Martine closed the door and walked back to the kitchen, where her coffee was ready. She poured a cup and carried it back to a deep, comfortable armchair by the bay window. She curled her legs up under her and sipped at her coffee, her mind going in all directions. The fine hairs on the nape of her neck still seemed to be at attention, which meant all was not well. She immediately thought of Lizzie, then Baron Bell. Well, after today Baron Bell would be just a memory. And come the first of the year, her chief of staff was just going to be a memory, too. She should have given him his walking papers the minute he defied her regarding the pardons, but because it was the Christmas season, she’d convinced herself the beginning of the year would be soon enough. She’d always deplored businesses that fired or laid off people during the holidays all because of the corporate bottom line for the end-of-the-year accounting.

Martine walked back to the kitchen, looked at the clock on the stove before she poured her second cup of coffee of the day. This was when she had a cigarette, something she was going to give up the first of the year. It was the only resolution she was willing to make. At this point in time.

Forty minutes later the president of the United States was sitting at her desk in the Oval Office, the fine hairs at the nape of her neck still dancing to their own tune. POTUS shivered.

Less than a mile away, at the horse barn in Georgetown, the missing sleigh was being raised on a lift as Avery Snowden’s people prepared to remove the wheels that allowed the sleigh to move on asphalt. Waxed and oiled runners would be installed by competent hands. When the work was completed, the sleigh would be loaded onto a custom dolly, which would be wheeled out onto the snow so that the runners didn’t touch the concrete floor of the barn.

The sleigh was huge, a beautiful, one-of-a-kind construction, specially ordered and crafted in Russia and shipped to Baron Bell some twenty-odd years ago. Once every five years, at his own expense, Bell paid to have one of the craftsmen come to the United States to repair the paint, redo the gilt, sand and wax the steel runners. They even tuned the bells that hung on strips of leather and adorned the horses’ necks as they pulled the sleigh.

The inside of the sleigh held portable, battery-operated foot warmers. It was lined in plush red velvet; the seat covered in soft, buttery leather.

A sleigh fit for a king.

“How much longer?” one of the men shouted, the sound bouncing off the walls of the huge barn.