Instantly Gabe felt himself tense. On the surface, the woman's question was innocent enough, but the transition to it seemed awkward and given that he had just announced he was going to sleep, the timing felt forced. Was she trying to take advantage of the hour, and the rescue, and the intimacy generated by telling her story in order to pump him for information about Drew, or was he just sensitized and overreading the situation?

What if the whole scenario with the gunman was a setup—a nifty maneuver to gain his trust? What if Alison had been placed in the White House clinic not because she was a nurse, but because she was an attractive, beguiling nurse? What if this whole affair was nothing more than further proof that Dr. Gabe Singleton was playing out of his league and should never have left Wyoming?

"I've got to go now," he said abruptly.

And before Alison could react, he was gone.

CHAPTER 13

Gabe lay facedown on LeMar Stoddard's king-size bed, trying unsuccessfully to will himself to sleep. He had come to D.C. to replace a physician who had disappeared, and now he himself had almost been killed. At least that was the way it looked. Eyes closed, he envisioned Alison Cromartie's expression as he stood abruptly and left her by the river. She was clearly surprised, but was that because she expected him to tell her what was going on with the president? Was she or whoever she was working for trying to expand on some rumors—some half-truths they might have learned about the chief executive's health?

What she said about the futility and possible negative fallout of reporting the drive-by attack to the police made perfect sense. Still, it seemed, he had to do something more than merely allow her to get LeMar's car fixed and have the bullet examined. He had to share what had happened with someone. Lattimore? Treat Griswold? Admiral Wright? The president himself?

Even more important, he had to decide what to do about the recurrent attacks of insanity in the commander in chief of the most powerful armed force in history. For a time he tried to imagine what Nixon's final days in office had really been like—pacing the empty halls of the White House, allegedly holding animated conversations with the ghosts of Lincoln, Wilson, and other presidents past; down on his knees, blubbering like a child to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. From all Gabe could tell, Nixon had lost his grip well before that last, fateful walk to the waiting helicopter. How long had the finger of that madman rested on the button that could have killed hundreds of millions? Days? . . . Weeks? . . . Even longer?

Had Kissinger, Ford, and others somehow banded together and formulated a plan to bypass any orders from Nixon that they felt were not in the best interests of the country . . . and of the rest of mankind?