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Sturgess said to Nikki, his tone soothing. “It’ll be fine.”
    She looked up and saw a middle-aged white man: lean, bald, bearded, wearing green surgical garb, and—
    “Eric!” she called. “Eric!”
    He continued to close the distance but had a puzzled expression on his face.
    Sturgess turned and looked at Eric, too. “Eric! My God, how’s—” He glanced at Nikki. “How’s your, um, your special patient?”
    Eric sounded weary. “We almost lost him, but he’s stable now. Jono is closing.”
    “And you?” asked Sturgess, touching Eric’s arm briefly. “How are you?”
    “Dead,” said Eric. “Exhausted.” He shook his head. “What’s the world coming to?”
    Nikki was reeling. She’d never seen Eric before, but she knew exactly what he looked like, and—God!—even what he looked like naked. She knew him, this Eric, this man who—
    —who was born fifty years ago, on April 11, in Fort Wayne, Indiana; who has an older brother named Carl; who plays a killer game of chess; who is allergic to penicillin; and who—yes!—had just performed surgery, saving the president’s life.
    “Eric,” she said, “what’s happening to me?”
    “Miss,” he replied, “do I know you?”
    The words struck Nikki like a knife—like a
scalpel.
Surely he mustknow her, if she knew him. But he didn’t. There was no hint of recognition on his face.
    “I’m Nikki,” she said, as if that should mean something to him.
    “Hello,” Eric said, sounding bewildered.
    “I know you,” Nikki said, imploringly. “I know you, Eric.”
    “I’m sorry, um, Nikki. I don’t think we’ve ever met.”
    “Damn it,” said Nikki. “This is crazy!”
    “What’s wrong with her?” Eric asked Sturgess.
    Tamara was gesturing to someone; Nikki turned to see who. It was a uniformed security guard.
    “No,” she said. “No, I’m sorry I hit you, Jurgen.”
    Sturgess’s eyebrows went up. “How did you know my name?”
    How the hell
did
she know his name—or Eric’s?
    And then it came to her: she knew Jurgen’s name because Eric knew it. They were old friends, although Eric found Jurgen a tad brusque and a bit too humorless for his taste. She knew…well,
everything
Eric knew.
    “It’s all right,” Eric said, motioning for the guards to halt their approach. “Nurse Enright here will look after you. We’ll get you help.”
    But that was even worse: suddenly a flood of memories came to Nikki: recalcitrant patients, patients screaming obscenities, a heavyset man throwing a punch, another man breaking down and crying—a cascade of disturbed patients Eric had dealt with over the years.
    “I—I’m not like that,” Nikki stammered out.
    Eric narrowed his eyes. “Like what?”
    Christ, she was a real-estate agent, not some fucking psychic. Her sister believed in that shit, but
she
didn’t. This was impossible—she must be having a stroke, or hallucinations, or
something.
    “Come with me,” said Heather Enright. “We’ll get you taken care of.”
    “Eric, please!” implored Nikki.
    But Eric yawned and stretched, and he and Jurgen started walking away, talking intently about the surgery Eric had just performed. She resisted Heather’s attempts to propel her in the opposite direction until Eric had turned the corner and was out of sight.
    But not out of mind.

CHAPTER 7
    THE secretary of defense continued to study the wall-mounted deployment map; it had flickered off for a few seconds but now was back on. The aircraft carriers were mostly on station, and, as he watched, the
Reagan
moved a little closer to its goal.
    “Mr. Secretary,” said an analyst seated near him, looking up from her workstation, “we’ve lost the White House.”
    Peter Muilenburg frowned. “If primary comm is down, switch to aux four.”
    The analyst’s voice was anguished. “No, sir, you don’t understand. We’ve
lost
the White House. It’s—it’s
gone.
The bomb they found there just went off.”
    Muilenburg staggered backward,