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Vanessa shook her head. “Mister President, I insist th—”

He pounded the desk with his right fist. “You insist? You insist? Who is the f.u.c.king president here?”

“You are, John,” she said quietly.

“That’s Mister President,” Gutierrez said.

Vanessa looked down. “You are, Mister President.”

“Do you know why I’m the president of the United States of America, Vanessa?”

She shook her head.

“One, because I’m smart enough to hire and listen to people like you. And two, because I’m smart enough to know when not to listen to people like you. The hardest decision is usually the necessary decision, and that decision has just been made. Now get out.”

Vanessa looked at Murray, then back at the president. Murray wondered if she was going to cry.

She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, then opened it again.

“You . . . you want us to leave?”

“No,” Gutierrez said. “Just you. I need to talk to Murray.”

She did the double look again, first at Murray, then at Gutierrez who stared back, his face immobile.

Vanessa Colburn stood and walked out of the Oval Office so fast she almost broke into a run. The door shut behind her. Silence hung in the air.

“What about Montoya’s weather report?” Gutierrez asked. “Any luck finding this invisible satellite?”

“Not yet,” Murray said. “But we’ve got a lot of resources focused on it, sir. We’re trying to extrapolate possible locations. We’re hopeful we can find something soon.”

Gutierrez nodded slowly. He’d asked about the satellite in almost a perfunctory manner.

Murray calmly waited. He’d done this dance before.

“Am I doing the right thing?” Gutierrez asked finally. His stony expression broke. Murray could see the pain, the indecisiveness on the man’s face. “Murray, tell me straight. You’ve been doing this for a long time, right?”

“Yes, Mister President.”

“Am I doing the right thing, letting that woman die?”

“I don’t decide right and wrong. You do, sir. I just give you the information to make decisions, then carry out those decisions.”

“I see. And does that gigantic line of bulls.h.i.+t help you sleep at night?”

“No sir,” Murray said. “But a Xanax or two sure as h.e.l.l does.”

Gutierrez sank back in his chair. He drained the gla.s.s of scotch, then set it down so hard that one of the ice cubes shot out and skidded across the desk. Murray walked to the drink cart, grabbed the bottle of Macallan, then poured the president a double.

“If it’s any consolation, Mister President, it makes me very proud, and very hopeful, that this decision is so hard for you. I’ve served five presidents before you. For some of them, I watched decisions like this become . . . become easy.”