Brad Meltzer - The Inner Circle

“I’m not working any deals!” I insist.

“Then you have even bigger problems than I thought. Look up and down at that totem pole you’re stuck in. You’re the lowest man. And when it comes to presidential scandals, when that totem pole finally tips and everyone starts yelling ‘Timber,’ you know what they call the lowest man? The scapegoat ,” he says, his dark eyes locked on mine.

“ We’ve got Moses outside the building ,” Khazei’s walkie-talkie squawks through the room.

“Beecher, I know you need a life preserver. This is me throwing you one. All you have to do is take hold.”

“ Moses is in the elevator ,” the walkie-talkie announces. “ One minute to arrival… ”

There’s a hollow knock on the metal door. Secret Service want the SCIF opened and ready. Even Khazei knows he can’t stop a request like that.

“Please, Beecher,” he says as he reaches out and twists the metal latch on the door. My ears pop from the change in pressure as the door swings inward and the vacuum seal is broken. “I’m begging you to take hold.”

It’s the last thing I hear from Khazei. Without looking back, he steps out into the hallway, where three suit-and-tie Secret Service agents motion him out of the way.

An agent with blond hair and a tiny nose joins me in the SCIF, taking a spot in the back left corner. “Thirty seconds,” he whispers to me as a courtesy. “Oh, and he’s in a good mood.”

I nod, appreciating the news.

Within a few seconds, everything goes silent.

The calm before the storm.

From outside, there’s a quiet clip-clop as a set of finely polished dress shoes makes its way up the long hallway.

As Orson Wallace turns the corner and steps inside, I instinctively step back. I’ve never seen him face-to-face. But I know that face. Everyone knows that face. And those rosy cheeks. And those calming gray eyes. It’s like the front page of a newspaper walking right at me.

“Sir, this is Beecher White. He’ll be staffing you today,” the blond agent announces as I realize that Wallace has come here without any staff.

There’s another audible pop as the two-ton metal door slams shut and metal bolts kunk into place, sealing me in this windowless, soundproof, vacuum-packed box with the President of the United States.

“Nice to meet you, Beecher,” Wallace says, heading straight for the desk, the research cart-and the single wooden chair-at the center of the room. “I appreciate your helping us out today.”

"That’s the single dumbest idea I’ve ever heard,” the barber snapped. “Why would you send him in like that!?”

Through the phone, Dr. Palmiotti didn’t answer.

“I asked you a question!” the barber added.

“And I heard you. Now hear me: Be careful of your tone,” Palmiotti warned through the receiver.

“There’s no reason to put him at risk!”

“Be careful of your tone,” Palmiotti warned again.

Taking a breath, the barber stared up at the brick walls of the narrow alleyway that was used as a breakroom behind the barbershop. An unkind wind shoved the rotting stench from the nearby garbage cans into his face.

“I’m just saying, he didn’t have to go there,” the barber said, far more calmly. He knew he was already out of bounds by making the phone call. But he never forgot the rules-especially after what they think happened. Not once did he refer to the President by name.

“I appreciate your concern,” Palmiotti shot back, doing a poor job at hiding his sarcasm. “But we know what we’re doing.”

“I don’t think you do. By bringing him in like that-”

“We know what we’re doing, okay? He’s not at risk. He’s not in danger. And right now, he’s in the best possible position to find out exactly who’s holding the tin can on the other end of the string. So thank you for the concern, but this time, why don’t you go back to doing what you do best, and we’ll go back to doing what we do best?”

Before the barber could say a word, there was a click. Dr. Palmiotti was gone.

Even when he was little, he was a prick , Laurent thought as he shoved his way through the back door of the barbershop, anxious to refocus his attention on his next haircut.

I’m waiting for it.

And watching.

And standing there, swaying in place as my hands fiddle in the pockets of my blue lab coat, pretending to fish for nothing at all.

The President’s been here barely two minutes. He’s sitting at the long research table, eyeing the various boxes and documents that are stacked in neat piles on the rolling cart.

“Do you need help, sir?” I ask.

He barely shakes his head, reaching for a file on the second shelf of the cart: a single-page document encased in a clear Mylar sleeve. I saw the request list. It’s a handwritten letter by Abraham Lincoln-back when he was a regular citizen-requesting that better roads be built by the government. There’s another on the cart from Andrew Jackson, petitioning for money well before he was elected. From what I’d heard, Wallace loves these records: all of them written by our greatest leaders long before they were our greatest leaders-and proof positive that life exists before and after the White House.

But today, as Wallace squints down at Lincoln’s scratchy, wide script, I can’t help but think that he’s after something far bigger than life advice from his predecessors.

If Dallas and his contacts in the Culper Ring are to be believed-and that’s a big if- they think Wallace is here to talk. With me.

I eye the blond Secret Service agent who’s still standing in the opposite corner. He stares right back, unafraid of the eye contact. At the table, the President leans forward in his chair, both elbows on the desk as he hovers over the document. I watch him, picking apart his every movement like a mall cop studying a group of loud kids with skateboards.

The SCIF isn’t very big. With three of us in here, the room temperature inches up just enough that I’m feeling it.

But that’s not what’s causing the heat that’s swallowed my palms and is now plotting to take over the rest of my body.

At the table, Orson Wallace is calm as ever-ridiculously calm-like he’s reading the Sunday paper.

For ten minutes, I stand there, my lab coat making me feel like a baked potato in tinfoil. The only movement I allow myself is licking the salty sweat mustache that’s staked a claim on my upper lip.

Ten feet away, the President gives me nothing.

At twenty minutes, my back starts to ache from the lack of movement, and the sweat mustache doesn’t even taste that salty anymore.

Still nothing from the President.

At the half-hour mark, he pulls a pencil-usually only archivists and researchers use pencils-from his jacket pocket and then flips to another set of presidential letters.

But otherwise, more nothing. And more nothing. Until…

Diagonally across the room, the blond agent puts a pointer-finger to his ear. Something’s being said in his earpiece.

Without a word, the agent heads for the door and twists the metal latch. The President’s used to people moving around him. He doesn’t look up, even as our ears pop.

Sticking his head out the door, the blond agent listens to something being whispered by the agent outside. Something’s definitely up. And the way the agent keeps looking back at me, then back to his boss, I can tell-clearance or no clearance, secure room or unsecure room-there’s no way they’re leaving me alone with the President.

“I need two minutes,” the agent calls to me. He steps outside.