"Mr. President, Mr. President . . . they all call me that. Mr. Frigging President. But not you, Gabe Singleton, not you my old friend. My roomie. You must call me Drew. Call me Drew and I'll trust you. Hey, a rhyme. Call me Drew and I'll trust you. Not like the others. I don't trust any of the others. Just my lovely Carol. Isn't she lovely? Hey, where is she? Where'd she go? And of course sweet Magnus. Sweet, think-of-everything Magnus. How could anyone not trust him? But Tom Frigging Vice President Cooper the Frigging Third—him I don't trust any farther than I can throw him. And Bradford Frigging Dunleavy can't be trusted. He wants to beat my ass in the next election and take this house away from us. Have us evicted. And the frigging Chinese. When it comes to trust, they are just the worst of all. . . . I can't stop rocking, Dr. Gabe . . . back and forth . . . forth and back. Help me stop rocking and I'll double your salary. You know who you really can't trust? It's the Arabs you really can't trust, that's who. The A-R-A-B-S. . . . Maybe we should just take a little old nuclear device—that's what we call them, devices—and waste the whole lot of them. That'd solve the frigging Middle East crisis once and for all. Might as well take out Israel while we're at it and start all over again. . . ."

Carol Stoddard returned with her hands full of pill bottles, plus an inhaler, and passed them over. Gabe scanned them one by one, setting each on the bedside table. None of them differed from what he already knew Stoddard was taking.

With Ellis Wright's words booming in stereo in his brain, Gabe moved cautiously toward the bedside opposite where Carol was standing.

"The Twenty-fifth Amendment deals with the inability of the president to reliably conduct the duties of his office. . . . I want you to review the presidential law of succession and memorize the Twenty-fifth Amendment."

"Drew," Gabe said gently but firmly, "there's something going on here with you that's not quite right."

"Not quite right . . . not quite right." Stoddard sang the words to the tune of "lit-tle lamb, lit-tle lamb."

Gabe felt an ice-water chill. Somewhere in the building, a military aide was approaching, bearing The Football—the buttons and codes that could, effectively, end all life on Earth, codes that could be triggered by one man and one man only. His mind struggled with only minimal success to wrap itself around the enormity of the situation. He glanced at Carol and then at Lattimore to confirm that they, too, were aware of the awesome implications of what was transpiring before them, but their expressions validated nothing.

"Drew, is it okay if I do a little examination of you? I want to get to the bottom of this."

"I see the answers."

"Drew, is it okay if I check you over?"

"The answers to all questions."