Джозеф Файндер - The Switch

“It’s pretty good, actually, Tanner. Give it a chance.”

Tanner agreed to a demitasse of Dharkan — not bad at all — and Sarah had one too, and she said, “Look, I haven’t been sleeping at night. I’m basically scared shitless about what’s happening to you.”

“It’s going to be okay,” Tanner said. “Don’t worry about it.”

Sarah looked at him. Their eyes met. She took a sip of espresso. “I always know when you’re lying to me.”

“It’s nothing to worry about.”

“Except you can’t go home, you can’t go to work, and you were just almost killed.”

“Not even close to being killed. Please stop worrying.”

Sarah took another sip. “Do you remember that time when we were driving in the Adirondacks, going to Uncle Johnny’s cabin, and we got stuck in that blizzard?”

“Sure do.”

“And we were driving that crappy old Jetta, the Rustmobile as you called it, and we got stuck in the snowdrift?”

Tanner chuckled. He remembered a near-death experience and Sarah close to freaking out, and only now could he laugh. They’d been together for a couple of years by then, and he was learning to navigate the complex topography of this beautiful woman’s personality.

“And the tires are spinning in place and we’re getting spattered through the rust holes in the floor, and the car’s not moving, and all of a sudden this huge tractor-trailer in the other lane loses control, it’s jackknifing on the black ice, and it’s coming at us, this eighty-thousand-pound truck?”

He nodded. He remembered wondering if this was their last few seconds on earth. Wondering whether they should scramble out of the car into the snow, whether they had time to do that, deciding to stay put. He remembered her screaming, terrified, and him not wanting her to see he was just as frightened.

“And I’m basically losing it, and you just grab my hands — you’re perfectly calm — and you say, ‘We’re going to be okay, don’t worry about it, we’ll be fine.’”

“Yeah?”

“You must have been just as terrified as I was; we’re just trapped in that tin can and this gigantic truck is about to squish us like bugs. But you stayed calm; you had to stay strong for me. All you cared about was how scared I was.”

“I told you we’d be fine.” He remembered going into that calm place, a peaceful acceptance of the fact that they had no control over what was about to happen to them. And that weird calmness somehow looked like bravery.

“You’re doing it again now. Only this time the tractor-trailer’s not going to miss us.”

“This is not about us. This is just about me. And I’ll be okay.”

“How long do you think you can hide from — from whoever these people are? You, one person, against who knows how many, the whole goddamned government!”

“First of all, the US government doesn’t kill American citizens—”

“Oh, that is so not true. The president has the right to kill Americans on American soil.”

“Honey, this is all going to blow over soon. I’m sure of it.” He put down his espresso cup.

“You know this because you have a plan?”

“Yes. I mean, not yet. But I will.”

“Tanner!” she said. She was crying, tears pooling in her eyes, her face red. “I can’t lose you.”

“Hey,” he said very softly, and he put his arms around her. She drew herself into him. The room was cold, and he could feel the warmth of her body.

“I can’t lose you,” she said again, and she put her mouth on his. He could feel the hot tears on her face.

A minute?” Will said.

Senator Susan Robbins was sitting in her office, meeting with their legislative director. Her office door was open, which meant she was doing routine work she didn’t care if everyone knew about.

Today’s suit color was amethyst, which he’d learned was not the same thing as purple. It also meant she was trying to cheer herself up on Dull Committee Work Day. All of her suits were Elie Tahari, or Tahari-style, but this was one of the older ones in the rotation, a few frays here and there.

She looked up from a sheaf of papers she was holding in both hands. Her death stare over her Benjamin Franklin reading glasses. “Urgent?”

He thought: Do you really think I’d interrupt you if it wasn’t something urgent? He nodded. “I’d say, yeah.”

“Samantha,” Susan said, “can we pick this up a little later on? All right, Will, come on in. Sam, could you close the door behind you?”

On the left of her desk was the big American flag, furled, and on the right was the Illinois flag, also furled. Between the two flags was a painting of the Chicago skyline by some renowned Chicago painter, done in a sort of pointillist, Georges Seurat manner. No family photos on display — which was a subject of disagreement between the two. She insisted that women politicians should always downplay the family thing.

As soon as the door closed, Will said, “Have they interviewed you yet?”

“Who?”

“OSS.”

“The... OSS? The old spy agency?”

“Office of Senate Security.”

“What’s this...?”

“They haven’t yet. Good.” He didn’t think she’d been interviewed yet. She’d have come to him first.

“Interview? What’s this about?”

He inhaled slowly. “The documents.”

“The laptop? This is about the goddamned laptop ? They know ?”

“No, they don’t know about the laptop. Not as far as I know, anyway.”

“Then what the hell are they interviewing for?”

“They believe that classified information was downloaded.”

He could see the tension, the worry, crease her face. She shook her head, which seemed to mean I don’t understand.

“A reporter called around asking about some NSA program.”

“CHRYSALIS?”

“Probably.”

“How is this going to lead to me?”

“It won’t.”

“But what happens when the guy in Boston gives my laptop to WikiLeaks or one of those websites, you know—”

“That won’t happen.”

She lowered her voice to an urgent whisper. “But you don’t have the laptop! Where is it?”

“I’m working on something that you don’t need to know about.”

“And what’s my strategy when they interview me? Just deny, deny, deny?”

“You don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“But don’t they have some computer way of finding out who used the computer at a certain time? A log or whatever?”

“I’m not sure what they know. But here’s the thing: if they knew it was me, they wouldn’t have let me off as easily as they did. They wouldn’t have let me go.”

“So you think they have no idea who did it?”

“Someone on the committee; that’s all they know.”

“But Gary doesn’t know, does he?”

“I would never tell him.”

“You... trust him?”

And then Will had an idea. “I’m not sure, actually. Maybe... it might be worth mentioning his name in your interview.”

“Gary’s?”

He nodded. “It’s not far-fetched that he might have done it.”

“But there’s no grounds for the accusation—”

“You’re just wondering. That’s all. Vague speculation. Coming from you, they’ll take it seriously.”

“Hmm,” she said. “Interesting.”

“It might deflect suspicion. Send them barking up the wrong tree. While I get the laptop back.”

There was a long moment of silence. Will didn’t want to break the silence. He knew she was thinking, considering the idea. Let her mull it over.

“That’s an interesting idea,” she said.

He smiled and nodded. He knew what that meant. He didn’t want to push too hard. She was on board.