He gazed across the room again like a general studying the horizon for an ambush before looking down at a piece of paper. “I’d like to begin with a statement about this summit. The president of the United States is extremely pleased to be greeting the leaders of seven Latin American nations. Good fences make for good neighbors, and ours are good.” He nodded, seemingly satisfied with the goodness of it all. “We face enemies around the world. That’s why it’s important to be close to our neighbors at home. More so when they have oil. Make friends. Keep gas cheap. America’s going the distance.” He looked up, and Natalie felt her brain try to make sense of those words, but as usual, Adam Majors was conveying a sentiment without a coherent meaning.

“And now I’ll take your questions about the summit. Melissa?” Adam called on the curly-haired woman in the first row.

“Thank you,” Melissa said. “There’s a report that President Lystra of Colombia has brought his son Rigo with him to the US. Now we at the AP are is reporting that the Venezuelans are seeking to extradite Rigo. They want him to face rape charges in their country.”

A shiver of excitement raced through the room as people picked up their iPhones and started tweeting and emailing the latest breaking news from the AP. Melissa continued, “The US has no extradition treaty with Venezuela. If they should attempt to arrest Rigo here on US soil, how will the US respond?”

Adam sighed, flipped his briefing book to a tab and read, “The president welcomes all invited leaders with the traveling parties they choose. We will not sit as judge and jury. We do not conduct foreign policy on a he-said-she-said basis. Next question!”

“That didn’t answer my—” Melissa attempted, sounding upset.

A forest of hands flew up.

“Charles?” Adam said, pointing to the front row and silencing Melissa.

Charles’s face was a mask of weighty thought. “A New York Times report quotes three anonymous White House staffers saying they raised objections with the president and told him not to let Rigo attend the summit, but the president overruled them—”

Adam cut him off. “I don’t respond to anonymous, nonspecific leaks. You know that.”

“This is pretty specific,” Charles said as he lifted his iPhone to read directly from it. “One staffer says, quote, ‘The president doesn’t understand the potential for an international crisis because he has the attention span of a fruit fly with ADD.’” Charles put down his iPhone and asked, “Now do you care to comment?”

Though Charles’s velvety rumble gave his question a bouquet of Depth with hints of Importance and Urgency, it was nothing more than a voice exercise. There was only one possible answer—“No”—which was what Adam said, through tiny puckered lips.