The Inner Circle (17 page)

The pickup did not back off, though, and the driver soon began to flash his high beams. At this point, John had had enough.
If you want to play, I'll play
. John tapped his brakes a few times, hoping this would signal the driver to back off. When his warning didn't, though, John slowed his car until he was going the exact speed limit. The truck continued to stay as close to him as possible, not taking the hint even as John dropped his speed ten miles below the limit.

When he realized this guy was not going to back off, John put on his turn signal and pulled over to the side of road, figuring that letting the truck just pass him was the only way to deal with the situation.

Until he saw the truck pull over and remain behind him.

John was suddenly jerked forward in his seat when the truck smashed into him from behind. He banged his chin against the steering wheel and felt a gush of blood fill his mouth. At first, he was dazed about what was going on, but quickly came to his senses and was filled with panic when he realized the truck was revving its engines, increasing its speed as it pushed John's car forward like it was a small toy.

John pushed down on his brakes as hard as he could, but the truck behind him was too powerful and the grassy area next to the highway was too slick for his brakes to slow his car. John felt every muscle in his body tense when he saw that his car was careening towards the patch of trees that were separated from the highway by about fifty feet of grass. When he realized that his fate remained with the driver of the truck, he let go of the brake and turned around in his seat, staring straight at the bright lights of the huge truck that shined in his eyes.

"Stop!" he screamed, his voice raising several octaves and sounding very much like the frightened scream of a woman. He did not really expect the person driving the truck to hear him, but it was the last desperate attempt his mind could fathom in the few seconds before his car would be smashed into the trees.

My seat belt, somebody purposely broke my seat belt.

This was the last thought that went through John's mind a second before the huge crash of metal against tree. If he had been wearing his seat belt, John would have at least had a chance to survive. Without it though, he was thrown through his windshield, which immediately broke his neck and killed him before his body even smashed against the trees.

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Mansfield sat in his rented Mercedes, trying desperately to keep his eyes open in the hours just before dawn. His car was parked in front of a rundown apartment building less than half a mile down the road from the diner. He'd considered going straight to the airport after leaving the diner, but decided against that. After flying such a far distance just to see Sarah Rose, he might as well wait to see her come home. Waiting for her was not going to give him any more information than he'd already had, but maybe it would help him get a better sense of who she was.

Or maybe that was just the silly notion he thought a real private investigator might think. Either way, he was relieved when he saw Sarah walking slowly down the street, coming to a stop in front of the building. He slouched down in his car when she approached, now thinking to himself that it was pretty stupid of him to rent a car that would be so noticeable, especially in such a destitute area of town. But luckily, Sarah walked right past his car, paying no attention to it as she entered the building.

In the second stage of his background search of Comet Clement, Mansfield attempted to discover as much information as he could on all of the people involved in the comet’s original discovery. He thought that if an astronomer put enough time into discovering a comet, he was more than likely to keep tabs on its location in space. It had been four years since its path had been changed and no red flags had been raised that Mansfield could find, which led him to the conclusion that the discoverer was no longer active in the field of astronomy.

When he received a background check about the person who the comet was named after, he discovered that his assumption was indeed correct. The comet's discoverer, Josh Clement, had died during an accident while apparently running from the police, an event that seemed awfully strange to Mansfield.

Astronomers do not seem like the kind of people to run from the cops,
the Chief of Staff thought when he discovered this news.

The naming certificate also had another person listed on it, so Mansfield decided to turn his search in that direction. He had to be sure to cover all fields, but while doing more background checks, he learned of more sadness that all led back to one person: Sarah Rose.

The description of Sarah from the older waitress was just about how Mansfield thought a person would turn out after going through the sadness in life that Sarah had. Mansfield, who'd recently been calling in numerous favors from his friend over at the FBI, received a report on Sarah the previous day and learned of her life’s sad story. He could not imagine one person having to endure so much and he couldn’t blame her for ending up the lonely hermit she'd apparently become.

Once Sarah was safely inside the building and Peter was satisfied that waiting for her had added no sort of value to his investigation, he opened his cell phone and dialed a number.

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President George Marshall was led through a poor African village by one of the local politicians. If Marshall thought there was a significant difference between U.S. House of Representative members and the people they represented in their district, then the difference between this African politician and his people was at least a hundred times greater. The dark-skinned man wore a brightly-colored designer suit that would've made any Hollywood designer proud, while the rest of the village wore rags that barely covered most parts of their bodies. The politician's tie alone probably cost as much as all of the hundreds of aluminum-made shacks that these people called homes. Surrounding the President's wall of Secret Service agents and a number of newspaper photographers were the kids from the village, who were ready to inundate Marshall the moment a single dime came out of his pocket.

"As you can see, Mr. President, our village is very poor," the man said in his deep, thick accent, sweeping his hand across the never-ending horizon of shacks that were packed tightly together. "Most of my people can not afford to feed their children on a daily basis. Medicines are not even considered a priority for the children. Many of their parents do not expect them to live very long and can not justify spending money on vaccines when their children will probably starve to death anyway."

Marshall was not a heartless man, but he somehow doubted whether any money the U.S. would give this country would actually reach the poor people. Corruption ran rampant in these areas, where the wealthy formed governments and the opinion of the masses came secondary to the financial gain of their rulers.

"That is why we beg for help from the United States of America. Money from your wealthy nation could help thousands of our young children prolong a life that is likely to end before the age of five," the politician said, just as Marshall was thinking there was no way he could give money that was likely to increase this man's wardrobe.

Marshall's pocket buzzed. The president kept a private cell phone with him at all times, and only four people in the entire world – his wife, Peter Mansfield, and as of recently, James Armour and Henry Wilson – knew the number. The NASA Chief had called him a few hours ago before to fill him in on his end of the operation, so Marshall did not expect him to be calling back so soon. His wife knew only to use the number in the case of an emergency, and since she was at a neighboring village taking a similar tour, Marshall knew it was unlikely to be her. That left the two other trusted members of the 'Inner Circle,' who had been instructed to call him once they had any news whatsoever.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Mbuto, but I have a very important call that I must take. I will only be a moment," Marshall told the politician.

The politician seemed surprised at being interrupted, but he was hardly in the position to offer any complaint. He nodded his head as Marshall walked away from him, the wall of Secret Service agents following him. This left the politician and the photographers to be swamped by the hundreds of begging children. The last thing Marshall heard before he was out of hearing distance was the politician yelling for the 'lousy kids not to touch his suit.' His phone identified the caller as ‘CoS’, and the President was immediately interested to see how Mansfield's research into the comet went.

"Peter, I don't have much time to talk, but I want to hear everything important you've found out so far," the president said.

"Okay, sir. But I wish I had been able to travel to Africa with you instead of being relegated to private investigator work."

"Peter, this trip is going by smoothly without you. What you are doing now takes top priority over everything else."

"Yes, sir. The first part of my research had to do with the team of NASA database people who originally stumbled on the note from the Russians. Originally, I was worried that this could have been disastrous, but since there were only three people who had access to the information, the fear of news about the comet spreading quickly was unwarranted. I interviewed the three people and found that two of them would cause no trouble whatsoever. In fact, they had no idea that the comet even existed."

"What about the third person?" the president asked.

"Well, there was a slight problem there. The third person did remember the comet. In fact, I determined that he was a little
too
interested in the comet for his own good. But don't worry about him, I took care of it."

"How did you take care of the problem?"

"Mr. President, you know it’s in your best interests not to know how I handle some things," Mansfield answered.

The president was shocked and felt fairly certain that his Chief of Staff’s means to take care of the problem meant a horrible fate for the NASA worker. Marshall had been worried about his closest adviser for years, knowing that the man sometimes handled delicate situations with strength rather than finesse. He couldn't deny that the strategy had worked up to this point, but he was also worried that one day, these strong-arm tactics would come back to haunt them both in a huge way.

"You're right, I don't want to know what you did," the president said, lowering his voice to make sure the Secret Service agents would not hear anything he said. "But nobody gets hurt from this point on. I'm not saying that somebody did this time, but I am saying that
nobody
will
next
time. You understand me?"

"Yes, sir."

"Okay. Now what else did you learn?"

"We don't have to worry about the person who discovered the comet, sir. He's dead."

"Dammit, Peter. I said I don't want to know these things."

"No, sir. Josh Clement has been dead for years now. He actually died in an automobile accident the day after discovering the comet."

"Oh, that's good then," the president said. "Not good, but good for us… well, you know what I mean. What else? Somebody else had to have been involved with this Clement person."

"There was another man who was apparently the co-discoverer but did not take credit in the naming process. Nicholas Rose, an astronomy professor."

The president frowned. He knew that somebody out there had to have been keeping tabs on this comet and an astronomy professor seemed a very likely choice.

"What's his story? Do we have anything to worry about with him?"

"Nope, he's dead, too. Died about six months after Clement. Had some kind of cancer."

"This comet sure has been bad luck for a lot of people."

"You have no idea," Mansfield began. "This guy Rose, his parents were killed in a car accident a few years before he died. The only person to survive in this family was his sister, Sarah. She was just starting high school when her parents died and just finishing when her brother died, leaving her basically alone in the world."

"Rough life, no wonder some kids become screwed up," the president said, wondering whether this girl had a rougher life than these hundreds of African kids.

"It gets worse. The sister had enrolled in college prior to graduating high school, but she did not show up to any of her classes. In fact, a few months after she graduated, she disappeared for about ten months or so. Her neighbors told me she went to live with family, but I checked and could not find any other family members. I have no idea what she was doing during this time. She couldn't have had a job because there was no record of her paying any taxes."

"Unless she worked off the books," Marshall said. The heat of the mid-day sun was really beginning to take its toll on him and he hoped the rest of the tour would not take long once he got off the phone.

"I suppose that's a possibility. But anyway, when she finally returned to her house, the bank ended up foreclosing on her. Her brother's hospital bills had drained all of his money and he wasn't very good with keeping up on the mortgage and tax payments. So not only was her house repossessed, but the IRS took just about all of the money her parents left.