The Zero Game

22

“What about his house?” Sauls’s voice squawked through the cell phone.

“He’s got a loft on the outskirts of Adams Morgan,” Janos said, keeping his voice down as he turned the corner of the long, pristine marble hallway in the Russell Senate Office Building. He wasn’t running, but his pace was fast. Determined. Just like everyone around him. That was always the best way to disappear. “He doesn’t own the place, though — or much of anything else. No car, no stocks, nothing left in his bank account. I’m guessing he’s still paying off loans. Otherwise, he’s got nothing permanent.”

“Have you been to his place yet?”

“What do you think?” Janos shot back.

“So I take it he wasn’t there?”

Janos didn’t answer. He hated stupid questions. “Anything else you want to know?” he asked.

“Family and friends?”

“The boy’s smart.”

“That we know.”

“I don’t think you do. He’s been in Congress ten years. Know how ruthless that makes you? The boy’s a razor — he’s thought it through. Even though he’s well connected, the game alone keeps him from reaching out to coworkers… and after we tagged his buddy at the U.S. Attorney’s… I don’t think Harris gets fooled twice.”

“Bullshit. Everyone gets fooled twice. That’s why they keep reelecting their Presidents.”

Following the room numbers on the wall, Janos was again silent.

“You think I’m wrong?” Sauls asked.

“No,” Janos replied. “No one survives alone. There’s someone out there he trusts.”

“So you can find him?”

Stopping in front of room 427, Janos gripped the doorknob on the twelve-foot mahogany door and gave it a hard twist. “That’s my job,” he said as he clicked the End button on his phone and stuffed it into the pocket of his FBI windbreaker.

Inside, the office was exactly the same as last time he was here. Harris’s desk was untouched behind the glass divider, and Harris’s assistant still sat at the desk out front.

“Agent Graves,” Cheese called out as Janos stepped into Harris’s office. “What can I help you with today?”