The Zero Game

by Brad Meltzer

  “But for all we know it could be good, though, right? It might be good.”

  I finally look away from the window. “I don’t think it’s gonna be good.”

  She doesn’t like that answer. “How can you be so sure?”

  “You really think it’s something good?”

  “I don’t know . . . maybe it’s just research—like a government lab or something. Or maybe they’re just trying to turn stuff into gold. That can’t hurt anyone, can it?”

  “Turn stuff into gold?”

  “The project is called Midas.”

  “You really think it’s possible to turn things to gold?”

  “You’re asking me? How should I know? Anything’s possible, right?”

  I don’t respond. In the past two days, she’s relearned the answer to that one. But the way she bounces on her heels, she still hasn’t completely given up on it. “Maybe it’s something else with the Midas story,” she adds. “I mean, he turned his daughter into a statue, right? He do anything else beside giving her the ultimate set of gold teeth?”

  “Forget mythology—we should talk to someone who knows their science,” I point out. “Or who can at least tell us why people would bury a neutrino lab in a giant hole below the earth.”

  “There we go—now we’re moving . . .”

  “We can call the National Science Foundation. They helped us with some of the high-tech issues when we did hearings on the cloning bill last year.”

  “Yeah—good. Perfect. Call ’em now.”

  “I will,” I say as I pick up the phone on the octagonal table. “But not until I make one other call first.”

  As the phone rings in my ear, I look back out the window for Janos’s car. We’re still alone.

  “Legislative Resource Center,” a woman answers.

  “Hi, I’m looking for Gary.”

  “Which one? We’ve got two Garys.”

  Only in Congress.

  “I’m not sure.” I try to remember his last name, but even I’m not that good. “The one who keeps track of all the lobbying disclosure forms.”

  Viv nods. She’s been waiting for this. If we plan on figuring out what’s going on with Wendell, we should at least find out who was lobbying for them. When I spoke to Gary last week, he said to check back in a few days. I’m not sure if we even have a few hours.

  “Gary Naftalis,” a man’s voice answers.

  “Hey, Gary, this is Harris from Senator Stevens’s office. You said to give you a call about the lobbying forms for—”

  “Wendell Mining,” he interrupts. “I remember. You were the one in the big rush. Let me take a look.”

  He puts me on hold, and my eyes float over to the saltwater aquarium. There are a few tiny black fish and one big purple and orange one.

  “I’ll give you one guess which ones we are,” Viv says.

  Before I can reply, the door to the conference room flies open. Viv and I spin toward the sound. I almost swallow my tongue.

  “Sorry . . . didn’t mean to scare you,” a man wearing a white shirt and a pilot’s hat says. “Just wanted to let you know we’re ready whenever you are.”

  I once again start to breathe. Just our pilot.

  “We’ll only be a sec,” Viv says.

  “Take your time,” the pilot replies.

  It’s a nice gesture, but time’s the one thing we’re running out of. I again glance out the window. We’ve already been here too long. But just as I’m about to hang up, I hear a familiar monotone voice. “Today’s your birthday,” Gary says through the receiver.

  “You found it?”

  Viv stops and turns my way.

  “Right here,” Gary says. “Must’ve just got scanned in.”

  “What’s it say?”

  “Wendell Mining Corporation . . .”

  “What’s the name of the lobbyist?” I interrupt.

  “I’m checking,” he offers. “Okay . . . according to the records we have here, starting in February of this past year, Wendell Mining has been working with a firm called Pasternak and Associates.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “And based on what it says here, the lobbyist on record—man, his name’s everywhere these days . . .” My stomach burns as the words burn through the telephone. “Ever hear of a guy named Barry Holcomb?”

  57

  EVERYBODY SMILE,” Congressman Cordell said as he stretched his own practiced grin into place and put his arms around the eighth-graders who flanked him on both sides of his desk. It took Cordell the first six months of his career to get the perfect smile down, and anyone who said it wasn’t an art form clearly knew nothing about making an impression when cameras were clicking. Smile too wide and you’re a goon; too thin and you’re cocky. Sure, going no-teeth was perfect for policy discussions and sophisticated amusement, but if that’s all you had, you’d never win the carpool moms. For that, you needed to show enamel. In the end, it was always a range: more enthusiastic than a smirk, but if you flashed all the Chiclets, you went too far. As his first chief of staff once told him, no President was ever a toothy grinner.

  “On three, say, ‘President Cordell’ . . .” the Congressman joked.

  “President Cordell . . .” all thirty-five eighth-graders laughed. As the flashbulb popped, every student in the room raised his chest just a tiny bit. But no one raised his higher than Cordell himself. Another perfect grin.

  “Thank you so much for doing this—it means more than you know,” Ms. Spicer said, shaking the Congressman’s hand with both of her own. Like any other eighth-grade social studies teacher in America, she knew this was the highlight of her entire school year—a private meeting with a Congressman. What better way to make the government come alive?

  “They got a place we can get T-shirts?” one of the students called out as they made their way to the door.

  “You’re leaving so soon?” Cordell asked. “You should stay longer . . .”

  “We don’t want to be a bother,” Ms. Spicer said.

  “A bother? Who do you think I’m working for?” Cordell teased. Turning to Dinah, who was just making her way into the office, he asked, “Can we push our meeting back?”

  Dinah shook her head, knowing full well that Cordell didn’t mean it. Or at least, she didn’t think he meant it. “Sorry, Congressman . . .” she began. “We have to—”

  “You’ve already been incredible,” Ms. Spicer interrupted. “Thank you again. For everything. The kids . . . It’s just been amazing,” she added, locked on Cordell.

  “If you need tickets to the House Gallery, ask my assistant out front. She’ll get you right in,” Cordell added, doing the math in his head. According to a study he read about the pass-along rate of information and gossip, if you impress one person, you impress forty-five people—which meant he had just impressed 1,620 people. With a single three-minute photo op.

  Giving the top-teeth-but-no-gum-line grin, Cordell waved as the group filed out of his office. Even when the door slammed shut, the smile lingered. At this point, it was pure instinct.

  “So how do we look?” Cordell asked Dinah as he collapsed in his seat.

  “Actually, not too bad,” Dinah replied, standing in front of his desk and noticing his use of the word we. He trotted that out whenever the issue at hand was potentially ugly. If it were pretty—like a school photo op—it was always I.

  “Just tell me what they’re gonna bust our nuts on,” he added.

  “I’m telling you, not much,” Dinah began, handing him the final memo for the Conference on the Interior Appropriations bill. Now that pre-Conference and the hagglings with Trish were over, the Final Four—a Senator and a House Member from each party—would spend the next two days hammering out the last loose ends so the bill could go to the Floor, thereby funding all the earmarks and pork projects tucked within.

  “We’ve got about a dozen Member issues, but everything else played out pretty much as usual,” Dinah explained.

  “So all our stuff’s
in there?” Cordell asked.

  Dinah nodded, knowing that he always covered his projects first. Typical Cardinal.

  “And we got the things for Watkins and Lorenson?”

  Again, Dinah nodded. As Members of Congress, Watkins and Lorenson weren’t just the recipients of brand-new visitor centers for their districts, they were also the Cardinals of, respectively, the Transportation and the Energy and Water subcommittees. By funding their requests in the Interior bill, Cordell was guaranteed to get eight million dollars in highway funds for a Hoover Dam bypass, and a two-million-dollar earmark for ethanol research at Arizona State University, which just happened to be in his district.

  “The only speed bump will be the White House structural improvements,” Dinah explained. “Apelbaum zeroed them out, which truthfully doesn’t matter—but if the White House gets pissed . . .”

  “. . . they’ll shine the spotlight on all our projects as well. I’ll take care of it.” Looking down at the memo, Cordell asked, “How much did you offer him?”

  “Three and a half million. Apelbaum’s staff says he’ll take it—he just wants a big enough fuss to get his name in USA Today.”

  “Any others?”

  “Nothing big. You should probably give in on O’Donnell’s Oklahoma stuff—we gutted most of his other requests, so it’ll make him feel like he got something. By the way, we also got that South Dakota land transfer—the old gold mine—I think it was the last thing Matthew grabbed from the goody bag.”

  Cordell gave a silent nod, telling Dinah he had no idea what she was talking about. But by bringing the gold mine up here—and pairing it with Matthew’s name—she knew that Cordell would never give it away during Conference.

  “Meanwhile,” Cordell began, “about Matthew . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “His parents asked me to speak at his funeral.”

  Dinah paused, but that was all her boss would say. As usual, though, she knew what he meant. Staff always did.

  “I’ll write up a eulogy, sir.”

  “Great. That’d be great. As office mates, I thought you’d want to take the first draft.” Turning back to the memo, he added, “Now, about this thing Kutz wants for the Iditarod Trail . . .”

  “I marked it up how you like it,” Dinah said as she readjusted her fanny pack and headed for the door. “If it’s got a K next to it, it means keep it; if it’s got a G, it means we can give it away. Truthfully, though, it’s been a pretty easy year.”

  “So we got what we wanted?”

  Just as she was about to leave the office, Dinah turned around and smiled. All teeth. “We got everything and more, sir.”

  Cutting back through the welcome area of her boss’s personal office, Dinah said a quick hello to the young receptionist in the denim shirt and bolo tie, then grabbed the last cherry Starburst from the candy bowl on his desk.

  “Bastard eighth-graders cleaned me out,” the receptionist explained.

  “You should see what happens when the AARP people come visit . . .” Never slowing down, she zigzagged through reception, bounding out through the front door and into the hallway. But as she glanced right and left up the white marble hall, she didn’t see the person she was looking for—not until he stepped out from behind the tall Arizona state flag that stood outside Cordell’s office.

  “Dinah?” Barry called out, putting his hand on her shoulder.

  “Whah—” she said, spinning around. “Don’t scare me like that!”

  “Sorry,” he offered as he held her elbow and followed her up the hallway. “So we done?”

  “All done.”

  “Really done?”

  “Trust me—we just solved the puzzle without even buying a vowel.”

  Neither of them said another word until they turned the corner and stepped into an empty elevator.

  “Thanks again for helping me out with this,” Barry began.

  “If it’s important to you . . .”

  “It was actually important to Matthew. That’s the only reason I’m involved.”

  “Either way—if it’s important to you, it’s important to me,” Dinah insisted as the elevator doors slid shut.

  With a single sweep of his cane, Barry looked around, listening. “We’re alone, aren’t we?”

  “That we are,” she said, stepping closer.

  Barry once again reached out for her shoulder, this time lightly brushing his fingers against the edge of her bra strap. “Then let me say a proper thank-you,” he added as the elevator bucked slightly, descending toward the basement. Sliding his hand up the back of her neck and through her short blond hair, he leaned forward and gave her a long, deep kiss.

  58

  FINAL BOARDING CALL for Northwest Airlines flight 1168 to Minneapolis-St. Paul,” a female voice announced through the Rapid City airport terminal. “All ticketed passengers should now be on board.”

  Shutting the switch for the PA system, the gate attendant turned to Janos, checking his boarding pass and driver’s license. Robert Franklin. “You have a good day now, Mr. Franklin.”

  Janos looked up, but only because his cell phone started vibrating in his jacket pocket. As he pulled the phone out, the gate attendant smiled and said, “Hope it’s a quick call—we’re about to push back . . .”

  Shooting the attendant a dark glare, he headed up the jetway. As he turned his attention to the phone, he didn’t need to check caller ID to know who it was.

  “Do you have any conception how much money your sloppiness just cost me?” Sauls asked through the phone. His voice was as calm as Janos had ever heard it, which meant it was even worse than Janos thought.

  “Not now,” Janos warned.

  “He threw our technician into the sphere. Sixty-four photomultiplier tubes completely shattered. You know how much each of those costs? The components alone came from England, France, and Japan—then had to be assembled, tested, shipped, and reassembled under clean-room conditions. Now we have to redo it sixty-four damn times.”

  “You done yet?”

  “I don’t think you heard me. You blew it, Janos.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  Sauls went silent. “That’s the third time you’ve said that,” he finally growled. “But let me promise you right now, Janos—if you don’t take care of it soon, we’ll be hiring someone to take care of you.”

  With a soft click, the phone went dead.

  “Nice to see you tonight,” a flight attendant said as Janos boarded the plane.

  Ignoring the attendant, he went straight for his seat in first class and stared out the oval window at the concrete runway. Sauls was still right about one thing: He had been getting sloppy lately. From getting stranded on the first flight, to the second elevator—he should’ve seen those coming. It was the most basic rule of tracking: cover every exit. Sure, he’d underestimated Harris—even with Viv slowing him down, and despite the panic that had to be swirling through his brain, he still somehow managed to plot a few moves ahead. No doubt, all those years in the Senate served him well. But as Janos knew, this was far more serious than politics. Leaning back against the headrest and losing himself in the roar of the jet engines, Janos closed his eyes and took another mental look at the pieces on the board. Time to get back to basics. No question, Harris was playing great chess—but even the best grandmasters know there’s no such thing as a perfect game.

  59

  DADDY’S GOING TO work now,” Lowell Nash called out to his four-year-old daughter early the following morning.

  Staring at the TV, she didn’t respond.

  As Deputy Attorney General, Lowell wasn’t used to being ignored, but when it came to family . . . family was a whole different story. He couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Say good-bye to Daddy,” Lowell’s wife added from the living room of their Bethesda, Maryland, home.

  Never taking her eyes off the videotaped glow of Sesame Street, Cassie Nash sucked the tip of one of her braided pigtails and waved her han
d through the air at her dad. “Bye, Elmo . . .”

  Lowell smiled and waved good-bye to his wife. At formal events, his colleagues at the Justice Department called him Deputy General Nash—he worked twenty-five years to earn that title—but ever since his daughter learned that the voice of Elmo was done by a tall black man who resembled her dad (Elmo’s best friend, according to Cassie), Lowell’s name was changed. Elmo beat Deputy General any day.

  Leaving his house at a few minutes past seven A.M., Lowell locked the door behind himself, then twisted the doorknob and checked it three times. Directly above, the sky was gray, the sun tucked behind the clouds. No question, rain would be here soon. By the time he reached the driveway on the side of the old stucco colonial, his smile was gone—but the ritual was still the same. As he’d done every day for the past week, he checked every bush, tree, and shrub in sight. He checked the cars that were parked on the street. And most important, as he pushed a button and unlocked the doors on his silver Audi, he checked his own front seat as well. The lightning-shaped fracture was still fresh in the side window, but Janos was gone. For now.

  Starting the car and pulling out onto Underwood Street, Lowell scanned the rest of the block, including the rooftop of every nearby house. Since the day he graduated from Columbia Law School, he had always been careful with his professional life. He paid his cleaning woman over the table, told his accountant not to be greedy on his taxes, and in a town of freebies, reported every gift he ever got from a lobbyist. No drugs . . . no outrageous drinking . . . nothing stupid at any of the social events he’d attended over the years. Too bad the same couldn’t be said of his wife. It was just one dumb night—even for the college kid she was back then. A few too many drinks . . . a cab would take too long . . . If she got behind the wheel, she’d be home in minutes instead of an hour.

  By the time she was done, a boy was paralyzed. The car hit him so hard, it shattered his pelvis. Through some quick thinking and expensive legal maneuvers, the lawyers expunged her record. But somehow, Janos found it. THE NEXT COLIN POWELL? the Legal Times headline read. Not if this gets out, Janos warned the first night he showed up.