"Do you want to tell me who that was?"

"I don't, Drew. I sort of promised to think carefully before I told anyone. But I'm prepared to now."

Again, Gabe could see Stoddard's intellect rapidly processing the information as it had been presented so far.

"Whoever this is was tailing you from the White House at two in the morning?"

"Yes."

"Secret Service?"

Gabe wasn't surprised at how quickly the president put things together. This was a man who, after the accident at Fairhaven, had gone from being a middle-of-the-pack student at Annapolis to first in his class, to a governorship, and finally, to the presidency.

"Working undercover," Gabe replied.

"To what end? At whose order?"

"I can answer the second question, but I'm not so certain about the first. The head of internal affairs sent the agent in. I think the goal was to learn how much truth there was to—"

"To the rumors that I was going nuts," Stoddard said.

"Yes, sir, plus maybe to search for information that might shed some light on what happened to Jim Ferendelli."

Again, Gabe could almost feel the president working through the facts, reasoning out the possibilities.

"It's that woman, isn't it," he said suddenly, "that nurse my pal Mike Posnick in California called me about, asking me to set her up in the Secret Service."

"Alison Cromartie. Yes, Mr. President, it is."

"And she was in Baltimore with us, right? I thought I knew her from someplace else. I'd only met her once, maybe a couple of years ago. Interesting looking."

"I have to agree."

Stoddard glanced over at Gabe with something of a glint. He grinned momentarily. Then just as quickly his expression darkened.

"They're closing in, Gabe," he said. "Like goddamn hyenas smelling the rot, they're closing in."

He took a computer printout from the floor next to him and passed it over. It was a nationally syndicated column from the Montgomery Mirror, based on the latest Gallup Poll numbers, which indicated a drop in the Democrats' lead from 12 to 8 percent—the smallest gap since shortly after the Republican Convention.

WHERE THERE'S SCHMUCK, THERE'S FIRE

Question: What chief executive risked his health and the leadership of this country in a grandstand play at a Baltimore meeting of big-bucks liberal supporters? You see, the chief executive in question was in the midst of an asthma attack severe enough to cause him to break off his speech in the middle. And we all know how severe that must have been. Was it the behavior of a rational man to return to the podium after just a few minutes of treatment?

I think not.