The Inner Circle

79

"Nothing.”

“No. Can’t be,” Dallas says.

“It can. And it is,” I say, tipping the hollow rock so he and Clementine can get a good view.

Dallas squints and leans in, examining the small rectangular compartment inside the rock. No question, there’s nothing there, which means…

“Someone already picked up the message,” Clementine says, looking back at the footprints that lead out to the treeline, which curves like a horseshoe around us.

“Or no one’s put one in yet,” I say, trying to stay positive, but unable to shake the feeling that Clementine may be right. I follow her gaze to the treeline in the distance. Nothing moves. Nothing makes a sound. But we all recognize that out-of-body gnawing that comes when you think you’re being watched. “I think we need a place to hide. Someone could still be coming.”

Dallas shakes his head, pointing down at the grave. “If that were the case, where’d these footprints come from?”

“Actually, I was thinking they came from you,” Clementine challenges, motioning at Dallas even as she eyes the ones back to the treeline. “I mean, even with Beecher calling you, that’s a pretty amazing coincidence that you show up at the exact moment we do.”

“Funny, I was thinking the same about you,” Dallas shoots back. “But I was going to be cordial enough to wait until you left and tell Beecher behind your back.”

“Can you both please stop?” I plead. I’m tempted to tell Clementine what Dallas did last night-how he spotted that person in the taxi… and gave me the video of us in the SCIF, keeping it away from Khazei… and told me the true story about the Culper Ring and the President’s private group of Plumbers. But it doesn’t change the fact that with this rock being empty…“We’re more lost than ever.”

“Not true,” Dallas says, licking flicks of snow from his beard.

“What’re you talking about? This was the one moment where we had the upper hand-we knew the location where the President and his Plumbers were dropping their message, but instead of catching them in the act, we’re standing here freezing our rear ends off.”

“You sure this message is between the President and his Plumbers?” Dallas asks, his voice taking on that timbre of cockiness that it gets when he thinks he’s in control.

“What’s a Plumber?” Clementine asks.

“His friends. Like Nixon’s Plumbers,” I explain. “The people Wallace is working with.”

“But you see my point, right?” Dallas adds. “If this note really was between the President and his Plumbers-and they knew you found out about it-”

“Why didn’t they simply change the meeting spot?” I ask, completing the thought and looking again at the mess of footprints.

“And on top of that, if the big fear was the fact that you’d rat him out, why didn’t the President make you an offer when he had you in the SCIF? He’s supposedly who the message in the dictionary was for, right?”

It’s a fair question. And the one assumption we’ve been relying on since the moment this started: that when we found the dictionary in the SCIF, it held a message between the President and someone from his inner circle. But if that’s not the case…

“You think the President may’ve been trying to communicate with someone outside his circle?” I ask.

“Either that or someone outside his circle may’ve been trying to communicate with the President,” Dallas replies.

As I turn away from the treeline, my brain flips back to the original message: February 16. Twenty-six years is a long time to keep a secret.

“Maybe that’s why the President asked for you to staff him this morning, Beecher. Maybe he wasn’t trying to give you a message-maybe he was waiting to get one. From you.”

I see where he’s going. It’s the only thing that makes sense. All this time, we thought the dictionary held a letter that was written to Wallace by one of his friends. But if this is really from someone who’s not on his side… and they somehow found out about his Plumbers, and were hoping to reveal something from twenty-six years ago…

“You think someone’s threatening Wallace?” Clementine asks.

“I think they’re way beyond threats,” I say as a cloud of frosty air puffs out with each syllable. “If this is what I think it is, I think someone’s blackmailing the President of the United States.”