Gabe had just done so when she said, "Gretchen, just a second, please. Dr. Singleton, this was on my desk when I came back from running some errands a little while ago."

She handed him a plain white business envelope with DR. GABRIEL SINGLETON typed on the front but no address. At that moment, the inner office door was pulled open. He slipped the envelope into his jacket pocket as he was greeted with a noncommittal smile, curt nod, and brief handshake by the doc on duty this day, a Navy captain named Nick McCall.

The greeting wasn't the least bit disconcerting to Gabe. There was still a coolness and formality toward him on the part of most of the other physicians assigned to the White House Medical Unit—no surprise, especially with Admiral Ellis Wright running the show from his position as chief of the White House Military Office and boss of everyone on the unit staff . . . except for the president's personal, civilian physician.

"Any word from the POTUS?" Gabe asked, closing the office door gently behind him.

"Not since you were here earlier. Not a word. He's been in a meeting in the dining room for about an hour. Magnus just called and said he'd be up here to get you in a few minutes."

"Fine."

"Gabe, I'm really sorry we haven't had much chance to talk. I've been scrambling to catch up with everything I let drop after Jim Ferendelli vanished."

"Any theories about that?"

McCall shook his head.

"It makes no sense. Jim seemed like a pretty low-key guy, totally devoted to the president and to doing a good job. There are still a slew of FBI and Secret Service people beating the bushes for him, and rumors are still flying."

"Well, there's nothing I'd like better than to see him walk through that door right now."

"How's it been going for you so far?"

"I went from seeing like thirty patients a day in my practice back in Wyoming to seeing one here, and I'm totally exhausted. What do you make of that?"

"The strain of having your one patient be the most powerful man on Earth will tend to do that to you. Don't worry, you'll be seeing more cases as time goes by. An hour or so ago I had a maintenance man with chest pain and hyperacute changes of an MI on his EKG. That was sort of exciting. We just finished cleaning up."

"You have everything you needed?"

"Pretty much, except maybe a couple of more hands and a dozen or so more square feet of treatment room space, but we did okay. IV, nitrates, oxygen, morphine, aspirin, bloods drawn. He was pretty stable by the time the ambulance arrived."

Bloods!