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agent behind me snickered.
    I turned around to glare and noticed that even the sharpshooters on the White House roof had their binoculars trained in my direction. Unwilling to be intimidated, I gave a wave.
    I whirled back around as Francesca began the introductions. Not that they were needed.
    “You’re Gillis, Gillis Farquhar,” I said, interrupting Francesca, and thrust out my hand. I doubt I would have recognized Gillis if he hadn’t been wearing that outrageous outfit, the same outfit he wore on his weekly gardening show. Take away his colorful kilt, muscular arms, and strong, naked calves, and he’d look rather ordinary.
    “Crikey! Aren’t you a bonny lass to know me?” His Scottish brogue rolled across his tongue. “You’ve seen my show?”
    “Who hasn’t?” I said.
    Gillis Farquhar was the Gordon Ramsay of the gardening world. He hosted two weekly gardening television shows and a daily radio call-in show, and he’d published nearly a dozen how-to books. His latest,
Gardening the Farquhar Way: Organic!
, was working its way up the bestseller lists.
    Clearly I wasn’t the only one to recognize him. A small crowd of tourists, mainly women, gathered outside the iron fence, cameras snapping away.
    “Gillis! Gillis!” several of the women called in near hysterics.
    He tossed his long hair while waving at the crowd and blowing kisses, which only encouraged his fans to yell louder. More tourists came over to the gate, craning their necks to see what was happening.
    “I was going to suggest we sit in Lafayette Square and talk, but we’d be mobbed.”
    “Oy, canna we go inside, lass, so I can shake hands with your Mr. President man?” He blinked his brown eyes and smiled.
    I so wanted to accommodate Gillis. Gardening celebrities turn up at the White House about once a…never. But without prior clearance, there was nothing I could do.
    “I’m sorry, but we’ll have to—”
    “Ms. Calhoun, you can’t hold a meeting here. Didn’t the training session teach you to stay out of trouble?” Mike Thatch, the special agent in charge of the CAT, trotted toward us. He snarled as his gaze took in the growing crowd pressing against the fencing. “You need to get your guest away from the gate. Now.” The White House Police had already started to herd the crowd of women away. But Gillis kept waving at them, attracting them back.
    “What should I do?” I whispered to Thatch.
    “Plan ahead next time. Give us some advance notice,” he snapped and returned to directing his agents on crowd control.
    Fredrick, bless his kind heart, directed us to step inside the whitewashed guardhouse. He spoke quietly on thephone for a few minutes before producing two visitor’s badges, which he handed to Gillis and Francesca. “You have permission to use a conference room in the EEOB. I’ll serve as your escort.”
    “Dog’s baws!” Gillis exclaimed.
    “I beg your pardon?” I asked.
    “Just my way of saying it’s excellent, lass. We get to go inside after all. Lead on.”
    “It’s not inside the White House,” I cautioned.
    “Then where are we going, lass?”
    I pointed to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
    “Cor blimey, that rickety old place?”
    Fredrick rolled his eyes. I rather liked the French Second Empire design of the building. With its steeply sloped mansard roof, the five-story, block-long structure looked as if it belonged in a quaint Paris neighborhood or a doily-draped living room crowded with figurines and knickknacks.
    “Does your girlfriend have a favorite flower?” I asked Fredrick as he hurried us through the metal detector inside the guardhouse and away from Gillis’s screaming fans. Several news reporters came over from the West Wing press room to see what the fuss was about.
    As we crossed the lawn toward the Eisenhower building, every few steps Gillis would stop to wave. I glanced back at the crowd and saw that the journalists had converged on SAIC Mike Thatch. His expression grew