“Marcus,” said the senator, standing and putting out his hand.
“Senator,” Marcus replied, shaking it and then the woman’s. “Miss Stewart.”
“Please call me Annie,” she said.
Marcus nodded and they stood for a moment in an awkward silence. Everyone was looking at Marcus, but he had no intention of saying more. He was being ambushed. Everyone in the room knew it, and he wasn’t exactly happy about it. Then Carter piped up and encouraged them all to sit.
“Annie called me this morning,” the pastor began. “Said she’d been trying to reach you but to no avail. Everything okay, Marcus? Phone working properly?”
It was true. She’d left three voice messages and sent two emails and a text. Marcus had responded to none of them.
“Everything’s fine, sir,” Marcus replied. “And, Miss Stewart—Annie—please forgive me. I wasn’t trying to be rude. I simply wasn’t interested in meeting with the senator. But clearly we’ve now passed that point.”
Annie leaned forward to say something, but the senator took the lead. “Marcus, I know you’ve been out of the game for some time, and I respect your reasons,” he explained. “But I’m heading for Europe in a few days, and I’d like you to come with me.”
“That’s very kind, but I need to pass.”
“Come on, son,” Carter said. “Don’t be so quick to say no. We’re all friends here. You’ve known the senator for years. Hear the man out.”
49
Marcus looked at his pastor, then back at the senator.
“You’re running for president,” he said. It wasn’t a question but a statement.
“Perhaps,” Dayton replied.
“You are. You’ve formed a PAC and socked away over eight million dollars.”
Dayton raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised he knew such things or cared. “Seven and change, but yes, we’ll be at eight by the end of the month.”
“Not hard to do when you’re a member of the Senate Finance Committee and the ranking member on the Intelligence Committee,” Marcus noted. “You just happen to hail from the state that holds the nation’s first caucuses, and you’re rising in the early polls, though they hardly mean much. It’s all about name recognition at this stage.”
Dayton was too smooth to take the bait. “Look, Marcus, I’m heading to Europe because I’m worried about Aleksandr Luganov,” he countered. “More people in this town ought to be, President Clarke among them.”
Marcus said nothing.
“America’s next president needs to understand that as troubled as the Middle East is and as volatile as North Korea remains, the most serious threat facing the United States—the truly existential threat—comes from Russia,” Dayton continued. “It’s the Russians who actually have enough nuclear warheads to annihilate 330 million Americans. It’s the Russians who actually have the ICBMs to deliver those warheads to our cities. And it’s the Russians who are being led by a man who will stop at nothing to rebuild the glory of Mother Russia—hack computers, buy politicians, engage in elaborate disinformation campaigns, arm our worst enemies, even invade small nations in order to intimidate great ones.”
“And?” Marcus asked, wondering why any of this should matter to him.
“And the man who is sitting in the White House right now either doesn’t get it or—how shall I put this delicately?—demonstrates insufficient concern.”
“And?”
“And I think it’s time to go over and meet some of our friends in London, Brussels, and Berlin and take a firsthand look at how ready NATO would be to confront Luganov if there were a new leader in the White House, someone who took the Russian threat a tad more seriously,” Dayton said. “I’m leaving Friday afternoon with some of my senior staff, and I’d very much like you to come with me.”
“Why?”
“You’ve worked on plenty of high-level delegations abroad. You know the protocol, and you know the security needs and the logistics.”
“With all due respect, sir, plenty of people in this town have done that and more. As you say, I’m out of the game, and honestly I have no interest in getting back in.”
The senator looked to Annie.
“Peter Hwang recommended you,” she said.
The mention of his old Marine buddy blindsided him. “Pete? What does he have to do with anything?”
Annie looked back at the senator.
“Dr. Hwang has joined my staff as a senior policy advisor.”
“On foreign policy?”
“No, that’s Annie’s portfolio,” Dayton said. “Dr. Hwang is helping me develop a health care plan and a strategy for reforming the VA, along with several other matters. He started with me a couple of months ago. When I told him about this trip, he urged me to take you along.”
“Senator, I’m flattered, but you can find someone younger to carry your bags.”
“I don’t need someone to carry my bags; I need someone to watch my back,” the senator said.
“No one in Washington has been more outspoken against Luganov than the senator,” Annie interjected. “He’s called him out on the invasion of Georgia and Crimea, plus everything the Russians have been doing in Syria and with Iran, not to mention hacking our elections, throwing dissidents in jail, making reporters disappear…”
Still Marcus didn’t bite.
“Look, Marcus, everyone knows I’m seriously looking at running for president,” Dayton said. “Everyone knows foreign policy will be a major component of my campaign, and when I run—if I run—I’ll be running directly against Luganov. The man is not just a menace. He poses a clear and present danger to the security of the United States, NATO, and the free world, and that danger is growing. Now, at present I don’t have a security team. Pete is insisting that I start to build one. He wants me to start with you, and I agree. I’d very much like you to come on this trip. Keep us all safe, and give me your take on the security situation in Europe while you’re at it. That’s it. I’m not asking you to join my team full-time. No long-term commitment. Just a robust retainer along with first-class airfare and first-class accommodations. As you rightly note, we have some money in the PAC. Let me use some of it on you, and then you can be back fixing roofs in no time. What do you say?”
Marcus had no interest. He didn’t agree with Dayton on almost any issue of domestic policy. He could only imagine what nonsense Pete was going to cook up for him. That said, he did share the man’s concerns about Luganov and found him a credible voice on matters of national security—one of the few in the Democratic Party. He also appreciated that neither the senator nor Miss Stewart had brought up the deaths of Elena and Lars in the conversation. They were treating him as a professional, not out of pity. That was classy and, in his experience, all too rare.
Standing, he thanked them both for the offer but politely declined. Then he shook their hands and took his leave, heading back up to the roof. He would skip lunch with the vets. He’d already had far more human contact than he’d wanted for the day. To his relief, Carter did not come find him after the senator left to prod him to reconsider or even to invite him to lunch. That gave Marcus a good six more hours on the roof, alone with his iTunes and his earbuds.
It was well past seven o’clock when he finally headed back to his apartment alone.
And someone was waiting for him.
50
“You look terrible,” Pete Hwang said with a smile.