United States Senator William Henry Lee IV and his wife, Katharine Rule Lee, drove away from their Georgetown house in their Chevrolet Suburban early on a December morning. There was the promise of snow in the air.

Kate sipped coffee from an insulated mug and yawned. "Tell me again why we drive this enormous fucking car," she said.

Will laughed. "I keep forgetting you're not a politician," he said. "We drive it because it is, by my reckoning, the least offensive motor vehicle manufactured in the state of Georgia, and because Georgia car workers and their union have shown the great wisdom to support your husband's candidacy in two elections."

"Oh," she said. "Now I remember."

"Good. I'm glad I won't have to put you in a home right before Christmas." He looked in the rearview mirror and saw another Suburban following them. "They're there," he said.

"They're supposed to be."

"How did they know?"

"Because I called them last night and gave them our schedule."

The week before there had been a terrorist attack on CIA employees as they had left the Agency's building in McLean, Virginia, and certain Agency officials had been given personal protection for a time; Kate Rule was the deputy director for intelligence, chief of all the CIA's analysts, and was, therefore, entitled.

"Oh," Will replied, sipping his own coffee and heading north toward College Park, Maryland, and its airport. "They're not going to follow us all the way to Georgia, are they?"

"I persuaded them that wouldn't be necessary."

"Good."

"It's a little like having Secret Service protection, isn't it?" she nudged. "Does it make you feel presidential?"

"Nothing is going to make me feel presidential, at least for another nine years."

"What about the cabinet? If Joe Adams is elected and wants you for Defense or State or something, will you leave the Senate?"

Joseph Adams was vice president of the United States and the way-out-in-front leader for the Democratic Party's nomination for president the following year. "Joe and I have already talked about that. He says I can have anything I want, but he doesn't really mean it."

"I always thought Joe was a pretty sincere guy," Kate said.

"Oh, he is, and he was sincere with the half-dozen other guys he told the same thing. But I don't really have the foreign-policy credentials for State, and while I think I really could have Defense, I don't want it. I don't want to spend eight or even four years doing battle with both the military and Congress; the job killed James Forrestal and Les Aspin, and it's ground up a lot of others."

"What about Justice? Your work on the Senate Judiciary Committee should stand you in good stead for that."

"I think I could have Justice, if I were willing to fight for it tooth and nail, and there's a real opportunity to do some good work there."

"Well?"

"I think I'll stay in the Senate. Georgia's got a Republican governor at the moment, and if I left, he'd get to appoint my replacement, and we don't want that. Also, if Joe's elected, three or four top senators will leave to join the administration, among them the minority leader, and I'd have a real good shot at that job. And if we can win the Senate back, then the job would be majority leader, and that is very inviting."

"It's the kind of job you could keep for the rest of your career," she said.

"It is."

"But you don't want to spend the rest of your career in the Senate, do you?"

"You know I love the Senate."

"Will, you've been awfully closemouthed about this, but I know damned well you want to be president."

"One of these days, sure," Will replied.

"You mean after Joe has served for eight years?"

"I'd only be fifty-seven. Why not? I might even...