“Oh, Mr. President, it doesn’t just please me. It overwhelms me. It’s beautiful!”

“But, Mr. President,” Jimmy Wong spoke out, “we can’t accept anything so extravagant. It’s . . . well, it’s too much!”

“Nonsense, Mr. Secretary.” The president smiled condescendingly. “This is just the beginning. You are in a very key position. You are the man destined to lead my efforts in the Far East. This bauble—this trinket—is just the first installment of what you have coming. It’s only a token of what I intend to do for you and your beautiful wife, Joyce. But now, please rest. I know that you’ve had a long journey, and there’s so much to do.”

When Mark Beaulieu left, he closed the door gently behind him, and Joyce turned around playfully. “Jimmy, what did I tell you?” she purred. “This man is going to give us the moon!”

She walked into the bedroom, to try on the necklace in front of a mirror. James Wong immediately began searching the living room for a listening device. He found one in the return duct of the air conditioner. The microphone was, in turn, attached to a tape recorder that activated whenever a light was turned on in the room. Every word they spoke would be recorded and analyzed by experts.

James then walked into the bedroom, where his wife was preening before a large mirror. “There’s no question, my love, that the president is a wonderful friend,” James lied. Then, pulling his wife by the hand, he said, “I need a shower. We can talk later.”

Inside the bathroom, he turned on all the water faucets. “Joyce, this place is bugged. I found one, and there may be others. Believe me, every word we say here is being monitored.”

“I don’t care about bugs, Jimmy. I have nothing to hide, and there’s nothing to be afraid of. Why don’t you simply face the fact that you’re suspicious by nature, get over it, and accept the president’s offer? I want my life back,” she said as she sat down on a chaise longue in the sumptuous bathroom. “I want to go back to where we were before everything . . . went wrong. I want it all, Jimmy, and Mark Beaulieu can give it to us!”

James Wong shook his head in frustration. “Joyce, what this man wants is total allegiance, total worship, total adulation. No compromises. He’s not interested in you or me at all. We’re totally expendable. Why can’t you see that? What he wants in return for these trinkets and these little trappings of power is just too high a price to pay.”

Joyce looked at her husband as if she had never seen him before. “You do have a price, don’t you?” she asked seriously.