Still grinning, he clicked back to the government e-mail and read those that had come in during the night. He decided there was nothing that required his immediate attention, so he unwrapped his bagel, refilled his Styrofoam cup of coffee from the urn out in the kitchen, and settled down with the morning paper. He knew if someone quizzed him in an hour he wouldn't be able to tell them what he'd read.

Every two minutes, Jack looked up at the huge white clock on the wall. The hands were moving like snails.

While Jack was eating his bagel and watching the clock, Maggie Spritzer was chewing on her bottom lip, wondering if anyone involved in the day's activities would take the time to figure out where the tips were coming from in regard to Bert Navarro.

It wasn't exactly news when Elias Cummings, the current director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, visited the White House. Maybe a mention on page eight in a two-line paragraph. Even when Cummings journeyed to the White House with his right-hand man, assistant director Bert Navarro, it was still a page-eight, two-line item. All the news was about the upcoming election in November, just weeks away. Boring political news. Hard to believe there was no scandal going on in Alphabet City, and the populace had to do with page after page of hashed and re-hashed political garbage.

Well, that will change in a few hours. Childishly, Maggie crossed her fingers. A shadow crossed her doorway and she motioned for Joe Espinosa to come into her office.

"Talk to me, Joe."

Espinosa licked at his dry lips as he looked at Maggie. Once she'd been one of them, his partner's lover. They'd had some good times and some bad times as well, but she'd been one of them, not the establishment. He suddenly felt inferior, and he didn't much like the feeling.

It was the first time he'd been in this office since Maggie took over. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to address his new boss.

Maggie changed all that when she asked, "Joe, you waiting for a bus? What? This is me, Maggie. Talk to me."

Espinosa heaved a sigh of relief. "I thought this was Ted's gig. I just got my orders an hour ago, but I hustled. I called some friends at the Daily News and the Sentinel. Just another day covering the White House, with one slight difference. I was just getting ready to leave and wondered if you had any last-minute instructions."

"Get me good pictures. I'm going to run with it above the fold. Do it right, and you can count the bylines on both hands. The television stations will be covering it all day and night."

"Why the hell is this guy so important all of a sudden?"