Page 92 of The Session

“I can give you credit for the end of the week and then count two of your time-off periods as service time,” Burton offered. “I know it’s not the full contract. But there’s not much else I can do.”

Mark had forgotten that the whole purpose of the mission was to get him as many points on the board as he could to validate his role at Summit Strategies. Since the contract was incomplete, he was effectively back to square one.

Mark looked at the flyer again. “Has anybody traced this phone number?”

“Probably a burner number,” Burton said.

Mark was tempted to call it himself and see what happened but knew that would be an unnecessary provocation. He wondered if the flyer was mere misdirection, its real purpose to get Mark out of there.

Although he didn’t know enough of the main players at Summit Strategies, even his brief interaction with Blaise Cutler was enough to convince him there were people willing to play rough. Circulating a bunch of leaflets to flush Mark out wouldn’t be out of the question. He could even see Blaise pulling this off—maybe more as a joke, but also with the intent of making Mark’s life difficult.

“Do you think this could be someone inside Summit fucking with me?” Mark asked Kade and Burton.

“That’s a serious integrity violation,” Kade said.

Of all the people he had met in the Haitian operation, Kade was the most die-hard Summit devotee. Even though she admitted there were allegations of bad behavior by Summit insiders, she was quick to dismiss them.

“That’s above my pay grade. The Miami office and the islands—that’s a whole different world,” Burton said.

Mark took one last look through the operating room window to see how Blackjack was doing. Ortega caught his eye and gave him a thumbs-up. Between Blackjack and Mr. Wesley, Mark took some solace in the fact that he had done good.

Tribute

Mark walked through the small museum devoted to Max Lightman’s and Arnold Feingold’s life history, located in a small building on the eastern end of the Summit Strategies Executive Center on Exuma.

The executive center was a mini resort used primarily for internal Summit Strategies retreats, as opposed to their larger conference center.

Mark had flown from Haiti to the small airport on the island the night before and been given accommodations in a bungalow facing the ocean. Despite the relaxing atmosphere, he’d found it difficult to sleep and had gone for a walk as soon as the sun started to creep up over the horizon. Along the way, he came across the unlocked museum and decided to give himself a tour.

The museum told a narrative that taught Mark quite a bit about the story Lightman and Feingold wanted people to believe—compared to how things had actually happened.

The beginning of the tour featured replicas of the two motorcycles Max and Arnold had ridden cross-country—the trip that sparked the ideas behind Echo—set against a video wall showcasing sweeping, majestic shots of the American landscape. Mark had to admit it was evocative.

The next exhibit, called the Mesa, was a small theater with a bench where visitors could sit in a darkened environment as stars twinkled all around them, while Max, in his deep narrator voice, explained the vision he and Arnold had as they looked up at the sky and imagined what was possible.

Mark wandered through the museum, investigating the different exhibits: an Apple II computer, a wall filled with every official publication Max and Arnold had released, and the blackboard where Arnold had first written his patterns of discovery equations that shaped some of the early ideas of Echo.

At the end of the tour, Mark found himself heading back toward the Mesa theater to sit down and listen to the sound of his father’s voice.

“As Arnold and I looked out into the Milky Way, we wondered how many successful civilizations existed, how many had failed, and if we could visit them all, what the most important lesson we might learn would be,” Max Lightman explained, his voice reverent.

Mark noticed the silhouette of someone standing at the entrance.

“Wow, the audio quality got a lot better in here,” Tru noted. “It used to just be two speakers. This sounds like an IMAX theater now. I’ll bet anything Max wandered in here and realized it needed an upgrade.”

“When did you get in?” Mark asked as Tru took a seat next to him. He pressed the pause button, leaving only the twinkling stars.

“Just now. Sorry we couldn’t talk earlier—things have been pretty intense.”

“With the Haiti situation?” Mark asked.

“I’ve been dealing with another crisis. Last night, there was an attempted break-in at the Vault,” she told him. “We’re trying to figure out who was behind it.”

“What happened?” Mark asked.

“A plane landed on the runway. Two men went to the security entrance, claiming they were with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. They showed their badges and a search warrant, demanding access,” Tru recounted. “The guard in charge called our security team for verification. Another guard examined the tail number on the aircraft and realized it was fake. They told the men they couldn’t be let in without approval, and one of them pulled a gun and threatened to shoot the lock. But they ultimately decided otherwise, ran back to the plane, and flew off.

“When we contacted the Canadian government, they said they had no idea, which doesn’t mean they weren’t legitimate, but we ran their faces through our own databases, and they’re not with any Canadian government agency. One of the men showed a possible match for an Estonian military contractor.”