"Hawk' was the President's code-name with the Secret Service. It displayed the agent's institutional sense of humor, both for its association with the President's name and its ironic dissonance with his politics.

"Ambulance is two minutes out!" the communications center added. They could get an ambulance faster than a helicopter.

"Stand easy, Daga." Connor said. "I think the man had a stroke."

"Move!" This was a Navy chief medical corpsman. The Secret Service agents were trained in first aid, of course, but the White House always had a medical team standing by, and the corpsman was first on the scene. He carried the sort of duffel bag carried by corpsmen in the field, but didn't bother opening it. There was just too much blood on the desk, he saw instantly, and the top of the puddle was congealing. The corpsman decided not to disturb the body, it was a potential crime scene, and the Secret Service guys had briefed him on that set of rules - most of the blood had come out Dr Alden's right ear. There was a trickle from the left one also, and postmortem lividity was already starting in what parts of the face he could see. Diagnoses didn't come much easier than that.

"He's dead, probably been close to an hour, guys. Cerebral hemorrhage. Stroke. Isn't this guy a hypertensive?"

"Yeah, I think so," Special Agent D'Agustino said after a moment.

"You'll have to post him to be sure, but that's what he died of. Blow-out."

A physician arrived next. He was a Navy captain, and confirmed his chief's observation.

"This is Connor, tell the ambulance to take it easy. PILGRIM is dead, looks like from natural causes. Repeat, PILGRIM is dead," the principal agent said over his radio.

The postmortem examination would check for many things, of course. Poison. Possible contamination of his food or water. But the White House environment was monitored on a continuous basis. D'Agustino and Connor shared a look. Yes, he had suffered from high blood pressure, and he sure as hell had had a bad day. Just about as bad as they get.

"How is he?" Heads turned. It was HAWK, the President himself, with a literal ring of agents around him, pressing through the door. And Dr Elliot behind him. D'Agustino made a mental note that they'd have to make up a new code-name for her. She wondered if HARPY might suffice. Daga didn't like the bitch. No one on the Presidential Security Detail did. But they weren't paid to like her, or for that matter, even to like the President.

"He's dead, Mr President," the doctor said. "It appears he suffered a massive stroke."

The President took the news without a visible reaction. The Secret Service agents reminded themselves that he'd seen his wife through a multi-year battle against multiple sclerosis, finally losing her while still governor of Ohio. It must have drained the man, they thought, wanting it to be true. It must have stripped all of his emotions away. Certainly there were few emotions left in him. He made a clucking sound, and grimaced, and shook his head, and then he turned away.