The First Counsel

* * *

Racing up the stairs, I have a clear path to Trey's office. The moment Nora's gone, though, I spin around and head downstairs. My stomach stings from lying to her, but if I'd told her the truth, she'd never have brought me in.

As I rush down to the basement of the building, the staircase narrows, the ceiling lowers, and I start to sweat. With no windows, and not a single air-conditioning unit in sight, the hallways in the basement are at least fifteen degrees hotter than the rest of the OEOB.

Rushing past the rotting concrete in what now feels like an underground sauna, I take off my jacket and roll up my sleeves. I have to duck down to avoid knocking my head against the pipes, wires, and heating ducts that hang down from the ceiling, but it doesn't slow me down. Not when I'm this close.

When Caroline died, all of her important files were confiscated by the FBI. Everything else was put here: Room 018--one of the many storage areas used by Records Management. As the bureaucratic pack-rats of the Executive Branch, they catalogue every document produced by the administration. By all accounts, it's a suck job.

Turning the doorknob and stepping inside, I see that they live up to their reputation. Floor to ceiling--stacks of file boxes.

Weaving my way through the cardboard catacombs, I move deeper into the room. The boxes just keep on going. On the side of each one is an employee's name. Anderson, Arden, Augustino . . . I follow the alphabet around to my right. It must be somewhere toward the back. Over my shoulder, I hear the door suddenly slam. The room's fluorescent lights shudder from the impact. I'm not alone anymore.

"Who's there?" a man's voice barks as he approaches through the cardboard alleys.

I squat down, my hands flat against the tile floor.

"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?" he asks as I spin around.

"I . . ." I open my mouth but nothing comes out.

"You have a maximum of three seconds to tell me why I shouldn't pick up the phone and call Security--and don't give me some lame excuse like you were lost or something equally insulting." As soon as I see the handlebar mustache, I recognize Al Rudall. A true Southern gentleman who refuses to deal with low-level associates, Al is well known for his love of women and distaste for lawyers. When subpoenas came in, and we needed to gather old memos, we used to make sure that all our document requests came with a female bigshot signature at the bottom. Considering that we've never met, combined with the Y-chromosome that's floating in my genes, I knew he wasn't going to give me access to the room. Lucky for me, though, I know his kryptonite.

"It's okay," Pam says as she steps out from behind Al. "He's with me."

Chapter 38

Within ten minutes, Pam and I are sitting in the back of the room with fourteen boxes of Caroline's files spread out across the floor in front of us. It took a bucketful of assurances to convince Al to let us take a look, but with Pam being the new keeper of the files, there wasn't much room to argue. This is her job.

"Thanks again," I say, looking up from the files.

"Don't worry about it," Pam says coldly, refusing to make eye contact.

She has every right to be mad. She's risking her job to get us through this. "I mean it, Pam. I couldn't--"

"Michael, the only reason I'm doing this is because I think they stabbed you with this one. Anything else is just your imagination."

I turn away and stay quiet.

Flipping through the files, I'm left with the remnants of Caroline's three years of work. In each folder, it's all the same--sheet after sheet of cover-your-ass memos and filed-away announcements. None of them changed the world; just wasted paper. And no matter how fast I leaf through it, it just keeps going. File upon file upon file upon file. Wiping sweat from my forehead, I shove the carton aside. "This is never going to work," I say nervously.

"What do you mean?"

"It's going to take forever to look at every sheet--and Al's not giving us more than fifteen minutes with this stuff. I don't care what he said, he knows something's up."

"You have any other ideas?"

"Alphabetically," I blurt. "What would she file it under?"

"I keep mine under E. Ethics."

I look down at the manila folders in my box. The first is labeled Administration. The last is Briefing Papers. "I got A through B, I say."

Seeing that she has B through D, Pam walks on her knees to the next box and pulls off the cardboard lid. Drug Testing to Federal Register. "Here!" she calls out as I hop to my feet.

Hunched over Pam's shoulder, I watch as she rifles through the folders. Employee Assistance Program . . . EEO . . . Federal Programs. Nothing labeled Ethics.

"Maybe the FBI took it," she suggests.

"If they did, we'd know about it. It's got to be here somewhere."

She's tempted to argue, but she knows I'm running out of options.

"What else could it be under?"

"I don't know," Pam says. "Files . . . Requests . . . it could be anything."

"You take F; I'll take R." Working my way down the line, I flip off the cover of each box. G through H . . . I through K . . . L through Lu. By the time I reach the second to last box, most of which is allocated to Personnel, I know I'm in trouble. There's no way the last quarter of the alphabet is fitting in the final box. Sure enough, I pull off the top and see that I'm right. Presidential Commissions . . . Press . . . Publications. That's where it ends. Publication.

"There's nothing under Files," Pam says. "I'm going to start at the--"

"We're missing the end!"

"What?"

"It's not here--these aren't all the boxes!"

"Michael, calm down."

Refusing to listen, I rush to the small area where Caroline's files were originally stacked. My hands are shaking as they skim down the stacks of every surrounding box. Palmer . . . Perez . . . Perlman . . . Poirot. Nothing marked Caroline Penzler. Frantic, I zigzag through the makeshift aisles, looking for anything we may've overlooked.

"Where else could they be?" I ask in a panic.

"I have no idea--there's storage everywhere."

"I need a place, Pam. Everywhere is a little vague."

"I don't know. Maybe the attic?"

"What attic?"

"On the fifth floor--next to the Indian Treaty Room. Al once said they used it for overflow." Realizing we're short on manpower, she adds, "Maybe you should call Trey."

"I can't--he's stalling Nora in his office." I look down at the fourteen boxes laid out in front of us. "Can you--"

"I'll go through these," she says, reading my thoughts. "You head upstairs. Page me if you need help."

"Thanks, Pam. You're the best."

"Yeah, yeah," she says. "I love you too."

I stop dead in my tracks and study her barbed blue eyes.

She smiles. I don't know what to say.

"You should get out of here," she adds.

I don't move.

"Go on," she says. "Get out of here!"

Running for the door, I look over my shoulder for one last glimpse of my friend. She's already deep into the next box.