The Inner Circle

71

The archivist knew there was trouble when the cell phone started ringing.

The sound came from across the office, back by Beecher’s desk.

Of course, he knew the ringtone-the theme song from the History Channel’s Last Days of the Civil War. Everyone knew Dallas’s phone.

But it wasn’t until Dallas went darting out of the office that the archivist got concerned.

Being smart, the archivist didn’t stand up… didn’t panic… didn’t even look up above the sightline of the cubicle.

Instead, all it took was the best tool in his arsenal-the one tool every historian must have.

Patience.

For sixteen minutes, the archivist sat there.

For sixteen minutes, the archivist waited.

He heard the door to the office again slam open. Dallas rushed in, bursting back into the office to grab something-sounded like winter coats sliding together-then darted back out again.

And then, giving Dallas time to make his way downstairs, the archivist turned to the one tool that served him, at this moment, even better than patience: the large plate glass window that doubled as an entire wall of his cubicle-and that gave him a perfect bird’s-eye view of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Staring outside, the archivist watched as the two familiar figures bolted out of the building, racing across the street.

There they were.

Dallas. And Beecher.

Dallas and Beecher.

Definitely together.

The archivist’s phone vibrated in his pocket. Just like he knew it would. No way would they let something like this slip by.

“Yeah, I see it,” the archivist answered.

As they talked it through, an old silver Toyota-Dallas’s Toyota-eventually stopped in front of the Archives. That’s where Dallas and Beecher ran: to get Dallas’s car. And from what it looked like, Beecher was the one driving. The car stopped and Dallas got out. From this height, four stories up, the archivist couldn’t hear the screech. But he saw how fast Beecher drove off.

Like he was on a mission.

The archivist wasn’t thrilled.

Now there was definitely no choice.

“I know… I see it too,” Tot said into the phone, pressing his forehead against the cold plate glass window and watching as Beecher turned the corner and disappeared down 9th Street. “No, I don’t know for sure, but I can guess. Yeah. No, of course we tagged the car. But it’s time to tell the others,” Tot added. “We’ve officially got ourselves a problem.”