Since their move to the White House had been delayed until the widow of his predecessor could make the move back to her home state, President and Mrs. Rust had elected to stay in the Victorian mansion on Naval Observatory Hill that had served as the official residence of American vice presidents since the time of Vice President Gerald Ford, in the mid 1970s.

The agents who helped him up the steps put their arms around the president’s back and supported him as he stumbled into the entry hall and settled down in one of the overstuffed chairs in the hall. Once they had deposited their burden, the agents turned quickly, said good night to the first lady, and left the chief executive to his fate.

There was fire in her eyes as Valery approached her husband. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “Why aren’t you with the cabinet? What are you doing about the crisis?”

“Leave me alone,” he mumbled. “I couldn’t take it anymore, so I left.”

“You what?” she yelped. “You couldn’t take it anymore—so you what?”

“Shut up, Valery,” he protested. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh, no, Ted!” she exclaimed. “What have you done? You couldn’t take what you saw at the briefing so you just—you just left? I’m sorry, Mr. President, but the West Coast of our country has just been blown off the map, and the president of the United States can’t take it—and just left!”

“Look,” he said. “It’s not what you think. I had a couple of drinks to steady my nerves. That’s all. Vince slapped me, so I fired him.”

“Oh, Ted. You didn’t!” she exclaimed. “You fired Vince? The man who has propped you up since your first campaign, and you sent him packing for doing what anybody in his right mind should have done? Ted, you’ve got to stop this thing—now. Without Vince D’Agostino you couldn’t run a garbage truck, much less the United States. What are we going to do?”

“I think I’d like to go to bed,” he muttered.

“Good! Terrific! That’s just great. You screwed up your first cabinet meeting, deserted your post in a time of crisis, fired the one man who is indispensable to you, and now you want to go to bed.” She looked at him in disgust. “That’s the Ted Rust I know.”

“Try and stop me, shady lady,” he said, rising unsteadily to his feet.

“Good, Ted. Yes, you go to bed. In the meantime, maybe I can do something about fixing the mess you’ve made.”

Ted stumbled noisily up the stairs while Valery walked back quickly into the little sitting alcove off the main entrance hall. She sat down on an ivory love seat and pondered for several minutes, then dialed a number she knew by heart.