Mark Gilleo - Sweat

The brief meeting adjourned and Senator Day spoke. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have one additional speaker today before we put this to a vote. Please step forward and identify yourself to the committee.”

Al stepped past the officer and walked to the end of the testimony table. “My name is Al Korgaokar. I am a Foreign Affairs Officer for the State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs. Retired. As I have stated in the letter you hold, I want to testify as to the improvements I have seen overseas as a result of internationalization.”

Al Korgaokar’s presence snapped Peter to attention. Peter looked at the man he knew years ago and could see that Al’s face hinted at years of hard existence. Peter took another sip of water as he watched Al move toward the center of the chamber. Peter knew that Al had seen him, and he thought it didn’t matter. Washington was a small city when it came to politics, and Al Korgaokar testifying at a Senate Committee meeting merely caused Peter Winthrop to pause. It was an interesting coincidence. Nothing more.

Senator Day looked at Al. “Mr. Korgaokar. Testifying at a Senate Committee is a serious matter. Furthermore, protocol generally requires that we receive your written testimony in advance. Given your service to the country, we will allow you to testify, but this committee will also require a written statement as to your testimony.”

“Fair enough, Senator. I will be brief.”

The official Senate Bible carrier stepped from the side of the chamber and Al was sworn in—oath, lock, stock, and barrel.

Senator Day nodded at the conclusion of the formality and addressed Al directly. “Please sir, go ahead.”

“As I mentioned, I spent twenty years serving my country with the State Department, primarily in Asia. I was stationed with the embassies in Japan, the Philippines, China, and Thailand. I have seen the impact that American corporations have had on the native population. I have seen lives changed.”

Senator Day smiled. Nothing wrong with a cherry on top of Peter Winthrop’s brilliant testimony. A tried-and-true American with firsthand experience supporting the senator’s position.

The senator’s grin lasted until Al’s next sentence hit the audience, the press, and the history of the committee transcripts.

“And I have seen lives ruined.”

Senator Day’s posture snapped straight and his eyebrows shot upward. There were a few muffled gasps and one noticeable giggle from the committee audience. Peter Winthrop fought the urge to run from the room.

Wallace looked at Nguyen. “Now this is getting interesting.”

“Sir?” Senator Day asked.

“You heard me correctly, Senator. Lives ruined. But today I am here to end the lies.”

The doors opened in the back of the room and Jake walked in with Wei Ling on his arm. Senator Day took one look at the girl he had spent the night with in a threesome and stood from his seat. Then he came unglued. With high shrills and screams that bordered on unintelligible, the senator commanded the officer on duty to stop the intruders.

Al grabbed the microphone off the testimony table and spoke over the senator in a booming voice that echoed through the PA system. “Ladies and gentlemen, the woman you see entering the room works in a sweatshop in Saipan. And she is pregnant with Senator Day’s child.”

The audience collectively inhaled, gasping, falling silent for a spilt second before the decorum of the room officially shifted to the hysteria of an animal outbreak at the zoo.

“Holy shit,” Wallace said to Nguyen, whose mouth opened wide enough to catch a tennis ball served at full speed.

Senator Day banged his gavel and screamed orders like Judge Judy with PMS. “Officer. I want these men arrested. This committee meeting is in recess. I want this man’s testimony erased from public record.” Then Senator Day pointed his finger directly at Peter Winthrop. “You son of a bitch. You and your goddamn son.”

Peter looked over at his son and Wei Ling. He shook his head, opened his mouth, and for the first time in his adult life, was speechless. Jake looked over at his father, the first contact with him since going to the FBI. His father stared back with blood-pumping hatred.

The room turned into a sea of questions, waves of accusations crashing down every direction. The rookie reporters began yelling, cell phones in their ears, calling in the biggest story of their lives.

“What the hell just happened?” Nguyen asked.

“I don’t know, but I think we found Peter Winthrop’s son.”

Senator Day climbed down the stairs from his noble perch and pushed his way through the rising crowd. Peter exited the back of the chamber from the far door. Al rounded up Jake and Wei Ling and pulled them out of the storm. Reporters and senators poured from the chamber behind them, a mass of commotion in their wake.

“Let’s go,” Wallace said to Nguyen. “Time to get the answers to our questions.”

Chapter 48

The long main hall of the Russell Senate Building felt like a tunnel, tightening with every step. The walls breathed. Senator Day couldn’t. His life was slipping through his hands. He picked up the already breakneck pace as if jogging away from the committee chamber was going to put distance between himself and his freefall from grace.

Senator Day needed air. He turned right towards the main entrance and descended down the marble stairs to the foyer, past the security booth on the left. The four guards on duty stopped their search-and-question routine and stared at the senator with disdain and disbelief. Good gossip traveled fast.

Senator Day pushed on the wooden doors, hoping to leave the madness behind him. He needed time to regroup, time to think. He needed air. With a single stride forward, the senator stepped from controlled unpleasantness into mass chaos.

The senator froze on the top stair of the Russell Senate Building and looked down into a hornet’s nest. Hundreds of protestors, signs waving and bullhorns screaming, assaulted the senator’s senses as he stumbled to the side of the granite staircase. The AWARE group’s numbers had tripled overnight, their presence buoyed by over two hundred reinforcements from the city’s finest homeless establishments. Standing at the bottom of the staircase, waving a large sign with one hand and yelling into a bullhorn with the other, was Kazu Ito’s father. A look of fury on his face, he cheered the crowd on, screaming in the memory of his dead son and looking for an apology.

The noon sun combined forces with the multitude of lights from the news crews who were there en masse in response to an anonymous tip. A sea of microphones were shoved into the senator’s personal space, and he stepped back, one hand covering his eyes, the other hand helplessly trying to protect his body from intrusion. Behind him, the audience from the Senate subcommittee squeezed through the doors onto the packed staircase.

The questions came in a flood of babble, a dozen at a time, and the senator tried to push forward past the first wave of cameras and lights. He reached the first landing of the stairs, his path blocked, bodies everywhere. “Shit,” was the first comment caught on tape.

The crowd filled the street, reaching thirty yards in either direction. The AWARE group, led by Kazu Ito’s father and joined in delirious celebration by several hundred of Al’s closest friends, was extending their cause to support their suppressed Asian sisters toiling away in sweatshops around the world.

Stuck like a herd of cattle in a slaughter chute, Senator Day knew silence wasn’t the answer. It didn’t matter what he said, but he knew he had to say something. He had lied on far less appropriate occasions than this. He shoved his way to the granite walls that encased the massive stairs of the Russell Building, pushed his way up two steps and floundered for his footing. He waved his hands to hush the media and the growing rebellion below.