"A pleasure, Jack."

Ryan emerged from the front door to see Clark waiting in the drive-through. He got right in.

"Morning, Doc."

"Hi, John. You only made one mistake."

"What's that?"

"Cathy knew your name. How?"

"You don't need to know," Clark replied, handing over the dispatch box. "Hell, sometimes I like to sack in myself, y'know?"

"I'm sure you broke some kind of law."

"Yeah, right." Clark headed out. "When do we get the go-ahead on the Mexico job?"

"That's what I'm going into the White House for."

"Eleven?"

"Right."

It was gratifying to see that the CIA could in fact operate without his presence. Ryan arrived on the seventh floor to see that everyone was at work. Even Marcus was where he belonged.

"Ready for your trip?" Jack asked the Director.

"Yeah, heading off tonight. Station Japan is setting up the meet with Lyalin."

"Marcus, please remember that he is Agent MUSHASHI, and his information is NIITAKA. Using his real name, even here, is a bad habit to get into."

"Yeah, Jack. You're heading down to see the President soon for the Mexico thing?"

"That's right."

"I like the way you set that thing up."

"Thanks, Marcus, but the credit goes to Clark and Chavez. Open to a suggestion?" Jack asked.

"Go ahead."

"Put them back in Operations?"

If they bring this one off, the President will go along with it. So will I."

"Fair enough." That was pretty easy, Jack thought. He wondered why.

Dr Kaminiskiy went over the films and swore at himself for his error of the previous day. It hardly seemed possible, but - But it wasn't possible. Not here. Was it? He had to run some additional tests, but first he spent an hour tracking down his Syrian colleague. The patient was moved to another hospital, one with a laminar room. Even if Kaminiskiy were wrong, this man had to be totally isolated.

Russell fired up the forklift and took several minutes to figure out the controls. He wondered what the previous owner had needed with one, but there was no point in that. There was enough remaining pressure in the propane tanks that he didn't have to worry about that either. He walked back to the house.

The people here in Colorado were friendly enough. Already, the local newspaper distributors had set up the delivery boxes at the end of the drive. Russell had the morning paper to read with his coffee. A moment later, he realized how good a thing that was.

"Uh-oh," he observed quietly.

"What is the problem, Marvin?"

"I've never seen this before. The Vikings fans are planning a convoy over a thousand cars and buses. Damn," he noted. "That'll screw the roads up " He turned to see the extended weather forecast.

"What do you mean?"

"They have to come down I-76 to get to Denver. That might mess things up some. We want to arrive about noon, maybe a little later about the same time the convoy is supposed to arrive "