«Mr. President, Dr. Kennedy is here.»

President Robert Xavier Hayes sat behind his desk sipping a cup of coffee and reading Friday morning's edition of the Washington Post. A pair of black-rimmed reading spectacles sat perched on the end of his nose, and when Kennedy entered he looked up from the print and over the top of his cheaters. Hayes immediately closed the paper and said, «Thank you, Colonel.» He then rose from his chair and walked over to a small circular table where he gestured for Kennedy to sit.

Hayes was dressed for his morning golf match, wearing a pair of khaki pants, a plain blue golf shirt, and a pullover vest. He set his mug down on the table and poured a second cup for Kennedy. After placing it in front of her, he sat and asked, «How is Director Stansfield?»

«He's…» Kennedy grasped to come up with the appropriate word to describe her boss's failing health, ''as well as could be expected.»

Hayes nodded. Thomas Stansfield was a very private man. He had been with the CIA from its very inception, and it appeared he would be with it to the very end of his own life. The seventy-nine-year-old spymaster had just been diagnosed with cancer, and the doctors were giving him less than six months.

The president turned his attention to the more immediate matter. «How are things proceeding in Germany?»

«On track. Mitch arrived last night and gave me a full report before I left this morning.»

When Kennedy had briefed the president on the operation earlier in the week, the one thing Hayes had made crystal-clear was that there would be no green light unless Rapp was involved. The closed meeting between the president and Kennedy was one of many they had had in the last five months, all in an effort to harass, frustrate, destabilize, and, if possible, kill one person.