Her breathing slowed. All members of the first family wore tracking devices. Hers, as slim as a credit card, rested under her pillow in the bedroom of the private apartment she kept on the fourth floor of the White House. If she were very lucky, she’d have two hours before her disappearance was discovered. Although Nealy had told Maureen Watts, her chief of staff, that she wasn’t feeling well and needed to lie down for a few hours, she knew Maureen wouldn’t hesitate to wake her if she thought a matter was urgent. Then she would find the letter Nealy had left along with the tracking device, and all hell would break loose.

Nealy forced herself not to hurry as she walked into the Metro. She headed toward one of the fare card machines she hadn’t even known existed until she’d overheard a conversation between two of her secretaries. She needed to change trains, and she calculated the fare. After she’d slipped in her money, she pushed the correct buttons and received her fare card.

She managed to make it through the turnstile to the platform. Then, with her nose tucked into her guidebook and her heart pounding, she waited for the train that would begin her journey into the Maryland suburbs. When she got to Rockville, she intended to pick up a taxi and head for one of the used car dealerships along Route 355. There she hoped to find a salesman greedy enough to sell an old lady a car without seeing her driver’s license.

Three hours later, she was behind the wheel of a nondescript four-year-old blue Chevy Corsica heading toward Frederick, Maryland, on I-270. She’d done it! She’d made it out of Washington. The car had cost more than it should have, but she didn’t care because nobody could link it with Cornelia Case.

She tried to relax her cramped fingers, but she couldn’t. The alarm would have been raised at the White House by now, and it was time to make her call. As she got off at the next ramp, she couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d driven on a freeway. Sometimes she took the wheel when she was on Nantucket or at Camp David, but seldom otherwise.

She spotted a convenience store on her left, pulled in, then got out of the car and made her way to a pay phone mounted on the side. She was accustomed to the efficiency of the White House operators, and she had to read the directions carefully. Finally, she punched in the number of the most private of the Oval Office telephone lines, the one she knew couldn’t be intercepted.

The President himself answered on the second ring. “Yes?”

“It’s Nealy.”

“For God’s sake, where are you? Are you all right?”