Five minutes passed. Gabe stayed focused, constantly checking the president's blood pressure, pulse, respiratory rate, oxygen level, and air movement.

Lungs clearing… respiratory rate down from 26 to 18… BP 130/85… oxygen saturation up to 95 from 92.

Five more minutes. Half a liter of IV fluid in… Color good… wheezing almost gone… O2 saturation 96…

Lattimore had returned to the audience. Gabe could hear him speaking through the microphone but couldn't make out the words. Whatever he said brought about a healthy round of applause. Moments later, the chief of staff reappeared.

"I just told them you were doing well," he whispered to Stoddard. "The vultures want to know if you're coming back."

"No!" Gabe snapped. "He's not."

"I'm breathing much better," the president said. "Plus that shot-what is it, like adrenaline?"

"It's exactly adrenaline."

"Well, it's really pumped me up. I feel like I'm about to take off from the deck of a carrier."

"Mr. President, you need to just stay put. You were this close to an ambulance ride to Johns Hopkins."

"If I can pull it together and reappear, think about what my press people can do with this. The world will love it."

"The world will think you're an absolute nut with no regard for his health and a total incompetent for a doctor."

"Listen, Gabe. I can't help it if you happen to be really really good at what you do."

"You've got an IV running."

"All the better. I'll drag it out there with me. Just a minute or two, for closure… and a couple of photos."

"No!"

"Gabe, we're talking about a presidential election-my last shot at really making a difference in this country and the world. Your doctor's head will always opt for the conservative approach-well, almost always. But please try and look at the big picture. You've broken the asthma attack for me. You did it! I can feel it. Look, I don't even have to gasp for breath between sentences. Let me just go out there and say thank you and good-bye and show the people that I'm all right and I'll be back in this chair before you know it."

Exasperated but at the same time exhilarated, Gabe turned to Latti-more.

"How long have you been working for this guy?" he asked.

"Long enough to know what the outcome of this one's going to be," Stoddard's chief of staff replied.

It was a bad dream.

Alison kept telling herself that as she and the paramedics packed up the FAT kit and got ready to head for the medical van.

What she had witnessed, the conclusions she was considering-they had to be nothing more than a bad dream.

But she knew otherwise.

Treat Griswold, the legendary Treat Griswold, number-one Secret Service agent to the President of the United States, had reached into his jacket pocket, withdrawn an asthma inhaler, allowed the president to administer the contents to himself, and then put the inhaler back in his pocket. It sounded innocent enough and probably looked like no big deal to anyone else who observed the incident-although there were few, if any, in a position to do so.

The problem was that drugs of any kind, when destined for the president, had to follow a strict, immutable chain of custody. The prescription was given by the White House doc or nurse to the administrator of the medical unit, who then called it in to a specific high-clearance pharmacist, using any of half a dozen fictitious names. The pharmacist knew the drug was destined for the White House but had no idea if it was for the POTUS, another patient, or even the medical clinic in the Eisenhower Building next door. The pharmacist formulated the prescription and, if necessary, prepared multiple sealed containers, which were picked up by a White House driver. The driver signed for the drug and turned it over to the nurse in the White House medical office, who signed for it and put it in a locked medicine cabinet. The president's physician then retrieved the drug and administered it himself.

In the case of an inhaler, the president might be given one to keep in his residence bathroom. Other inhalers would be secured on Air Force One, on Marine One, in his personal physician's bag, and at Camp David. The president might use the inhaler on his own, but otherwise, its contents should be dispensed only by his physician or the doc covering for him.

The chain of custody would probably not stand up in a court of law, but it was a chain nonetheless, based in large measure on the assumption that none of those intimates handling any of the sealed packets would want to harm the president.

Alison had learned the unwritten protocol from a physician, who was both showing off and possibly flirting with her, but after just a few days in Washington it appeared that Gabe Singleton had yet to be brought up to speed on it. Admiral Wright had been away when Gabe arrived on the scene, so it was possible that during Gabe's orientation whoever took Wright's place had simply forgotten or neglected to cover the handling of meds. Perhaps the other medical office docs hadn't thought to mention it, either. It made sense, then, that having Treat Griswold produce an inhaler would have seemed quite natural to Gabe, who had yet to learn that no one except the president's physician should be dispensing meds of any kind to the man.

Perhaps, she thought, she should try to break through Gabe's fortress of mistrust and tell him, although it probably would be better if one of the other docs did it.

"Come on, Alison," Gerrity, the physician's assistant, called out. "I've got the rest of this stuff. We have to get down to the motorcade or we're going to be left here searching for a cab so we can get home and start searching for jobs."

Alison surveyed the area one final time. At the base of the high velvet curtain was a plastic Baggie-the one, sealed and signed by all who had touched it, that had originally contained a cortisone inhaler, which was also sealed and signed per the chain-of-custody protocol. The final step, the loop closer, was that once the seals had been broken and the medication used on the POTUS, regardless of what that medication was, it was to be disposed of immediately and a new chain of custody implemented.

It was most likely no big deal that Treat Griswold had control of the president's inhaler. Griswold had been a loyal, even heroic guardian of presidents for two decades at least. The best thing she could do was probably let the matter drop. Still, Dr. Jim Ferendelli had vanished, and she had been placed undercover in the White House Medical Unit specifically to keep her eyes and ears open and to report to the head of internal affairs anything out of the ordinary-anything at all.

The notion of blowing the whistle on anyone, let alone Griswold, was chilling. She thought about her horrific experience in the hospital in L.A. She had been in the right then-totally in the right. The incompetent surgeon had killed a patient and destroyed a good, caring nurse. The proof Alison had of that was solid, if not absolute. At least that was what she believed before her life was methodically undermined and sent crashing down around her.

Not this time.

Even if her job was to observe and report, there would be no whistle-blowing on Treat Griswold without irrefutable, undeniable proof that rules had knowingly and willfully been violated. Instead, she would learn what she could about the man, searching for a chink in his armor of competence and devotion to office or else affirming that he was beyond reproach and worthy of the honors bestowed upon him over the years.

"Alison, this is it. We go now or we don't bother!"

She hurried to the elevator and rode down with the PA. The career military men who served as White House valets were mess specialists-trained to observe the preparation of the POTUS's meals and personally serve whichever plate he wound up getting. They watched every bit of food he was served and from time to time would taste the meal as well. Would any of them tolerate a Secret Service agent showing up in the kitchen carrying and then serving the president's dinner?