"It's the monkey suit," Gabe replied. "Throw a tux on me and you've got instant socialite."

"I can tell. Your bow tie is a dead giveaway that there's more to you than the backwoods buckaroo you claim."

"How's that?"

"Tying a bow tie is an absolutely individual affair. It should never be knotted perfectly. Yours is tied with perfect imperfection. Says a lot about your level of sophistication-gruff saddle tramp image or not."

"Is that why you didn't have the rental people include a clip-on?"

"I suppose you could conclude that, yes. I was prepared to help you if necessary. In dealing with people, data is worth collecting regardless of the source. If I ever did have the urge to underestimate you, which I most certainly do not, I need only remind myself of your skill with a bow tie."

Gabe flashed on Alison Cromartie, her brow knit as she focused on the task at hand. Had she left the knot just slightly askew on purpose? The truth was he hadn't even noticed. Gruff saddle tramp, indeed.

"Was that article in the Post about my arrival on the scene your doing?" he asked.

"We have a friend or two on the staff there," was Lattimore's typically oblique reply.

"I had sort of planned to keep a low profile until I was done with the job."

"In Wyoming you get to keep a low profile. Here you keep whatever profile most benefits the president."

"So I gathered. Speaking of the man, where is he?"

"Actually"-Lattimore checked his Omega-"he's late."

His expression had darkened.

"Any problem?"

"No, no. He's usually fairly prompt, though, and Calvyn Berriman is a man he actually likes and admires. He went out of his way to have me ask Joe Malzone, the pastry chef, to do a cake in the form of the presidential flag of Botswana, and a wild flag it is, too, complete with zebras, African shield, elephant tusks, and even a bas-relief bull's head, perfectly rendered in black frosting. Makes our flag look sedate."

"Save me the bull's head; I've gone after them at birthday parties since I was a tyke. And also, let me know if Drew needs me to do a physical exam on anyone in the next couple of hours. This would be the perfect time for me to have to leave. Back home I used to bribe the hospital operator to page me when I couldn't find another way of getting out of a cocktail party, or worse, a formal dinner. Perfectly imperfect bow tie or not, I'm sure it's only a matter of time at this soiree before I go Emily Postal and commit some huge social gaffe."

"Don't use your fingers except for the bread, don't slurp your soup directly from the bowl, and avoid throwing up on the person next to you. That's all you need to know."

"Slurp my bread, finger my soup, throw up on the guest of honor. Got it."

"Oh, and most important of all, don't think for a moment that anyone here is more interested in hearing what you have to say than in hearing what they have to say. In this town a good listener is like a one-eyed man in the land of the blind."

"Mouth shut, ears open. I can do that."

"Good. Speaking of socialites, there's one more person I'd like you to meet before we all go trooping on in there. You ever heard of Lily Sexton?"

Gabe shook his head.

"Should I have?"

"When we get reelected, one of the president's first moves will be the creation of a new cabinet post-the Secretary of Science and Technology. Dr. Lily Sexton will be it."

"An M.D.?"

"Ph.D. Molecular physics or some such. She was a professor of Carol's at Princeton."

Although he had been at Carol and Drew Stoddard's wedding and had spent a fair amount of time with her over the years, Gabe really knew very little about the First Lady. He knew she was bright-exceedingly so, in fact-but nothing she had ever said suggested that she might have studied molecular physics in college.

"Secretary of Science and Technology," he mused out loud. "I wonder where that will rank on the presidential succession list."

"Bite your tongue."

"You're right. See? I told you it was only a matter of time before I said something stupid."

"You're doing fine. Just remember about the one-eyed man. There's Lily over there. She's not too hard to spot, given that every woman in this room is wearing a designer evening gown and she's wearing a tux."

Lattimore led Gabe by the arm across the Red Room and introduced him to the second interesting and attractive woman he had met in just an hour. Lily Sexton had a dazzling, ageless aura, starting from her pure silver hair, cut elegantly short. Her face, virtually unlined, was sharp and intelligent, highlighted by piercing blue-green eyes. Her black tuxedo was perfectly tailored to her tall, slender figure, and just above the top button of her jacket, where a shirt would have been, had she been wearing one, rested a spectacular turquoise pendant on a silver chain.

Protruding from beneath her pants were top-of-the-line alligator cowboy boots. The stylish western look made a clear statement about the woman's willingness to fly in the face of fashion, but Gabe guessed that, with the addition of the inlaid turquoise ring and earrings that matched her necklace, the price of her outfit came to as much or more than that of many of the evening gowns in the room.

"Excuse me if I'm out of line," Gabe said after Lattimore had completed the introduction and moved on, "but Magnus told me you were one of Carol's college professors. I don't know exactly how old the First Lady is, but I have trouble doing the math around that relationship."

"Why, thank you, Dr. Singleton," Lily said with an easy drawl-maybe Arizona, Gabe thought. "What a flattering thing to say. But I'm afraid my friend Magnus hasn't got his facts quite right. I was a graduate assistant of Carol's, not a professor. We've been dear friends since the day we met. There's not much more than five or six years' difference in our ages. She would have made a terrific scientist, but she had other plans."

"The dilemma of Carol Stoddard," he said, "test tubes, Bunsen burners, and white mice, or the chance to marry an absolutely brilliant war hero, hunk of a man, and change the world for the better. Hmmmm. Let… me… think."

"Believe me," she said, "if a man like Drew Stoddard had dropped into my life, I would have made the same choice Carol did. Actually, somewhere along the way, a few men did come along with enough going for them to marry, but none of them ended up having Drew's staying power… So, Doctor, how has your Washington medical experience been so far?"

"A few visiting dignitaries have been sent to the clinic for various bumps and bruises and upset stomachs, but thankfully, the First Patient hasn't dialed my number except to tell me that there were a lot of people anxious to meet me tonight and so I'd better show up."

"Oh yes, speaking as one of those people, congratulations."

"Thanks. You're the one deserving of congratulations, though. Magnus tells me you are destined for a cabinet post."

"If we win."

"We're going to win."

"In that case, I'll be the first Secretary of Science and Technology."

"Pardon me for sounding uninformed, but what is the president's position on science and technology that he would need a new cabinet post to implement it?"

"Actually, it's built into the party platform. The president feels that the federal government needs to take a more proactive position regarding control of scientific research and development-stem cells, cloning, nanotechnology, fuel alternatives, reproductive physiology, cyberspace utilization, and the like. The FDA is overwhelmed as it is, and no cabinet post is specifically set up to coordinate the research necessary to put together some legislation with teeth."

"I didn't realize that Drew had taken such a hard-line approach to government control of science and technology."