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his shoulder, Barrie saw that he was entertaining a young lady. They were having a picnic lunch on the living room floor.

"I'm sorry to disturb-"

"If you're looking for Anna, she moved," he said, obviously in a hurry to return to lunch. Or whatever.

"When?"

"Sometime last week. Friday, Thursday maybe. Before the weekend, because the super had the apartment cleaned on Saturday. There were workmen in and out all day."

"Do you have any idea-"

"Where she moved? No. But she works at D.C. General."

"Not any longer, she doesn't."

"Huh. Then I'm clueless."

"Thanks for coming, Daily." Barrie entered her house through the back door.

The kitchen was filled with aromatic steam.

"How could I resist such a gracious invitation? `Be there at seven. Start dinner.' "

Daily was at the stove, stirring a pot of spaghetti sauce, a Christmas apron tied around his waist. She vaguely remembered getting the apron as a gift a couple of years ago and hadn't seen it since. She wondered where Daily had found it.

"Smells delicious." She batted down Cronkite, who was in a frenzy over her arrival. "Have you fed him?"

"A raw meatball, which he swallowed whole." Daily set aside his spoon and turned to her. "How come I had to get out at the corner, walk down the alley, and come in through the back door? Are we playing spy, or what?"

"After dinner."

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He held her to that promise. As soon as the dishes were cleared, they made themselves comfortable in her living room. At least Daily was comfortable, seated in an overstuffed armchair, Cronkite's large head resting in his lap. Barrie moved about the room restlessly. Twice she checked the front door to see that it was locked and bolted. She closed the window blinds, making it impossible for anyone outside to see in.

"What in hell is going on?" Daily asked.

She held her finger vertically against her lips and turned on the TV. She set the volume at an ear-splitting level, then moved an ottoman close to Daily's chair.

"You'll probably think I'm overdramatizing," she said, "but I think I'm being watched. I had my cell phone disconnected this afternoon. From here on, I don't want any phone records. When we talk, we have to be very careful about what we say, especially about Vanessa Merritt."

He nodded toward the blaring television set. "You think the house has been bugged?"

"Nothing would surprise me." She filled him in on Anna Chen's disappearance, adding, "I talked to the super of the building. She gave no notice, just paid out her lease, packed up, and took off."

"She could have a dozen reasons for leaving. Another job, another apartment."

"She left no forwarding address either at the hospital or with the super.

That's odd for someone who's just relocating."

"Maybe she's trying to shake a bad-tempered boyfriend."

"She was frightened, but not of a violent ex-boyfriend. She was afraid of being seen talking to me. Somebody knew she'd leaked information to me, and she'd been spooked into shutting up."

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Daily tugged at his lower lip, saying nothing.

"Why wasn't an autopsy performed on that baby?" Barrie continued. "Dr.

Allan wasn't present when he died. In an accidental death, law mandates an autopsy to determine the cause."

"We're talking about the President and First Lady of the United States, Barrie. The law can be bent."

"If your child had suddenly died for no apparent reason, wouldn't you want to know exactly why? Why would the Merritts object to an autopsy if they had nothing to hide?"

"Lots of people object to autopsies." Daily waved his hand in dismissal.

"Next argument."

"I keep going back to Vanessa's strange messages to me. Could they have been implied confessions?"

"If she murdered her baby, why would she confess?"

"Deep down, she wants her crime to be exposed. She wants to be punished."

"You know, the more you talk, the sicker she gets."

"And where is she?" Barrie asked impatiently, while still keeping her voice low. "At Highpoint?" The Merritts' private getaway on the Shenandoah River was a couple of hours' drive southwest of Washington.

"That would stand to reason," Daily said, "although the official word is that she's resting in an ùndisclosed location.' "

"If she's only resting, and is otherwise healthy, why all the secrecy?"

"If his daughter was seriously ill, Clete Armbruster would be right in the middle of it," Daily said. "He'd have her in the best medical facility in the country, undergoing every kind of test they've got. Have you talked to anyone in his office?"

"I've tried. Neely's statements have become his staff's mantra."

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"If her health was at risk, the senator wouldn't be satisfied with an extended rest. He'd fight hell or high water to get the best treatment available."

"Likewise, if the senator knew that she had committed murder, he would fight equally hard to cover it up and protect her."

"Shit," Daily said. "I walked right into that one."

"You keep placing these obstacles in my path," she said crossly. "You don't want me to be right."

"I don't want you to be wrong. I don't want you to go out on a limb with a chain saw in your hand like you did with the Justice Green story. And others."

"This bears no resemblance to those. None at all."

"And I don't want it to. After a series of fiascoes, you're just now regaining some credibility. Can you imagine the shit storm these theories of yours will create if they get leaked?"

"Can you imagine how far and fast my career will soar if my theories prove to be right?"

"Before you start fantasizing about your own magazine show, you'd better acknowledge what you've got. A hunch, Barrie. That's it. A hunch, which in journalism amounts to zero."

"No, it doesn't," she argued emphatically. "Unless you're actually there when somebody jumps off a ledge, or an airplane crashes, or a killer is caught standing over the body with a smoking gun in his hand, every good story begins with a hunch, a gut instinct that tells you there's more to the situation than meets the eye.

"You probably won't believe this, Daily, but my motives aren't purely selfish. I'm concerned for Vanessa. She was stretched about as thin as I've ever seen anyone stretched. Say I'm way off base and the baby died of SIDS, as reported. Maybe grief has driven her insane. If she's becoming an embarrassment to the White House, isn't it

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possible that they shuttled her off somewhere to keep her out of the public eye?"

"You think the President is holding her against her will?"

Put that way, her hypothesis sounded ludicrous. "That -would be totally implausible, wouldn't it?"

"No more implausible than anything else we've tossed around." He thought about it for a moment. "Then again, power has its own unique psychology.

History has shown that to some presidents, any means justified the end. I guess that could extend to the sequestering of an emotionally unbalanced first lady who might stand in the way of reelection."

Barrie shuddered. "God, our theories only get worse."

"They're still just theories, Barrie."

"Stop reminding me," she muttered.

"That's my job."

"You're no longer my boss."

"True. I'm just your friend. Look, Barrie." He paused to take a few wheezing breaths. "You've got the world's approval now. For once, go easy on yourself."

She resented his tone. "Psychology time, Daily? Time to open up Barrie's head and see what makes her tick?"

"I already know what makes you tick. More importantly, you know, too."

"Then why discuss it?" she said angrily.

"Can you look me in the eye and tell me that your motivation for pushing forward with this dangerous story has nothing to do with winning the approval of two people who-"

"Yes, I can look you in the eye and tell you that. Besides, no matter what my motivation is, it's a story that needs to be told. Agreed?"

"If the story is indeed there, yes," he answered grudgingly.

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"Okay, so stop bringing up my scar-inflicting childhood and help me."

"How?"

"Who would talk to me? Senator Armbruster?"

Daily shook his head. "No matter what he believed in his heart, he'd take the company line and defend it with his dying breath. He's a politician down to his toenails. He wouldn't malign anybody his party placed in the White House, even if it was Jack the Ripper. And certainly not his son-in-law. Almost singlehandedly, he put David Merritt in office." "Okay. So, who else knows the Merritts that intimately? If there was someone close to them who'd had a falling out. Or someone who-" Suddenly a fresh thought yanked her up straight. "That-that . . . soldier who rescued the hostages."

"Bondurant?"

"Bondurant! Yes! Gary Bondurant."

"Gray."

"Right. Gray. He was thick as thieves with the Merritts. Maybe he'd talk to me."

It hurt Barrie to hear the rasp-gasp-rattle in Daily's laugh. "You'd have better luck getting an interview with one of the faces on Mount Rushmore.

They're a lot friendlier and more talkative than Bondurant. He's about as approachable as a cobra."

"What's his story? Where'd he come from?"

Daily shrugged. "Your guess is as good as anybody's."

"He didn't just materialize when Merritt appointed him as adviser," she said with frustration.

"But it looks that way," Daily remarked. "Spencer Martin is just as secretive. What's known about them before the Merritt administration wouldn't fill a thimble. My opinion-they cultivate that mysterious aura."

"What for?"

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"Effect, I imagine."

"What did Bondurant do before the rescue mission?"

"Planned it, I guess. The three of them-Martin, Bondurant, and Merritt-had Marine recon training. Of the three, the President is the most polished, the natural politician. Spencer Martin is a devious sneak. He fits his role in the administration to a tee. And Bondurant . . . He's the most complex of the trio. Want to know something? The guy always scared the shit out of me. Truth be known, I think he scared the shit out of the President, too."

"I thought Merritt fired him because he had become a little too attached to Vanessa."

Daily grunted. "How come you're so rusty on this? Where were you when this was going on? It wasn't that long ago."

"Howie was mad at me for something or other, so he had me covering alleged misconduct in professional wrestling. I missed out on Bondurant's return and then his split from Washington."

"Actually, there wasn't much to miss. Bondurant had every reporter in Washington frustrated. He dodged cameras and granted no interviews. The tabloids printed their usual tripe, but of course they didn't give the true story."

"What was the true story?"

"I don't know. But if Merritt had thought that Bondurant was humping the First Lady, why would he have picked him to lead that rescue mission? He made Bondurant a national hero. That doesn't sound like the act of a jealous husband, does it?"

Daily wagged his index finger at her. "And there's another fact you've got wrong. The President didn't fire him. Following the mission, he asked Bondurant to resume his position at the White House. Bondurant said,

`Thank you, but no.' "

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"How do you know all this?"

"You're not the only one with sources, missy. I may have one foot in the grave, but the other one is still welcome in several camps in Washington."

"If you're so in-the-know, where is Bondurant now?"

"He moved someplace out West. To one of those square states."

She went so far as to invite him to lunch. They went to his favorite deli.

She even let him eat before pleading her case.

"Please, Howie. Give me the green light. A few days should do it." He mopped up the juice from his meatball sandwich with the last scrap of bread and stuffed it into his mouth. Chewing, he said, "Travel's expensive, you know. We've got no budget for it."

"I'll pay as I go with my own money. I'll keep receipts. The station can reimburse me later. But only if I produce the story."

She hoped this self-sacrifice would win him over. It also heightened her incentive to produce an exclusive that would electrify the nation, which she believed she was on the brink of doing. Only a story of this magnitude would have compelled her to break bread with Howie Fripp.

He ruminated-on a raw onion and her request. "Where are you going?"

"I can't say."

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"You expect me to give you the go-ahead when you won't tell me where you're going or what the story is?"

"It's explosive. Secrecy is the key to breaking it." She lowered her voice to a hush and leaned in closer, although the onion and garlic fumes emanating from his mouth caused her eyes to tear. "If word got out that I was working on this, it could be dangerous for anyone who knew."

"Gimme a break," he moaned. "Why don't you try selling that crock of shit over at NBC? Some schmuck over there might actually buy it."

"Thanks, Howie. I was hoping you'd say that." She reached for her satchel.

At first taken aback, Howie narrowed his eyes shrewdly. "How come you're not sore?"

"Because now I can go to Jenkins with a clear conscience. I didn't want to jump the chain of command, so I asked you first. Since you've denied my request, I'm clear to go to the G.M."

The mention of W VUE's general manager struck terror in Howie Fripp's heart. "Jenkins will back my decision," he said, feigning confidence.

"He'll laugh himself sick because you had the gall to ask for travel time."

"I don't think so," Barrie said cheerfully. "Didn't I tell you about the memo he wrote me?"

Howie narrowed his eyes again.

"It was a glowing review of my SIDS series. He wants me to do more special reports like that. He says my talent is being squandered on crap stories.