Diana Peterfreund - Under the Rose

“I shudder to think this man holds a high position of political power in our nation,” Thorndike said. “Now, would someone please explain what exactly he’s raving about?”

“This,” Soze said, and opened the screen of his laptop. We all leaned in to look. A browser window was open, showing the homepage of a website called “secretsofthediggers.com.” It looked like your standard conspiracy-theorist website, focusing on the alleged omnipotent actions of our shady, secret, and elite society with lurid Day-Glo colors and a disturbing emphasis on exclamatory punctuation. Nothing I hadn’t seen before. Except for this one had a big, bold, flashing paragraph front and center:

WATCH THIS SPACE FOR AN EXCLUSIVE EXPOSÉ WITH AN ACTUAL CURRENT DIGGER!!! APPALLED BY THE SOCIETY’S SECRET CONTROL, THIS MEMBER WOULD LIKE THE WORLD TO KNOW THE SOURCE OF THEIR EVIL POWER!!! EVERYTHING THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW, REVEALED HERE!!!

Frodo blinked at the screen. “This is it? This is what we all got called in here for? Methinks the guy running this site isn’t the only one who’s acting a little unbalanced.”

“Yeah,” said Big Demon. “The phrase I’m searching for is ‘Who cares?’ Isn’t it just going to be the usual Men in Black, woo-woo stuff? Since when do we even care what these lunatics print about us?”

Soze tabbed over to his Phimalarlico mail, then clicked on the group heading for patriarch postings. There were dozens of new messages. “Every patriarch with an e-mail account got an ‘announcement’ from this fellow telling them exactly what they—personally—could expect from this exposé. And judging from some of these e-mails, it was very personal indeed. This knight apparently has a vast amount of information, whoever he—or she—”

“Or she!” I rolled my eyes. “Of course they think it was one of us. Rose & Grave was fine until they let the chicks in, after all. It could be any disgruntled patriarch.”

“The reason they think it’s one of us,” said Thorndike in an odd, choked voice, “is because we’re the ones with the most access to the tomb. We’re the ones with easy access to the Black Books where the Uncle Tonys describe, in detail, what has happened at every meeting—every C.B. — we’ve ever had.”

“That’s correct,” said Bond. “I remember looking through them with Lil’ Demon when we were researching how to get into Dragon’s Head to steal back that statue.”

It instantly occurred to everyone in the room that Lil’ Demon was very conveniently out of town. Thorndike began to sneeze, and then blew her nose.

“And they think it’s us for another reason,” Soze said. “This guy didn’t send an announcement of the upcoming article to the patriarchs for fun. It was a threat. And alongside a threat comes—”

“Blackmail,” said Lucky. “They think we’re trying to get back at them for not supporting us this year.”

“Makes sense, if you ask me,” said Puck with a shrug. “They’re betraying the society, so why is it still our job to keep their secrets?”

“Right, because an attack like this would make them feel so loving and conciliatory,” I said. “Do they really have such a low opinion of us?”

“Says the woman who takes pleasure in kicking the alums out of the tomb?” asked Juno. “Of course they do, and we haven’t been working very hard to convince them otherwise. The question is, what to do now?”

“Try to stop them, clearly,” said Graverobber. “Didn’t think it was possible to piss off the patriarchs any more than we already have, but clearly I was underestimating how low we could sink. Stealing secrets from the tomb?”

“You’re one to talk, Grave robber, ” I sneered. “I think a person threatening to quit should go high on the suspect list. If you quit, you have nothing to lose.”

“But do you think he’s a thief?” Jenny asked me with a penetrating glance. “Do you think he could be bought like that?” I was surprised to see her actually taking his side. I was surprised to see her meeting my eyes, to be frank.

“Explain my motivation for selling anything to this nutcase,” he snapped. “Unlike some of you, I hardly have a cash flow problem.”

“Assuming it was one of us.” Soze’s tone immediately mollified the room. He clicked back to the website. “Which, though I’m not ruling it out, I’m not going to take for granted, either. So let’s not start pointing fingers until we have more evidence. Patriarchs come and go from this place all the time. Yes, we have a record of their visits in our guest book, but that doesn’t mean a thing. You don’t know how long the traitor may have been sitting on this information before he decided to go public.”

“Or she,” Graverobber corrected.

Thorndike groaned. “While we play pronoun games, the clock is ticking. What’s the plan?”

Soze looked at Lucky, who piped up. “I’ve checked out the site’s Whois, of course, but it’s a private registration, which I figured it would be. I’ve got a couple more tricks up my sleeve for tracking down this fellow, but frankly, I’m not sure how far it’s going to get us. The problem with a paranoid conspiracy theorist is, well, he’s already paranoid. He’s sitting in a bunker somewhere with an aluminum cap on his head, certain the CIA and the FBI and whatever are trying to track him down. He’s probably got himself pretty well hidden.” She sat down at the computer. “But like I said, I’ll try.”

“Great.” Soze looked around the table. “Anyone else?”

“I’ve got some friends in the radical community,” said Thorndike, then stifled a cough. “It’s a long shot but sometimes they know people who know people. Fringe of all stripes tend to hang together.”

“And they’re fine working with The Man?” Juno mocked. “You retain any street cred whatsoever after joining Rose & Grave?”

“I’m starting my revolution from the inside,” Thorndike said, then sneezed. Lucky glanced at her for a moment, then returned her eyes to the screen. The rest of us took two steps away from Typhoid Thorndike.

“Shouldn’t our focus be on rooting out the traitor in our midst?” Bond asked in clipped tones. “It seems as if that would be much more useful in the long run. Has anyone considered Howard?”

“Howard’s not a Digger,” said Frodo.

“No, but he was a tap. I doubt this website fellow would concern himself over a technicality.”

Soze shook his head. “Howard doesn’t have access to the Black Books, but your point is well taken. We do need to find out who’s behind this. But I’m not sure how. It’s not as if we can fingerprint the books. The patriarchs are sure it’s one of us. I’m thinking it may be a patriarch trying to get us into trouble again, maybe weaken our support base a little more than it already is.” He gestured with his phone. “This particular trustee is already our biggest detractor, so his reaction is no surprise, but he’s not the only patriarch going postal.”

The White House Chief of Staff had been the force behind last year’s conspiracy to deprive all the new taps and the senior club of their internships as punishment for participating in initiating the first female members. And as Poe could attest, he wasn’t afraid of carrying through on his threats. Not only had the senior been denied his White House summer job, he’d been rendered unemployable anywhere on the Hill. It was unheard of for a Secretary of Rose & Grave to be forced to spend his graduate summer gardening.

The next fifteen minutes were devoted to strategy, though all of our theories and plans were hampered somewhat by the realization that someone standing in the room (or one of our missing members) could be responsible for our current plight. As the conversation waned, I started thinking that maybe Soze had a point. If there was a patriarch determined to ruin this club and start afresh with next year’s taps, then causing all this internal strife was no doubt exactly the way to accomplish his goals.