Looking over at Thomas Jefferson Osborn, Doherty nodded. “No, I guess not. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll take you up on your offer of a beer. Odds are, it will be the last one I’ll be enjoying for a while.”

Osborn shook his head as the light of the flames lit his toothy grin. “Why of course, John, of course. Anything,” he added, “for a patriot.”

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 7

BOISE, IDAHO • SEPTEMBER 12TH

Each day started pretty much the same way. George Oliver Thomas would awaken from his slumber long before the NPR hourly news began to blare from the clock radio that sat on his nightstand. No one rushed into his room to deliver his morning paper or coffee. No one crept about while he slept to lay out his wardrobe for the day. As he had since he was a child of five, he got out of bed, staggered into the bathroom, washed his face, brushed his teeth, and dressed himself.

Even when he emerged from his bedroom suite, his staff kept their distance. Only when he was entertaining an idea that wouldn’t keep or had heard something on the radio show he wanted more information on would he summon an assistant. Even then, GO Thomas suffered the presence of this person only long enough to pass on whatever information he wished to be acted upon while he was exercising.

When he entered the country kitchen of the governor’s mansion there was no cook standing by, ready to prepare whatever GO asked for. He saw no need for one that early. As was his habit, he poked around the neatly organized, well stocked cabinets until he found something that appealed to him. Usually it was a packet of instant applecinnamon oatmeal or some simple boxed cereal. With a banana and a tall glass of orange juice, this passed for his breakfast. While quite mundane and terribly repetitious, Thomas found this quiet, almost ceremonial opening of his day to be relaxing and, in a strange way, reassuring. To him it was a constant in a world where so much changed so fast. It gave him a sense that while he had been asleep and out of touch with the rest of mankind for six hours, the world he knew was still there, waiting patiently for him.

It was only now that variations were allowed to intrude on his morning routine. If his mind was fired up by a new idea or if a solution to a problem was right there, all formatted and packaged in his mind, GO would leave the kitchen and head for the part of the house that served as his personal office. Passing through an otherwise innocuous door that appeared no different from any other one in his personal residence, GO Thomas would step from his secluded domestic world into the heart of a state’s government.