The Zero Game

82

“They still haven’t found him. They never will.

I’m not surprised. Janos was hired for a reason. Like any great magician, he not only knew how to keep a secret — he also knew the value of a good disappearing act.

It’s been seven hours since we left the depths of the Capitol basement and air tunnels. To double-check that the air system wasn’t compromised, they evacuated the entire building, which hadn’t been done since the anthrax scares a few years back. They moved us, too.

Most people know that if the Capitol is under a full-on terrorist assault, the bigwigs and hotshots get relocated to a top-secret off-site location. If the attack’s on a smaller scale, they go to Fort McNair, in Southwest D.C. But if the attack is minor and containable — like a gas canister thrown in the hallways — they come here, right across the street, to the Library of Congress.

Standing outside the closed doors of the European Reading Room on the second floor, I sink down to sit on the marble floor. My shoulder eventually rests on the leg of one of the enormous glass display cases that line the hallway and are filled with historical artifacts.

“Sir — please don’t sit there,” a nearby FBI agent with silver hair and a pointed nose says.

“What’s it make a difference, huh?” my lawyer, Dan Cohen, threatens as he rubs a hand over his own shaved head. “Don’t be an ass — let the poor guy take a seat.” An old friend from my Georgetown Law days, Dan’s a half-Jewish, half-Italian matzoh-ball-meatball of a guy stuffed into a cheap, poorly tailored suit. After graduation, while most of us went to firms or to the Hill, Dan went back to his old neighborhood in Baltimore, hung out an honest-to-God shingle, and took the cases most lawyers laugh at. Proudly tracing his family tree back to his great, great-uncle, gangster Meyer Lansky, Dan always liked a good fight. But by his own admission, he no longer has any connections in Washington. That’s exactly why I called him. I’ve had enough of this town.

“Harris, we should go,” Dan says. “You’re falling apart, bro.”

“I’m fine,” I tell him.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m fine,” I insist.

“C’mon… don’t be a jackass. You’ve been through five and a half hours of interrogation — even the agents said you should take a break. Look at you — you can’t even stand.”

“You know what they’re doing in there,” I say, pointing to the closed doors.

“It doesn’t matter…”

“It does matter! To me it does. Now just give me a few more minutes.”

“Harris, we’ve been waiting here two hours already — it’s almost midnight; you need to get your nose set, and a cast for your arm.”

“My arm’s fine,” I say, readjusting the sling the paramedics gave me.

“But if you-”

“Dan, I know you mean well — and I love you for it — but just be humble for once and acknowledge that this is one part of the problem you can’t fix.”

“Humble?” he asks, making a face. “I hate humble. And I hate humble even more on you.”

Glancing down between my knees, I see my reflection in the marble floor. “Yeah, well… sometimes it’s not as bad as you think.”

He says something else, but I’m not listening. Sunk down, I take another look at the closed doors. After everything I’ve been through, this is the one thing I care about right now.

Forty minutes later, I can feel the thump of my heartbeat pumping down the length of my arm. But when the doors to the reading room open, every ounce of pain is gone… and an entirely new one takes its place.

Viv walks out of the room with two bandages over her eyebrow. Her bottom lip is cut and swollen, and she’s holding a baby blue ice pack to her other eye.

I climb to my feet and try to make contact, but a double-breasted suit quickly steps between us.

“Why don’t you leave her alone for a bit,” her lawyer says, putting his palm against my chest. He’s a tall African-American man with a bushy caterpillar mustache. When we were first taken in, I told Viv she could use Dan, but her parents quickly brought in their own attorney. I don’t blame them. Since then, the FBI and the lawyer have made sure Viv and I haven’t seen, heard, or spoken to each other. I don’t blame them for that either. It’s a smart move. Distance your client. I’ve never met this lawyer before, but from the suit alone, I can tell he’ll get the job done. And while I’m not sure how Viv’s family can afford him, considering all the press this’ll get, I don’t think he’s worried. “Did you hear what I said, son? She’s had a long night.”

“I want to talk to her,” I say.

“Why? So you can mess her life up even more than you have already?”

“She’s my friend,” I insist.

“Mr. Thornell, it’s okay,” Viv says, nudging him aside. “I can… I’ll be fine.”

Checking to be sure, Thornell decides to take her cue. He steps about two feet away. Viv gives him another look, and he heads back to the display cases, where Dan and the other FBI agent are. For now, we’ve got the corner of the gilded hallway all to ourselves.

I look over at Viv, but she avoids my gaze, dropping her eyes to the floor. It’s been eight hours since we’ve last spoken. I’ve spent the past three trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to say. I don’t remember a single word.

“How’s your eye?” “How’s your arm?” we both ask simultaneously.

“I’ll live,” we both reply.

It’s enough to get a small smile out of Viv, but she quickly pulls it down. I’m still the one who got her in this mess. Whatever she’s feeling, it’s clearly taking a toll.

“Y’know, you didn’t have to do what you did in there,” she finally says.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m not a moron, Harris — they told me what you said…”

“Viv, I never-”

“You want me to quote ’em? That you forced me into this… that when Matthew died, you threatened me into helping you… that you said you’d ‘break my face’ if I didn’t get on the private jet and tell everyone I was your intern. How could you say that?”

“You’re taking it out of context-”

“Harris, they showed me the statement you wrote!”

I turn to the classical murals on the wall, unable to face her. There are four murals, each one with a woman soldier in ancient armor, representing a different stage in a nation’s development: Adventure, Discovery, Conquest, and Civilization. They should have another one labeled Regret. My answer’s a whisper. “I didn’t want you to follow the ship down.”

“What?”

“You know how these things go — who cares if we saved the day? I made bets on legislation… misappropriated a corporate jet… and arguably contributed to the death of my best friend… Even if you were there for the very best reasons — and believe me, you were the only innocent in the whole crowd — they’ll take your head off just because you were standing next to me. Assassination by association.”

“So you just twist the truth and take the fall for everything?”

“Believe me, Viv — after what I sucked you into, I deserve far worse than that.”

“Don’t be such a martyr.”

“Then don’t be so naive,” I shoot back. “The moment they think you were acting on your own is the exact same moment they put you on the catapult and fire you.”

“So?”

“Whatta you mean, So?”

“I mean, So? So what if I lose my job? Big whoop. It’s not like they gave me the scarlet letter. I’m a seventeen-year-old page who lost her internship. I wouldn’t quite consider it the end of my professional career. Besides, there are more important things than a stupid job — like family. And friends.”

Staring me down with one eye, she holds the ice pack to the other.

“I agree,” I tell her. “I just… I just didn’t want them to fire you.”

“I appreciate that.”

“So what happened in there?” I ask.

“They fired me,” she says nonchalantly.

“What? How could they-?”

“Don’t look at me like that. At the end of the day, I still broke the cardinal rule of being a page: I went off campus without authorization and stayed overnight without permission. Worst of all, I lied to my parents and the principal, then flew off to South Dakota.”

“But I told them-”

“It’s the FBI, Harris. They may be hard-asses, but they’re not complete idiots. Sure, maybe you can force me on a plane, or to run an errand or two, but what about getting me to the motel, and to the mine, then down the shaft, and into the lab? Then we gotta catch the return flight back. You’re a lot of things, Harris, but kidnapper’s not on the list. You really thought they’d believe all that crap?”

“When I told it, it was flawless.”

“Flawless, huh? Break my face?”

I can’t help but laugh.

“Exactly,” she says. Viv pauses, finally taking the ice pack off her face. “I still appreciate you trying, though, Harris. You didn’t have to do that.”

“No. I did.”

She stands there, refusing to argue. “Can I ask you one last thing?” she says, motioning to the ground. “When we were down there with Janos… and you were stuck in the hole… were you standing on that little ledge the entire time?”

“Just toward the end… my foot stumbled on it.”

She’s silent for a moment. I know what she’s after.

“So when you asked me to swing the golf club…?”

There we go. She wants to know if I was really willing to sacrifice myself, or if I just did it to distract Janos.

“Does it matter?” I ask.

“I don’t know… maybe.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’d have asked you to swing either way.”

“That’s easy to say now.”

“Sure is, but I didn’t find the foothold till the last second, when he broke my grip.”

She stops as the consequences sink in. It’s no lie. I would’ve done whatever it took to save her. Foothold or not.

“Take it as a compliment,” I add. “You’re worth it, Viv Parker.”

Her cheeks rise uncontrollably. She has no idea what to say.

Up the hallway, a cell phone starts chirping. Viv’s lawyer picks it up and puts it to his ear. Nodding a few times, he closes it and looks our way. “Viv, your parents just checked into their hotel. Time to go.”

“In a sec,” she says. Sticking with me, she adds, “So still no word about Janos?”

I shake my head.

“They’re not gonna find him, are they?”

“Not a chance.”

“Think he’ll come hunting for us?”

“I don’t think so. FBI told me Janos was paid to keep things quiet. Now that the word’s out, his job’s over.”

“And you believe them?”

“Viv, we’ve already told our story. Security cameras got pictures of him entering the Capitol. It’s not like they need us as witnesses or to identify him. They know who he is, and they have everything they need. There’s nothing gained now by putting bullets in our heads.”

“I’ll remember that as I check behind every closed shower curtain for the rest of my life.”

“If it makes you feel better, they said they’d assign security detail to both of us. Besides, we’ve been sitting here for eight hours. If he wanted us dead, it already would’ve happened.”

It’s not much of a guarantee, but in a warped way, it’s the best we’ve got. “So that’s it? We’re done?”

I look back to my lawyer as she asks the question. After a decade on Capitol Hill, the only person standing in my corner is someone who’s paid to be there. “Yeah… we’re done.”

She doesn’t like that tone in my voice. “Look at it this way, Harris — at least we won.”

The FBI agents told me the same thing — we’re lucky to be alive. It’s a nice consolation, but it doesn’t bring back Matthew, or Pasternak, or Lowell. “Winning isn’t everything,” I tell her.

She gives me a long look. She doesn’t have to say a word.

“Ms. Parker — your parents…!” her lawyer calls out.

She ignores him. “So where do you go from here?” she asks me.

“Depends what type of deal Dan cuts with the government. Right now, the only thing I’m worried about is Matthew’s funeral. His mom asked me to give one of the eulogies. Me and Congressman Cordell.”

“I wouldn’t sweat it — I’ve seen you speak. I’m sure you’ll do him justice.”

It’s the only thing that anyone’s said in the last eight hours that’s actually made me feel good. “Listen, Viv, I’m sorry again for getting you into-”

“Don’t say it, Harris.”

“But being a page…”

“… paled to what we did these last few days. Just paled. The running around… finding that lab… even the stupid stuff — I took a shower in a private jet! — you think I’d trade all that so I could refill some Senator’s seltzer? Didn’t you hear what they said at page orientation? Life is school. It’s all school. And if anyone wants to give me crap about being fired, well… well, when’s the last time they jumped off a cliff to help a friend who needed it? God didn’t put me here to back down.”

“That’s a good stump speech — you should save it.”

“I plan to.”

“I’m serious what I said before: You’re gonna make a great Senator one day.”

“Senator? You got a problem with a giant, black woman President?”

I laugh out loud at that one.

“I meant what I said, too,” she adds. “I’ll still need a good chief of staff.”

“You got a deal. Even I’ll come back to Washington for that one.”

“Oh, so now you’re leaving us all behind? What’re you gonna do — write a book? Join the law practice with your guy Dan? Or just kick back on a beach somewhere like at the end of all those other thrillers?”

“I don’t know… I was thinking of just heading home for a bit.”

“I love it — small town boy goes home… they give you the victory parade… everyone chows on apple pie…”

“No, not Pennsylvania,” I say. For the better part of a decade, I’ve been convinced that success in the big leagues would somehow bury my past. The only thing it buried was me. “I was actually thinking about staying around here. Dan said there’s a junior high school in Baltimore that could use a good civics teacher.”

“Hold on a second… you’re gonna teach?”

“And that’s so bad?”

She thinks about it a moment. A week ago, like any other page, she would’ve said there were bigger things to do with my life. Now we both know better. Her smile is huge. “Actually, that sounds perfect.”

“Thank you, Viv.”

“Though you know those kids’ll eat you alive.”

I grin. “I hope so.”

“Miss Parker…!” her lawyer bellows for the last time.

“Be right there… Listen, I should run,” she tells me, offering a quick hug. As she wraps her arms around me, I can feel her ice pack on my back. She squeezes so tight, my arm starts to hurt. It doesn’t matter. The hug’s worth every second.

“Knock ’em dead, Viv.”

“Who, my parents?”

“No… the world.”

She pulls away with that same toothy grin she had when we first met.

“Y’know, Harris… when you originally asked me for help… I had such a crush on you.”

“And now?”

“Now… I don’t know,” she teases. “I kinda think I should get a suit that fits.” Walking backwards up the hallway, she adds, “Meanwhile, know what the best part of being a teacher is?”

“What?”

“The annual class trip to Washington.”

This time, I’m the one with the toothy grin.

“Y’like that, don’t you, King Midas?” she adds.

Turning around, she puts her back to me and heads for her lawyer. “I’m serious about that chief of staff job, Harold,” she calls out as her voice echoes down the long hallway. “Only eighteen years until I reach the age requirement. I’ll expect you there bright and early.”

“Whatever you say, Madame President. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”