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serious. “The President of the United States has an office wherever he likes, ma’am.”
    He pointed toward the end of the runway. Rachel saw the mammoth shape glistening in the distance, and her heart almost stopped. Even at three hundred yards, she recognized the light blue hull of the modified 747.
    “I’m meeting him aboard the . . .”
    “Yes, ma’am. His home away from home.”
    Rachel stared out at the massive aircraft. The military’s cryptic designation for this prestigious plane was VC-25-A, although the rest of the world knew it by another name: Air Force One.
    “Looks like you’re in the new one this morning,” the pilot said, motioning to the numbers on the plane’s tail fin.
    Rachel nodded blankly. Few Americans knew that there were actually two Air Force Ones in service—a pair of identical, specially configured 747-200-Bs, one with the tail number 28000 and the other 29000. Both planes had cruising speeds of 600 mph and had been modified for in-flight refueling, giving them virtually unlimited range.
    As the PaveHawk settled onto the runway beside the President’s plane, Rachel now understood the references to Air Force One being the commander-in-chief’s “portable home court advantage.” The machine was an intimidating sight.
    When the President flew to other countries to meet heads of state, he often requested—for security purposes—that the meeting take place on the runway aboard his jet. Although some of the motives were security, certainly another incentive was to gain a negotiating edge through raw intimidation. A visit to Air Force One was far more intimidating than any trip to the White House. The six-foot-high letters along the fuselage trumpeted “ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA .” A female English cabinet member had once accused President Nixon of “waving his manhood in her face” when he asked her to join him aboard Air Force One. Later the crew jokingly nicknamed the plane “Big Dick.”
    “Ms. Sexton?” A blazer-clad Secret Serviceman materialized outside the chopper and opened the door for her. “The President is waiting for you.”
    Rachel got out of the chopper and gazed up the steep gangway at the bulging hull. Into the flying phallus. She had once heard the flying “Oval Office” had over four thousand square feet of interior floor space, including four separate private sleeping quarters, berths for a twenty-six-member flight crew, and two galleys capable of providing food for fifty people.
    Climbing the stairway, Rachel felt the Secret Serviceman on her heels, urging her upward. High above, the cabin door stood open like a tiny puncture wound on the side of a gargantuan silver whale. She moved toward the darkened entryway and felt her confidence starting to ebb.
    Easy, Rachel. It’s just a plane.
    On the landing, the Secret Serviceman politely took her arm and guided her into a surprisingly narrow corridor. They turned right, walked a short distance, and emerged into a luxurious and spacious cabin. Rachel immediately recognized it from photographs.
    “Wait here,” the serviceman said, and he disappeared.
    Rachel stood alone in Air Force One’s famous wood-paneled fore cabin. This was the room used for meetings, entertaining dignitaries, and, apparently, for scaring the hell out of first-time passengers. The room spanned the entire width of the plane, as did its thick tan carpeting. The furnishings were impeccable—cordovan leather armchairs around a bird’s-eye maple meeting table, burnished brass floor lamps beside a continental sofa, and hand-etched crystal glassware on a mahogany wet bar.
    Supposedly, Boeing designers had carefully laid out this fore cabin to provide passengers with “a sense of order mixed with tranquility.” Tranquility, however, was the last thing Rachel Sexton was feeling at the moment. The only thing she could think of was the number of world leaders who had sat in this very room and made decisions that shaped the