The Inner Circle

by Brad Meltzer

  “Getting colder. Think back to George Washington. Why’d he say the Culper Ring helped him win the Revolutionary War?”

  “They brought him the best information.”

  “Information! There. Bull’s-eye. You see it now, right? That is the most, and I mean the most, vital thing that a President needs to do his job: reliable information. You understand that?”

  “I’m not an idiot.”

  “Then understand this: Our bureaucracy is so vast, by the time a piece of information makes its way to the President’s desk, it’s like a chewed-over dog bone. It goes from the guy on the ground, up to a supervisor, up to an analyst, up to a chief of staff, up to a deputy secretary, then up to the real secretary, then through the true honchos who pick through it… and then, if it’s lucky, there it is… dumped on your desk, Mr. President. And now you have to take that drool-covered piece of info and use it to make a military, or environmental, or financial decision that’ll affect millions or maybe billions of lives. You ready to rely on that?”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “It is that simple. It’s always been that simple. And it is—still—the greatest problem facing every President: You’re the one man in charge, and every day you’re making life-and-death decisions based on the work of total strangers with unknown agendas. And that’s why, when you’re sitting there with all those above-top-secret reports about every problem in the world, you can’t help but wonder: What don’t I know? What’d they leave out of these reports? And what’re the motives and biases built in to the info I’m getting?”

  “So the Culper Ring works for the President.”

  “No. The Culper Ring doesn’t work for the President. It works for the Presidency. It serves the office, just as George Washington designed it—a built-in backstop to be used when it was needed most. Think about it, Beecher—before you drop the bomb on Hiroshima, wouldn’t you want to be absolutely sure the Japanese weren’t already about to surrender? Or before you went to slaughter your brother in Gettysburg, wouldn’t you want to make sure you had the right general in place? Major General Meade was installed just four days before the fighting at Gettysburg began. Pretty good timing by Lincoln, eh?”

  My mind swirls through the examples we found in the Archives—the Bay of Pigs… Sputnik… the Lusitania—each one its own critical moment in presidential history. It swirls even more when it reminds me that of all the theories we had, it’s still Nico who was most correct. The President’s definitely communicating through that dictionary. But it doesn’t change the one thing I refuse to lose focus on:

  “You said there were two,” I tell Dallas. “Two Rings.”

  “And now you’re seeing the problem,” he says with a nod. “Every once in a while, there’s kind of a… speed bump.”

  “Define speed bump.”

  “Beecher, I’ve already kept you here for too long. If they’re watching—”

  “Tell me about the second Ring, Dallas. Tell me, or I swear to you, I’ll type up this crap and you’ll be reading about it in the Washington Post tomorrow!”

  “I know that’s not true—that’s not who you are. And if I didn’t know that, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

  “Then have the damn conversation!”

  Like before, he uses his teeth to comb at some stray beard hairs. But unlike before, his head is cocked to the side, his eyes staring off. Like he’s listening to something.

  “What’re you doing?” I challenge.

  He doesn’t answer. But as he turns his head, I spot—in his ear—there’s something in his ear.

  “Is that an earpiece? Are you—? Is someone listening to us right now!?” I shout as I start to search the room. No mirrors. No cameras in the corners.

  “They said to calm down, Beecher. You already passed the test.”

  “What test? Who’s they? How the hell’re they seeing us!?”

  I rush to the little minibar, shoving the bottles of alcohol aside. I pull the top off the ice bucket. No wires anywhere.

  It’s on you, isn’t it? You’re wearing a camera!”

  “Listen to me, Beecher—”

  I hop over the coffee table, knocking the flowers to the floor. He leaps off the sofa and, like a lion tamer, grabs the armchair, trying to keep it between us.

  “Will you listen to me!?” he says. “This isn’t about you!”

  “That’s not true! This is my life you’re screwing with!”

  “You idiot! Your life’s already over!”

  I stop at the words.

  His fingers dig into the back of the armchair.

  “What’d you say?” I ask.

  He doesn’t answer.

  “You said my life is over.”

  “We can protect you. We’re protecting you right now.” To prove the point, Dallas heads to the closed curtains and spreads them just a few feet apart, revealing a city block filled with parked cars, but empty of people and bathed in darkness. We’re on the second floor of a brick townhouse, and though it takes me a moment, as I scan the restaurants across the street… that CVS.

  “We’re in Woodley Park,” I say.

  “We are. But we’re also in the only residential house on a busy street where it’s difficult to stop, making this building nearly impossible to observe without being observed. When it went up for sale, we were bidding against both the Israelis and the Palestinians.”

  “So this is… what?… some sorta safehouse?”

  “You see that homeless guy across the street?” Dallas asks. “He’ll be there until 4 a.m., at which point another ‘homeless man’ will clock in and take his place for a full eight-hour shift. Think about it, Beecher. There’s a reason the FBI is the second biggest property renter in Washington, D.C. This is how you do it right.”

  I turn away as he lets the curtains shut. “You said my life is over.”

  “Beecher, you have to understand. When you found what you found…”

  “I don’t even know what I found. Tell me what I found.”

  “You found proof. That dictionary—That’s proof that they exist.”

  “That what exists? A second Culper Ring?”

  Dallas shakes his head, double-checking that the curtains are shut tight. “Don’t call them that. They don’t deserve to be called that.”

  “That’s what they are, though, aren’t they?”

  Dallas sits with this a moment. I can’t tell if he’s thinking, or listening to whatever’s being whispered in his ear, but eventually he says, “Every dozen or so administrations, it happens. It has to happen, right? Every person who’s sworn in as President has his own agenda, and some of these guys—I heard the first was Millard Fillmore, though I think if you look at Ulysses Grant, or probably Harding—”

  “I don’t care about the 1920s or Teapot Dome.”

  “What about Watergate? You care about that one?”

  “Time out. You’re telling me that this other Culper Ring—whatever you want to call them—that they’re the ones who pulled off Watergate?”

  “No. Richard Nixon pulled off Watergate. But to make it happen, well…” Dallas heads over to the framed photo of the White House under construction. “Imagine the Culper Ring—our group, the true Culper Ring—as this giant outer ring that circles and has been protecting the Presidency for over two hundred years,” he says, using his pointer-finger to draw a huge circle around the entire photograph. “And then imagine a guy like Nixon, who rides into power, and looks at that big wide outer ring and says to himself, ‘Huh. I should have something like that around me.’ ”

  “Like an inner ring.”

  “Like an inner ring,” Dallas agrees, drawing a miniature little circle just around one of the White House windows. “Welcome to the speed bump. So he calls in a few friends that he knows he can trust—G. Gordon Liddy, Howard Hunt, and the rest of the crew—and voilà, Nixon has an inner ring that reports just to him. They call themselves the Plumbers. The rest, as they say, is you-know-wha
t.”

  I stare at his imaginary circle around the White House window. At the Archives, we’ve got the original blueprints to the White House. Dallas didn’t pick a random window. He picked the one on the second-floor Residence that I know President Wallace uses as his private office. “So you think—with the dictionary—you think that’s what Wallace is doing right now? You think he’s talking to his own personal Plumbers.”

  “You don’t see the problem there?” Dallas asks.

  “I guess I do, but… He’s the President. Isn’t he entitled to talk to whoever he wants, as secretively as he wants?”

  “He absolutely is. But that doesn’t mean he—or one of his group—is allowed to murder anyone they think is an accidental witness.”

  Orlando. Of course he’s talking about Orlando. But for him to use that word. Murder.

  “It wasn’t a heart attack, was it?” I ask, though I already know the answer.

  Once again, Dallas stays quiet. But unlike last time, he doesn’t look away.

  “Dallas, if you can confirm it, I need you to tell me,” I demand. “I know the autopsy was today. If you have the results…”

  “You don’t need me to tell you anything,” Dallas says with an emptiness in his voice that echoes like a battering ram against my chest. “They’ll release the first round of tox reports in the next day or so, but you know what those results are. Just like you know nothing at this level is ever just an accident.”

  As the full weight of the battering ram hits, I nearly fall backward.

  “Just remember, Beecher, when Nixon’s Plumbers first started, they were on the side of the angels too, helping the White House protect classified documents.” Like a woodpecker, Dallas taps his finger against the small window in the photo of the White House. “Absolute power doesn’t corrupt absolutely—but it will make you do what you swore you’d never do, especially when you’re trying to hold on to it.”

  I nod to myself, knowing he’s right, but…“That still doesn’t explain why you need me.”

  “You’re joking, right? Haven’t you seen the schedule?”

  “What schedule?”

  “Tomorrow. He’s coming back for another reading visit.” Eyeing the confusion on my face, Dallas explains, “The White House asked for you personally. You’re his man, Beecher. When President Wallace comes back to the Archives tomorrow—when he’s standing there inside that SCIF—they want you to be the one staffing him.”

  55

  It was only six seconds.

  Six seconds of film.

  Six seconds on YouTube.

  But for Clementine, who was still curled on her futon, still clutching her cat for strength, and whose tired eyes still stared at the laptop screen, they were the most important six seconds of the entire video.

  At this point, she knew just where to put her mouse on the progress bar so the little gray circle would hop back to 1:05 of the video. At 1:02, Nico first raised his gun, which you actually see before you see him. At 1:03, as he took a half-step out from the crowd of NASCAR drivers, you could make out just the arm of his jumpsuit—the bright sun ricocheting off a wide patch of yellow. At 1:04, the full yellow jumpsuit was visible. He was moving now. But it wasn’t until 1:05 that you got the first clear view of Nico’s full face.

  The view lasted six seconds.

  Six seconds where Nico’s head was turned right at the camera.

  Six seconds where Nico was calm; he was actually smiling.

  Six quiet seconds—before the shooting and the screaming and the mayhem—where Clementine’s father didn’t look like a monster. He looked confident. At ease. He looked happy. And no question—even she could see it as his lips parted to reveal his grin—their expression was exactly the same. It was the only lie Beecher had told her. But she knew the truth. She looked just like her father.

  Pop, pop, pop, the gunshots hiccupped at 1:12.

  But by then, Clementine had already clicked her mouse, sending the little gray circle back to before the chaos began.

  She’d been at it for a while now, over and over, the same six seconds. She knew it wasn’t healthy.

  Hoping to switch gears, she reached for her phone and dialed Beecher’s number. Even with the long trek back, he should be home by now.

  But as she held the receiver to her ear, she heard a few rings, then voicemail. She dialed again. Voicemail again.

  She didn’t think much of it. Instead, to her own surprise, she found herself thinking about their kiss.

  She knew Beecher had it in him.

  But as she was learning, Beecher was still full of surprises.

  He’s probably just asleep, she thought as she clicked back, and the video started again, and she watched again to see just how much she wasn’t like her father.

  “I know—I promise,” she told her cat. “This’ll be the last one.”

  56

  You should put the ice on your chin,” Dallas says.

  “I don’t need ice,” I say, even though I know I do. My chin’s on fire. But it’s nothing compared to what’s coming. As I nudge the curtain open, I stare outside at a homeless man who’s not a homeless man, from a residential townhouse that’s not really a townhouse, and refuse to face my officemate, who I now understand is far more than just an officemate.

  “Beecher, for Wallace to request you—it’s a good thing.”

  “Yeah, that makes complete sense. In fact, it’s absolutely obvious why locking me in an impenetrable bulletproof box with the most powerful man in the world—with no witnesses or anything to protect me—is just a perfect peach of an idea.”

  “We think he’s going to make you an offer,” he finally says.

  “Who is? The President?”

  “Why else would he ask for you, Beecher? You have something that was intended for him. So despite Orlando’s death, and the FBI and Secret Service sniffing around the room, Wallace is coming right back to the scene of the crime, and he’s asked for you to personally be there. Alone. In his SCIF. If we’re lucky, when that door slams shut and those magnetic locks click, he’ll start talking.”

  “Yeah, or he’ll leave me just like Orlando.”

  Dallas shakes his head. “Be real. Presidents don’t get dirt under their nails like that. They just give the orders. And sometimes, they don’t even do that.”

  There’s something in the way he says the words. “You don’t think Wallace had a hand in this?” I ask.

  “No, I think he very much had a hand in this, but what you keep forgetting is that what you found in that chair isn’t just a book. It’s a communication—and communications take two people.”

  “From the President to one of his Plumbers.”

  “But not just one of his Plumbers,” Dallas corrects. “One of his Plumbers who works in our building. That’s the key, Beecher. Whoever did this to Orlando… to be able to hide the book in that chair… to have access to the SCIF… it has to be someone on staff—or at the very least, someone with access to that room.”

  “To be honest, I thought it was you.”

  “Me?” Dallas asks. “Why would it possibly be me?”

  “I don’t know. When I saw you in the hallway… when you were with Rina. Then when Gyrich came back to the building, you were the last person in Finding Aids.”

  “First, I wasn’t with Rina. We got off the elevator at the same time. Second, I stopped in Finding Aids for two minutes—and only because I was trying to find you.”

  I see the way Dallas is looking at me. “You have someone else in mind.”

  “I do,” he says. “But I need you to be honest with yourself, Beecher. Just how well do you really know Tot?”

  57

  Nope. No. No way,” I insist. “Tot would never do that.”

  “You say that, but you’re still ignoring the hard questions,” Dallas says.

  “What hard questions? Is Tot a killer? He’s not.”

  “Then why’s he always around? Why’s he helping you so much? Why’s he su
ddenly giving you his car, and dropping everything he’s working on, and treating this…”

  “… like it’s a matter of life or death? Because it is a matter of life or death! My life! My death! Isn’t that how a friend is supposed to react?”

  “Be careful here. You sure he is your friend?”

  “He is my friend!”

  “Then how come—if he’s the supposed master of all the Archives—he hasn’t accepted a single promotion in nearly fifty years? You don’t think that smells a little? Everyone else at his level goes up to bigger and better things, but Tot, for some unknown reason, stays tucked away in his little kingdom in the stacks.”

  “But isn’t that why Tot wouldn’t be in Wallace’s Plumbers? You said Wallace’s group is all new. Tot’s been here forever.”

  “Which is why it’s such a perfect cover to be there for Wallace—just another face in the crowd.”

  “And why’s that any different than what you’re doing with the Culper Ring?”

  “What I’m doing, Beecher, is reacting to an emergency by coming directly to you and telling you what’s really going on. What Tot—”

  “You don’t know it’s Tot. And even if it was, it doesn’t make sense. If he’s really out for my blood, why’s he helping me so much?”

  “Maybe to gain your trust… maybe to bring you closer so he has a better fall guy. I have no idea. But what I do know is that he is gaining your trust, and he is bringing you closer, and he was also the very last person to call Orlando before he died. So when someone like that loans you his car, you have to admit: That’s a pretty good explanation for why you’re suddenly being followed by a taxi.”

  I’m tempted to argue, or even to ask him how he knew that Tot called Orlando, but my brain’s too busy replaying “Islands in the Stream.” Tot’s cell phone—and, just like Clemmi said, the call that sent us racing up to Finding Aids at the exact same moment that Dustin Gyrich snuck out of the building.

  “You need to start asking the hard questions, Beecher—of Tot or anyone else. If they work in our building, you shouldn’t be whispering to them.”