Free The Inner Circle by Kevin George

important.
    "That does not matter now. Whatever we think is important is not, therefore your discovery is not important. For once I want you to listen to me and listen good. Forget about your black hole, forget about what we have seen today. I have a family to worry about and there's no telling what Reikoff will do if we anger him again. It is time to do our jobs, and that's it."
    Everything the two men had seen that day was now wiped out of existence, even if Yuri did not want to accept it. He could no longer mention it to Alexei anymore, as his coworker made it quite clear that he had erased the event from his memory. He couldn't mention it to anybody else who worked at the military installation for fear of it getting back to General Reikoff.
    Yuri could not just let it go completely, though.
    Yuri waited until Alexei got up to make another pot of coffee and quickly took out an observation form – the same form they had to fill out and file away on a daily basis, whether they saw anything in space or not – and wrote all of the information he could jot down in a few minutes about the black hole and comet. Yuri was pretty sure he remembered to write down everything, from the location of the black hole in the sky to the new course of the comet. When he was finished, Yuri went over to the large filing cabinets on the other side of the room and placed this form amongst forms from two years before. If Alexei or the general or anybody else checked the forms filled out for today, they would find everything nice and normal. Nobody would think to go back two years to see if Yuri made an account of what he saw. Yuri hadn’t even been here two years ago.
    As Yuri walked back to his workstation, he glanced over at the filing cabinets, wondering just how far back the dates went on the forms stored inside. He wondered if anybody even bothered to read these forms and hoped that somebody would one day find his report and respect what he’d witnessed.

CHAPTER FIVE
2009
     
    President George Marshall sat across the room from one of the men that he least trusted in the world, but a man with whom he was determined to reach some sort of agreement. The two men were alone in the dimly lit room, trying to figure out exactly the sort of deal that would be fair to both sides, without giving the impression that one side had gotten the better end of the bargain.
    Russian President Aleksandr Metachenko slowly sipped from a glass of the finest vodka made in his country, pouring himself his third glass in less than an hour. President Marshall was still working on his first, not allowing the smooth flavor of the alcohol to affect his mind and thus cloud his judgment with his cagey adversary.
    "So, Mr. President, you hope to make big splash in your country with our deal?" Metachenko said, his English nearly perfect.
    The fact that the Russian President spoke English so well allowed the two men to communicate without the time-consuming annoyance of an interpreter. But it also made President Marshall feel inferior to his Russian counterpart, as Marshall could not speak a word of Russian. Adding this to the fact that the Russian was nearly twenty years his senior, Marshall could not help but worry that he wouldn’t get the best deal possible for his country. Any anxiety Marshall might have had, though, would not be shown at this table, as he kept his perfect poker face throughout the negotiations.
    "I hope to make a big splash for both of our countries, President Metachenko. Even though our Cold War has been over for nearly 25 years, our two great nations have not always been the most friendly. If this deal can help to improve relations between America and Russia – if we can really prove that we have total trust in each other – then both of our economies have the chance to profit from better trade dealings."
    "Well said," Metachenko replied. "And I must admit that you have been very ambitious so early on in your regime, much more so than your