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to apply for a job as an exotic dancer?”
    Well, yeah, that
was
what he’d thought. But sometimes it was best to keep one’s mouth firmly shut.
    “I’m not stupid, Alvarado,” Annie continued. “Nor am I deluded. I know what I look like.” She laughed her disbelief. “Who’d pay to see me strip?”
    With that, she turned and walked away, across the parking lot, around the edge of the building that kept Ric out of Tommy’s line of sight, toward Screech’s front entrance.
    Pierre stood up in the front seat of Annie’s car, paws on the steering wheel so that he could watch her go.
    Ric watched her, too—watched her T-shirt stretching across her back as she moved. Bruce had told him that one of her last jobs, after she quit the accounting firm, was assisting a woman who built stone walls. She was clearly strong and very…healthy. Very. With those long denim-clad legs leading up to a posterior that was…definitely healthy.
    And in a flash, he could picture her, in motorcycle leather, sexy as hell, with seven-inch platform heels that would turn her into a total Amazon, strutting the stage with a whip, hooking her leg around a pole as she writhed to the pulsating music.
    God save him.
    She was out of sight now, and he peeked around the corner, far less patient than Pierre, who’d settled in for a nap as he waited for Annie’s promised return.
    Across the parking lot, she’d stopped to speak to Tommy Fista, who not only let her pass, but actually held the door for her. When Tommy’s head was turned, she sent a quick grin and a thumbs-up in Ric’s direction, before vanishing into the club.
             
    Max Bhagat, the head of the FBI’s most elite counterterrorist division, had a huge stain on his tie.
    He was standing in the waiting area just outside of the Oval Office, and as Jules Cassidy approached this man who was both his boss and his friend, he saw that it was Emma-goo that marred the fine blue silk. It looked as if it might be oatmeal, with traces of Max’s one-year-old daughter’s favorite, mashed sweet potatoes.
    “Here’s the file, sir.” Jules handed the sealed envelope over. “The news is bad.” He couldn’t say more than that out here, but he didn’t need to.
    Max knew what they were dealing with. This was just confirmation. “Thanks,” he said, sticking the envelope into his briefcase.
    The man had also missed a spot while shaving—a small patch near his left ear. No one else would notice it—at least those who didn’t know Max as the meticulously, obsessively well-groomed person that he was.
    To Jules, who’d worked with him for years, he looked practically slovenly.
    And yet his hands were steady, his eyes clear. He no longer seemed as if his head were on the verge of exploding, despite the gravity of the news he was here to share with the President.
    “President Bryant will see you now, Mr. Bhagat.”
    “Sir.” Jules had his own tie off and held out to Max before noting that it was, because of its pattern of teensy, barely recognizable SpongeBobs, perhaps even more inappropriate for a meeting with the U.S. President than that tie stained from Emma’s epicurean euphoria.
    And sure enough, Max waved him off. “Put it back on. You’re coming in with me.”
    “Excuse me?” His voice actually cracked.
    But Max had already disappeared into the Oval Office, leaving Jules standing there under the impatient and somewhat disdainful gaze of the President’s secretary.
    So he put his tie back on, straightened his collar, brushed the invisible dust from his jacket, and walked…onto the set of
The West Wing.
Except this was the real thing.
    And the bald-headed man with his shirtsleeves rolled up and tie loosened was the real U.S. President.
    Who probably wouldn’t even remember that phone call Jules had made to him on his private line—the number somewhat illegaly obtained—during an international crisis a few years back.
    There was a meeting already in progress—several