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on his polished desk. He rubbed it, the smoothness of the shimmering old oak grain almost sensual to his touch. It had been built from the timbers of one of the navy’s first warships, and had been used in the Oval Office by President Lyndon Johnson. Buchanan allowed himself a private smile. Old LBJ. Now there was someone who was never afraid to exercise power. He would thump men on the chest when he was talking to them to make sure they got the message, personally telephone reporters in the middle of the night to harass them, and when a Marine guard once advised Johnson that his helicopter was waiting, the President replied, “Son, they’re all my helicopters.” Maybe, Buchanan thought, some of Lyndon’s magic was still in the wood of the ancient sailing ship.
    He savored the moment. There was nothing better than this, not even sex. Buchanan had controlled the emergency conference on an international crisis and, with a simple instruction, had set in motion a scramble that would ricochet throughout the U.S. government until a low-ranking naval officer was found on a boat and fetched back from half a world away. He gathered his briefing book and headed toward the Oval Office. Power. Delicious.

CHAPTER 8
    SENATOR THOMAS GRAHAM Miller, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, pushed away the remains of a seafood dinner, stood, and gave a crisp salute to the three hundred cheering veterans who had paid $1,000 each to be with him tonight, paratroopers all. He was proud to be one of them, for when he was young, he, too, had worn the distinctive shoulder patch of the 82nd Airborne Division. He could always count on his fellow vets to help fill the election coffers, but they were more than cash cows to him, just as Miller was more than just another politician to them. This was his Band of Brothers. It irritated him that the Screaming Eagles of the 101st always got the good publicity.
    Miller had used his military benefits to get his college education, then a law degree, and became an aggressive prosecutor. He rode a record of achievement, impeccable behavior, and honesty to a seat in the House of Representatives for six years before he was fifty years old, then vaulted to the Senate, where he was in the middle of his third term. He still had the build of an airborne trooper, ran every morning, and was a bachelor. His wife and infant daughter had died when the birth went horribly twenty years ago, and he never remarried. The image of such a strong and handsome man also being a brokenhearted husband and father made the ladies wilt. Instead of family, Miller devoted himself to the men and women of the armed forces of the United States, even the damned 101st.
    He had begun this long day in Washington, and after lunch he went down to Fort Campbell to view an afternoon jump, some five hundred troopers pouring out of the fat bellies of transport planes from five thousand feet. Miller could almost feel the familiar jerk of the parachute harness as the chutes blossomed like sky flowers and the soldiers drifted to earth. When they landed, formed up, and conducted a maneuver, he felt a tear in his eye, as if he saw himself as one of those strong youngsters who could leap out of a plane, fight, and have energy left over.
    After the drop, Miller had scheduled three “political events” across the state, which meant he was grazing for campaign money, and was ending the day at this fine dinner in Louisville. He rolled out his tried-and-true stump speech for a friendly audience, bounding to the podium with gusto, smiling and saluting and waving and pointing to individuals. The senator squinted into the bright lights and made a slightly off-color soldiers’ joke to put everyone at ease. The lapel bar of a Silver Star flashed in the light, and the slight limp in his right leg silently proved that he also had been awarded a Purple Heart. He did not need notes, for he knew this speech cold.
    “The armed forces of the United States are