The Zero Game

by Brad Meltzer

  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.”

  83

  London

  HAVE A NICE EVENING, Mr. Sauls,” the driver said as he opened the back door of the black Jaguar and held an umbrella over his boss’s head.

  “You, too, Ethan,” Sauls replied, climbing out of the car and heading to the front door of the exclusive six-story apartment building on central London’s Park Lane. Inside, a doorman behind a burled-walnut welcoming desk waved hello and handed Sauls a short stack of mail. Getting on the elevator, Sauls spent the rest of the ride flipping through the usual assortment of bills and solicitations.

  By the time he stepped into his well-appointed apartment, he’d already picked through the junk mail, which he quickly tossed in a ceramic trashcan just beside the antique leather-top secretary where he threw his keys. Heading over to the hall closet, he hung his gray cashmere overcoat on a cherry-wood hanger. Passing through the living room, he flipped a switch, and recessed lights glowed to life above the built-in bookcases that lined the left side of the room.

  Eventually making his way to the kitchen and breakfast nook that overlooked Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, Sauls went straight for the shiny, black-paneled refrigerator, where he could see his own reflection in the door as he approached. Grabbing a glass from the counter, he pulled the fridge open and poured himself some cranberry juice. As the door slapped shut, he was once again staring at his own reflection in the refrigerator door—but this time, there was someone standing behind him.

  “Nice address,” Janos said.

  “Nnnnuh!” Sauls blurted, spinning around so fast he almost dropped his glass.

  “Don’t scare me like that!” Sauls shouted, clutching his chest and setting the glass on the counter. “God . . . I thought you were dead!”

  “Why would you think that?” Janos asked as he stepped in closer, one hand stuffed into the pocket of his blac
k overcoat, the other clenching the brushed-metal tip of an aluminum cane. He lifted his chin a bit, highlighting the cuts and bruises along his face—especially where the bones were crushed in his cheek. His left eye was cherry bloodshot, a fresh scar was stitched across his chin, and his left femur was shattered into so many pieces, they had to insert a titanium rod into his leg to stabilize the bones and keep the muscles and ligaments from being a flaccid sack of blood and tissue. Three inches down, the only things holding his knee together were the Erector Set pins that ran through his skin and straight into the fragments of bone. The fall was worse than he’d ever let on.

  “I’ve been trying to contact you—there’s been no answer for a week,” Sauls said, stepping backwards. “Do you even know what’s going on? The FBI seized it all . . . They took every last thing from the mine.”

  “I know. I read the papers,” Janos said, limping forward. “By the way, since when’d you get a private driver?”

  “What’re you—? You followed me?” Sauls asked, backing up even further.

  “Don’t be paranoid, Sauls. Some things you can spot from your bedroom window—like my car that’s parked in front. Did you see it out there? The iris blue MGB . . .”

  “What do you want, Janos?”

  “. . . model year 1965—first year they changed to the push-button door handles. Hard to shift with the nails in my leg, but really a beautiful car . . .”

  “If it’s money, we paid you just like we said . . .”

  “. . . unlike that old Spitfire I used to have, this baby’s reliable . . . dependable . . .”

  “You did get the money, didn’t you?”

  “. . . some might even say trustworthy.”

  Backed up against the kitchen counter, Sauls stopped.

  One hand still in his pocket, Janos fixed his eyes on his partner. “You lied to me, Marcus.”

  “I-I didn’t! I swear!” Sauls insisted.

  “That’s another lie.”

  “You don’t understand . . .”

  “Answer the question,” Janos warned. “Was it Yemen, or not?”

  “It’s not how you think . . . When we started—”

  “When we started, you told me Wendell was a private company with no government ties.”

  “Please, Janos—you knew what we were doing down there . . . We never hid—”

  “A private company with no ties, Marcus!”

  “It’s the same result either way!”

  “No, it’s not! One’s speculation; the other’s suicide! You have any idea how long they’ll hunt us for this? Now who signed the damned check—was it Yemen or not?”

  “Janos . . .”

  “Was it Yemen or not?”

  “Just please calm down and—”

  Janos pulled out a gun from his pocket and shoved it against Sauls’s forehead. He pressed it forward, digging the barrel against his skin. “Was. It. Yemen. Or. Not?”

  “P-Please, don’t . . .” Sauls begged, the tears already welling up in his eyes.

  Janos pulled back the hammer on the gun and put his finger on the trigger. He was done asking questions.

  “Yemen!” Sauls stuttered, his face scrunched up as he shut his eyes. “It was Yemen . . . Please don’t kill me . . . !”

  Without a word, Janos lowered the gun, sliding it back in his pocket.

  As the gun left his forehead, Sauls opened his eyes. “I’m sorry, Janos . . . I’m so sorry . . .” he continued to beg.

  “Catch your breath,” Janos demanded, handing Sauls the glass of cranberry juice.

  Sauls desperately downed the drink, but it didn’t bring the calm he was searching for. His hands were trembling as he lowered the glass, which clinked against the counter.

  Shaking his head, Janos pivoted on his good leg and turned to leave. “Good-bye, Sauls,” he said as he made his way out of the kitchen.

  “S-So you’re not gonna kill me?” Sauls asked, forcing a petrified smile.

  Janos turned and held him with a midnight stare. “Who said that?”

  A long, pregnant pause passed between the two men. Then Sauls started to cough. Slightly at first. Then harder. Within seconds, his throat exploded with a wet, hacking wheeze. It was like a backfire from an old car. Sauls grasped at his neck. It felt like his windpipe had collapsed.

  Janos stared at the empty glass of cranberry juice and didn’t say a thing.

  Between coughs, Sauls could barely get the words out. “You little motherf—”

  Again, Janos just stood there. At this point, a black-box-induced heart attack was too much of a calling card. A temporarily swollen windpipe, however, was just another choking accident in the kitchen.

  Clawing at his own throat, then clutching at the counter to stand up, Sauls fell to his knees. The juice glass shattered across the black and white floor. Janos left before the convulsions started.

  It was time for a vacation anyway.

  Epilogue

  STARING THROUGH THE glass partition at D.C.’s Central Detention Facility, I can’t help but listen to the one-way conversations around me. Rosemary’s doing fine . . . Don’t worry, he’s not gonna use your car . . . Soon, they said soon, sweetie . . . Unlike the movies, the visitors’ hall here doesn’t have walled-off partitions on my right and left for extra privacy. This is D.C. Jail on a D.C. budget—no perks allowed. The result is a chorus of chattering voices, each one attempting to keep it low, but pitched loud enough so they can hear themselves over all the noise. Add the unnatural hum of the prisoners’ voices as they seep through the glass, and we’ve got all the makings of a giant, enclosed phone booth. The only good news is, the people in the orange jumpsuits are on the other side of the glass.

  “Here he comes,” the guard by the door calls out to me.

  As he says the words, every visitor in the room, from the black woman with blond hair to the well-dressed man holding the Bible in his lap, imperceptibly turns their head to the left. This is still Washington, D.C. They all want to know if it’s someone worth looking at. To me, it is.

  With both his arms and legs in shackles, Barry shuffles forward, his cane replaced by the guard who holds his biceps and guides him toward the orange plastic seat across from me.

  “Who?” Barry asks as I read his lips.

  His guard mouths my name.

  The moment Barry hears it, he pauses, then quickly covers it up with a perfect grin. It’s a classic lobbying trick—pretend you’re happy to see everyone. Even when you can’t see.

  The guard lowers Barry into the seat and hands him the receiver that’s hanging on the glass. Around his wrist, there’s a nametag that looks like a hospital bracelet. There’re no shoelaces in his sneakers. Barry doesn’t seem to be bothered by any of it. Crossing one leg over the other, he tugs on the pant leg of his orange jumpsuit like it’s his regular two-thousand-dollar suit.

  “Pick up,” the guard yells through the glass, motioning for me to grab the receiver.

  An ocean of acid churns through my stomach as I lift the chipped receiver to my ear. I’ve been waiting two weeks for this call, but it doesn’t mean I’m looking forward to it.

  “Hey,” I whisper into the mouthpiece.

  “Man, you sound like crap,” Barry sings back, already trying to act like he’s inside my brain. He tilts his head as if he can see my every expression. “Really, though—like someone kicked you in the face.”

  “Someone did,” I say, staring straight at him.

  “Is that all you’re here for?” he asks. “One last potshot?”

  I continue to stay silent.

  “I don’t even know how you can complain,” he adds. “You seen a newspaper recently? The way the press is reading it, you’re coming through just fine.”

  “That’ll change when the gambling part gets released.”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no. Sure, you won’t get another government job—and you’ll probably be a pariah for a few years, but that’ll pass.”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no,” I vol
ley back, trying to keep him engaged. Anything to keep him talking.

  “What about Senator Stevens?” Barry asks. “He feeling the regret yet for giving you the boot?”

  “He didn’t have a choice.”

  “Spoken like a true staffer,” Barry says.

  “You telling me I’m wrong?”

  “You’re definitely wrong. He knew you’d make a deal with the government—that’s all the cover he needed. Instead, you spend over a decade slaving away for the man, and he drop-kicks you when you need him most? Know how bad that looks for him? Mark it right now—that’s gonna cost him reelection.”

  “He’ll be fine.”

  “As I said, spoken like a true staffer.”

  “Ex-staffer,” I shoot back.

  “Don’t bitch to me,” Barry says. “I mean, look at it this way . . . at least you have your shoelaces.” He twirls the ankle that’s up on his knee. He’s trying to play it cool, but back by his waist, he’s picking at his wristband.

  “By the way, did you see the piece in today’s Post?” he adds. He smiles wider, but he’s scratching even harder at the wristband. There’s only so long he can wear the brave face. “They actually called me a terrorist.”

  I once again stay quiet. He’s definitely taking the public fall. Even though Lowell’s office was able to find Sauls’s name and trace it back to Wendell, it took weeks to prove what really went on. Today, with Sauls dead and Janos missing, they need a neck for the noose—and right now, Barry’s it.

  “I heard you hired Richie Rubin. He’s a good lawyer,” I point out.

  He smells the small talk a mile away—he used to be in the business of it. Now he’s annoyed. The smile disappears fast.

  “What do you want, Harris?”

  There we go . . . a full two minutes to get back to reality. The man’s no dummy. He knows how I feel—I wouldn’t piss down his throat if his lungs were on fire. If I’m sitting here, I need something.

  “Let me guess,” Barry says. “You’re dying to know why I did it . . .”

  “I know why you did it,” I shoot back. “When you have no loyalty, and you’re so damn paranoid, you think the world’s against you—”