“Peace to you, my good friend, and most gracious greetings to you,” Tauriq Haddad intoned on the other end of the line. “A very simple matter, Mr. DuVal. I am calling as a loyal and supportive citizen of this great country. I understand that the president has chosen a new chief of staff. I hear also that his résumé and references will be coming to you shortly. It would give me great pleasure to know that this exceptional young man will be cleared quickly so that he may begin to serve the president and the nation in this time of great physical and emotional stress.”

“A new chief of staff? What is his name, my friend?” Percy DuVal asked.

“His name is Benares—Benjamin Benares—and he comes highly recommended.”

“Yes, I’ll make a note,” said DuVal. “But please understand, Tauriq, that this is not a simple matter. This is a very sensitive post. You know how thorough the FBI review will be; and the Secret Service checks are even harder. The process will take time.”

“Of course it will, my dear friend,” Tauriq Haddad replied. “Thank you for your consideration. And, by the way, I hope you and your wife will join me for dinner very soon. I have just purchased some fascinating home movies that we can . . . view together. Au revoir, my friend.” Haddad laughed softly, and the line went dead.

The blood drained from Percy DuVal’s face. He had been in charge of the presidential personnel office for three years. During his tenure there, he had used every trick in the book to fill the highest government positions with those who shared his lifestyle and philosophy.

Yet, he had been very successful in hiding his own lifestyle choice.

To maintain his cover, he had even married a former secretary, who, in exchange for a platonic relationship, complete freedom, and a very comfortable position in the government, played with consummate skill the role of adoring wife and hostess.

Everything had been going so well . . . the two lives of Percy DuVal. His one slip had occurred months earlier, at a party in the lavishly decorated home of a Middle Eastern ambassador. Percy got carried away with the excessive, decadent atmosphere and indulged his erotic tastes too much. He drank too much, enjoyed the entertainment too much, and he allowed himself to be enticed into group sex with a number of very young Ethiopian boys who had been brought to America specifically to fulfill the sordid desires of the ambassador—an old and highly respected friend of the United States government. Percy regretted the episode, but assured himself that it would go no further.

Unfortunately, the entire incident was on videotape, and his proclivities had been recorded in graphic detail and in living color. Within twenty-four hours, the tape had been passed, in exchange for a considerable sum of money, into the hands of Tauriq Haddad.