"Even you can't do much about a virus. Did Admiral Wright talk to you about the medical team?"

"Not a word, why?"

"I guess he went ahead and put the team together himself. From now on, if you want to select the team to accompany us for travel in the States or overseas, you just go ahead and do it. I'll make sure ol' Ramrod doesn't get in your way."

"Mr. President," Treat Griswold called out, "I think we'd best get a move on."

"Gabe, on the ride up to Baltimore I've got to go over the speech that's just been written for me. I thought there might be time for us to gab during the trip, but no such luck. You can still ride in Stagecoach with us, or you can go in Spare, that's the other limo, if you want."

"Attention all posts," Gabe heard Griswold say from close by and also through his earpiece, "Maverick moving to Stagecoach. Departure imminent. Over. . . . Okay, Doc, Mr. President, ready to roll?"

As Gabe stepped out into the bright sunlight, he couldn't help but be awed by the clutch of photographers and reporters lining the short walk to the motorcade, as well as by the motorcade itself, which, minus two limousines, was parked along the recently renovated stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue, closed to motorized traffic at all times except on occasions like this one. A dozen or more huge vans waited—nine- and twelve-seaters, Gabe guessed—along with eight D.C. motorcycle police on Harleys, with blue strobes flashing. In baseball, the glitter and crowds and private jets and plush clubhouses of the major leagues were often referred to collectively as The Show. At that moment, those words were the only description Gabe could think of.

The Show.

The two identical black Cadillac limousines were parked on the driveway that arced to the steps of the White House.

"Stagecoach is number one today," Griswold said, hurrying his party of three—Gabe, the president, and a young, lanky, bespectacled speech-writer introduced by Stoddard simply as Martin—to the lead limo.

As they reached the bottom of the staircase, over the roof of the limo Gabe caught sight of Tim Gerrity, an Air Force physician's assistant, whom he had gotten to know fairly well over the short time since his arrival at the White House and who seemed to know more medicine than most physicians but was unassuming enough not to show off. Gerrity was standing in front of what Gabe assumed was the medical van. Today the medical support team had been selected by Admiral Ellis Wright, but from now on, if Gabe so wished, the president had decreed he could pick his own team.