Marrs was squinting in the fresh light. “Who’s there?”

Boucher didn’t answer. He enjoyed the terrified expression on Marrs’s face. But his eyes must have adjusted to the light because he suddenly recognized his visitor. “Boucher?” Marrs circled the desk. “Don’t you have grunts to bug offices?”

“I do.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“Deciding.”

Marrs picked up the phone and dialed a three-digit extension that Boucher recognized as the number for security. But he didn’t react. Didn’t need to. The phone was unplugged.

“Deciding what?” Marrs asked before putting the phone to his ear. When he heard no ringing or dial tone he knew the phone had been disconnected.

“If you’re the right person.”

Marrs had taken a step back toward the door. A bit of fear had crept back into his face.

“How about this,” Marrs said. “You can tell me what you decided from the inside of a cell. CIA chief or not, this is illegal.”

When he took another step toward the door, Boucher launched up, slid over the desk, and reached Marrs just as he was turning around to run. He took hold of the senator’s pinky and twisted it back. The man yelped as the digit neared the breaking point. Boucher pulled him back, leading him by the finger, and sat him down in a chair opposite the desk.

“Did Duncan send you to bully me? Is that it?” Marrs rubbed his finger. “I’m not going to back down.”

“I don’t want you to back down,” Boucher said, turning to the window so Marrs couldn’t see how hard these words were to say. “There’s a folder on your desk. Open it.”

Marrs looked at the desk. A folder sat at its center. He stared at it for a moment. Distrustful. But curiosity got the better of him. He leaned forward, snagged the folder, and opened it.

He froze on the first page, reading every word. When he finished, he asked, “Is this real?”

“All of it, yes.”

Marrs quickly scanned the rest of the documents.

“As you can see, I’ve been keeping a record of all the poor choices President Duncan has made. I can’t sit and watch things continue to unfold like this. I’ve … admired your passion and thought you might be the right man to take it to. The man who can do what needs to be done.”

Marrs slowly closed the folder. He looked horrified. For a moment, Boucher thought Marrs might back down. Was this too much? Did he lack the guts to really put his words into action?

“This will destroy him,” Marrs said. He wasn’t gloating. Just stunned.

But then a smile began to show. He was up to it all right. “You’ll testify in support of this?”

Boucher knelt down, picked up the phone line, and reconnected it to the wall jack. “I will.”