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the general dismissal.
    “I told you, you’re his favorite,” muttered Littlejohn as he filed past.
    “He likes you,” whispered Annalise Seaver, her best friend, not specifying whether she meant Niemeyer or Littlejohn. “Be careful.”
    Margo ignored them. By the time she reached the front, Niemeyer was gone. In the back hall behind the stage, she found him waiting, as she knew she would. A pair of acolytes stood in the doorway, like bodyguards.
    “Miss Jensen. A word,” said Niemeyer, just like last week. “Walk with me.”
II
    “Ever met Kennedy?” he asked as they followed the same path as last time across the quad. She half expected to see the alumnus with the camera.
    “Once,” she said, very surprised.
    “Tell me.”
    “He was campaigning in New York, and he was talking to teenagers. They wanted the cameras to catch a few Negroes in the group. My grandmother is well connected in politics, so I wound up in the pictures.” For some reason, she was blushing. “I didn’t talk to him or anything. He told us how important it was to get a good education, and about how his own father started with nothing and built a fortune. How America’s the best country in the world. Probably fifteen minutes.”
    “This was two years ago?”
    “Yes. Summer of 1960.”
    “So you were, what? In high school?”
    “I was seventeen. About to start my senior year.”
    “Any reason he’d remember you?”
    Again the question surprised her. “I don’t see why.”
    “Well, they do say our President has an eye for the ladies. Ah. Here we are.” At the government department once more. His acolytes marched past, just like last time, but Niemeyer remained on the step,holding the door. He lifted a hand, palm upward, and gestured toward the entrance. “In you go.”
    “I have Professor Hadley’s political anthropology seminar in five minutes. It’s the other way.”
    “Tris Hadley is a fool, and political anthropology is humbug.”
    “Yes, well, I still—”
    “My office, Miss Jensen. Now.”
    Margo hesitated. She hated to be late for class, or, worse, to miss, and the term was only three weeks old; but this was Niemeyer.
    “Of course,” she said, and stepped nervously inside.
    Their footsteps echoed in the tiled hall. Learned men dead half a century glared down as they passed. “What you said to me the other day, Miss Jensen. About doing your duty if called upon. Were you serious, or was it just so much pap?”
    “I was serious.”
    “You’re very sure?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, then,” he said, as if matters were out of his hands. She remembered the photographer, and wondered again if she had signed up for something.
    Niemeyer’s first-floor suite would have done duty for four senior professors. The teaching assistants had desks in the foyer. A prim, disapproving woman named Mrs. Khorozian guarded the inner sanctum. Her husband sold antiques out in the countryside somewhere, and campus rumor had it that the two of them were resettled spies.
    “They’re here,” said Mrs. Khorozian.
    “Excellent,” said the professor. He opened the door of his grand office, and great clouds of pipe smoke rolled out. He stood aside and allowed Margo to precede him, and that was when she noticed the two men in dark suits and narrow ties who had risen silently to their feet. One was tall and very pale, the other dark-haired and broad-shouldered.
    “These gentlemen have come from Washington, Miss Jensen. I have placed my office at their disposal. They would like to ask you a few questions.”
    “Me?” said Margo, addressing Niemeyer. “Questions about what?”
    “They will explain. Please cooperate. The safety of your country is at risk.” He saw her expression, and his own grew severe. “I amnot joking, Miss Jensen, and I never exaggerate in matters of national security. Is that clear?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “You are to answer all of their questions, fully and without hesitation.”
    “Yes, sir,” she said again, now