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People who served on the actual Council included the director of the CIA, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and such other highly placed people as the president might appoint. It was indeed an elite group, and in the days of the Cold War, the NSC was far more important than the Cabinet, though no one was supposed to know that.

Some years ago, Keith had been invited to leave his job with the Defense Intelligence Agency in the Pentagon and accept a staff position with the NSC, located in the Old Executive Office Building. There was less physical danger associated with the job compared to what he'd been doing around the world for the DIA, and the NSC office was closer to his Georgetown apartment, and he'd thought he might enjoy working with civilians. As it turned out, he missed the danger, and though it was a good career move to be working so close to the White House, it turned out to be not such a good move in other ways.

Among the people he'd met at the NSC was a Colonel Oliver North. Keith hadn't known the man well, but after Colonel North became famous, Colonel Landry became troubled. North, by all accounts, had been a good soldier, but working for the civilians had apparently been like working in a contagion ward for the young colonel, and he'd caught something bad. Keith could see that happening to himself, so he always wore a mask and washed his hands on the job.

And now they wanted him back, not in the old building, but apparently in the White House itself.

They drove up to the guard post on Seventeenth Street, and after a security check, they were waved through. The driver pulled up to the entrance, and they got out.

There were more security men at the entrance, but no check, just someone who opened the door for them. Inside the small lobby, there was a man at a sign-in desk who verified their names against an appointment list. Keith signed in, and under the heading "Organization and Title," he wrote, "Civilian, retired." The time was 11:05.

Keith had been in the West Wing of the White House a number or times, usually arriving via the little-known underground passage that ran beneath Seventeenth Street into the White House basement where the Situation Room was located, along with a few offices of the National Security Council. He'd been on the ground floor a few times whenever he'd had occasion to see the national security advisor in a previous administration.

After Charlie signed in, the appointments man at the desk said to them, "Gentlemen, if you'll take the elevator down, you can wait in the lounge. Someone will call you."

They took the small elevator to the basement, and another man met them and walked them to the lounge.

The lounge, a euphemism for the basement waiting room, was newly appointed with clubby-type furnishings and was pleasant enough. There was a television tuned to CNN, and a long buffet table against the wall where you could help yourself to anything from coffee to donuts, or fruit and yogurt for the health-conscious, or most any snack you wished, except alcohol and cyanide.

There were a dozen or so other people in the room, men and women, none of whom Keith recognized, but all of them throwing furtive glances toward the newcomers, trying to place their faces in the pantheon of Washington's gods and goddesses of the moment.

Charlie and Keith found two chairs at a coffee table and sat. Charlie asked, "You want coffee or anything?"

"No, thanks, boss."

Charlie smiled in acknowledgment of the changed situation. He said, "Hey, if you take this job, your immediate superior will be the president's national security advisor, not me."

"I thought I was going to be the national security advisor."

"No, you'll work directly for him."

"When can I be president?"

"Keith, I'm a little anxious about this meeting. Can you cut the shit?"

"Sure. Do some push-ups. Works for me."

"I'd like a cigarette, but I can't smoke here. What's this place coming to?"

Keith glanced around the room. Despite its nice decor, it was still a windowless basement room, and the atmosphere was the atmosphere of waiting rooms all over the world. There was that electric hum originating somewhere in the bowels of this building that forced in cool air or hot air, depending on the season, and after being away from that big-city, big-building hum for two months, he noticed it and didn't like it.

More to the point, there was a heightened sense of the surreal in this room, a feeling of almost impending doom, as if each man and woman in the place were awaiting his or her fate in one of those less pleasant subterranean rooms in countries where they shot you if your name was on that day's list.