Brad Meltzer - The Inner Circle

“That’s my question for you ,” he says, though his tone surprisingly seems softer and more helpful than usual. That’s all I need to be suspicious. “Everything going okay down there?”

“It’s… we’re fine.” I pause a moment, confused. “Is there a reason we shouldn’t be fine?”

“Not at all,” he says, back to his military matter-of-factness. “Just making sure you got there. I’d asked the Copper Mountain folks to stay a little later when I heard you lost the directions.”

“When I lost the what ?”

“The directions I sent. Your secretary said-”

“My secretary?”

“The woman who called. She said you lost the directions.”

Up on my left, back in the stacks, there’s a metal thunk . The problem is, Dallas is all the way down on my right.

According to the hygrothermograph, it’s still a cool fifty-eight degrees. But suddenly the long white room feels like an oven. Clearly we’re not alone in here.

“Mr. Harmon, let me call you right back,” I say, hanging up the phone.

“ Dallas, we got problems! ” I shout, racing up the aisle and clicking back to Tot.

“Wait-you’re with Dallas !?” Tot asks, hearing the last bits through the phone.

“Tot, this isn’t-!”

“Beecher, you don’t know what you’re doing!”

“You’re wrong! For once, I know exactly what I’m doing!”

“ Pay attention! ” Tot explodes. “I know what Clementine did… I know her grandmother’s long dead… I even know how she did it! We got the tox report-they found a dose of oral chemo in Orlando’s blood, even though he never had cancer. That’s how she poisoned him-she put it in his coffee! Now where in God’s name are you so I can get you someplace safe?”

My brain kicks hard, fighting to find the right places for each new puzzle piece. What’s amazing is how quickly each one fits.

“Where are you, Beecher?” Tot asks again.

There’s a part of me that knows to stay quiet. It’s the same part that has kept Tot at arm’s length since the night I went out to Clementine’s house. But no matter how easy it is to paint him as the enemy, the one picture I can’t shake is the one from three years ago, at lunch in our dungeony cafeteria, when Tot finally trusted me enough to tell me about the first night, after fifty years, that he slept alone in his house after his wife died. He said he couldn’t bring himself to sleep under those covers as long as she wasn’t there.

I don’t care what anyone says. There are some things that can’t be lied about.

“Tot, listen to me: I think Clementine is here. With us.”

“What’re you talking about? Where’s here ? Who’re you with besides Dallas?”

“Them. The Culper Ring.”

I hear him take a deep breath.

“You need to get out of there, Beecher.”

“We are… we’re about to,” I say as I reach the back of the room and spot Dallas down one of the rows. He’s on his knees, rummaging through a cardboard file box-a new box-that’s marked Wallace/Hometown in thick magic marker. “We’re just getting-”

“Forget the Culper Ring. Get out of there! ”

“But don’t you see? You were right about them. Dallas brought me in and-”

“Dallas isn’t in the Culper Ring!”

Turning the corner, I hit the brakes, knocking a square file box from the shelf. As it tumbles and hits the concrete floor, it vomits sheets of paper in a wide fan.

“What’d you say?” I ask.

“Dallas isn’t in the Culper Ring. He never was .”

“How do you know?”

Tot takes another breath, his voice more of a grumble than a whisper. “Because I’m in the Culper Ring, Beecher. And I swear to you-the moment he finds what he’s looking for, Dallas is going to end your life.”

At the end of the row, down on his knees and flipping through one particular file, Dallas looks my way and peers over his scratched black reading glasses. “Y’okay, Beecher?” he calls out. “You don’t look so good.”

"I–I’m great,” I tell Dallas, who quickly turns back to the file he’s flipping through.

“Turn around and walk away from him!” Tot barks through the phone. “Dallas has been in the Plumbers from the start-his uncle is Ronald Cobb, the President’s law school pal, who used to work at the Archives and got Dallas the job here! That’s why they picked him!”

It makes no sense. If that’s the case, why’d Dallas bring me here? But before I can ask it-

“If you think I’m lying, at least get out of there,” Tot adds. “At the very worst, I keep you alive!”

I take a few steps back, my body still in shock. It’s like staring at your reflection in the back of a spoon. In front of me, the spoon flattens-the distortion fades-and life slowly becomes crystal clear. Since the start of this, I’ve learned how good the Culper Ring was at keeping secrets… how they protect us like a big outer ring without ever revealing their existence… and how hard they’ve worked to shut down corrupt Presidents like Nixon or Wallace when they start their own private, self-serving inner rings like the Plumbers. But last night, within the first three minutes of being in that safehouse, Dallas spilled every secret, revealed his own membership, and took control of my entire search for the Plumbers, including making sure that I stopped sharing with Tot.

I thought it was for my own good.

But if what Tot says is true… if Tot’s the one in the Culper Ring and Dallas has been lying… the only ones who really benefited were Wallace… Palmiotti… and…

“This is it…!” Dallas shouts, excitedly pulling out a few sheets of paper and slapping the file folder shut. “We got it, Beech. Here it is! ” Closing the file box, he shoves it back on the shelf and rushes right at me.

“ Get away from him, Beecher! ” Tot yells in my ear.

Dallas stops right in front of me, the hospital file clutched at his side.

“Who’re you talking to?” Dallas asks, pointing to my phone and sliding his reading glasses back into his jacket pocket.

“ He found the file? Do not let him have that! ” Tot adds as another noise-this one louder, a metal thud-erupts from this side of the stacks. Whoever’s in here, they’re getting closer.

“That noise… you think that’s Clementine?” Dallas asks, sidestepping past me and racing into the main aisle, back toward the door. What Tot said first is still my best move. I can deal with Dallas later. Right now, though, I need to get out of here.

“ Watch him, Beecher! ” Tot says in my ear as we pick up speed.

With each row we pass, I glance down each one. Empty. Empty. Empty again.

The air feels frozen as we run. It doesn’t stop the even colder sweat that’s crawling up my back.

The red doors are just a few feet away.

We pass another empty row. And another.

“Do we need a code to get out!?” Dallas asks.

“She said it opens from-”

Kuh-kunk .

The metal door flies wide as Dallas rams it with his hip. It’s the same for the next door, the outer red door, which whips open, dumping us both back into the dusty air and poor lighting of the cave. We’re still moving, skidding, slowing down. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark.

That’s the reason we don’t see who’s standing there, waiting for us.

There’s a soft click. Like the hammer on a gun.

“Put the phone down, Beecher,” she says, and I drop it to the ground. To make sure Tot’s gone, she picks it up and hangs up the phone herself.