The Inner Circle

“Mr. President…?” one of the staffers called from the hallway. Time for him to go.

“Before you run,” Palmiotti said. “Have you thought about surgery?”

The President shook his head. “Not with this. Not anymore.”

“Mr. President…?” the staffer called again. Four uninterrupted minutes. For any President, that was a lifetime.

“I’ve got a country to run,” Wallace said to his friend. “By the way, if you’re looking for a good book…” He held up the hardcover copy of a book entitled A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power. “Give it a look-it won the Pulitzer Prize,” the President said, handing it to Palmiotti. Directly.

“You got it,” the doctor said to his oldest friend as he glanced down at the hardcover book. A Problem from Hell. It sure was.

“Oh, and if you see Gabriel,” Wallace called back as he headed for the door, “tell him to block out a quick drop-by in the schedule for Minnie’s conference. But I’m not staying for photos.”

“You’re a sucker, y’know that?”

The President waved an absent goodbye, not saying a word. But his point was clear.

In Wallace’s eyes, family came first.

It was a lesson not lost on Palmiotti, who knew exactly what was at risk if this current mess was what he thought. It’d be easy to walk away now. Probably smart too. The President’s foot was clearly approaching the bear trap. But after everything Wallace had done for him… everything they’d done for each other…

Family came first.

“Oh, and Stewie, you need a haircut,” the President added. “You look like dreck.”

Dr. Stewart Palmiotti nodded.

A haircut. He was thinking the exact same thing.

23

'The girl.”

“What girl?” asks the security guy with the round face and bushy eyebrows.

“The girl,” I say. “There’s supposed to be a girl.”

He looks around the welcome area. The faded green rain mats and gray stone walls make it feel like a crypt. On the right, there’s the metal detector and X-ray machine. But beyond a few more employees flashing their IDs, the only people I see are two other security guards.

“I don’t see any,” the guard says.

“Someone called me,” I insist. “She was just here! Black hair. Nice eyes. She’s really-”

“The pretty one,” the guard by the X-ray calls out.

The eyebrows guard looks around.

“You don’t know where she is, do you?” I ask.

“I think I–I signed her in. She was waiting right there,” he says, motioning to one of the benches.

I’m not surprised. They may’ve given me and Tot the full once-over this morning, but for the most part, our security is at the same level as Orlando’s top-loading VCR. We don’t even swipe our IDs to get in. Especially during the morning rush-I can see it right now-a lanky woman in a bulky winter coat waves her ID at the guard and walks right through.

“I swear-right there,” he insists.

I glance at the sign-in sheet on the edge of the marble counter. Her signature is the exact same from high school. An effortless swirl. Clementine Kaye.

“Maybe someone already brought her in,” the X-ray guard says.

“No one brought her in. I’m the one she was waiting-” No. Unless… No. Even Khazei’s not that fast.

Pulling out my cell phone, I scroll to Clementine’s number and hit send. The phone rings three times. Nothing but voicemail. But in the distance, I hear the ring of a cell phone.

“Clementine…?” I call out, following the sound. I head back past the guard desk and rush toward the Finding Aids room, where most visitors start their research. It would make sense. I kept her waiting long enough-maybe she came in here to look for more about her dad.

I hit send again. Like before, there’s a faint ring. Here. For sure from here.

Hitting the brakes, I scan the mint green research room. I scan all four of the wide, book-covered desks. I scan the usual suspects: In the left corner, two elderly women are filling out paperwork. On my right, an old military vet is asking about some documents, a young grad student is skimming through genealogy reports, and-

There.

In the back. By the computers.

Staring at the screen, she leans forward in her chair, hugging the charcoal overcoat that fills her lap. Unlike yesterday, her short black hair has been divided into two ultra-hip pigtails like the kind you see on girls who make me feel just how old I’ve been feeling since she crashed back into my life and made me start searching for rap music instead of Kenny Rogers.

“Clemmi, what’re you doing here?” I ask as I reach the back of the room.

She doesn’t answer.

But as I get closer… as I see what she’s looking at onscreen… something on YouTube…

There are videos in my family that, if you covered the entire screen except for one square inch, I’d still be able to identify the moment. There’s the footage of me and my sisters, the two of them side by side on the vinyl couch in the hospital, holding baby me across their laps when I was first born. There’s me at ten years old, dressed as Ronald Reagan for Halloween, complete with what my mom swore was a Ronald Reagan wig, but was really just some old Fred Flintstone hair. And there’s the video of my dad-one of the only ones I have of him-in the local swimming pool, holding the two-year-old me so high above his head, then splashing me down and raising me up again.

But all those pale next to the scene that Clementine’s staring at right now: of Nico Hadrian, dressed in a bright yellow NASCAR jumpsuit, as he’s about to lift his gun and, without an ounce of expression on his face, calmly try to kill former President Leland Manning.

To most Americans, it’s history. Like the first moon footage. Or JFK being shot. Every frame famous: the tips of the President’s fingers blurring as he waves up at the crowd… his black windbreaker puffing up like a balloon… even the way he holds so tight to the First Lady’s hand as they walk out on the track, and…

“Now you think I’m a nut,” she says, still watching the screen.

“I don’t think you’re a nut.”

“You actually should. I’m related to a nut… I’m sitting here, watching this old footage like a nut… and yes, it’s only because you kept me waiting here that I put his name in Google, but still… this is really bordering on pathetic. I’m practically a cashew. Though watch when he steps out of the crowd: He totally looks like me.”

Onscreen, the President and First Lady are flashing matching grins, their faces lit by the generous sun as they walk to their would-be slaughter.

“Okay, it is kinda nutty you’re watching this,” I tell her.

Her eyes roll toward me. “You’re really chock full of charm, huh?”

“I thought it’d make you laugh. By the way, why’d you come here? I thought we agreed it was better to lay low until we-”

Standing up from her seat, she reaches into her purse, pulls out a small square present wrapped in what looks like the morning newspaper, and hands it to me.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“What’s it look like? It’s a poorly wrapped present. Open it.”

“I don’t-” I look over my shoulder, totally confused. “You came here to give me a present?”

“What’s wrong with a present?”

“I don’t know… maybe because, between Orlando dying, and then finding your dad, I sorta threw your life in