The Inner Circle - Brad Meltzer [1]
I also want to thank everyone at Grand Central Publishing: David Young, Emi Battaglia, Jennifer Romanello, Evan Boorstyn, Chris Barba, Martha Otis, Karen Torres, Lizzy Kornblit, the nicest and hardest-working sales force in show business, Mari Okuda, Thomas Whatley, and all the kind friends there who have spent so much time and energy building what we’ve always built. I’ve said it before, and it never changes: They’re the real reason this book is in your hands. Special love to Mitch Hoffman, who never stopped editing and is a true part of the family. Finally, let me thank Jamie Raab. Over the past two years, we’ve shared overwhelming losses and watched our lives change together. Through that time, I’ve realized she doesn’t just edit me. She lends me her strength. For that, I owe her forever. Thank you, Jamie, for bringing me home, and most important, for your faith.
In 1989, during his final minutes in the White House, outgoing President Ronald Reagan scribbled a secret note—and, it was reported, a picture of a turkey. The note said, “Don’t let the turkeys get you down.” He then slipped the note into the Oval Office desk and left it for his successor, President George H. W. Bush.
In 1993, President Bush left a private note in the desk for Bill Clinton, who left a note for George W. Bush, who left one for Barack Obama.
But there were two things no one knew.
The tradition didn’t start with Ronald Reagan. It started with George Washington.
And the picture Reagan drew? It most definitely was not a turkey.
PROLOGUE
He knew the room was designed to hold secrets.
Big secrets.
The briefcase from Watergate was opened in a room like this. Same with the first reports from 9/11.
He knew that this room—sometimes called the Tank or the Vault—held presidential secrets, national secrets, and pine-box secrets, as in, the kinds of secrets that came with coffins.
But as he stood in the back corner of the small, plain beige room, swaying in place and flicking the tip of his tongue against the back of his front teeth, the archivist with the scratched black reading glasses knew that the most vital thing in the room wasn’t a classified file or a top-secret sheet of paper—it was the polished, rosy-cheeked man who sat alone at the single long table in the center of the room.
He knew not to talk to the rosy-cheeked man.
He knew not to bother him.
All he had to do was stand there and watch. Like a babysitter.
It was absurd, really.
But that was the job.
For nearly an hour now.
Babysitting the most powerful man in the world: the President of the United States.
Hence the secure room.
Yet for all the secrets that had been in this room, the archivist with the scratched black-framed reading glasses had no idea what he’d soon be asked to hide.
With a silent breath through his nose, the archivist stared at the back of the President, then glanced over at the blond Secret Service agent on his far right.
The visits here had been going on since President Orson Wallace was first elected. Clinton liked to jog. George W. Bush watched baseball games in the White House Residence. Obama played basketball. All Presidents find their own way to relax. More bookish than most, President Orson Wallace traveled the few blocks from the White House and came to the National Archives to, of all things, read.
He’d been doing it for months now. Sometimes he even brought his daughter or eight-year-old son. Sure, he could have every document delivered right to the Oval Office, but as every President knew, there was something about getting out of the house.