We slept little, and by morning The Washington Post had my name and photograph. In the article, a Secret Service spokesman characterized me as an idealistic physician who had snapped after years of grief over the tragic loss of my family. Driven by paranoid delusions, I had threatened the president's life, and my appearance in Washington with a gun proved how dangerous I was. The identity of my female accomplice remained "unknown," but several witnesses had seen her fire the shot that downed the federal officer. What frightened me most was that the article's closing comment came from Ewan McCaskell, the president's chief of staff, who had been reached in China:

"Dr. Tennant actually met the president in the Oval Office on one occasion," McCaskell said. "The president admired his book on medical ethics. He regrets that this noted physician has apparently suffered some sort of psychotic break, and hopes Dr. Tennant can receive treatment before something tragic happens."

I worried that Mary Venable would see the story and turn me in, but an hour later she dropped off our new passports, two Virginia driver's licenses, and the keys to our "borrowed" car. She had seen the article, but her loyalty to Rachel was stronger than her belief in media stories. I lost no time in getting on I-95, headed for New York.

Having my name and face broadcast nationwide only strengthened my resolve to leave the country. The NSA believed I was planning to meet the president in Washington tomorrow, so leaving the country was the last thing they would expect me to do. Going through JFK airport would be risky, but if we made it, we would be far safer than in the United States.

Rachel hardly spoke during the first leg of the drive, and nothing I said seemed to register. By the time we reached New Jersey, she'd regained enough of herself to go into a mall with a list of clothing sizes and outfit us for our trip. Other than that, we stopped only for gaso¬line, and I never got out of the car. Just before we reached New York, Rachel telephoned Adam Stern and gave him a cover story I'd scripted to explain the doc¬tor's third-party reservations for us.

With the Easter crowds, Stern had been forced to book us on a midnight El Al flight, which worried me quite a bit. I wore a Yankees cap into JFK, praying that my "six-foot white guy" looks were generic enough not to attract attention. Things went surprisingly well at the El Al ticket counter, but I did most of the talking. My worry was the informal security interview. According to Stern, at some point before you boarded an El Al plane, one or two plainclothes security officers would strike up a conversation with you, to get a feel for your intentions. There was no way we would get through that without Rachel handling some of the talking.

"The chicken with broccoli looks good," I said, pointing through a glass screen in front of the Chinese food counter. "What do you think?"

"Fine," Rachel said in a dead voice.

I touched her shoulder. "Are you all right?"

She didn't answer.

I stepped in front of her and ordered two chicken and broccoli plates. As I paid, I heard a man's voice behind me.

"Hi, there. We were in line with you at the El Al counter. You going over for Western Holy Week?"

"Uh… no," Rachel replied.

I glanced back and saw two dark-skinned men of medium height standing behind us. They had quick eyes and easy smiles. They looked like brothers.

"Visiting family then?" said the second man, who wore a gold chain around his neck.

"No," Rachel said awkwardly. "It's a private matter. A health problem."

Concerned looks. "Oh. Sorry to pry."

They're looking for terrorists, I told myself. Not pres¬idential assassins. I turned around and nodded to the two men.

The silence was uncomfortable, but suddenly Rachel straightened up and came to life. "I guess it's nothing to be embarrassed about," she said. "My OB-GYN is sending me over. I was just diagnosed with ovarian cancer. It's advanced, but he has a friend at the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. There's a clinical trial for culturing your own T cells and reinjecting them to fight the tumors. My doctor's an old friend. He made all the arrangements for us, thank God. Planes, the hotel, all of it." She put her hand over her heart. "I'm sorry to run on. It's just the first ray of hope I've had, and it feels better to talk about it."

"Quite all right," said the man wearing the chain. "I'm sure you'll do very well. The doctors at Hadassah are the best in the world."

"The trial looks very promising," I chimed in, not wanting to appear awkward. "The lead researcher did his training at Sloan-Kettering."

"You sound like a doctor yourself," said the shorter man, and I lost any remaining doubt that they were El Al security. Suddenly all I could think about was the $16,000 in cash in the money belts concealed beneath our clothes.

"Food, mister," snapped one of the Chinese clerks.

"Thank you," I said, glancing back at the plates. "Yes, I'm an internist."

"You know about arthritis?" asked the shorter man. "They tell me I got psoriatic arthritis. You know about that?"

Answer him? I wondered. Act arrogant? "Well, there are five types. Some are relatively mild, others crippling."

"What's the bad kind?"

"Arthritis mutilans."

The man grinned happily. "That's not me, thank God. I got something about phalanges."

"Distal interphalangeal predominant." I lifted his hands and looked at his fingernails, which showed marked pitting. "It could be a lot worse."

He pulled back his hand. "Good, good. Well, enjoy your food."

"Good luck at Hadassah," said the one wearing the chain. "You're going to the right place for a cure."

I put both plates on a tray and carried it to a vacant table. Rachel followed me, looking shell-shocked. I glanced back at the food counter and saw the two men walk away without ordering.

"You did great," I said softly. "Academy Award cal¬iber."

"Survival," she said, taking her seat. "Everybody has it in them. You told me that in North Carolina, and I didn't believe you. Now I know better."

I picked up my fork. "There's no point feeling guilty about it."

"They'd already talked to Adam. That's the feeling I got."

"No doubt. He must have given them the same story. If we make it onto the plane without being arrested, I'm going to send that guy a case of champagne."

Rachel closed her eyes. "Are we going to make it?"

"Yes. Just keep it together for another half hour."

The 747 was crowded despite being a late flight, but we were insulated from our nearest neighbors by two empty seats and an aisle, and that gave us some privacy. I sat by the window with my Yankees cap on, taking care not to make eye contact with anyone as I retrieved two blankets and covered us both to the neck.

We sat at the gate for what seemed like two hours, but it was only forty minutes by my watch. While pas¬sengers around us talked excitedly about their upcoming visit to the Holy Land, Rachel and I pretended to sleep, holding hands under the blanket. At last the El Al jetliner taxied out onto the runway and lumbered into the night sky.

"Thank God," she whispered as the wheels lifted off the concrete.

We would have to clear security at Tel Aviv in eleven hours, but making it into the air was half the battle, and I tried to focus on that small victory. "Are you all right?"

She opened her eyes, which were separated from mine only by the bill of my Yankees cap. In them I saw emo¬tions I could not read.

"I need to ask you some things, David." She sounded more like the psychiatrist I had known before we made love. "We're going to Jerusalem, and I need to get to the bottom of why. I'd like you to treat this as a session."

"No. If you ask me things, I can ask you things. And you have to answer honestly. That's where we are now." She hesitated, then nodded. "Fair enough. You've told me you're an atheist. You said your mother believed in something greater than humanity, but not in organized religion. What about your father? Was he a declared atheist?"