The Inner Circle

21

"You tell me what’s easier,” Khazei offers, trying hard to keep it nice. “We can talk out here, or at your desk, or-”

“Out here’s fine,” I blurt, determined to keep him far from the book.

“Where you headed anyway?”

“Wha?”

“You were running, Beecher. You almost smashed into me. Just wondering where you’re headed.”

“Stacks,” I say with a nod, realizing that while Khazei was calling for info, it was the front-desk security guys who were calling about Clementine. “Just pulling a record from the stacks.”

He looks down at my empty hands. “Where’s the pull slip?”

Now he thinks he’s being smart.

“Right here,” I say, pointing to the side of my head and being smart right back. But the way his broad eyebrows knot together, Khazei doesn’t like me being smart right back.

“Y’know…” he says, smoothing his thinning black hair to the side, “you were also running yesterday when you found out about Orlando.”

“He’s my friend. I shouldn’t run when I hear my friend’s dead?”

“I’m just saying… for a place that gets the gold medal for slow and quiet, you’re rushing around a lot lately.”

He watches me carefully, letting the silence of the empty hallway sink in. But all I’m really focused on is the thought of Clementine still waiting for me downstairs.

“You said you had a question, Mr. Khazei.”

“No, I said I had something I was hoping you could help me with,” he corrects, scratching his chin with the back of his hand. “I’m just wondering if you were able to look at your calendar… for when you were with Orlando.”

“I looked, but I can’t really nail it down. I saw him in the hallway. Maybe about a half hour before he… y’know…”

Khazei nods, but doesn’t otherwise react. “Anything else you might’ve thought of? Anything that might be helpful as we look into his death?”

“I thought the paramedics said it was a seizure-that he had sleep apnea.”

“They did. That’s why they’re paramedics, not coroners,” Khazei says. “Now. Again. Anything at all-anything Orlando might’ve said, anything he did-that you think we should know about?”

I don’t pause. “Nothing that I can think of,” I tell him.

“I thought you said you guys were close.”

“I said he was nice to me. We’re both from Wisconsin, and he was always nice.”

“And that’s it?” Khazei asks.

“Why’s that so hard for you to believe?”

“I don’t know,” Khazei replies, calmer than ever. “I guess… if he’s just some nice guy from Wisconsin, well… why’s he making you the very last person he calls before he dies?”

Over his shoulder, the elevator dings, bringing the morning’s arrival of fellow employees. Khazei smiles, as if he’s in control of that too.

“It’s the twenty-first century, Beecher. You really think we wouldn’t take the time to check the outgoing calls on Orlando’s phone?”

It’s the second time he’s caught me in one of his lame little mental traps. I swear right now, he’s not getting me for a third.

“Maybe it’s better if we continue this conversation someplace a bit more private,” Khazei suggests, motioning to the metal door that leads to the stacks. This time of the morning, there are already too many employees filling the hallway. “You said you needed to grab a file, right?” Khazei adds. “I’ll walk with you.”

Until yesterday, when he buzzed Orlando into the SCIF, I’d barely heard of Venkat Khazei. But if my gut is right, and he is doing more than just simply investigating Orlando’s murder-if he really is after the book, or trying to make me look like a murderer as a way of getting it-the last thing I need is to be walking alone with him in the most remote section of our building.

“Actually, I’m okay talking out here,” I say as the crowd disappears into its offices and, like a high school after a late bell, the hallway slowly drains back to its regular morning silence.

Khazei nods, pretending he’s not annoyed. But as I wait for the final door to close in the hallway, I notice, through the front door to my own office, a thin pointed shadow, like a scarecrow, on the opposite side of the translucent glass. From its opaque outline, it could be any of our archivists-Tot, Dallas, Rina-but after swaying there for an instant, the scarecrow backs off. Like it knows I see it listening.

“So what was it that Orlando said in his last message?” Khazei challenges.

From his tone alone, I can tell it’s his third trap. If he had the technology to know that I got Orlando’s final message, it’s just as easy for him to’ve already listened to that message. He’s just testing to see if I’ll be honest.

“Orlando just… he said he didn’t have my cell phone and that I should call him back.”

“Call him back about what?”

“Probably about what I did with some old blank letterhead I found from the Senate Judiciary Committee. It got sent over by mistake so I took one of the sheets-it was just a joke-and wrote a letter to Orlando saying he was being deported. Just dumb office stuff.”

It’s a good enough excuse delivered with good enough calm. I even used the words what I did to evoke the one unexplainable moment in Orlando’s message. What you did…

But Khazei just stands there with his starched military posture, like a giant exclamation point. I glance back at my office. The shadow of the scarecrow is still there.

“Were you in SCIF 12E1 yesterday?” Khazei finally blurts.

“E-Excuse me?”

“It’s a simple question. It requires a simple answer. Were you in or anywhere near that Vault at any point in time yesterday?”

I take a deep breath, trying hard not to look like I’m taking a deep breath. I don’t know much about Khazei, but from what I can tell of our two conversations together, he hasn’t asked a single question he doesn’t already know the answer to, or at least have a hunch on. And considering that Dallas and Rina and at least one Secret Service agent saw me around the corner from that room… and that the videotape is still unaccounted for…“12E1…” I say. “That’s the one the President does his reading in, right?”

“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.