conflicts of interest?'
'Conflicts?' Senator Sexton cocked his head with an innocent look of confusion. 'What conflicts do you mean?'
Rachel glanced up, grimacing at her father's act. She knew exactly where this was headed. Damn reporters, she thought. Half of them were on political payrolls. The reporter's question was what journalists called a grapefruit — a question that was supposed to look like a tough inquiry but was in fact a scripted favor to the senator — a slow lob pitch that her father could line up and smash out of the park, clearing the air about a few things.
'Well, sir… ' The reporter coughed, feigning uneasiness over the question. 'The conflict is that your daughter works for your opponent.'
Senator Sexton exploded in laughter, defusing the question instantly. 'Ralph, first of all, the President and I are not opponents. We are simply two patriots who have different ideas about how to run the country we love.'
The reporter beamed. He had his sound bite. 'And second?'
'Second, my daughter is not employed by the President; she is employed by the intelligence community. She compiles intel reports and sends them to the White House. It's a fairly low-level position.' He paused and looked at Rachel. 'In fact, dear, I'm not sure you've even met the President, have you?'
Rachel stared, her eyes smoldering.
The beeper chirped, drawing Rachel's gaze to the incoming message on the LCD screen.
—
She deciphered the shorthand instantly and frowned. The message was unexpected, and most certainly bad news. At least she had her exit cue.
'Gentlemen,' she said. 'It breaks my heart, but I have to go. I'm late for work.'
'Ms. Sexton,' the reporter said quickly, 'before you go, I was wondering if you could comment on the rumors that you called this breakfast meeting to discuss the possibility of leaving your current post to work for your father's campaign?'
Rachel felt like someone had thrown hot coffee in her face. The question took her totally off guard. She looked at her father and sensed in his smirk that the question had been prepped. She wanted to climb across the table and stab him with a fork.
The reporter shoved the recorder into her face. 'Miss Sexton?'
Rachel locked eyes with the reporter. 'Ralph, or whoever the hell you are, get this straight: I have no intention of abandoning my job to work for Senator Sexton, and if you print anything to the contrary, you'll need a shoehorn to get that recorder out of your ass.'
The reporter's eyes widened. He clicked off his recorder, hiding a grin. 'Thank you both.' He disappeared.
Rachel immediately regretted the outburst. She had inherited her father's temper, and she hated him for it. Smooth, Rachel. Very smooth.
Her father glared disapprovingly. 'You'd do well to learn some poise.'
Rachel began collecting her things. 'This meeting is over.'
The senator was apparently done with her anyway. He pulled out his cellphone to make a call. ''Bye, sweetie. Stop by the office one of these days and say hello. And get married, for God's sake. You're thirty-three years old.'
'Thirty-four,' she snapped. 'Your secretary sent a card.'
He clucked ruefully. 'Thirty-four. Almost an old maid. You know by the time I was thirty-four, I'd already-'
'Married Mom and screwed the neighbor?' The words came out louder than Rachel had intended, her voice hanging naked in an ill-timed lull. Diners nearby glanced over.
Senator Sexton's eyes flash-froze, two ice-crystals boring into her. 'You watch yourself, young lady.'
Rachel headed for the door. No, you watch yourself, senator.
2
The three men sat in silence inside their ThermaTech storm tent. Outside, an icy wind buffeted the shelter, threatening to tear it from its moorings. None of the men took notice; each had seen situations far more threatening than this one.
Their tent was stark white, pitched in a shallow depression, out of sight. Their communication devices, transport, and weapons were all state-of-the-art. The group leader was code-named Delta-One. He was muscular and lithe with eyes as desolate as the topography on which he was stationed.
The military chronograph on Delta-One's wrist emitted a sharp beep. The sound coincided in perfect unison with beeps emitted from the chronographs worn by the other two men.
Another thirty minutes had passed.
It was time. Again.
Reflexively, Delta-One left his two partners and stepped outside into the darkness and pounding wind. He scanned the moonlit horizon with infrared binoculars. As always, he focused on the structure. It was a thousand meters away — an enormous and unlikely edifice rising from the barren terrain. He and his team had been watching it for ten days now, since its construction. Delta-One had no doubt that the information inside would change the world. Lives already had been lost to protect it.
At the moment, everything looked quiet outside the structure.
The true test, however, was what was happening inside.
Delta-One reentered the tent and addressed his two fellow soldiers. 'Time for a flyby.'
Both men nodded. The taller of them, Delta-Two, opened a laptop computer and turned it on. Positioning himself in front of the screen, Delta-Two placed his hand on a mechanical joystick and gave it a short jerk. A thousand meters away, hidden deep within the building, a surveillance robot the size of a mosquito received his transmission and sprang to life.
3
Rachel Sexton was still steaming as she drove her white Integra up Leesburg Highway. The bare maples of the Falls Church foothills rose stark against a crisp March sky, but the peaceful setting did little to calm her anger. Her father's recent surge in the polls should have endowed him with a modicum of confident grace, and yet it seemed only to fuel his self-importance.
The man's deceit was doubly painful because he was the only immediate family Rachel had left. Rachel's mother had died three years ago, a devastating loss whose emotional scars still raked at Rachel's heart. Rachel's only solace was knowing that the death, with ironic compassion, had liberated her mother from a deep despair over a miserable marriage to the senator.
Rachel's pager beeped again, pulling her thoughts back to the road in front of her. The incoming message was the same.
—
Report to the director of NRO stat. She sighed. I'm coming, for God's sake!
With rising uncertainty, Rachel drove to her usual exit, turned onto the private access road, and rolled to a stop at the heavily armed sentry booth. This was 14225 Leesburg Highway, one of the most secretive addresses in the country.
While the guard scanned her car for bugs, Rachel gazed out at the mammoth structure in the distance. The one-million-square-foot complex sat majestically on sixty-eight forested acres just outside D.C. in Fairfax, Virginia. The building's facade was a bastion of one-way glass that reflected the army of satellite dishes, antennas, and
