The Inner Circle (31 page)

Earl had gotten pretty good with the clip and the door next to his was unlocked in the matter of seconds. He looked down both ends of the hallway before he slowly opened the door and crept inside. The interior of this room was a carbon copy of Earl's room, yet this one had more light streaming through the window, courtesy of a light post just outside. Every other detail, though – from the placement of the bed to the number of bars on the window – was exactly the same. A person was sleeping on the bed, snoring so loudly that if this room was bugged as well, Earl would be able to make a lot of noise before being heard.

They wouldn't bug every room in the rehab place, would they? No, only the ones whose occupants were a threat to the government. This guy doesn't look like a threat to anything.

Earl wasted little time trying to wake the man up. He cleared his throat at first, hoping this would do the trick, but the snoring just continued. Finally, he had to gently shake the patient until he woke up. The man did not seem happy to have his sleep interrupted.

"It's still dark out, let me sleep," he said angrily, turning over in his bed.

"Please, sir. I need you to wake up now," Earl said.

The patient in the bed did not recognize Earl's voice and quickly realized that a person working at Mimosa Grove would not wake him up during the dark in the middle of the night. The man sat up quickly, moving as far across his bed as he could to get away from Earl, who was now right next to him.

"Who the hell are you? What the hell are you doing here? Get out, nobody is supposed to know I'm here," the man said, the distress raising the level of his voice.

"Please, keep your voice down," Earl said, afraid that if anyone was walking in the hallway they would hear this man.

The man clicked on a lamp on the side of the bed and saw that Earl was another patient. The patient in bed was a younger man – appeared to be in his late twenties – and had an air of superiority about him that immediately let Earl know that he was important.

Good, I need someone important to tell this news to. Maybe he will be able to spread the word. Not if he keeps that light on and I get caught before I can tell him.

"Could you please turn the light off? I'm not supposed to be out of my room," Earl said.

"Then how did you get out? Aren't all of the doors locked?" the man asked.

"Yes, but I broke out. I picked the lock with a paper clip. But that's not important now. I have something I need to tell someone right away. It's been eating away at me for the past two years. But I need you to turn the light off first."

It appeared to Earl that the man was considering turning the light off, but he didn't.

"No, I will leave my light on if I darn well please. And to be honest with you, I'm not at all interested in what you have to say. Now please leave before we
both
get into trouble," the man said.

"Trouble?" Earl asked, barely stifling a laugh. "How can you get in trouble? What's the worst they could do? Throw you in the loony bin?"

The man did not seem to find this funny.

"First of all, this isn't a loony bin," the man said, looking at the crazy little man in front of him. "At least for me it isn't. Now that I'm completely clean, they are letting me out of here tomorrow and my father would be very angry with me if I screwed that up."

"Did you say you are getting out tomorrow?" Earl asked hopefully.

"Yes," the man said, clearly annoyed that his sleep was still being interrupted.

"That's perfect, I can't believe how well this is all going to work out. I need to tell you something that you must pass along to the outside world. This news will change the way every person on this world will live their life."

The young man assumed that this intruder was crazy, but he was intrigued to hear what Earl had to say nonetheless.

"Well, hurry up and tell me so I can get back to sleep," the man said, waiting to be amused by a crazy man's ramblings.

"I hope you’re prepared for shocking news," Earl said. "The world is going to end in a little over nine years."

Earl proceeded to tell the young man the entire story, finally releasing the massive weight that had been on his shoulders. He had so much to tell and did not leave out any tiny detail. He told him about the discovery of the comet, the members of the 'Inner Circle,' the cover-up that was demanded by the resident of the United States, the conspiracy to keep this news a secret.

"The 'Inner Circle'?" the man asked.

"Yes, there are five of us. The president, his Chief of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, the NASA chief and myself," Earl explained.

This was the only question the young man had during the whole twenty-minute explanation of events. Earl finished by explaining that a deep space probe was launching the very next day but unknown to everyone except the 'Inner Circle,' a man was being sent to deflect the comet from its deadly path.

"I'm just relieved that I was able to tell somebody about this. Now you can take the story to the public and the government will be forced to release me from this place."

The young man had been amused by what Earl had to say, but had tried to keep a straight face so Earl would finish the crazy story. But once the story came to an end, a huge grin appeared on his face.

"I have to admit, that was interesting," he said. "But I also have to admit that you are, by far, the craziest person I have ever met in my life."

"Please, I know it might sound far-fetched, by everything I said is true. A comet is going to crash into the Earth and kill everybody in nine years."

"Yeah, sure," the young man said, getting out of bed and walking over to his door. Earl could do nothing but watch in shock as the young man opened the door and yelled.

"Someone has escaped! Please, I need help!"

Oh no,
Earl thought.
The government must have known I would try to escape, and planted this guy as a spy.

Earl rushed over to the door and tried to stop the other patient from yelling, grabbing him by the shoulders and trying to pull him away from the door. The young man tripped over Earl's foot and fell to the ground.

"Why are you doing this to me? Please, stop yelling," Earl pleaded.

The two large orderlies and a nurse came running into the room before Earl had the chance to convince the young man that he was telling the truth. Earl – who appeared to be standing menacingly over the young man – was tackled to the ground by the two orderlies and quickly subdued. He knew it was pointless to put up a struggle against these larger men, so he just allowed them to drag him back to his room.

"He picked the lock, check him for a paper clip," the young man said as Earl was escorted out. 

The young man heard the orderlies threaten Earl with being tied down every night if he continued to escape. A nurse remained behind with the young man, who got off the floor and walked back over to his bed.

"Are you okay, Mr. Ainsworth?" she asked. "Did that man hurt you at all?"

"How many times do I have to tell you, call me Tyler. My father is Mr. Ainsworth," Tyler said, turning on the charm in the presence of the attractive young nurse. "And no, he did not hurt me."

"Well, I'm sorry for all the excitement on your last night with us. I hope Mr. Ackerman did not bother you too much," she said.

"No, the nut was rambling on about the end of the world and the evil government. I'm sure he’s just as crazy as the other nuts in here," Tyler said.

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Mansfield all but dismissed the notion of getting any sleep the night before the launch, deciding at four in the morning to crawl out of bed and get to the White House where he could at least get some work done.

The launch was scheduled for eleven in the morning, which would give the Chief of Staff plenty of time to complete the random paperwork that had been piling up in his office the past month. He would have preferred to be at the NASA compound during every stage of Phase One, but the 'Inner Circle' decided that it would be suspicious for anybody out of the ordinary to be present. Mansfield agreed with this thought in principle, but he still could have breathed easier if he was there, since he was convinced that his presence would have assured everything running smoothly.

Concentrating on mundane paperwork was nearly impossible when he knew the nuke and Neil Peterson were now being loaded aboard the probe, as his mind raced with countless numbers of negative scenarios that could prevent their plans from unfolding. He tried calling James Armour a dozen times, receiving no answer or return call until close to eight o'clock. By this time, Mansfield was annoyed that he’d had to wait so long, but was glad to hear from Armour what had happened.

After hanging up the phone, Mansfield turned on a TV to the news channel and saw the banner at the bottom of the screen that read: BREAKING NEWS. Mansfield had to hand it to Armour; the old astronaut sure knew what he was doing and got things done when they needed to be done.

The president arrived in the Oval Office by 8:30 and told his secretary that he was meeting with Mansfield and was not to be interrupted for the next several hours. Marshall's schedule had been cleared until noon, which would give the men plenty of time to watch and worry about the launch.

"I didn't sleep a wink last night," Marshall said as soon as his secretary gave them each a cup of coffee and left the room.

"Neither did I. I finally got out of bed and came to the office at four in the morning," Mansfield said. "I think I worried the guards. They asked if something had happened and an emergency meeting was being called."

"Did you see the news this morning? The breaking news?" Marshall asked. "Armour came through like he said he would."

"Yes, he did. I just talked to him a half-hour ago. The nuke and Peterson were loaded into the probe last night, as scheduled. Armour also leaked the story to the press about an hour ago."

President Marshall turned on the plasma-screen TV in the Oval Office, where the all-news channel was still reporting the breaking news. A homely woman – no doubt a local affiliate reporter quickly dispatched to the scene – stood at the NASA compound, talking to the anchorman. In the background, the probe was seen being transported toward the launch pad.

"Yes, Jim. Just over an hour ago, news leaked to the Associated Press that the launching of a deep space probe today by NASA has a secondary objective," the reporter stated, glancing down at a card in her hand to read the news. "The space probe was designed to transport a human being and the general consensus by experts is that the success of this design will determine how soon a manned, deep space mission will be attempted."

"Has NASA confirmed any of this?" the anchorman asked.

"Yes, Jim. They've confirmed that early reports about the design of the ship are indeed correct, although they've yet to say whether or not a manned mission is being planned for any time in the near future. A press conference has been scheduled for after the launch, at which time I'm sure we will learn more."

"Susie, could you please explain to the audience why this news is so significant. After all, NASA must run tests all the time."

"That's true, Jim. But rarely have tests been run in such a manner as this. The scientists and spacecraft designers usually confine their tests to a laboratory, where experiments can be accomplished on a smaller scale, especially a smaller financial scale. But sending this probe into deep space is a major step, one that experts say would not likely take place unless a manned mission was planned for the near future. As many people know, NASA has not been a prominent government agency for quite some time. But with a move like this, it appears as though they might be trying to make another big splash in space."

"Thank you, Susie. We'll check back with you later."

The president muted the TV once the commercials appeared on screen.

"Did Armour have anything else to say about the situation?" Marshall asked.

"Not anything that we don't already know," Mansfield said. "He didn't have much time to talk. The falsified computer readouts have already been hidden in NASA's computer mainframe and they will be ready once the probe has reached space. As far as Armour's concerned, the probe is a ghost before it's even launched."

"Good," the president replied, glad that everything had been done to ensure that the mission had the best chance to succeed.

"More than good, sir. The planning on this operation has been perfect and with the right people we have in place, it should run perfectly. As long as our plans continue to go as smoothly as we've arranged, Earth will have nothing to fear."

If President Marshall felt as optimistic as Mansfield did, he was not yet ready to admit it.

"Pardon the cliché, Peter, but let's not count our chickens before they've hatched. We've done well up to this point, but even with all the perfect planning in the world, we are going to need a lot of luck to pull this off."

Now that there was a break in their conversation about the space probe, Mansfield realized he was holding a folder, which contained another bit of news concerning the whole comet saga.