Caitlin turned, expecting to find George C. Scott or Jack Nicholson growling lines of hand-crafted dialogue at her. The only other general she’d had recent experience of, aside from Musso, was a newly retired General Stephen F. Murphy, who had taken up a deputy director’s chair with Echelon in Vancouver. Murphy did indeed growl, never smiled, and looked like he would genuinely enjoy crushing testicles with his bare hands. This man, the bogie man who exercised the fears and anxieties of half the country, approached them from his private washroom, looking like he should have been tending a garden somewhere. A bit too grey, a bit too round, a bit too soft at the edges, with a rather grand Roman nose and a twinkle in his eyes. A friendly twinkle. The beard, less old navy than Santa Claus, only served to enhance the disarming warmth of his smile.

‘Jackson Blackstone,’ he announced, extending his hand. ‘Welcome to Fort Hood, Colonel Murdoch.’

Caitlin took his hand; a firm, somewhat calloused grip. ‘Thank you, Governor.’

‘My, that’s quite a grip you’ve got there, Colonel. You wouldn’t be an old chopper pilot, would you?’

‘No sir. Tennis.’

‘Ah, my wife is a fan. I’m afraid I’m not. Fishing is my personal obsession. One I don’t get to enjoy nearly as much I had planned to after hanging up my uniform.’

Blackstone spared a sideways glance for Tusk Musso, much the way a frustrated academic might look at a particularly dim student. ‘Musso,’ he said, ‘always a pleasure.’

The President’s unofficial ambassador nodded. ‘Blackstone.’

The Governor suddenly clapped his hands together, producing a sound like a rifle crack. ‘Does anyone have any interest in breakfast? I know it’s late but I haven’t eaten yet. Between my morning exercise and the blizzard of paperwork that follows me everywhere, I often don’t. But I saved myself a fine river trout. Caught yesterday, but not by me, I’m afraid to say. I’d been intending to save it for lunch. But it would make an excellent breakfast with some toast and avocado and a cup of fine Costa Rican robusta.’

Caitlin shook her head. ‘Negative, sir. We ate before we came on post.’

‘Colonel, please. Relax.’ Blackstone smiled. ‘You can step down from DEFCON 1. I’m not the ogre everyone makes me out to be. I haven’t had anybody dragged behind a gun carriage since I retired.’

McCutcheon was the only one who smiled. Caitlin maintained a studied neutrality, while Musso gave the Governor his stone face.

‘Damn, you know, this will be a very long morning if we have to stare each other down like this,’ Blackstone sighed. ‘How about a cup of coffee and a donut? Breakfast of champions. Would that suffice as a peace offering, Colonel? Initially? I’m afraid I gave up smoking some years ago, so a peace pipe is out of the question.’