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“Holy moly!” Frank had jerked upright. “That’s doing well, all right!”

She smiled. “Yes.”

Frank said, “I thought you two would get along.”

“Yes.”

She did not show any awareness that his opinion had had any bearing on the matter. Frank looked aside, took another bite of his sandwich.

“We have a fair bit in common,” Diane said. “Anyway, we’ve been sneaking around a little, because of the media, you know. It probably would be possible to keep doing it that way, but, you know—if we get caught then they will make a big deal, and there’s no reason for it. We’re both old, our kids are grown up. It shouldn’t be that big a deal.”

“Being First Lady?” Frank said. “Not a big deal?”

“Well, it doesn’t have to be. I’ll keep on being the science advisor, and no one pays any attention to them.”

“Not before, they didn’t! But you already made it a high-profile job. Now with this it will be a big deal. They’ll accuse you of what do you call it.”

“Maybe. But maybe that would be good. We’ll see.”

“Well—whatever!” Frank put his hand on hers, squeezed it. “That’s not what matters, anyway! Congratulations! I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks. I think it will be okay. I hope so.”

“Oh sure. Heck, the main thing is to be happy. The other stuff will take care of itself.”

She laughed. “That’s what I say. I hope so. And I am happy.”

“Good.”

She gave him a searching look. “What about you, Frank?”

“I’m working on it.” Frank smiled briefly, changed the subject back to the salt lakes and the work at hand.

And he went back to work, and stayed late. And around eleven, as he was falling asleep at his desk, there was a knock at his door, and it was Umberto and Phil Chase himself, and a tall black man Frank had never seen before, whom they introduced: Richard Wallace, GAO.

They sat down and discussed the situation for most of an hour. Chase let the others do most of the talking; he seemed tired, and looked like he was in a bit of pain. His neck was still bandaged in front. Not once did he smile or crack one of the jokes that Charlie had said were constant with him.

“We need to clean this up,” he said to Frank in concluding the meeting. “Our intelligence agencies are a total mess right now, and that’s dangerous. Some of them are going to have to be sorted out confidentially, that’s just the nature of the beast. These are my guys for improving that situation, they report directly to me, so I’d appreciate it if you’d do what you can to help them.”

“I will,” Frank promised. They shook hands as they left, and Chase gave him a somber look and a nod. He also had no idea that Frank might have played any part in him getting together with Diane. There was something satisfying in that.

ONE AFTERNOON WHEN CHARLIE WENT down to the White House’s daycare center to pick up Joe, the whole staff of the place came over to meet with him.

“Uh oh,” Charlie said as he saw them converging. Joe was meanwhile looking studiously out the glass doors into the playground.

Charlie said, “What’s he done now?”

What a pleasure it was to say that. He knew that the part of him that was pleased was not to be revealed for the moment, and suppressed it. The result was probably a certain defensiveness, but that would be natural no matter what he was feeling; and in truth his feelings were mixed.

The young woman in charge that day, an assistant to the director, listed Joe’s infractions in a calm, no-nonsense tone: knocking down a three-year-old girl; throwing toys; throwing food; roaring through naptime; cursing.

“Cursing?” Charlie said. “What do you mean?”

A young black woman had the grace to smile. “When we were trying to get him to quiet down he kept saying, ‘You suck.’ ”

“Except some of us heard it differently,” the assistant director added.

“Wow,” Charlie said. “I don’t know where he would have heard that. His brother doesn’t use that kind of language.”

“Uh huh. Well anyway, that was not the main problem.”

“Of course.”

“The thing is,” the young woman said, “we’ve got twenty-five kids in