The Inner Circle (12 page)

With a sharp right onto 7th Street, Tot makes another quick right toward the underground side entrance of the building, which is blocked by a bright yellow metal antiram barrier that rises from the concrete. Tot rides the brakes, giving the barrier time to lower. When it doesn’t, the car bucks to a halt.

On our left, I finally see why Tot’s so quiet. An armed security guard steps out of the nearby guardhouse, his puffed black winter coat hiding everything but his face and his unusually white front teeth. Ever since 9/11, when we became obsessed with terrorists stealing the Declaration of Independence, our building has limited the underground parking spots to a grand total of seven. Seven. Our boss—the Archivist of the United States—gets one. His deputy gets another. Two are for deliveries of new records. Two are for VIPs. And one is for Tot, a favor from a friend in Security who used to control such things during the Bush era.

As the guard with the white teeth approaches, Tot nods hello, which is always enough to get us in. But instead of waving us through and lowering the barrier…

The guard raises his hand, palm straight at us. We’re not going anywhere.

17

Morning, morning,” the duty nurse sang as Dr. Palmiotti stepped into the cramped reception area of the White House Medical Unit. As usual, her dyed black hair was pulled back in a tight military braid that was starting to fray from her bad night’s sleep. Behind her, in the area between the bathroom and treatment room, she’d already tucked away the fold-down bed. The White House doctor arrived first thing in the morning, but the duty nurse had been there all night.

“Good night’s sleep?” Palmiotti asked, amused to notice how the morning small talk sounded like a one-night stand.

“I tell my mom I sleep less than a hundred feet from the President. Vertically,” duty nurse Kayre Morrison replied, pointing up at the ceiling.

Palmiotti didn’t even hear the joke. He was peeking over his shoulder, back into the hallway. The red light above the elevator was still off. Still no sign of President Wallace.

“By the way, Minnie wants to see you,” the nurse said. “She’s waiting for you now. In your office.”

“Are you—? Kayre, you’re killing me. I mean it. You’re striking me dead.”

“She’s the President’s sister,” the nurse whisper-hissed. “I can’t kick her out.”

Palmiotti shook his head as he trudged to his private office in the back of the suite. Typical duty nurse. And typical Minnie.

“Heeey!” he called out, painting on a big smile as he threw the door open. “How’s my favorite girl?”

Across from his desk, sitting on the tan leather sofa, was a stumpy forty-two-year-old woman with a thick block of a body. She was dressed in her usual unconstructed dress, this one navy blue, plus her mother’s long dangly silver earrings from the early eighties, which was about the time Palmiotti first got to know Jessamine “Minnie” Wallace.

“Okay, Minnie, what’s it this time?”

Minnie lifted her chin, revealing a stout, squatty neck and a grin that—ever since her stroke—rose on only one side.

“Can’t I just be here to say hello?” she asked with the slight lisp (another lingering side effect from the stroke) that made the word
just
sound like
juss.

“Aren’t you supposed to be doing physical therapy right now?”

“Already did it,” Minnie promised.

Palmiotti stood there, studying her on the sofa as her thumb tapped against the bright pink cane that she still needed to walk. The handle of the cane was shaped and painted like the head of a flamingo. That was the problem with being the sister of the President—you wind up spending your life finding other ways to stand out. “You didn’t do your therapy again, did you?”

“Sure I did.”

“Minnie… Show me your hands,” Palmiotti challenged.

Minnie half-smiled, pretending not to hear him. “I meant to ask, you still seeing Gabriel for lunch today?” she said, referring to the President’s scheduler.

“Please don’t do that,” he begged.

“Do what?”

“What’s it now? Reception in the Oval? Having the President speak at your annual convention?”

“It’s a Caregivers’ Conference—for the top scientists who study brain injuries,” she explained, referring to the cause that she now spent so much time pushing for. “My brother already said he’d come, but when I spoke to Gabriel—”

“Listen, you know that if Gabriel tells you no, it’s
no
,” he said. But as he reached for the best way to track down the President—the earpiece and Secret Service radio that sat on his desk—there was a sudden burst of voices behind him. Over his shoulder, out in the Ground Floor Corridor, he saw a phalanx of staffers—the President’s personal aide, his chief of staff, the press secretary, and an older black speechwriter—slowly gathering near the President’s private elevator. Palmiotti had watched it for three years now. Forget the radio. The personal aide always got the call first from the valet who laid out Wallace’s suits.

Sure enough, the red light above the elevator blinked on with a
ping.
Agent Mitchel whispered something into the microphone at his wrist, and two new Secret Service agents appeared from nowhere. Thirty seconds after that, President Orson Wallace, in fresh suit and tie, stepped out to start the day. For a second, the President glanced around the hallway rather than focusing on the swarm of staff.

The doctor shook his head.

Not every President is a great speaker. Not every President is a great thinker. But in the modern era, every single President is a master of one thing: eye contact. Bill Clinton was so good at it, when he was drinking lemonade while you were talking to him, he’d stare at you through the bottom of his glass just to maintain that lock on you. Wallace was no different. So when he stepped off the elevator and glanced around instead of locking on his aides…

… that’s when Palmiotti knew that whatever happened last night, it was worse than he thought.

“
Just gimme a minute
,” the President mimed as he patted his personal aide on the shoulder and sidestepped through the small crowd—straight toward Palmiotti’s side of the corridor.

Of course, the staffers started to follow.

Yet as the President entered the reception area of the Medical Unit, half the throng—the speechwriter and the press secretary, as well as the Secret Service—stopped at the door and waited in the hallway, well aware that their access didn’t include a private visit to the President’s doctor.

“
Dr. Palmiotti…!
” the duty nurse murmured in full panic. The only times the President had come this way were when it was officially on the schedule.

“I see him,” Palmiotti called back from his office.

“Where you hiding him? You know he’s dating again? He tell you he was dating?” the President teased the nurse, flashing his bright whites and still trying to charm. It was good enough to fool the nurse. Good enough to fool the two trailing staffers. But never good enough to fool the friend who used to get suckered trading his Double Stuf Oreos for Wallace’s Nilla Wafers in fifth grade.

As the two men made eye contact, Palmiotti could feel the typhoon coming. He had seen that look on the President’s face only three times before: once when he was President, once when he was governor, and once from the night they didn’t talk about anymore.

The President paused at the threshold of Palmiotti’s private office, which was when Palmiotti spotted the hardcover book the President was carrying.

Palmiotti cocked an eyebrow.
We’re not alone
, he said with a glance.

Wallace dipped his neck into the office, spotting his sister, who raised her flamingo cane, saluting him with the beak.

Definitely not ideal.

The President didn’t care. He stepped into Palmiotti’s office, which was decorated with the same medical school diplomas that had covered his first office back in Ohio. Back when everything was so much simpler.

“Mr. President…” Wallace’s personal aide said, standing with the chief of staff at the threshold.

In any White House, the smart staffers get invited to
walk
with the President. But the smartest staffers—and the ones who get the farthest—are the ones who know when to
walk away
.

“… we’ll be right out here,” the aide announced, thumbing himself back to the reception area.

“Stewie was just examining my hands,” Minnie announced, reaching forward from the couch and extending her open palms to Palmiotti.

“Wonderful,” Wallace muttered, not even looking at his sister as he closed the door to Palmiotti’s office. There were bigger problems to deal with.

“So I take it your back’s still hurting you?” Palmiotti asked.

Orson Wallace studied his friend. The President’s eye contact was spectacular. Better than Clinton’s. Better than W’s. Better than Obama’s. “Like you wouldn’t believe,” the leader of the free world said, carefully pronouncing every syllable. “Think you can help with it?”

“We’ll see,” Palmiotti said. “First I need you to tell me where it hurts.”

18

This is bad, isn’t it?” I ask.

“Relax,” Tot whispers, rolling down his window as a snakebite of cold attacks from outside. He’s trying to keep me calm, but with his right hand he tugs at his pile of newspapers, using them to cover George Washington’s dictionary.

“Sorry, fellas,” the guard says, his breath puffing with each syllable. “IDs, please.”

“C’mon, Morris,” Tot says, pumping his overgrown eyebrows. “You telling me you don’t recognize—”

“Don’t bust my hump, Tot. Those are the rules. ID.”

Tot lowers his eyebrows and reaches for his ID. He’s not amused. Neither is the guard, who leans in a bit too deeply through the open window. His eyes scan the entire car. Like he’s searching for something.

Circling around toward the trunk, he slides a long metal pole with a mirror on the end of it under the car. Bomb search. They haven’t done a bomb search since we hosted the German president nearly a year ago.

“You got what you need?” Tot asks, his hand still on the newspapers. The story on top is the one about Orlando.

“Yeah. All set,” the guard says, glancing back at the guardhouse. Doesn’t take James Bond to see what he’s staring at: the flat, compact security camera that’s pointed right at us. No question, someone’s watching.

There’s a deafening metal shriek as the antiram barrier bites down into the ground, clearing our path. Tot pulls the car forward, his face again mostly turned to me. His blind eye is useless, but I can still read the expression.
Don’t say a word.

I follow the request from the parking lot all the way to the elevators. Inside, as we ride up in silence, Tot opens up the folded newspapers, but it’s clear he’s really reading what’s tucked inside—
Entick’s Dictionary
. I watch him study the swirls and loops of the handwritten inscription.
Exitus acta probat.

“See that?” I ask. “That’s George Washing—”

He shoots me another look to keep me quiet. This time, I wait until we reach our offices on the fourth floor.

The sign next to the door reads
Room 404
, but around here it’s called Old Military because we specialize in records from the Revolutionary and Civil wars.

“Anyone home…?” I call out, opening the door, already knowing the answer. The lights in the long suite are off. On my left, a metal wipe-off board has two columns—one IN, one OUT—and holds a half dozen magnets with our headshot photos attached to each one. Sure, it’s ridiculously kindergarten. But with all of us always running to the stacks for research, it works. And right now, everyone’s in the OUT column. That’s all we need.

Knowing the privacy won’t last, I rush toward my cubicle in the very back. Tot does his best to rush toward his in the very front.

“Don’t you wanna see if the book is in our collection?” I call out as I pull out my key to open the lock on the middle drawer of my desk. To my surprise, it’s already open. I think about it a moment, flipping on my computer. With everything going on, I could’ve easily forgotten to lock it last night. But as my mind tumbles back to the front door of my house…

“You do your magic tricks, I’ll do mine,” Tot says as I hear the
gnnn
of a metal drawer opening. Tot’s cube is a big one, holding a wall of six tall file cabinets, stacks upon stacks of books (mostly about his specialty, Abraham Lincoln), and a wide window that overlooks Pennsylvania Avenue and the Navy Memorial.

My cube is a tiny one, filled with a desk, computer, and a corkboard that’s covered with the best typos we’ve been able to find throughout history, including a 1631 Bible that has the words “Thou
shalt
commit adultery,” plus the first edition of a
Washington Post
gossip column from 1915 that was supposed to say President Woodrow Wilson “spent the evening entertaining Mrs. Galt,” a widow who he was courting, but instead said, “the President spent the evening
entering
Mrs. Galt.” You don’t get this job without having some pack rat in you. But with ten billion pages in our collection, you also don’t get it without being part scavenger.