"I know."

"Go to bed. You need sleep more than anything else."

Being married to a physician had its drawbacks. Chief among those was that you couldn't argue with one. Jack kissed her on the cheek and did as he was told.

CHAPTER 30

East Room

Clark arrived at the house at the proper time and had to do something unusual. He waited. After a couple of minutes, he was ready to knock on the door, but then it opened. Dr Ryan (male) came out partway, then stopped and turned to kiss Dr Ryan (female), who watched him walk off, and, after his back was fully turned, fired off a beaming smile at the car.

All right! Clark thought. Maybe he did have a new career set up. Jack also looked fairly decent, and Clark told him so as soon as he got in the car.

"Yeah, well, I got sent to bed early." Jack chuckled, tossing his paper on the front seat. "Forgot to have a drink, too."

"Couple more days like that and you just might be human again."

"Maybe you're right." But he still lit up a cigarette, somewhat to Clark's annoyance. Then he realized just how smart Caroline Ryan was. One thing at a time. Damn, Clark told himself, that is some broad.

"I'm set up for the test flight. Ten o'clock."

"Good. It is nice to put you to some real work, John. Playing SPO must be boring as hell," Ryan said, opening the dispatch box.

"It has its moments, sir," Clark replied, pulling onto Falcon's Nest Road. It was another quiet day on the dispatches, and soon Ryan had his head buried in the morning Post.

Three hours later, Clark and Chavez arrived at Andrews Air Force Base. A pair of VC-20Bs had already been scheduled for routine training flights. The pilots and crews of the 89th Military Airlift - The President's' - Wing had a strict regimen for maintaining proficiency. The two aircraft took off a few minutes apart and headed east to perform various familiarization maneuvers to acquaint two new co-pilots with air-traffic control procedures - which the drivers already knew backwards and forwards, of course, but that was beside the point.

In the back, an Air Force technical sergeant was doing his own training, playing with the sophisticated communications equipment that the plane carried. He occasionally looked aft to see that civilian, whoever the hell he was, talking into a flower pot, or just into a little green stick. There are some things, the sergeant thought, that a guy just isn't supposed to understand. He was entirely correct.

Two hours later, the two Gulfstreams landed back at Andrews and rolled to a halt at the VIP terminal. Clark gathered up his gear and walked out to meet another civilian who'd been aboard the other aircraft. The pair walked off to their car, already talking.

"I could understand part of what you were saying - clear, I mean," Chavez reported. "Say about a third of it, maybe a little less."