The Inner Circle (36 page)

As the blue Town Car slowed and stopped, I stepped toward it, my hand slipping in my pocket. I opened the door and climbed in beside Stark, who, judging by the way he was reaching for his gun, knew he was in trouble.
 

“Hey there, Eddie,” I said, and jabbed the methohexital pen into his neck.
 

The light changed, and traffic began to move forward.
 

Ronny, behind the wheel, merged us with it.

52

When Edward Stark awoke, he was tied to a metal folding chair, naked except for his boxer shorts.
 

We had already scanned him for any tracking devices—not just his clothes but every inch of his body in case one had been slipped beneath his skin—and he appeared clean. We also checked and then double-checked his teeth, and besides two capped molars, they were normal.
 

Besides two cell phones—a BlackBerry and the burner he had been using to communicate with Carver—he had his wallet, his credentials, a tiny tin of Altoids, a dry cleaning receipt, and his gun. The piece was a standard issued Glock 22. It, like everything else, had also been scanned.
 

Plastic zip ties kept his ankles in place to the chair legs. His wrists were bound behind his back. On his chest, right above his heart, was an inch-wide patch taped to his skin. It, just like a smaller patch taped to his temple, was attached to wires running to a laptop set up directly behind him. Maya sat behind the laptop, monitoring his heart rate and his brainwaves, the program all courtesy of the Kid. Ronny and Drew were outside keeping watch of the perimeter.
 

I sat in a metal folding chair directly across from Stark. His head was hanging down. When he started to raise it, blinking, I leaned forward.
 

“Hello, Eddie.”
 

He looked up at me. First there was confusion in his eyes, followed quickly by understanding. His eyes widened slightly. He tried to speak but couldn’t. Not with the strip of duct tape over his mouth.
 

“I don’t want to draw this out. The past two weeks haven’t been very good to me, as you can imagine. Getting shot at, almost getting killed—these are all things that damages a person’s psyche. So why am I here now? To tell you that you win. Well, not
you
so much as Caesar. Whatever the fuck Caesar has planned, we can’t stop it. I’ll be the first to admit that. All of us—the ones that haven’t yet been killed—will soon be going our separate ways. Before we do, though, I wanted to meet you. In many ways, we’re all connected to you. I mean, if it wasn’t for you fucking Carver over, he never would have started his battle against Simon and Caesar, and he never would have saved us from the games.”
 

Stark stared back at me calmly. Almost too calmly.
 

“Now, if you think about it, we all probably would have been thrown into the games regardless if anything had ever happened to Carver. But the fact is, we were thrown into the games, and Carver got us out, and our families are all dead, and those of us still alive are still fucking pissed about that.”
 

On the ground beside my chair was a knife. I picked it up.
 

“Two years ago I never once considered myself a violent man. But ... well, things change. I used to think torture was disgusting and vile. That what the government did at Guantanamo was just wrong. But you know, I’ve started to understand something. There comes a point when you just don’t give a fuck anymore. And unfortunately for you, I’ve long since stopped giving a fuck.”
 

I crouched down in front of Stark. I placed the blade of the knife against his pinkie toe. His foot twitched, but that was the only reaction.
 

“My wife’s finger was sent to me in a box. Did you know that? They even kept her wedding ring on it.”
 

Steel pressed against flesh, but I hesitated. I thought about Jen and I thought about Casey and I thought about just how damaged I had become. It wasn’t that I had wanted to become the person I was now, but that I’d had no choice. Mercy was a word with no definition.
 

I pressed down on the knife. Stark’s foot twitched again. His entire body didn’t buck in pain as I had imagined it would, not even when the blade severed the toe. The duct tape over his mouth muffled a slight groan. His eyes slid shut. But that was it.
 

Beneath his chair was a box of gauze. I took some and placed it against the wound and applied pressure.
 

“I don’t know how long we’re going to do this,” I said, standing back up to look him straight in the eye, “but the last thing I want right now is for you to pass out from the pain. Though, let me guess. Assholes like you don’t feel pain. That’s why you’ve hardly even made a sound yet.”
 

Stark just stared back at me. He didn’t move or make any noise. Then, softly, he made a sound. Just one syllable.
 

“What’s that?”
 

He made the sound again.
 

I glanced past him at Maya. She didn’t seem ready to meet my eyes. She’d known what the plan was from the beginning, and she had gone along with it, but she was clearly disturbed by my actions. On some level, so was I. But that didn’t stop me from continuing.
 

I turned back to Stark. “Right now we’re in the basement of an abandoned warehouse just outside of D.C. If I take this tape off, you can scream all you want, but nobody will hear you.”
 

He made the sound again, that one simple syllable.
 

I took a loose corner of the duct tape and peeled it off his mouth. I did it slowly, much slower than was needed, until there was very little tape still sticking to his skin and then I ripped that off.
 

“Ben,” he said. His eyes were glassy. His body trembled slightly. He was in pain but was trying his best not to show it.
 

“That’s my name. What about it?”
 

“You have the wrong idea.”
 

“Is that right?”
 

“I’m not who you think I am.”
 

“And who do I think you are?”
 

“In league with Caesar.”
 

“You’re not?”
 

He shook his head. “God no.”
 

I glanced past him but Maya was still looking away. Her gaze was on the laptop screen but it was clear she wasn’t really watching it.
 

Without a word I walked past him to the folding table, stepping over the wires. I leaned down close to Maya and whispered in her ear, “Do we have a problem?”
 

She blinked, sat back, looked up at me with surprise. The reaction was of someone snapping out of a daydream. She stared at me for a long moment. “No,” she said, but her voice was so quiet I barely even heard it.
 

“If you don’t think you can continue with this, go outside and relieve Drew. He can take over.”
 

“No”—her voice still soft as she shook her head—“I’m fine.”
 

It was then I first noticed the laptop screen. The graph it showed was the same from the Kid’s computer. Even with the lines bouncing with Stark’s voice. Before, when I had spoken to him on the phone, the lines had been a combination of greens and red like a Christmas decoration. Now they were all green.
 

I grabbed the laptop and hurried back to Stark. I pulled my chair closer and set the laptop on the seat and tilted it so only I could see the screen.
 

“What’s your name?”
 

He stared back at me, confused. His eyes shifted between me and the laptop.
 

“What’s your name?” I repeated.
 

“Edward Lee Stark.”
 

The lines were green.
 

“When were you born?”
 

“August nineteenth, 1954.”
 

The lines stayed green.
 

“Tell me a lie.”
 

“What?”
 

“Tell me a lie.”
 

“I don’t—” He paused, thinking. “I know who Caesar is.”
 

The lines went red.
 

“Bullshit,” I said.
 

“I don’t know his real name, who he really is. I don’t even know what he looks like. I just know he exists. And that those very high up in the Inner Circle call him Augustus.”
 

I watched his eyes, looking for any signs of deceit. I checked the computer screen again. All the lines were green.
 

“You don’t seem surprised to see me.”
 

He shook his head.
 

“But as far as you knew, you were speaking to Carver. Both today and last week.”
 

“I knew it wasn’t Carver both times. In fact, I was hoping it would be you.”
 

The lines were green.
 

“What do you mean, you were hoping it would be me. I don’t even know you.”
 

“No,” Stark said, “but I know you.”
 

“How?”
 

“What you wrote two years ago. About your game.”
 

“You saw that?”
 

“Yes.”
 

“And just because you read that I’m supposed to, what, believe that you’re telling the truth?”
 

“Ben, I am not the enemy here. I did not fuck Carver over, either.”
 

The lines stayed green.
 

“You turned him in,” I said.
 

“I didn’t. At least, not on purpose. At my position at the time, I had several different bosses above me. I had been told that if anything strange ever came across the Internet, I was to thank whoever found it and say it would be reassigned elsewhere. And I really believed it at the time. Then Carver came and showed me what he did and I told him it would be reassigned and I thought that was it. I sent it up to my bosses. They told me it would be taken care of. Then, later, Carver came back and showed me even more. I began to suspect something was wrong, so I told him I would put him in charge of the investigation. Next thing I knew, I was notified that Carver had been transferred. They didn’t say where, but that he was doing important work. I’m not sure I even believed them then, but I knew better than to make waves. I did email Carver the next week, and promptly received a reply saying he was swamped and would get back to me. He never did.”
 

“That wasn’t Carver.”
 

Stark shook his head. “No, it wasn’t. But at the time I believed it was. Then a couple years passed and I was sent your story.”
 

“Who sent it?” I asked, but immediately I knew. It all made sense now. While the Kid had helped post it wherever he could online, Carver had made it a point to briefly contact his old supervisor. The man who he believed had been responsible for Carver losing his family. He had sent it as a way of saying,
I know what you did and I will never forget
.
 

“Carver,” Stark said. “At least, I assume it was Carver. It was sent from an anonymous Hotmail account. I replied but there was never any response.”
 

“So when did Carver contact you next?” I knew the answer to this too but wanted to hear it from Edward Stark’s own lips.
 

“Less than a year ago. He emailed me out of the blue. I wasn’t even sure it was him at first. I was worried Simon and the rest of them were on to me.”
 

“How so?”
 

“After I read about your game, I started my own investigation. I knew if your story was true—and I believed it was, having double-checked the stories about the bombing in Ryder, Illinois, and that cop getting shot in Chicago—then this went very high up. I ended up in contact with Francis Houser. Her nickname is Frank. She’s a congresswoman for the state of North Carolina.”
 

“What does she have to do with any of this?” It didn’t occur to me then that I hadn’t been checking the laptop screen. I did now, and saw that all the lines except that one for the forced lie were green.
 

“She’s a member of the Inner Circle.”
 

I wasn’t sure what to say to this.
 

“Don’t worry,” Stark said, “she’s on our side. It was her husband who was a member, and even he hadn’t been fully aware of what he was getting into at the time. He’s dead now. Died of a heart attack a few years back. She became a member by proxy. She’s been helping me try to figure out a way to bring this entire thing down. But it’s difficult. This whole thing, it’s just way too big.”
 

“You mean in our government?”
 

“I mean
globally
. There are games all around the world. Some are bigger than others.”
 

“How many members are there in the Inner Circle?”
 

“The Inner Circle itself isn’t very large. There are maybe a thousand members, all said. But those who watch the games? There are
millions
. And more sign up every day.”
 

“I thought the games were top secret.”

“They are.”
 

“Then how can they allow so many people to join?”
 

“Do you still look at pornography?”
 

“What?”
 

“Do you?”
 

“No.”
 

“But when you did, did anyone know?”
 

“Besides my father-in-law and Simon, no.”
 

“It’s the same way here. People know when to keep a secret. They know because their lives depend on it. That’s made very clear from the start. If word gets out, whoever leaked it will be killed, as will their family and friends. Some have tried, just to test the system. They’re all dead.”