Gideon's Sword (55 page)

The woman smiled at the joke, and Viv breathed a sigh of relief. She was finally in.

“All we keep is the current stuff,” the woman said, motioning to the sign-out sheet. “Everything else goes in the trash.”

“So you don’t have anything before…”

“Today. That’s it. I trash it every night. To be honest, it’s only there to keep track of you guys. If one of you disappears—well, you know what happens when you let seventeen-year-olds run around with a room-full of Congressmen…” Tilting her head back, the woman snorted loudly through her nose.

Viv was dead silent.

“Relax, honey—just some page humor.”

“Yeah,” Viv said, forcing a strained grin. “Listen, uh… can I make some copies of these? At least that way we show him something.”

“Help yourself,” the woman with the frizzy hair said. “Whatever makes your life easy…”

20

S
TUCK IN THE STORAGE
room and waiting for Viv, I hold the receiver to my ear as I dial the number.

“Congressman Grayson’s office,” a young man with a flat South Dakota accent eventually answers. Gotta give Grayson points for that. Whenever a constituent calls, the receptionist is the first voice they hear. For that reason alone, smart Congressmen make sure their front office people always have the right accent.

Looking past the stack of chairs in the storage room, I grip the receiver and give the receptionist just enough of a pause to make him think I’m busy. “Hi, I’m looking for your Appropriations person,” I finally say. “Somehow, I think I misplaced his info.”

“And who should I say is calling?”

I’m tempted to use Matthew’s name, but the news probably already traveled. Still, I stick to the fear factor. “I’m calling from Interior Approps. I need to—”

Cutting me off, he puts me on hold. A few seconds later, he’s back.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “His assistant says he just stepped out for a moment.”

It’s an obvious lie. At this level, House staffers don’t have assistants. Regardless, I shouldn’t be surprised. If I’m calling through the main line, it’s not a call worth taking.

“Tell him I’m from the Chairman’s office and that this is about Congressman Grayson’s request…”

Again I’m on hold. Again he’s back in seconds. “Hold on one moment, sir. I’m transferring you to Perry…”

First rule of politics: Everyone’s afraid.

“This is Perry,” a scratchy but gruff voice answers.

“Hey, Perry, I’m calling from Interior Approps—filling in on Matthew’s issues after what—”

“Yeah, no… I heard. Really sorry about that. Matthew was a sweetheart.”

He says the word
was
, and I close my eyes. It still hits like a sock full of quarters.

“So what can I do for you?” Perry asks.

I think back to the original bet. Whatever Matthew saw that day… the reason he and Pasternak were killed… it started with this. A gold mine sale in South Dakota that needed to be slipped into the bill. Grayson’s office made the initial request. I don’t have much information beyond that. This guy can give me more. “Actually, we’re just reexamining all the different requests,” I explain. “When Matthew—with Matthew gone, we want to make sure we know everyone’s priorities.”

“Of course, of course… happy to help.” He’s a staffer for a low-level Member and thinks I can throw him a few projects. Right there, the gruffness in his voice evaporates.

“Okay,” I begin, staring down at my blank sheet of paper. “I’m looking at your original request list, and obviously, I know you’re not shocked to hear you can’t have everything on it…”

“Of course, of course…” he says for the second time, chuckling. I can practically hear him slapping his knee. I don’t know how Matthew dealt with it.

“So which projects are your must-gets?” I ask.

“The sewer system,” he shoots back, barely taking a breath. “If you can do that… if we improve drainage… that’s the one that wins us the district.”

He’s smarter than I thought. He knows how low his Congressman is on the ladder. If he asks for every toy on the Christmas list, he’ll be lucky if he gets a single one. Better just to focus on the Barbie Dream House.

“Those sewers… It really will change the election,” he adds, already pleading.

“So everything else on this list…”

“Is all second-tier.”

“What about this gold mine thing?” I ask, teeing up my bluff. “I thought Grayson was really hot for it.”

“Hot for it? He’s never even heard of it. We threw that out for a donor as a pure try-our-best.”

When Matthew told me about the bet, he said exactly the same: Grayson’s office supposedly didn’t care about the mine—which means this guy Perry is either genuinely agreeing or is single-handedly setting the new world record for bullshit.

“Weird…” I say, still trying to dig. “I thought Matthew got some calls on it.”

“If he did, it’s only because Wendell Mining lobbied up.”

I write the words
Wendell Mining
on the sheet of paper. When it comes to the game, I’ve always thought the various votes and different asks were inconsequential—but not if they tell me who else was playing.

“What about the rest of your delegation?” I ask, referring
to the South Dakota Senators. “Anyone gonna scream if we kill the mining request?”

He thinks I’m covering my ass before I cut the gold mine loose, but what I really want to know is, who else in Congress has any interest in the project?

“No one,” he says.

“Anyone against it?”

“It’s a dumpy gold mine in a town that’s so small, it doesn’t even have a stoplight. To be honest, I don’t think anyone even knows about it but us.” He tosses me another knee-slapping laugh that curdles in my ear. Three nights ago, someone bid $1,000 for the right to put this gold mine in the bill. Someone else bid five grand. That means there’re at least two people out there who were watching what was going on. But right now, I can’t find a single one of them.

“So how we looking on our sewer system?” Perry asks on the other line.

“I’ll do my best,” I tell him, looking down at my nearly blank sheet of paper. The words
Wendell Mining
float weightlessly toward the top. But as I grab the paper and reread it for the sixth time, I slowly feel the chessboard expand. Of course. I didn’t even think about it…

“You still there?” Perry asks.

“Actually, I gotta run,” I say, already feeling the sharp bite of adrenaline. “I just remembered a call I have to make.”

21

H
I,
I’
M HERE FOR
a pickup,” Viv announced as she stepped into room 2406 of the Rayburn Building, home office of Matthew’s former boss, Congressman Nelson Cordell from Arizona.

“Excuse me?” the young man behind the front desk asked with a Native American accent. He wore a denim shirt with a bolo tie that had a silver clasp with the Arizona state seal on it. Viv hadn’t seen it in the offices of the other Arizona Members. Good for Cordell, Viv thought. It was nice to see someone remembering where they were from.

“We got a call for a package pickup,” Viv explained. “This is 2406, right?”

“Yeah,” the young receptionist said, searching his desk for outgoing mail. “But I didn’t call for a page.”

“Well, someone did,” Viv said. “There was a package for the Floor.”

The young man stood up straight, and his bolo tie bounced against his chest. Everyone’s terrified of the boss—just like Harris said.

“You have a phone I can use?” Viv asked.

He pointed to the handset on the wrought-iron southwestern-style end table. “I’ll check in back and see if anyone else called it in.”

“Great… thanks,” Viv said as the young man disappeared through a door on the right. The instant he was gone, she picked up the phone and dialed the five-digit extension Harris had given her.

“This is Dinah,” a female voice answered. As Matthew’s office mate and head clerk for the House Appropriations Interior subcommittee, Dinah had incredible access and a staggering amount of power. More important, she had caller ID, which was why Harris said the call had to be made from here. Right now, the words
Hon. Cordell
appeared on Dinah’s digital phone screen.

“Hey, Dinah,” Viv began, careful to keep her voice low and smooth, “this is Sandy over in the personal office. I’m sorry to bother you, but the Congressman wanted to take a look at some of Matthew’s project books, just to make sure he’s up to speed for Conference…”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Dinah blurted.

“Pardon?”

“It’s just… the information in there… It’s not smart to let that wander outside the office.”

Harris had warned her this might happen. That was why he gave her the ultimate comeback.

“The Congressman wants them,” Viv insisted.

There was a short pause on the other line. “I’ll get them ready,” Dinah eventually said.

Over Viv’s shoulder, the door on her right opened, and the young receptionist reentered the room.

“Great,” Viv stuttered. “I-I’ll send someone down to pick ’em up.”

Hanging up the phone, Viv turned back to the main
reception desk. “Oops on me—wrong room,” Viv said to the receptionist as she headed for the door.

“Don’t worry,” he replied. “No harm done.”

Refusing to wait for the elevator, Viv ran down the four flights of stairs, eventually jumping down the last two steps and landing with a smack against the polished floor in the basement of the Rayburn Building. On average, a Senate page walked seven miles of hallway each day, picking up and delivering packages. On a typical day, those seven miles could take them from the hearing room where Nixon was impeached during Watergate, past the old Supreme Court chamber, where the Court first decided the
Dred Scott
case, to the west front of the Capitol, where every new President takes the oath of office, to the center of the enormous rotunda—underneath the vaulted majesty of the Capitol dome—where the bodies of both Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy once lay in state. Viv saw it every single day. But she hadn’t been this excited since her first day on the job.

Still unsure if it was thrill or fear, she didn’t let it slow her down. As her heart jabbed against her chest and she whipped around the corner of the ghostly white hallway, Viv Parker was done shuffling mail and finally doing what the page program had originally promised—making an actual difference in someone’s life.

Sliding to a stop in front of room B-308, she felt more than just her momentum come to a halt. This was still Matthew’s office—and if she wasn’t careful, she’d never be able to pull it off. As she reached out to grab the doorknob, she checked the hall, just as Harris had instructed. On her left, the door to a utility closet peeked open, but
as far as she could tell, no one was inside. On her right, the hallway was empty.

Holding her breath, she twisted the brass knob, surprised by how cold it was. As she shoved her weight against the door, the first thing she heard was the ringing phone—on her left, past the Sioux quilt. Again, just like Harris said.

Following the ring, beyond the overflowing In and Out boxes on the edge of the desk, Viv turned the corner and was hit with a sudden sense of relief when she realized that the receptionist was black. Without a word, Roxanne glanced up at Viv, studied her ID, and gave her a slight, unmistakable nod. Viv had been on the receiving end of that one at least a dozen times before. From the cafeteria ladies… from one of the elevator operators… even from Congresswoman Peters.

“Whatcha need, doll?” Roxanne asked with a warm smile.

“Just here to pick up some briefing books.” When Harris first told Viv about this, she was worried that someone would wonder why a Senate page was making a pickup in the House. Roxanne didn’t even take a second glance. Forget what it says on the nametag—even to receptionists, a page is a page.

“Is Dinah…?”

“Right through the door,” Roxanne said, pointing Viv toward the back.

Viv headed for the door, and Roxanne turned back to the current vote on C-SPAN. Viv couldn’t help but grin. On Capitol Hill, even the support staff were political junkies.