Weekends...

Somewhere in the midst of a dream of courting Helen, he was suddenly awakened by the shrilling telephone. Immediately terrified that he had somehow overslept, had missed the noontime rendezvous, Brognola checked his watch and found that it was barely 6:00 a.m. Outside, the pearly light of dawn was filtering through ground fog that had twined itself around the trees.

He fumbled for the receiver, brought it to his ear.

"Brognola."

"Chatsworth, here."

He recognized the voice of his direct liaison with the Oval Office, puzzled by the hour and the call itself. No one had ever phoned him at the cabin, and Chatsworth rarely called at all these days, since the debacle with the CIA at Stony Man.

"What is it?"

"Sorry for the wake-up call." But Chatsworth's tone informed Brognola that he wasn't sorry in the least. "The Man desires your presence. Ten o'clock all right with you?"

It hadn't really been a question, and Brognola didn't bother with an answer.

"What's the flap?" he asked.

"I couldn't say."

Or wouldn't. Either one might be the truth. Brognola never really knew how much the President confided in his aide.

"Okay. I'll see you then."

He replaced the receiver swiftly, beating Chatsworth to the punch by maybe half a second, satisfied with the petty victory. The two of them would scarcely pass for friends, Brognola viewing Chatsworth as a combination hatchet man and gopher, Chatsworth doubtless viewing him as something of a bureaucratic drone. But they were not required to love each other. Chatsworth was a fact of life at least until the next election, and Brognola frankly didn't give a damn about the guy this morning. He had other things in mind.

The summons back to Wonderland eliminated any thought of sleep. In any case, his nerves were strung too tightly now for relaxation to become reality. The drive would do him good, providing him with time to think, uninterrupted, and devise a course of action for the retrieval of his family.