Zero Game by Brad Meltzer Page B

it happen.
    “Nice to be on time,” Trish scolds as I enter the room.
    I’m the last of the four horsemen to arrive. It’s intentional. Let ’em think I’m not anxious about the agenda. As usual, Ezra’s on my side of the oval table; Trish and Georgia, our Senate counterparts, are on the other. On the right-hand wall, there’s a black-and-white Ansel Adams photograph of Yosemite National Park. The photo shows the clear glass surface of the Merced River dominated by the snow-covered mountain peak of Half Dome overhead. Some people need coffee; I need the outdoors. Like the Grand Canyon picture in my office, the image brings instant calm.
    “So, anything new?” Trish asks, wondering what I’ve got up my sleeve.
    “Nope,” I reply, wondering the same about her. We both know the pre-Conference tango. Every day, there’s a new project that one of our bosses “forgot” to put in the bill. Last week, I gave her three hundred thousand dollars for manatee protection in Florida; she returned the favor by giving me four hundred thousand to fund a University of Michigan study of toxic mold. As a result, the Senator from Florida and the Congressman from Michigan now have something to brag about during the elections. Around here, the projects are known as “immaculate conceptions.” Political favors that—poof—appear right out of thin air.
    I’ve got a mental list of every project—including the gold mine—that I need to squeeze in by the time pre-Conference is done. Trish has the same. Neither of us wants to show our hand first. So for two hours, we stick to the script.
    “FDR’s presidential library,” Trish begins. “Senate gave it six million. You gave it four million.”
    “Compromise at five mil?” I ask.
    “Done.”
    “Over to Philadelphia,” I say. “What about the new walkways for Independence Hall? We gave it nine hundred thousand; the Senate, for some reason, zeroed it out.”
    “That was just to teach Senator Didio to keep his mouth shut. He took a crack at my boss in
Newsweek.
We’re not gonna stand for that.”
    “Do you have any idea how vindictive and childish that is?”
    “Not half as vindictive as what they do in Transpo. When one of the Senators from North Carolina pissed off that subcommittee Chairman, they cut Amtrak’s funding so the trains wouldn’t stop in Greensboro.”
    I shake my head. Gotta love appropriators. “So you’ll give full funding to the Liberty Bell?”
    “Of course,” Trish says. “Let freedom ring.”
    By noon, Trish is looking at her watch, ready for lunch. If she’s got a project in her pants, she’s playing it extra cool—which is why, for the first time today, I start wondering if I should put mine out there first.
    “Meet back here at one?” she asks. I nod and slam my three-ring binder shut. “By the way,” she adds as I head back to my office, “there’s one other thing I almost forgot . . .”
    I stop right there and spin around. It takes every muscle in my face to hide my grin.
    “It’s this sewer project in Marblehead, Mass,” Trish begins. “Senator Schreck’s hometown.”
    “Oh, crap,” I shoot back. “That reminds me—I almost forgot about this land sale I was supposed to ask you about for Grayson.”
    Trish cocks her head like she believes me. I do the same for her. Professional courtesy.
    “How much is the sewer?” I ask, trying hard not to push.
    “Hundred and twenty thousand. What about the land sale?”
    “Doesn’t cost a thing—they’re trying to buy it from us. But the request is coming from Grayson.”
    She barely moves as I say Grayson’s name. If memory serves, she had a run-in with him a few years back. It wasn’t pretty. Rumors said he made a pass. But if she wants revenge, she’s not showing it.
    “What’s on the land now?” she asks.
    “Dust . . . rabbit turds . . . all the good stuff. What they want is the gold mine underneath.”
    “They taking cleanup responsibility?”
    “Absolutely. And