62

WASHINGTON, D.C. —1 DECEMBER

It was early and dark and pouring as Marcus finished his daily five-mile run.

His phone rang and it was Kailea in London, so he took it. “What’s up?” he said, slowing to a walk and wiping the rain from his eyes.

“Got an update.”

“Go.”

“About an hour ago, some kids playing in an abandoned garage in the East End stumbled across a hackney cab. When they saw what was inside, they freaked out and called the police.”

“What was it?”

“Two bodies, a man and a woman. We’re pretty sure it’s Meryl Sullivan and Thomas Gibney.”

“Who?”

“Sullivan was a top political reporter for the BBC. Gibney was her cameraman. They were supposed to cover Evans’s meeting with the PM. But they never made it. Instead, two people showed up in their place. The names were the same, but they’d changed the photos.”

“Do you know who the substitutes were?”

“Not yet, but believe me, we’re working on it.”

“And how’d they get suicide vests through all that security? I still don’t get that.”

“No one does, but the Brits have detained everyone who was working the press security checkpoint that morning on suspicion of colluding with these imposters. I’ve got to go, but I’ll get more as soon as I can.”

Robert Dayton sat behind his large oak desk, his feet perched on a credenza.

Sporting his favorite brown linen suit, a crisp light-green Brooks Brothers shirt, and a dark-green silk tie with matching pocket square, the seventy-one-year-old senator was simultaneously listening to Morning Joe on MSNBC and reading the A section of the Washington Post. He was oblivious to the fact that three people had entered his office, even though they’d knocked twice and cleared their throats several times more.

Pete Hwang had been here countless times before. Yet this was his first time back in the senator’s spacious corner office since stepping down from the employ of the man’s political action committee and joining the Central Intelligence Agency. Dayton, of course, didn’t know he worked for the CIA. Nor did Annie Stewart. Like all of Pete’s family and friends, they believed he now worked as a physician for the Diplomatic Security Service. The real story, and Marcus’s as well, was too highly classified even for a senior member of the Intel Committee and his most trusted aide.

“Senator,” Annie announced in a loud and confident voice, “Marcus Ryker and our old friend Dr. Hwang are here to see you.”

Pete hated when she called him “Dr. Hwang.” Crazy about Annie but still too shy to ask her out, he had repeatedly insisted she simply call him Pete, but to no avail.

“Ah, yes, gentlemen, please have a seat,” Dayton said, startled out of his thoughts and fumbling to find which of the four remotes on his desk would mute the television. Finally Annie walked over and took care of it for him.

Dayton exchanged pleasantries with Pete for several minutes, asking how his arm was recovering and how he liked being over at State. Then they turned to the matter at hand.

“I met with the president last night,” Marcus began. “I shared with him what you and Annie told me, and he’d like to see you both right away.”

“Really?” Dayton asked. “I have to say, I’m surprised.”

“Well, sir, I admit it didn’t come easy,” Marcus conceded. “But in the end he asked the Secret Service to sneak you into the residence through the tunnel from Treasury so the press doesn’t catch wind of anything.”

“When does he want to meet?”

“At nine.”

“Tonight?”

“No, in an hour,” Marcus said. “But he has one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“He wants you to agree to be his new special envoy to the Middle East.”

Dayton abruptly took his feet off the credenza. “I beg your pardon?”

“I told the president what you said about being finished in your party and about ending your presidential campaign.”

“Did you now?”

“I said you remain a dyed-in-the-wool liberal. But I also told him you’re an old-school patriot who believes in putting your country ahead of partisan politics.”

“And?”

“And I suggested that he not simply listen to your counsel on how best to navigate a Saudi peace initiative but hire you to run the whole show.”

The room was silent, so Marcus continued.

“Senator, let’s be candid here. The president is prepared to put the entire weight of his presidency into making peace in the Middle East. If the Palestinians aren’t ready, that’s sad but not particularly surprising. But if the Saudis are ready to make peace with Israel, that would be absolutely historic. It could clear the way for other Gulf states to make peace with Israel as well —the Emiratis, the Bahrainis, perhaps even the Omanis. But it’s going to take someone with a tremendous amount of experience to thread this needle, and I told the president that you’re just the man for the job.”