The Inner Circle - Brad Meltzer [46]
“By the way, don’t think you get a pass on that Garanimals shirt,” she tells me as the video continues to play onscreen behind her. Her back is to it, so she can’t see it, but it’s the part where Nico is about to step out of the crowd.
“Listen, I gotta run,” she adds as a man with black buzzed hair, a big bulbous nose, and a bright yellow jumpsuit steps into the frame and raises his gun. My God—he does look like her. “They told me to come back in an hour,” she says.
“Who did? What’re you talking about?”
“The guards. At St. Elizabeths.”
“Wait. As in mental institution St. Elizabeths?”
“Nico’s there. Same place as John Hinckley—the one who shot Reagan. It’s only ten minutes from here.”
“Can we please rewind one second? You went to see Nico!?”
“I can’t get in unless he approves me first. That’s how they have to do it on his ward. I’m waiting to get approved.”
“But he’s—”
“I know who he is—but what’m I supposed to do, Beecher? Sit at home and do my nails? I’ve been waiting to meet this man for thirty years. How can I not—?”
Pop, pop, pop.
Onscreen, the gunshots are muffled. As Nico steps out of the crowd, his head’s cocked just slightly—and he’s almost… he’s smiling.
Pop, pop, pop.
With her back still to the monitor, Clementine doesn’t turn at the gunshots. But she does flinch, her body startled by each and every one.
“Shots fired! Shots fired!” the agents yell.
“Get down! Get back!”
“GOD GAVE POWER TO THE PROPHETS…” Nico shouts, his rumbling voice drowned out by all the screaming.
The camera jerks in every direction, panning past the fans in the stands. Spectators run in every direction. And by the time the camera fights its way back to focus, Nico is being pulled backward, lost in instant chaos as he’s clawed to the ground by a swarm of Secret Service agents. In the background, two aides go down, the victims of stray bullets. One of them lies facedown holding his cheek. Luckily, the President and his wife get rushed into their limo and escape unharmed. It wasn’t until later that Nico tracked them down and killed the First Lady.
In the corner of YouTube, I spot the viewcount on the bottom right: 14,727,216 views.
It seems like a lot.
But in truth, fourteen million viewers are meaningless.
All that matters is this single one.
“Please don’t look at me like that, Beecher. I can do this,” she insists, even though I haven’t said a word.
I don’t care how strong she’s pretending to be. I saw the way, even though she knew those gunshots were coming, she flinched at each pop. And the way, ever since Nico appeared onscreen, she still won’t look at the monitor.
She knows what’s waiting for her.
But she also knows there’s no avoiding it.
“You’re telling me if it were your dad, you wouldn’t go see him now?” she asks.
I stay silent, thinking back to my first year at the Archives. My dad died at the age of twenty-six, in a stupid car accident on his way to enlist for the first Gulf War. He didn’t get killed fighting for his country. He didn’t die a hero. He didn’t even die from friendly fire. Those people are given medals. But the grunts who aren’t even grunts yet because they’re driving to the recruiting office when some nutbag crashes into him on a bridge and kills everyone on impact? They die as nobodies. Their lives are half-lived. And during my first year here, I spent every single lunch hour going through old army records, trying to figure out which platoon he would’ve been in, and what kind of adventures he would’ve had if he’d made it to the enlistment office.
“If you want, I can go with you,” I finally say.
“What?”
“To St. Elizabeths. I can go with you. Y’know… if you want.”
I wait for her to smile. To say thanks. Instead, she shakes her head. “You can’t.”
“Sure I can.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Actually…”
“I know your dad’s dead, Benjy,” she says, using the nickname only my mom uses. “You think I don’t remember that? When we were little, you not having a father… You have any idea what that meant to me? How not alone that made me feel?”
The balloon in my throat expands,