“Get lost,” Jack said, sounding very final, and he slammed the door. Mia stood there a moment, eyeing the doorknob in the darkness, then got back in her car and sped away.

Ernie got on the radio and called Howie. “Wow. You got all that on tape?” he asked.

“All of it,” Howie answered.

“Better get it down to Martie, real quick. Sounds like big trouble.”

“No kiddin’,” said Howie. Within five minutes he was playing the tape over the phone to Martie O’Neal.

Mitch Walters was out of pocket and unreachable, in Bermuda, at what was billed as a CEO convention, a thin pretext for a bunch of chubby rich white men to sneak off and hit the links in a glorious setting.

Phil Jackson was deep in a legal conference with a tearful U.S. senator who had just been caught red-handed by the FBI with half a million in cash stuffed in the deep freezer in his basement. The moment the Fibbies swung open the freezer door, the senator’s thoughts turned to one man, a Washington legend; if anyone could save him from becoming political roadkill, Jackson was the guy. While the FBI ransacked his house, he snuck into a bathroom, called Phil, and begged for help.

He had no legal excuse for how the money got there, but had been smart enough to keep his mouth shut when the Feds showed up flashing their warrants and badges. Now, with a press conference looming in an hour, Jackson had his cell phone turned off so he and the terrified senator could bang their heads together and construct an alibi without being disturbed. This was it-his long, storied political career, his reputation, possibly his freedom on the line, with one good shot at explaining how such a big bundle of money mysteriously materialized in his freezer.

In a stroke of good fortune, the senator’s wife had passed away only two months before, from cancer-a loving and loyal mate, a caring, doting mother to his two teenage children. Jackson was brutally candid about the price of freedom. After thirty minutes of tearful bickering, of swearing up and down that he would never soil his dead wife’s memory, the senator at last succumbed to the inevitable-trashing her was his best and maybe his only chance. He and his lawyer had their heads together now, plotting how to blame it all on her.

That left only Daniel Bellweather, who at that moment was also slightly preoccupied. He was half clothed and rolling around the floor with Prince Ali and five naked call girls. All blondes, of course, and at a thousand per for a night of unrestrained frolicking, quite expensive entertainment. They were reliving their rowdy old times on the small living room floor of CG’s lavish riverside corporate condominium.

The watchdog imam dispatched by Ali’s daddy to keep an eye on his son had a tumbler of gin in one hand, a big-breasted blonde in the other. Ali’s enthusiasms had proved too infectious for the iron-willed zealot. After three weeks together, the imam was drunk or high more often than sober.

Though he generally considered cell phones a nuisance, Bellweather was glad he had brought his along this time. He shoved an anorexic blonde off his lap, pushed the receive button, and heard Martie say, “Listen to this.”

For three minutes he sat there, ignoring Ali, ignoring the bevy of blonde lovelies, ignoring everything but the sounds of Mia’s brief interrogation and the ugly echo of her threats.

The moment it ended, Martie asked, “What’s this picture she mentioned to Wiley? Anything to worry about?”

Hell, yes, it was something to worry about-since no doubt Bellweather’s smiling face was plastered front and center in the photograph, it was a disaster-but Bellweather was still too stunned to speak. So she knew about the luncheon with Earl. How much else did she know? How long had she been watching? How closely? How much other evidence did she have? The questions came fast and rattled around his head.

Phil Jackson’s confident assurance that she was just an overambitious busybody, blindly fishing, obviously missed the mark. She was the firm’s worst nightmare, a shield with the goods.

“Yeah,” he told Martie, after he got his heart out of his mouth, “it’s a big damn worry.”

“Who is she?”

“She was a mild nuisance, yesterday. Today she’s poison.” He felt an almost irresistible urge to call Wiley and warn him he’d better stand fast, or else. Unfortunately that would give away that CG was having him watched and tailed.

“Want us to check her out?”

“Yes, but don’t get caught. Don’t even come close to getting caught, understand?”

“She’s a federal agent. I definitely understand.”

At nine the next morning, Mia entered Nicky’s office, quietly closed the door, and delicately eased herself into the lone chair, a worn, crumbling antique that looked old enough to predate the Pentagon. Nicky was on the phone, chewing out some hapless agent for blowing a promising lead in an important investigation. He cursed a few times, unusual for him.

Mia cradled a folder on her lap and waited. “I’m busy, what do ya got?” Nicky barked the moment he hung up. It was only Wednesday. He looked worn out and exhausted already. Two dozen fresh cases were piled up in his in-box. His mood was foul.

“We have to talk, Nicky.”

“Okay, what is it?”

“Remember when you asked me about the Capitol Group?”

“Yeah, and you jerked me off.”

Mia squirmed in her seat a moment. She certainly had, though she wasn’t about to confess it. “Here’s the deal. Just between us. I want your word that you’ll keep this confidential.”

“No, you don’t have my word.”

“Nicky, this is big.”

“I don’t horse-trade with my own agents. If you got something, tell me.”

Mia got up and shoved the folder in his face. Nicky splayed it open. He read it slowly. “Jesus, where’d you get this?”

“A source.”

“An inside source, obviously.”

“Good guess. And I’m not going to disclose the name. Not for now, not even to you, Nicky.”

“For godsakes, you’re a federal agent, not a reporter. There’s no damned First Amendment in this office.”

There was a long pause as they glared at each other across the desk. Nicky used his fiercest glower to try to back her down. A waste of time. Mia had her jaw set, her arms crossed.

This was the one big problem with a brilliant agent with a Harvard Law degree, he quickly concluded with no small amount of annoyance. She had a world of good options outside the service. She could tell him to screw himself and mean it. It was amazing that she took this thankless job in the first place; any day, she could catch a dose of sanity and shove off for greener pastures.

“I suppose you have a good reason,” he said with a weak nod.

“The best. I gave my word. And it’s the only way my source will continue to cooperate. A lot’s at stake here, twenty billion excellent reasons to keep my source talking. I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but people get killed or seriously hurt over a lot less. For now, the less who know my source’s identity, the better. That includes you.”

Nicky didn’t agree, but neither did he raise an objection. What would be the point? “This for real?” he asked, holding up the folder, pinching it between his fingers as if it were a ticking bomb.

“Quite real.”

“You know what it means?”

“I think I do. CG’s polymer wasn’t adequately tested. It means we have to call an immediate, drastic halt to the entire coating operation. Then a major fraud investigation against one of the most powerful and influential companies in Washington. Have I missed anything important?”

“How about a major scandal that will rock the capital?”

“Okay, we’ll add that to the list.”

Inside the folder Nicky was holding like a contaminated vial of germs were the summary pages of a report prepared by a company called Summit Testing-the final results of a privately financed study, contracted and paid for by a company called Arvan Chemicals.