“What the fuck...” Mira said under her breath.

“Exactly. WTF. I had the same reaction.”

“So fucking bizarre...” Mira closed the book and gave her friend a wide-eyed stare. “How'd you find this?”

“I just did exactly what I tell everyone else to do, when they're looking for something in here.” Lashay pressed the "scan" button and the machine hummed to life. “I typed in his name in the search bar.”

Mira sighed as she plopped the book down at her table. “I already met with DARC Ops.”

Lashay looked up from the screen.

“With Jackson.” Mira couldn’t keep the frown off her face. “He thinks I'm nuts.”

“You are nuts. So what?”

“So then he won't touch this with a ten foot pole.”

“Is that what he said?”

“No.” Mira swiveled around in her chair. “He said he'd look into it.”

“Then he'll look into it. That's good. Wasn't that the point of going there?”

“Yeah, but...” Mira trailed off. She could feel herself getting a little too... girly?

“But what?”

“I wanted him to believe me.”

Lashay laughed. “From what I've heard, he's too smart for that.”

“What have you heard?”

“That he's smart enough to be suspicious of you. He probably thinks you're some kind of agent. From the government or otherwise. He can be difficult to, um... get close to.”

“Oh. Do you know that from experience?”

“No,” said Lashay. She looked a little annoyed. “What do you mean?”

“I dunno. So what else do you know about him?”

“Hold up. Did you just ask if I tried to get with him?”

Mira laughed nervously. “Maybe?”

“Hell no. It's a little hard to hit on someone you've never met,” she grinned. “But I probably would if I could, that man in a tux, and that was just the photo. Did you?”

Mira could feel her face reddening. Did she flirt with Jackson?

“Damn, girl. You hit on him.”

Mira laughed. “No, no...”

“You hit on him bad.”

“No. No way. I was too nervous for that.”

“Right.” Lashay pushed some buttons on the scanner.

“So what else do you know about him? I mean, his business. Let's stay on topic here.”

“Just stuff through Matthias. He practically worshiped Jackson when we were dating. I thought it was cute at first, like a younger and older brother thing. But then it just seemed kinda annoying.” She switched out another poster. “He's rich. A billionaire. Used to be a Navy SEAL but something went wrong with his ear.”

“His ear?”

“And he has all these big clients. He's even worked for foreign governments. Mercenary hacking. And, uh... What else... Oh, he's... you know... He's really hot.” Lashay took a quick peek at Mira, and then went back to calibrating the scanner. “But that's only from seeing his photos. Was he as good-looking in real life?”

Hell yeah, he was.

“Totally,” Mira said.

Totally...

“Okay.” Lashay sounded disappointed. “I knew it. So did he offer you a price?”

A price? The thought never occurred to her. Mira knew he wouldn’t work for free, but... She suddenly felt like an idiot.

“I'm guessing no?” Lashay said.

“We didn’t talk money,” Mira said casually, as if the topic was unimportant.

“That's good.”

Was it? The last thing Mira could handle was a budgetary surprise.

“Well, keep hitting on him,” Lashay said. “He might do it pro bono.”

Mira liked the idea. She liked any sentence about Jackson that contained the words pro and bone.

Lashay burst into laughter. “You should see the look on your face. He might even do you pro bono.”

“For God's sake, Lashay!” Mira pretended to be offended but it was the best idea she'd heard all year. It had been a long time between drinks.

Lashay was still laughing. “Come on, don't even act.”

“Shh... You come on. We're in the Library of Congress...”

“So what?” Lashay smirked and then shook her head slowly from side to side. “You don't know how it is, Mira. You don't know us librarians. We get freaky up in here.”

Mira wanted to laugh more. But when she'd absent-mindedly glanced at the book laying in front of her, and read the Senator's name on its spine, a familiar tightness returned in her chest. As did the knowledge that her return to work was long overdue. She then thought of the horrific photo of Langhorne posing over a dead water-buffalo. Had that poor creature been added to the current collection "decorating" his office? A part of her didn’t ever want to return there to find out.

* * *

“Can I see you in my office for a minute?” were the exact words she'd been dreading to hear since her return from lunch. But that was how Langhorne's phone call had ended.

When she entered his office, Mira made a conscious effort to keep her eyes off the walls. But was his face any nicer to look at? He had the pinkish hue of a pig, or someone who had ingested way too much pork, bourbon, cigarette smoke, and enriched white four.

“Mira, I'm concerned that you came back to work too early.”

Her sentiments exactly. Although it was still a little unsettling to agree with him on something.

“You're sick,” he said. “I know that. I can tell just by looking at your face. It's like you're just not there. Your work also says that. It screams it to me. How many jobs have you done today?”

“Uh... Two?”

“Two? It's well past lunch, Mira.”

She made a pained expression and nodded. Yes, yes, she knew how shitty it was. She definitely knew that.

“Which ones?” he asked, frowning. He put his hand in a bowl of paperclips, his fingers stirring and clinking them around mindlessly.

“Uh... Johnson-Tilly-Harriman... And the UNESCO...”

“No. That won't do.”

“I know,” she said. “I'm sorry. I think you're right about coming back too early.”

“Hell yes, I'm right. Mira, if you need some time, take it. How many sick days do you have built up?”

“Not many.”

“Well, I'm sorry, but you'd be more productive if you stayed home and recuperated. What is it, by the way? If you don't mind me asking... Is it stress?”

“Stress, yes.” Her brain was suddenly flooded with the image of a wooden crate being filled with machine guns. “But I'm also fighting a flu, I think.”

His eyes widened. “Mira, get that flu outta here.” He drew his hand from the paperclips.

“I know, I'm trying.”

“I mean out of this office. I can't have you spread that around.”

“It's at the tail end, sir.”

“Yeah, I can imagine.”

“I mean the flu. I'm almost over it.”

“Well, good.” Senator Langhorne sighed, brushed some donuts crumbs off his suit, and stood up with the soft groan of a geriatric. “You need to take better care of yourself, Mira. You're way too valuable to let yourself run ragged like this. Eat something. You're so thin.” He started strolling around the room, still brushing a few crumbs off his rotund body. “Something healthy. Go get yourself some matzo ball soup or something. And sleep for God's sake.”

Just nod. Just keep nodding until it goes away.

“I'll give you more days if you need them,” the senator said as he positioned himself in front of a mirror. “And when is your vacation?”

“I haven’t set it yet. But I'm thinking sometime in the next few weeks?” Mira could see his sun-hardened face cracking a smile in the mirror. “What's so funny?” she asked.

“You don't want to take it tomorrow instead?”

“Not really.”

“Well, be sure to schedule it,” he said to the mirror. “Maybe talk with Chuckie about it.”

Mira turned away to save herself the view of the Senator picking food from his teeth. The window was a better alternative. It offered hope.

“Oh, I forgot to ask about your event last week.”

What event?

Oh fuck... He was asking about her cancer charity, Swanson's Hope.

“How'd it go?” The senator returned to his chair. “Sorry I had to miss your speech. Chuck tells me it was very moving.”

Through the emotional chaos of the last two days, Mira had forgotten her duties as the director of a cancer fund named after her mother, Hope Swanson.

He smiled at her. “I might have some good news for Swanson's Hope.”

Mira felt the urge to purge. Maybe she really did have the flu?

“I had a lucky week in the stock market,” he chuckled. “Very, very lucky.”

She saw the crates again. Crates upon crates...

“You wouldn’t mind if I stuck some of it in Hope's fund, would you?”

She tried to force a smile and then panicked when it didn’t work, her face twitching under the strain. “I don't know what to say,” she finally garbled before thanking him in a strange cackle of a laugh. It was either laugh, or her head would explode.

“You're welcome, Mira. It's a great cause.” His hand was back in the paperclips. “So that's one less thing for you to worry about, huh? You running around fundraising?” he chuckled repugnantly. “Now you go take care of yourself.”