"What did you say his name was?"

"Blackthorn. Dr. Kyle Blackthorn. He's a little… um… eccentric, but he's also incredibly insightful."

"I revere eccentric and insightful. Bring him on."

"I will." Gabe fixed his gaze on the president. "Drew, do you remember the tubes of blood I took from you the other night?"

"Not really."

"Well, I did. Three of them."

"For what?"

"For whatever tests I decided I wanted."

"Fine with me."

"Except that they're gone."

"What?"

"Gone. Missing. They disappeared from the medical clinic refrigerator sometime during the day after I drew them. Any ideas?"

The president looked genuinely nonplussed.

"I have no clue what could have happened, but I'll get Treat and my staff on it right away. It would seem that quite a few people have access to that office-the doctors, the nurses, the PAs."

"Plus a couple of paramedics and one admiral," Gabe added.

"Ah, yes, Admiral Ramrod. Well, I think if taking tubes of blood isn't in the Officer's Manual of Right and Proper Things to Do, Ellis didn't take them."

"Okay," Gabe said, virtually convinced from his patient's reaction that the man had no knowledge the tubes had vanished, let alone any responsibility for the theft, "for the time being, why don't you just let me keep my eyes and ears open. I don't think there's anything to be gained by making a big deal about it-at least not yet."

"Maybe they got thrown out by accident."

"Anything's possible. So, when and where for today's deal?"

"I think ten thirty. Someone will come by your office to get you. Admiral Wright and whoever's covering today have put together the medical team. From now on, when we're going on the road, I'll have you do it. Either way, they'll all know that so long as you're around, you're in charge."

"I like the way that sounds, Drew."

"Yeah, I kind of enjoy hearing that one myself."

"It's good to be the king."

The president immediately picked up on the line from Mel Brooks's History of the World.

"You said it," he replied. "It is good to be the king."

The two friends shook hands and Gabe headed through the foyer toward the elevator. He was nearly there when his radio crackled on.

"Wrangler, Wrangler, do you read me. Over."

Wrangler was the radio name he had chosen with the help of the Secret Service. It wasn't used all the time-more often he was referred to as Doc-but Gabe liked it when it was. He threw the switch on the speaker attached to the sleeve of his jacket and spoke into it.

"This is Wrangler. Over."

"Wrangler, this is Agent Lowell-are you available to see a patient in your clinic? Over."

"I'm headed there now from Maverick's quarters. Over."

Maverick, the flamboyant, fearless Tom Cruise character in Top Gun, was the name given to the president in honor of his war record as a pilot. In accordance with White House Communications Office protocol, then, all of the First Family's call names began with the same letter as the president. Carol was Moondance, Andrew Jr. had chosen Muscles, and Rick had picked Mindmeld from Star Trek. Scotsman Magnus Lattimore was Piper after the instrument he allegedly played quite well, though seldom when he was sober.

"We'll be there in ten minutes. Do you copy? Over."

"Ten minutes. Roger that. What's the problem? Who's the patient? Over."

"The problem is a foreign body of some sort in the eye. The patient is Bear. He has specifically requested you. Do you know who Bear is? Over."

"I do. Tell him I'll be there to see him in ten minutes. Over."

"Over and out."

Curious.

Bear, named, Gabe figured, for his physique, or maybe his home state of Montana, was the vice president.

"He has specifically requested you."

Gabe stepped into the small elevator replaying yesterday's luncheon conversation with LeMar Stoddard and Stoddard's warning regarding Thomas Cooper III.

Now what? he wondered as the gears engaged. Now what?

The clinic was being covered by a physician's assistant from the Army. Gabe dismissed her for an hour and then checked the fridge again for the tubes of blood. Nothing, except an Army lunch box and a Dr Pepper. It had to have been Alison. Motive… opportunity. He knew he was stretching the facts to fit his theories about the woman, but he was on edge-about her and in fact about almost everyone else he had met since arriving in D.C.

One main question about the missing tubes refused to go away: If Alison was, indeed, responsible for the theft, how had she known they were there? His plan had been to determine, through Lattimore and one of the senior docs on the White House staff, how to send the blood off for routine chemistries and hematology, along with some toxicology, without giving any hint as to their source.

How had Alison known about the samples?

If she had been planted in the office to gain his confidence and learn about the president's medical status, who was pulling her strings? The questions far outstripped their answers.

"Gabe?… It's not like you think."

Her words rattled around in his head. His coolness toward her was hardly subtle, but did she understand where it was coming from? He warned himself against letting her oblique comment affect his judgment. As far as he could tell, no one-not the president, not the First Lady, not the chief of staff, not Alison-had been absolutely straight with him since he stepped off the plane at Andrews AFB. Now it was time to see what LeMar Stoddard's warning was all about.

"Tom Cooper is a Brutus, and as things stand, he's just waiting until after the election to begin to assert himself and to take credit for Drew's achievements."

"Wrangler, Wrangler, are you on? Over."

With all the things Gabe had found difficult about his new position, one of those things he had absolutely enjoyed was being part of the intricate Secret Service radio system, with its jargon, monikers, and code words.

"This is Wrangler. I'm in my office. Over."

"We'll be by with your patient in two minutes. Over and out."

During his first week on the job, Gabe hadn't said ten words to the man who was a heartbeat away from the presidency. What Gabe knew about him was pretty much what he had heard in the barbershop in Tyler and on the car radio while headed into work.

Cooper, once the junior senator from Montana, was in his second term when Drew selected him from half a dozen or so possibilities to be his running mate. From what Gabe remembered, the selection was more political than ideological. Northwest joins Southeast; impoverished backwoods upbringing joins privilege and vast wealth; laconic, Lincolnesque country music musician joins slick, charismatic war hero; moderate pragmatist joins intellectual visionary.

Together, Drew and Cooper overcame a double-digit deficit to nip Bradford Dunleavy and VP Charles Christman at the wire. Now, from all Gabe could tell, Drew had kept his campaign promise to revitalize the office of vice president and to use it in such a way that every day and every mission better prepared Cooper to step in and lead the country. The two men met together regularly, and Cooper was encouraged to be active and visible, especially in the areas of preservation and enhancement of natural resources, conscientious improvement and updating of the country's infrastructure, and issues involving immigration and illegal aliens.

In some circles, in fact, Cooper was viewed as more effectively conciliatory than Drew, who at times could have a hair-trigger temper. One recent poll actually suggested that the VP, who everyone assumed was a lock for the head of the ticket in four years, might be as electable as his running mate, even in this campaign.