‘You’re worse than Barney. Get out,’ said Ronnie. ‘And don’t get crumbs all through your office either. You’ll be cleaning them up yourself.’

He took his dressing-down with good grace. Besides Kip, Ronnie Freeman was probably the only person on staff at Dearborn House who could put him in his place. Bad things tended to happen to those who crossed her. For one, you might not get fed, which in Jed’s world was pretty bad. Or the food might be cold, or your coffee ration would magically disappear. Ronnie was on good terms with the army chefs who kept the kitchen running here. She too had a finely honed reputation as someone you just didn’t fuck with. With a bulk that matched Culver’s, she was likely to tackle you into a dark closet for what her father used to call ‘some wall-to-wall counselling’.

No, Jed thought, best not to upset Ronnie.

His office was only a few doors down from the President’s, and because of the antique layout of the old mansion, there was no separate room for his assistant, Ms Devers. She worked in the pool down the hall. He led Sarah Humboldt into his domain, a surprisingly small room for a man who was often thought of as the real power in the Kipper administration. A large wooden desk, carved from dark oak and topped with some sort of light brown leather, stretched two-thirds of the way across the width of the space. Bookshelves ran from ceiling to floor, crammed along their length with bound volumes of congressional proceedings, government reports and distressed, dog-eared buff-coloured folders fat with more paper. There were dozens of works of non-fiction, with a sizeable helping of biographies and history, including Bernard Bailyn’s work on the American Revolution and Forrest McDonald’s Novus Ordo Seclorum. As busy as he was, Culver did his best to get at least an hour of reading in a day. The latest book on the stack was going to require a lot of those single hours. He was just a hundred pages into the massive tome, Eric Foner’s Reconstruction.

Brushing the Foner with one thumb as he flicked on the lights, Culver contemplated the book, and honestly wondered if it was worth his time. At least with it on his shelves no one could accuse him of taking the Dunning School too seriously. The room was dark and smelled slightly musty, for which he apologised. A large window behind his desk afforded a view into the gardens, but there was little to see at the moment, thanks to the snow plastered to the outside of the glass.