Free The Inner Circle by Brad Meltzer Page A

Until this moment, I’d never mentioned that I’d spoken to Orlando earlier.
    Dammit.
    I’m smarter than that. I need to be smarter than that. But the longer I stand here, the more I keep thinking that there’s only one possible reason Orlando died. And right now, that reason is wrapped in my lab coat and clutched by my now soaking armpit.
    “I’m just trying to talk with you, Beecher. Just be honest with me. Please.”
    He adds the Please to sound nice. But I’m done being suckered. Of the forty people rubbernecking around the office, I’m the one he’s decided to chat with. That alone means one of two things: Either he’s a hell of a good guesser, or he’s got something else he’s not saying.
    I replay the past half hour in my head, scouring for details. But the only one I keep coming back to is Orlando’s Roman Numeral Two: If this book does belong to the President, and the President finds out we have it, he’s going to declare war on…
    On us . That’s how Orlando put it.
    But there is no us . Not anymore.
    Orlando’s dead. And that means that whatever’s really happening here—whether it’s the President or Khazei or someone else that’s playing puppetmaster—the only one left to declare war on…
    Is me.
    A single bead of sweat rolls down the back of my neck.
    Across the way, Dallas and Rina continue to stand there, still facing us from the far end of the room. Dallas grips the top of a nearby cubicle. Rina’s right behind him. Sure, they saw us in the hallway—just outside the elevator—but that doesn’t tell them I was in the SCIF, or, more important, that I’m the one who actually has the book. In fact, the more I think about it, there’s only one way anyone could’ve known we were in there.
    My brain again flips back to the video.
    “Beecher, you understand what I’m saying?” Khazei asks.
    When Orlando grabbed that videotape, he told us it was the best way to keep us safe—that as long as no one knew we were in there, we could still be Mark Felt. But if that tape is out there… if someone already has their hands on it… they’d have proof we were in the room and found the book, which means they’d already be aiming their missiles at—
    “Were you with him all afternoon?” Khazei asks. “What time did you leave him?”
    “Excuse me?”
    “I’m just reacting to your words, Beecher. You said you were with Orlando. But if you want, take a look at your calendar… at your datebook… whatever you keep it in. My only concern is getting an accurate timeline.”
    I nod at his swell of helpfulness. “Yeah… no… I’ll look at my calendar.”
    “I appreciate that. Especially because…” He pauses a moment, making sure I see his smile. “… well, you know how people get.”
    “How people get about what ?”
    “About things they don’t really know about that they think they know about,” he says, his voice as kind as ever. “So if I were wearing your shoes, Beecher, the last thing I’d want is to suddenly be known as the last person to be alone with the security guard who mysteriously just dropped dead. I mean, unless of course it was just a heart attack.”
    On the back of my neck, my single drop of sweat swells into a tidal wave as I start to see the new reality I’m now sitting in. Until this moment, I thought the worst thing that could come from that videotape was that it made me look like a book thief. But the way the picture’s suddenly been repainted, that’s nothing compared to making me look like a murderer.
    “Make way, people! Coming through!” the paramedics call out, shoving the stretcher and slowly rolling Orlando’s body back toward the reception desk.
    The crowd does the full Red Sea part, clearing a path.
    But as we all squeeze together, I once again eye Orlando’s cubicle, searching his messy desk, scanning the papers fanned across the floor, and scouring the office for—
    There.
    I didn’t look for it before—didn’t know it was that