It was time, Gabe decided, to meet his new nemesis eye-to-eye. He exhaled as he stood, wondering how the president's spin doctors would deal with a fistfight between the president's private physician and the head of the White House Military Office. At just a shade under six feet, Gabe was still looking up at the admiral. He had the fleeting cartoon image of his fist slamming against the man's angular jaw and shattering into a million pieces.

"Exactly what do you want, Admiral?" he asked.

"I wonder, Dr. Singleton, if you have taken the time to learn anything about this job you have signed on to do." Wright's metallic eyes sparked. "For instance, the details of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution."

"Presidential succession," Gabe said, grateful to have that much knowledge, although he remembered at the same instant that Wright had asked for details.

"Actually," Wright said with unbridled disdain, "presidential succession was dealt with in the Presidential Succession Law of 1886, and modified in 1947 to include the succession following the vice president of two elected officials—the president pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House."

"Oh."

Gabe felt the slight calming effect of the codeine kick in, and welcomed the sensation. In the short time between Drew's trip to Wyoming and his own flight on Air Force One to Washington, no one had discussed the provisions of the Twenty-fifth Amendment with him. Assuming that not doing so was an oversight on Magnus Lattimore's part, the seriousness of the lack of bow tie instructions had just been supplanted.

"The Twenty-fifth Amendment," Wright went on, "deals with the inability of the president to reliably conduct the duties of his office. It took years to hammer out the precise wording, and the most junior of my White House medical officers could summarize the amendment section by section. Many of them know the whole thing verbatim."

"The ones I've met have certainly seemed very bright."

"As the president's personal physician, I want you to review the presidential law of succession and memorize the Twenty-fifth Amendment," Wright demanded.

"And I want you to stop barking orders at a civilian," was Gabe's knee-jerk reply, "especially one who has been chosen by the president to be his personal physician."

Gabe transiently felt as if he were going to melt before the man's gaze and power.

"They put their pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us," his high school football coach used to say about an intimidating opponent. At that moment, Gabe could not imagine Admiral Ellis Wright ever being out of uniform.