“I think that was coincidence,” Lowen said. “If they were timing it, they would have waited until Nascimento was back in the office.”

“Which would have meant you would have died, too,” Prescott said.

“Which would have suited their purposes of distraction even more,” Lowen said. “Blowing up the daughter of the secretary of state would definitely have drawn the focus of the United States. Another reason to assume the bomb was set in motion a long time ago.”

“When I present your theory to the secretary, I’m going to leave that last part out,” Prescott said. He pulled out his PDA to take notes. “I’m sure you’ll understand why.”

“That’s perfectly fine,” Lowen said.

“Huh,” Prescott said, looking at his PDA.

“What?” Lowen asked.

“I’m sending you a news link that was just forwarded to me,” Prescott said.

Lowen pulled out her PDA and opened the link; it was a news story on her tending to the injured on Sixth Avenue after the explosion. There was video of her kneeling over a prone woman.

“Oh, come on,” Lowen said. “She wasn’t even hurt. She just freaked out and collapsed when the bomb went off.”

“Check your message queue,” Prescott said.

Lowen did. There were several dozen media requests for interviews. “Gaaah,” she said, throwing her PDA onto the table, away from her. “I’ve become part of the distraction.”

“I take it this means the State Department should say you’re unavailable for interviews at this time,” Prescott said.

“Or ever,” Lowen said. She went to get some coffee to self-medicate for her quickly approaching headache.

*   *   *

Lowen ended up doing six interviews: one for The New York Times, one for The Washington Post, two morning news shows and two audio programs. In each she smiled and explained that she was just doing her job, which was not strictly true, as she had given up the daily practice of medicine to work for the U.S. State Department, and anyway her specialty had been hematology. But no one called her on it, because the story of the daughter of the secretary of state arriving like a healing angel at the scene of a terrorist act was too feel-good to mess with.

Lowen cringed as her picture was splashed across screens all over the planet for two whole news cycles, the second news cycle prompted when she received a call from the president, who thanked her for her service to the nation. Lowen thanked the president for the call and made a note to yell at her father, who had undoubtedly set up the media op for his boss, who had to contend with midterm elections and could use a spot of positive public relations.