Brad Meltzer - The Inner Circle

No question, that means this is a building full of secrets. Some big, some small. But every single day, I get to unearth another one.

Like right now.

“Howard… Howard… Howard,” I whisper to myself, flipping one of the mottled brown pages and running my pointer finger down the alphabetical logbook, barely touching it.

Thirty-four minutes ago, as we put in the request for Clementine’s documents, a puffy middle-aged woman wearing a paisley silk scarf as a cancer wig came into our research entrance looking for details about one of her relatives. She had his name. She had the fact he served in the Revolutionary War.

And she had me.

As an archivist, whether the question comes from a researcher, from a regular person, or from the White House itself, it’s our job to find the answers that-

“Beecher,” Clementine calls out. “Are you listening?”

“Wha?”

“Just now. I asked you three times and-” She stops herself, cocking her head so the piercing in her nose tips downward. But her smile-that same warm smile from seventh grade-is still perfectly in place. “You really get lost in this stuff, don’t you?”

“That woman upstairs… I can’t just ignore her.”

Clementine stops, watching me carefully. “You really turned out to be one of the nice ones, didn’t you, Beecher?”

I glance down at the logbook. My eyes spot-

“He was a musician,” I blurt. I point to the thick rotted page, then yank a notepad from my lab coat and copy the information. “That’s why he wasn’t listed in the regular service records. Or even the pension records upstairs. A musician. George Howard was a musician during the Revolution.”

“Y’mean he played ‘Taps’?”

“No…‘Taps’ wasn’t invented until the Civil War. This guy played fife and drum, keeping the rhythm while the soldiers marched. And this entry shows the military pay he got for his service.”

“That’s… I don’t even know if it’s interesting-but how’d you even know to come down here? I mean, these books look like they haven’t been opened in centuries.”

“They haven’t. But when I was here last month searching through some leftover ONI spy documents, I saw that we had these old accounting ledgers from the Treasury Department. And no matter what else the government may screw up, when they write a check and give money out, you better believe they keep pristine records.”

I stand up straight, proud of the archeological find. But before I can celebrate-

“I need some ID,” a calm voice calls out behind us, drawing out each syllable so it sounds like Eye. Dee .

We both turn to find a muscular, squat man coming around the far corner of the row. A light pops on above him as he heads our way. Outfitted in full black body armor and gripping a polished matching black rifle, he studies my ID, then looks at the red Visitor badge clipped to Clementine’s shirt.

“Thanks,” he calls out with a nod.

I almost forgot what day it was. When the President comes, so does the…

“Secret Service,” Clementine whispers. She cocks a thin, excited eyebrow, tossing me the kind of devilish grin that makes me feel exactly how long I haven’t felt this way.

But the truly sad part is just how wonderful the rush of insecurity feels-like rediscovering an old muscle you hadn’t used since childhood. I’ve been emailing back and forth with Clementine for over two months now. But it’s amazing how seeing your very first kiss can make you feel fourteen years old again. And what’s more amazing is that until she showed up, I didn’t even know I missed it.

When most people see an armed Secret Service agent, they pause a moment. Clementine picks up speed, heading to the end of the row and peeking around the corner to see where he’s going. Forever fearless.

“So these guys protect the documents?” she asks as I catch up to her, leading her out of the stacks.

“Nah, they don’t care about documents. They’re just scouting in advance for him .”

This is Washington, D.C. There’s only one him .

The President of the United States.

“Wait… Wallace is here ?” Clementine asks. “Can I meet him?”

“Oh for sure,” I say, laughing. “We’re like BFFs and textbuddies and… he totally cares about what one of his dozens of archivists thinks. In fact, I think his Valentine’s card list goes: his wife, his kids, his chief of staff… then me.”

She doesn’t laugh, doesn’t smile-she just stares at me with deep confidence in her ginger brown eyes. “I think one day, he will care about you,” she says.

I freeze, feeling a blush spread across my face.

Across from me, Clementine pulls up the sleeve of her black sweater, and I notice a splotch of light scars across the outside of her elbow. They’re not red or new-they’re pale and whiter than her skin, which means they’ve been there a long time. But the way they zigzag out in every direction… whatever carved into her skin like that caused her real pain.

“Most people stare at my boobs,” she says with a laugh, catching my gaze.

“I–I didn’t mean-”

“Oh jeez-I’m sorry-I embarrassed you, didn’t I?” she asks.

“No. Nonono. No.”

She laughs again. “You know you’re a horrible liar?”

“I know,” I say, still staring at her scars.

“And you know you’re still staring at my scars?”

“I know. I can’t stop myself. If we were in a desert instead of in these dusty stacks, I’d bury myself right now.”

“You really should just go for my boobs,” she says. “At least you get a better view.”

Instinctively, I look-and then just as quickly stare back at her scars. “It looks like a dog bite.”

“Motorcycle crash. My fault. My elbow hyperextended and the bone broke through the skin.”

“Sounds excruciating.”

“It was ten years ago, Beecher,” she says, confidently shrugging the entire world away as her eyes take hold and don’t let go. She’s staring just at me. “Only the good things matter after ten years.”

Before I can agree, my phone vibrates in my pocket, loud enough that we both hear the buzz.

“That them?” Clementine blurts.

I shake my head. Caller ID says it’s my sister, who lives with my mom back in Wisconsin. But at this time of the day, when the supermarket shifts change, I know who’s really dialing: It’s my mom, making her daily check-up-on-me call, which started the day after she heard about Iris. And while I know my mom never liked Iris, she has too much midwestern kindness in her to ever say it to me. The phone buzzes again.

I don’t pick up. But by the time I look back at Clementine, all the confidence, all the conviction, all the fearlessness is gone-and I’m reminded that the real reason she came to the Archives wasn’t to share old scars or see overmuscled Secret Service agents.

Last year, Clementine’s mom died, but it wasn’t until a few months back that Clementine called in sick to the radio station and went back home to clean out her mom’s closet. There, she found an old datebook that her mother had saved from the year Clementine was born. Sure enough, on December 10, there were hand-drawn hearts and tiny balloons on the day of her birth, there was a cute smiley face drawn on the day she came home from the hospital, but what was most interesting to Clementine was when she flipped back in the datebook and saw the entry on March 18, which had a small sad face drawn in it, followed by the words Nick enlists .

From that, she finally had a name and a lead on her dad.

From me, thanks to our recent emails, she had the Archives.

From those, I had only one call to make: to our facility in St. Louis, where we store the more recent army enlistment records.