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they were both offered and both quickly declined regular positions with the FBI. Wire had no interest in returning, having been cast out of the bureau four years earlier and now having a successful business that was making her serious money. Mac declined because he thought he might be done being a cop, and had even less desire to be a little fish in the big bureau pond. He simply didn’t need a job and was sitting on plenty of money.
    “You know anything more about this case?” Mac asked.
    “No more than I knew last night. The president, the Judge and the director want us to help. How exactly? I’m not sure.”
    “Does it have anything to do with the White House press briefing yesterday?”
    Wire nodded, “It does, but there’s more to it than that. The father of the latest victim …”
    “Let me guess? He’s politically connected.”
    “Extremely.”
    “That means money.”
    “It’s always about the money.”
    “You want in on it?” Mac asked.
    “Do you?”
    Since he’d arrived from St. Paul six months ago, Mac had been in the White House a half dozen times, although only one time outside of the West Wing and into the White House proper. That time was for a State Dinner, which, even for someone who detested politics and most politicians, was a bucket list kind of experience. Most of the time when he came to the center of world power, he was picking Sally up on a Friday or Saturday night on their way out to dinner. Today, for the first time, it was about business, or at least potential business. Mac wasn’t sure he wanted in.
    They checked in at the desk and made their way through the lobby of the West Wing. As they walked down the hall towards the Judge’s office near the Oval Office, Mac was grabbed by his right arm and dragged into an office. Sally quickly closed the door and pressed him up against the wall, wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a deep, soft, wet kiss.
    “Hi.”
    “H …h… hi. Wow,” Mac replied, trying to catch his breath. He hadn’t seen her in six days. “Deputy Communications Director Kennedy, does this mean you’re happy to see me?”
    She whispered seductively in his ear, “You have no idea,” then pecked him twice quickly on the lips again. “And later, I will show you. But for now let’s go to your meeting.”
    “You’re in on this too?” Mac asked surprised.
    “Yes, but I wanted to say hello
privately
first,” Sally replied as she led him out of her office and walked him down the hall to the Judge’s spacious office.
    Judge Dixon, or the Judge, was a large man in size and political stature and he had an office befitting his importance, sitting just thirty feet from the Oval Office. The Judge was a political operator without peer, having elected his second man president, this time his good friend former Minnesota Governor James Thomson. Now, he operated in the White House with an amorphous senior advisor title, yet everyone seemingly answered to him. Few understood Washington like him, how it worked, its nooks and crannies, where and from whom to get information and how to get things done. In the uber-polarized political environment of current Washington, DC, every politician, regardless of party, would take calls from, listen to and accept counsel from Judge Dixon. While most new administrations flail away in their first few years, getting their bearings, not the Thomson administration. James Thomson was a skillful politician to be sure; you don’t get elected president without being one. However, it was the Judge and his wise counsel that made the place hum and there had been far fewer of the usual missteps that befall most new administrations, the William Donahue situation notwithstanding.
    “You two say hello to each other?” the Judge asked with a wry smile as they walked in holding hands. Mac’s body language and perhaps the residue of Sally’s lipstick on his lips gave them away.
    “We did,” Sally answered, a satisfied smile on her