“I should be flattered.”

“And concerned.”

“The president is always a target. History proves that. Goes with the job. Security is good around here, and has been enhanced since the latest raising of the threat level.”

“Still.”

“I know, I know. If someone really wants to get you, they probably will. But I’m not concerned. Have they named me specifically?”

“What do your people say?”

“Nothing so specific, except…”

“Except that the threat might come by way of Canada,” Colmes said.

“That’s what I’m told,” the president said. “Makes me wonder whether an assassin will come riding into the White House wearing a red Mountie uniform and pronouncing ‘roof’ funny.”

“Pronouncing it differently, Arthur. Differently.”

Montgomery laughed. “I stand corrected.”

“Obviously,” Colmes said, “we need more specifics. Hopefully, there’ll be additional intelligence to provide it. Right now, all your people and ours know is that al-Qaeda plans to assassinate high-profile leaders here in the States rather than attempt to hijack airplanes again. I suppose they could coordinate such an attack for maximum impact-you know, target a dozen government leaders for a simultaneous strike, one or two of your governors here or there, a few of your senators, a cabinet member.” He hesitated. “The children of a prominent figure.”

Montgomery’s eyes narrowed and his jaw worked. That same scenario had been presented to him only a few days earlier during an intelligence briefing, a what-if? exercise, one of three offered by his briefers.

“The British have been helpful,” Montgomery said.

“They sometimes are,” Colmes said.

“Our Homeland Security people have been briefed by British go-betweens,” Montgomery said. “The border with you has been beefed up. In the meantime, life goes on.”

“As it must. I want you to know that we’re doing everything we possibly can to ferret out potential assassins from our Muslim population. That’s what makes it so damn difficult, distinguishing madmen from good, decent, law-abiding Arab folks. They’re good at assimilating into those communities.”

Montgomery stood and checked his bow tie in a mirror. “We’re making an interesting, and possibly fatal, assumption, Bruce,” he said.

“Which is?”

“That these assassins, if they exist and this plan exists, are of Arab extraction. I’m sure you have as many homegrown nuts in Canada as we do here in the States.”

“Sometimes I think we have even more,” Colmes said, rising from his chair and slapping Montgomery on the back. “In the meantime, Mr. President, our better halves await us. And if you insist on having your usual martini when so much excellent Canadian whiskey and wine is available, the press will have another sinister plot to conjure.”

TWENTY-FOUR

Ray Pawkins awoke with a start. A shaft of light had managed to find a slit in the drapes and hit him in the eye like a laser.

He turned away from the brightness with the intention of dozing off again. But the body next to him moved, causing him to push up against the headboard and to rub sleep from his eyes. He glanced over. The woman snored softly and wrinkled her nose. He’d forgotten she was there.

They’d enjoyed dinner together following the supers rehearsal and had returned to his house to sample a new port that had been touted by a salesman at Rodman’s, Pawkins’ favorite wine shop, and to listen to opera. They’d argued, but only briefly, over which opera to choose from his expansive collection. She preferred a recording of Bizet’s Carmen with Leontyne Price and Franco Corelli, which she’d heard and enjoyed before. But Pawkins said, “If we must listen to Carmen, I prefer the Callas version with Georges Prêtre conducting. Frankly, though, I’m not in the mood for Carmen tonight.” He chose instead Satyagraha, written by Philip Glass and performed by the New York City Opera Orchestra and Chorus.

“I don’t know that one,” she said, the corners of her mouth turned down at having her selection dismissed.

“A gorgeous work,” he said. “It deserves a better recording than this one, although the singing is first-rate. Unfortunately, the orchestra sounds uninspired, thanks to a lackadaisical conductor. Come. Sit next to me on the couch. Your lesson is about to begin.”

Now, he continued to look down at her in bed. Her hair was long, and cascaded over the delicate yellow pillowcase. Pawkins was always impressed with the inky blackness and luxurious texture of Asian women’s hair. Her eyes fluttered open and closed immediately. Her hand went to her nose to swipe away an itch. Pawkins noted her fingers, tipped with polish the color of castor oil. Too short, he thought, referring to her fingers. The rest of her was longer. She stood as tall as he did.

They’d first met at a record store, where he purchased the latest opera CDs while she selected from the classical section. Their initial conversation confirmed that she knew something about opera, but only in a popular sense, familiar arias and the biggest names-“La donna e mobile” from Rigoletto; “Un bel di, vedremo” from Madame Butterfly; “Che gelida manina” from La Boheme; and Domingo, Anna Moffo, Brigit Nilsson, Richard Tucker, Caruso, Kiri Te Kanawa, and, of course, Pavarotti. But that was enough for him. So few women he met had ever even attended an opera, let alone had a working knowledge of that most elegant and complex of entertainments.

Their date last evening had been their second; the first involved dinner and a movie, and Pawkins had been certain that an encore would result in sex.

He slipped out of bed and walked naked to the bathroom. When he returned wrapped in a terry-cloth robe, she still slept. He sat in a chair by the window and parted the drapes. It was gray outside, as gray as his mood. He looked across the room at the yellow hills and valleys her body created beneath the sheet and sighed. This was the trouble with bedding a woman. They were there in the morning. He’d considered driving her home after their lovemaking, but by that time he wasn’t of a mind to get dressed, let alone end up in an argument. She’d said with a knowing smile as she was about to fall asleep, “It feels so good in the morning.”

Actually, she’d fallen asleep much earlier, a half hour into the playing of Satyagraha, which annoyed him. He’d been telling her about the opera and Mohandas Gandhi’s influence on the composer; how “Satyagraha” was the name Gandhi had given to his nonviolent resistance movement; and how Glass’s first opera, Einstein on the Beach, had been a success but had left the composer broke and driving a New York City taxi. He wanted to tell her these things-educate her-but she’d nodded off on his shoulder. He especially enjoyed the opera’s final scene and wanted her to appreciate it with him, but she was long gone, her small guttural sounds in his ear not enhancing the musical score.

She was wide-awake, though, once they’d undressed and were beneath the sheets, skin to skin, electrical pulses jumping the gaps, male and female sounds of sexual bliss creating their own aria.

“Good morning,” she said now, propping a pillow behind her and pulling the sheet up over her breasts.

“Good morning. Sleep well?”

“Very. You?”

“Yeah, fine.”

She smiled and motioned with her index finger for him to join her in bed.

“Love to,” he said, standing and tightening the robe’s sash, “but I have to get to an early appointment downtown. Sorry. We must do this again sometime.”

She showered first. When he emerged from the bathroom, she was dressed and watching the news on TV.

“Can you believe it?” she said. “Terrorists are planning to kill American big shots, maybe even the president.”

Pawkins stood behind her and watched the TV report. An anonymous but “highly placed” source in the government’s intelligence apparatus had leaked the news of al-Qaeda’s alleged plan to assassinate American political leaders. The reporter, whose breathlessness was a little too over-the-top, continued the story as BREAKING NEWS flashed at the bottom of the screen. Everything these days on cable news shows seemed to be “breaking news.”