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Gutierrez looked at the men seated around the table. Their faces offered no comfort.

‘What?’ he breathed.

‘A number of circumstances were identified at the Williamsburg meeting that would make it possible to argue that the Vice President might be unreliable. The only one of any relevance today is that the Vice President might be considered overly left-wing or radical to be acceptable as Commander-in-Chief. To put it another way, that her patriotism might be open to question when it comes to military matters.’

For some seconds, Gutierrez stared blankly at Terrell. Then, abruptly, he laughed out loud.

‘OK, OK . Now I get it. This is just my rite of passage? Right? ‘Welcome to the Joint Chiefs’. Make the new guy look like an idiot. Well, I have to hand it to you. You did a great job. You really had me fooled.’

No one joined in the laughter.

‘Oh, come on,’ Gutierrez said.

Ten months earlier

I
N
THE
DIM
light, Lucia could just make out their distant reflection in the mirror of the dressing-table against the opposite wall. They were a handsome couple, she thought. Perhaps not quite Abelard and Heloise, not quite Romeo and Juliet. But a handsome couple, nonetheless. Pity about the wife, but then again, no relationship was perfect. And it wasn’t just business. Far from it. She liked him, perhaps even cared for him. There was no denying the physical attraction between them, something Lucia always appreciated. She looked at him fondly. Beautiful. Even if he were not the most powerful man in the world, he would still be quite a catch. Steven Marion Wade, Jr., President of the United States, looked younger than his fifty years, and his daily exercise routine, though a source of some amusement to the White House press corps, kept his weight in proportion to his six feet three inches of height. He had a full head of sandy hair and light brown eyes. He might easily have passed for forty, on his best days perhaps even thirty-five. His youthful looks never failed to surprise.

Neither did the fact that he was President. Before his election, most observers had written him off as a lightweight. In his home state in the south, he had served adequately as a district attorney, then as a state legislator, and finally as Governor, but he had made little impact on the national scene before entering the presidential primary race. No one saw him coming. Wade had a natural charm, a relaxed southern accent, and an astute mind, which he did not always fully reveal. He also had a shrewd understanding of the issues that mattered to the voters. Quietly, he began to build momentum, and by the time his opponents realized what was happening, it was too late. His election to a second term was achieved almost as a matter of course. The only real obstacle was persistent talk of a number of indiscretions, talk which his experienced campaign team was able to head off before it did any real damage. He was now halfway through his second term, and his popularity was at an all-time high. He was confident in himself, and it showed. The talk in Washington already was of a legacy, one of the better ones.

Lucia herself was quite a catch in anybody’s book. In her mid-thirties, she was an exceptionally beautiful woman, only an inch or two shorter than the President, slim, with olive skin, long black hair, and bright dark eyes. Her accent was European, but difficult to pin down to a particular country. It was the result of being raised, she liked to say, as a gypsy. She was born in Italy to Lebanese parents who were immigrants, but not settlers. She lived with them in more homes than she could begin to count, as they moved constantly in an unending quest for a better life. But her education, if irregular, was broad and practical. She grew up speaking several languages fluently, and learned to deal naturally with people of all nationalities and backgrounds. When life eventually brought her to Washington, she felt strangely at home.

She first met the President at a White House dinner which she had attended as the escort of a male friend, a German diplomat. The friend was gay, and Lucia covered for him on occasions when he wanted to conceal that fact. The moment she was introduced to the President she felt his instant attraction to her, and she was not surprised when, later in the evening, a Secret Service agent discreetly asked for her telephone number. She first went to him a week later in the White House residence, while the First Lady was somewhere in Africa on a goodwill mission. There was no pretense between them. The moment the door was closed, she undressed, and began to show the President the full range of her skills. From that moment, he had been captivated.

The White House was not the best venue for a secret rendezvous. It was easier when he was on the road, in a hotel, as he was now in Chicago. Of course, she always had to deal with the Secret Service agents. At first they were very suspicious of her, searching her thoroughly before allowing her into the President’s room, rifling through her purse, even making her take off her shoes to check for concealed weapons. But now they were more used to her, the searches had become more casual, and sometimes they even exchanged pleasantries with her. Except for the woman - Agent Linda Samuels. Nothing Lucia did or said made any difference there. Samuels made no effort to hide her dislike for Lucia, or her disapproval of Lucia’s relationship with the President. Jealous, Lucia thought with a smile. She knew the type. She wondered if Samuels had a sex life of her own.

She raised her head from his chest.

‘I hope that was to your satisfaction, Mr. President.’

‘You know it was.’

‘Better than the First Lady?’

The President kissed her, and she felt the passion stir again.

‘You do things the First Lady hasn’t even read about in books.’

Lucia kissed him happily in return, and settled her head back down on his chest.

The red telephone beside the bed rang. This was not the standard hotel phone. It had been specially installed by the President’s staff before he moved into the room. Lucia groaned, as the President, making a face, stretched his arm across the bed to answer it.

‘Let it ring,’ she said.

‘I wish I could, Honey. Hello?’

‘Mr. President,’ a male voice said, ‘I have the Secretary of State on the secure line from Tel Aviv. May I patch him though?’

Wade winked at Lucia and blew her a kiss.

‘Sure. Go ahead.’

He placed his hand over the receiver.

‘I have to take this.’

Lucia, knowing the rules, kissed him on the cheek, climbed out of bed, and walked towards the bedroom door. Beyond the door lay the living room of the presidential suite, where their play had begun. By walking straight ahead, she would be able to collect her clothes from the floor where they lay discarded. She thought of it as removing the evidence from the crime scene, like erasing the fingerprints from the murder weapon, picking up the spent cartridges. Her black seamed stockings lay on the floor just beyond the bed. They had been overlooked during the urgent first session. Her black panties, bra, and MaxMara cocktail dress were in the living room, next to the President’s shirt, pants and underwear. The empty bottle of Mumm Cordon Rouge and two glasses were on the small table beside the sofa. Lucia righted one of the glasses, which was on its side, and continued to the outer door of the suite, where she had abandoned her shoes as soon as she arrived.

She returned to the bedroom, carrying her clothes in a bundle. Wade was still talking with the Secretary of State, so she laid them on the bed and went to the bathroom to take a shower. The President was hanging up as she returned, holding a bath towel loosely around her. She smiled. He lay silently on the bed, watching appreciatively as Lucia dressed, brushed her hair, and applied her make-up and lipstick. Once she was ready to leave, Lucia sat on the edge of the bed to allow him to perform their final ritual. Kneeling in front of her, the President lifted each foot in turn, gently kissed each sole and placed her feet into her shoes. They walked arm-in-arm to the door of the suite, where they paused for a long good-bye kiss.

‘Call me when I’m back in Washington?’

‘Of course. Save all your energy for me. You’ll need it.’

To Lucia’s displeasure, Agent Samuels was still on duty, standing in the corridor opposite the President’s door. Didn’t that woman ever take a break? As usual, her expression was cold. Lucia thought Samuels must have been much the same age as she was herself, perhaps a shade older but not much. Samuels was one or two inches shorter, but muscular and well-built, and without any excess weight. Her looks were mid-western, her skin fresh, her hair and eyes light brown. Her accent matched.

‘Good night, Agent Samuels.’

‘Good night to you, Ma’am.’

Linda Samuels allowed her eyes to follow Lucia until she turned the corner towards the elevators. She caught herself fingering her side-arm, her favorite nine-millimeter Glock, and with an effort made herself stop.

‘Bitch,’ she added, under her breath.

‘Y
OU’VE
HAD
a rough time,’ Ted Lazenby had begun.

Almost two years had passed since the interview, but Kelly remembered those first words as if they had been spoken the day before. She remembered her first impression of his personal warmth, how she sensed instinctively that this was someone she could like and respect. It was usually when she was alone at night in her apartment that the memories returned. Memories not only of the interview, but also of the events which had brought her to Washington, to a job which made her the envy of many of her colleagues. If they knew what had gone before, if they knew the price she had paid, she thought, they might be less envious. She remembered her conversation with Lazenby clearly enough, but her impressions of the office she would later come to know so well were hazy. Of course, any young agent would have felt anxious on being summoned without warning into the presence of the Director of the FBI himself. But the events which had brought her there had damaged her self-confidence. She still felt as if she were feeling her way through a thick fog. Twenty-four hours before, she had been lying on the beach in Cancun. Now she was in the Director’s office in the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, and she was alone with the Director. Why she was there, she could only speculate. Her speculations were not encouraging.

‘Yes, Sir,’ she had replied, taking Lazenby’s hand.

He had walked to the door of his office to meet her as his secretary ushered her in. In his other hand, he held a brown file folder, which she recognized at once as part of her confidential service record.

‘Have a seat. Did Rose offer you some coffee?’

‘Yes. I’m fine, thank you, Sir.’

‘All right.’

Unhurriedly, Lazenby walked back to his desk and resumed his seat. Kelly made herself as comfortable as she could in an armchair in front of the desk.

‘You’re Special Agent Kelly Smith, age thirty, single.’

It was technically a question, but Lazenby was reading from her file, and he made it sound more like a statement.

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘You’re from Minnesota.’

‘St. Paul, born and raised.’

‘College at Notre Dame.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Athletic scholarship. What did you do?’

‘I ran track, middle distance, and I was on the tennis team.’

‘Then back home to St. Paul to law school. William Mitchell College of Law. The school that produced Chief Justice Warren Burger, if I’m not mistaken.’

Kelly smiled and nodded.

‘I’m impressed, Sir.’

Lazenby returned the smile.

‘So are they, and I bet they never let you forget it.’

‘No, Sir.’

‘Why law school?’

‘My parents are both lawyers. It was expected.’

‘What kind of law?’

‘General family practice, wills, trusts, estates, that kind of stuff.’

‘But you didn’t end up practicing law. Why not?’

Kelly shifted in her chair.

‘I’d always wondered whether it was what I really wanted to do, or whether I was just drifting into it. But I didn’t think about it seriously until my third year of law school. Up until then I had been too busy just keeping up with my school work. I hadn’t really faced up to the reality of what it would be like once I got out of school. When I finally asked myself whether it was what I wanted, the answer I got was ‘No’. If I had become a lawyer, I wouldn’t have done the kind of stuff my parents do. I would have been a prosecutor.’

‘Why?’

‘It felt like I would be making a difference, dealing with things that really mattered. But it wasn’t enough. I needed something more direct, more physical, I’m not sure quite how to put it.’

She paused.

‘And I’m sure that’s way more than you wanted to know.’

Lazenby put the file down on his desk and looked at her closely.

‘So, you came to the Bureau instead of becoming a prosecutor?’

‘I didn’t have it all neatly worked out. To tell you the truth, it just so happened that the Bureau was interviewing on campus around the time I had my great revelation. I thought, ‘what the hell, sounds interesting, can’t do any harm to talk to them.’ So I signed up for an interview, and suddenly, that was it. I was hooked. I knew it the moment I walked into the interview. I don’t know how else to describe it …’

She hesitated.

‘I understand,’ Lazenby said. ‘How did your parents react?’

‘Actually, they were great. I know they were disappointed that I wasn’t going to go into the family business, but they supported me totally.’ She smiled. ‘I was pleasantly surprised.’

‘How do you feel about your decision today?’

Kelly closed her eyes, and sat back in her chair, silent for a while.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lazenby said. ‘That wasn’t a fair question. You’ve only been on leave for a few weeks.’

Kelly opened her eyes and wrapped her arms tightly around her body.

‘Seven weeks.’

‘Seven weeks. New York gave you four months without the option.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Were the counselors helpful?’

Kelly hesitated.