“Holtzman’s dead, Mr President,” Pryce cut in.

John Stockton stopped mid-sentence and turned towards her.

“What?”

“I just got the word,” she shook her head, clicked on the image again, pointed her slate at the wall screen, and projected it for them all to see.

“The scene resembles the video we just saw quite closely.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Chase’s wheels start spinning, saw him start reaching for an angle, a talking point, as he always did.

“Analysis,” Stockton said.

Pryce pursed her lips. “Two options. One, the video’s legit. Two, it’s a fake, but made by someone who was at the scene. Probably the killer. Probably someone deep inside DHS.”

Stockton leaned back, visibly trying to absorb that, weighing the possibility that some unknown actor had infiltrated the Department of Homeland Security and killed the man who’d saved his life… or that Barnes, a man he’d known for almost a decade, had done it.

“These allegations,” Stockton said. “That we created the PLF…”

“Ridiculous.” Greg Chase said.

“There’s something else you should see, Mr President,” Pryce said. “Scan forward, past the video. There are pictures of documents, what appear to be memos from 32 and 33, the Jameson administration, when you were Veep. And diary entries, purportedly from Warren Becker.”

The deceased Warren Becker, she didn’t add. Warren Becker had been a director in Enforcement Division of the ERD. He’d planned the mission that had dangled Kaden Lane as bait in front of Su-Yong Shu, had tried to plant him as a mole inside her lab. He’d pushed for the snatch and grab to retrieve Lane and his operative from Thailand after things had gone wrong. And then things had gone even worse.

Warren Becker had suffered a lethal heart attack not long after, an apparent victim of stress. Wasn’t that convenient? It had prevented his testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Homeland Security after the debacles in Thailand. It had shielded her from embarrassment. It had shielded the President.

Why didn’t that bother me more? She wondered.

Pryce went on. “Those docs purport to show that the PLF was created as a false flag, authorized to stage missions in the US and abroad, sway domestic and international opinion to support bans on emerging technological threats.”

Stockton scanned forward, his eyes moving, pausing the video, then advancing, replaying, his lips moving, shaking his head. Finally, he looked up. “This has to be a fake. This isn’t who we are. We don’t do this.”

Pryce said nothing.

Stockton frowned.

“Chase,” he said, his eyes still looking at Pryce. “You can go.”

“Mr President…” his Press Secretary started to protest.

“I’ll need you later, Greg,” Stockton said, more gently. “Just give me a minute with Carolyn here.”

Chase swallowed and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Pryce waited as Greg Chase left the secured suite, still, centered in herself.