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“A twenty-three-year-old kid named Albert Doxy—yes, that Doxy—was killed in his West Wing office today.”
    â€œJesus.”
    â€œHe was decapitated. Clean cut, precision.”
    â€œThem?”
    â€œThat’s why I need access.”
    She was silent. They were considering the same question: how to get him into the loop of the murder investigation without breaking secrecy.
    The public believes that presidents know all the secrets. The truth is that they are told as little as possible. Nobody in intelligence wants attention from the executive level unless it’s a legal requirement, least of all people like Flynn and Diana and their colleagues in Detail 242. The group of them were keeping the most dangerous secret in human history. Flynn could not imagine what somebody like Bill Greene might do with knowledge of the alien presence, especially since it was hostile. When he came to understand how dangerous this all was, and how helpless we really were, he might do any damn thing.
    The revolution on Aeon had put the criminal class in power. The decent people who had been trying to stop them were now either fugitives or dead. Exploitation of Earth had ceased to be illegal. Now it was the law. Previously, they’d been dealing with isolated criminals. Now Aeon itself was the criminal.
    If the public found out what it really meant when people disappeared, as they were doing at an ever-increasing rate worldwide, there would be absolute panic. With the entire world in an uproar, Aeon’s game would get harder. Right now, all Aeon had to deal with was the careful pushback of the detail, protecting one individual or another, stopping an incursion here and there, doing enough to preserve at least a semblance of human safety, but not enough to make Aeon lash out.
    Public panic would definitely make Aeon lash out, and what that might involve nobody could tell, except that it would certainly be extremely dangerous.
    â€œCan we trust Cissy with anything beyond what she knows already?” Diana asked. “We may have to.”
    â€œShe’s got Lorna’s toughness and brains.”
    â€œAnd Bill’s unpredictability, from what I’ve seen. What if she showed up on 60 Minutes with this?”
    Flynn knew where this was going, and he didn’t like it. Diana could have Cissy killed. Contrary to popular belief, the president is not the only American official with the legal power to cut such orders.
    â€œShe’s reliable.”
    Diana’s ice-crusted eyes met his. “So you say.”
    â€œIf we ever get this thing under control, there’s history as yet unwritten, and you’re in it. So how do you want to be remembered, as a kid killer? You need to get me in there, D. Tonight. And leave Cissy to me.”
    â€œI can do that, but you’re gonna have to avoid Lorna and Bill on your own.”
    â€œAssuming they live out the night.”
    â€œYou protect them!”
    She walked into the sitting room adjacent to her bedroom, her long legs flashing in the last light slanting in the window.
    She was his commanding officer. Officially.
    They lived together here in Georgetown. Unofficially. Sometimes.
    When the nights wore on them, they brought each other comfort.
    They were and were not in love.
    He could not imagine life without her, but he wanted to. He wanted to continue to be loyal to Abby.
    Diana was already on the phone in her adjacent office, speaking softly and intently. Had he wished, he could have picked up every word; he had that kind of hearing. There was no point, though. She would succeed in what she was doing. Her clearance was literally higher than the president’s, and her authority was very extensive. In the end, it emerged out of a level of government so deep and so powerful that not even the most off-the-wall conspiracy theorists would believe that it was there. Or that it was as small as it was, just a few experts in things like genetics and