“You’re welcome.” McBride came out of the building. “I have to go. It’s time for chow. This number isn’t the best way to connect with me. I have it off most of the time. Let me email you.”

“Well, thank God you had it on tonight. Clearly, He knew you needed to lecture me.”

“Go to sleep, Doc. Rest your mind. Hand it all over to God. Rest your spirit.”

He hung up the phone and turned as Peña came out of the building and found him. His intelligence officer looked pointedly at the phone in his hand. “Who’s calling you on an unsecure line?”

“Doctor Cynthia Myers.”

Clearly, Peña hadn’t expected that answer. “Really? She okay?”

“A little lost. They kind of threw her into the fray. She’ll make it, though.”

“And she called you?” Peña looked him up and down. “Good thing we’re due to go home soon, eh, Daddy?”

He actually felt himself blush. “It isn’t quite like that.”

“If you say so.” Peña slapped him on the shoulder. “Time for lunch. Then Colonel Jenkins wants to see us. Something about our report of the attack on the president’s home.”

He sighed and rolled his neck. “Okay. I wonder what’s on for chow today.”

“Armpit of camel, from the smell of it,” Peña said as they walked toward the chow hall.

“Oh, good. My favorite,” he said, thinking of a thick hamburger from his favorite bar and grill. He rarely counted down the days until he made it back home, but this trip he found himself looking at the calendar every day, antsy to be back on American soil.

WASHINGTON, DC

At seven in the morning, Cynthia sat at the breakfast table and idly stirred cream into her cup. Her eyes burned with fatigue. She glanced up at the door as her mom came into the room.

Annalise Myers had gone to law school with Cynthia’s dad. They met at a campus political rally for Annalise’s father, a congressman from Maryland, and got married a year later. She practiced law until Cynthia’s birth, then threw her energies into raising Cynthia and supporting her husband’s political aspirations. She managed his staff and his campaigns and closely monitored his speech writers. Navigating the Washington, DC, social circle had come easy to the Maryland native. She thrived in her position as the vice president’s wife.

Her blond hair fell in waves that framed her face. She stayed fit with a daily workout in their home gym. And she never, ever walked out of her personal space without perfectly applied makeup and all the proper accessories.

This morning, she wore a cotton-candy-pink pantsuit with a sage-green belt and matching heels. Thick gold hoops adorned her ears and matched her chunky gold necklace.

“Good morning, love,” she said, going straight to the coffeepot. “How are you?”