It was a part of the job and he had learned to tolerate it. The cameras were like a bad back; they were always around and there wasn't much you could do about them. President Robert Xavier Hayes was seated in his leather chair at the middle of the long table, his back to the windows. His chair was taller than all the others, just in case anyone forgot who the most important person in the room was.

On the President's right was Senator Moeller, a Democrat and the ranking minority member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. To his right was chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Flood. On the President's left were Senator Clark, the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the President's national security advisor, Michael Haik. Aides and staffers filled the remaining seats. Photos were snapped almost continually by two photographers from the White House press pool while a cameraman from one of the networks shot video of the meeting. Two reporters waited dutifully for the signal from the White House press secretary to give them the nod to start asking questions. They had been briefed on the purpose of the meeting and were told what would be permitted and what was out of bounds.

President Hayes, a moderate Democrat from Columbus, Ohio, knew both men on either side of him well, from his years in the Senate. He conversed freely with them and even cracked a few jokes while the cameras snapped away. It was what was called in Washington a staged love-test: the two parties coming together, putting aside their differences and doing the right thing. President Hayes was handsome in a clean-cut way. A shade over six feet, he had thin brown hair that was turning grayer by the month. Hayes stayed thin by putting in thirty minutes on his treadmill or bike four or five days a week. He almost always worked out first thing in the morning, knowing it was usually the only time when someone wasn't trying to get a piece of him.