By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

She laughed again, softly, shaking her head the way a woman does when something naughty is intimated, telling him she knew the joke.

“Martinis, please,” she told the waiter. “Beefeater’s gin, if you have it.” She paused and looked at him. “Okay?”

I don’t think I need a martini right now. But let’s see where this goes.

“Fine,” he said.

She smiled at him again.

“I missed lunch,” Castillo said. “And I was five minutes late to get anything to eat in the bar. The restaurant opens at five-thirty.”

“I tried to get something to eat at the airport,” she said, “and failed at that, too. It was supposed to be a chicken sandwich but somehow it didn’t look like chicken.”

“As soon as the restaurant opens, I’m going to try my luck there,” he said. “Will you join me?”

“I’d hoped you’d ask. I really am hungry.” She paused. “You were telling me what you’d found out.”

“No, I wasn’t,” he said. “I belong to the get-your-own-story school of journalism.”

As he spoke, he thought: That should light up her curiosity. Now she’ll really want to know what I’ve come up with.

What if I show her the story?

For some reason, she doesn’t want the Russian connection to come out. Maybe learning that I’m bringing it out in the open will make her worry a little.

Or is it the hormones speaking? “Come up to my room, ma petit cherie, and I will show you my story.”

“We’re not really competitors, Karl,” Patricia said. “I’m not trying to beat you into print. I work for Forbes, remember? ”

“I bet that’s what you tell all the newspaper boys, that you’re not trying to beat them into print,” he said, tempering it with a smile.

“And what do you tell all the newspaper girls?” she countered.

“That I’m lonely and my wife doesn’t understand me,” Castillo said.

“You’re married?” she asked, sounding surprised.

He smiled and shook his head.

“That’s so they don’t immediately start thinking of marriage, ” he said. “A lot of women my age, unmarried women, regard an unmarried man my age as a challenge to be overcome. ”

“You are a bastard, aren’t you?” she asked, laughing.

“Absolutely,” he agreed. “And if they don’t believe I’m married, I have pictures of my cousin’s kids to show them.”

She laughed and then said: “I am.”

“You are what?”

“Married.”

“You’re not wearing a wedding ring,” he challenged.

“You looked?” she asked, but it was a statement not a question.

He nodded.

“Then why did you . . . what? . . . confess that you’re single to me?”