Page 23 of Under Her Protection

Leo was at the door.

"A word, Madame."

"We are in a meeting."

"A word."

The room did not breathe.

Vivienne's eyes moved once over the committee and back to Leo. "You will wait."

"Not this time."

"I beg your pardon."

"Not this time, Madame."

Fournier, to Vivienne's left, had the good sense to study her own notes.

Vivienne sat a quarter second longer than was strictly comfortable. Then she stood, smoothed the front of her jacket, and said, "Ten minutes. Do not leave the room."

She walked past Leo into the corridor.

The hall outside the conference room was empty. Glass on one side, art on the other, a runner of dark carpet that muted the sound of her heels. Leo closed the conference-room door behind them, not softly.

"Explain yourself," Vivienne said.

"There is a man in the lobby who tried to enter at seven-fifty using a visitor credential that matches a name I flagged yesterday. He has been redirected. He is now being detained in your reception for a conversation with me that I would like to have privately before he gets any further along."

"Which name."

"Martel. Consultant, corporate intelligence. He appeared on the Rotterdam timeline. I ran the visitor logs last night and this morning and his name came up for an eight-oh-five meeting on your calendar with a member of your communications team."

"I did not authorize that meeting."

"I know you did not. That is why I flagged it."

"Who invited him."

"I would like to find out. I would like to do that within the next ten minutes."

"You pulled me out of a committee meeting to tell me a consultant walked into my lobby."

"I pulled you out of the committee meeting because in ten minutes that consultant will be sitting in a meeting room with an employee of yours, and that is not a thing I will permit to happen."

Vivienne looked at her.

Leo did not look away.

"You will manage him," Vivienne said.

"Yes. He will leave the building under his own power, believing he has had a useful meeting with me, and he will not set foot in this building again. And by noon I will have the name of the person who invited him, and by tomorrow I will have the reason."

Vivienne breathed in once. "Go."

"Yes, Madame."

Leo went.