Zero Game - Brad Meltzer [154]
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