Gideon’s Sword

by Douglas Preston; Lincoln Child

  “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 volley 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. “Yo
u’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—”

  “The world is against me!” he shouts, leaning toward the glass. “Look where I’m sitting! You’re telling me I’m wrong?!”

  I shake my head, refusing to get into it. Whatever perceived slights he thinks he’s the victim of, they’ve clearly whittled away at his reality.

  “Don’t judge me, Harris. Not all of us are lucky enough to lead your charmed life.”

  “So now it’s my fault?”

  “I asked you for help over the years. You never gave it. Not once.”

  “So I made you do all this?”

  “Just tell me why you’re here. If it’s not me, and it’s not to catch up—”

  “Pasternak,” I blurt.

  A wide smile creeps up his cheeks. Sitting back in his seat, Barry crosses his arms and tucks the receiver between his chin and shoulder. Like he’s putting the Barry mask back on. He’s no longer fidgeting with his wristband. “It’s gnawing at you, isn’t it?” he asks. “You and I… we always had the competitive friendship. But you and Pasternak…? He was supposed to be your mentor. The one person you turned to when you had an emergency and had to break the glass. Is that what’s got you tossing and turning all night—wondering how your personal radar could be so completely wrong?”

  “I just want to know why he did it.”

  “Of course you do. Sauls bit his bullet… I’m on my way to biting mine… but Pasternak—that’s the one that’ll frustrate you the rest of your life. You don’t get to punch him, or yell at him, or have the big final confrontation scene with the bittersweet ending. It’s the curse of being an overachiever—you can’t handle a problem that can’t be solved.”

  “I don’t need it solved; I just want an answer.”

  “Same difference, Harris. The thing is, if you expect me to suddenly scratch your back… well… you know how the cliché goes…”

  Forever the lobbyist, Barry makes his point clear without ever saying the actual words. He’s not giving any info unless he gets something in return. God, I hate this town.

  “What do you want?” I ask.

  “Nothing now,” he replies. “Let’s just say you owe me one.”

  Even in an orange jumpsuit and behind six inches of glass, Barry still needs to believe he has the upper hand.

  “Fine. I owe you one,” I tell him. “Now what about Pasternak?”

  “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t think he knew who was really driving the train. Sure, he took advantage of you with the game, but that was just to get the mining request in the bill.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What’s to understand? It was an unimportant request for a defunct gold mine in South Dakota. He knew Matthew would never say yes to it—not unless he had a good enough reason,” Barry says. “From there, Pasternak just took the game and put in the fix.”

  “So Pasternak was one of the dungeon-masters?”

  “The what?”

  “The dungeon-masters—the guys who pick the bets and collect the cash. Is that how the mine request got in the game? He was one of the guys who ran it?”

  “How else would it get there?” Barry asks.

  “I don’t know… it just… all those months we were playing… all the people we were betting against—Pasternak was always trying to figure out who else was in on it. When the taxi receipt would come in, he’d go through each one, hoping to read handwritings. He even made a list of people who were working on particular issues… But if he was a dungeon-master…” I cut myself off as the consequences sink in.

  Barry cocks his head to the side. His cloudy eye’s staring straight at me; his glass eye’s off to the left. Out of nowhere, he starts to laugh. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “What? If he were a dungeon-master, wouldn’t he know all the other players?”

  Barry stops laughing, realizing I’m not in on the joke. “You don’t even know, do you?”

  “Know what?”

  “Be honest, Harris—you haven’t figured it out?”

  I try my best to act informed. “Of course—I got most of it… Which part are you talking about?”

  His foggy eye looks right at me. “There is no game. There never was one.” His eye doesn’t move. “I mean, you know it was all bullshit, right? Smoke and mirrors.”

  As his words creep through the receiver and into my ear, my whole body goes numb. The world feels like my personal gravity’s just doubled. Sinking down—almost through—the seat of my orange plastic chair, I weigh a thousand pounds.

  “What a punchline, huh?” Barry asks. “I almost fell over when they first told me. Can you imagine—all this time spent looking at coworkers, trying to figure out who else is placing bets, and the only people actually playing the game are you and Matthew?”

  “Two minutes,” the guard behind Barry announces.

  “It’s brilliant when you think about it,” Barry adds. “Pasternak talks it up; you believe him because you trust him… then they send in a few pages, fill out some taxi receipts, and you guys think you’re in on the biggest secret Capitol Hill has to offer. It’s like those flight simulator rides at Disney World, where they show the movie on-screen and shake your car a bit—you think you’re flying up and down a roller coaster, but you really haven’t moved an inch.”

  I force a laugh, my body still frozen.

  “Man, just the thought of it,” Barry adds, his voice picking up steam. “Dozens of staffers placing bets on unimportant legislation without anyone knowing? Please, what a dream—like anyone here could even keep their mouth shut for longer than ten seconds,” he teases. “Gotta give Pasternak his credit, though. You thought you were playing a great joke on the system, and the entire time, he’s playing the joke on you.”

  “Yeah… no… it’s definitely amazing.”

  “It was humming like clockwork, too—until everything with Matthew. Once that happened, Pasternak wanted out. I mean, he may’ve signed up to convince you—that’s part of any lobbyist’s job—but he didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

  “That’s… That’s not what I heard,” I bluff.

  “Then you heard wrong. The only reason he put this together was for the exact same reason anyone does anything in this town: Ever have a small country for a client? Small countries bring in small fortunes, which small businesses are in desperate need of—especially when billings are down thirty-six percent this year alone. After the first year of failing to get the gold mine transferred, Pasternak eventually decided to go with the more inventive backdoor. Say hello to the Game—the most harmless way ever to sneak an earmark into a bill. But then Matthew got curious, and Janos came in, and, well… that’s when the train jackknifed off the tracks…”

  The guard looks over at us.

  We’re almost out of time, but Barry doesn’t show the slightest sign of slowing down. After all this time in jail, he’s finally having fun.

  “You gotta love the name, too—the Zero Game—so melodramatic. But it is true: In any equation, when you multiply by zero, you always wind up with nothing, right?”

  I nod, dumbfounded.

  “So who told you anyway?” he asks. “FBI, or did you figure it out yourself?”

  “No… myself. I… uh… I got it myself.”

  “Good for you, Harris. Good man.”

  Stuck in my seat, I just sit there, looking at him. It’s like finding out a year of your life has been a staged production number. And I’m the only putz still in costume.

  “Time,” the guard says.

  Barry keeps talking. “I’m so glad you—”

  “I said, Time,” the guard interrupts. He pulls the receiver from Barry’s ear, but I still hear his final thought.

  “I knew you’d appreciate it, Harris! I knew it! Even Pasternak would be happy for that—!”

  There’s a loud
click in my ear as the guard slaps the phone in its cradle. He pinches the back of Barry’s neck and yanks him from his seat. Stumbling across the room, Barry heads back to the steel door.

  But as I sit alone at the glass partition, staring through to the other side, there’s no question Barry has it right. Pasternak said it the first day he hired me. It’s the first rule of politics: The only time you get hurt is when you forget it’s all a game.

  About the Author

  BRAD MELTZER is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller THE BOOK OF FATE and five other New York Times bestselling thrillers: The Tenth Justice, Dead Even, The First Counsel, The Millionaires, and The Zero Game. He is also the writer of the #1 selling graphic novels Identity Crisis and Justice League of America. A graduate of the University of Michigan and Columbia Law School, Meltzer currently lives in Florida. To learn more interesting things about Brad than could fit in this space, you can visit www.bradmeltzer.com.

  Books by Brad Meltzer

  The Tenth Justice

  Dead Even

  The First Counsel

  The Millionaires

  The Zero Game

  The Book of Fate

  The Book of Lies

  MORE ACTION-PACKED NOVELS BY BRAD MELTZER!

  BOOK OF FATE

  Washington, D.C., has a two-hundred-year-old secret.

  Six minutes from now, one of us would be dead. None of us knew it was coming. So says Wes Holloway, a young presidential aide, about the day he put Ron Boyle, the chief executive’s oldest friend, into the president’s limousine. By the trip’s end, a crazed assassin would permanently disfigure Wes and kill Boyle. Now, eight years later, Boyle has been spotted alive. Trying to figure out what really happened takes Wes back into disturbing secrets buried in Freemason history, a decade-old presidential crossword puzzle, and a two-hundred-year-old code invented by Thomas Jefferson that conceals secrets worth dying for.

  BOOK OF LIES

  In chapter four of the Bible, Cain kills Abel. It is the world’s most famous murder. But the Bible is silent about one key detail: the weapon Cain used to kill his brother. That weapon is still lost to history.