"You don't look all right."

"I still can't strike the right note with him."

"I know," Ann said. "Sometimes you think he's really got a handle on some kind of larger worldview. The rest of the time you feel like he's trying to keep you in line, like a smarty-pants school monitor."

Rodgers looked at her. "That's a fair assessment, Ann. You've obviously given this-- him-- a lot of thought."

She flushed. "I tend to reduce everybody to sound bites. It's a bad habit."

To change the course of the conversation, Ann made a point of emphasizing the "everybody." She knew at once that that had been a mistake.

"What's my sound bite?" Rodgers asked.

Ann looked at him squarely. "You're a frank, decisive man in a world that has grown too complex for those qualities."

They stopped beside his office. "And is that good or bad?" he asked.

"It's troublesome," Ann replied. "With a little bit of give, you could probably get a lot more."

Without taking his eyes off Ann, Rodgers entered his code in the keypad on the jamb. "But if something isn't what you want, is it worth having?" he asked.

"I've always felt that half is better than none," she replied.

"I see. I just don't agree." Rodgers smiled now. "And Ann? Next time, if you mean to say I'm stubborn, just come out and say it."

Rodgers flipped her a little salute, walked into his office, and shut the door behind him.

Ann stood there for a moment before turning and walking slowly toward her office. She felt bad for Mike. He was a good man, and a bright one. But he was fatally flawed by his desire for action over diplomacy, even when that action disregarded little things like national sovereignty and congressional approval. It was his reputation as a fire-eater that had caused him to be passed over as Assistant Secretary of Defense, landing him here as a consolation prize. He accepted the post because he was first and foremost a good soldier, but he was never happy about it… or about reporting to a nonmilitary superior.

But then, she thought, everyone's got problems of some kind. Like her, for example. The problem to which Rodgers had indiscreetly alluded.

She was going to miss Paul, her good and honorable cavalier, the knight who wouldn't leave his wife however much she took him for granted. Worse than that, Ann couldn't help but fantasize about how she would make Paul relax if it were she and her son going with him to Southern California instead of Sharon and the kids

CHAPTER FOUR

Saturday, 2:00 P.M.,

Brighton Beach