Standing in his dress shirt, boxers, and black socks, he let himself cool in the dark of his suite. After a few moments, he turned on the news and was greeted by a story about Anne Fleming’s campaign stop in California. Benjamin saw it now; the light attendance at his stump speech this morning had brought the big picture into focus. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that tomorrow’s meeting with Douglass needed to be a bloodletting. It would send a message and would reenergize and focus the troops. He wondered what it would take to coax Abigail Saldana out of semiretirement as a pundit; she wouldn’t put up with this Fleming nonsense.

A staccato knock at the door broke him from his thoughts, and his good mood evaporated. The Senate itself had better be a smoking crater, or so help him God, whatever overeager staffer stood on the far side of that door would need to move to Turkey to find a job in politics.

“What?” Lombard bellowed, nearly yanking the door off its hinges.

It was Leland Reed, and he looked troubled.

“What is it?” Lombard asked again, but the fire had gone out of his voice.

“Can I come in, sir?”

Benjamin stood aside and let him into the suite. Reed didn’t sit but instead did an uneasy circuit around the room like an automated vacuum cleaner patrolling for dirt. Eventually, he came to a rest by the window.

“Well, what is it? Christ, you’re making me nervous.”

“Sir, you know the list you asked me to keep an eye on.”

Lombard knew exactly what list Reed meant. You didn’t make it this far in politics without making a few enemies. More than a few. The list comprised people who might try to hurt his campaign. Everyone from political foes to former employees to a high-school girlfriend who didn’t like the way they’d broken up. It wasn’t that he was expecting trouble, but every campaign dug something long forgotten out of a candidate’s past. There was no reason to expect this one would be any different.

“Who?” Lombard asked.

“George Abe.”

“George? Really.” That surprised him. He’d always considered them on reasonable terms despite how they’d parted ways. “What’s George done?”

“He met Duke Vaughn’s son at a diner in Virginia. They’re driving into Washington as we speak.”

The hairs on Lombard’s neck prickled. Gibson Vaughn and George Abe. Those were two names he never expected to hear in the same sentence, and the only thing they had in common was him. That they were together could not be a coincidence.

“What were they talking about?”

“That I don’t know, sir.”

“Well, find out. Do we have anyone in George’s outfit?”

“No, sir,” Reed said.

“Well, get someone. And get Eskridge on the phone. Looks like he may need to get hands-on after all.”