The laptop uttered a pfft noise and went dark.
“What was that?” Stone asked.
“That was the sound of your attacker’s bot destroying my computer’s hard drive. At the very least.” She packed up her tools and laptop.
“Where are you going?” Stone asked.
“This problem is going to require a trip to the lab,” she said.
“In New York City, I hope.”
“Yep.”
“Are you going to be able to fix this?”
“That depends on your definition of ‘fix,’” she replied.
“Cure, heal.”
“Maybe. Bye-bye.” She packed her boilersuit and left.
Joan came in. “That was fast.”
“It was that,” Stone replied.
“Are we up and running?”
“Neither. Something on my hard drive attacked her computer. She’s taking it to her lab.”
“That’s not encouraging,” Joan said.
“No, it is not.”
“Shall I start buying Bitcoin?”
“Not ever,” Stone said.
“Then you have a plan?”
“I have the hope that Rocky has a plan,” Stone said, “and as far as Bitcoin is concerned, I prefer my currency with pictures of American presidents on it. I don’t trust zeros and ones.”
“I’m with you, boss.”
“That is so reassuring,” Stone replied. “Now, go work without a computer.”
“Well, let’s see,” she muttered. “I think I still have a typewriter around here somewhere.”
Shortly, he could hear key tapping on an IBM Selectric.
4
They sat on the bed, eating pot stickers, shrimp balls, fried rice, sweet and sour chicken, and two or three other things.
“This is so great,” Holly said. “I never get to eat like this in the White House.”
“They don’t have Chinese delivery in Washington?” Stone asked.
“Will Lee told me—and I didn’t believe him—that he could never get a pizza delivered. By the time it passed through the X-ray and security inspections and they got it up to the family quarters, it would be cold, and he hated reheated pizza.”
“It’s just one of the human tragedies associated with being President of the United States, I guess.”
She laughed. “At least they can’t deny me sex in New York now and then.”
“That raises a question: How are we going to handle it when we get caught?”
“Caught? You mean red-handed, like somebody kicks in the door and photographs us in flagrante delicto?”
“No, they’d never get that far. But somebody is going to catch on eventually, maybe very soon. Somebody will bribe a maid at the Carlyle, who’ll tell them you’re not sleeping there when you’re in town. Then they’ll start working their way down the list of your male acquaintances; pretty soon they’ll come to that photograph of us waltzing, and they’ll give ‘waltzing’ a whole new meaning. It’s inevitable.”
“I thought just death and taxes were inevitable. They’re adding screwing to the list?”
“They’ll add whatever they like to the list,” Stone said. “And screwing will be number one.”
“Well, I’ll just have my press secretary announce, when it comes up, so to speak, that the president will have no comment on her personal life.”
“You think that will satisfy them?”
“I don’t much give a damn if it satisfies them. I’m not in the business of satisfying the press.”
“Oh, no?”
“Well, not about my personal life, anyway.”
“You’re a brave woman.”
“No, just randy.”
“How do you satisfy that randiness when I’m not around?”
“Let’s just say that you would love watching me.”
“I bet I would, but I’d rather handle it myself.”
“Well, you’d better start now,” she said, “because if I eat much more Chinese food, I’m going to be incapable of participating.”
They put away the chopsticks and moved the tray off the bed.
* * *
—
Stone kissed her goodbye in the garage. “Next week?” he asked hopefully.
“Not likely. You’ll just have to trust me to do the best I can,” she replied. Then she got into one of the three SUVs, and they drove out of the garage.
Stone went back to his office, dejected.
“There’s a message from our extortionist,” Joan said.
“What’s the message?”
“‘Ticktock, ticktock.’”
“Where’s what’s-her-name?”
“Rocky Hardwick?”
“That’s the one.”
“She’s on her way over.”
“Is she on her way over with a solution, or just on her way over?”
“We’ll soon learn.”
* * *
—
Rocky showed up in a different outfit, but still bra-less, to Stone’s satisfaction. He liked that look; it helped him put Holly out of his mind.
“Okay,” she said, “we were unable to restore your hard drive to health, but you haven’t lost all your data. It’s backed up on Joan’s computer and on an external hard disk.”
“Are you going to be as successful with those as you were with mine?” Stone asked.
“That remains to be seen,” she replied. “Sometimes we fail.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Failure must be difficult for you.”
Joan interrupted before Rocky could respond to that. “Right this way,” she said.
Rocky picked up her briefcase and followed her out of the room, sticking her tongue out at Stone on her way.
Joan came back in. “I think this will go better if you don’t make Rocky hate you,” she said.
“Who, me? I’m the sweetest guy in the world!”