Stay calm. We will get there. I have to go to bed now. Good night.
He considered replying with something sentimental or perhaps inviting her to his hotel, but ultimately, he only reciprocated her good night and then lay awake, staring through the window at silver moonlight.
It was August 15, a Saturday, and Tony had ordered room service for dinner. He’d spent all day in a meeting with Dahms, Hasan, and Tracy Aamanzaihou. Not only did they not have the votes in the Senate but the Climate Caucus was beginning to succumb to cracks from within. Indemnity and other issues were not sitting well, and as these details leaked, resistance coalesced from the most stalwart supporters for action. When Morris and her Seventh Day organizers were murdered, her movement splintered. There were maybe six different groups now trying to claim her mantle, organizing protests and boycotts but without enough people or imagination to actually bring focused pressure to bear. The result was a fire hose, and these pretenders were trying to prove their mettle and purity by staking out the most radical positions they could concoct. All of them were against the bill and were waging social media and VR war to stop progressive legislators from voting for it.
That’s what he thought Holly was calling about when he saw her name and picture pop up on his screen. But when he answered he immediately knew something was wrong.
“Dad, turn on the TV.”
The news was, as usual, less than helpful, scrambling to get as much panic and rumor onto the air as it could. Nevertheless, the chyron said enough: ATTACKS AND ASSASSINATIONS TARGET GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS, CORPORATE LEADERS.
“Dad, you need to get out of D.C.,” she said. “Right now.”
“Where are you?” he demanded.
On CNN: a bombing in New York, a mass shooting in Connecticut, and another bomb at the Treasury Department in D.C. He’d been in the building the week before meeting with Rathbone.
“We’re home in our apartment,” said Holly.
Dean appeared next to her, Hannah on his hip. “Tony, man, you need to get out of there.”
“I can’t just run out of the fucking city, guys, I— These right-wing nuts, Jesus Christ.”
He rubbed his forehead, sweat breaking out on his brow. There was a knock on the door.
“Hold on.” He dropped the phone to his side and crept toward the door, half expecting a hail of bullets to come punching through. But he recognized the man on the other side from his security detail.
“We’ve locked down the hotel, Dr. Pietrus,” he said, his voice unnervingly steady. “We’d like you to stay here until further notice. Do you have the essentials? Toiletries? Are you okay to be in your room for a while?”
“Yeah,” he said numbly.
“Any medications?”
And though he hadn’t thought about it that day, the reality of what could be going on inside his body returned to him. “No. I take blood pressure pills, but I have plenty.”
“Good. We’ll only move you if we feel the safety of the building is compromised.”
“Who did they kill?”
“We don’t have that information right now.”
In the days that followed with an already terrified country looking on, the details of the wider plot emerged. Five suicide bombers and six gunmen had killed a total of fifty-seven people, including two senators, three congressmen, a Supreme Court justice, oil and gas executives, financiers, lobbyists, and in the one botched bombing attempt, five Treasury employees and two Capitol Police. After failing to gain access to the Treasury building, specifically the third floor where Rathbone worked, the bomber had detonated in the lobby. Tony watched the news from his hotel room: the blackened, blood-stained marble walls and the twisted scrap hulk of what was once a metal detector. The CEO of the most powerful oil company in the world had been gunned down outside his gated mansion along with his wife, two children, and their security. Car bombs had killed two Republican congressmen and a Democratic congresswoman. Bob Syracuse, coauthor of PRIRA, had been shot dead in the barn of his Nebraska ranch. Mackowski had been killed at a private resort in Virginia along with three others. It was nearly a full day before he confirmed who those others were.
Tony sat on his bed as the images of Emii, Haniya, and Peter O’Connell finally appeared. The network kept recycling footage of Emii speaking at a conference. It turned out she had an adult daughter living in Denver. Emii had never mentioned her to Tony. Haniya and Peter had two children. They kept showing a certain image of Haniya stepping out of a black SUV on her way to the first meeting in Sun Valley. She was scowling with purpose.
“I’m so sorry,” he told Ash when they next spoke on the phone. He couldn’t stop thinking, for some reason, about this pair of earrings Haniya wore during many of their meetings, these obsidian beads as black as the hole at the center of the galaxy that dangled from each of her ears. They seemed of a part with what he’d admired about her: a competence and no-bullshit ferocity. He felt like a fool for his impatience, for every time he’d snapped in a meeting or let his ego get the better of him. He wanted to say all this to Hasan, but the words came out in a pitiful “I can’t imagine—I’m so goddamn sorry.”
Ash said nothing for a moment, and Tony waited. Finally, Hasan spoke. “I must say, I really did not expect this.”
“Ash, I don’t think anyone did.”
“I, um…” He hesitated. “I fear, Tony, that I’m not particularly adept at grieving. I wasn’t when Seth died, and yet I find myself even less prepared for this.”
“I doubt anyone could be. This is fucking horrible. They’re going to find the people who did this.” With the whole world crashing down around them, how frail and phony that sounded.
“Tony, you may be one of the only people who will appreciate what I’m about to say.” Tony waited. “These acts of violence have opened an opportunity we did not have before.”
Tony did not understand.
“With the passing of Senator Mackowski, the Republican caucus will have to elect a new majority leader. We have a new opportunity to pass the legislation.”
Tony breathed deeply. “Ash…”
“Spare me, Tony, please. I’ve already listened to the tear-filled tirade of my mother, who thinks me a monster for these dispassionate calculations. But the fact of the matter is, Hani’s and Peter’s deaths—to say nothing of all the other people killed—do not matter. What matters is passing this legislation so that we can arrest the current crisis. Now we have an opening.”
“Jesus, Ash… This is not—”
“Not the time? Tony, let us skip the platitudes. Let us look at the wound straight on. Eight months of paralysis have passed since the start of this crisis. The breakdown is accelerating. House and Senate members will rightfully be scared for themselves and their families. This is the opening we need.”
Tony was too stunned to respond. He felt himself choking up, even as Hasan continued.
“I’ve spoken to our Secret Service details. We’ll be meeting with Republican and Democratic leadership on the Hill tonight. Joe Otero says a new majority leader will be ready to bargain. I want to have a compromise written in the next thirty-six to forty-eight hours.”
Ash hung up without saying goodbye.
Washington went into an even more severe lockdown. All nonessential businesses in the city limits closed, with a 6 p.m. curfew and a ban on all nonessential personnel, checkpoints on every road, measures more draconian than those put in place after the siege. Tony read the manifesto disseminated online by 6Degrees, the people Vic Love’s government had tried to yoke him to a few years earlier, costing him seventeen months of his life. It was their typical drivel but now making clear that the nature of the confrontation would change: