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ill.”
    â€œI’m fine,” Patel said. He tried to put a fierce look on his face, but he thought he probably failed.
    By the time he got back to the office, two more men were waiting. Patel sighed and took them to the next room in line to clean up that mess.

CHAPTER 6
    â€œJust be sure the camera crew is there tomorrow,” Alexis Devereaux said as she wheeled the powerful sedan through a long, gentle curve in the highway. The speedometer needle hovered right around 90.
    â€œThe producer promised me they would be.”
    The reply came from the car’s speaker, through the built-in phone.
    â€œWell, stay on him,” Alexis told her assistant back in Washington. “This place is way out in the middle of nowhere. I don’t want them getting lost.”
    â€œYes, ma’am. By the way, Colin Evans from the State Department called.”
    Alexis took her right hand off the wheel, clenched it into a fist, and hammered it down on the seat beside her.
    â€œBy the way?” she repeated. “By the way? You didn’t think that was important enough to lead with, Crystal?”
    â€œI—I’m sorry, Ms. Devereaux. There’s an awful lot to keep up with—”
    â€œThat’s why you make the big bucks,” Alexis said coldly, although she knew perfectly well that Crystal didn’t make big bucks. She did. But Crystal ought to be happy earning what she did, because a lot of people didn’t have jobs these days, and many of the ones who did worked part-time for minimum wage and no benefits. “What did Evans want?”
    â€œHe didn’t really say, but I got the impression he’d found out somehow about that court order you got—”
    â€œWell, that’s no surprise. The administration can promise all it wants to that they’ve stopped reading everybody’s emails and listening in on everybody’s phone calls, but nobody believes that for a second. And with good reason. Is State going to try to quash the order?”
    â€œHe didn’t say. He just told me to have you call him.”
    â€œFine.”
    â€œDo you want me to give you the number?”
    â€œNo, I’ve got it,” Alexis said, without explaining how she happened to have the cell phone number of an undersecretary at the State Department. It was none of Crystal’s business that she banged Colin Evans twice a week when they were both in town.
    Alexis added, “Just stay on that news producer,” and then broke the connection.
    She would call Colin later. She wasn’t in the mood to do it now. If she did, she might say things she would regret later. He was a good source. Better as a source than he was in the sack, when you got right down to it, although Alexis couldn’t really complain about that part of their relationship, either.
    She had come up behind a truck. Without slowing down, she swung out into the other lane and zoomed past it.
    That was one good thing about this godawful state, maybe the only good thing, she thought. You could see a long way on these flat, straight, mostly empty highways. You didn’t even have to take your foot off the gas.
    Alexis didn’t like taking her foot off the gas, on the road or in life.
    She had gone to Washington as a very junior White House counsel, a member of the legal staff working for the first female president. By the time that chief executive’s two scandal-marred terms were over, Alexis had risen to the position of senior White House counsel. Her rise in power had been fueled by intelligence, hard work, and a great deal of subtle, discreet back-stabbing.
    Once that administration had drawn to an ignominious close, Alexis had gone to work for a K Street lobbying firm and done good work for it for several years before becoming an associate at one of the city’s most prestigious law firms. She had assisted in several cases at the Supreme Court. She took advantage of her blond, slightly