WASHINGTON, D.C. —17 SEPTEMBER

The day started just like any other.

Marcus Ryker woke before dawn and ran his usual five miles. Returning to his apartment in Eastern Market, he showered, threw on a pair of ripped jeans, a denim work shirt, and steel-toed boots, and walked to a diner a few blocks from Capitol Hill. There he sat alone in a booth in the back and ordered scrambled eggs, dry toast, and black coffee. He read the Post from cover to cover, then, unable to take any more bad news, trudged over to Lincoln Park Baptist Church.

For the last few weeks, he’d been helping put a much-needed new roof on the 137-year-old building. By noon the sun was beating down from a cloudless sky, and Marcus was drenched with sweat. He took a swig from his water bottle, checked his watch, and decided he could still get another twenty to thirty minutes of work in before stopping to wash up for his weekly lunch with Carter Emerson and some vets who attended the church. They didn’t talk about war. They didn’t talk about loss. They certainly didn’t talk about politics or women. Most of the conversations were about whether the Nats were still in contention for the play-offs and whether the Redskins —or in Marcus’s case, the Broncos —had any shot at all at a winning season, to say nothing of going to the Super Bowl.

Marcus was bending over to retrieve his hammer when Nan Warren shouted to him and asked if he could come down a few minutes early. Nan was Carter Emerson’s secretary. She was the one whose name Marcus had blanked on the day of the memorial service. Yet for at least three months after Elena and Lars’s deaths, she had faithfully brought him a home-cooked meal, usually meat loaf, always on Mondays. Her husband, Jim, was one of the vets Marcus had lunch with on Wednesdays. They had all become friends.

“Be right there,” Marcus called back. He assumed Carter wanted to see him before the lunch meeting.

Though he’d never let on, he felt a pang of annoyance at being summoned early. There were already forecasts of big thunderstorms rolling in over the next few days. If he was ever going to get this roof done, he needed fewer breaks and more focus. Yet that wasn’t the way Carter and his team rolled. “Jesus wasn’t about projects; he was about people,” Carter would say with a hearty laugh whenever Marcus mentioned his concern about the roof’s progress. “Love your neighbor, not your work.”

Marcus didn’t care much for such platitudes. A big part of the reason he was working on the roof was to avoid people. Then again, he was pretty sure Carter was onto him and was intentionally trying to get him engaged with as many people as possible. That had to be why he’d asked Marcus to do odd jobs around the church in the first place, starting on the very day Marcus had turned in his letter of resignation to the Secret Service. It also had to be why Carter was always calling him down from the roof to “have some lemonade together” or “meet a brother” or fix a clogged toilet or listen to and critique the latest draft of his next sermon or have a slice of Maya’s “crazy-good key lime pie.” As annoying as it was sometimes, Marcus was also grateful. This man and his dear wife loved him and were doing their best to keep him from hitting rock bottom.

After descending the ladder and taking a few minutes to wash his hands and face, Marcus exited the lavatory in the church basement and went to the third floor, where Nan was sitting at her desk.

“Go right on in, young man,” she said with a warm smile. “He’s waiting for you.”

When Marcus rapped on the door, heard a hearty “Come in,” and stepped into Carter’s cluttered office, he was caught off guard to find they were not alone. Sitting on the couch along the back wall near the windows was Robert Dayton, the senior senator from Iowa, wearing a seersucker suit and a pale-blue bow tie that made Marcus think of his father-in-law. Sitting in a wooden chair to his right was Annie Stewart, wearing a black-and-white-striped sweater jacket over a white blouse, black slacks, and black flats. The last time he’d seen them was at the memorial service.

“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.”