He pulled his watch from its pocket and again checked the time. Almost 1:30. In about twenty minutes he would walk leisurely across the street and present himself. Then, for the first time in his life, he would meet a president of the United States.

For about the hundredth time, he questioned himself as to why he had been summoned. No use speculating, he finally decided; he would find out soon enough.

“Patrick Mahan.”

He turned quickly and looked up, blinking in the sunlight that caused the man standing to his left to be a silhouette. “Excuse me?” he responded confusedly.

“Patrick, don’t you recall me?”

The voice was British, educated, and very familiar. Recognition finally came. Patrick jumped to his feet and grabbed the other man’s hand and pumped vigorously.

“Ian! Ian Gordon! What on earth are you doing here?”

Ian Gordon, a smallish, wiry Scot with thick black hair and a neatly cropped and equally black beard, grinned. “Goodness, Patrick, is there a law against my being here?”

“Of course not, but you have to admit it is quite a coincidence.” Then another memory intruded. “Ian, it is a coincidence, isn’t it?”

Gordon smiled gently. “Good, so you do remember. Why don’t we both be seated and chat.”

Patrick quickly tried to recall as much as he could about Gordon, whom he had met in Europe the year he was to observe the Germans. Prior to reaching Germany, however, Patrick was directed by the War Department to meet with certain people in the British army, and Ian Gordon, then a major himself, was high on the list.

It didn’t take long for Patrick to find that Major Gordon, for all his affability and good humor, was not an ordinary military officer. Gordon’s admitted specialty was military intelligence, and his particular focus was the military might of Germany. Although not a spy himself, Patrick was certain that the pleasant Scot controlled a number of spies and received much information from them.