“Bodies?”

She wasn’t all that interested, she was just being polite. Max, recognizing this, laughed. “No, not bodies-but there’s too many pipes. Too much plumbing. They keep adding to the septic tanks, and it doesn’t look like they’d have to. I think they’re survivalists. That house” — he rolled over onto his elbow — “it’s twice as big as it looks. Any angle you see it, it looks L-shaped. but it’s an X. Count on it, they’ve got guns and food stores and a bomb

shelter, too. I bet it’s under that tennis court I poured them. In some of the big cities there are bookstores just for survivalists.” He frowned. “They’ve sure been frantic the past week or so.”

“I heard from Linda today,” Evelyn said.

“Linda? And why are you changing the subject?”

“Gillespie. She’s back in Washington. The President sent Ed and Wes Dawson to Houston. They’ll train together. Wes Dawson finally gets to space—”

Max felt a twinge of envy. “That’ll be nice.”

“Linda’s at Flintridge. Her kid sister — you remember Jenny? — had something to do with discovering the alien ship.”

“Oh. Hey, that’s what set Shakes off! Sure, those guys are survivalists.” He knew his wife was smarter than he was, and by a lot, It didn’t bother him. What was amazing was that she was so obviously in love with him, and had been since the night they met in Washington. He’d been a sailor on liberty with no place to go, and somebody suggested a social club in a church up near the National Cathedral. There’d been girls there, lots of them, and all pretty snooty. All except Evelyn and her friends Linda and Carlotta. They were college girls, but they weren’t ashamed to be seen with a petty officer. Maybe it would have been better if she had been snooty, Max thought. But not for me.

Three weeks after they met, Evelyn was pregnant. There’d never been any discussion of an abortion. They were married in the church they’d met in, with a wedding reception at Flintridge. It was a nice wedding with a lot of Evelyn’s family, and Linda’s and Carlotta’s families too, important people who talked about Max’s future, and jobs he could get. It looked like he’d lucked into a great future,

And when he got out of the Navy he had to come back to Bellingham to look after his mother. Evelyn’s father helped a little, enough so that Max could open his own boiler shop, but there was never enough business.

That was almost twenty years ago. He glanced over at his wife. She was reading again. Her fancy nightgown looked a little ratty. Jeer, I gave her that four years ago! Where does the time go?

The kids were raising some moderate hell on the other side of the wall, not enough to bother them. Evelyn adjusted her position. The bed sagged on his side. Sometimes that would roll her toward him in the night, before she had quite made up her mind, and that was nice; but it made reading difficult.

She set the book aside and turned off her bed lamp. “A lot of people say this is survivalist country,” she said. “But nobody we know talks about it.”

“Yeah. Hey, I’m telling you, but that’s as far as it goes. They wouldn’t give me any more business if they knew I was shooting my mouth off.”

“All right, dear.”

“The shipyard’s been phased out for years, and there’s not much work there for steamfitters. The Shakes pay on time—” But Evelyn was asleep.

The bedroom was more than neat; it was spotless. Jack Clybourne’s entire apartment was that way-except for the second bedroom, which he used as a den. That one wasn’t precisely messy, but he did permit books to remain unshelved for days at a time.

The first time Jenny had visited Jack in his apartment, she’d remarked on its nearness.

He’d laughed. “Yeah, we get that way in the Service. We have to travel a lot, and stay in hotels, and we never know when the President’s schedule will change, so we stay packed. I remember once the maid saw all my stuff packed and the suitcases in the middle of the room, and the manager checked us out and rented the room to someone else.”

Despite the neatness, his bedroom wasn’t sterile. There were photographs, of his mother and sister, and of the President. Pictures of the Kremlin, and The Great Wall of China, and other places he’d been. Book club selections filled a tidy shelf along one wall. The shelves were full now, so when new selections came in, old ones went to the used book stores. The residue gave some clues to Clybourne’s reading habits: voracious, partial to history, but interested in spy thrillers.

Jenny got up carefully. She didn’t think she’d awakened Jack, although it was hard to tell. He slept lightly, and when he woke, he didn’t even open his eyes. She teased him about it once, and he laughed, and it wasn’t until later that she realized that kind of sleeping habit might be an advantage in his job. The Secret Service did other things besides protect the President.

She retrieved her uniform from the closet. The first time she’d come there, her clothes ended on the floor, but Jack’s apartment invited neatness… She took her Class A’s into the bathroom.

The bed was empty when she came out. She could hear the shower in the other bathroom. He’s certainly the most considerate lover I’ve ever had.

She didn’t much care for the word “lover,” but nothing else fit. He wasn’t a fiancé; there’d been no talk at all about marriage. No lieutenants should marry, but male captains could, and by the time they became majors most male officers were married; but marriage would be the end to a woman officer’s career.

He was certainly something more than a boyfriend. They didn’t live together, partly because both the Army and the Secret Service tended to be a little prudish even if they pretended not to be, and even more because Jenny wasn’t ready for all the explanations Aunt Rhonda would demand if she moved out of Flintridge. Even so, she spent a lot of time at Jack’s apartment. They both traveled a lot and worked odd hours, but it was definitely understood that when they were both in Washington and had free time, they’d spend it together.

While on trips she’d twice dated other men, but it wasn’t the same. Something was missing. Magic, she thought, and didn’t care to put another name to it. That it existed was enough, and it was wonderful.

“Ready for dinner?” His tie was perfectly knotted, but he’d left his jacket off.

“Sure. Want me to cook?”

“You don’t have to—”

“Jack, I like to cook. I don’t get a chance very often.”

“All right. We’ll have to shop, though. There’s nothing here.”

“Sure. I’ll get started, and you can go get—”

She stopped because he was shaking his head. “Let’s go together. We can figure out what we want on the way.”

“Sure.” She waited while he put on his jacket. As he always did before going out, he took his revolver out of the holster concealed inside his trousers and looked into the barrel, then checked the loads.

She’d never seen Jack angry, or threaten anyone, but Jenny never worried when she went out with him. The Post might be full of stories about Washington street crime, but no one ever bothered Jack Clybourne. Jenny wondered if it could be telepathy.

He lived in the newly rebuilt area off New Jersey Avenue,

where there were lots of apartments. It was on the other side of the White House from Flintridge.

She giggled. “Drive me home, he said. It’s on my way, he said,”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

She took his hand. “Yes, and I’m glad.”

“Me, too.”

They went toward Constitution Avenue and the Federal Triangle until they reached the wide park like Mall between Independence and Constitution Avenues. When they were in the middle of the Mall, he stopped. “Jenny, what in hell is going on?”