“He’s spoken with Senator Leeds a few times.”

“Ah!”

“And his son. The professor talks to his son almost every day.”

“He’s letting Tim and me run the program,” Rogers said. “That’s not like him. Not like him at all.”

“What the hell could be wrong with him?” Jake wondered.

Glynis said, “Whatever it is, I think it’s got something to do with Leeds. The senator is just about the only person Professor Sinclair’s spoken to in the past month.”

Then she added, “And his son, of course.”

Primary Opposition

PRIMARY OPPOSITION

Two weeks later Jake attended the public debate between Tomlinson and his only Republican rival for the primary election, a local businessman named Harmon Dant. Amy had told him that Dant was a far-right conservative who neither knew nor cared about technology.

“He’ll talk about taxes, taxes, taxes,” Amy had said.

The debate was set for seven P.M. in the gymnasium of the city’s oldest high school. The basketball hoops at either end of the room had been folded up against their backboards and tiers of portable benches had been carried in. As usual, Jake was early; hardly a dozen people were there when he came in out of the frigid early March evening. As he climbed to the top tier of benches, where he could rest his back against the cinderblock wall, Jake pulled off his watch cap and lined coat. It felt chilly in the converted gym, but nowhere near as bad as the sub-zero winds gusting outside.

One local television crew was setting up a pair of cameras. Down in the middle of the floor stood two lecterns with a small desk between them.

Leaning against the wall, Jake realized that he hadn’t seen Amy in more than a week. They talked almost every day on the phone, but she was with Tomlinson almost all the time now. Jake wondered if she were sleeping with him, too.

As he watched the auditorium slowly fill up, Jake remembered Henry Kissinger’s remark that power was the ultimate aphrodisiac. He grinned ruefully. Well, that lets me out.

Then he saw Glynis Colwyn enter the auditorium, wrapped in a bulky hooded parka and muffler. She pulled the hood down, and her dark brown hair spilled down her back.

“Glyn!” he shouted, his voice echoing off the bare walls. “Up here!”

She looked up and saw him. So did just about everybody else in the place. Jake felt embarrassed yet glad as Glynis climbed up the benches toward him.

“It’s freezing out there,” she said by way of greeting as she sat next to him.

Jake had a sudden inspiration of wrapping his arm around her shoulders, but he figured he’d already called enough attention to himself, and besides she wouldn’t appreciate his gesture.