"Right," Rodgers said. "And if you finish getting ready, I'll give you a lift to school. We can stop at the diner for C-rations and maybe a video game, and you can be the first person to ride shotgun in my brand-new Blazer."

"A video game?" Billy said. "They have Blazing Combattle at the diner."

"Great," Rodgers said.

Billy threw the General a snappy salute, thanked him again for the comic books, and ran off.

As the boy thumped up the stairs, Melissa gently put her hand around Rodgers's wrist. "I owe you big time," she said. She kissed him on the cheek.

Rodgers was caught off guard and blushed. He looked away and Melissa released his arm. He started after Billy.

"Mike," Melissa said.

He stopped and looked back.

"It's okay," she said. "I feel very close to you too. What we've all been through-- you can't help it."

The flushing around his collar intensified. He wanted to say something about how he loved them all, including Charlie, but he didn't. At that moment, he wasn't sure what he felt.

"Thanks," he said.

Rodgers smiled but said nothing more. Billy thundered back down the stairs and the General followed him, like straw caught in a whirlwind, as he raced across the living room, backpack in tow, carrying his young man's morning appetite into the parking lot.

"No sugar, General!" Melissa shouted as the screen door slammed behind them. "And don't let him get too excited on the video game!"

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Thursday, 8:02 A.M.,

Washington, D.C.

Senator Barbara Fox and her two aides arrived at Andrews Air Force Base in the Senator's Mercedes. Senior aide Neil Lippes was sitting in the back, with the Senator. Junior aide Bobby Winter was driving, a briefcase on the seat beside him.

They were early for their 8:30 meeting, as the guard politely informed them before admitting the car.

"On the contrary," the white-haired Senator said through the window as they drove past. "We're about twenty-five million dollars too late."

The trio drove toward a nondescript, two-story building located near the Naval Reserve flight line at Andrews Air Force Base. During the Cold War, the ivory-colored building had been a ready room, a staging area for flight crews. In the event of a nuclear attack, it would have been their job to evacuate key officials from Washington, D.C.

Now, after a hundred-million-dollar facelift, the building was the headquarters of Op-Center, the seat of the National Crisis Management Center. The seventy-eight full-time employees who worked there were crack tacticians, logisticians, soldiers, diplomats, intelligence analysts, computer specialists, psychologists, reconnaissance experts, environmentalists, attorneys, and media liaisons. The NCMC shared another forty-two support personnel with the Department of Defense and the CIA, and commanded the Striker tactical strike team.