Page 67 of The Session

Mark had no doubt his father was a deeply flawed man. The question was whether there was any good in him.

This led him to look for supporters of Lightman in the literature. Soon he found plenty of testimonials and interviews with people describing how programs created by Lightman had helped them.

Homeschooling parents, in particular, praised a program Summit had created. There was a lot of mention of “the tech”—the work of Lightman and Feingold—throughout the history of Echo and Summit. It seemed about fifty-fifty whether the tech was some kind of rebranded nonsense or a breakthrough process that changed people’s lives.

Given the conflicting accounts, how was Mark supposed to come to any conclusion?

He revisited Coach Stevenson’s advice about understanding the different parts of an organization and asked himself: If he wanted to get to know a particular team like Florida Atlantic College, how would he approach it?

Certainly, getting to know the coaches, the players, and the staff was important, but something Mark had observed Stevenson doing was talking to the groundskeepers and the people who maintained the facilities. They were always in the background, watching practices and games. They arrived before the coaches and left after everyone went home. They had eyes and ears everywhere, and they talked. The quarterback throwing helmets around in the locker room might be spotted crying in his car afterward. The assistant coach who bounced from high energy to borderline depression might not realize the cocaine baggies he threw away didn’t go unnoticed.

Mark woke up early and showed up at 2500 Bayshore two hours before his first meeting. He had two goals: get to know the janitorial staff and build rapport with the security guards.

Rapport wasn’t going to be easy or immediate, but if he started now, at least he’d be on the right track.

There were more people in the lobby than he expected, and he was greeted with plenty of smiles and hellos. Mark used the gold key card Tru had given him to activate the elevator and take it to the level-3 basement.

He stepped out and found himself in a utility corridor that looked nothing like the gleaming lobby and polished corridors of the upper levels. Already, he felt this was a good sign.

While everyone he’d met so far seemed to be a true believer—a willful Kool-Aid drinker—he doubted everybody at Summit was in on it at the same level.

Mark found a break room with two custodial workers—an older man and a woman—sitting at a table, sharing a bag of Funyuns as they drank coffee and spoke in Spanish.

Mark desperately wished he had some kind of training in the art of espionage and could think of a clever way to insert himself into the conversation, but he didn’t and couldn’t. Instead, he walked over and said, “Hi, I’m Mark. Mind if I sit down?”

“Yes, please. Nice to meet you. I’m Anthony,” the man offered, his Cuban accent light. “This is Fiona.”

“You’re the guy on TV,” Fiona noted.

“Yeah, it’s a bit much. Hopefully people get sick of it and they play something else,” Mark told them.

“How is the woman doing, the police officer?” Fiona asked.

“The news said she’s doing well, but I haven’t spoken to her yet.”

“What?” Fiona blurted, shocked. “I think she would be calling you every minute, thanking you.”

“She’s probably embarrassed,” Anthony put in.

“You might be right. I’m just glad she’s okay,” Mark replied.

“What about you? How is your shoulder?” Fiona asked.

“Oh, that? The bullet barely grazed me.”

Anthony pulled back his sleeve and showed Mark a scarred arm.

“How did that happen?” Mark asked.

“First Gulf War. We had a grenade go off and set the back of our Humvee on fire,” he explained.

“That had to hurt like hell.”

“Not at first,” Anthony said.

“Yeah, with a burn like that, it’s the healing that’s often the most painful part.”

“That’s right, you’re an EMT,” said Fiona.