Brad Meltzer - The Inner Circle

“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?”

"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 suddenly 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.”

He’s right. He’s definitely right. There’s only one problem.

“That doesn’t mean Tot was the one in the taxi,” I tell him. “It could’ve been anyone. It could’ve been Rina.”

“I don’t think it was Rina.”

“How can you-?”

“It’s just my thought, okay? You don’t think it’s Tot. I don’t think it’s Rina,” he insists, barely raising his voice but definitely raising his voice.

As he scratches the side of his starter beard, I make a mental note of the sore spot. “What about Khazei?” I ask.

“From Security?”

“He’s the one who buzzed Orlando into the SCIF. And right now, he’s also the one spending far too much of his time lurking wherever I seem to be.”

Dallas thinks on this a moment. “Maybe.”

“ Maybe? ” I shoot back. “You’ve got a two-hundred-year-old spy network talking in your ear, and that’s the best they come up with? Maybe? ”

Before he can respond, there’s a loud backfire. Through the curtain, a puff of black smoke shows me the source: a city bus that’s now pulling away from the bus stop across the street. But what gnaws at me is Dallas’s reaction to it. His face is white. He squints into the darkness. And I quickly remember that buses in D.C. don’t run after midnight. It’s well past 1 a.m.

“Beecher, I think we need to go.”

“Wait. Am I…? Who’d you see in that bus?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Tell me what’s with the bus, Dallas. You think someone’s spying from that bus?”

He closes the shades, then checks again to make sure they stay closed. It’s the first time I’ve seen him scared. “We’d also like to see the book.”

“Wha?” I ask.

“The book. The dictionary,” Dallas says. His tone is insistent. Like his life depends on it. “We need to know what was written in the dictionary.”

He puts a hand on my shoulder, motioning me to the door.

I don’t move. “Don’t do that,” I warn.

“Do what?”

“Rush me along, hoping I’ll give it out of fear.”

“You think I’d screw you like that?”

“No offense, but weren’t you the one who just gave me that lecture about how every person in our building was already screwing me?”

He searches for calm, but I see him glance at the closed curtain. Time’s running out. “What if I gave you a reason to trust us?”

“Depends how good the reason is.”

“Is that okay?” he adds, though I realize he’s no longer talking to me. He nods, reacting to what they’re saying in his earpiece. Wasting no time, he heads for the closet and pulls something from his laptop bag, which was tucked just out of sight.

With a flick of his wrist, he whips it like a Frisbee straight at me.

I catch it as the plastic shell nicks my chest.

A videotape.

The orange sticker on the top reads: 12E1.

That’s the room… the SCIF… Is this…? This is the videotape that Orlando grabbed when we-

“How’d you get this?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “That’s your get-out-of-jail-free card, Beecher. You know what would’ve happened if Wallace or one of his Plumbers had seen you on that tape?”

He doesn’t have to say the words. I still hear Orlando: If the President finds that videotape, he’s going to declare war… on us . The war’s clearly started. Time to fight back.

From my back pocket, I pull out a folded sheet of paper and hand it to Dallas. He unfolds it, scanning the writing.

“This is a photocopy,” he says. “Where’s the original? Where’s the book?”

This time, I’m the one shaking my head.

“You hid it in the Archives, didn’t you?” he adds.

I still don’t answer.

“Good. Well done. You’re finally using your head,” he says as he rereads the revealed note we found in the dictionary:

FEBRUARY 16

26 YEARS IS A LONG TIME TO KEEP A SECRET

WRITE BACK: NC 38.548.19 OR WU 773.427

“You know those aren’t-”

“We know they’re not call numbers,” I agree. “But beyond that, we’re stuck.”

He stares at it for a few seconds more. “Unreal,” he whispers to himself. “And the ink was green when you found it?”

“Bright green-new as can be,” I tell him. “Whoever these Plumbers are, they like your formula.”

He nods, definitely annoyed that there’s someone else using their Culper Ring magic tricks. “How’d you know to look for the invisible ink?” Dallas asks. “Was that Tot?”

“It was someone else.”

“Who?”

“Are you taking me to your leader?” I ask, pointing to his earpiece. “Then I’m not taking you to mine ,” I add, once again realizing just how valuable Nico’s advice has been-and how I wouldn’t even know about the invisible ink without him.