“The CIA handed this to me at the last minute. I didn’t know anybody on the other team, but I knew Hendley Associates and I knew you.”

“Makes sense, I guess.”

“But this extra little assignment—should you accept it—is a security add-on. A prophylactic, as it were. And truthfully, I expect that absolutely nothing will come of it. But because our company is so important to the national defense effort, Langley wants to take extra security precautions.”

Paul twisted and turned the USB drive in his chubby fingers, thinking. Rhodes worried that Paul might hand it back over to him.

“Look, we both know you’re too polite to say it, so I’ll say it for you. You want to know why I’m reaching out to you to do this when we haven’t been in touch for years.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Well, not staying in touch is completely my fault, and I apologize. You knew how ambitious I was back then. I hate to admit it, but I’ve only gotten worse over the years. It’s easy to forget old friends from back in the day when you’re busy making new ones, scrambling up the corporate ladder. I’m sorry.”

Paul shrugged. He’d never known Rhodes to apologize for anything. “No, I get it. You were a busy man—heck, a senator. Not a lot of time to grab a beer with your old buddy in accounting.”

Rhodes laid a manicured hand on Paul’s thick thigh. “But you know that I never forgot what you did for me. Never.”

Paul shifted uncomfortably again. “That was one night, a long time ago. Water under the bridge.”

Rhodes smiled. “You know, when I told my friend in the Special Activities Division that you would be the point man for this, he was thrilled.”

Paul frowned, incredulous. “Why?”

“Because they still remember you over there.”

“Really?”

“How could they not?”

Paul stopped twisting the drive in his fingers. He stared at it, calculating. “So if I were to do this, what are the conditions?”

“Good question. There are a few things. First, we can’t tell Jack or Gerry about any of this.”

Paul was confused. Ryan and Hendley were friends of Rhodes’s and as patriotic as anybody. “Why not?”

“They’re both first-rate men—trust me, I know them well. But they’re not on the need-to-know list as far as Langley is concerned, and the fewer people that know about this, the better. More important, there is the extremely slight possibility that you will get caught doing this. It’s better for them, and for the firm’s reputation, if they genuinely have no idea what you’re doing.”

“Plausible deniability.”

Rhodes nodded. “It’s really to protect Hendley Associates. You remember what happened to Arthur Andersen after the Enron fiasco.”

“I get it.”