Before Gabe could respond, the First Lady was gone. He flashed on the envy he had felt when he arrived in D.C. and first saw her and Drew together—the perfect, beautiful First Couple, leading the country together into a cultural, political, and social renaissance. Now he reflected on one of many wise observations by his original AA sponsor—this one dealing with the dangers inherent in going through life comparing your insides to everyone else's outsides.

He took the elevator down to the first floor, where he identified the tubes of blood he had drawn by using his Tyler phone number in reverse and set them in the small refrigerator in the clinic.

One fascinating vignette he had come across in his reading involved President Bill Clinton's knee injury and subsequent surgery. The president was on a golfing vacation in Florida when his knee buckled while he was walking down a short flight of stairs. His quadriceps muscle had torn in two and snapped off the patellar tendon. A White House Medical Unit physician, on duty nearby, immobilized the leg and arranged for immediate transportation to the nearest hospital. Already waiting there was Clinton's personal physician, who, as usual, was part of the medical team caring for the chief executive when he was away from the White House. From that moment until Clinton's surgery at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, and even after the muscle and tendon repair was completed, his physician had two major decisions to make—pain control and anesthesia.

Never far from Clinton throughout the ordeal was the military aide bearing the codes for unleashing nuclear missiles as well as an agreement forged between Clinton and Vice President Al Gore regarding situations in which the reins of government would be turned over to Gore.

Together, Clinton and his doctor decided that the only pain medication he would receive would be anti-inflammatories with no central nervous system effects. In addition, with the approval of the orthopedic surgeons at Bethesda Naval, he would receive epidural anesthesia, and so would be awake and alert throughout his surgery. The two-hour procedure and Clinton's recovery went off without a hitch.

In print it all sounded so straightforward, so simple. Gabe wondered how Clinton's personal physician would have handled a situation like the one he was enduring now. It seemed doubtful that if Drew Stoddard had a doc other than his friend and college roommate he would still be president. Then Gabe remembered that, in fact, until just a couple of weeks ago, Stoddard did have a different doc and he was still the president. Gabe also realized that at no point had he been told the precise nature of the agreement between Stoddard and Thomas Cooper III.