Brad Meltzer - The Inner Circle

“You sure this message is between the President and his Plumbers?” Dallas asks, his voice taking on that timbre of cockiness that it gets when he thinks he’s in control.

“What’s a Plumber?” Clementine asks.

“His friends. Like Nixon’s Plumbers,” I explain. “The people Wallace is working with.”

“But you see my point, right?” Dallas adds. “If this note really was between the President and his Plumbers-and they knew you found out about it-”

“Why didn’t they simply change the meeting spot?” I ask, completing the thought and looking again at the mess of footprints.

“And on top of that, if the big fear was the fact that you’d rat him out, why didn’t the President make you an offer when he had you in the SCIF? He’s supposedly who the message in the dictionary was for, right?”

It’s a fair question. And the one assumption we’ve been relying on since the moment this started: that when we found the dictionary in the SCIF, it held a message between the President and someone from his inner circle. But if that’s not the case…

“You think the President may’ve been trying to communicate with someone outside his circle?” I ask.

“Either that or someone outside his circle may’ve been trying to communicate with the President,” Dallas replies.

As I turn away from the treeline, my brain flips back to the original message: February 16. Twenty-six years is a long time to keep a secret .

“Maybe that’s why the President asked for you to staff him this morning, Beecher. Maybe he wasn’t trying to give you a message-maybe he was waiting to get one. From you .”

I see where he’s going. It’s the only thing that makes sense. All this time, we thought the dictionary held a letter that was written to Wallace by one of his friends. But if this is really from someone who’s not on his side… and they somehow found out about his Plumbers, and were hoping to reveal something from twenty-six years ago…

“You think someone’s threatening Wallace?” Clementine asks.

“I think they’re way beyond threats,” I say as a cloud of frosty air puffs out with each syllable. “If this is what I think it is, I think someone’s blackmailing the President of the United States.”

Entering the SCIF, Khazei did his own quick scan of the windowless room.

“You think I’m stupid?” Tot asked as he fiddled with the TV that sat atop the rolling cart. “There’re no cameras.”

Khazei checked anyway. For himself. Sure enough, no cameras.

But that didn’t mean there was no VCR.

“Where’d you even find it?” Khazei asked, motioning to the videotape as Tot slid it in and turned on the TV.

“In his house. He had it hid in a box of tampons.”

“Why’d he have tampons? I thought he lived alone.”

“He’s got a sister. And had a fiancee. He’s not throwing their stuff away,” Tot scolded.

Khazei didn’t respond. Instead, he looked down at his recently polished nails, tempted to start biting the cuticle of his thumb.

On TV, the video began to play, showing Orlando, Clementine… and of course Beecher-and what they found in the SCIF that day.

“Eff me,” Khazei muttered.

Tot nodded. “I think they already did.”

"Eightball?” Dallas asks.

“Has to be Eightball,” I agree with a nod.

“What’s Eightball?” Clementine asks.

I look over at Dallas, who shakes his head. He doesn’t want me telling her. He also didn’t want me bringing her to see Nico. But that’s the only reason we got in. And got here.

“Beecher, if you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to,” Clementine says. “It’s okay. I understand.”

“Listen to the girl,” Dallas whispers.

But what Dallas will never understand is what Khazei said this morning-once everything finally gets out and they verify that Orlando’s been murdered, Clementine’s just as high on the suspect list as I am, and therefore has just as much of a right to know what the hell is really going on.

“Eightball’s a person,” I say as Clementine stands frozen in the cold. “He’s a kid, really-or was a kid-named Griffin Anderson. He was twenty years old when he disappeared.”

“ Disappeared? As in abducted?”

“No one knows. This guy Eightball was the town bully, complete with an eight-ball tattoo on his forearm. The point is, he’s what happened twenty-six years ago. February 16th. That’s the night he disappeared from the President’s hometown in Ohio.”

“Which means what?” Clementine asks as a twig snaps back by the treeline. We all turn to look. It’s too hard to see anything. “You think that when the President was younger, he had some hand in this?”

“I have no idea, but… well… yeah,” I say, still scanning tree by tree. “Think about it. Something happens that night, Wallace loses his cool, and-I don’t know-the future President goes all Mystic River and he and his boys somehow make Eightball disappear…”

“Until somehow, someone from the past suddenly shows up out of nowhere and starts resurrecting the story,” Dallas says, his eyes tightening on Clementine.

“Dallas, leave her alone,” I say.

“No, Dallas, say what you’re thinking,” Clementine says.

“I just did,” he shoots back.

“And that’s your grand scenario? You think I got my hands on some old info, and then what? I’ve been using Beecher in hopes of terrorizing the President?”

“There are more ridiculous ideas out there.”

“And just to complete your delusion, tell me what my motive is again?”

“I’ve seen where you live, Clementine. I was out there last night,” Dallas says. “No offense, but that house… that neighborhood… you could clearly use an upgrade.”

“Dallas, that’s enough!” I say.

“You do not know me,” Clementine growls, making sure he hears each syllable, “so be very careful what you say next.”

“Ooh, nice threatening ending. I didn’t even have to bring up how far the apple tumbles from the tree. Like father, like dau-”

Springing forward, Clementine leaps for Dallas’s throat. “You smug piece of-!”

I dart in front of Dallas, catching Clementine in midair, inches before she clobbers him. She’s a whirlwind of wild punches, her weight hitting my chest at full speed and knocking me backward.

“Clemmi, relax!” I insist as I dig my feet into the snow. She still fights to get past me, our chests pressing against each other.

“ Don’t you dare compare him to me! You take those words back! ” she continues, still raging at Dallas.

“He didn’t mean it,” I plead as I try to hold her in place.

“ You take it back! ” she howls, her hot breath pounding against my face. It’s even worse than when she lost it with Khazei.

“ Clementine! Stop! ” I order, gripping her shoulders hard enough that I know she feels it.

Her eyes turn my way, her anger still at full boil. The scariest part is, for that half a second, she looks exactly like her father. She again grits her teeth, and the big vein swells. I wait for her to attack.

“You can let go now,” she says in a low voice. Her arms are still tensed.

“You sure?” I ask.

“Let go, Beecher. I want you to let me go. Now.”

As she tugs free of my grip, I shoot Dallas a look, hoping he’ll apologize. He doesn’t.

“Dallas didn’t mean it,” I tell her.

“I know who I am!” she shoots back, struggling to find control. “I know I’m impulsive. And passionate. I know I have a temper-but I’m not him , Beecher! I’m not that ,” she insists, refusing to say her father’s name.