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“A woman.”

He hadn’t seen that one coming. Gray had thrown him another curve ball. He covered by laughing. “A skirt? A woman has finally toppled the mighty Bang ’em Bondurant? Hard to believe.”

“Sad, but true.”

“Please,” Merritt groaned. “Don’t ruin my image of you by telling me you’ve acquired some sensitivity. You haven’t turned into a ‘nineties kind of guy,’ I hope.”

Gray offered his grim half-smile. “Never. That’s why this one perfectly suits my needs. She’s good to look at, has a voice straight out of a porno film, and, best of all, she’s not too bright.”

“Does this girl wonder have a name?”

“Barrie Travis.”

Merritt winced. “You’ve got to be kidding. She’s a royal pain in the ass. Granted, the voice is sexy. Face and figure definitely earn high marks. But, Gray, buddy, she’s trouble. If she reads anything more than sex into the relationship, she’ll latch on to you and you’ll never be able to shake her. Are you sure you know what you’re getting into?”

“Right now I’m getting into her.”

The two shared a bawdy snicker. “That can’t be all bad,” Merritt conceded.

“It’s good enough to get me off my ranch and back here.”

“For how long?”

Gray shrugged. “Until I get my fill of her and go back.”

Merritt finished his juice and set the glass on the tile, then eased himself out of the whirlpool. He wrapped a towel around his middle and took a chair near Gray’s. Pursuing this conversation with his former friend might get him into hotter water than he’d just gotten out of, but he couldn’t resist. If Gray could continue this parody of a friendly reunion, so could he. When it came to acting, his skills were far superior to Gray’s. He’d had more practice.

“Where’d you two meet? I want all the juicy details.”

“She tracked me down. Just showed up one day last week out of the blue.”

“What for?”

“A story. Or rather a new angle on an old one. She wanted to do a follow-up piece about the hostage rescue mission.”

“And you didn’t tell her to take a hike? You never liked reporters.”

“It’s not her profession I’m fucking, David.”

Merritt laughed. “See? There’s that dry wit again.” Then he drew his brows into a steep frown. “I just remembered. Her house burned to the ground last night.”

“Yeah. It was the damnedest thing.”

“I saw her on the news this morning, talking to reporters. She’s one spunky chick.”

“That’s what makes her challenging.”

“So, where are you two staying? Hotel?”

“No, with a friend.”

Barrie Travis’s friend was a retired newsman named Ted Welsh. Even in Spence’s absence, his intelligence network had provided Merritt with pictures of Welsh in a bathrobe, retrieving his morning paper from a weed-infested front lawn. The old geezer was reported to have emphysema and looked about as dangerous as a housefly.

Quite a pair, Travis and Welsh, living in Welsh’s ramshackle house, as they plotted the destruction of his presidency. It was laughable. In one swoop, he could be rid of them both.

Gray was the problem. With him as their ringleader, the trio reached a level of menace that wasn’t so laughable.

“Speaking of friends,” Gray said, “I’m surprised you don’t already know the juicy details about Barrie and me. I thought Spence would have told you. He came to see me shortly after her visit to the ranch.”