TIDWELL’S POCKET STARTED vibrating again. By this time he and the president had reached the White House. They were ensconced in the Oval Office. He raised one figure to indicate he was taking the call.

     Although he saw Ruskjer’s face on the screen, what he heard -- as did the president -- was his own voice saying, “ because anyone who touched it soon rests with the angels after suffering a massive coronary, which doesn’t take place for a full seventy-two hours after contact.”

     “How’d you--,” Tidwell all but yelled into the phone.

     “Mr. Tidwell, you must not stay current with what’s available at the apps store these days. For 99 cents you can get an app that activates a remote iPhone, turns on its mic, and records whatever it hears for as long as the iPhone has memory.

     “Now here’s the deal,” Ruskjer said. “If you don’t want copies of this -- and every other thing you two have said behind closed doors since receiving that phone -- to be all over the Internet, you better pray that nothing else bad happens to me or my associates. And yes, Mr. President, if that sounds like blackmail, that’s exactly what it is. I have an incredible collection of some of the greatest hits ever made by a sitting president that are just itching to make the Top 40.

     “And, by the way,” Ruskjer said, “before the end of the day, I’ll have the results of the chemical analysis of whatever it is that you sprinkled on my pardons. That -- along with the tapes -- should be enough to make Watergate look like a high school prank.”

     Both screens went blank before Tidwell could get in the last word.