I nod, barely paying attention. I’m too busy staring over his shoulder at the source of the fire. Up the hallway… through the thick oak door… I knew it… I knew it the moment the alarm went off. A tiny burst of flame belches through the air, licking the ceiling tiles in Pasternak’s office. His desk… the leather chair… the presidential photos on the wall — they’re all on fire. I don’t stop. If the file cabinet’s fireproof, I can still…
“Sir, I need you to exit the building,” the guard insists.
“I need to get in there!” I call out, trying to rush past him.
“Sir, are you listening to me?!”
“Th-The files…”
“You can’t go in there, sir. Can’t you see what’s happening?”
There’s a loud crash. Up the hallway, the oak door to Pasternak’s office collapses off its hinges, revealing the file cabinets that run along the wall just behind it. There are three tall cabinets side by side. From the looks of it, all of them are fireproof. The problem is, all of them have their drawers pulled wide open.
The papers inside crackle and burn, charred beyond recognition. Every few seconds, a sharp pop kicks a few singed black scraps somersaulting through the air. I can barely breathe through all the smoke. The world blurs through the flames. All that’s left are the ashes.
“They’re gone, sir,” the guard says. “Now, please… head down the stairs.”
I still don’t move. In the distance, I can hear the orchestra of approaching sirens. Ambulances and fire engines are on their way. Police won’t be far behind.
The guard reaches out to turn me around. That’s when I feel the soft hand on the small of my back.
“Ma’am…” the guard starts.
Behind me, Viv studies the burning file cabinets in Pasternak’s office. The sirens slowly grow louder.
“C’mon,” she tells me. My body’s still in shock, and as I turn to face her, she reads it in an instant. Pasternak was my mentor; I’ve known him since my first days on the Hill.
“Maybe it’s not what you think,” she says, tugging me back up the hallway and toward the stairs.
The tears run down my face, and I tell myself it’s from the smoke. Sirens continue to howl in the distance. From the sound of it, they’re right outside the building. With a sharp tug, Viv drags me into the dark gray fog. I try to run, but it’s already too hard. I can’t see. My legs feel like they’re filled with Jell-O. I can’t do it anymore. My run slows to a lumbering walk.
“What’re you doing?” Viv asks.
I can barely look her in the eye. “I’m sorry, Viv…”
“What? Now you’re just giving up?”
“I said, I’m sorry.”
“That’s not good enough! You think that takes the guilt off your plate? You got me into this, Harris — you and your dumb frat-boy, I-own-the-world-so-let’s-play-with-it egoism!
Stunned by the outburst, I can barely move.
“You’ve really been crying yourself to sleep?” I finally ask.
Viv pummels me with a dark stare that gives me the answer. Her brown eyes glow through the smoke. “No.”
“Viv, you know I’d never-”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“But I-”
“You did it, Harris. You did it, and it’s done. Now, you gonna make it right or not?”
Outside the building, someone barks safety instructions through a bullhorn. The police are here. If I want to give up, this is the place to do it.
Viv heads up the hallway. I stay put.
“Good-bye, Harris,” she calls out. The words sting as she says them. When I first asked her for help, I promised her she wouldn’t get hurt. Just like I promised Matthew that the game was harmless fun. And promised Pasternak, when I first met him, that I’d be the most honest person he’d ever hire. All those words… when I originally said them… I meant every syllable — but no question, those words were always for me. Myself. I, I, I. It’s the easiest place to get lost on Capitol Hill — right inside your own self-worth. But as I watch Viv disappear in the smoke, it’s time to look away from the mirror and finally refocus.
“Hold on,” I call out, chasing after her and diving into the smoke. “That’s not the best way.”
Stopping midstep, she doesn’t smile or make it easy. And she shouldn’t.
It takes a seventeen-year-old girl to treat me like an adult.
63
“How’s it look?” Lowell asked as his assistant stepped into his fourth-floor office in the main Justice building on Pennsylvania Avenue.
“Let me put it like this,” William began, brushing his messy brown hair from his chubby, boyish face. “There’s no Santa Claus, no Easter bunny, no cheerleader who liked you in high school, your 401K is toilet paper, you didn’t marry the prom queen, your daughter just got knocked up by a real scumbag, and y’know that beautiful view you’ve got of the Washington Monument?” William asked, pointing over Lowell’s shoulder at the nearby window. “We’re gonna paint it black and replace it with some modern art.”
“Did you say modern art?”
“No joke,” William said. “And that’s the good news.”
“It’s really that bad?” Lowell asked, motioning to the red file folder in his assistant’s hands. Outside Lowell’s office and across the adjacent conference room, two receptionists answered the phones and put together his schedule. William, on the other hand, sat right outside Lowell’s door. By title, he was Lowell’s “confidential assistant,” which meant he had security clearance to deal with the most important professional issues — and, after three years with Lowell, the personal ones as well.
“On a scale of one to ten, it’s Watergate,” William said.
Lowell forced a laugh. He was trying to keep it light, but the red folder already told him this was only getting worse. Red meant FBI.
“The fingerprints belong to Robert Franklin of Hoboken, New Jersey,” William began, reading from the folder.
Lowell made a face, wondering if the name Janos was fake. “So he’s got a record?” he asked.
“Nosiree.”
“Then how’d they have his fingerprints?”
“They got ’em internally.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Their staffing unit. Personnel,” William explained. “Apparently, this guy applied for a job a few years back.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Nosiree. He applied.”
“At the FBI?”
“At the FBI,” William confirmed.
