Hidden Agendas

afford. For White, whose family owned half of Ohio and part of Indiana, a Rolex was a trinket, a drop from a bucket brimming with money. It was the most expensive piece of jewelry that Hughes ever wore, and though he could afford better now, he couldn't afford it legally.

'Aren't you supposed to be on the links with Raleigh at two-fifteen?' he reminded White.

'The old man canceled. Too cold for him. Personally, I think he just doesn't want me to kick his ass again. Last time out, I beat him by nine strokes. We're doing drinks at the Benson instead, two-thirty.'

'Good. Remember, let him bring up the Stoddard thing. Play it cool, let him court you. He doesn't need to know you want it more than he does.'

'I will be an iceberg,' White said. He waved at the computer projection frozen over his workstation. 'You ever play DinoWarz?'

'I can't say as I have, no.'

'Very stimulating mano-a-mano combat scenario. There's a full VR version that puts you right in the middle of the action. Some junior high school kid built it and put it on the net. Fun. You should try it sometime.'

Hughes smiled and tried not to show the contempt he felt. White was rich, the son, grandson, and great- grandson of wealthy men. It wasn't just a silver spoon he'd been born with, but a platinum one encrusted with diamonds. If he'd wanted to, White could have blown a million dollars a year for his entire life and never depleted his share of the family fortune. He wasn't a total fool, but he was a dilettante, a dabbler; the office was for him an adult version of DinoWarz, and Hughes believed it meant about as much. White thought being a United States senator was… fun.

'One other thing,' Hughes said. 'That bombing in Louisiana.'

'Oh, yeah. Terrible thing.'

'Worse than terrible. The kid who did it got the formula for the explosive off the net. A supposedly top-secret military formula.'

'No shit?' White leaned forward, and his face came close to the translucent holoproj of the two combatants. He waggled his fingers and the image vanished.

'I think this plays right into your hearings on Net Force. They are supposed to stop such things.'

'That's true.'

'You might want to mention it when the budget hits the table. I'll have Sally work up the report on the bombing. That young woman guard who was killed was in college, a newlywed, about to graduate.'

'A shame,' White said. 'Tell Sally to highlight that part.'

'Of course.'

The intercom chimed. Bertha. 'Sir, your limo is here for your two-thirty.'

Hughes stood. 'I'll be in my office,' he said. 'And I'll meet you for the staff meeting at four.'

'Thanks, Tom.'

After the senator was gone, Hughes went down the hall to his own office. He nodded at Cheryl, his secretary.

'Anything pressing?'

'Louis Ellis called from Dayton. He's going to be in D.C. next Thursday and he wants the senator's ear for a few minutes.'

'Have Bertha pencil him in for half an hour in the morning.' Ellis, one of White's father's drinking buddies, had contributed half a million to White's last reelection campaign, more or less legally via various PACs. He'd also given them that much cash under the table, a nice chunk of which had found its way into Hughes's own safety deposit box, where it joined a thick sheaf of crisp hundreds already there.

Hughes had been very careful about living beyond his means. His public face was exactly what was expected for a senator's chief of staff making a paltry ninety grand a year. But under various guises, Hughes had a fat line of electronic credit. Still, it never hurt to have some hard currency in case of emergencies.

If his plans went as expected, he'd be able to use the bills in his box to light his Cuban cigars, if he felt like it.

'Anything else?'

'Your massage therapist called. She will be at your house at seven.'

Hughes nodded. Brit would give him a good massage, that was true enough. But that was only half of the service she provided.

He went into his office and closed the door behind him.

Hughes's office was a spartan affair whose only artwork was a Picasso on the wall behind his desk. He didn't particularly care for Picasso, but a picture worth that much on an office wall certainly impressed people who did care about the old Spanish dauber. Depending on his mood, he would give different stories when asked about the painting. Sometimes, he told them he'd bought it at a garage sale for fifty bucks just to watch their jaws drop. Other times, he said a woman had given it to him in gratitude for his lovemaking abilities. Once in a great while, he told the truth — that the painting was a gift from his boss — but that was never as much fun.

He sat behind the desk in a wooden teacher's chair. In fact, the chair had once belonged to his high school civics teacher, Charles Joseph, who had told Hughes he would never amount to anything. He kept the chair to remind him that where he was going in the not-too-distant future was going to be beyond old Joseph's — or anybody else's — wildest dreams. Senator White and his family would look like paupers compared to Hughes. Everything was going as planned.

He grinned. That was the trick, wasn't it? But he was well on the way. He was, Hughes reminded himself, the smartest man he knew. He could pull it off.

No doubt in his mind.

The com chirped.

'The Vice President is on three,' Cheryl said. 'I'll take it,' Hughes said. 'But let's let him wait a few seconds. We don't need an uppity Vice President, do we?' Cheryl chuckled, and Hughes felt pretty good himself. So far, so good.

Friday, December 17th, 2:40 p.m. Quantico, Virginia

In his office, Alex Michaels looked at the clock blinking in the corner of his default holoproj, a bucolic scene of a modern-day cattle drive blocking automobile traffic on a back road in Colorado. Michaels had worked one summer on a dude ranch while he was in college. He hated cows as a result, and the picture was another one of Jay Gridley's little jokes. The young man loved to do such things. Thought he was funny.

Michaels grinned. Jay was pretty funny, though Michaels preferred that somebody else be the butt of the young man's jokes.

But the clock said that it was ten minutes past the time Lieutenant Joanna Winthrop was supposed to be here for her meeting, and that didn't go with what he'd read about her in her history jacket. He touched the intercom's manual control. His secretary was a temp, filling in for Nadine, who was on vacation. Maybe she had made a mistake.

'Liza, isn't Lieutenant Winthrop on for two-thirty?'

'Yes, sir, Commander,' the young woman said. She sounded rattled. 'She's uh, here, sir, but, uh, she's occupied.'

Occupied? Michaels went out to see what was going on.

On the floor next to his secretary's desk, with a rat's nest of red, white, and blue wires in her lap, sat Joanna Winthrop. She had a pocket tool of some kind, probably a Leatherman, and was using it to twist two of the colored wires together.

He had not forgotten how attractive she was, but it still came as something of a shock to him to see her.

Winthrop was one of the most beautiful women Michaels had ever seen. She was tall, lean, had long, natural honey-blond hair pinned up, and green eyes that put expensive emeralds to shame. She wore a blue jumpsuit and black boots that would have made most women seem dumpy. On her, the drab clothes looked positively sexy.

She glanced at Michaels. 'Hello, Commander,' she said. She shoved the tangle of wires under the desk, stood, closed her folding pliers, and said, 'Try it now.'

Liza tapped at her command module's keyboard. 'Hey! It works. Thank you!'

'No problem,' Winthrop said. She flashed a radiant smile, perfect save for one slightly crooked tooth that