"Fred! Are you kidding? Fred hasn't the sense or the guts! How long will he be gone?" "Two or three weeks." "Oh," said Elsie, scratching herself disinterestedly. "Well, thanks for the beer." She shut the door and the trooper returned to the squad car. He looked at Fred sympathetically but said nothing. The squad car took off, then turned on its sirens. "What's this all about?" asked Fred Williams from the back seat. "Just excitement, bud. We live a dull life." You think you do, you should live mine. I don't care anyway. If I ask them what I'm doing in this squad car, I'll get a silly answer. "A guy called Spinner or something send for you?" "We don't get sent for, bud. Where have you been, the Middle Ages?" * * * * * He had a point there. Security troopers were under direct control of the President and came and went as they pleased. The satellite stations gave them general directives and the President directed the stations. Fred Williams grinned at the thought of Spinner, or whatever his name was, calling the President to call a satellite station to call these cops to come and get him. He would have been shocked and frightened if anyone had told him this was almost exactly what had happened. They shot into the garage of an ordinary Federal police station, a large tiled vault smelling of hoses, soap and water. The troopers took him upstairs, along wax-polished corridors, through swinging doors and out of the muttered voices, footsteps, paper rattling and telephone tinkle of the station, into the smooth silence of a surgery. That fellow Spinner was waiting in a white doctor's coat. "They pick you up too?" Fred Williams said. The Security troopers hoisted him into a dentist's chair, saluted the other man and went away. "You can leave any time you wish, Fred. If you do, though, I'll have you brought back. I'm Dr. Howard Sprinnell." "Funny, I thought your name was Cloud Spinner or something," Fred confessed. "That's very interesting." The doctor leaned forward across his desk. "What made you think that?" "I just remembered it that way, that's all." "Ah. You have an unusual mind, Fred. No, I mean it. And just to show you this is not fooling, I have a call here for you from the President." "From Jake?" "From President Jackson, yes." * * * * * Dr. Sprinnell pressed a green button on the video control on his desk. The wall panel lit and President Jackson's familiar face looked at Fred Williams. "Mr. Williams," said the President. "The nation has called you to an unusual task. On your complete cooperation and absolute discretion in not mentioning to anyone--to anyone at all--what you may now learn depend matters of the utmost consequence to us all. I wish you good luck and Godspeed." The panel went dark and the doctor switched off. "That was Jake himself," Fred Williams said. "Talking to me."