"Sorry I forgot about the van."

"Nonsense. Listen, Drew, I am just so grateful you are trusting me with all this. I know it isn't easy for you."

"I'm scared to death with what we're doing, and I'd be just as scared if we weren't doing it."

Gabe checked the time.

"With any luck, we've got fifteen or twenty minutes. The farther away we are from Camp David, the better. If nothing happens to their horses, I think we have to abort. But if the sedatives kick in, I'm going to go back there. I want you to keep steadily putting distance between us. I'll go back to check on their horses. That's when I'm going to try and take care of the van. Questions?"

"When do I take off?"

"Keep drifting ahead; then, when you see me move, you hit the gas. There's a trail to the left somewhere up there that'll take us to the car. I've set up a pile of stones on the right about thirty or forty feet before the trail. Keep an eye out for it. Also, I've marked the trees at eye level where we're supposed to turn. By then I should have caught up with you."

"I'd feel less frightened trying to elude my Secret Service people in a jet."

"You're doing fine."

For some minutes, the two rode in silence. Then Gabe leaned over slightly toward his onetime roommate.

"Drew, there's something I want to say. I don't know how to put this in any delicate way, but I want you to know that for years and years, even though I haven't had a drop of alcohol, I've been popping pills—never without a reason, mind you, headaches, insomnia, and the like—but you can probably guess that those reasons are more like justifications or excuses. I should have told you when you came to the ranch."

"Do you really think that would have mattered to me? Look at all the things you've done with your life."

"The funny thing is, since I had to watch Jim die, and focus on what was being done to you and to the country, and deal with Alison's disappearance, I haven't wanted to take a pill no matter how tense or frightened or sleepless I've been. It's like Jim's death was a slap of perspective for me—a shot across the bow of my life, telling me that I wasn't doing any justice to the lost lives of that woman in Fairhaven and her child by systematically destroying mine. I just needed to say it before we—"

"Doc, this is Griswold," his radio boomed. "You two slow down and get back here. There's something wrong with the horses."

"We're on!" Stoddard exclaimed.

"God bless Ellen Williams. Okay, Mr. President, just keep walking ahead, slow and steady."