“Professor Leoh.”
He was nearly at the doorway when Martine called. Leoh turned back and saw the Prime Minister sitting at his tall desk chair. But instead of his usual icy aloofness, there was a warm, almost friendly smile on Martine’s face.
“Please close the door and sit down with me for a few minutes more,” Martine said.
Puzzled, Leoh did as the Prime Minister asked. As he took an armchair off to one side of the desk, he watched Martine carefully run a hand over the communications panel set into his desk top. Then the Prime Minister opened a drawer in the desk and Leoh heard the tiny click of a switch being turned.
“There. Now I’m sure that we’re alone. That switch isolates the room completely. Not even my private secretary can listen to us now.”
Leoh felt his eyebrows rising toward his scalp.
“You have every right to look surprised. Professor. And I should look apologetic and humble. That’s why I had to make certain that this meeting is strictly private.”
“This meeting?” Leoh echoed. “Then the meeting we just had, with the others and the newsmen. . . .”
Martine smiled broadly. “Kanus is not the only one who can put up a smoke screen.”
“I see. Well, what did you want to tell me?”
“First, please convey my apologies to Lieutenant Hector. He was not invited here for reasons that will be obvious in a moment. I realize that he wormed the truth out of Odal, although I’m not convinced that he knew what he was doing when he did it.”
Leoh suppressed a chuckle. “Hector has his own way of doing things.”