The Inner Circle - Brad Meltzer [143]
“I’m surprised they put their names on them,” Dallas says as we pass one for the FBI.
“Those are the rooms they want you to see,” Gina says with a laugh. “We’ve got over twenty-two miles of tunnels back here. You don’t want to know how much more space they’ve got.”
I pretend to laugh along, but as we go deeper into the cave I can’t take my eyes off the ceiling, which seems to be getting lower.
“You’re not imagining things,” Gina says. “It is getting lower.”
Dallas shoots me a look to see if I’m okay.
Throughout the cavern, the jagged rock walls are painted white, and there are fluorescent lights hung everywhere, presumably to make it feel more like a workplace instead of an anthill.
To my surprise, it works.
On our right, two employees wait at an ATM that’s built into the rock. Next to that, there’s a red awning over a fully functioning store called the “Roadway Café.”
I thought being this far underground would feel like I was being buried. Instead…
“You’ve got a full-blown city down here,” Dallas says as we pass a new group of construction workers—this one putting the finishing touches on an area that holds vending machines.
“Almost three thousand employees. Think of us as the Empire State Building lying on its side and buried three hundred feet underground. We got a full-service post office… our own water treatment plant to make the toilets work… even good food in the cafeteria—though of course, it’s all brought in. There’s no cooking permitted on site. We get a fire and—forget burning the files that’re stored down here—y’know what kinda death trap we’d be standing in?” she asks with a laugh.
Neither Dallas nor I laugh back—especially as we both look up and notice the cargo netting that’s now running along the length of the ceiling and keeping stray rocks, cracked stalactites, and what feels like the entire cavern from collapsing on our heads. Back by the café and the ATM, we were in the cave’s version of Times Square. But as the employees thin out and we head deeper into the catacombs, this is clearly one of its darker alleys.
“Home sweet home,” Gina says, flicking on the golf cart’s lights.
Straight ahead, it looks like the cave dead-ends. But as the golf cart’s lights blink awake, there’s no missing the yellow police tape that keeps people from turning the corner, or the enormous red, white, and blue eagle—part of the National Archives logo—that’s painted directly on the cave wall. Above the eagle’s head is a partially unrolled scroll with the words: Littera Scripta Manet, the Archives motto that translates as “The Written Word Endures.”
Damn right it does, I think to myself, hopping out of the golf cart and darting for the bright red door that serves as the entrance to the Archives’ underground storage facility.
102
Anything else I can help with?” Gina calls out, standing in the cave, outside the threshold of the open red door.
“I think we’re fine,” I tell her.
Dallas is already inside the storage unit.
I’m anxious to follow.
Gina never leaves her spot. As a sales rep, she’s in charge of clearing our visit with Mr. Harmon and the Presidential Records Office, checking our IDs, and even putting in the six-digit code that opens the steel door (and the secondary door that sits just behind that). But without the necessary security clearance, she can’t join us in here.
“Both doors open from the inside,” she assures us as the cold air pours out from the room. Just inside the door, I take a quick glance at the hygrothermograph on the wall. The temperature is at a brisk fifty-eight degrees, which is colder than we usually keep it.
“If you think of anything else, just gimme a call,” she adds, tapping the leather phone holster on her hip. Reading my expression, she says, “Reception’s great. We’ve got cell towers throughout.”
Her point hits home as my own phone starts to vibrate.
As I glance down, caller ID tells me it’s Tot. Again.
“I should grab this,” I say to Gina, who nods a quick goodbye, keenly