The First Patient

For a time Porter stood motionless, his eyes adjusting to the gloom. With no great effort, he closed his senses to the stench of garbage, filth, urine, whiskey, and vermin. He had encountered worse. Stretched out before him, spaced on either side, was a gauntlet of cardboard appliance containers and makeshift lean-tos.

Every four years, as the world descended on Washington for the inauguration of a new or returning American president, police would swoop down and roust the denizens of the Levalee underpass and other such places from their fetid homes, at times even putting the makeshift villages to the torch. But within a short while, like a forest recovering from a volcano, the space would begin to fill with life once again until soon it was indistinguishable from the village that had preceded it. With a presidential election just a few months away, it would not be long before the cycle commenced once more. But at the moment, no one in the Levalee underpass was concerned with anything but the intruder.

Aware of the dozens of eyes following him, Porter pi

Certain the denizens of the tu

"A hundred bucks," Porter was saying to one of the men, loudly enough for everyone to hear. "Tell me where this here man is and a hundred is yours. Don't tell me, and one of you is go

Over the years, Porter had taken great pains to keep his heavy Mississippi drawl intact. There had been times when his dense accent had actually fed into a mark's southern stereotype and put them at ease. Their mistake.

"White man, five ten, dark hair, fifty-five, thin body, narrow face. Speak up now. I'm losin' my patience, and believe me, you don't want that to happen."

Nothing.

Porter inched ahead, shifting his focus from one side of the tu

"You there, you seen this man?… A hundred bucks is a pile a money."

The gnarled, wizened man, kneeling placidly beside his refrigerator carton home, stared at Porter with vacant, rheumy eyes and shook his head. Then he coughed up a dense wad of phlegm and spit it in Porter's direction.

Without a moment's hesitation, Porter pulled out his pistol and from less than ten feet away shot the old man through the eye.

Silence.

"I'm go

"He's gone!" someone called out.

Porter whirled to the voice and fixed the intense beam on the man it belonged to. The hobo blocked the brightness with his hands.

"When?" Porter demanded.

"J-just now when you got here. Out-out that way."

"Fuck you, Frank," someone called out. "The doc was good to us."

"Here, Frank," Porter said, throwing a bill at him. "Go nuts."

Porter raced to the end of the tu

Nothing.

Finally, without a glance back at the old man he had just killed, Carl Eric Porter disappeared up the embankment.

For ten minutes beneath the Levalee overpass the only sounds were the rasping breathing of forty men and women, the clearing of inflamed throats, and the occasional lighting of a cigarette. Then, from deep within a makeshift duct-taped cardboard home at the end of the tu

"What do you think, Santiago?" he asked of the cachectic man sitting on the dirt outside the opening.

"I think he is gone," the man said with a heavy Spanish accent, "but I also think he might come back."

"Did he hurt someone?"

"He killed old Gordon. Just like that. Shot him like he was nothing."

"Damn. I'm sorry, Santiago."

"Frank saved you, I think."

"I heard him. That was quick thinking-by all of you."

"You were always good to us in the clinic."

"I need to go, Santiago. Thank you for sheltering me. I'm so sorry about Gordon. Thank Frank and the others for me, too."

"We wish you well, Doctor."

Still on all fours, Ferendelli crawled cautiously to the tu

CHAPTER 6

Gabe stood near the doorway leading from the stylish Red Room to the glittering State Dining Room. To his right, a string quartet was playing what might have been Mozart. To his left, popular Vice President Tom Cooper III and his wife were chatting with the Secretary of State. Scattered throughout the room were leaders of both parties as well as members of Drew's cabinet. Calvyn Berriman, the President of Botswana, was across the room, shaking hands with a steady stream of dignitaries and simultaneously nodding politely at any number of passersby.

Gabe was unable to suppress a sardonic smile. He strongly suspected that only he of all those present at the formal di

Still, although even he had to acknowledge he had come far since his days in an orange prison jumpsuit, it was possible that, in some ways, he felt more at ease among the murderers and other felons than he did right now. He had voiced his concern to the president and the White House social secretary, begging to be left off the guest list for the di

"You're handling yourself well, Doctor."

Chief of Staff Magnus Lattimore had materialized at Gabe's elbow. He was a slightly built, kinetic man with a boyish face, carrot hair, and the vestiges of a brogue. Of all the president's men, Gabe had learned the most about him-Scottish immigrant, Harvard grad, tireless, smart in many senses of the word, decisive, meticulous, not the least afraid of stepping on toes, and blessed with a rapier wit that at times could be devastating. He was also, it was clear to Gabe, absolutely devoted to Andrew Stoddard, his presidency, and his reelection.