Brad Meltzer - The First Councel

Twenty seconds. “It’s not a story! It’s my life!”

“All you have to do is come in.” Worried that I’m going to run, he’s trying to make nice. “If you help us-if you give us Nora-I promise you, the whole process’ll be a lot easier.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is true. Be smart about it, Michael. The longer you’re out there, the worse it looks.”

Ten seconds. “I have to go,” I say, my voice shaking. “I need… I need to think.”

“Just tell me you’re going to come in. You give the word and we’re there for you. Now what do you say?”

“I have to go.”

He’s out of patience and I’m about to hang up. “Let me tell you something, Michael-remember when Vaughn said it took eighty seconds to trace a phone call?”

“How’d you-”

“He was wrong,” Adenauer says. “See you soon.”

I slam down the phone and slowly turn around. Behind me is a mob of commuters angling for space on the escalators. At least three people are staring directly at me-a woman with Jackie O sunglasses and two men looking up from their newspapers. Before I can react, all three disappear on the escalators. Half the crowd’s going down to the subway; the other half’s going up to the street exit. I scan the rest of the mob, looking for suspicious glances and forceful strides. This is Washington, D.C., at rush hour. Everyone qualifies.

My body tenses. I’m tempted to run, but I don’t. It doesn’t make sense. They can’t trace a call through Signal. It’s impossible-he just wants me to panic; make a mistake. Calling his bluff, I take a hesitant step toward the crowd. I don’t care how good they are, nothing’s that fast. I keep telling myself that as I slide onto the escalator and get absorbed by the mob.

Clenching my jaw, I try to ignore my ankle. Nothing to make me look out of place. I glance around as we reach the top, but everything’s quiet. Cars whiz by; commuters disperse. Following two other passengers to the nearby taxi stand, I wait in line and hail a cab. Just another normal day at work.

“Where to?” the cabbie asks as I slide inside.

Ignoring the question, I look nervously left, then right.

Searching for a security blanket, my hand moves instinctively for my tie. As I reach for it, though, I realize it’s gone. I almost forgot. It was covered in blood.

“Let’s hear it,” the cabbie calls out. “I need a destination.”

“I don’t know,” I finally stammer.

He looks at me in the rearview. “You okay back there?”

Once again, I ignore the question. I can’t believe Adenauer has the tape-I knew I should’ve never let Caroline start recording-even with my stopping it early, there’s enough on there to… I don’t even want to consider it. Leaning forward on the stained cloth seats, I cuff my hands around my swollen ankle and feel like I’m about to collapse. I may’ve made my way out of the suburbs, but I’ve got to figure something out. I still need somewhere to go. Somewhere to think.

Home’s no good. Neither is Trey’s apartment. Or Pam’s. There’re a few friends from college and law school, but if the FBI’s sending people out to my cousin, that means they’re covering my file-and then some. Besides, I’m not going to put any more friends-or relatives-at risk. Once again, my eye starts twitching. There’s no way around it. Everything’s on me.

All that leaves is a nearby motel. It’s not a bad option, but I have to keep it safe. No credit cards-nothing they can trace me with. I open my wallet and see that I’m flying on fumes; all that’s left is twelve dollars in cash, my lucky two-dollar bill, and a Metro farecard. First things first. “How about a cash machine?”

“Now you’re talkin’,” the cabbie says.

Sliding my card into the ATM, I punch in my four-digit PIN code. Even with the bank’s daily limit of six hundred dollars on withdrawals, that should be more than enough to get me through the night. Then I can start working on a solution.

Entering the dollar amount, I wait as the machine whirs through its motions. But instead of hearing the shuffling of bills being distributed, I see a digital message appear on-screen: “Transaction cannot be processed at this time.”

Huh? Maybe I tried to take out too much. I hit the Cancel button to start again. This time, a new message appears: “To retrieve your card, please contact your branch manager or your local financial institution.”

“What?” I hit Cancel again, but there’s no response. The machine resets itself and the words “Please insert card” appear on-screen. I don’t understand. How’d they… I look straight at the ATM and remember that the FBI’s background check includes a disclosure of all current bank accounts. “Damn!” I shout, pounding my fist against unbreakable glass. They took my card. Refusing to give up, I pull out a credit card and shove it into the machine. All I need is a cash advance. Once again, though, the words flash up on-screen: “Transaction cannot be processed at this time.”

The sun has barely started to set, so when I turn around, it’s still light enough for the cabbie to read the expression on my face. He puts the car in gear. He knows a dead fare when he sees one.

“Wait…!” I call out.

The tires screech. He’s gone. And I’m out on the street.

The last time this happened, I was seven. On the way home from the local barbershop, Dad decided to take a new shortcut through the repaved schoolyard. Two hours later, he’d forgotten where we lived. He could’ve picked up a pay phone and called my mom, but that thought never occurred to him.

Of course, back then, it was an adventure. Lost among the labyrinth of apartment buildings, he kept joking that wherever we were, it was going to be his new spot for hide-and-seek. I couldn’t stop laughing. That is, until he started to cry. Frustration always did that to him. That high-pitched wail of adult desperation is one of my earliest memories-and one I wish I could forget. Few things slice as deep as a parent’s tears.

Still, even as he fell apart, he tried to protect me, shielding me inside the glass walls of a phone booth. “We have to sleep here until Mom finds us,” he said as it started to grow dark. I sat down in the booth. He leaned against it outside. At seven years old, I was rightfully scared. But not half as scared as I am now.

By a quarter to six, I’m tucked away in the best Metro-accessible, high-traffic, twenty-four-hour hiding spot I could think of-Reagan National Airport. Before settling on my current location, I made one stop at the luggage store outside Terminal C. For two dollars and seventy-two cents, I cashed in my lucky two-dollar bill and all the change in my pocket for a defective black plastic garment bag that was about to be sent back to the manufacturer. Who cares if the zipper never opens? — it’s not like I need it for travel. I just need to look the part. And when I combine it with a canceled ticket I fished out of the garbage, it does the job.

Since then, I’ve been huddled in the far corner of Legal Seafood-the only restaurant in the airport that airs the local news, and therefore the best place to nurse my last twelve dollars.

“Here’s your soda,” the waitress says, lowering the glass to my table.

“Thanks,” I say, my eyes glued to the TV. To my surprise, the local affiliate has preempted its programming to cover the daily press conference live. It’s a power move by the stations-putting pressure on the Press Office to get on with the story. Naturally, the White House pushes back. CNN is one thing, but they can’t have the whole nation going live-it sets people into a panic and sends votes to Bartlett. So they do the best thing they can think of-they run the agenda backwards. Start with the small stories; work up to the home run.