"Okay, honey." A kiss, and he watched her leave. It was not a good moment for the career FBI agent. His wife was pregnant, but now he had to wonder if the pregnancy was a good one or not. If not-then what? He was an Irish Catholic, and his church forbade abortion as murder, and murders were things he'd investigated-and even witnessed once. Ten minutes later, he'd killed the two terrorists responsible for it. That day still came back to him in perverse dreams, despite the heroism he'd displayed and the kudos he'd received for all of it.

But now, he was afraid. Andrea had been a fine stepmother for his little Megan, and both he and she wanted nothing in all the world more than this news-if it was, really, good news. It would probably take an hour, and he knew he couldn't spend it sitting down in a doctor's outer office full of pregnant women reading old copies of People and US Weekly. But where to go? Whom to see?

Okay. He stood and walked out, and decided to head over to the Maumenee Building. It ought not be too hard to find. And it wasn't.

Roy Altman was the telltale. The big former paratrooper who headed the SURGEON detail didn't stand in one place like a potted plant, but rather circulated around, not unlike a lion in a medium-sized cage, always checking, looking with highly trained and experienced eyes for something that wasn't quite right. He spotted O'Day in the elevator lobby and waved.

"Hey, Pat! What's happening?" All the rivalry between the FBI and the USSS stopped well short of this point. O'Day had saved the life of SANDBOx and avenged the deaths of three of Altman's fellow agents, including Roy's old friend, Don Russell, who'd died like a man, gun in hand and three dead a.s.sa.s.sins in front of him. O'Day had finished Don's work.

"My wife's over being checked out," the FBI inspector answered.

"Nothing serious?" Altman asked.

"Routine," Pat responded, and Altman caught the scent of a lie, but not an important one.

"Is she around? While I'm here, I thought I'd stop over and say hi."

"In her office." Altman waved. "Straight down, second on the right."

"Thanks."

"Bureau guy coming back to see SURGEON," he said into his lapel mike.

"Roger," another agent responded.

O'Day found the office door and knocked.

"Come in," the female voice inside said. Then she looked up. "Oh, Pat, how are you?"

"No complaints, just happened to be in the neighborhood, and-"

"Did Andrea see Madge?" Cathy Ryan asked. FLOTUS had helped make the appointment, of course.

"Yeah, and the little box doodad has a plus sign in it," Pat reported.

"Great!" Then Professor Ryan paused. "Oh, you're worried about something." In addition to being an eye doctor, she knew trouble when she saw it.

"Dr. North is doing an amniocentesis. Any idea how long it takes?"

"When did it start?"

"Right about now, I think."

Cathy knew the problem. "Give it an hour. Madge is very good, and very careful in her procedures. They tap into the uterus and withdraw some of the amniotic fluid. That will give them some of the tissue from the embryo, and then they examine the chromosomes. She'll have the lab people standing by. Madge is senior staff, and when she talks, people listen."

"She seems pretty competent."

"She's a wonderful doc. She's my OB. You're worried about Down's, right?"

A nod. "Yep."

"Nothing you can do but wait."

"Dr. Ryan, I'm-"

"My name's Cathy, Pat. We're friends, remember?" There was nothing like saving the life of a woman's child to get on her permanent good side.

"Okay, Cathy. Yeah, I'm scared. It's not-I mean, Andrea's a cop, too, but-"

"But being good with a gun or just being tough doesn't help much right now, does it?"

"Not worth a d.a.m.n," Inspector O'Day confirmed quietly. He was about as used to being frightened as he was of flying the s.p.a.ce Shuttle, but potential danger to his wife and/or kid-kids now, maybe-the kind of danger in which he was utterly helpless-well, that was one of the b.u.t.tons a capricious Fate could push while she laughed.

"The odds are way in your favor," Cathy told him.

"Yeah, Dr. North said so . . . but . . ."

"Yeah. And Andrea's younger than I am."

O'Day looked down at the floor, feeling like a total f.u.c.king wimp. More than once in his life, he'd faced down armed men-criminals with violent pasts-and intimidated them into surrender. Once in his life he'd had to use his Smith & Wesson 1076 automatic in anger, and both times he'd double-tapped the heads of the terrorists, sending them off to Allah-so they'd probably believed-to answer for the murder of the innocent woman. It hadn't been easy, exactly, but neither had it been all that hard. The endless hours of practice had made it nearly as routine as the working of his service automatic. But this wasn't danger to himself. He could deal with that. The worst danger, he was just learning, was to those you loved.

"Pat, it's okay to be scared. John Wayne was just an actor, remember?"

But that was it. The code of manhood to which most Americans subscribed was that of the Duke, and that code did not allow fear. In truth it was about as realistic as Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but foolish or not, there it was.

"I'm not used to it."

Cathy Ryan understood. Most doctors did. When she'd been a straight ophthalmic surgeon, before specializing in lasers, she'd seen the patients and the patients' families, the former in pain, but trying to be brave, the latter just scared. You tried to repair the problems of one and a.s.suage the fears of the other. Neither task was easy. The one was just skill and professionalism; the other involved showing them that, although this was a horrid emergency which they'd never experienced before, for Cathy Ryan, M.D., FACS, it was just another day at the office. She was the Pro from Dover. She could handle it. SURGEON was blessed with the demeanor that inspired confidence in all she met.

But even that didn't apply here. Though Madge North was a gifted physician, she was testing for a predetermined condition. Maybe someday it could be fixed-genetic therapy offered that hope, ten years or so down the line-but not today. Madge could merely determine what already was. Madge had great hands, and a good eye, but the rest of it was in G.o.d's hands, and G.o.d had already decided one way or the other. It was just a matter of finding out what His decision had been.

"This is when a smoke comes in handy," the inspector observed, with a grimacing smirk.

"You smoke?"

He shook his head. "Gave it up a long time ago."

"You should tell Jack."

The FBI agent looked up. "I didn't know he smokes."

"He b.u.ms them off his secretary every so often, the wimp," Cathy told the FBI agent, with almost a laugh. "I'm not supposed to know."

"That's very tolerant for a doc."

"His life's hard enough, and it's only a couple a day, and he doesn't do it around the kids, or Andrea'd have to shoot me for ripping his face off."

"You know," O'Day said, looking down again and speaking from the cowboy boots he liked to wear under his blue FBI suit, "if it comes back that it's a Down's kid, what the h.e.l.l do we do then?"

"That's not an easy choice."

"h.e.l.l, under the law I don't get a choice. I don't even have a say in it, do I?"

"No, you don't." Cathy didn't venture that this was an inequity. The law was firm on the point. The woman-in this case, the wife-alone could choose to continue the pregnancy or terminate it. Cathy knew her husband's views on abortion. Her own views were not quite identical, but she did regard that choice as distasteful. "Pat, why are you borrowing trouble?"

"It's not under my control."

Like most men, Cathy saw, Pat O'Day was a control freak. She could understand that, because so was she. It came from using instruments to change the world to suit her wishes. But this was an extreme case. This tough guy was deeply frightened. He really ought not to be, but it was a question of the unknown for him. She knew the odds, and they were actually pretty good, but he was not a doctor, and all men, even the tough ones, she saw, feared the unknown. Well, it wasn't the first time she'd baby-sat an adult who needed his hand held-and this one had saved Katie's life.

"Want to walk over to the day-care center?"

"Sure." O'Day stood.

It wasn't much of a walk, and her intention was to remind O'Day what this was all about-getting a new life into the world.

"SURGEON'S on the way to the playpen," Roy Altman told his detail. Kyle Daniel Ryan-SPRITE-Was sitting up now, and playing very simply with very rudimentary toys under the watchful eyes of the lionesses, as Altman thought of them, four young female Secret Service agents who fawned over SPRITE like big sisters. But these sisters all carried guns, and they all remembered what had nearly happened to SANDBOX. A nuclear-weapons-storage site was hardly as well-guarded as this particular day-care center.

Outside the playroom was Trenton "Chip" Kelley, the only male agent on the detail, a former Marine captain who would have frightened the average NFL lineman with a mere look.

"Hey, Chip."

"Hi, Roy. What's happening?"

"Just strolling over to see the little guy."

"Who's the muscle?" Kelley saw that O'Day was carrying heat, but decided he looked like a cop. But his left thumb was still on the b.u.t.ton of his "crash alarm," and his right hand was within a third of a second of his service automatic.

"Bureau. He's cool," Altman a.s.sured his subordinate.

" 'Kay." Kelley opened the door.

"Who'd he play for?" O'Day asked Altman, once inside.

"The Bears drafted him, but he scared Ditka too much." Altman laughed. "Ex-Marine."

"I believe it." Then O'Day walked up behind Dr. Ryan. She'd already scooped Kyle up, and his arms were around her neck. The little boy was babbling, still months away from talking, but he knew how to smile when he saw his mommy.

"Want to hold him?" Cathy asked.

O'Day cradled the infant somewhat like a football. The youngest Ryan examined his face dubiously, especially the Zapata mustache, but Mommy's face was also in sight, and so he didn't scream.

"Hey, buddy," O'Day said gently. Some things came autornatically. When holding a baby, you don't stand still. You move a little bit, rhythmically, which the little ones seemed to like.

"It'll ruin Andrea's career," Cathy said.

"Make for a lot better hours for her, and be nice to see her every night, but, yeah, Cathy, be kinda hard for her to run alongside the car with her belly sticking out two feet." The image was good enough for a laugh. "I suppose they'll put her on restricted duty."

"Maybe. Makes for a great disguise, though, doesn't it?" O'Day nodded. This wasn't so bad, holding a kid. He remembered the old Irish adage: True strength lies in gentleness. But what the h.e.l.l, taking care of kids was also a man's duty. There was a lot more to being a man than just having a d.i.c.k.

Cathy saw the display and had to smile. Pat O'Day had saved Katie's life, and done it like something out of a John Woo movie, except that Pat was a real tough guy, not the movie kind. His scenes weren't scripted; he'd had to do it for real, making it up as he'd gone along. He was a lot like her husband, a servant of the law, a man who'd sworn an oath to Do the Right Thing every time, and like her husband, clearly a man who took his oaths seriously. One of those oaths concerned Pat's relationship with Andrea, and they all came down to the same thing: preserve, protect, defend. And now, this tiger with a tie was holding a baby and smiling and swaying back and forth, because that's what you did with a baby in your arms.

"How's your daughter?" Cathy asked.

"She and your Katie are good friends. And she's got a thing going with one of the boys at Giant Steps."

"Oh?"

"Jason Hunt. I think it's serious. He gave Megan one of his Hot Wheels cars." O'Day laughed. That's when his cell phone went off. "Right side coat pocket," he told the First Lady.

Cathy fished in his pocket and pulled it out. She flipped it open. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Who's this?" a familiar voice asked.

"Andrea? It's Cathy. Pat's right here." Cathy took Kyle and handed off the phone, watching the FBI agent's face.

"Yeah, honey?" Pat said. Then he listened, and his eyes closed for two or three seconds, and that told the tale. His tense face relaxed. A long breath came out slowly, and the shoulders no longer looked like a man antic.i.p.ating a heavy blow. "Yeah, baby, I came over to see Dr. Ryan, and we're in the nursery. Oh, okay." Pat looked over and handed over the phone. Cathy cradled it between her shoulder and ear.

"So, what did Madge say?" Cathy asked, already knowing most of it.

"Normal-and it's going to be a boy."

"So, Madge was right, the odds were in your favor." And they still were. Andrea was very fit. She wouldn't have any problems, Cathy was sure.

"Seven months from next Tuesday," Andrea said, her voice already bubbling.

"Well, listen to what Madge says. I do," Cathy a.s.sured her. She knew all the stuff Dr. North believed in. Don't smoke. Don't drink. Do your exercises. Take the cla.s.ses on prepared delivery along with your husband. Come see me in five weeks for your next checkup. Read What to Expect When You're Expecting. Cathy handed the phone back. Inspector O'Day had taken a few steps and turned away. When he turned back to take the phone, his eyes were unusually moist.

"Yeah, honey, okay. I'll be right over." He killed the phone and dumped it back in his pocket.

"Feel better?" she asked with a smile. One of the lionesses came over to take Kyle back. The little guy loved them all, and smiled up at her.

"Yes, ma'am. Sorry to bother you. I feel like a wuss."

"Oh, bullc.r.a.p." Rather a strong imprecation for Mrs. Dr. Ryan. "Like I said, life isn't a movie, and this isn't the Alamo. I know you're a tough guy, Pat, and so does Jack. What about you, Roy?"

"Pat can work with me any day. Congratulations, buddy," Altman added, turning back from the lead.

"Thanks, pal," O'Day told his colleague.

"Can I tell Jack, or does Andrea want to?" SURGEON asked.

"I guess you'll have to ask her about that one, ma'am."

Pat O'Day was transformed, enough spring in his step now to make him collide with the ceiling. He was surprised to see that Cathy was heading off to the OB-GYN building, but five minutes later it was obvious why. This was to be girl-girl bonding time. Even before he could embrace his wife, Cathy was there.

"Wonderful news, I'm so happy for you!"

"Yeah, well, I suppose the Bureau is good for something after all," Andrea joked.