"Creative writing."

Before anyone could comment, the limousine stopped in front of a side entrance to the Baltimore Convention Center.

"Attention all posts," Griswold said to his sleeve, "Maverick moving toward BCC entrance. Over. . . . Okay, sir, Doc, we're going in that door, then up to the third floor. Stairs or elevator?"

"Stairs will be fine," Stoddard said.

"Let's do the elevator," Gabe countered before he had even processed the significance of overruling the most powerful man on the planet.

There was a moment of absolute quiet.

"We're going to head directly for the elevator," Griswold announced through the radio, scooping the submachine gun off the floor with his free hand. "Over."

The limousine doors were opened simultaneously, and the four occupants stepped out to be immediately engulfed by a buffer of Secret Service men. Griswold, ever observant, remained positioned next to the president, sunlight glinting off the balding area of his pate and the perspiration on the fold of his thick neck. Gabe flashed briefly on an image of the man, looking a bit like the mutant comic book hero the Thing, exploding through a massive cement and fieldstone wall to get at the source of danger to the president.

When they were inside, Gabe switched on his transmitter, pleased again to be playing the radio game.

"This is Wrangler to medical team, Wrangler to medical team. Over."

"We're here, Wrangler," Alison's satiny voice replied. "Unloading now. We'll meet you on three. Over."

"Be sure you have the FAT kit, an IV stand, and an oh-two tank. Over."

"Roger that. FAT kit, IV stand, and oxygen. Everything okay? Over."

"Better to not need it and have it," Gabe said, feeling the comfort and security of being a practicing doc once more. "See you on three. Over."

"Three."

"Breathe in . . . now out. . . ."

Cloistered behind a ten-by-ten-foot barrier of dark blue velvet drapes, Gabe conducted as thorough an exam of his patient as he could manage in the twelve minutes that had been allotted him. He wasn't all that alarmed by what he was seeing and hearing, but neither was he totally at ease. The president was wheezing—the sine qua non symptom of asthma. The sound, in this case not audible without a stethoscope, was caused by narrowing of the man's bronchial tubes, the result of a combination of spasm in the muscular wall of the tubes and plugging of the tubes themselves with mucus.

"So, how do I sound?" Stoddard asked.

"The more important question is: How do you feel?"

"Not bad, really. Something like this happens every other day. I think it's mold. Mold in the limos, mold in the residence, mold at Camp David, mold in my cabinet."

"How did they let you fly jets with this?"

"I didn't really have it back then, but as far as I know, most properly treated medical conditions, including asthma, will still allow a pilot to get a license—even a commercial one. I'm not sure of the military, though."