She typed a moderately detailed email and promised to call her friend as soon as she could. As she pressed send, Secret Service Special Agent Zachary Monroe appeared at her elbow. “Doctor Myers?”

She glanced up and frowned. “Yes?”

“The vice president has asked that you join him tonight at a dinner in the home of the president of Katangela.”

A state dinner? She really didn’t enjoy those on a good day. So much pomp and press and everything done for the sake of show. She shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t have anything appropriate to wear for a state dinner with me.”

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I’ve been instructed to escort you to your hotel. You have several articles of clothing from which to choose for tonight waiting on you there.”

Annoyance brought a sarcastic retort to her lips, but she pressed them together. This man had nothing to do with the decision-making process that had brought the two of them together for this conversation. “I guess I don’t have an excuse, then, do I?”

Monroe didn’t respond to her words. He didn’t smile. He simply said, “I have a car out front whenever you’re ready.”

She understood that to mean that he expected she would be ready right now, because the vice president had deemed it so. With a sigh, she logged out of the computer and stood, slinging her backpack over her shoulders.

Monroe handed her down into the car and shut her door but did not join her inside. The car held a standard detail of two agents, neither of whom she recognized. She didn’t feel like making small talk, so she sat in the back of the small sedan and endured the five-minute ride in silence. When they pulled up in front of the hotel’s main entrance, she let herself out of the car before someone could open her door and paused at the window of the driver. He lowered it.

“What time does this event begin?” she asked.

“Eight.”

She looked at her watch. “I have four hours. You don’t need to wait for me. Just please be here at quarter to eight.”

“We’ll wait here, ma’am.”

“That’s certainly your prerogative, but I’m not coming down until 7:45.”

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

She chewed on her bottom lip as she crossed the lobby. At the front desk, the smiling clerk beamed in her direction. “Bonjour, mademoiselle.”

“Bonjour.” Speaking French made her suddenly miss Ayo and Tadeas. “I was told some dresses were delivered to me.”

She gave him her name and room number, and he clicked and clacked on his computer. “Ah, yes, they were delivered to your room.”

“My room?”

“Oui.”