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glowing white stare. Behind the Suburban is a gaudy, white twelfth-grade-prom stretch limousine. Our ride back to the hotel.
    “Everything okay?” an agent with cropped brown hair calls out as he steps around to the front of the Suburban.
    “Yeah . . . of course,” I say, swallowing hard and knowing better than to put him in panic. Jumping down the last three steps, my heart’s racing so fast, I feel like it’s about to kick through my chest. I continue to scan the alleyway. Nothing but empty dumpsters, a few police motorcycles, and the mini-motorcade.
    The stairs . . .
    I spin back to the doorway, but it’s already too late. The door slams shut with a sonic boom, locking from the inside.
    “Relax,” the agent calls out. “I got the key right here.”
    He jogs up the stairs and flips through his key ring. “Manning still on time?” he asks.
    “Yeah . . . he’s perfect . . . right on time . . .”
    The agent studies me carefully, fishing through his keys. “Sure you’re okay, Wes?” he asks, pulling the door open as I run back inside. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

 
    4
    H e’s long gone.
    A half hour later, after the final question in the President’s Q&A (“
Do you miss the White House?
”), I’m sitting in the back of the prom limo, trying to read the President’s mood.
    “The crowd was good,” Manning offers.
    That means
they were flat.
    “I agree,” I tell him.
    That means
I understand.
Foreign speeches are always tough—the audience misses half the jokes, and Manning feels sorry for himself because the whole country no longer stops at his arrival.
    In the front of the car, two of our Secret Service guys are dead silent, not even whispering into their radios. That means they’re nervous. Back at the Arts Center, I reported the fact that I saw someone by the dressing rooms. When they asked for a description, I gave them everything I saw, though I left out his eye color and the fact it looked like Boyle.
Uh, yeah, it was our dead deputy chief of staff we buried eight years ago.
There’s a fine line between being careful and looking like a whackjob.
    As our car lurches to a stop in front of the Palace of the Golden Horses—Asia’s most luxurious and overdecorated horse-themed hotel—three different valets open the limo’s door. “Welcome back, Mr. President.”
    Well accustomed to dealing with VIPs, the Palace has eighteen elevators and seventeen different staircases to sneak inside. Last time we were here, we used at least half of them. Today, I asked the Service to take us straight through the front door.
    “
There he is . . . There he is . . .
” simultaneous voices call out as we hit the lobby. A pack of American tourists are already pointing, searching for pens in their fanny packs. We’ve been spotted, which was the goal. Secret Service looks to me. I look to Manning. It’s his call, though I already know the answer.
    The President nods slightly, pretending he’s doing a favor. But no matter how fast he buries it, I see the grin underneath. Anytime former Presidents travel abroad, the CIA arranges a quick briefing, which once again lets the Former feel like he’s back in the thick of it. That’s why all Formers love foreign trips. But when you’re in a far-off land missing the adrenaline of attention, there’s no better sugar rush than a quick fix of adoring fans.
    Like the Red Sea before Moses, the agents step aside, leaving a clear path across the marble floor to the President. I pull a dozen glossy photos and a Sharpie marker from the bag of tricks and hand them to Manning. He needed this one. Welcome home, boss.
    “Can you make it out to
Bobby-boy
? Just like that—
Bobby-boy
?” a man with oversize glasses asks.
    “So where’re you from?” Manning says, doing what he does best.
    If I wanted to, I could stay at the President’s side and help the Service keep the line orderly. Instead, I step back, slip away from the crowd, and head for the front desk,