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to come home tonight.
    The nurse appeared in the doorway. “The doctor is ready for you, Mrs. Osbourne. This way, please.”
    Elizabeth picked up her briefcase and her raincoat and followed the nurse down a narrow hall.
     
    Forty minutes later, Elizabeth took the elevator down to the lobby and stepped outside onto a covered sidewalk. She turned up her collar and plunged into the drenching rain. The wind blew her hair across her face and tore at her raincoat. Elizabeth seemed not to notice. She was numb.
    The doctor’s words ran through her head like an irritating melody that she could not drive from her thoughts. You’re incapable of having a baby naturally. . . . There’s a problem with your tubes. . . . In vitro fertilization might help. . . . We’ll never know unless we try. . . . I’m very sorry, Elizabeth. . . .
    A car nearly struck her in the fading light. Elizabeth seemed not to notice as the driver blared his horn and tore off. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to be sick. She thought about making love to Michael. Their marriage had its minor flaws—too much time apart, too many distractions from work—but in bed they were perfect. Their lovemaking was familiar yet exciting. She knew Michael’s body and he knew hers; they knew how to give each other pleasure. Elizabeth had always assumed that when she was ready to have a baby, it would happen as naturally and pleasantly as their lovemaking. She felt betrayed by her body.
    The Mercedes stood alone in the corner of the parking lot. She dug in her pocket for her keys. She pointed the remote at the car and pressed the button. The doors unlocked and the lights came on. She climbed quickly inside, closed the door, and locked it again. She tried to shove the key into the ignition, but her hands were shaking and the keys fell from her grasp to the floor. Reaching down for them, she bumped her head against the dashboard.
    Elizabeth Osbourne believed in composure: in the courtroom, in the office, with Michael. She never let her emotions get the better of her, even when Sam Braxton made one of his wisecracks. But now, sitting alone in her car, her hair plastered to the side of her face, composure deserted her. Her body slowly fell forward until her head rested against the steering wheel. Then the tears came, and she sat in the car and wept.

4
     
    WASHINGTON, D.C.
     
    Twenty minutes later, a black White House sedan pulled to the curb in the section of the city known as Kalorama. Black staff cars and limousines were not unusual in the neighborhood. Nestled in the wooded hills on the edge of Rock Creek Park just north of Massachusetts Avenue, Kalorama was home to some of the city’s most powerful and influential residents.
    Mitchell Elliott detested eastern cities as a rule—he spent most of his time in Colorado Springs or at his canyonside home in Los Angeles, near the headquarters of Alatron Defense Systems—but his $3 million mansion in Kalorama helped make his frequent trips to Washington bearable. He had considered a large estate in the horse country of Virginia, but commuting into the city along Interstate 66 was a nightmare, and Mitchell Elliott didn’t have time to waste. Kalorama was ten minutes from National Airport and Capitol Hill and five minutes from the White House.
    It was five minutes before seven. Elliott relaxed in the second-floor library overlooking the garden. The wind hurled rain against the glass. It was cold for October, and one of his aides had laid a fire in the large fireplace. Elliott paced slowly, sipping thirty-year-old single-malt Scotch from a cut-glass tumbler. He was a small man, just over five and a half feet tall, who had learned long ago how to carry himself like a big man. He never allowed an opponent to stand over him. When someone entered his office, Elliott always remained seated, legs crossed, hands resting on the arms of his chair, as if the space were too small to contain his frame.
    Elliott was schooled