Deep as the Marrow

Crackpots and left-wingers have talked about it for years, but no one with any real authority has ever considered it. It would be political suicide. But President Thomas Winston has taken the boldest and most bizarre step in the War on Drugs that the United States has ever seen. Vowing to make narcotics legal and to tax and regulate them to the brink of extinction, he intends to take the billions of dollars generated from their sale out of the hands of the drug cartels and move the money into the government's coffers. The conservatives and the Bible Belt are outraged. They swear they'll fight to the death to defeat the President's proposal and see him impeached. The drug lords laugh - they're sure decriminalization will never happen. But then important and respected figures begin to speak out in the media, guardedly supporting President Winston's ideas. Security at the White House is the tightest in its history as death threats pour in daily in ever-increasing numbers. Winston is not concerned. His men are handpicked, the best in the world. Nothing can get to him before he attends the International Drug Summit at The Hague. But they can get to Dr. John VanDuyne, Winston's personal physician and oldest friend, and the one man who can have an audience with the Chief Executive at any time. Someone has kidnapped the doctor's little girl and all he has to do to get her back is poison his best friend - the President of the United States.