She got the President of the United States to look right at her. They locked gazes. No more than a second, but long enough to register the judgment of those cold blue eyes.

It was not a safe feeling.

“Let’s go,” said Odile.

The President turned. Barked something at his guard. One of his dogs actually barked.

The blond lady bodyguard was really watching Tania then. So were half the people around her.

Tania felt the shudder of fear come up through her body.

She looked up and around, at the cameras you could see, and the ones you couldn’t. One of the news cameras was on her now.

OMFG.

“Come on!” said Odile, grabbing Tania, pulling her hard.

“Yeah, okay,” said Tania. They turned and headed back the way they came.

“What the fuck!” said Odile, glaring, as they walked as fast as they could without running.

“Sorry!” said Tania. “I think you just got me all riled up with all that crazy talk at lunch and hollering at Newton.”

“That was all you,” said Odile. “I say what I think sometimes, but in the right time and place. I thought you knew how this town works!”

“Same way the whole country works,” said Tania. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

She knew that was a lie, even if it was true.

When they got to Lafayette Square, they were waiting for them. Of course they were. The soldiers surrounded them, separated them, frisked them. Tania saw Odile crying as that same inspector, Nichols, escorted her back behind the checkpoint. Then four Secret Service agents took Tania away in a car with windows tinted so dark she couldn’t see where they were.

She asked what cause they had to detain her, but they didn’t say anything. As she knew, they didn’t have to.

It was an emergency.

It had been an emergency for as long as Tania could remember.

About the Author

CHRISTOPHER BROWN is the Campbell and World Fantasy Award–nominated author of Rule of Capture and Tropic of Kansas. He lives in Austin, Texas, where he also practices law.

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Praise for Rule of Capture

“This one is fresh, intelligent, and emotional, with a plot that envisions an alternate reality hard to dismiss as unreal. It’s a legal thriller, with a big twist, stirring and imaginative, brimming with skulduggery, that will have you asking: is this possible?”

—New York Times bestselling author Steve Berry

“A kind of madcap Texas Gothic dark comedy, as the Houston good ole boy network is displayed like a courtroom scene in an unpublished Hunter S. Thompson novel [ . . . ] It moves rocketing along at a ferocious pace—and then it lingers, haunting you.”

—Cory Doctorow, for BoingBoing