"I'll see you later, in my office," he said as he shook Hood's hand. Then bowing slightly to Stoll and Lang, he left. Neither Hood nor Lang bothered to ask what was wrong. They simply watched in silence as Hausen walked briskly to the parking lot, where he'd parked his car earlier.

When he pulled away, Stoll said, "Is he Superman or something? 'This looks like a job for Übermensch'?"

"I've never seen him like that," Lang said. "He seemed very unsettled. And did you notice his eyes?"

"What do you mean?" Hood asked.

"They were bloodshot," Lang said. "He looked as if he'd been crying."

"Maybe there's been a death," Hood suggested.

"Perhaps. But he would have told us. He would have postponed our meeting." Lang shook his head slowly. "It's very strange."

Hood was concerned without knowing why. Though he barely knew Hausen, he had the impression that the Deputy Foreign Minister was a man of unusual strength and compassion. He was a politician who stood by what he believed because he felt it was best for his country. From the briefing paper Liz Gordon had prepared, Hood knew that Hausen had shouted down neo-Nazis at the first Chaos Days years before, and had written a series of unpopular newspaper editorials demanding the publication of the "Death Books from Auschwitz," the list the Gestapo kept of people who had died in the concentration camp. For Hausen to run from anything seemed out of character.

But the men still had work to do, and Lang tried to put a business-as-usual face on things as he led them to his office.

"What do you need for your presentation?" the industrialist asked Stoll.

"Just a flat surface," Stoll said. "A desk or floor'll do.

The windowless office was surprisingly small. It was lit by recessed fluorescent lights, and the only furniture was two white-leather sofas on opposite sides. Lang's desk was a long slab of glass resting on a pair of white marble columns. The walls were white and the floor was white tile.

"I take it you like white," Stoll said.

"It is said to have therapeutic psychological value," Lang said.

Stoll held up the backpack. "Where can I set this up?"

"On the desk is fine," Lang said. "It's quite sturdy and scratch resistant."

Stoll set the bag beside the white phone. "Therapeutic psychological value," he said. "You mean like, it's not as depressing as black or as sad as blue-- that kind of thing?"

"Exactly," said Lang.

"I can just see me asking Senator Fox for the money to redo Op-Center entirely in white," Hood said.

"She'd see red," Stoll said, "and you'd never get the green."

Hood made a face and Lang watched intently as Stoll unpacked the bag.