He unwound the rope from the first cleat to his right, and with a slow, steady pull, tried to open the panel. It resisted for a moment, then opened with such a loud crack that Ben was terrified he had broken it. But the echo subsided and the panel rose smoothly when he continued to pull on the rope. After he had raised it about two feet, enough to give him a six-inch-wide opening to look through, he wrapped the clothesline back around the cleat. Ben leaned over and could see straight down five stories to the rows of seats that seemed from here like toy railroad tracks. Looking down from this height turned his body rigid. But it was so truly beautiful; if this kind of beauty had arisen, then the force that made it couldn’t be entirely wrong. Ben could see the podium from which Aston would speak.

Now all he had to do was wait. Ben turned over and lay against the metal, already cold through his coat, bringing his hands along his sides. He could feel the tread of the gangway through his wool hat.

Ahmed had told him that because Tommy and Graham knew they were going to be kicked out, they had decided to say that Ahmed hadn’t known what he was getting into, that he was trying to fit in, that he had come under their sway without realizing what the consequences could be. They were saying that they had never known Ahmed to use drugs or import them.

For their DC the previous evening, Ben and Ahmed both got dressed in jacket and tie. Ahmed’s clothes looked just right for this.

And later, after the DC, Ben had sat on one of the couches at the far end of the Den and described what had happened. The whole Den was arrayed around him. Hutch was there too, now looking at Ben as though having represented Ahmed was the most distinguished possible deed. Ben said that, according to plan, he had argued to the DC that Ahmed hadn’t known what he was getting into, that he was trying to fit in, that he had fallen under the sway of his charismatic new friends. Ben stated that he had never seen Ahmed use or import. The faculty were buying it.

“And then Ahmed started shaking his head. He said that he was just as responsible as the other two, that he had been to Boston a bunch of times already and had helped plan how to get there and where to go, that no one had pressured him to put in more than his share of money, that Tommy and Graham said he could stay behind if he wanted to, but that he had volunteered to go.

“And no one knew what to say. They just thanked us and let us go.”

Ben didn’t tell them about the walk back to the dorm.