Them? He said nothing, only looked at her. She blinked first, nodded. “All right, I’ll speak to your boss, but only if you agree to do something for me first.”

Now he was negotiating with an ambassador. “You want me to dismiss my harem?”

She laughed, actually laughed. “I want you to come with me tonight to a function at the secretary of state’s house. It’s a show of solidarity to invite me, and a sort of testing of the waters as well. If Arliss and I hadn’t been friends for more than half our lives, I think she’d have asked me to resign herself by now with outward regret and inward good riddance. But she wants to go the extra mile. I want you to come with me, as my escort and bodyguard.”

Why didn’t she want Hooley going with her? Well, okay, dumb question—Hooley would stick out like a shark in a fishbowl. He looked like what he was, a wrecking ball, and he’d maim anything or anyone with the poor judgment to set the Enterprise down within three feet of Natalie Black.

“I’m not trained as a bodyguard.”

“I’ve seen you in action, Agent Sullivan. You don’t get excited and go off the deep end, you do what you have to do, nothing more. If there was an attacker, you’d deal with him, then you’d remove him from the premises, no one the wiser.”

Davis liked her, really liked her, and he didn’t want her to be hurt. “Is your daughter going with you? From the looks of Ms. Biker Babe, she’d keep you safe.”

“Perry is not a diplomat, so it wouldn’t work. I’m afraid if someone threatened me or even made a snide remark, I might end up seeing her give me her heartbreaker smile while she stood over a bleeding body.

“She’ll be there, though. Actually, she’s coming with the secretary of state’s son. And that’s another reason Arliss doesn’t want to cut me loose. Her son, Day, would blow a fit. You see, Day and Perry were practically raised together. I used to think of them as brother and sister, but now, well, maybe they’ll get married, but I’m by no means sure yet, since Perry’s a clam on the subject.”

Davis ruminated, then gave it up. “All right, tonight I’ll be your bodyguard with the understanding that first thing tomorrow, you speak to my boss, Agent Dillon Savich. Shall we shake hands?”

She gave him a patrician down-the-nose stare, but he stared back. He knew all it would take would be for her to be with Savich for two minutes to change her mind. Davis wondered if Hooley would think Savich was a pretty-boy tool. Somehow he didn’t think so.

“Very well,” she said, rose, and stuck out her hand.

Washington Post offices
1150 15th Street NW, Washington, D.C.

Tuesday, late afternoon

Bennett John Bennett was a ferocious linebacker at Ohio until he wrecked his knee during a snowboard competition at Squaw Valley. After a six-month funk he decided that writing about sports was the way to go, since playing pro ball wasn’t in his future. Now he was the top sports editor at the Post, had four flat-screen TVs in his living room all set to sports channels, and was lucky enough to have a very tolerant wife. He was picked for his job because he was smart and focused and dealt with his staff like a magician with his deck of cards.

He now looked around at each of them in turn. “We’ve got a situation here—any of you read Walt Derwent’s tweet from half an hour ago that just came up on ESPN? Yeah, of course you have, Perry. Okay, for the rest of you, here it is:

“Is Tebow returning to Patriots to become Brady’s heir? Sources say yes. Sounds right to me.”

“Now, all Walt has at this point—Sources say yes—and what does that mean?”

Alonzo Petri, aka Einstein, said, “Probably something he overheard in the ESPN men’s room.” Alonzo was known as Einstein for two reasons: he was always spouting esoteric trivia about baseball and his hair looked like it had been fried in an electrical socket.

Bennett said, “Could be, but I’ll bet it comes from someone more reputable, otherwise old Walt wouldn’t go out on a limb like that. You can bet he’ll continue to milk this, now that he’s whetted everyone’s interest. We’ll be fighting every sportswriter and announcer you can think of to get to Tebow, his agent, and the Patriots’ coaching staff. This story will build and build, until someone gets an absolute denial or an absolute confirmation.”

He looked at each of them again, then focused on Perry. He said, “Perry, I gotta tell you, you know the make of the towels in the Steelers’ locker room, but you didn’t know about this? What’s going on here?”