roosevelt shouts, knowing our protocols. “Sir.… Sir! Can you hear me? I need your Social Security number.”

In my left hand, I’m already dialing 911. In my right, I prop my laptop on the center console. But I never take my eyes off Roo-sevelt. Breast cancer took my aunt, the aunt who raised me, a few years back. I don’t have many friends. I have this job. And I have Roosevelt.

“Cal, I got his Social!” Roosevelt shouts. “Sir, were you mugged? You have a gunshot wound.”

“Gimme one sec,” I call out. The computer hums, our tracking software loads, and I click on the button marked Find Client. On-screen, a blank form opens, and I tab over to the section labeled SSN.

“Cal, you need to hurry,” Roosevelt adds as the man whispers something. At least he’s conscious. “He’s starting t—”

“Ready!” I insist, all set to type with one hand. In my other, I grip my cell and hit send as the 911 line starts ringing.

Years ago, if you wanted to drive around and work with the homeless, all you needed was a van and some Lysol. These days, the state of Florida won’t let you pick up a soul unless you’re logged on to the statewide computer network that tracks who’s where. The better to see you with, my dear. And the better to see what diseases, medication, and psychological history you’re carrying around as well.

“Zero seven eight, zero five, one one two zero,” Roosevelt announces as I key in the man’s Social Security number.

In my ear, the 911 line continues to ring.

In the distance, refusing to wait, Roosevelt rips open the man’s shirt and starts applying pressure to his wound.

And on-screen, I get my first look at his identity.

LLOYD RANDALL HARPER

DANIA BEACH, FLORIDA

DOB: JUNE 19—52 YEARS OLD

A swell of heat burns my chest, my throat. I can’t breathe. I open my mouth to call Roosevelt’s name, but my lips won’t move.

LLOYD RANDALL HARPER

My father.

“This is 911,”. . .