Now if only he didn't feel so guilty. Swearing, he hit the Speaker button, called Op-Center, and asked Bugs to patch him through to Dr. Orlito Trias at Walter Reed.

While he waited, picking his way through late rush-hour traffic, Hood cursed Rodgers again-- though he knew he really didn't blame him for anything. After all, why had the President appointed him? It wasn't just because he was a second-string quarterback who could come in and win the game. It was because he was a seasoned soldier who would be a voice of experience and caution in situations like these, a combat veteran and historian with a profound respect for fighting men, strategy, and war. A man who stayed in shape by walking on his office treadmill for an hour each afternoon, reciting The Poem of The Cid in Old Spanish when he wasn't conducting business. And sometimes while he was. Of course a man like that would want to be in the field with a team he'd helped organize: once a general, always a general. And didn't Hood always encourage his people to think independently? Besides, if Rodgers had been less of a cowboy, he would be Assistant Secretary of Defense, the post he'd wanted, instead of getting the consolation prize, the number two spot at Op-Center.

"Good morning, Dr. Trias's office."

Hood turned up the volume. "Good morning, Cath, this is Paul Hood."

"Mr. Hood! The doctor missed you at the National Space Society meeting last night."

"Sharon rented Four Weddings and a Funeral. I kind of had no choice. Is he in?"

"I'm sorry, but he's giving a lecture in Georgetown this morning. Is there a message?"

"Yes. Tell him that my son Alexander had an asthma attack and is in pediatrics. I'd like him to check on him, if he has the time."

"I'm sure he will. Give your boy a hug for me when you see him-- he's a button."

"Thanks," Hood said, punching off the phone.

That's great, he thought. Just great. He couldn't even deliver the doctor.

Hood considered and quickly dismissed the idea of asking Martha Mackall to go to the White House in his stead. While he respected her abilities, he couldn't be sure whether she would be there representing his positions and Op-Center, or promoting the career and best interests of Martha Mackall. She'd come up from Harlem the hard way, learning Spanish, Korean, Italian, and Yiddish as she hand-painted signs for shops all around Manhattan, then studied Japanese, German, and Russian in college while earning her master's degree in economics on a full scholarship. As she'd told Hood when he first interviewed her, at forty-nine she wanted to get out of the Secretary General's office at the U.N. and continue to deal directly with the Spanish, Koreans, Italians, and Jews-- only this time shaping policy, not serving as just a mouthpiece. If he hired her to collect, maintain, and analyze a database on the economies and key political operatives of every country in the world, he was to stay out of her way and let her do her job. He'd hired her because she was the kind of independent thinker he wanted at his side going into battle, but he wouldn't trust her to lead the charge until he was sure that Martha Mackall's agenda wasn't more important to her than Op-Center.