One main question about the missing tubes refused to go away: If Alison was, indeed, responsible for the theft, how had she known they were there? His plan had been to determine, through Lattimore and one of the senior docs on the White House staff, how to send the blood off for routine chemistries and hematology, along with some toxicology, without giving any hint as to their source.

How had Alison known about the samples?

If she had been planted in the office to gain his confidence and learn about the president's medical status, who was pulling her strings? The questions far outstripped their answers.

"Gabe? . . . It's not like you think."

Her words rattled around in his head. His coolness toward her was hardly subtle, but did she understand where it was coming from? He warned himself against letting her oblique comment affect his judgment. As far as he could tell, no one—not the president, not the First Lady, not the chief of staff, not Alison—had been absolutely straight with him since he stepped off the plane at Andrews AFB. Now it was time to see what LeMar Stoddard's warning was all about.

"Tom Cooper is a Brutus, and as things stand, he's just waiting until after the election to begin to assert himself and to take credit for Drew's achievements."

"Wrangler, Wrangler, are you on? Over."

With all the things Gabe had found difficult about his new position, one of those things he had absolutely enjoyed was being part of the intricate Secret Service radio system, with its jargon, monikers, and code words.

"This is Wrangler. I'm in my office. Over."

"We'll be by with your patient in two minutes. Over and out."

During his first week on the job, Gabe hadn't said ten words to the man who was a heartbeat away from the presidency. What Gabe knew about him was pretty much what he had heard in the barbershop in Tyler and on the car radio while headed into work.

Cooper, once the junior senator from Montana, was in his second term when Drew selected him from half a dozen or so possibilities to be his running mate. From what Gabe remembered, the selection was more political than ideological. Northwest joins Southeast; impoverished backwoods upbringing joins privilege and vast wealth; laconic, Lincolnesque country music musician joins slick, charismatic war hero; moderate pragmatist joins intellectual visionary.