The Inner Circle

102

"Anything else I can help with?” Gina calls out, standing in the cave, outside the threshold of the open red door.

“I think we’re fine,” I tell her.

Dallas is already inside the storage unit.

I’m anxious to follow.

Gina never leaves her spot. As a sales rep, she’s in charge of clearing our visit with Mr. Harmon and the Presidential Records Office, checking our IDs, and even putting in the six-digit code that opens the steel door (and the secondary door that sits just behind that). But without the necessary security clearance, she can’t join us in here.

“Both doors open from the inside,” she assures us as the cold air pours out from the room. Just inside the door, I take a quick glance at the hygrothermograph on the wall. The temperature is at a brisk fifty-eight degrees, which is colder than we usually keep it.

“If you think of anything else, just gimme a call,” she adds, tapping the leather phone holster on her hip. Reading my expression, she says, “Reception’s great. We’ve got cell towers throughout.”

Her point hits home as my own phone starts to vibrate.

As I glance down, caller ID tells me it’s Tot. Again.

“I should grab this,” I say to Gina, who nods a quick goodbye, keenly aware of when a client needs privacy.

As the red steel door slams shut and my phone continues to vibrate, I spin toward our destination and step through the second door, where the damp darkness of the cave has been replaced by an enormous bright white room that’s as big as an airplane hangar and as sterile as our preservation staff can possibly manage. In truth, it’s just a taller, brighter version of our stacks in D.C., filled with row after row of metal shelves. But instead of just books and archive boxes, the specially designed shelves are also packed with plastic boxes and metal canisters that hold old computer tape, vintage film, and thousands upon thousands of negatives of old photographs.

There’s a reason this stuff is here instead of in Washington. Part of it’s the cold temperature (which is better for film). Part of it’s cost (which is better for our budget). But part of it-especially the archive boxes that are locked in the security cage on my left-is what we call “geographical separation.” It’s one of the National Archives’ most vital-and least known-tasks. If there’s ever a terrorist attack that turns Washington into a fireball, we’re fully ready with the documents and paperwork to make sure our most vital institutions survive.

But as I step into the room, the only survival I’m really worried about is my own.

“You find it yet?” I call to Dallas, who’s racing up the center aisle, checking record group numbers on each row of shelves that he passes.

His only answer is a sharp right turn as he disappears down one of the far rows in back. We’re definitely close.

My phone vibrates for the fourth time, about to kick to voicemail. I have no idea if Tot knows where we are. But now that he can’t get in the way, it’d probably be smart to find out.

“Beecher here,” I answer, waiting to see how long it takes him to fish.

“Where the hell are you?” Tot asks. “I left you half a dozen messages!”

“I didn’t get them. I’m just… it’s been a crazy day.”

“Don’t. I know when you’re lying, Beecher. Where are you? Who’re you with?”

I take a moment to think about a response. Even through the phone, I swear I feel Tot’s good eye picking me apart. “Tot, you need to-”

“Are you still with Clementine? I thought she left after the cemetery.”

I pause. “How’d you know I was at a cemetery?”

“Because I’m not an idiot like the rest of the idiots you seem to be in love with!”

“Wait… time out. Did you have someone following me!?”

Before he can answer, my phone beeps. I look down and recognize the number. It’s the only person who could possibly take me away from this one.

“Tot, hold on a sec.”

“Don’t you hang up on me!”

With a click, I put him on hold.

“Mr. Harmon?” I ask the man in Presidential Records who not only helped us get into the cave but also knows exactly what document we’re looking for. “I–Is everything okay?”

“That’s my question for you,” he says, though his tone surprisingly seems softer and more helpful than usual. That’s all I need to be suspicious. “Everything going okay down there?”

“It’s… we’re fine.” I pause a moment, confused. “Is there a reason we shouldn’t be fine?”

“Not at all,” he says, back to his military matter-of-factness. “Just making sure you got there. I’d asked the Copper Mountain folks to stay a little later when I heard you lost the directions.”

“When I lost the what?”

“The directions I sent. Your secretary said-”

“My secretary?”

“The woman who called. She said you lost the directions.”

Up on my left, back in the stacks, there’s a metal thunk. The problem is, Dallas is all the way down on my right.

According to the hygrothermograph, it’s still a cool fifty-eight degrees. But suddenly the long white room feels like an oven. Clearly we’re not alone in here.

“Mr. Harmon, let me call you right back,” I say, hanging up the phone.

“Dallas, we got problems!” I shout, racing up the aisle and clicking back to Tot.

“Wait-you’re with Dallas!?” Tot asks, hearing the last bits through the phone.

“Tot, this isn’t-!”

“Beecher, you don’t know what you’re doing!”

“You’re wrong! For once, I know exactly what I’m doing!”

“Pay attention!” Tot explodes. “I know what Clementine did… I know her grandmother’s long dead… I even know how she did it! We got the tox report-they found a dose of oral chemo in Orlando’s blood, even though he never had cancer. That’s how she poisoned him-she put it in his coffee! Now where in God’s name are you so I can get you someplace safe?”

My brain kicks hard, fighting to find the right places for each new puzzle piece. What’s amazing is how quickly each one fits.

“Where are you, Beecher?” Tot asks again.

There’s a part of me that knows to stay quiet. It’s the same part that has kept Tot at arm’s length since the night I went out to Clementine’s house. But no matter how easy it is to paint him as the enemy, the one picture I can’t shake is the one from three years ago, at lunch in our dungeony cafeteria, when Tot finally trusted me enough to tell me about the first night, after fifty years, that he slept alone in his house after his wife died. He said he couldn’t bring himself to sleep under those covers as long as she wasn’t there.

I don’t care what anyone says. There are some things that can’t be lied about.

“Tot, listen to me: I think Clementine is here. With us.”

“What’re you talking about? Where’s here? Who’re you with besides Dallas?”

“Them. The Culper Ring.”

I hear him take a deep breath.

“You need to get out of there, Beecher.”

“We are… we’re about to,” I say as I reach the back of the room and spot Dallas down one of the rows. He’s on his knees, rummaging through a cardboard file box-a new box-that’s marked Wallace/Hometown in thick magic marker. “We’re just getting-”

“Forget the Culper Ring. Get out of there!”

“But don’t you see? You were right about them. Dallas brought me in and-”

“Dallas isn’t in the Culper Ring!”

Turning the corner, I hit the brakes, knocking a square file box from the shelf. As it tumbles and hits the concrete floor, it vomits sheets of paper in a wide fan.

“What’d you say?” I ask.

“Dallas isn’t in the Culper Ring. He never was.”

“How do you know?”

Tot takes another breath, his voice more of a grumble than a whisper. “Because I’m in the Culper Ring, Beecher. And I swear to you-the moment he finds what he’s looking for, Dallas is going to end your life.”

At the end of the row, down on his knees and flipping through one particular file, Dallas looks my way and peers over his scratched black reading glasses. “Y’okay, Beecher?” he calls out. “You don’t look so good.”