The Throwaway

by Michael Moreci

  Carrie didn’t miss a beat—she knew where the line was, had tested it for the sake of testing it, and now she knew to pull back. “All right, we have a deal. Now what do you want to know?”

  “Just one simple thing: How the hell did this happen? You know as well as I do that I had this deal in the bag. How could Terrance undo all my work, and change so many minds, over the course of a night?”

  Carrie smiled—Mark knew by her expression that things were about to get juicy. “Terrance didn’t. You know him, Mark, so you know his power of persuasion—he couldn’t get laid in a women’s prison with a fistful of pardons.”

  “So how then?”

  Carrie leaned close for effect. It was all a little dramatic for Mark’s tastes, but he leaned in as well to keep things going. “How do you think?”

  Mark’s and Carrie’s eyes locked, and she raised her eyebrows leading him to the obviousness of it all. And as soon as Mark figured out the missing piece to the puzzle he’d been staring at all damn morning, he understood just how obvious it had been all along. He couldn’t believe he missed it.

  “Son of a bitch,” Mark said, dropping back in his chair. He couldn’t do anything but throw his hands up in frustration. “Terrance brought in daddy.”

  “Yuuuup.”

  “But who in our deal—”

  “Dudek. He and Terrance’s father have a history. Terrance went to daddy, daddy went to his senator pal, and your deal went up in smoke.”

  As Mark sat processing, his fist clenched so tight that his fingernails were about to pierce the skin of his palm, Carrie got up to leave. “I should get back. If I’m gone any longer—”

  “No, you should go. I’ll be in touch next week, and you’ll get exactly what we agreed on.”

  Carrie took a few steps away from Mark, then turned back. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry this happened. I’ve always respected you and … what Terrance did, what he does, it’s not okay.”

  “But nothing’s been signed, though, right?” Mark asked.

  “No, but—”

  “Then don’t be sorry,” Mark said. “This is far from over.”

  * * *

  With no paperwork signed, that meant General Hodges was still a free agent. While Mark already had a strategy for getting to Senator Dudek, reaching the general again without tipping Terrance off would be far more challenging. But without his commitment, Mark had nothing. Dudek had likely already brought Hodges to his side, and they were just waiting for deal documentation to make things official. Mark could bring Dudek back to his fold, but that didn’t mean Hodges would follow. He was considering options for convincing the general when The Post’s Health and Science section dropped on his table. The folded newsprint was soggy and landed with a splat, breaking Mark’s momentary reverie.

  “You see,” the voice behind him said. “This is what I’m reduced to when you play truant.”

  Alice dropped in the seat across from him, the one previously occupied by Carrie. “I waited until almost seven before giving up, and by the time I got home to steal the paper from my neighbor, it was already soaked.”

  Mark smiled, though it was a little forced. He was happy to have Alice surprise him, but her timing wasn’t ideal. Still, she was, after all, a friend? An acquaintance? Someone, regardless of the label, he didn’t dare tell Sarah about—the last thing she’d want to discover is the twenty-something med student Mark met at Starbucks after each of his runs. It was totally harmless, he knew that without question; he ran early and Alice got done with her shift at Georgetown around the same time. Their relationship was a house built on circumstance. Not that he’d even call what he had with Alice a relationship. There was nothing, as far as he was concerned, to discuss with Sarah, and he especially didn’t want to be probed on the matter with questions like “Is she attractive?” But Mark would never, baby coming or not, compromise his relationship with Sarah. He thought of this like it was an alternate universe; Alice didn’t exist in Mark’s real world, so why mention her?

  “You know,” Mark said, “you can always just buy a paper from somewhere like, say, the very place you’re in right now.”

  “I don’t need a newspaper, Mark. I need the Health and Science section, which is one-eighth of a newspaper. If the good people of Starbucks are willing to sell that to me for one-eighth of the price, I’d be happy to give them my money. Besides, I have you to give me the section every morning—except today, when I really, really needed it. Where were you?”

  “No rest for the wicked. I was at the office early—criminally early—so my run, and therefore my morning trip to Starbucks, were canceled.”

  “Ahhh,” Alice said. “This for that Earth-shattering contract thing you’re working on?”

  Mark paused, running through what he’d told her before. He ran a tight ship, personally and professionally, and that meant loose lips were a no-no. But for some reason, just once, he ran his mouth to Alice about the security deal and regretted it even as the words were tumbling out of his mouth. He blamed the doofus boy in him, the one that wanted to impress the good-looking girl for no reason other than to seem cool. It was a professional blunder, a mistake worse than one a rookie would make. Washington had eyes and ears everywhere, and there was no telling who people were really working for. Maybe Mark was being paranoid, but this wasn’t the first time Alice had asked about this particular contract; she’d nudged him on it before, always in casual ways that were intended to rib Mark for being a hotshot. But Mark knew that strategy all too well—establish a rapport, make the person comfortable, give a leading prompt, then sit back and let them do the talking.

  It was either that, Mark thought, or he’d been playing the game for way too long and, soon enough, he’d be seeing secret codes in the daily crossword.

  “Not so much,” Mark replied, trying to redirect the conversation. “The bosses have put that one on ice for now. What about you? Your residency has to be ending soon, right?”

  “Not soon enough. I think I’m going to go right from residency to retirement. That’s a reasonable goal, right?”

  As Alice spoke, Mark’s phone vibrated in his pocket. It was Jenna, which reminded him that today was no day for small talk.

  “Sure, sure,” Mark said, distracted by his racing train of thought. “I mean, provided you have a sizable trust waiting for you in a Swedish bank.”

  Alice looked up at him with a sly grin. “That project’s on ice, huh? Go on, get out of here, Mr. Big Time. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Mark smiled and let her remark go—he’d figure out if Alice was a plant some other time.

  * * *

  Mark couldn’t hear it as he exited the Starbucks, but electronic camera shutters were snapping furiously, taking dozens of photos of him. And anyone he was with. The cameras were held by two men in a plain car across the street. They had been watching Mark for months now, and they were especially interested in his regular trips to this exact Starbucks, at regular times, where he met with a woman who called herself Alice. But there was no Alice, not to these two men. Only Ania, a known Russian spy.

  They snapped another photo of Mark as he hurried off, and they wondered what sensitive information the two had passed between each other today.

  4

  10:52 A.M.

  The laces felt good in Mark’s hands and afforded him a sense of calm. He tossed the football in the air, a nice twirling spiral as it flew up and came back down, while he paced his office. He knew every inch of this ball—its grooves and texture; the spot where dirt was ground so deep into its rawhide that it would never come out, and Mark didn’t want it to. This was his one game ball, earned his senior year at Duke when he caught eight passes for 102 yards and one touchdown—a leaping grab that proved to be the game-winner—for a stunning upset victory over Ohio State.

  Mark wasn’t even supposed to be on the active roster, but a dozen players getting hit with academic suspensions for cheating on exams had forced him into a starting role. For o
ver three years, Mark rode the pine and was stuck on the practice roster, enduring the tedium of endlessly perfecting plays and the punishment of the defense’s frustrations, but never the glory of game day. But the practice squad was what kept his athletic scholarship going, and without that, he’d have been on the first train to state school.

  Mark was never bitter about his role. Despite having great hands, he was undersized—not tall enough to be a wideout, not bulky enough to be a tight end. But Mark fought. His intensity was second to no one on the team, even though he was, at best, preparing for a game he’d watch from the sidelines. Most of his teammates and coaches didn’t notice Mark’s tenacity, but Mark didn’t care. Football was a means to an end: getting his degree, going to law school, and being ready for whatever came after that. Mark understood his lot in life at that time—he wasn’t born to wealthy parents and his physique wasn’t elite. So he used what he had, and what he had was dogged determination. Relentlessness in getting what he wanted.

  The ball came down in Mark’s hands; he felt the dirt spot, which he liked to think was made when he hit the ground with the winning catch.

  He knew what he had to do.

  “Jenna,” Mark said, peeking his head out of his office door. “Call Chuck in Senator Dudek’s office, find out where he’s having lunch today. If he gives you any shit, tell him there’s a set of Nationals tickets in it for him. If he still doesn’t budge, remind him that I still know about Dudek’s charity event last year. I’d hate to see a charitable-giving scandal show up in The Post.”

  “You want me to threaten a sitting senator?”

  “No, no, no, not threaten. Remind. Memory is a great motivator. Just make the call and text me the directions.”

  Mark strode out of the office holding an unmarked manila envelope. He wasn’t enthusiastic about deploying its contents, but circumstances forced his hand. Not all victories were had by making a leaping end-zone grab in front of forty thousand fans. Most of life’s accomplishments were a modicum of glory and a buffet of agonizing sacrifice; it’s just that people rarely saw the latter. Mark knew that he’d be giving up a little part of himself by using the contents of the envelope, but he’d worry about the moral toll of doing what had to be done after his son or daughter graduated from college without a drop of student loan debt to his or her name. In the meantime, all that mattered was the win. All that mattered was taking steps forward. There was no stasis in Mark’s field, so if you weren’t moving ahead, you were going in the opposite direction. Mark refused to leave Senator Dudek’s lunch table with his feet sliding out beneath him.

  * * *

  The country club’s chandeliers sprinkled golden light onto the lobby floor, making it glow like the welcoming aura of the elysian fields. The spotless marble that led to the restaurant’s entrance shone with impeccable brilliance as the chandelier’s many prisms caught the sun’s rays and splintered them into mesmerizing pieces. It was, indeed, a veritable paradise that drew you in—but then changed its mind when you tried to enter, depending on who you were.

  The maître d’ sourly greeted Mark, delivering the absolute minimum acknowledgment as required by his position. He knew Mark wasn’t a member of the Fairbanks Country Club, a century-old social haven for D.C.’s moneyed elite and, apparently, he had only just enough kindness in him to service proper members. Not a drop more.

  Mark scanned the room, ignoring the snooty maître d’. Inside, the lunchtime crowd was filled with mega-lobbyists, congressmen, and members of families who’d been so rich for so long no one even remembered where the money had come from. Some Mark knew well, some only by reputation. There was no one in that room he’d call a friend. They were powerful beyond most anyone’s wildest dreams, and they were all just sitting at their tables, enjoying inexcusably expensive lunches while putting decisions and plans into motion that would affect countless lives. And it was all just business as usual.

  Mark spotted Dudek, to his relief, dining alone in the back corner. Other people at his table meant Mark would need to choose his words carefully and talk in code; alone, he could go after Dudek’s jugular, which is exactly what he planned on doing.

  “May I help you, sir?” the maître d’ asked after his terse greeting, infusing his words with the perfect amount of tacit condescension.

  “I’m good,” Mark said. “Just a little late for lunch with Senator Dudek.”

  The maître d’ took his eyes off Mark and acted like he was checking the club’s reservations. He was saying, “I don’t think the senator informed us of any guests,” when Mark scooted past his stand. He was in the thick of the restaurant by the time he heard, faintly, the maître d’ say something about what Mark couldn’t do.

  Archibald Dudek was an eight-time-elected GOP senator, hailing from Dallas, Texas. He was a rock in the Republican Party—adored by his constituents, admired by his peers, and loathed by the left. No real candidate had even run against him in the past election, knowing how fruitless an endeavor it would be. Dudek stuck to the GOP’s script and wasn’t one of the young radicals within the party—who Dudek kept a wary eye on—who did more to scare off swing votes than anything else. In Dudek’s mind, crazy was conditional. It might get you elected some times, in some places, but you couldn’t ride crazy to lasting success. And lasting success—and legacy—was all Dudek cared about.

  Mark first met Dudek when he was still just an intern, serving for Dale Dale, a Wisconsin senator who would become his lifelong mentor. Dale and Dudek were both on a subcommittee on assault rifle regulation, and Dudek made no secret about bought-and-paid-for loyalties. From their limited interactions, Mark knew that even though Dudek saw the value in regulating some assault rifles, his financial supporters felt otherwise. That gave Dudek reason to sit back and watch every regulation proposal die on the vine. Every day, Mark—along with Dale, who aggressively fought for Dudek’s vote—had to endure the senator’s public lip service to gun safety and protecting American lives even though he had no intention of pushing for a single gun-policy change. He played all sides beautifully.

  A decade later, Mark was confronting the man who had given him his first encounter with true political doublespeak, where you don’t even pretend to deliver on your promises. He wondered how much smoke-blowing he was willing to endure before he tossed the contents of the envelope on Dudek’s lap.

  Mark confidently leaned over Dudek’s table, hoping to catch him off guard. But it took more than popping up at lunch unannounced to get a jolt out of the old senator. Dudek didn’t skip a beat; he rose to greet Mark, smiling, and gestured for him to take a seat. It was too perfect—Dudek knew why he was there. And now he was trying to distract Mark, and diminish his anger, with kindness. It was his way to try to control the conversation.

  “Mark Strain, to what do I owe the pleasure” Dudek asked as he sat back down. “Care for a drink?”

  “No,” Mark said, sliding into the seat across from Dudek. “I’m just passing through. Thanks, though.”

  “My father used to tell me how important it was to enjoy a good drink. ‘That’s what men do,’” Dudek said, aping his father’s Texas twang as he looked around the room. His eyes seemed to stop on each of the women in the crowd, as if to point out their presence. “But this isn’t the boys club of his generation, not anymore. He wouldn’t allow someone to sit at his table without a drink. Things certainly have changed around here.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Mark said, his attention drawn to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto the glistening expanse of an impeccably green golf course. “My family wasn’t around a place like this in the old days. Or the new ones, for that matter.”

  Dudek took a pull of his drink, a whiskey of some kind as far as Mark could tell. “So,” he said, “you want to talk about who gets the contract to provide the Pentagon with its security software, correct? That’s the reason you’re hijacking my lunch.”

  “Well, it’s a little more complicated of a contract than tha
t, but that’s the gist. Specifically, I want to know what the hell is going on. Bidding has been underway for months, and no other party has come close to matching my client’s proposal to provide the best, most comprehensive protection against hackers and foreign agents compromising the defense mainframe of our country. Verge has done everything right in these proceedings, and they have an impeccable record for combatting this kind of warfare.”

  Dudek cut a chunk off the steak he was eating and, before he popped it in his mouth, said, “Son, I’ve heard the spiel. Verge is a strong American company, there’s no questioning that. So, what’s the problem?”

  Mark had to allow himself a pause before attacking Dudek’s cavalier reply. A heated confrontation would get him nowhere.

  “The problem is that now, even though Verge has the best offer on the table, Terrance Wilson and the Lockhorn Group seem to be closing in on this contract.”

  “Hmpf. You’ve got some good eyes and ears out there, son.”

  “Look, Senator, your committee will determine who this contract goes to, and you know Verge is the deserving bidder. I’ve worked my ass off for months to prove that, and I’m not going to lose this deal now, especially not like this.”

  “That’s your first mistake, Mark. This deal isn’t yours to lose—these things aren’t personal. Besides, we encourage open bidding and competition; that’s how our economy thrives. You ever think, maybe the company Terrance represents has the better offer? Terrance’s daddy and I go way back, and he assured me this company can deliver on the potential they’ve shown in their proposal.”

  “And you’re considering awarding a security contract based on a firm’s ‘potential’? You’re being serious with me right now?”