“It’s the Sword of Allah, Nick. A few days ago a DVD of Elizabeth was left in the countryside of southern England. They want Sheikh Abdullah back, and if we don’t have him on a plane bound for Egypt by Friday night, they’re going to kill her.”

“What’s your source?”

“That doesn’t sound like a denial.”

“Answer the question, please.”

“You don’t really expect me to divulge my source, do you?”

“At least characterize the nature of the source for me.”

“Law enforcement,” she said. “But that’s as far as I go.”

Scanlon swiveled his chair around and gazed through his bulletproof window toward the North Lawn. A fucking leak… It was a miracle they had managed to keep a lid on it this long. It had been just six months since Scanlon had left his lucrative job as a lobbyist and public relations executive to come to work for the president, but in that time he had been given ample evidence of Washington’s proclivity to leak. And the worse the news, the faster it gushed out. He wondered what would possibly motivate a federal law enforcement official to slip a piece of news like this to a reporter. He rotated his chair around and looked into Melissa Stewart’s large blue eyes. But of course, he thought.

“You still sleeping with that guy from the Bureau?”

“Stay out of my personal life, Nick.”

“I’m going to give you a piece of advice, and I hope you take it in the spirit it is offered. This is not a story you want to be first on.”

“That doesn’t sound like a denial either.”

“As you can imagine, we are in the middle of some very delicate operations around the globe right now—operations that will be placed in jeopardy if this news is revealed before we’re ready.”

“I’m sorry, Nick, but this is just too big to sit on. If it’s true, we have to go with it. The American people deserve to know who’s holding Ambassador Halton’s daughter.”

“Even if it gets her killed?”

“You’ve sunk into the depths before, but that’s the lowest.”

“I can go much lower, Melissa. I’ll deny it’s true, and then I’ll denounce you from the podium.”

She turned and reached for the doorknob.

“Wait,” Scanlon said, his tone suddenly conciliatory. “Perhaps we can reach an accommodation.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“How long can you give me?”

“Ten minutes.”

“Twenty,” Scanlon countered.

“Fifteen.”

Scanlon nodded in agreement. Stewart looked at her watch.

“If the phone in my booth doesn’t ring in fifteen fucking minutes,” she said, “I’m going to march out to the lawn and tell the world who’s holding Elizabeth Halton.”