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didn’t trust anyone who aspired to less. But the difference between him and most people was that he’d been born for it. Made for it.
    The motorcade roared to a halt outside the hotel, and Lombard watched the Secret Service spring into action. Two dozen car doors opened simultaneously. Agents spilled forth and spread out like marines establishing a beachhead. When they were ready, his limousine door opened and he stepped out into the sunshine, smiling broadly. Taller than all but one of the agents, he paused to survey the hotel, button his suit jacket, and wave to his supporters on the far curb, who greeted him with a burst of applause. Then he allowed himself to be ushered into the hotel.
    He made a mental note to have the tall agent moved off his detail.
    His flock of aides surrounded him inside the hotel and brought him up to speed on the way to his suite. While the rundown was going on, he scanned two memos and peppered them with questions. He was adept at following multiple conversations simultaneously.
    “What time is the fund-raiser?” he asked.
    “Eight, sir.”
    “Where’s my speech?”
    Someone handed him a fresh copy. He also took two briefing books that included the latest intelligence on a developing situation in Egypt and an update on Senate wrangling over an immigration bill.
    “Leland, I want to see you in two hours. We’ll talk over lunch. Otherwise, don’t bother me unless there’s a constitutional crisis and I’m president.”
    That brought a polite chuckle from the flock. The Secret Service pulled the door shut behind him.
    Alone, Benjamin Lombard took off his suit and laid it out on the bed so it wouldn’t pick up a crease. The air-conditioning felt good after the unrelenting Arizona heat. He wasn’t sure why, but a five-star hotel had better air-conditioning than just about anywhere else on earth. He considered it the pinnacle of civilization, enabling a man to live in such godforsaken places as Phoenix, Arizona.
    Standing in his dress shirt, boxers, and black socks, he let himself cool in the dark of his suite. After a few moments, he turned on the news and was greeted by a story about Anne Fleming’s campaign stop in California. Benjamin saw it now; the light attendance at his stump speech this morning had brought the big picture into focus. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that tomorrow’s meeting with Douglass needed to be a bloodletting. It would send a message and would reenergize and focus the troops. He wondered what it would take to coax Abigail Saldana out of semiretirement as a pundit; she wouldn’t put up with this Fleming nonsense.
    A staccato knock at the door broke him from his thoughts, and his good mood evaporated. The Senate itself had better be a smoking crater, or so help him God, whatever overeager staffer stood on the far side of that door would need to move to Turkey to find a job in politics.
    “What?” Lombard bellowed, nearly yanking the door off its hinges.
    It was Leland Reed, and he looked troubled.
    “What is it?” Lombard asked again, but the fire had gone out of his voice.
    “Can I come in, sir?”
    Benjamin stood aside and let him into the suite. Reed didn’t sit but instead did an uneasy circuit around the room like an automated vacuum cleaner patrolling for dirt. Eventually, he came to a rest by the window.
    “Well, what is it? Christ, you’re making me nervous.”
    “Sir, you know the list you asked me to keep an eye on.”
    Lombard knew exactly what list Reed meant. You didn’t make it this far in politics without making a few enemies. More than a few. The list comprised people who might try to hurt his campaign. Everyone from political foes to former employees to a high-school girlfriend who didn’t like the way they’d broken up. It wasn’t that he was expecting trouble, but every campaign dug something long forgotten out of a candidate’s past. There was no reason to expect this one would be any different.
    “Who?”