The End Game by Raymond Khoury Page A

Historically good. Bye.”
    She clicked off, stabbing the iPhone so hard to end the call that she almost cracked the screen with her nail.
    It was the third message she’d left him.
    She stared at herself in the hotel room mirror yet again, scrutinizing every inch of her appearance: the hair, the makeup, the jewelry, every fold of her dress, her shoes, right down to the pedicure on her toes.
    Perfect. Immaculate. In her humble opinion.
    Just one thing missing: her date for the big night.
    It had happened before, sure. Maybe not on such a huge occasion. But he’d done a few no-shows. His job was like that. The unexpected had to be expected sometimes. She knew that.
    But this felt different. Ever since the summer, ever since that whole affair in California and Mexico, he’d been keeping things from her. She knew that too. And it had worried her. She’d asked him about it, not too often, just when it felt like the right time to do so, when she felt he was a bit of a softer target than normal. And she’d failed. He’d kept insisting there was nothing going on. And now, this.
    She was worried. There was no way to convince herself otherwise. You developed an instinct about these things; about the person you loved and were sharing your life with. And right now, her instincts were on the boil.
    Where are you, Sean?
     
    I saw my phone light up with Tess’s call, but I couldn’t bring himself to take it. I was still groggy, my brain still frazzled by the frenzy I’d just survived—and escaped.
    I didn’t know what to say without worrying her, scaring her, implicating her—I had to think things through.
    I knew she was probably already beyond worried. No call, on a night like this—she’d have gone through frustration, through fury, and on to worry.
    I hated putting her through this. But I couldn’t do any better. Right now, I had to keep moving, and think.
    Keeping my eyes on the road, I pulled the cover off the back of my phone and dug its battery out.
    And kept heading north.
     
     
    “Tess, it’s so lovely to meet you,” the First Lady said as an aide introduced them.
    Tess shook hands with her before turning to President Yorke, who asked, “So where is that barnstorming man of yours then? We were expecting the two of you?”
    She felt immensely awkward standing there, an awkwardness that had started long before she’d reached the Southeast Entrance. The setting alone was intimidating enough, in the best of circumstances: Christmas dinner at the White House, hosted by the most powerful man on the planet and his wife. Not exactly a casual cocktail party, by any means. Throw in the fact that you were turning up alone, without your partner—who was the reason for the invitation in the first place—and without being able to give any convincing answer for why he wasn’t there, and we’re talking Richter-scale jitters of unease.
    Henry “Hank” Yorke was coming up to the end of his first term, but the prospect of a whole year of monster campaigning that was about to kick off within weeks didn’t seem to faze him. Tall and charismatic, he had just turned seventy-one, which, if he were re-elected, would make him the oldest person ever to be elected president. Still, he was in fine physical shape, his charisma and his energy intact, and with the country enjoying a period of economic stability and no bruising foreign wars, he seemed reasonably assured of a second term.
    President Yorke and his wife Megan typically hosted a whole series of social events in the month that led to Christmas. Their social secretaries and their staff had been busy for weeks, planning the cocktail parties and dinners, cutting and pasting their way through the lists of donors, lobbyists, bloggers and reporters, government staffers and foreign diplomats and all kinds of supporters or notable achievers of every kind, making sure the guests lists were well balanced and well matched, vetting them again and again to make sure no personal