his thumb began to pop each of the fingers’ joints in turn. “You can’t seriously believe Max’s bodyguards would start a… an incident here.” It would have been too preposterous to say “a fight.” Yet that’s what she’d been thinking.
“Would you like to leave?” Demetrius asked.
“I’m not finished eating,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Demetrius said, and the way he said it troubled her.
There was a reason for her feeling uneasy about Max’s request. David had been acting strangely lately, and the two of them hadn’t gone out to eat as much. It came to her that the last time had been just before the GD invasion of Ontario. Since then, the President had been retreating into himself. She’d tried to bring him out of isolation, but…
Anna swallowed nervously, and she almost reached for the wine glass.
While moving into her alcove, Max Harold cleared his throat. Maybe he thought she was taking too long to decide. “Anna Chen,” he said. “This is a surprise.”
Demetrius shifted his head the tiniest fraction. It was a question for her: did she want to do something about the intrusion?
The idea made her spine tingle. She disliked confrontations, and it would be unwise to insult Max. The man held onto grudges as if they were ancient gold coins and he a curator of artifacts.
“Won’t you sit down, Director?” Anna asked.
“Oh, well, since you’re asking,” Max said. He turned to his bodyguards and jutted his chin at the table of half-eaten food. They pulled out chairs and sat down there, looking like mob hitmen more than the protectors of the second most powerful man in America.
Demetrius retreated, taking up station below the alcove and facing the three bodyguards. They ignored him. With a clatter of plates, they also shoved aside the half-eaten food and told a waitress to bring them menus.
Max, meanwhile, pulled out a chair and sat down at the table with Anna.
She knew him from the many inner circle meetings with the President and she knew him from reputation. He was like an encyclopedia, able to spout facts at will. He displayed little emotion but ironclad logic. Physically unremarkable, Max was in his mid-fifties, with a bald head dotted with liver spots. He wore a rumbled suit today as he always did and had a distracted air like a preoccupied professor.
Max was polite, seemed harmless enough in person and had managed to amass great power as the head of Homeland Security. His genius and ability to outwork any three people had been instrumental in creating the vast Militia organization. They had gone a long way to ensuring that America had enough soldiers to fight the massed invaders.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had never approved of the Militia. General Alan had said on many occasions that the Marines were competition enough for the Army. Despite their dog and cat antagonism, Max and General Alan had been forced to work together for quite some time.
Through his immense organizational abilities, Max had made himself indispensable to the President and many said indispensable to the United States of America. Others said his organization had become too preoccupied with how citizens should think and act.
“Did I miss David?” Max asked her.
As she shook her head, Anna found that her appetite had fled. She cradled the wine goblet and quickly set it down as she saw that her hand trembled. What was wrong with her?
“Are you feeling under the weather?” Max asked.
Anna forced herself to stare into his eyes. She’d dealt with some of the world’s most powerful people before, including Chancellor Kleist of the German Dominion. Surely, she could face the Director of Homeland Security. She found Max’s eyes like obsidian chips, emitting nothing, and today it felt as if they sucked the warmth out of her.
“Oh,” Max said. He used the voice of a reasonable man, of one with emotions, but those eyes said otherwise.
In that moment, Anna had the sense of really seeing the director for the first time. She felt as if she was in the presence of one of the loathsome secret policemen of history like Himmler, Dzerzhinsky of the NKVD or maybe even Robespierre, the master of the guillotine during the height of the French Revolution.
“I see,” Max said quietly, almost to himself.
Despite a feeling of weakness, Anna lifted the goblet. Her hand trembled, but she couldn’t help it. She sipped wine, needing it, hoping the alcohol could steady her nerves. She was seriously overreacting. It was ridiculous that she should fear Max Harold. She glanced at him, certain now that she’d see the man as he’d always been and not as some dangerous revolutionary bent on…what, amassing more power.
Max stretched his lips in the approximation of a smile. It showed his capped white teeth. As he smiled, the obsidian eyes observed her. To Anna, it felt as if he cataloged her reactions and made precise judgments. She disliked the sensation and came to a precise conclusion of her own. She wished he would sense her disquiet and do the gentlemanly thing and leave.
“The world has turned against us,” Max pronounced, as if speaking in committee and not just to her. “Greater China, Japan, Vietnam, Brazil, Venezuela, Germany, England, France… The list goes on and on of those arrayed against us.”
Anna took another sip of wine, and she realized she needed to set down the glass before she drank too much, too fast. She was as light as a bird, and alcohol went straight to her brain. But the wine felt so good. The warmth in her throat and then in her belly…it soothed her.
“The Pan-Asian Alliance represents 44 percent of the world’s population,” Max was saying. “The German Dominion has another 6 percent and the South American Federation with Mexico adds yet another 6 percent. That means America and Canada faces 56 percent of the world. We, incidentally, have 5 percent of the Earth’s people. Tell me, Anna, do you believe we can kill ten of them for every one of ours we lose?”
She felt her eyelids blinking, more like fluttering the way a hummingbird’s wings moved in a blur. It almost felt as if her eyelashes caught occasionally. The wine helped oil her tongue, and she said, “We’re not facing all 56 percent,” she said. “We’re facing the various militaries. Two large oceans separate us from most of them. That means we’re—”
“Your point is well taken,” Max said, interrupting her. “If we could destroy their navies, the war would quickly dwindle into nothing.”
“I suppose that’s true. But why tell me this here? I’m trying to relax, to take a break from it all.”
Max’s lips stretched a little more, as if to indicate greater humor. It merely made him seem more predatory.
“Shouldn’t you be telling David this?” Anna asked.
“Ah,” Max said, as he put his hands on the table. Although he had a carefully tailored reputation for roughing it, the director had manicured fingers and two large rings. The biggest had a huge opal. The ring must have cost a small fortune. “I see you like to place your cards face up,” Max said.
“I don’t believe that I have any idea what you’re talking about,” Anna said, and she didn’t.
The smile vanished, and the director’s eyes became more intent. They seemed like drills then that bored into her. It made Anna feel as if he stripped away her clothes and exposed her flesh. By an act of will, she kept herself from shuddering. What would he do if she hurled the last of her wine into his face? She quickly looked down. What was she thinking? This was the Director of Homeland Security, not a stalking rapist. She needed to rein in an overactive imagination. Maybe work had gotten to her more than she realized.
“Let us speak frankly to each other,” Max said.
She couldn’t speak, but she managed to nod. Maybe her instincts were correct. The way he said that, it sounded ominous. Yet why would the director pick Frobisher’s for a confrontation? It didn’t make sense.
“David is wilting under the pressure,” Max told her.
As one of the stalwarts of the administration, Max shouldn’t say such a thing. It was disloyal. The words shocked her.
While still keeping her gaze down, Anna opened her mouth to retort.
“Now I’m the first to admit that the President made a masterful stroke this winter,” Max said, his voice rising as if to forestall her from interrupting. “I applauded the hard choices he made to give us our glorious victory over
