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domestic and international opinion to support bans on emerging technological threats.”
    Stockton scanned forward, his eyes moving, pausing the video, then advancing, replaying, his lips moving, shaking his head. Finally, he looked up. “This has to be a fake. This isn’t who we are. We don’t do this.”
    Pryce said nothing.
    Stockton frowned.
    “Chase,” he said, his eyes still looking at Pryce. “You can go.”
    “Mr President…” his Press Secretary started to protest.
    “I’ll need you later, Greg,” Stockton said, more gently. “Just give me a minute with Carolyn here.”
    Chase swallowed and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
----
    P ryce waited as Greg Chase left the secured suite, still, centered in herself.
    Stillness was a weapon. Composure was a tool.
    The door clicked.
    “You know something,” the President said.
    She shook her head. “No, sir.”
    “Then you suspect something,” he said.
    Pryce held his eyes with her own. Powerful men withered under her stare. Stockton had told her that once. He’d rattled off a list of generals, senators, directors of three letter agencies, and foreign heads of state that he claimed couldn’t hold her gaze.
    He was looking at her now, expectantly.
    Pryce spoke. “Only that it’s not impossible, Mr President.”
    “We don’t do this sort of thing, Carolyn,” he repeated.
    “There are precedents,” she told him. “We’ve run false flags before. We’ve had blowback.”
    “I’m the President,” Stockton said. “I’d know. You’d know.”
    Pryce pressed her lips together firmly. “In ’62, the Joint Chiefs approved Operation Northwoods. The plan called for staging a series of terrorist attacks on US soil, hijacking at least one US passenger plane, and possibly staging the shoot-down of another. All would be blamed on Cuban operatives, as a way to justify invading Cuba. Each of the Joint Chiefs was on board. The only reason it didn’t happen is that Kennedy vetoed it.” She paused. “Maybe I’m not the only one who knows her history around here. Maybe someone didn’t want to be vetoed.”
    Stockton stared at her. He shook his head. Then he pressed a button on the secure phone before him.
    “Yes, Mr President?” his secretary said immediately.
    “Get me Barnes,” Stockton said.
----
    “ I have Acting Director Barnes on the line, Mr President,” Stockton’s secretary said, less than a minute later.
    “Barnes,” Stockton said.
    Pryce watched and listened.
    “Mr President,” Barnes’s voice answered.
    If there was anyone Pryce considered more capable of using stillness as a weapon than she was, it was Maximilian Barnes. But just now, the man’s voice, normally completely cool, sounded husky, full of emotion.
    Was it real? Or an act?
    “I’ve just seen the video,” he said. “I’m innocent, sir. I’m also at your disposal. If you want my resignation, it’s yours.”
    “Barnes,” the President answered him. “Where are you now?”
    “I’m at my family ranch, sir. I came out here when the evacuation was issued for Zoe.”
    His ranch in Pennsylvania, Pryce recalled.
    “Where were you last night, Barnes?”
    Barnes answered immediately. “Here, Mr President. The house monitors will show that. So will my phone. So will my car.”
    “Any witnesses?” Stockton asked.
    “Just me,” Barnes said. “I worked late. Alone. Though presumably Dr Holtzman will be a witness to his own wellbeing.”
    “Holtzman’s dead, Barnes.”
    “Dead?” Barnes’s voice dropped lower. “How? When?”
    Stockton looked up at Pryce. She shook her head.
    “What can you tell me about the PLF, Barnes?”
    Barnes paused for a moment. “Did we create them, you mean? God, I hope not. If we did, I don’t know anything about it. But what I’ve been asking myself is this, Mr President: Who benefits most from spreading that idea? I’d say they do. Wreak havoc. Blame it on their enemies. Get a capitulator like Stan Kim into office. Overturn the Chandler Act.