Brad Meltzer - The Inner Circle

That’s how they taught him to do it.

But when all was quiet. When the street was dark. When he was sure that anyone watching would’ve long ago become bored and left, he finally reached into his briefcase and pulled out the true treasure from today’s hunt.

According to Benjamin Franklin, “He that can have patience, can have what he will.”

The archivist had something far more valuable than that.

He had a videotape.

The one Orlando was carrying when-

He put the thought out of his head as he slid the tape into his old VCR. Right now, the danger was that it was all coming undone… everything was at risk.

Hitting rewind, he leaned in close as the picture slowly bloomed onto his TV. The angle looked down from the top corner of the SCIF, no different than any security camera. Sure enough, there was Orlando, rushing around as-

Wait.

There.

In the corner. By the door. A shadow flickered. Then another.

Realizing he hadn’t gone back far enough, the archivist again hit rewind.

The shadow-No. Not a shadow.

A person. Two people.

His eyes narrowed.

Now it made far more sense. That’s why they couldn’t find the book.

Orlando wasn’t alone in the SCIF. There were two other people with him.

One of them a girl. And the other? The one with the bunched-up lab coat and the messy blond hair?

The archivist knew him. Instantly.

Beecher.

Beecher had what the Culper Ring wanted.

My phone starts screaming at 7:02 the next morning. I don’t pick it up. It’s just a signal-the morning wake-up call from my ride to work, telling me I now have twenty-four minutes until he arrives. But as the phone stops ringing, my alarm clock goes off. Just in case the wake-up phone call doesn’t do its trick.

I have two sisters, one of them living in the D.C. area, which is why, instead of waking to the sound of a buzzer, my alarm clock blinks awake with a robotic male voice that announces, “… Thirty percent chance of snow. Twenty-one degrees. Partly overcast until the afternoon.”

It’s the official government weather forecast from NOAA-the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-where my sister Lesley’s been working for the past year and a half, studying tides and weather and sometimes getting to write the copy that the robotic voice announces. And yes, I know there’s not much “writing” when it comes to saying it’s “partly overcast until the afternoon.” And yes, I’d rather wake up to music or even a buzzing alarm. But it’s my sister. Lesley wrote that. Of course I support her.

As Robotman tells me about the rest of the forecast, I kick off the sheets and lower my head. My mom used to make us say a prayer every morning. I lasted until junior high, but even then, she taught me that I shouldn’t start the day without being thankful for something. Anything. Just to remind you of your place in the world.

Closing my eyes, I think about… huuh… I try to tell myself it’s good that Orlando’s at least at peace. And I’m glad I got to know him. But when it comes to what I’m thankful for, no matter how much I think of Orlando…

I can’t help but picture that look when Clementine first arrived yesterday-that self-assured warmth that she wears as coolly and comfortably as her thumb rings and nose piercing. But what’s far more memorable is that fragile, terrified look she didn’t want me to see as she ducked behind me in the stacks. It wasn’t because she was shy. Or embarrassed. She was protecting me from that look. Sparing me the heartache that comes with whatever she thinks her life has become.

I help people every day. And of course, I try to tell myself that’s all I’m doing right now-that I’m just trying to be a good friend, and that none of this has anything to do with my own needs, or what happened with Iris, or the fact that this is the very first morning in a year when I woke up and didn’t eye the small bottle of Iris’s perfume that I still haven’t been able to throw out. I even tell myself how pathetically obvious it is to fill the holes of my own life with some old, imagined crush. But the truth is, the biggest threat to Clementine’s well-being isn’t from who her father is. It’s from the fact that, like me, she’s on that videotape from when we were in the SCIF.

The tape’s still gone. But even without an autopsy, I know that’s why Orlando died. It’s a short list for who’s next.

From there, I don’t waste time getting ready. Four and a half minutes in the shower. Seven minutes for shaving, toothbrushing, and the rest.

“ Ping ,” my computer announces from the downstairs kitchen table where I keep my laptop that keeps track of all the morning eBay bids. My townhouse isn’t big. It isn’t expensive. And it’s in Rockville, Maryland, instead of in D.C.

But it’s mine. The first big thing I bought after nearly a hundred weddings, plus two years of working my eBay side business and saving my government salary. My second big purchase was the engagement ring. I’ve been making up for it ever since.

In fact, as I head downstairs, on the beige-carpeted second-to-last step, there’s a neat stack of a dozen postcards. Each card has a different black-and-white photo of the Statue of Liberty from 1901 to 1903. On the step below that, there’s another stack-this one with black-and-white photos of baseball stadiums in the early 1900s. And there’re more piles throughout the kitchen: across the counter (photos of old German zeppelins), on the microwave (photos of steam-engine trains), on top of the fridge (separate piles for dogs, cats, and tons of old automobiles), and even filling the seat of the bright orange 1960s lounge chair that I got at the Georgetown flea market and use as a head chair (each pile a different exhibit from the 1901 Pan-Am Expo in Buffalo, New York, including a big pile for the camel parade).

To anyone else, it’s clutter. To me, it’s how the world used to communicate: through postcards.

Back in the early 1900s, when you bought a new car, or new dress, or had a new baby, you took a picture, sent it to Kodak, and they’d send you back six black-and-white “real photo postcards,” which you’d then send to family and friends. At the time, collecting those real photo cards was the number one hobby in America. Number one. But once World War I began, since the best printing was done in Germany, production halted-and a new company called the American Greeting Card Company filled the void, offering cheaper cards that Americans didn’t like as much.

Of course, the final nail hit the coffin in the form of the telephone. Why send a card when you could just call up and tell them the news? But today, those real photo postcards are among the most collected items on eBay, as I learned when I sold a photo from a 1912 Stanford football game for a whopping $2.35.

To my mom, the cards are yet another example of my obsession with the past. To my sisters, who know me far better, they’re the distraction that’s only grown in size since Iris left. They may be right-but that doesn’t mean distractions don’t have benefits. The cards have oddly helped me settle back into my groove and find my sea legs-so much so that when an old friend like Clementine emails after fifteen years and asks how you’re doing, instead of thinking about what’s wrong with your life, you take a chance, hit the reply button, and say, “So glad you got in touch.” That’s even more valuable than the newest bids on eBay.

The problem is, by the time I reposition the piles on the kitchen table and pour my morning bowl of raisin bran, there’s only one thing I really want to see on the computer. I start every morning with the obituaries. Mostly, I read about strangers. Today, at washingtonpost.com, I put in Orlando’s name. His obit’s not in there yet.