With a bitter smile, Jake said, “Oh, so now he wants to see me.”

“What did you say to him?” she asked, her voice sounding almost hostile. “He’s very upset.”

“I didn’t say sh … beans. But I met his son. Who works for Leeds.”

“Professor Sinclair’s son?” Surprised.

“Who is employed by Senator Christopher Leeds, in his local office here in town.”

A long pause. “Well, the professor wants to see you. How is two o’clock this afternoon for you?”

“I’m teaching a class then. What about four?”

“Let me check … four thirty? Can you make it then?”

“Yep.”

“Four thirty, then. In the professor’s office.”

“Will you be there?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Good. See you then.”

As Jake placed the phone handset back in its receptacle, he wondered how Glynis’s dinner with Tim Younger went. That’s none of your business, he told himself. Still, he wondered.

He thought about putting in a call to Amy Wexler, to tell her about the Sinclair-Leeds connection, but decided to wait until after he’d talked with the professor. Get the facts first, he decided. Don’t go off half-cocked.

*   *   *

Professor Sinclair was sitting behind his heavy mahogany desk when Jake arrived at his office. Jake got the feeling that he had barricaded himself in there as if he were preparing to fight a battle. Through the office’s wide windows Jake could see there was a dusting of snow on the distant mountains. The ski resorts will be open for business this weekend, he realized. It’s going to be a white Christmas for them.

Glynis had opened the door when Jake knocked on it and now she showed him to one of the university-issue steel-frame chairs in front of Sinclair’s desk. Its thin pad felt like concrete. There was another man already seated in the chair beside him, a thin-faced middle-aged man in a light gray suit, balding, dark-jowled, sitting with his legs crossed and his crafty eyes studying Jake.

As Glynis went to the chair at the side of Sinclair’s desk, the professor introduced him. “Dr. Ross, this is Ignacio Perez.”

Jake turned to shake hands. Perez smiled warmly yet his dark eyes seemed anything but friendly. “Call me Nacho,” he said, his voice rasping as if he had a sore throat. “Everybody calls me Nacho.”

Jake smiled tightly. “I’m Jake.”

“Good,” said Nacho. “Good.”

“Mr. Perez works with Senator Leeds’s reelection campaign office,” said Sinclair, with clear distaste.

“Me and the senator go back a long ways,” Perez said, grinning. “A long ways.”

Glynis spoke up, “Jake is going to be Franklin Tomlinson’s science advisor, aren’t you, Jake?”

“That’s right.” Tightly.

Perez broke into a staccato laughter. “That’s all right. No problem. I won’t hold that against ya.”

Sinclair put on a pained smile.

To the professor, Jake said, “I take it, then, that you’re supporting Senator Leeds.”