"Were you expecting that de facto appointment as ambassador-in-chief?" she asked in a slightly irritated voice.

Benita shook her head, no, muttering, "I didn't even know they expected me to continue doing anything!"

The First Lady spoke to the SOS. "I was watching her face and the announcement took her by surprise as much as it did us." She took a deep breath and patted Benita's arm, whispering, "You were also surprised when they disappeared?"

Benita gulped. "They didn't disappear when I saw them before. They got in their ship and flew away."

"They disappeared when they met with the president," said the SOS, in a less abrasive tone. She and the FL nodded sympathetically. "Why did they choose you?"

Benita was surprised to find the question made her angry. Why shouldn't they have chosen her!

"Everyone has asked that. Congressman Alvarez. The general. Even the president asked me that. I suppose they wanted an ordinary person, with ordinary concerns and ordinary problems. I'm a thus-far underpaid minority working mother with an alcoholic husband. They couldn't have picked anyone much more ordinary than that."

"And two children in college as the result of your hard work," sniffed the SOS, giving her an admonitory look.

"There is that," she said, suddenly amused. "You've been checking up on me?"

"Of course the FBI has been investigating you. They even got some hair from your hairbrush back in Albuquerque so they could match it to your blood, just to be sure you're the real you."

"You went through our house? Bert must have loved that."

"Your husband has been in jail since early last Sunday morning. We made sure he would learn nothing about the search."

"Bert's in jail? Again?"

"It seems your husband was in no condition to drive at the time he had an accident."

"Oh, Lord," Benita said, ducking her head. How to be terminally embarrassed before the eyes of the world in one easy lesson!

The FL patted her arm, saying seriously, "Are you worried about him? Are you terribly concerned at not being there?"

Benita gritted her teeth. "At one time I would have said I was concerned. I've learned there's nothing I can do for him, so my concern is wasted."

The FL nodded. "There are all kinds of addictions, and we can't help the addicted if they don't want to be helped, Ms. Alvarez. We need to save our concern for things that need doing."

"Please call me Benita," she said. "Or just Bennie."

"Actually," murmured the SOS, "it would be better if we called you the intermediary, as the aliens requested. Everyone here is supposed to be trustworthy, but there's always the unlikely event that one of us is a spy."

Benita flushed. "Call me anything you like. I'm finished being Mrs. Bert Shipton, though. And you're right, I am upset about a lot of things."

"Well, don't be upset about the bureau going through your house," said the SOS, soothingly. "It was a very quiet investigation just so we could be sure you were who and what you said you were. Think about it. Aliens arrive and are announced by someone we don't know. If we had to bet our lives on it, and those of your family, which we may be doing, wouldn't we be remiss not to check?"

She considered it. "I suppose. Seeing how they can take any shape they like."

"Did you hear what our other alien guest talked about during dinner?"

"Small talk," Benita murmured. "The general's very interested in environmental issues. He'd recently attended a world conference on global warming. They talked about that. And since he's a rancher, he's interested in restoration of grasslands and riverbanks, the whole ecological bit."

"Interesting," said the FL. "Did you overhear Indira asking about Afghanistan and the treatment of women there? In the Pistach culture, she said, someone would intervene to stop men behaving that way, and why hadn't we done so."

"I don't think they understand yet that we have a lot of separate cultures," said Benita. "Either that, or they're just confirming that fact. Their people are evidently more . . . uniform than we are."

"We told her Afghanistan wasn't the only place that enslaves women, and we tried to explain about national sovereignty, that short of going to war, we have no right to meddle in foreign countries."

The SOS remarked, "She knew quite a bit about the things she was interested in. She wasn't asking out of real ignorance."

"I don't think they're allowed to," Benita said. "As they've pointed out to me, they're ethical beings. It wouldn't be ethical to pronounce on some subject without knowing a great deal about it."

"Oh, wouldn't that put an end to congressional debate," grated the SOS. She frowned. "Forget I said that. Now where's this place you've picked to live?"

Benita told them about the bookstore job, and the loft above it. The SOS demanded a full description, produced a little notebook and had Benita draw a sketchy floor plan. "Since the envoys have requested it, why don't we see if we can speed things up for you?"

"Simon, he's the owner, said he'd do it right away."

"Right away could mean next week or next month or whenever he can get a contractor. I spoke with the Attorney General earlier today. Chad Riley will be our liaison with Justice, and he can probably arrange to get this done in a day or two, complete with a good cover story for your boss. The aliens want you moved quickly, so let's try to hurry things up."

"It seems an imposition . . ."

"Are you going to refuse to work for the ET's?" the FL asked.

Benita shook her head uncertainly. "I don't know. I don't even know if they'd let me refuse."

"Well, then. Pretend it's part of the job. No personal obligation."

"Very well, if you like." She took a deep breath. "And since you have people in Albuquerque who are already familiar with my house and you're set on being helpful, could they pick up a few little items for me? My personal papers and some things that belonged to my mother? And my dog? I left him in a kennel there. And, could you fix it so I could send a letter to my former bosses, quitting my job and sort of ... misleading them about where I am?"

The SOS looked amused. "Why not? Simplifying your life is what we have in mind. Give me a list."

The SOS handed Benita a blank page, and she wrote down the half dozen items she had already decided to recover. Her documents and tax returns were all in one place, a shoebox in her closet. She also wrote down Sasquatch's name and description and the place he'd been left.

The FL said, "Go ahead and write your letter to your former bosses. Address it, no return, then call Chad Riley at the White House. He'll have an office there for the time being, and he can take care of it."

The three women rose. General McVane came back into the room, very red in the face, stalking angrily toward Benita. "Had you planned that little disappearing act . . ."

The SOS laid her hand protectively on Benita's shoulder. "She did not, General McVane, and we'd all be grateful for a more moderate tone. I attended the Cabinet meeting today, just as you did, and it was made clear that the intermediary is simply a woman who was selected by the aliens for their own purposes. She had no part in that selection, she has done her part well and faithfully, and she deserves generous recognition of that fact."

McVane flushed. "Sorry, ma'am. It's just . . . frustrating!"

Benita heard something more than mere frustration in his voice. "You were trying to find their ship, weren't you? You had people all set up to follow them when they left."

McVane cursed at her, heard himself, and turned even brighter red.

The SOS looked at Benita in amazement, then turned on McVane with an expression of outrage. "I thought the Cabinet agreed we wouldn't try anything like that."

"No such order from the commander-in-chief," he snarled.

"What did you call that meeting?" snapped the SOS. "A chat room? We all understood what the parameters were! Top secret and absolutely no interference! Whom have you involved?"

He spoke through his teeth. "No one who knows anything! My men were asked only to follow everyone who left here!"

"I suppose it was inevitable," said the FL, glaring at him angrily. "Did you use this woman's name, General?"

"No. I swear. I didn't."

"But your friends followed you here. And they're waiting to follow everyone back so they'll know who all the participants are. Have you identified her to them?"

McVane flushed again. "Ma'am, I don't know her name. They didn't use her name at the meeting, they haven't used her name tonight! And even I don't have a photograph."

The SOS said, "But if you'd had one, you'd have passed it around! The president will be very interested in that, General McVane."

The FL turned toward Benita, drawing her away from the confrontation. "That surprised me. How did you catch on?"

Benita shook her head. "I don't know. Something about the way he spoke, or looked. So frustrated.

He would have been surprised, but why would he have been frustrated?"

"You're very perceptive." The FL gave her a long, level look. "Hardly in keeping with what we've learned about you, quite frankly. And that little speech during dinner! I don't know about the envoys, but I was impressed."

"Actually, I was quoting my mother's father. He was a history professor in Mexico. He specialized in pre-Colombian history, so he knew a lot about bloody gods. Mami, that is, my mother, used to quote him a lot."

"Impressive, nonetheless. Well, we'll make sure McVane's sneaks don't follow you. Why do people always have to play games!"

She left Benita at the table while she spoke to Chad Riley, who was hovering by the door, then returned. "Let's all go in my car. The driver will bring it around. We'll go out through the kitchen."

And so they did, with two Secret Service men in the front seat and two cars full of them fore and aft, not to the hotel but to the White House, which, perhaps unsurprisingly, had back stairs. A little later, Chad Riley borrowed one of the kitchen people's private cars to take Benita to her hotel. She hid in the backseat, under a throw, while Chad drove around and around telling her stories of presidents past until he was sure they weren't being followed. From the hotel staff entrance, he escorted her upstairs to her room via a freight elevator. At the door he stopped, fished in his pocket and handed her a cell phone.

"What?" she asked, confused.

"The ladies asked me to arrange it so you could call your children without their finding out where you are. I phoned the bureau and had them set it up so calls you make from it will be diverted through half a dozen places around the country, places we'll change every day or so, so your call can't be traced back to you. Considering what McVane was up to, they thought this would be a wise precaution. You can use it anytime now, without worrying about it."

"I've never used one," she said. "Is it complicated?"

He showed her how to use it, had her repeat it back to him, then opened the door for her and wished her good night. She glanced at her watch as she let herself in, realizing in a panic it was almost midnight, an hour late for the call to California. Without taking off her coat, she sat down on the bed, flipped open the new gadget and dialed Angelica's number.

Angelica-WEDNESDAY.

Angelica had spent the morning at Crown Heights Elementary School where she would be spending two mornings a week as a classroom assistant, part of her internship program at the university. She had been wakened well after midnight by Carlos's jovial and rather drunken conversation with someone he had brought home with him. That had started her thinking about old times, worrying about Mom, and all that had kept her tossing and turning. The alarm had gone off only moments, so it seemed, after she'd finally fallen asleep, and she'd been running so late she'd had to get a taxi to be sure she was on time. The budget wouldn't stretch for a return trip, though, so she hiked from the school to the nearest bus stop, some blocks away.

The playground took up a double block, fenced with high chain link. The next block was a parking lot for rows of school buses, also fenced, with a guarded gate. The other side of the street was lined with small businesses dotted among vacant buildings. The third and fourth blocks ran along one side of the Morningside Project, a multistory housing development and a major source of the students she would be working with.

The cross street in front of the Project was busy, especially around the bus stop. Angelica noticed that at one time a shelter and a bench had stood on the curb, but only the steel stumps remained, along with a couple of battered newspaper vending machines.

Angelica had her purse hung by its strap under her coat, where it didn't show, with her change in her pocket. The newspaper truck was changing the papers when she arrived at the bus stop, so she bought a late edition and folded it under her arm. She only had five dollars and bus fare in her pocket. Her credit card was at home, well hidden. Last time she'd left it in her purse, Carlos had borrowed it, and it had taken her four months to pay off his bar bill.

The heavy foot traffic of boys and young men made her slightly nervous. There were fluid, eddying groups of three or more, some with very young boys in attendance. A mother with two young children came out of the Project door and turned toward Angelica, running a gauntlet of tomcat calls and all-too-personal comments, culminating in the suggestion that the speaker wouldn't mind giving her another baby to hatch.

"That was rotten," Angelica commented when the stony faced woman reached her.

"I pay them no mind," she said grimly. "You talk back, they get worse, you end up in a mess."

"They're obviously selling drugs," Angelica murmured. "Can't the police clear them out?"

"We thought we cleared them," the young woman said, casting a quick glance at the traffic in the street. "Oh, we thought we took care of all that. We went down to the city, almost sixty of us, along with the children. I took Elsha here, she's three, and William, he's almost six. The police captain and some of his men was there. We ask the councilmen, please give us that ordinance against loitering. So, they passed it, and the police moved out all these no-goods. We had three, four real nice weeks. Then the city got sued. ACLU helped a man sue for gettin moved along for no cause. Judge put a hold order on the ordinance. Can't move 'em along for no reason. Got to have probable cause, and that means the police gotta see it. Got to see them in the act. Got to get the drugs in their hands. Got to see money passed."

"All they have to do is look," said Angelica, angrily. "Anybody can see it!"

"Police show up, all the drugs disappear, just like magic. Police get here, all those no-goods, they're just rappin', listenin' to music. Police drive on, all those drugs, they just sprout back up outa nowhere."

"It's frustrating!" murmured Angelica, turning to watch the bus that was now approaching.

"It'll get worse," the woman said, stooping to button the toddler's jacket. The boy regarded Angelica impassively, then turned his attention back to the youths on the sidewalk. The mother saw him, took him by the hand and turned him away, biting her lip. "When William gets to be seven, eight, those no-goods, they'll get him holdin' for them, just like those little boys there now."

They got onto the bus together, and took a seat side by side, the little girl on her mother's lap, the boy standing at the window. Angelica bent to look across his shoulder. From the sidewalk, one of the young men flashed her a brilliant smile and an obscene body gesture, a balletic rape, an elegant violation. As she sat down, Angelica heard the young mother murmur, "You be careful comin' down here. He was watchin'

you before."

Angelica nodded. Her mouth was dry. To cover her confusion, she opened the paper and let her eyes focus on it.

DRIVE-BY DEATHS REACH NEW HIGH IN CALIFORNIA.

GOVERNOR SAYS DEATH OF TODDLERS IS "LAST STRAW".

BOMBING IN JERUSALEM CLAIMS FORTY LIVES.

RETALIATION PLANNED AGAINST SITES IN LEBANON.

SERBIAN UNDERGROUND CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY FOR BUS BOMBINGS.

TERRORISTS TARGETED SCHOOL CHILDREN.

JUDGE RULES MEGAN'S LAW UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

PEDOPHILE HAS PAID DEBT TO SOCIETY.

"I don't look at the papers," said the woman at her side. "I used to read them all the time. Now it's just all, more and more of the same, you know?"

"I know," said Angelica.

The mother and her children got off first. From Angelica's stop it was a six-block walk to the apartment, their apartment, the one she and Carlos shared, and she found herself slogging, trudging, so tired she ached.

The door to Carlos's room was ajar, and he was still in bed. She stood in the doorway, staring at him.

His schedule said he had English Composition this morning, and art classes this afternoon. His bed looked like a dog's nest. His laundry was piled in the corner where it had been for two weeks. She went in and shook him, not gently.