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strained to make it louder. The paramedic heard, because he met her gaze with a questioning look. “John Davenport. And my mother. The numbers are in my phone. . . .” Which had been in her jacket pocket. She remembered feeling the solid shape of it bumping against her thigh as they put her on the stretcher, but she wasn’t wearing the garment now and—there it was, her jacket, in pieces on a shelf; they must have cut it off her. . . . “Which is in my jacket pocket. Over there.”
    She tried to cut her eyes toward the remnants of her jacket, but already her lids had grown heavy. With a rush of panic so strong it almost countered the effect of whatever drug was now being pumped into her system, she realized she was going under.
    Helpless . . .
    But there was nothing she could do to save herself. Even as darkness overwhelmed her, even as she sank bonelessly into the void, she found herself back in the speeding black Lincoln as it shot off the roadway, and screams, her own included, once again echoed in her ears.

4
    M ark drove straight back to the White House. Although most of the country, and the world, still slept, he knew that the news of Annette Cooper’s death would be sweeping through official and unofficial channels like wildfire. Already the Eighteen Acres, as the White House complex was known, was surrounded by an ever-growing crowd of media. The bright glare of klieg lights as various TV stations reported the First Lady’s death packed enough kilowattage, he was sure, to be visible from the International Space Station. The guard who waved him through the Northeast Guard Booth was ashen. Mark parked his car, then went straight to the basement, to the Secret Service command center. He was tapping in the six-digit code when the door was jerked open from the inside.
    Harris Lowell, the White House chief of staff, stood in the aperture, one hand still on the knob, his expression changing to a glare as he realized who he was looking at. Stocky and florid-faced, with thinning ginger strands of hair arranged in a classic comb-over and bulging blue eyes, the fifty-four-year-old Lowell resembled nothing so much as a bulldog. A bad-tempered bulldog in a two-thousand-dollar pin-striped suit.
    “What the hell happened?”
    Mark shook his head. “I don’t know.”
    “It’s your fucking job to know.”
    “Something got screwed up.”
    “Ya think?” Lowell made a sound that could have been a snort or a bitter laugh. Over Lowell’s shoulder, Mark could see that the command post was surprisingly full for just past two o’clock in the morning. Of course, the team that was supposed to be guarding the First Lady now had nowhere to be, so they obviously had assembled there. There were others, too, besides his people, some who were supposed to be working that shift, some who he could only assume had been brought in by the news. Some were standing, some were sprawled in chairs watching the monitors that streamed what was, for the time of night, a tremendous amount of activity going on in the halls and rooms they guarded. A few walked around, seemingly aimlessly. All were chalky-faced. All had the stunned looks of disaster victims. All were silent. And all had at least one eye on him and the confrontation taking shape in the doorway.
    “The President wants to see you. He wants to ask you some questions.” Lowell brushed past him. Mark caught the door before it could close, and held it open while he turned to look at Lowell.
    “I don’t have any answers for him right now.”
    “Your funeral.” Lowell seemed to realize the infelicitousness of his choice of words, because his expression changed. His cheeks quivered, and the bellicose glare lost a little of its brio. The reality of the First Lady’s death was just beginning to sink in for him, too.
    Funny how the world can change in an instant.
    “Give me a minute, would you?” Mark still felt like he could puke, and he’d had to pull over to pee by the side of the