“He’s given me complete authority to dig wherever I need. Now, this may turn out to be a complete fabrication. Or it may be true. But if you know anything about this, you have twenty-four hours to let me know. In that time, whatever I learn, I’ll do my best to see that wherever it came from, you’re given due credit for that when the butcher’s bill comes due.”

She kept looking around, making eye contact with each of them as she spoke, nodding conversationally. She was, in fact, on thin ice. Stockton hadn’t rescinded her authority to dig on this topic. But it was clear he’d made up his own mind with Barnes’s death.

So she was going to use that investigative authority now in case he took it away from her later.

“Beyond twenty-four hours from now, if I learn that any of you have been holding out on me, I will nail you mercilessly to the wall.”

She let her eyes slide around them once more, marked who looked away, who met her eyes with hostility, who with humor.

“Am I absolutely clear?”

She was just outside the situation room, in the long hallway that ran the length of the upper deck of Air Force one, when a glint through one of the giant windows caught her eye. It was a brand new F-38, flanking them, its chameleonware skin detuned to let all the world see it – just one of the small squadron of human-piloted and autonomous fighter craft that now protected Air Force One wherever it went. It was something Pryce still wasn’t used to, something that had only come into effect four months ago, with the attempt on the President’s life.

She shook her head. Air Force One was as safe a place as any on earth. Even without the squadron flying air support, the double decker plane had its own anti-missile defenses, its own small fleet of mini-drones it could launch, its own stealth capabilities, and other surprises up its sleeve that few knew about.

The screen of her slate flashed. Pryce looked down, found the kind of message she’d half expected. Anonymous, of course.

[Ivory Tower bitches like you should keep their noses out of wet work. Or they might find those noses cut off.]

Pryce chuckled at that. Another threatened Cro-Magnon, resorting to hurling archaic gendered insults to soothe his battered ego.

She subvocalized to Kaori.

[Pryce: You get that?]

[Kaori: Got it. Starting the trace now.]

She doubted anyone with something truly important to hide would be so stupid as to draw attention like that. Still, you explored all leads, however unlikely. That’s how you made your luck.

Pryce looked back out at the F-38, glinting in the sun, armed with the latest high-tech weaponry, ready to shoot down any bogies that came in range.

She snorted and shook her head.