The rooftop terrace of the Watergate Hotel was one of D.C.’s up-and-coming hot spots. Situated in the shadow of the infamous office complex, the hotel’s recent renovations had hit a sweet spot with local influencers. There was a brass-and-mirror bar and a casual dining area, all under cover of a mainsail awning. The rest of the establishment was open air, sprawling across an expansive terrace. Outdoor furniture sat clustered in tiny islands: thick-cushioned chairs, intimate settees, knee-high tables, all of it sprayed with sealant to withstand rain and spilled mojitos. It was a place where good times were had and business consummated. A place for the old and the young, for the rich and the imminently so. Legendary bachelorette parties raged in the spring, while summer featured Nats games on the bar’s big-screens. Autumn veered toward business, everyone back to work at the turn of the federal fiscal year, deals struck and commissions made.
On the cusp of winter, however, the rooftop took on a different vibe. Space heaters replaced umbrellas, and the daiquiri dispenser behind the bar gave way to an espresso machine. Like the greenbelt along the Potomac, brown and leafless in the distance, the rooftop of the Watergate Hotel was a biome of its own, conforming to the seasons. On offer this morning: hot chocolate and promises.
Mandy Treanor checked her watch. Senator Bob Morales, long-tenured Floridian and intermittent front-runner in a clogged cast of Republican presidential aspirants, was due to arrive in ten minutes. She still saw no sign of Bryce.
Working for a freshman congressman, Mandy wore twin hats. She was both his campaign manager and chief of staff—if one receptionist, two part-timers, and an intern could be classified as a workforce. She didn’t really mind. Unlike many of her counterparts, she believed in her man: Bryce was a stand-up act in a cutthroat town. Still, she fretted over her congressman’s schedule like any good manager, and in that moment her irritation was amplified. For the last five minutes she’d been fending off come-ons from the less than honorable Benjamin Edelman, four-term senator from New Jersey and serial philanderer. The man’s eyes had been undressing her from the moment she’d reached the rooftop, and she had already turned down one offer of a drink—this before ten in the morning. Mandy was dressed in a perfectly professional manner, yet men like Edelman seemed to imagine that no modest blouse-and-skirt ensemble was complete until accessorized with a stripper pole.
Having retreated to the far end of the bar, she surveyed the elevator lobby from behind a shivering potted palm. Still no Bryce. A sharp gust of wind snapped across the terrace, more mid-December than early November. Mandy considered the rooftop a risky venue for a Veterans Day ceremony. She could understand the general appeal—there was no better backdrop in Foggy Bottom for sweeping views of the White House, Capitol building, and National Mall. Unfortunately, on a dreary Monday in November, with swirling winds and threatening skies, it seemed a protocol disaster in the making. She picked out Senator Morales’s chief of staff near the dais, saw him looking up worriedly at the ragged pewter overcast. Probably praying for a bit of global warming, she mused.
Today’s gathering was a standard midrank affair. There would be a smattering of Senate leaders, along with staffers, lobbyists, and invited guests. Seated in front were two dozen veterans representing every campaign going back to World War II. This was how Bryce had scored his invitation—only a half dozen House members had been included, all with military backgrounds. Bryce had been typically reluctant, but Mandy turned the screws, presenting it as a chance to mingle with deep-pocketed donors.
Finally, she spotted him in the elevator lobby, sweeping past a table full of coffee decanters and sweet rolls. Six minutes to spare. He surveyed the terrace, spotted her right away, and began shouldering through a forest of Brooks Brothers and VFW hats.
“Hey, Mandy,” he said.
“Morning, boss.” This was how she addressed him when she was peeved. Bryce didn’t seem to notice, and she added, “If you’d been here ten minutes ago, I could have introduced you to the CEO of Boeing.”
“Sorry, traffic was bad.”
“It’s D.C. Traffic is always bad.” She caught sight of Edelman ambling their way. “Christ,” she muttered, “here he comes again.”
“Who?”
“Senator Edelman. He told me he might have ‘A position opening up on my staff.’”
“Did he ask for your resume?”
“He was ogling my resumes.”
Bryce might have smiled.
“Bryce, my boy! Good to see you!” said Edelman. He was a big meaty man, the typical linebacker from a minor college who’d let himself go. When he thrust out his right hand it looked like some crude martial arts move—which, in D.C., it effectively was. The tumbler in Edelman’s other hand remained rock-steady.
Bryce endured a predictably bone-crushing grip. “Good to see you, Senator.”
“I was just talking to your lovely campaign manager. She tells me your reelection bid is right on track.”
“She tells me the same thing.”
“Good, good. Your father would be proud. How is he?”
“No change,” Bryce said. Walter Ridgeway had suffered a stroke three years earlier, a debilitating event that had decimated his body, robbed him of his mental faculties, and forced him into full-time care at a nursing home. It was a devastating turn for a man who had twice served as ambassador to Austria, and before that Czechoslovakia. A power broker in D.C. politics for a generation, he’d fallen to little more than a memory inside the Capitol’s marble-lined halls.
“He and I go way back,” Edelman said. “Walter was a man who knew how to get things done.”
Mandy gave Bryce a cautious look, hoping he wouldn’t react to the use of past tense.
Edelman rambled on with well-feigned sobriety, “I always thought he should have run for Congress himself instead of wasting so much time at the State Department.” He tipped back his drink—based on the scent, Mandy concluded, a gin and tonic.
“Dad went where he thought he could do the most good,” Bryce said.
Mandy piped in, “At least he convinced Bryce to carry on the fight.” She maneuvered to keep Bryce between herself and the senator.
“Yes, indeed,” Edelman seconded. “You’ve got a long career ahead of you, young man. Although I’m not sure it was wise to spend so much time in the Army. You could have filled that square,” he paused to snap his fingers, “then moved on. But I’ll never argue against a man serving his country.”
Mandy went still, a bomb squad tech who’d just watched the wrong wire get clipped. Bryce didn’t take kindly to fools—particularly those who denigrated military service but had never served themselves.
“Excuse me, Senator,” Bryce said.
He put a hand to the small of Mandy’s back and steered her away. She looked at him with surprise, and once they were clear she said in a low voice, “That was good. I thought you were about to coldcock the guy.”
“Nah, that’s the old Bryce. It might have felt good in the moment, but it wouldn’t be a career enhancer.”
“Your campaign manager approves. Anyway, thanks for rescuing me.”
Bryce ushered her to the far side of the terrace, cutting through the crowd like a bouncer through a nightclub. Mandy had always viewed him as something of an enigma. Bryce had been born to privilege—the best East Coast prep schools and a BA from Princeton—yet he’d cast aside the life plan designed by his father to join the Army. Law school was replaced by officer candidate school. While his Ivy League classmates were summering in the Hamptons, Bryce had been excelling at Ranger training. Instead of six-figure bonuses from Goldman Sachs, he’d gotten combat pay for deployments to faraway and dusty hellholes. Then, three years ago, everything had changed in one terrible moment. Bryce had been in the passenger seat of a Land Rover, on a dusty road in Mali, when a bomb hidden beneath a culvert had detonated. He’d been seriously injured, forced to take a medical discharge.
It was an abrupt end to a promising military career. Bryce’s father, however, viewed the tragedy as more a beginning than an end. He saw a dream resume for a neophyte politician, and while it had taken time to get Bryce on board, in the end his father prevailed. The successful congressional campaign, launched with the blessings of the retiring Republican incumbent in a deeply red district, had been a slam dunk. Mandy had her eye squarely on a second term.
Bryce led to a standing-room-only section behind the main seating area, and soon Mandy caught a flourish of activity near the elevator. Senator Morales was arriving. Tall and angular, Morales had entered national politics as a smooth-faced lawyer. Thirty-six years later he’d become something else. The burdens of Washington seemed etched into every line on his craggy face. His posture was stooped, his gaze rheumy, and twin wings of white hair swept back from his temples like unmolted plumage. Framed by younger aides and two robust D.C. police officers, he stalked across the terrace like an arthritic heron.
“Looks like we’re about to start,” Bryce said.
Mandy looked across the terrace at a brimming crowd. She’d heard that two hundred invitations had been sent out, and it appeared every one had shown. The senator was taking his time, glad-handing his way to the front, special attention given to a man she recognized as an Exxon lobbyist. Bryce took a long look at his watch.
“Got an appointment I don’t know about?” asked the woman who micromanaged his every minute.
“No … I’d just love to see one of these things start on time for a change.”
“Since I have your undivided attention, maybe we could have a congressman to chief of staff conference.”
“Sure.”
“I’ve heard there may be an opening next year on the judiciary committee.”
“The what?”
“Judiciary … I have it on good authority two members will be leaving. Assuming we get you a second term, it’s time to start pressing for a worthwhile committee assignment.”
“Yesterday at the office we were talking about Veteran’s Affairs.”
“It’s an option. But I mentioned Judiciary too.”
“Did you?”
“As you were leaving, getting into the cab.”
“Oh, right. I guess either one is good.”
“No, Bryce, they’re not in the same league. Look, I know you miss the Army, but you have a new professional ladder now. Judiciary would be a promotion, like making colonel.”
“I barely pinned on major.”
“Which is my point. In this world, play your cards right and you can jump ahead a few ranks. It’s a much more important committee, one notch below Ways and Means. If you have bigger aspirations, that’s the way to go.”
He glanced at her, a reply brewing. In the end, he only said, “Okay, Mandy. Let’s talk about it later.”
Morales was nearly in place, shaking hands and pointing all the way to the makeshift stage—as if he knew every face in the crowd. He was momentarily lost amid a cluster of bodies around the podium. Situated to face that focal point were a dozen neat rows of chairs, all occupied. Old soldiers wore ballcaps scripted with unit emblems and campaigns. A pair of World War II vets sat in wheelchairs in front, while the next three rows were a mix: Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War. The remaining seats were taken by spouses, congressmen, dignitaries, and VA officials. The balance of the terrace was relegated to standing room for staffers.
Mandy recognized two lesser Republican presidential candidates seated near the back—the senior senator from Colorado, and the governor of Ohio. Both were polling in low single digits, mired in a massive primary field of nineteen hopefuls. What a silly way to choose the most powerful person on earth, she mused.
She looked out over the rail across the National Mall. The hotel’s fifteenth floor—its height was limited so as not to overshadow the Lincoln Memorial—offered a reaching panorama of the nation’s power centers. The Capitol building, White House, Washington Monument, and Pentagon, a veritable gallery of white marble testaments. In the sullen morning light, they all looked gray and exhausted, as if dreading the next national calamity.
A voice brought Mandy’s attention back to the rooftop soiree. Senator Morales was being introduced.