The group was spread out in the cabin. Schultz and Dixon were at a table playing cards. Natasha had stretched out on a lounge and gone to sleep. Carmody glanced over at Kali and noticed she was looking at Musil. He was in a chair about a mile up toward the front of the cabin, wide awake, seemingly preoccupied with his thoughts. He had said little to anyone since they left the Terminal.

“Brave guy,” Carmody said to her.

She nodded. “He is committed to his values,” she said. “You didn’t tell me he was coming with us.”

“He just showed up at the Terminal. I tried to talk him into staying home.”

“And he talked you out of it.”

Carmody nodded. “I guess he hit a soft spot. Said something about warriors leaving the people they love to protect them.” He paused. “Imagine how it used to be. Before cell phones. Before the internet. Soldiers, thousands of miles away from their wives and kids. By the time they got news from each other it was two months out of date.”

Kali looked at him and drew closer and placed a hand on top of his on his armrest, her fingertips curling around to the fleshy part of his palm. His hand was twice the size of hers. He closed it around her fingers and squeezed them very gently.

“Kali—”

“Shhh... Michael.”

He looked at her. Her hand in his on the armrest. She leaned over and touched her lips to his and held them there a long second. Her mouth was barely open. Their breaths overlapped and intermingled. She moved her head sideways and inhaled through her nose and smelled his cheek. He felt her inhalation against his skin. He felt her closeness. It tickled slightly and made his throat tighten up. She leaned back.

They sat with their hands together on the armrest another moment and then slowly pulled them apart.

“I think we need to talk,” he said.

She looked into his eyes and nodded.

“In time,” she said.

It was after midnight when President Annemarie Fucillo’s cell phone rang in the Oval Office study. Not the phone provided by the Secret Service but the one she had owned for years before being elected chief executive—the flip phone people in the White House called the First Phone, to go with the First Cat. After a bit of wrangling, she had hashed out a compromise with her security team, permitting a few modifications to its O/S and settings, and agreeing to use it only to communicate with senior advisers and a nucleus of her closest friends. The tweaks and limited usage made it about as secure as her official phone. But when she answered it, she knew she wouldn’t live to regret hearing from the caller.