The Inner Circle

82

"What’re you doing?” Dallas asked.

“If we want to take down the lion,” Beecher replied, “we need to get a bigger gun.”

Still watching from the treeline, the barber had to hold his breath to hear what they were saying. He tried to tell himself it was still okay. But as Beecher dialed whatever number he was dialing in the distance, Laurent knew the truth-and he knew just how far he was from okay.

From what he could hear, Beecher and his group weren’t just guessing anymore. They had details. They had names-and not just the President’s. They had Palmiotti… plus, he heard them say Eightball…

If they-for them to know about that… for them to know what happened that night…

On the side of the apple blossom tree that hid Laurent from sight, a small patch of snow, clinging like a white island to the bark, was slowly whittled down by the intensity of the blowing wind. As he watched the island shrink, flake by flake, Laurent knew it was no different here.

Erosion over time.

For a while now, Palmiotti said he could stop it. That somehow, he could make it all go away. But confidence is no different than friendships or secrets. They’re all susceptible to the same fate…

Erosion over time.

It was so clear to Laurent now. This wasn’t the beginning of the tornado.

This was the beginning of the end of it.

A few inches in front of the barber, the island of snow was the size of a quarter, worn down by another slash of wind. Across the snowy field, Beecher was having much the same effect. Indeed, as the last bits of snow were tugged from the bark, Laurent once again felt a thick lump in his throat and the matching swell of emotion that overcame him earlier when he read his client’s tattoo.

If Laurent wanted to stop the tornado, there was only one way to make it go away. Until this exact moment, though, he didn’t think he had the courage to do it.

But he did.

Reaching into his jacket pocket, Laurent gripped tight to the item he’d instinctively grabbed from the shop, one of only a few mementos his father brought back from the war: the Master Barbers straight-edge razor with the abalone handle.

As he slid it out and flipped the blade open, the lasts bits of snow were blown from the tree bark.

Across the field, both Beecher and Dallas had their backs to him.

The tornado was about to start swirling a whole lot faster.