Greg Bear - Mariposa

She now had four assistants, each with hill staff or Library of Congress experience. This morning, they were guided through metal detectors and whiffers and inspected by a row of small but intrusive imaging machines. One staffer-Judith, the oldest at thirty-four-bragged she now knew more about her intestinal tract than she ever wanted to.

Rebecca put Judith in charge of the team. She did this despite her instinct that Judith was a spy for Thalia Ripper. Ripper was providing cover for Rebecca's work. It was only natural for her to want to know the details, day by day.

Each staffer was accompanied into a small restroom and provided with special clothing. Rebecca was allowed to wear her own clothes.

To put a cap on the strangeness, at the end of the day, they all submitted to blood tests. No one explained why.

Rebecca joked that someone must have found a new way to smuggle information. "I've got a copy machine in my tummy."

The doctor drawing her sample avoided her eyes and did not smile.

So far, the research was routine. Quinn had been vetted by the FBI before being chosen as running mate, and by the CIA before the election-the latter investigation conducted in strict secrecy and without the campaign's knowledge. Other divisions-the far-flung branches of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense-had conducted their own investigations, in greater or lesser degrees of internal secrecy, just to know what to expect if these folks ever happened to move into the White House.

This morning, Rebecca's entourage passed a group of trim men and women in black suits, escorting a man she recognized from online photos and videos: William Raphkind, the solemn young governor of New Jersey. Raphkind was on the short list to be appointed vice president once Quinn was formally removed, which would be any day. No doubt he was being vetted even more thoroughly than Quinn.

There was a lot about candidate vetting that the public was ignorant of. Bureaucrats-the behind-the-scenes power brokers in Washington-looked on elected and appointed officials much as the servants of a castle looked on newly resident royalty, but with considerably less respect. Jobs were at stake, but also legacies. Quinn had probably been investigated on the sly a dozen times by private beltway security firms. Most of those documents had been deep-sixed on the night of the election. No one knew if any still existed, because they had never existed in the first place.

For all of that, nobody had found much in Quinn's life beyond the usual youthful embarrassments and middle-aged fluctuations of emotion. A good husband and father. Quick temper, some said; others, a strong command presence that brooked no nonsense. The usual executive-level male forcefulness, which Rebecca, personally, could take or leave. She had known worse offenders in that regard who had also been excellent agents.

For a man severely wounded, Quinn had glided back into civilian life in a relatively smooth slope and with a soft landing-welcome return to loving family, wife pregnant with their first child-and then selection, nomination, election, and transition into major public office.

Party recruiters had apparently been grooming Quinn's image even while he was in Iraq, and there was considerable press coverage of his exploits-but less information about the violent 2007 incident in Fallujah that had left him with scars and medals.

Rebecca kept the gray military box and its records on that incident beside her at all times. It radiated political and tactical self-protection.

Investigations of "encounters" involving civilian deaths had become routine, almost cookie-cutter by that chaotic stage of the war. No one in the Bush administration or in the Pentagon had wanted anything to obscure the success of the Surge, which after four years of trial and error, had finally been appreciable, then considerable-until the final combat draw-down, followed within two years by civil war and the end of all hope for sustained political influence in that part of the Middle East.

Rebecca sat before the small desk and arranged five manila folders in a tall rectangle. Three flat displays relayed the morning's news and interdepartmental text feeds. She looked them over with a pruned-up face, then glanced down at the folders.

Laid her hands beside them.

Something had been left out or trimmed away; she knew it instinctively. But she wasn't sure she actually trusted that instinct. One of the first lessons drummed into those who would be law enforcement professionals, who must for the sake of public safety study the behavior and misbehavior of others, is the Prime Error: projecting one's own biography and experience over another's.

She rearranged the folders as if searching for a perfect combination.

I am not Quinn. But a career in the FBI, one big bomb in Washington state-one extraordinary day in Mecca. I've lived through a lot of violence and I've seen a lot of death. Didn't exactly leave me ready to smoothly transition back into the peacetime world. Messed with my head; I folded.

I sought treatment.

Quinn had lived on the outskirts of hell for over a year and a half. Twenty-three civilians killed in the middle of a fierce firefight, a convoy pinned down for two hours. And yet… no emotional scars. No recurring nightmares, no long hours of lying in bed sweating in a freezing room, jumping or shrieking at loud noises, seeing the faces of the dead come back like a string of ghosts hanging off the tail of a Chinese junk.

For Quinn, apparently, nothing like the awfulness that had pushed Rebecca into special therapy.

Another big bomb… Maybe I'll fold again, who knows?

She tapped her stylus at the bottom left folder, rearranged them one more time.

Lieutenant Colonel Edward Quinn had reacted to combat and injury like a hero, a true candidate for public office. Nothing could be allowed to get in the way of those goals. People did not like weaklings in the White House.

Judith rolled in another cart.

"Hey," Rebecca said, and raised her hand like a girl in class.

"Yes, ma'am." Judith stood quietly beside the cart.

"Where would an important, well-connected politician go in this town to solve a personal problem?"

"What sort of problem?"

"Psychological. Potential for political fallout. The Betty Ford clinic?"

"Quinn no longer drinks, stopped taking drugs back when he was a soldier-ma'am. You know that." Judith frowned and thought this through. "Are you asking about combat related problems?"

Rebecca shook her head. No sense playing her hand just yet. "I'm fishing. I'd like a list of all the treatment centers for embarrassing disorders of any sort… to be made available, by major donors or partisan groups, to a man being groomed for high office. Expensive, discreet. When am I scheduled to meet with Quinn?"

"Tomorrow morning, 10:30 am, at Cumberland, ma'am."

"Cumberland?" Rebecca swung around in her chair. "I thought he was at Fort McNair."

Judith looked at her slate of appointments. "He was transferred yesterday to a terrorist compound at Cumberland. No explanation." She pressed her lips into an incurious line.

Washington D.C.

Rebecca walked around the mall in the lengthening shadows. Baumann usually managed to stay out of her line of sight when she jogged, but this evening, she said she needed complete privacy to meet with a reluctant informant. A half hour of hot debate and Rebecca had threatened to call the president. Baumann had turned red, made his own call-and relented.

She had snuck out at 5:00 pm and now, half an hour later, was thoroughly enjoying the lovely feel of no bandage or ankle brace, and both of her feet shod in the latest high-tech sneakers, one luxury she could never cure herself of-the cop's best friend, great shoes.