The Inner Circle

by Brad Meltzer

  “Beecher, at this moment, I am your friend. But if you want to make me an enemy…”

  “Yeah, no… I definitely walked by the room. That’s where I saw Orlando. I was giving a tour.”

  “But you’re telling me you didn’t go inside it?”

  This is the moment where I can tell him the truth. I can tell him I went inside. I can tell him I didn’t do it. But as I stare at Khazei, who’s still the unmoving exclamation point, all he’s going to hear is that I was the last person alone with Orlando before he died. And once he hears that… once he can confirm that I had actual access to the book…

  I shake my head. “No. Never went inside it.”

  He tightens his stare.

  “What?” I ask. “If you don’t believe me, go check the tape. All those rooms are wired for video, aren’t they?”

  It’s a risky bluff, but right now, I need to know what’s going on. Sure, Khazei could’ve been the one who snatched that video from Orlando’s VCR. But if he planned on using it to make me the murderer, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. So either Khazei has the tape and all he cares about is the book, or he doesn’t have the tape and it’s still out there.

  “Amazingly, the tape is gone—someone took it from the SCIF,” Khazei says flatly. “But thanks for the reminder. I need to tell the Service about that.”

  “The Service?”

  “I know. But when Orlando’s dead body showed up at the exact same time that President Wallace was entering the building… Apparently, the Secret Service doesn’t like when bodies are that close to their protectee. So lucky us, they’ve offered to help with the investigation,” he says, watching me more closely than ever. “What an opportunity, though. I’m guessing by the time they’re done, they’ll scan and alphabetize every atom, molecule—every speck of DNA—in the entire SCIF. God knows what you can find in there, right, Beecher?”

  Just over his shoulder, there’s a second ding as another elevator empties a group of employees into the wide hallway.

  “Oh, and by the way,” he adds as they fan out around us, “when you had your lab coat all bunched up yesterday—what was it stained with again? That was coffee, right?”

  I nod and force a smile and—Morning! Hey! Morning!—wave hello to passing staffers.

  “Enjoy your day,” Khazei says, heading for the waiting elevator. “I’m sure we’ll be talking again soon.”

  As the elevator doors swallow him whole, I take another peek at my own office door. The scarecrow’s gone. At least I can finally catch my breath and—

  No…

  I run for the stairs. I almost forgot.

  She’s down there right now.

  22

  Hold on… not yet…” the President said, holding up a single finger. Backlit by the morning sun, he studied the door to the doctor’s office, which had already closed behind his sister.

  Across from him, Palmiotti sat at his desk. Underneath the door, they could see the shadows of the staffers outside.

  That’s how it always was. Even in the most private parts of the White House, someone was always listening.

  “So you were saying.” Palmiotti motioned to the President. “About your back problem…”

  “It hurts,” Wallace insisted, still eyeing the shadows at the door. “And it’s getting worse.”

  Palmiotti mulled on this. “Is it something I can take a look at personally?”

  The President mulled too, once again staring out at the purposely melted snow of the Rose Garden. It took a ton of work to make something appear this undisturbed.

  “Let me think on that,” he said to Palmiotti. “Right now, we’re probably better off sticking with the original treatment.”

  “Mr. President…?” one of the staffers called from the hallway. Time for him to go.

  “Before you run,” Palmiotti said. “Have you thought about surgery?”

  The President shook his head. “Not with this. Not anymore.”

  “Mr. President…?” the staffer called again. Four uninterrupted minutes. For any President, that was a lifetime.

  “I’ve got a country to run,” Wallace said to his friend. “By the way, if you’re looking for a good book…” He held up the hardcover copy of a book entitled A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power. “Give it a look—it won the Pulitzer Prize,” the President said, handing it to Palmiotti. Directly.

  “You got it,” the doctor said to his oldest friend as he glanced down at the hardcover book. A Problem from Hell. It sure was.

  “Oh, and if you see Gabriel,” Wallace called back as he headed for the door, “tell him to block out a quick drop-by in the schedule for Minnie’s conference. But I’m not staying for photos.”

  “You’re a sucker, y’know that?”

  The President waved an absent goodbye, not saying a word. But his point was clear.

  In Wallace’s eyes, family came first.

  It was a lesson not lost on Palmiotti, who knew exactly what was at risk if this current mess was what he thought. It’d be easy to walk away now. Probably smart too. The President’s foot was clearly approaching the bear trap. But after everything Wallace had done for him… everything they’d done for each other…

  Family came first.

  “Oh, and Stewie, you need a haircut,” the President added. “You look like dreck.”

  Dr. Stewart Palmiotti nodded.

  A haircut. He was thinking the exact same thing.

  23

  The girl.”

  “What girl?” asks the security guy with the round face and bushy eyebrows.

  “The girl,” I say. “There’s supposed to be a girl.”

  He looks around the welcome area. The faded green rain mats and gray stone walls make it feel like a crypt. On the right, there’s the metal detector and X-ray machine. But beyond a few more employees flashing their IDs, the only people I see are two other security guards.

  “I don’t see any,” the guard says.

  “Someone called me,” I insist. “She was just here! Black hair. Nice eyes. She’s really—”

  “The pretty one,” the guard by the X-ray calls out.

  The eyebrows guard looks around.

  “You don’t know where she is, do you?” I ask.

  “I think I—I signed her in. She was waiting right there,” he says, motioning to one of the benches.

  I’m not surprised. They may’ve given me and Tot the full once-over this morning, but for the most part, our security is at the same level as Orlando’s top-loading VCR. We don’t even swipe our IDs to get in. Especially during the morning rush—I can see it right now—a lanky woman in a bulky winter coat waves her ID at the guard and walks right through.

  “I swear—right there,” he insists.

  I glance at the sign-in sheet on the edge of the marble counter. Her signature is the exact same from high school. An effortless swirl. Clementine Kaye.

  “Maybe someone already brought her in,” the X-ray guard says.

  “No one brought her in. I’m the one she was waiting—” No. Unless… No. Even Khazei’s not that fast.

  Pulling out my cell phone, I scroll to Clementine’s number and hit send. The phone rings three times. Nothing but voicemail. But in the distance, I hear the ring of a cell phone.

  “Clementine…?” I call out, following the sound. I head back past the guard desk and rush toward the Finding Aids room, where most visitors start their research. It would make sense. I kept her waiting long enough—maybe she came in here to look for more about her dad.

  I hit send again. Like before, there’s a faint ring. Here. For sure from here.

  Hitting the brakes, I scan the mint green research room. I scan all four of the wide, book-covered desks. I scan the usual suspects: In the left corner, two elderly women are filling out paperwork. On my right, an old military vet is asking about some documents, a young grad student is skimming through genealogy reports, and—

  There. />
  In the back. By the computers.

  Staring at the screen, she leans forward in her chair, hugging the charcoal overcoat that fills her lap. Unlike yesterday, her short black hair has been divided into two ultra-hip pigtails like the kind you see on girls who make me feel just how old I’ve been feeling since she crashed back into my life and made me start searching for rap music instead of Kenny Rogers.

  “Clemmi, what’re you doing here?” I ask as I reach the back of the room.

  She doesn’t answer.

  But as I get closer… as I see what she’s looking at onscreen… something on YouTube…

  There are videos in my family that, if you covered the entire screen except for one square inch, I’d still be able to identify the moment. There’s the footage of me and my sisters, the two of them side by side on the vinyl couch in the hospital, holding baby me across their laps when I was first born. There’s me at ten years old, dressed as Ronald Reagan for Halloween, complete with what my mom swore was a Ronald Reagan wig, but was really just some old Fred Flintstone hair. And there’s the video of my dad—one of the only ones I have of him—in the local swimming pool, holding the two-year-old me so high above his head, then splashing me down and raising me up again.

  But all those pale next to the scene that Clementine’s staring at right now: of Nico Hadrian, dressed in a bright yellow NASCAR jumpsuit, as he’s about to lift his gun and, without an ounce of expression on his face, calmly try to kill former President Leland Manning.

  To most Americans, it’s history. Like the first moon footage. Or JFK being shot. Every frame famous: the tips of the President’s fingers blurring as he waves up at the crowd… his black windbreaker puffing up like a balloon… even the way he holds so tight to the First Lady’s hand as they walk out on the track, and…

  “Now you think I’m a nut,” she says, still watching the screen.

  “I don’t think you’re a nut.”

  “You actually should. I’m related to a nut… I’m sitting here, watching this old footage like a nut… and yes, it’s only because you kept me waiting here that I put his name in Google, but still… this is really bordering on pathetic. I’m practically a cashew. Though watch when he steps out of the crowd: He totally looks like me.”

  Onscreen, the President and First Lady are flashing matching grins, their faces lit by the generous sun as they walk to their would-be slaughter.

  “Okay, it is kinda nutty you’re watching this,” I tell her.

  Her eyes roll toward me. “You’re really chock full of charm, huh?”

  “I thought it’d make you laugh. By the way, why’d you come here? I thought we agreed it was better to lay low until we—”

  Standing up from her seat, she reaches into her purse, pulls out a small square present wrapped in what looks like the morning newspaper, and hands it to me.

  “What’s this?” I ask.

  “What’s it look like? It’s a poorly wrapped present. Open it.”

  “I don’t—” I look over my shoulder, totally confused. “You came here to give me a present?”

  “What’s wrong with a present?”

  “I don’t know… maybe because, between Orlando dying, and then finding your dad, I sorta threw your life in the woodchipper yesterday.”

  She regrabs the present, snatching it from my hands.

  “Beecher, tell me something that upset you.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “In your life. Pick a moment. Pick something that hurt you… a pain that was so bad, you almost bit through your own cheek. Y’know… someone who really put you through the emotional wringer.”

  “Why would—?”

  “Tell me who Iris is,” Clementine says, reminding me that the people who know you the longest are the best at finding your weak spots.

  “Why’re you bringing up Iris?”

  “I heard Orlando say her name yesterday—and within two seconds, you had the same pain on your face that you have now, like someone kicked your balls in. I know the feeling… y’know how many DJ jobs I’ve been fired from? So what happened to Iris? Is she dead?”

  “She’s not dead. She’s an old girlfriend. We broke up.”

  “Okay, so she dumped you for another guy.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Beecher, I’m not trying to upset you… or pry,” she says, meaning every word. “The point is, whatever it was—however Iris hurt you—you’re over her now, right?”

  “Absolutely,” I insist. “Of course.”

  “Okay, you’re not over her,” she says as I stand there, surprised by the sudden lump that balloons in my throat and the familiar sting of self-doubt that Iris planted so deeply in my chest. “But you will be, Beecher. And that’s what you did for me yesterday. For my whole life, I’ve wondered who my father might be. And now, thanks to you, I know. And yes, it’s not the easiest answer. In fact, it may just be… it’s kinda the Guinness Book of World Records crappiest answer of all time. But it’s an answer,” she says, handing the present back to me. “And I appreciate that.”

  Looking down at the present, I give a tug to one of the scotch-taped seams. As I tear the paper aside, I spot the turn buttons on what looks like the back of a picture frame. It’s definitely a picture frame. But it’s not until I flip it over that I see the actual picture inside.

  It’s a color photo of me in seventh grade, back when my mom used to shop for whatever Garanimals shirt I was wearing that day. But what I notice most is the other seventh grader standing next to me in the photo with the wide, surprisingly bucktoothed grin. Young Clementine.

  The thing is, back then, we never had a photo of just the two of us.

  “H-How’d you get this?” I ask.

  “I made it. From our old class photo in Ms. Spicer’s class. You were standing on the left. I was on the right. I had to cut us out with an X-Acto knife since Tim Burton movies made me genuinely scared of scissors, but it still made our heads kinda octagonal-shaped, so sorry about that.”

  I look down at the frame, where both of us have our arms flat at our sides in standard class-photo positions. Our heads are definitely octagons.

  “You don’t like it?” she asks.

  “No, I like it… I love it. I just… If you had scanned it in—I feel bad you had to ruin the actual photo.”

  “I didn’t ruin anything,” she insists. “I cut out the only two people I cared about in that class.”

  I look up at Clementine, then back down at the photo, which is choppy, poorly made, and completely unflattering.

  But it’s of us.

  A smile grips my cheeks so hard, they actually hurt.

  “By the way, don’t think you get a pass on that Garanimals shirt,” she tells me as the video continues to play onscreen behind her. Her back is to it, so she can’t see it, but it’s the part where Nico is about to step out of the crowd.

  “Listen, I gotta run,” she adds as a man with black buzzed hair, a big bulbous nose, and a bright yellow jumpsuit steps into the frame and raises his gun. My God—he does look like her. “They told me to come back in an hour,” she says.

  “Who did? What’re you talking about?”

  “The guards. At St. Elizabeths.”

  “Wait. As in mental institution St. Elizabeths?”

  “Nico’s there. Same place as John Hinckley—the one who shot Reagan. It’s only ten minutes from here.”

  “Can we please rewind one second? You went to see Nico!?”

  “I can’t get in unless he approves me first. That’s how they have to do it on his ward. I’m waiting to get approved.”

  “But he’s—”

  “I know who he is—but what’m I supposed to do, Beecher? Sit at home and do my nails? I’ve been waiting to meet this man for thirty years. How can I not—?”

  Pop, pop, pop.

  Onscreen, the gunshots are muffled. As Nico steps out of the crowd, his head’s cocked just slightly—and he’s almost… he’s smiling.


  Pop, pop, pop.

  With her back still to the monitor, Clementine doesn’t turn at the gunshots. But she does flinch, her body startled by each and every one.

  “Shots fired! Shots fired!” the agents yell.

  “Get down! Get back!”

  “GOD GAVE POWER TO THE PROPHETS…” Nico shouts, his rumbling voice drowned out by all the screaming.

  The camera jerks in every direction, panning past the fans in the stands. Spectators run in every direction. And by the time the camera fights its way back to focus, Nico is being pulled backward, lost in instant chaos as he’s clawed to the ground by a swarm of Secret Service agents. In the background, two aides go down, the victims of stray bullets. One of them lies facedown holding his cheek. Luckily, the President and his wife get rushed into their limo and escape unharmed. It wasn’t until later that Nico tracked them down and killed the First Lady.

  In the corner of YouTube, I spot the viewcount on the bottom right: 14,727,216 views.

  It seems like a lot.

  But in truth, fourteen million viewers are meaningless.

  All that matters is this single one.

  “Please don’t look at me like that, Beecher. I can do this,” she insists, even though I haven’t said a word.

  I don’t care how strong she’s pretending to be. I saw the way, even though she knew those gunshots were coming, she flinched at each pop. And the way, ever since Nico appeared onscreen, she still won’t look at the monitor.

  She knows what’s waiting for her.

  But she also knows there’s no avoiding it.

  “You’re telling me if it were your dad, you wouldn’t go see him now?” she asks.

  I stay silent, thinking back to my first year at the Archives. My dad died at the age of twenty-six, in a stupid car accident on his way to enlist for the first Gulf War. He didn’t get killed fighting for his country. He didn’t die a hero. He didn’t even die from friendly fire. Those people are given medals. But the grunts who aren’t even grunts yet because they’re driving to the recruiting office when some nutbag crashes into him on a bridge and kills everyone on impact? They die as nobodies. Their lives are half-lived. And during my first year here, I spent every single lunch hour going through old army records, trying to figure out which platoon he would’ve been in, and what kind of adventures he would’ve had if he’d made it to the enlistment office.