Michael Palmer - The First Patient

"They gave you up, Alison… All I had to do was make one phone call and they gave you up. How's that for respect?"

So , enter the hero."

The President of the United States, wearing a white terry-cloth robe and matching flip-flops, greeted Gabe in the living room of the White House residence. Even though it was only ten in the evening, two or three hours before Stoddard's bedtime, the weariness enveloping his eyes seemed even more pronounced than usual.

"Hero?" Gabe asked.

"Evon Mayo, Lily Sexton's assistant, called and told us what happened. She said the doctors told her your treatment in the woods might well have saved Lily's life. Apparently, in addition to her broken shoulder, she punctured a lung and was in danger of bleeding to death."

"There really wasn't that much I could do out there, but I make it a policy never to dissuade people from thinking I'm a hero."

"For some reason, I don't think I believe either part of that statement," Stoddard said.

"I stayed at Fauquier Hospital in Warrenton with her until they had inserted a chest tube, given her a unit of blood, and she was stabilized. For a small place-or even a big place for that matter-that hospital's really quite terrific. Reminds me of ours back home. If you could send out a presidential something or other to them, I know they'd appreciate it."

"Done," the president said without even writing a memo.

And Gabe had no doubt it would be.

"Good hospital or not," he said, "Lily wants university people to take care of her shoulder, and they have a helipad right next to the ER, so tomorrow morning if she's ready to travel, she'll be flown to Georgetown."

"So, what happened out there? Lily's a hell of an experienced rider. I've been out on those trails with her myself, and she's come riding with me and Carol from the stables near Camp David a couple of times as well. Makes me look like a tenderfoot."

Gabe had been preparing for this moment throughout the drive from Warrenton back to the capital. It was time Drew learned some of what was swirling around him. Not all yet, but some.

"A man shot at us from the woods. A rifle. Black ski mask, black clothes. Wasn't much of a marksman-certainly not by Wyoming standards. From the distance separating us and him, he should have at least hit one of the horses, but he hit nothing except a tree trunk eight or so feet from us. Lily's horse reared and threw her. I suppose mine was already worn-out from lugging me up the trail. He just stayed put."

"Black ski mask, black clothes, out there in the woods where you two just happened to be… doesn't sound like a whacko to me."

"I don't think he was."

"So, was he trying to kill Lily?"

"Me," Gabe said simply.

Stoddard's look of surprise was fleeting.

"You sounded sure it was a he," he said. "I had the feeling you had more to tell me."

Gabe paused as he prepared to pull his finger from the dike. To say his onetime roommate had more than enough on his plate was a gross understatement, but now it was time to pour on a little more.

"This is the second time since I arrived here that someone has tried to kill me," Gabe said finally. "I think they were the same guy."

Eyes narrowed, Stoddard listened impassively as Gabe reviewed the botched shooting on G Street. He saved his questions until Gabe was done.

"You said this man would have killed you if you hadn't been rear-ended at that exact moment?"

"That's correct. Assuming it's the same man, after watching him with a rifle I don't think he's any kind of a professional hit man. But even he couldn't have missed me from five feet."

"And the collision was a fortuitous accident?"

Stoddard, as usual, was right on top of things. Gabe was prepared for the question. First Alison, then the call from Ferendelli, and finally the bizarre finding off the lower level of Lily Sexton's home. He was beginning to buckle under the weight of the secrets he was keeping from the man who had brought him to Washington. During the ride back from the hospital in Warrenton, he had worked out what he was going to share with the president and where he was going to draw the line-at least until he had more information.

"The person who banged into me and probably saved my life was following me purposefully," he said. "Tailing me."

"To hurt you?"

"No. I think to protect me."

"Do you want to tell me who that was?"

"I don't, Drew. I sort of promised to think carefully before I told anyone. But I'm prepared to now."

Again, Gabe could see Stoddard's intellect rapidly processing the information as it had been presented so far.

"Whoever this is was tailing you from the White House at two in the morning?"

"Yes."

"Secret Service?"

Gabe wasn't surprised at how quickly the president put things together. This was a man who, after the accident at Fairhaven, had gone from being a middle-of-the-pack student at Annapolis to first in his class, to a governorship, and finally, to the presidency.

"Working undercover," Gabe replied.

"To what end? At whose order?"

"I can answer the second question, but I'm not so certain about the first. The head of internal affairs sent the agent in. I think the goal was to learn how much truth there was to-"

"To the rumors that I was going nuts," Stoddard said.

"Yes, sir, plus maybe to search for information that might shed some light on what happened to Jim Ferendelli."

Again, Gabe could almost feel the president working through the facts, reasoning out the possibilities.

"It's that woman, isn't it," he said suddenly, "that nurse my pal Mike Posnick in California called me about, asking me to set her up in the Secret Service."

"Alison Cromartie. Yes, Mr. President, it is."

"And she was in Baltimore with us, right? I thought I knew her from someplace else. I'd only met her once, maybe a couple of years ago. Interesting looking."

"I have to agree."

Stoddard glanced over at Gabe with something of a glint. He grinned momentarily. Then just as quickly his expression darkened.

"They're closing in, Gabe," he said. "Like goddamn hyenas smelling the rot, they're closing in."

He took a computer printout from the floor next to him and passed it over. It was a nationally syndicated column from the Montgomery Mirror , based on the latest Gallup Poll numbers, which indicated a drop in the Democrats' lead from 12 to 8 percent-the smallest gap since shortly after the Republican Convention.

WHERE THERE'S SCHMUCK, THERE'S FIRE

Question: What chief executive risked his health and the leadership of this country in a grandstand play at a Baltimore meeting of big-bucks liberal supporters? You see, the chief executive in question was in the midst of an asthma attack severe enough to cause him to break off his speech in the middle. And we all know how severe that must have been. Was it the behavior of a rational man to return to the podium after just a few minutes of treatment?

I think not.

Perhaps the rumors swirling about the nation's capital have some truth to them-maybe a lot of truth. The rumors are telling us that a good deal of the time the man in the golden chair, with the golden boy looks and the liberal, suck-gold-from-the-workingman philosophy, is showing an irrationality that can only be called Nixonesque. That's right, that's right, Tricky Dick was a Republican and here I am bashing him in a way most foul-by lumping him in with he who should not be named.

Well, crazy is nondenominational and apolitical, and if our chief executive, the man with his pointer finger on the BIG BUTTON, is losing it, I don't care what party he is. So, Prez, I say be afraid of these latest poll numbers. Be very afraid. The American public is getting concerned about what I have known all along-namely, that you are not all there. You're not the first chief exec to try and keep big secrets from us law-abiding wage earners, and you undoubtedly won't be the last. I suspect that by the time your poll numbers and Brad Dunleavy's cross for the final time, we'll know the truth.