1
MISTED AWAY
Sarah read the words never realizing how apt they would prove: The End.
A wave of cool air brushed over the bed and she sank deeper beneath the covers. She looked accusingly at the window, saw the left-hand frame hanging crookedly on its hinge. Every time a door opened downstairs, a tiny blast of hard November air sucked in.
One more thing for Bryce’s honey-do list.
She put down the short story and capped her red pen, glad to be done. She’d given up late last night, not quite able to finish—hardly a vote of confidence for the poor author—but after the first clatter this morning she was hopelessly awake. Five a.m. She’d made the best of it, editing the last twenty pages. The ending was decent, or at least it hadn’t put her back to sleep. She’d begun picking up freelance work eight years ago, a perfect job for a stay-at-home Army wife with a sharp eye for detail. Today she was getting all the work she wanted. Magazine articles, fiction, the occasional memoir. Nothing lucrative, but it paid the bills. Or at least some of them. Phone, electric. Gas in a good month.
Another bang from the kitchen storm door. Another microburst of chilly outside air.
With a sigh, Sarah threw off the covers and pulled herself up. She went straight to the closet, shrugged a waffle robe over her nightshirt and knotted the sash tight. Then a precautionary inspection in the dressing mirror: her shoulder-length sandy hair was mussed but not tangled, and she gave her front teeth a perfunctory finger-brush.
She padded downstairs feeling chipper, ready for whatever the day might bring. At the midpoint on the staircase she noticed the doorbell chime—mounted high on the wall over the front door, it appeared crooked. Bryce had been busy lately, but it was time for a nudge.
Where was that list?
Fortunately, the house was a good house. Not new, but endowed with good bones, or so the realtor had said. Sarah supposed that meant the rafters weren’t creaky, the studs not rotted. She loved the place because it was theirs. After fifteen years of Army-issue family housing, with its white-popcorn ceilings and painted-over black mold, she and Bryce finally had their names on a real deed. Right next to the bank’s.
She reached the kitchen, her favorite room of the house and where her nesting instincts were most evident: sunny yellow accents on the walls between cabinets, a tasteful backsplash behind the counter, pots hung functionally near the stove. It was all bright and organized, a place where comfort food was served.
At first, she saw no sign of Bryce. Then a flash of motion at the storm door. He hooked it open with one foot, his arms laden with firewood. Still wearing his heavy backpack, he looked like a bad juggling act. Before she could go to his aid he was stomping inside, the door crashing shut behind him.
“Good morning,” he said. “Is Alyssa awake?”
“If she wasn’t, she is now.”
He shot her a sideways glance. “Oh … sorry.”
“Don’t worry. It’s after six—she ought to be getting ready for school.” More racket as he dumped the logs next to the fireplace. Sarah checked the floor—a bit of mud, but for once he’d remembered to wipe his feet. He returned to the kitchen, a portrait of fitness in running shoes, shorts, and a moisture-wicking pullover. He was perspiring despite the morning chill.
“How was the run?” she asked.
“Better than yesterday.”
This was his stock answer, a domestic version of the outlook beaten into him at Army Ranger school. No easy day and Hoorah and all that crap. Those days were behind them now, and as much as Sarah wanted to blame the Army for what had befallen her husband, she knew better. At every turn, Bryce had made his choices. Now they would live with them. And by her account, they were doing just fine.
He shrugged off a backpack holding thirty pounds of sand and an empty water bottle.
“What time did you get up?” she asked.
“A little before five. Today was a long run, twelve miles.”
“I thought a ‘long’ was ten.”
“That was last month. I’m making progress.”
“Toward what? Masochism? You’re not training for a marathon and you’re not in the Army anymore. You’re a first-term congressman from Virginia’s Tenth. Extreme fitness doesn’t get you votes.”
“Don’t be so sure. There’s a big track club in Fairfax.” He moved toward the gurgling coffee machine, sideswiping a wet kiss on her cheek as he passed.
“Yuk,” she said with faux disgust, wiping away the wetness.
“It’s drizzling outside.”
Sarah popped two bagels into the toaster, one for him and one for Alyssa. “Will you be home for dinner tonight?”
He considered it as he filled two mugs with Trader Joe’s Dark. “Um … no. I’ve got a fundraiser.”
“For who?”
“The governor of Virginia.” He slid a mug in front of her.
“Well, bully for you. I’ve got a fundraiser tomorrow—I’m selling brownies at Alyssa’s soccer game.”
“Trade you.”
“Not a chance, Major. You picked the game, you play it.”
Bryce cut his coffee with milk and took a long steamy sip. When the cup came down his face was set in a wide smile. The smile. The one that hadn’t changed in seventeen years, since she’d first seen it outside the freshman dorms at Princeton. Easy and natural, Hollywood-level charisma. The smile that, as alluded to by exit polling, had won eighty-six percent of the college-educated female vote in Virginia’s affluent exburbs.
Sarah smiled back. “What’s on the agenda this morning?”
He checked the calendar on his phone. “Looks like a breakfast reception downtown, then a Veterans Day event at a hotel. After that, committee meetings and a strategy session with Mandy before lunch.” Mandy Treanor was his campaign manager, a lithe, auburn-haired knockout five years younger than either of them, and a Georgetown Law grad to boot. She was paying her dues in a cutthroat profession, which for now meant babysitting a freshman congressman. Given Bryce’s smashingly successful first campaign, Sarah had no doubt Mandy would be moving up the Beltway ladder soon.
The toaster popped out two perfectly browned bagels. Bryce fingered one clear and began slathering it with butter. When he turned toward the fridge, Sarah noticed his leg.
“You’re bleeding,” she said.
“What?” He looked at her, then followed her gaze to his right calf. A crescent-shaped cut, three inches long, smiled up at him. “Oh, that. There was some construction on the path and I had to climb over a fence to get around it. Must’ve gotten nicked. It’s just a scratch.”
“Want me to clean it up?”
“I can handle it. I’m highly trained in battlefield medicine.”
“And I’m highly trained in overconfident husbands. I could at least—”
“Mom!” Their conversational thread snapped as if cut by a machete. Alyssa’s voice, terse and demanding. They looked up the wooden staircase in unison, knights staring into a dragon’s lair. Only a teenage girl could suffuse one word with such peril.
“Guess she’s awake,” Bryce said. “I gotta go shower.”
“Coward.”
“Don’t tell anyone. It would ruin my well-honed warrior image.” He started up the stairs, coffee in one hand, warm everything in the other.
Sarah found herself distracted by the scrape on his leg. It didn’t look bad, yet she kept staring.
“I can’t find my brush!”
The thought misted away. “I’ll be right there, baby…”
2
WHITE MARBLE TESTAMENTS
The rooftop terrace of the Watergate Hotel was one of D.C.’s up-and-coming hot spots. Situated in the shadow of the infamous office complex, the hotel’s recent renovations had hit a sweet spot with local influencers. There was a brass-and-mirror bar and a casual dining area, all under cover of a mainsail awning. The rest of the establishment was open air, sprawling across an expansive terrace. Outdoor furniture sat clustered in tiny islands: thick-cushioned chairs, intimate settees, knee-high tables, all of it sprayed with sealant to withstand rain and spilled mojitos. It was a place where good times were had and business consummated. A place for the old and the young, for the rich and the imminently so. Legendary bachelorette parties raged in the spring, while summer featured Nats games on the bar’s big-screens. Autumn veered toward business, everyone back to work at the turn of the federal fiscal year, deals struck and commissions made.
On the cusp of winter, however, the rooftop took on a different vibe. Space heaters replaced umbrellas, and the daiquiri dispenser behind the bar gave way to an espresso machine. Like the greenbelt along the Potomac, brown and leafless in the distance, the rooftop of the Watergate Hotel was a biome of its own, conforming to the seasons. On offer this morning: hot chocolate and promises.
Mandy Treanor checked her watch. Senator Bob Morales, long-tenured Floridian and intermittent front-runner in a clogged cast of Republican presidential aspirants, was due to arrive in ten minutes. She still saw no sign of Bryce.
Working for a freshman congressman, Mandy wore twin hats. She was both his campaign manager and chief of staff—if one receptionist, two part-timers, and an intern could be classified as a workforce. She didn’t really mind. Unlike many of her counterparts, she believed in her man: Bryce was a stand-up act in a cutthroat town. Still, she fretted over her congressman’s schedule like any good manager, and in that moment her irritation was amplified. For the last five minutes she’d been fending off come-ons from the less than honorable Benjamin Edelman, four-term senator from New Jersey and serial philanderer. The man’s eyes had been undressing her from the moment she’d reached the rooftop, and she had already turned down one offer of a drink—this before ten in the morning. Mandy was dressed in a perfectly professional manner, yet men like Edelman seemed to imagine that no modest blouse-and-skirt ensemble was complete until accessorized with a stripper pole.
Having retreated to the far end of the bar, she surveyed the elevator lobby from behind a shivering potted palm. Still no Bryce. A sharp gust of wind snapped across the terrace, more mid-December than early November. Mandy considered the rooftop a risky venue for a Veterans Day ceremony. She could understand the general appeal—there was no better backdrop in Foggy Bottom for sweeping views of the White House, Capitol building, and National Mall. Unfortunately, on a dreary Monday in November, with swirling winds and threatening skies, it seemed a protocol disaster in the making. She picked out Senator Morales’s chief of staff near the dais, saw him looking up worriedly at the ragged pewter overcast. Probably praying for a bit of global warming, she mused.
Today’s gathering was a standard midrank affair. There would be a smattering of Senate leaders, along with staffers, lobbyists, and invited guests. Seated in front were two dozen veterans representing every campaign going back to World War II. This was how Bryce had scored his invitation—only a half dozen House members had been included, all with military backgrounds. Bryce had been typically reluctant, but Mandy turned the screws, presenting it as a chance to mingle with deep-pocketed donors.
Finally, she spotted him in the elevator lobby, sweeping past a table full of coffee decanters and sweet rolls. Six minutes to spare. He surveyed the terrace, spotted her right away, and began shouldering through a forest of Brooks Brothers and VFW hats.
“Hey, Mandy,” he said.
“Morning, boss.” This was how she addressed him when she was peeved. Bryce didn’t seem to notice, and she added, “If you’d been here ten minutes ago, I could have introduced you to the CEO of Boeing.”
“Sorry, traffic was bad.”
“It’s D.C. Traffic is always bad.” She caught sight of Edelman ambling their way. “Christ,” she muttered, “here he comes again.”
“Who?”
“Senator Edelman. He told me he might have ‘A position opening up on my staff.’”
“Did he ask for your resume?”
“He was ogling my resumes.”
Bryce might have smiled.
“Bryce, my boy! Good to see you!” said Edelman. He was a big meaty man, the typical linebacker from a minor college who’d let himself go. When he thrust out his right hand it looked like some crude martial arts move—which, in D.C., it effectively was. The tumbler in Edelman’s other hand remained rock-steady.
Bryce endured a predictably bone-crushing grip. “Good to see you, Senator.”
“I was just talking to your lovely campaign manager. She tells me your reelection bid is right on track.”
“She tells me the same thing.”
“Good, good. Your father would be proud. How is he?”
“No change,” Bryce said. Walter Ridgeway had suffered a stroke three years earlier, a debilitating event that had decimated his body, robbed him of his mental faculties, and forced him into full-time care at a nursing home. It was a devastating turn for a man who had twice served as ambassador to Austria, and before that Czechoslovakia. A power broker in D.C. politics for a generation, he’d fallen to little more than a memory inside the Capitol’s marble-lined halls.
“He and I go way back,” Edelman said. “Walter was a man who knew how to get things done.”
Mandy gave Bryce a cautious look, hoping he wouldn’t react to the use of past tense.
Edelman rambled on with well-feigned sobriety, “I always thought he should have run for Congress himself instead of wasting so much time at the State Department.” He tipped back his drink—based on the scent, Mandy concluded, a gin and tonic.
“Dad went where he thought he could do the most good,” Bryce said.
Mandy piped in, “At least he convinced Bryce to carry on the fight.” She maneuvered to keep Bryce between herself and the senator.
“Yes, indeed,” Edelman seconded. “You’ve got a long career ahead of you, young man. Although I’m not sure it was wise to spend so much time in the Army. You could have filled that square,” he paused to snap his fingers, “then moved on. But I’ll never argue against a man serving his country.”
Mandy went still, a bomb squad tech who’d just watched the wrong wire get clipped. Bryce didn’t take kindly to fools—particularly those who denigrated military service but had never served themselves.
“Excuse me, Senator,” Bryce said.
He put a hand to the small of Mandy’s back and steered her away. She looked at him with surprise, and once they were clear she said in a low voice, “That was good. I thought you were about to coldcock the guy.”
“Nah, that’s the old Bryce. It might have felt good in the moment, but it wouldn’t be a career enhancer.”
“Your campaign manager approves. Anyway, thanks for rescuing me.”
Bryce ushered her to the far side of the terrace, cutting through the crowd like a bouncer through a nightclub. Mandy had always viewed him as something of an enigma. Bryce had been born to privilege—the best East Coast prep schools and a BA from Princeton—yet he’d cast aside the life plan designed by his father to join the Army. Law school was replaced by officer candidate school. While his Ivy League classmates were summering in the Hamptons, Bryce had been excelling at Ranger training. Instead of six-figure bonuses from Goldman Sachs, he’d gotten combat pay for deployments to faraway and dusty hellholes. Then, three years ago, everything had changed in one terrible moment. Bryce had been in the passenger seat of a Land Rover, on a dusty road in Mali, when a bomb hidden beneath a culvert had detonated. He’d been seriously injured, forced to take a medical discharge.
It was an abrupt end to a promising military career. Bryce’s father, however, viewed the tragedy as more a beginning than an end. He saw a dream resume for a neophyte politician, and while it had taken time to get Bryce on board, in the end his father prevailed. The successful congressional campaign, launched with the blessings of the retiring Republican incumbent in a deeply red district, had been a slam dunk. Mandy had her eye squarely on a second term.
Bryce led to a standing-room-only section behind the main seating area, and soon Mandy caught a flourish of activity near the elevator. Senator Morales was arriving. Tall and angular, Morales had entered national politics as a smooth-faced lawyer. Thirty-six years later he’d become something else. The burdens of Washington seemed etched into every line on his craggy face. His posture was stooped, his gaze rheumy, and twin wings of white hair swept back from his temples like unmolted plumage. Framed by younger aides and two robust D.C. police officers, he stalked across the terrace like an arthritic heron.
“Looks like we’re about to start,” Bryce said.
Mandy looked across the terrace at a brimming crowd. She’d heard that two hundred invitations had been sent out, and it appeared every one had shown. The senator was taking his time, glad-handing his way to the front, special attention given to a man she recognized as an Exxon lobbyist. Bryce took a long look at his watch.
“Got an appointment I don’t know about?” asked the woman who micromanaged his every minute.
“No … I’d just love to see one of these things start on time for a change.”
“Since I have your undivided attention, maybe we could have a congressman to chief of staff conference.”
“Sure.”
“I’ve heard there may be an opening next year on the judiciary committee.”
“The what?”
“Judiciary … I have it on good authority two members will be leaving. Assuming we get you a second term, it’s time to start pressing for a worthwhile committee assignment.”
“Yesterday at the office we were talking about Veteran’s Affairs.”
“It’s an option. But I mentioned Judiciary too.”
“Did you?”
“As you were leaving, getting into the cab.”
“Oh, right. I guess either one is good.”
“No, Bryce, they’re not in the same league. Look, I know you miss the Army, but you have a new professional ladder now. Judiciary would be a promotion, like making colonel.”
“I barely pinned on major.”
“Which is my point. In this world, play your cards right and you can jump ahead a few ranks. It’s a much more important committee, one notch below Ways and Means. If you have bigger aspirations, that’s the way to go.”
He glanced at her, a reply brewing. In the end, he only said, “Okay, Mandy. Let’s talk about it later.”
Morales was nearly in place, shaking hands and pointing all the way to the makeshift stage—as if he knew every face in the crowd. He was momentarily lost amid a cluster of bodies around the podium. Situated to face that focal point were a dozen neat rows of chairs, all occupied. Old soldiers wore ballcaps scripted with unit emblems and campaigns. A pair of World War II vets sat in wheelchairs in front, while the next three rows were a mix: Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War. The remaining seats were taken by spouses, congressmen, dignitaries, and VA officials. The balance of the terrace was relegated to standing room for staffers.
Mandy recognized two lesser Republican presidential candidates seated near the back—the senior senator from Colorado, and the governor of Ohio. Both were polling in low single digits, mired in a massive primary field of nineteen hopefuls. What a silly way to choose the most powerful person on earth, she mused.
She looked out over the rail across the National Mall. The hotel’s fifteenth floor—its height was limited so as not to overshadow the Lincoln Memorial—offered a reaching panorama of the nation’s power centers. The Capitol building, White House, Washington Monument, and Pentagon, a veritable gallery of white marble testaments. In the sullen morning light, they all looked gray and exhausted, as if dreading the next national calamity.
A voice brought Mandy’s attention back to the rooftop soiree. Senator Morales was being introduced.
3
IRREFUTABLE MOMENTUM
“Good morning, and thank you all for coming,” Morales began, his hollow voice creaking like an old door. “We have gathered this morning for the worthiest of reasons, to honor those among us who have served our great country…”
Mandy actually listened to his remarks, viewing it as part and parcel to her job to decipher the message within. There was always a message, and it usually had to do with money: either promoting pet spending projects or soliciting contributions to one’s own campaign. She had to admit, whatever wonk had written this morning’s speech was good. It touched on problems at the VA, yet never lost the spirit of the day—a fine line to hew—and left no doubt that veterans care would be at the top of the senator’s agenda in the run-up to next year’s election. Mandy leaned toward Bryce and was about to share these thoughts when she realized he was neither watching, nor apparently listening to, the droning figure behind the lectern. His eyes were riveted on a point across the broad terrace.
Until that moment, Mandy thought she had seen the full range of Bryce’s character. She’d seen him circulate like a pro at cocktail parties, seen him distracted after tiffs with Sarah. Seen him stiff-arm lobbyists with the elusiveness of a running back. Regardless of the challenge, never once had he lost his calm, easygoing demeanor. Now that relaxed visage had gone to stone, his gaze cold and expressionless. Mandy swore she could see muscles tensing beneath his felted wool jacket.
“Bryce … what is it?”
No response.
“Bryce?”
“That guy over there,” he said in a dead voice. “Twentyish, thin, dark blue jacket.”
Mandy looked into a sea of people standing casually with lattes and orange juice and sweet rolls. Then she spotted him: a slightly-built young man in a blue jacket. He was moving across the terrace thirty feet from where they stood, slow and methodical, slaloming between bodies along the far railing. He did seem different, Mandy thought, although she couldn’t pinpoint how.
“What about him?” she asked.
“His right hand.”
She looked more closely, saw his right hand in the pocket of his jacket. It didn’t seem unusual on such a chilly morning. His attention was mostly fixed on the stage, yet Mandy noticed his eyes flicking nervously. “Bryce, I think we should—”
Before she could finish the thought, Bryce grabbed two flutes of orange juice from a tray on a table and started across the terrace. With a glass in each hand, he cut through the crowd like a practiced waiter. His head was canted toward the lectern, yet Mandy knew his attention was elsewhere—she was watching nothing less than a trained soldier launching a full-frontal assault.
When the gap reached twenty feet, the young man glanced in Bryce’s direction. They were the only two people on the terrace moving, the rest of the crowd absorbed in the senator’s remarks. Mandy felt a terrible foreboding.
Fifteen feet.
Mandy checked left and right. She’d seen policemen when she arrived, at least a half dozen uniformed cops near the stage and in the inner lobby. Where had they all gone?
She looked again at Bryce. Ten feet.
What happened next seemed like a sequence of jagged images. Bryce rushed the man, his arms outstretched, flutes of orange juice flying outward. The man reacted, his eyes wide. The intruder pulled his hand from his jacket, and it was holding … something. Bryce lunged for whatever it was.
He wrapped up the much smaller man, battered him into the outer wall. Mandy watched as they careened toward the rail. A pair of men in thousand-dollar suits jumped back like they were avoiding a splash from a passing taxi. Bryce pinned the man momentarily against a waist-high concrete wall that was topped by a bronze handrail.
A woman screamed.
Senator Morales fell silent.
Everything seemed to freeze for an instant as Bryce and the man locked in a stalemate, two grappling bodies wedged against the wall. Their interlocked arms were outstretched, but then Bryce’s left hand twisted free. There was a sudden shift of limbs, and she watched in horror as Bryce hooked his free hand under the man’s crotch and lifted him completely off the ground. With one great twist he heaved him over the fifteenth-floor rail.
That trajectory ended abruptly when the man seized Bryce’s jacket, both hands locked in a death grip. The maelstrom of physical forces conspired: the smaller man’s irrefutable momentum, Bryce being off balance, multiple points of contact. Mandy watched helplessly as Bryce lurched, his body folding over the top of the wall. That image hovered for an instant, balanced on a knife’s edge. Then, in one final snarl of flailing limbs, both men plunged over the wall and disappeared.
“Bryce!” Mandy screamed. She began running across the terrace, but before her second stride a massive explosion rocked the morning.
The shock wave threw her to the tile deck. She lay stunned for a moment, her ears ringing like cymbals. When she looked up people everywhere had gone to ground—either pummeled by the blast or in the instinct of self-preservation. Mandy struggled to her feet and lurched across the terrace.
Echoes from the explosion reverberated between buildings. Car alarms wailed all around. A cloud of smoke rose beyond the outer wall. One of the thousand-dollar-suits bolted to his feet and reached for something. Mandy saw a lone hand gripping the iron rail—little more than a row of white knuckles, one with a wedding ring. The suit locked down on the hand, then seized an attached sleeve.
Two other men rushed to help.
A second hand appeared, followed by another sleeve.
Inch by inch, Congressman Bryce Ridgeway was hauled back to safety.
Copyright © 2023 by Ward Larsen