T he red Ford Explorer pulled to a stop near a large cedar log structure shrouded in deep woods. The place was intricately constructed and far closer to a lodge in scale than a single-family cabin, though only one person lived there. The man got out and stretched his limbs. It was still early, and the sun had just begun its ascent.

Sean King went up the wide hand-hewn timber steps and unlocked the door to his home. He stopped in the spacious kitchen to make coffee. As it percolated, he looked around the interior, appraising each mitered corner, the placement of each log, the proportion of window space to wall. He'd pretty much built the place himself over a four-year period while he lived in a small trailer on the perimeter of the fifteen-acre spread about thirty-five miles west of Charlottesville in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The interior was furnished with leather chairs and overstuffed couches, wooden tables, Oriental rugs, copper lighting fixtures, plain bookshelves filled with an eclectic assortment of volumes, oil and pastel paintings, mostly done by local artists, and other items one collects or inherits in the course of a lifetime. And at forty-four years old King had lived at least two lives thus far. He had no desire to reinvent himself yet again.

He went upstairs, made his way along the catwalk that ran the length of the house, and entered his bedroom. Like the rest of theplace, it was very organized, things neatly arranged and not an inch of wasted space.

He stripped off his police deputy's uniform and climbed into the shower and let the sweat of a night's work wash away. He shaved, washed his hair and let the hot water loosen up the surgical scar on his middle finger. He had long ago learned to live with this small souvenir of his days as a Secret Service agent.

If he were with the Service now, instead of living in a beautiful log house in the middle of lovely central Virginia, he'd probably be packed into a town house in some stultifying cookie-cutter bedroom community outside the Washington Beltway and still married to his ex-wife. He also wouldn't be getting ready to go to his thriving law practice. He certainly wouldn't be a volunteer deputy police officer one night a week for his rural community. He'd be about to hop on another plane, watch politicians smile, kiss babies and lie, waiting patiently for the moment when someone tried to kill his guy. What a gig that was, and it included all the frequent flier miles and Tums he wanted!

He changed into a suit and tie, combed his hair, drank his coffee in the sunroom off the kitchen and read the newspaper. The front page was dominated by reports of the kidnapping of John Bruno and the subsequent FBI investigation. King read the main story and related articles carefully, absorbing all relevant details. He clicked on the TV, found the all-news channel and watched as the newsperson reported on the death of Neal Richards, veteran Secret Service agent. He'd left behind a wife and four kids.

It was undeniably tragic, sad, all of that, but at least the Service took care of the survivors. Neal Richards's family would have their full support. That couldn't take away the loss, but it was something.

The reporter then said that the FBI had no comment. "Of course not," King said to himself; they never commented on anything, and yet eventually somebody would let slip to somebody who would run to a friend at the Post or the Times and then everybody would know.Yet what they knew was usually wrong! However, the media beast had an insatiable appetite, and no organization could afford to totally starve it, not even the FBI.

He sat up and stared at the image of the woman on the TV standing near a group of folks at a podium. This was the Secret Service part of the story, King instantly sensed. He knew the breed well. The woman looked professional, calm, with a relaxed alertness so familiar to King. And something else was in her expression that he couldn't quite read. There was belly fire, for all of them had some measure of that. Yet there was something more: subtle defiance perhaps?

The Service was assisting the FBI in every way, one of the men said, and they were, of course, also conducting their own internal investigation. The Service's Inspection Division would be handling this investigation, King knew, because they had been all over his butt after the Ritter assassination. Reading the bureaucratic doublespeak, King knew this meant that blame had already been assessed and would be made public as soon as the relevant parties had signed off on the appropriate spin to put on the awful news. Then the press conference was over, and the woman was walking away and getting into a black sedan. She was not speaking to reporters on orders from the Service, the voiceover said, and the narrator also helpfully identified her as Michelle Maxwell, head of the security detail that had lost John Bruno.

So why parade her in front of the press? wondered King. Why wave red meat in front of a caged beast? He almost immediately answered his own question: to give a face to the coming blame. The Service was often very good about protecting its own, and agents had screwed up before, been given administrative leave and then reassigned. However, there might be some political pressure on this one that was screaming out for a head to fall. "Here she is, folks," they might have said. "Go get her, although we still have to do our official investigation, but don't let that stop you." And now Kingunderstood the look of subtle defiance in the woman's features. She knew exactly what was going on. The lady was attending her own hanging and not liking it.

King sipped his coffee, munched on a piece of toast and said to her and the TV, "Well, you can be as pissed off as you want, but you can also just kiss your ass good-bye, Michelle."

Next a picture of Michelle Maxwell appeared on the screen while some more background information on the woman was given. A high school all-American in basketball and track and a heavyweight academic as well, she'd gone on to graduate from Georgetown in three years, with criminal justice as her major. If that wasn't high-octane enough, during college she'd turned her considerable athletic talents to another sport and had won a silver medal at the Olympics in women's rowing: a scholar athlete, what could be more inspiring? After a year as a police officer in her native Tennessee she'd joined the Service, ferociously worked her way up the ladder at double-quick time and was currently enjoying the wonderful status of a scapegoat.

And a handsome scapegoat she was, King thought, and then caught himself. Handsome? And yet there were masculine qualities about her, the forceful, almost swaggering way in which she walked, the impressive spread of shoulders-no doubt all that rowing-the jawline that seemed to promise extreme obstinacy at frequent intervals. And yet the feminine side was certainly there. She was over five-nine and, despite the broad shoulders, slender, but she had nice, subtle curves too. The hair was black, straight and shoulder-length, regulation enough for the Service but still stylish. The cheekbones were high and firm, the eyes green, luminous and intelligent-clearly those eyes missed very little. In the Secret Service such X-ray vision was a necessity.

The overall look was not that of a classic beauty, but Michelle was probably the girl who was always faster and smarter than all the boys. In high school she likely had every male gunning to bethe first to steal her virginity. From the look of the woman, though, he doubted any had succeeded on anything other than Maxwell's terms.

Well, he said silently to the TV screen, there is life after the Service. You can start over and re-create yourself. You can be reasonably happy against all the odds. But you never do forget. Sorry, Michelle Maxwell, I speak from experience on that one too.

He checked his watch. Time to go to his real job drafting wills and leases and charging by the hour. Not nearly as exciting as his old occupation, yet at this stage of his life Sean King was very much into boring routine. He'd had enough excitement to last him several lifetimes.