On almost any day Congress is in session, one will find senators having a drink or dinner at Bistro Bis. Often the people with them are more powerful than the senators they are trying to influence. The food is a mix of French and modern American, and the bar is large enough to provide privacy for those in the dining room.
Rena has not picked the place. Dick Bakke has.
He is waiting for Rena at the bar holding bourbon that has the word Kentucky in the name twice. Kentucky Tavern Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. Rena thinks you should never order anything that has to try that hard. He orders a Grey Goose martini.
“What are we doing here, Mr. Rena?”
“I want you to tell me what you have.”
That wins a smile from Bakke, and Rena notices Samantha Reese enter Bistro Bis and take a seat near the front of the bar by the windows.
“You want me to tell you what I have?”
“Whatever it is, I promise we will pursue it. If Roderick was killed by friendly fire—on purpose or not—we want to get to the truth. That’s all. No cover-up. I promise. You don’t know me, but I have a problem with that sort of thing.”
A long look from Bakke.
“Just hand it over?”
“You have my word.”
Bakke’s reaction is something between a snicker and a gasp. “You are a Boy Scout, aren’t you?”
“An Eagle Scout, actually.”
“You’ll be seeing things in the next few days that will be very interesting,” Bakke says. “It will start to come out.”
Rena gives Bakke a stare that Randi Brooks calls “the read.” It is something he has done his whole life, trying to understand people by watching them. He refined it in army interrogation rooms around the world, and now he was paid to use a variation of it on some of the most powerful people in the country.
Randi Brooks would call this whole meeting “a read,” Rena’s habit of wanting to confront antagonists in person, ask them questions, and observe their body language, speech, and mannerisms as they try to answer.
It has taken less time to read Bakke than Rena expected.
“You have nothing,” he tells the senator. “You don’t have the video. You don’t know what’s on it. You have no witnesses.”
“What does that drone video show?” Bakke says. He has raised his voice.
“I’m not authorized to tell you that, Senator.”
“If it disproves General Roderick was killed by Americans, or people working on their behalf, you will tell me, Mr. Rena.”
Rena leans closer and, slowly, just above a whisper, says, “The video is classified. If I were to reveal anything about it to you, that would constitute a federal crime.”
Bakke smiles a strange, chilling smile back, the kind you recall in the middle of the night. “You are a traitor to your party, Mr. Rena.”
“You can only be a traitor to your country, Senator.”
“You know where this country is headed?” Bakke asks.
“I find it’s hard enough to understand where it’s been.”
The Bakke smile is back. “Those who don’t understand the past are doomed to repeat it? You really should have come armed, Mr. Rena, with more than clichés.”
“You know the one about ends never justifying means?” Rena says. “That one’s true, too. It’s why conducting yourself with honor is so important. Because in politics there is no end, is there? The battles just go on and on.”
Bakke doesn’t like being lectured to, which is why Rena is doing it. He wants to see the senator angry, to see what he has.
Bakke frowns and leans in toward Rena. His voice has become more liquid. “My party conducted itself with honor and good manners for decades. We compromised on everything until the government became so bloated it was an addiction. And now the Democrats are out of ideas. And the country is failing. I’m fighting to change that, and if I need to scorch the earth a little, so be it.”
“And after you have scorched the earth and made the truth into a joke,” Rena says, “how do you govern?”
Bakke’s unsettling smile has been replaced by something angrier and more sincere. “The truth? Don’t underestimate me, Mr. Rena. I’m not the cynic you think I am. But I understand that the truth is bigger than a few grubby facts. It’s a mistake to be too literal. Knowing that is why my side is winning.”
“Good night, Senator,” Rena says, rising.
He has learned what he came for.
“I’m going to take you down,” Bakke says.
Rena stops. He doesn’t like bullies. They’re usually cowards, and the threats they make are usually empty. But that doesn’t mean the people who make them aren’t dangerous. He looks hard at Bakke, a man who is balding, overweight, physically awkward, cunning, and relentless. Rena studies him a moment longer. Then he turns and leaves.
ON THE SIDEWALK, he has to pause to calm his breathing. He’s learned two things.
One, Bakke is bluffing about having evidence Roderick died of friendly fire—let alone some kind of assassination.
Two, the man is more dangerous than Rena thought.
He pulls out his phone. There are two text messages.
One from Vic: “Heard the accusations from Bakke. Hope you are ok.”
She’d called earlier, and he had not called her back.
The other message is from Brooks. The Oosay Committee would be resuming hearings next week. There are rumors of a surprise witness.
About ninety hours away.
How much more could happen, Rena wonders, in ninety hours?