Six months ago, the President and Red picked me up from this exact parking lot. Over the next hour, I led the three of us and Ingrid down a rabbit hole that ended with a man getting his head blown off and the President being cleared of Jessie Kallomatix’s murder.

Which is why I know the President will show.

He owes me.

Big time.

At 3:15 a.m., lights appear on the side street and thirty seconds later, a black town car eases into the lot. Another thirty seconds later, a black SUV follows suit.

I wait for the man in the SUV to join the man in the town car. I step out from behind the tree and make my way toward the lone man outside the car.

I nod.

Red nods back.

I extend my hand and we shake. “I still can’t believe you pulled that flush out on the river card.”

“Nine of diamonds,” he says with a smirk. He’s a solid two hundred and fifty pounds and stands six-four. If he weren’t in the Secret Service, he could make a living playing one on TV. He slaps me on the shoulder and says, “Hey, you could have folded.”

“Fold three Kings? No way.”

He nods his agreement.

“Any problem getting out?” I ask.

I wasn’t exactly sure how the President and Red routinely came and went from the most protected fifty-two acres in the United States, but they did. I once asked Sullivan if he used Lincoln’s Tunnel and he’d laughed and said, “Yep, and I used Biden’s skateboard.” On one phone conversation, he confided that if the public knew how easy it was to slip away from the White House undetected they would be astounded.

“Too easy,” he says, shaking his head and pulling open the back door.

I lean down and peer inside.

Two men are sitting across from one another in the spacious back seat. I shake hands with Sullivan who is wearing jeans and a gray Washington Redskins sweatshirt, looking more like an unemployed screenwriter than the leader of the free world.

He introduces me to the man across from him.

John LeHigh.

The Director of the CIA.

::::

“You better have a damn good reason for dragging me out here,” is what I expect the man in the suit and tie to bark, but he simply shakes my hand and says, “The President speaks highly of you.”

John LeHigh is on the right side of sixty. His gray hair is cut short, almost to a whitewall, and the top has long ago been washed down the shower drain. His eyes mimic his navy blue tie. His face is fleshy, a result of the wine, spirit, or beer he’d consumed in the last few hours.

“Yeah, well, don’t tell him that I voted for Obama,” I say, eliciting some loose chuckles from my audience. I add, “He speaks highly of you as well.”