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taken. It was from somewhere outside the medical center. The message must have been an error or simply meant for someone else.
    Geoff clicked on the “Help” option of the e-mail screen then entered the Traumanet address book just for the hell of it and clicked on “search for sender address.” The search came up empty. The Traumanet address book didn’t include Internet addresses.
    “Everything okay?” Cathy Johannsen asked.
    Geoff continued staring at the cryptic message on the screen. “Yeah, fine. Just got someone else’s e-mail. It’s not the first time.”
    Geoff moved the mouse and deleted the first two messages.

Chapter 5
    R. Phillip Lancaster sat in the rear of his black limousine gazing out the window, his mind lost in thought. He hated Washington in the summertime—the oppressive heat and humidity—and this was the most blistering summer of the last decade.
    Worse yet, it was next to impossible to accomplish anything of substance during the summer months. Key staffers as well as elected officials on the Hill often took their vacations in July, and when they weren’t physically away, their minds were elsewhere, wilting in the heat or wishing they were playing somewhere, anywhere but here. Even the President, a man he had known since their college days at Yale, with whom he shared a reasonably close, but necessarily guarded friendship, seemed less interested in what Lancaster felt were important matters of national security and more interested in going fishing. Might as well close down the shop and hang up a sign: “Sorry, closed ‘til after Labor Day.”
    Frustrating indeed for Lancaster, paragon career intelligence officer, a role he had played for over thirty years, a role that had augmented his value throughout numerous administrations of both political parties but limited his ascendance as well.
    With last year’s election of his long time associate William Cabot to the White House, Lancaster had made the erroneous and atypically naive assumption that friendship would transcend politics and he would be at the helm at Central Intelligence. He felt it, visualized it, tasted it. Political debts intervened, and he was passed over for an inexperienced dolt, Dick Bennington, the President’s former campaign chairman.
    Cabot appointed Lancaster Deputy Director for Science and Technology, but Lancaster wasn’t ready to throw in the towel just yet. His years of training had taught him there was a solution for every seemingly no-win situation. He was resourceful and willing to adjust rules if need be.
    Sixty- two years old, tall, but by no means willowy, his silver, perfectly coiffured hair and aquiline profile telegraphed his blue-blood Bostonian roots. Lips taut, cleft chin resting on his fist, Lancaster peered through the limousine window down the tree-lined street of Alexandria, Virginia. Today, while the rest of Washington was on vacation, R. Phillip Lancaster worked to solve his no-win scenario.
    “Sir, you did say 761, didn’t you?” asked Frank Leber, Lancaster’s bodyguard and personal chauffeur.
    “What’s that, Frank? Yes, 761. You remember which house that is, don’t you?”
    “Yes, sir, Mr. Lancaster. The brick colonial with the white columns, second from the end on Pendleton Street. The same house where the Russian Federal Security Service officer—Solenko was his name, I believe—was debriefed last year.”
    “Your memory constantly amazes me, Frank, though he was a member of military intelligence—not FSS. That defection was quite a coup for our CIA Special Op boys—” Lancaster caught himself mid-sentence, wondering whether Frank Leber really needed to know so much. One slip of the tongue could blow open the entire project. Lancaster was close to his rightful position, the one he was destined to fulfill. He would guard his bits of knowledge like precious gems.
    The limousine turned the corner and paused briefly at the outer gate to the residence, a pause long enough for the