The Inner Circle

66

As I tear full speed around the corner, my shoes slide across the twelfth floor’s green terrazzo squares. If my timing’s right, I’ve still got a few minutes on the President. I need them. Especially if I want to be ready.

“I need some ID,” a calm voice announces just as I make the turn. His voice draws out each syllable so it sounds like Eye. Dee.

I know that voice.

But as I nearly plow into the man in the black body armor, I’m not focused on him or his black rifle. I don’t even see the SCIF that sits at the end of the hall. All I see are ghosts. Ghosts of myself. And Clementine. And Orlando. Forty-eight hours ago, we were standing in this same pale blue hallway, with the same marble wainscoting, studying this same room with the matching pale blue metal door. I wish it were just deja vu. Deja vu is easy to dismiss. But this… this is like stepping on Orlando’s grave.

A cold dread grips me, squeezing my Adam’s apple until I barely remember how to breathe. It reminds me that the only reason to search for these Plumbers-and for what they put in that dictionary-is to prove that they’re the ones who killed my friend.

“I said, ID,” the agent insists.

“Y-Yeah… sure… sorry,” I say, holding up my badge.

“Arms up,” he barks, pulling out a black-and-yellow wand that looks like a flattened flashlight. Metal detector.

Of course. He saw my name. He knows I’m staffing him. No way they’re letting me get close without making sure I’m clean.

As he waves the wand under my armpits, I blink once and see Orlando’s dimpled chin and big-toothed smile as he clutched his little coffee cup and ushered me and Clementine inside. I blink again, and there’s nothing but the empty pale blue hallway.

“Don’t be so nervous,” the Secret Service agent calls out, pinning a temporary metal clearance button on my lapel and motioning me toward the SCIF. “The President doesn’t bite. Unless he’s pissed.”

I can’t even pretend to laugh as I speedwalk up the hallway and stop at the call box that hangs on the wall. As I press the silver intercom button, a red indicator light blinks on.

“This is Beecher,” I say into the intercom. “I’m opening SCIF 12E1.” They’re the same words Orlando said to Khazei two days ago.

I wait to hear Khazei growl something back. The way he’s been watching, there’s no way I’m seeing the President without him weighing in. But to my surprise…

“You’re all set,” a female voice replies. “Moses is four minutes away,” she says, using our internal code name for him. “Enjoy.”

The intercom goes silent, and I dart for the entrance to the SCIF. As I spin the combination lock, a sting of bile burns my throat.

I step inside the vault and catch a flash of shadow moving on my left. I’m not the only one in here.

“Oh, c’mon now,” Khazei says as he slams the metal door shut and locks the two of us inside. “You really thought I’d miss this one?”