After dropping Kyle at the airport hotel, Gabe had driven back to the White House and stopped by the residence. Largely as a result of Drew's heroics at the Baltimore Convention Center, his poll numbers had crept upward for the first time in weeks. Stoddard himself was feeling fine, and Magnus Lattimore assured Gabe that the commander in chief had never been sharper.

Still, it seemed like wishful thinking to believe the episodes of altered thinking and bizarre behavior were finished or that there would continue to be ways to cover them up. Gabe needed answers and he needed them before the Twenty-fifth Amendment once again reared its massive head.

First things first… One day at a time… Accept the things you cannot change; change the things you can…

Funny how in difficult times the old AA slogans kept creeping into his mind. More and more lately. Maybe, he thought now, a couple of meetings wouldn't hurt.

He fixed some decaf and padded over to the dining room table where Ferendelli's nanotechnology library was spread out. A little studying would help take his mind off the attack on Blackthorn. Somehow, someone knew who he was and what he had been doing in D.C. It seemed like only a matter of time before rumor and speculation would turn into headlines.

He pulled a chair up and turned his attention to preparing for the woman who claimed to barely know a man who had a well-rendered sketch of her in the drawer of his desk. In the morning Gabe would be driving out to Lily Sexton's horse farm not far from Flint Hill and the Shenandoah National Park, eighty miles or so west of the city. If nothing else, she should help him understand Ferendelli's fascination with the science of atomic-size constructions and nanomachines.

The decaf he chose from LeMar Stoddard's stash was a Brazillian blend, so rich and aromatic that it was hard to believe it wasn't high-test. Probably, like everything else in this city, Gabe decided, the coffee was a sham-loaded with caffeine.

Nanotubes and fullerenes.

It took time for Gabe to shuck frightening thoughts of a professional killer and Blackthorn's attack from his consciousness enough to concentrate on the material before him, but finally he was able to begin taking notes and making some drawings.

Nano came from the Greek for "dwarf" and in scientific terms meant one-billionth, as in a billionth of a meter, 1/75,000th the diameter of a human hair. Nearly incomprehensible for a layman-even one with a background in science.

Nanotubes and fullerenes.

At the foundation of nanotechnology were carbon atoms, the basis of life, found ubiquitously in millions of different molecules-solids, liquids, and gasses. The building blocks of the nanomanufacturing process were carbon atoms bound together in submicroscopic tubes of varying lengths and thicknesses, and also in soccer ball-like molecules containing precisely sixty carbon atoms. These molecules, perfect spheres, were named fullerenes and nicknamed buckyballs after architect Buckminster Fuller, designer of the geodesic dome, which the fullerene resembled. Remarkable. Absolutely remarkable.

Most of the science was more than Gabe wanted to or even could handle. But the potential of nanotechnology was as apparent as it was limitless, made possible in large measure by the chemical ability of carbon to bond with other atoms and by the invention of futuristic machines such as the scanning tunneling microscope and the transmission electron microscope, capable of actually visualizing nanotubes and fullerenes. Remarkable.

Already there were more than seven hundred commercially available products as varied as cosmetics, golf club shafts, and bullet-resistant shirts all built with nanomaterials. Nano toothpaste containing nanohydroxy apatite was able to bind to the protein in plaque, making it easier to loosen and remove, while at the same time it was filling scratches on dental surfaces. Nanosilver coatings on flatware, doorknobs, wound dressings, water faucets, makeup implements, and socks impeded or eliminated bacterial growth. The list and variety of products were stunning.

This was not the science fiction of gray goo. This was the real deal, making its way into the fabric of society on an incredible number of fronts and with a speed that had to be astounding even to those brilliant and visionary Nobel laureates who originally created the field.

Somewhere around one in the morning, Gabe had fallen asleep on his notes. At one thirty, still seated, facedown at the table, he was awakened by the ringing telephone.

"Dr. Singleton?"

"Yes."

"Sorry to call you at such an hour, sir. This is McCabe at security downstairs. There's an envelope for you that was just dropped off here by a messenger. It says to deliver it to you immediately. Would you like me to send it up?"

Gabe pawed at his eyes and combed his hair with his fingers.

"No, no. I'll be right down. A messenger?"

"Yes, sir. None of us caught what company he was with, and there's no indication on the envelope. Just the instructions to deliver it to you immediately."

"I'll be there in a minute."

The headache, a familiar electric pain behind his eyes, seemed to have woken up when he did. Before he had even fully processed his action, he had opened his bureau drawer and taken out the plastic vial of codeine and other pills.

"I never took a pill that I didn't have a pain for."

The notion stopped him short. From the moment his former roommate had stepped out of Marine One at the ranch, Gabe's rather straightforward, comfortable, and uncomplicated life had been transformed to one enmeshed in half-truths and outright lies. Now, according to Kyle Blackthorn at least, it appeared that Drew's withholding the fact of his mental illness was not his only deception. Whether the psychologist's shingan sense was right or not, time would hopefully tell.

It was becoming increasingly clear to Gabe that there was little he could do about those around him except trust none of them. There was, though, something he could do about the deception he had been working on himself. There were thousands in AA recovery, maybe tens of thousands, who managed to deal with routine headaches without leaping for a mind-altering painkiller.

For years, the fallout from the deaths at Fairhaven had been a smoldering depression that had cost him in many ways, including his marriage. He had tried to overcome the feelings by starting Lariat and by going on medical missions to Central America, and he had successfully sworn off booze. But the reliance, if not dependence, on pills was a constant reminder that the depression was always lurking and never very far below the surface.

He flipped the vial back into the drawer and washed down some Extra Strength Tylenol instead. For the time being, the motion to give up on the pills had been tabled. But at least he could watch himself more carefully. As the twelve-step book so eloquently stated, recovery was a matter of progress, not perfection.

The five-by-seven manila envelope was completely unadorned except for DR. GABE SINGLETON, neatly block printed in black ink, and the instructions that the envelope was to be delivered immediately, printed in the same way beneath it. Curious more than apprehensive, Gabe questioned the man who had accepted the delivery and assured himself that he had no information that would be of any help. Then Gabe brought the envelope back to the condo and opened it on the table.

We must meet.

Tell no one.

Come alone.

Go to the office we both have occupied.

The meeting time is to be exactly twenty-four hours from now.

In the office there are four framed photos taken by me. Examine the third photo from the right. I will meet you beneath that structure.

The nightmare must end.