Brad Meltzer - The Inner Circle

“You did? That’s fantastic!”

“Again, I leave the distinctions to you,” she says, adding a short huff that I think counts as a laugh. Carrie never laughs.

“Carrie, what are you not saying?”

“I just bring you the information,” she says. “But wait till you hear who the father is.”

She says the words, pauses, then says them again, knowing I can’t believe it.

The President of the United States should be here any minute. But right now, I wonder if that’s the least of our problems.

“Clementine,” I say, grabbing her hand and heading to the door, “we need to get you out of here.”

St. Elizabeths Hospital

Washington, D.C.

They don’t call them mental patients anymore.

Now they’re called consumers .

Such a turd idea, orderly Rupert Baird thought as he pushed the juice cart down the pale sterile hallway. Almost as bad as when they started calling it KFC instead of Kentucky Fried Chicken. It was the same with the patients. If you’re fried, you’re fried.

Heh.

That was funny, Rupert thought.

But still a damn turd idea.

“Hey there, Jerome,” he called out as he rolled the juice cart into Room 710. “I got apple and orange. What’s your pick?”

Cross-legged on his bed, Jerome just sat there, refusing to look up from the newspaper advertising supplements, the only section of the paper he ever read.

“Apple or orange?” Rupert asked again.

No response.

“Any good coupons for Best Buy?” Rupert added.

No response. Same as ever.

Rupert knew not to take it personally-this was Ward 5 of the John Howard Pavilion, home to the NGIs. Not Guilty by reason of Insanity.

As he pivoted the juice cart into a three-point turn and headed for Room 711 across the hall, he knew that the next patient-no, the next consumer- would be far easier to deal with.

It wasn’t always that way. When Patient 711 first arrived ten years ago, he wasn’t allowed visitors, mail privileges, sharp objects, or shoelaces. And he certainly wasn’t allowed the juice cart. In fact, according to Karyn Palumbo, who’d been here longer than anyone, during his second year on the ward, 711 was caught filing his middle fingernail to a razor point, hoping to carve a bloody cross into the neck of one of the girls from the salon school who used to come and give free haircuts.

Of course, they quickly called the Secret Service.

Whenever 711 was involved, they had to call the Secret Service.

That’s what happens when a man tries to put a bullet into the President of the United States.

But after ten years of therapy and drugs-so much therapy and drugs-711 was a brand-new man. A better man.

A cured man, Rupert and most of the doctors thought.

“Hey there, Nico,” Rupert called out as he entered the sparsely furnished room. There was a single bed, a wooden nightstand, and a painted dresser that held just Nico’s Bible, his red glass rosary, and the newest Washington Redskins giveaway calendar.

“Apple or orange?” Rupert asked.

Nico looked up from the book he was reading, revealing his salt-and-pepper buzzed hair and his chocolate brown eyes, set close together. Ten years ago, in the middle of the President’s visit to a NASCAR race, Nico nearly murdered the most powerful man in the world. The video was played time and again, still showing up every year on the anniversary.

As the screaming began, a swarm of Secret Service agents tore at Nico from behind, ripping the gun from his hands.

These days, though, Nico was smart.

He knew better than to talk of those times.

He knew he should’ve never let the world see him like that.

But the one thing that Nicholas “Nico” Hadrian didn’t know back then, as he was tugged and clawed so viciously to the ground, was that he had a young daughter.

“C’mon, Nico-apple or orange?” Rupert called out.

Nico’s lips parted, offering a warm smile. “Whatever you have more of,” he replied. “You know I’m easy.”

"Tell me what you’re not telling me,” Clementine demands as I reright the chair and finish my crude cleanup. Darting for the door, I’ve got the old dictionary in one hand and my coffee-stained coat in the other.

“Orlando, I have to-”

“Go. I need to rearm the alarm,” he calls back, fiddling with the electronic keypad. “Just remember: zipped lips, right? Be Mark Felt. Not Lewinsky.”

“That’s fine, but if we look into this and it’s actually bad…”

“… I’ll be the first in line to hand them the stained dress,” he says, patting the videotape in his waistband.

As he rearms the door, we’re already running. Orlando’s a big boy. He’s fine by himself. Clementine’s another story. She knows that last phone call was about her dad.

“They found him, didn’t they?” she asks as we leave the SCIF behind and race up the hallway. In the distance, I hear the soft cry of police sirens wailing. Wallace’s motorcade is close, and if this old dictionary really was put there for the President-if someone is somehow helping him grab it, or worse, steal it, or if there’s something valuable hidden in it-the last thing we need is to be seen this close to the SCIF with-

“ Ding! ” the elevator rings as we turn the corner.

I pick up speed. No way anyone’s fast enough to spot us.

“Beecher Benjamin White, you think I’m blind!? Step away from that girl right now…!”

Clementine freezes.

“… unless of course you plan on introducing me to her!” a young man with combed-back brown hair and a scruffy starter beard calls out, already laughing at his own lame joke. At twenty-nine years old, Dallas is a year younger than me and should be my junior. He’s not.

“Dallas Gentry,” he adds as if Clementine should recognize the name.

When it comes to archivists, everyone has their own specialty. Some are good with war records. Others are good with finding the obscure. But what Dallas is good at is getting his name in the newspaper. It peaked a few months back when he opened a dusty 1806 personnel folder from the War Department and found a handwritten, never-before-seen letter by Thomas Jefferson. Sure, it was dumb luck-but it was Dallas’s luck, and the next day it was his name in the Washington Post , and Drudge, and on the lecture circuit at every university that now thinks he’s the Indiana Jones of paper. To celebrate his rise, Dallas went full-on intellectual and started growing a beard (as if we need more intense bearded guys around here). The saddest part is, based on his recent promotion, it’s actually working for him, which makes me wonder if he’s the one staffing President Wallace today. But as I frantically fumble, trying to hide the dictionary under my coffee-soaked lab coat, this isn’t the time to find out.

“Listen, we’re kinda in a rush,” I say, still not facing him.

Clementine shoots me a look that physically burns. At first I don’t get it. She motions around the corner, back to the SCIF. Oh crap. Orlando’s still in there. If Dallas waltzes in on him and then connects him to what’s missing…

“I mean… no, we have plenty of time,” I tell Dallas. “Boy, your beard looks cool.”

Your beard looks cool? My God, when did I turn into Charlie Brown?

“Is that buttered rum ?” Clementine jumps in, sniffing the air.

“You’re close. Cherry rum,” Dallas replies, clearly impressed as he turns toward her, staring at the piercing in her nose. It’s not every day he sees someone who looks like her in D.C. “Where’d you learn your pipe smoke?”

“My boss at the radio station. He’s been a pipe smoker for years,” she explains.