"That's what he said? Testing stuff?"

"I think so. I think he's a doctor, too."

"All these doctors," Crackowski muttered. "I'll check it. You tired? Want me to take over?"

"I want Ferendelli."

"I've got the word out. Sooner or later he's going to surface. You tried using the remote in the tunnel?"

"Several times, just in case the animals living there were pulling my chain about Ferendelli taking off."

"I don't think it has much of a range. You sure you're okay here?"

"You jes' find him for me."

"Ferendelli's got to be feeling the pressure. He knows if he comes in, he's dead. He knows that if he stays hidden, he'll never find out what he's up against or what he can do about it. His best bet is to contact someone and try to work something out with them. I'm betting that someone is gonna be Singleton."

"The car?"

"It's in that body shop, right? Just keep it on the screen, and when it moves you move."

"Go check with your people. Just get me something to work with and I'll do the rest."

"Just be ready, Porter. We're going to find him. I'll be back to check on you in four hours."

"Make it six," Porter said.

He watched until the door had closed, then turned on a small light and repositioned the headphones. In the past, he had spent more than a day wedged high in a tree in the jungle just waiting for a mark. Six more hours here was nothing. Time well spent if it meant putting a bullet in Dr. James Ferendelli's eye-his favorite shot. It was time the man's photo joined the other two hundred or so in the gallery on the wall of his study.

High time.

CHAPTER 15

She's a Fendship F- 45. A hundred forty-six feet fore to aft, thirty-foot beam. Steel hull…"

If Gabe felt like Alice in Wonderland before his lunch with LeMar Stoddard, his tour of Aphrodite sent him spiraling well beyond the rabbit hole. The yacht was embarrassingly luxurious, with Oriental carpets, leather furnishings, crystal light fixtures, and three full baths with deep Jacuzzis. The other two staterooms merely had elegant shower stalls.

It was odd being escorted on a private tour around the spectacular boat by Drew's father when Drew himself was just a few miles away. In fact, before LeMar's driver came to pick him up, Gabe had taken a cab to the White House and met in the residence with the man's son and daughter-in-law, as well as Magnus Lattimore.

The news that Gabe had decided to stay the course charted by Jim Ferendelli-at least for the time being-was accepted by the trio with quiet gratitude and what seemed like forthright determination to do whatever Gabe asked of them.

In exchange for the reprieve, Drew would have to agree to work with Dr. Kyle Blackthorn for as long as the forensic psychologist needed to formulate a diagnosis and treatment plan. And finally, they would all have to understand that another episode involving the president, just one, would likely result in Gabe's pulling the plug and calling in Vice President Tom Cooper for a crash course in the Twenty-fifth Amendment.

"Where was this beauty made?" Gabe asked, grateful that he had actually thought of a question.

"Holland. The Dutch and the Italians are the very best at this sort of thing. I've only had Aphrodite for six or seven months, but she puts any other boat I've ever owned to shame."

"What's her range?" Gabe asked next, reconnecting with some of his Naval Academy roots.

Stoddard, wearing a dress shirt, no tie, charcoal slacks, and a navy blue blazer, looked pleased.

"Transatlantic. Maybe even to the end of the Mediterranean traveling fourteen or fifteen knots. Not the swiftest lady on the seas, but certainly one of the sleekest and most relaxing. I won't mind an extra half a day crossing the Atlantic. Maybe someday you'd like to join me on the trip."

"First things first. Let's get your son reelected."

"Well put."

Gabe marveled at the utter comfort and relative lack of pretension with which the president's father enjoyed and presented his wealth. Of course, Gabe reminded himself, when you had everything, and billions in the bank in case you discovered something you didn't, it had to be fairly easy to act as if it were all no big deal. Still, he also reminded himself as they settled in across from one another at a glass-topped table on the lower deck, this was a man who had founded and supported a number of charities devoted primarily to cancer research and reducing infant mortality. And he was also the man who had supplied Gabe with emotional and financial support, and an attorney, at a time when his own father had all but turned his back. Whoever had looked at wealth without class or style and had coined the term nouveau riche clearly did not have LeMar Stoddard in mind.

The table was set with crystal and fine china. There was a small silver pillbox to the left of LeMar's place. He noticed Gabe glancing at it and answered the unasked question by dropping three tablets onto his tongue and washing them down with a long draft of lemon water.

"See what you have to look forward to? Two blood pressure pills and one to stop my stomach from making acid. And that's just the noon box. My doctor's going to get my blood pressure down to a hundred and twenty or kill me in the process."

"Sounds like you have a good doc. I shoot for numbers like that in my patients, too. And they complain just as much. Is your pressure responding?"

"Don't ask." Stoddard ended the exchange by motioning to the young white-coated waiter that they were ready to be served. "I hope you like salmon."

"We don't get a lot of good seafood in Wyoming," Gabe replied. "The aroma clashes with that of the cattle being driven down the center of Main Street."

Stoddard grinned.

"It's good to see you after so long, Gabe," he said. "I always liked your sense of humor."

"Laughing at oneself is said to be an advanced form of wit, and it's especially easy when the one happens to be me."

"Stow that talk. I was there, remember? You have certainly overcome the tragedy and the odds and made something of yourself."

"Thank you, sir. Rumor has it that your son is well on his way to making something of himself, too."

Stoddard's face crinkled in an arresting way when he smiled, but Gabe also noticed that the tycoon's remarkably intelligent eyes remained leveled at him, as if taking in every nuance of his expressions.

Stay sharp, he cautioned himself. In all likelihood, this was not a man who relished immersion in idle chitchat-at least not for very long. Gabe guessed that, when it came to lunch with Stoddard, whether at his club or his suite at the Watergate or his lodge or here aboard Aphrodite, the courses on the menu were seldom served without an agenda.

"So," Stoddard said as Waldorf salads were placed before them, "I understand that you were a special guest at the dinner honoring the President of Botswana last night."

Gabe wondered briefly how often the president's father was invited to such affairs. He guessed that despite being the most powerful leader in the world, Drew was and always would be intimidated by the man. It seemed quite possible that omitting him from guest lists was one way of dealing with that dynamic. Gabe also decided that if Stoddard knew about the black-tie affair, he also knew that both his son and his son's physician were conspicuous by their absences.

Even for a man with considerably less acumen than his host, the implications of such a concurrence would be obvious. Gabe gripped the sides of his chair as if it were a flotation device. Five minutes into lunch, with Aphrodite tied fast to the pier, and they were already on choppy seas.

"I… um… at the last minute I wasn't able to attend," he tried.