by Tom Clancy
"John, he rolled us."
"You think."
"The information I got—well, what do you think?" It had been a frantic two hours, with the entire network research staff running down bits of such minor trivia that even two or three of the pieces, put together, didn't amount to much of anything. But they'd all checked out, and that was something else entirely.
"I'm not sure, Tom." Plumber rubbed his eyes. "Is Ryan a little out of his depth? Yes, he is. But is he trying pretty hard? Definitely. Is he honest? I think so. Well, as honest as any of them ever can be," he amended himself.
"Then we'll give him the chance to prove it, won't we?"
Plumber didn't say anything. Visions of ratings, and maybe even an Emmy, were dancing in the eyes of his junior colleague like sugar plums on Christmas Eve. In any case, Donner was the anchor, and Plumber was the commentator, and Tom had the ear of the front office in New York, which had once been peopled by men of his own generation, but was now entirely populated by people of Donner's, businessmen more than journalists, who saw ratings as the Holy Grail on their quarterly earnings statements. Well, Ryan liked businessmen, didn't he? "I suppose."
THE HELICOPTER LANDED on the South Lawn pad. The crew chief jerked the door open and jumped out, next helping the First Lady out with a smile. Her portion of the Detail followed, walking up the gentle slope to the south entrance, then to the elevator, where Roy Altman pushed the button for her, since the First Lady wasn't allowed to do that, either.
"SURGEON is in the elevator, heading for the residence," Agent Raman reported from the ground floor.
"Roger," Andrea Price acknowledged upstairs. She'd already had some people from the Technical Security Unit check all the metal detectors the NBC crew had passed on the way out. The TSU chief commented that occasionally they got a little fluky, and the large-format Beta tapes the networks used could easily be damaged—but he didn't think so. Maybe a line surge, she'd asked. No chance, he'd replied, reminding her archly that even the air in the White House was checked continuously by his people. Andrea debated discussing that with the chief of staff, but it would have been no use. Damn the reporters anyway. They were the biggest pain in the ass on the campus. "Hi, Andrea," Cathy said, breezing past her.
"Hello, Dr. Ryan. Dinner is just coming up now."
"Thank you," SURGEON replied on her way into the bedroom. She stopped on entering, seeing that a dress and jewelry were on her valet. Frowning, she kicked off her shoes and got casual clothes for dinner, wondering, as always, if there were cameras hidden somewhere to record the event.
The White House cook, George Butler, was by far her superior. He'd even improved on her spinach salad, adding a pinch of rosemary to the dressing she'd perfected over the years. Cathy kibitzed with him at least once a week, and in turn he showed her how to use the institutional-class appliances. She sometimes wondered how good a cook she might have become had she not opted for medicine. The executive chef hadn't told her that she had a gift for it, being fearful of patronizing her— SURGEON was a surgeon, after all. Along the way he'd learned the family preferences, and cooking for a toddler, he'd discovered, was a treat, especially when she occasionally came down with her towering bodyguard to search for snacks. Don Russell and she had milk and cookies at least twice a week. SANDBOX had become the darling of the staff.
"Mommy!" Katie Ryan said when Cathy came through the door.
''Hi, honey." SANDBOX got the first hug and kiss. POTUS got the second. The older kids resisted, as always. "Jack, why are my clothes out?"
"We're going to be on TV tonight," SWORDSMAN replied warily.
"Why?"
"The tape from this morning got all farbled up, and they want to do it live at nine, and if you're willing, I want you to be there, too."
"To answer what?"
"About what you'd expect as far as I'm concerned."
"So, what do I do, walk in with a tray of cookies?"
"George makes the best cookies!" SANDBOX added to the conversation. The other kids laughed. It broke the tension somewhat.
"You don't have to if you don't want, but Arnie thinks it's a good idea."
"Great," Cathy observed. Her head tilted as she looked at her husband. Sometimes she wondered where the puppet strings were, the ones Arnie used to jerk her husband around.
BONDARENKO WAS WORKING late—or early, depending on one's point of view. He'd been at his desk for twenty hours, and since his promotion to general officer he'd learned that life was far better as a colonel. As a colonel he'd gotten out to jog, and even managed to sleep with his wife most of the time. Now—well, he'd always aspired to higher rank. He'd always had ambition, else why would a Signal Corps officer have gone into the Afghan mountains with the Spetznaz? Recognized for his talent, his colonelcy had almost been his undoing, as he'd worked as a close aide for another colonel who'd turned out to be a spy— that fact still boggled him. Misha Filitov a spy for the West? It had shaken his faith in many things, most of all his faith in his country—but then the country had died. The Soviet Union which had raised him and uniformed him and trained him had died one cold December night, to be replaced with something smaller and more… comfortable to serve. It was easier to love Mother Russia than a huge polyglot empire. Now it was as though the adopted children had all moved away, and the true children remained, and that made for a happier family.
But a poorer one. Why hadn't he seen it before? His country's military had been the world's largest and most impressive, or so he had once thought, with its huge masses of men and arms, and its proud history of destroying the German invaders in history's most brutal war. But that military had died in Afghanistan, or if not quite that, then lost its soul and its confidence, as America's had done in Vietnam. But America had recovered, a process his country had yet to begin.
All that money wasted. Wasted on the departed provinces, those ungrateful wretches whom the Union had supported for generations, now gone, taking so much wealth with them, and in some cases turning away to join with others, then, he feared, to turn back as enemies. Just like unfaithful adopted children.
Golovko was right. If that danger was to be stopped, it had to be stopped early. But how? Dealing with a few bandit Chechens had proved difficult enough.
He was operations chief now. In five more years, he'd be commanding general. Bondarenko had no illusions about that. He was the best officer of his age group, and his performance in the field had won him high-level attention, ever the determining factor in the ultimate advancement. He could get that job just in time to fight Russia's last losing battle. Or maybe not. In five years, given funding and a free hand to reshape doctripe and training, he might just convert the Russian army into a force such as it had never been. He would shamelessly use the American model, as the Americans had shamelessly used Soviet tactical doctrine in the Persian Gulf War. But for that to happen he needed a few years of relative peace. If his forces were to be trapped into fighting brushfires all along its southern periphery, he would not have the needed time or funding to save the army. So what was he supposed to do? He was the operations chief. He was supposed to know. It was his job to know. Except he didn't. Turkmenistan was first. If he didn't stop it there, he never would. On the left side of his desk was a roster of available divisions and brigades, with their supposed states of readiness. On the right side was a map. The two made a poor match.
"YOU HAVE SUCH nice hair," Mary Abbot said.
"I didn't do surgery today," Cathy explained. "The cap always ruins it."
"You've had the same hairstyle for how long?"
"Since we got married."
"Never changed it?" That surprised Mrs. Abbot. Cathy just shook her head. She thought that she looked rather like the actress Susannah York—or at least she'd liked the look from a movie she'd seen while in college. And the same was true of Jack, wasn't it? He'd never changed his haircut, except when he didn't have the time to get a trim, something else the White House staff took care of, every two weeks. T
hey were far better at managing Jack's life than she'd ever been. They probably just did things and scheduled things instead of asking first, as she had always done. A much more efficient system, Cathy told herself. She was more nervous than she let on, worse than the first day of medical school, worse than her first surgical procedure, when she'd had to close her eyes and scream inwardly at her hands to keep them from shaking. But at least they'd listened then, and they listened now, too. Okay, she thought, that was the key. This was a surgical procedure, and she was a surgeon, and a surgeon was always in control.
"I think that does it," Mrs. Abbot said.
"Thank you. Do you like working with Jack?"
An insider's smile. "He hates makeup. But most men do," she allowed.
"I have a secret for you—so do I."
"I didn't do much," Mary observed at once. "Your skin doesn't need much."
The woman-to-woman observation made Dr. Ryan smile. "Thank you."
"Can I make a suggestion?"
"Sure."
"Let your hair grow another inch, maybe two. It would complement the shape of your face better."
"That's what Elaine says—she's my hairdresser in Baltimore. I tried it once. The surgical caps make it all scrunchy."
"We can make bigger caps for you. We try to take care of our First Ladies."
"Oh!" And why didn't I think of that? Cathy asked herself. It had to be cheaper than taking the helicopter to work… "Thank you!"
"This way." Mrs. Abbot led FLOTUS to the Oval Office.
Surprisingly, Cathy had been in the room only twice before, and only once to see Jack there. It suddenly struck her as odd. Her bedroom wasn't fifty yards away from her husband's place of work, after all. The desk struck her as grossly old-fashioned, but the office itself was huge and airy compared to hers at Hopkins, even now with the TV lights and cameras set up. Over the mantel opposite the desk was what the Secret Service called the world's most photographed plant. The furniture was too formal to be comfortable, and the rug with the President's Seal embroidered on it was downright tacky, she thought. But it wasn't a normal office for a normal person.
"Hi, honey." Jack kissed her and handled introductions. "This is Tom Donner and John Plumber."
"Hello." Cathy smiled. "I used to listen to you while fixing dinner."
"Not anymore?" Plumber asked with a smile.
"No TV in the dining room upstairs, and they won't let me fix dinner."
"Doesn't your husband help?" Donner asked.
"Jack in the kitchen? Well, he's okay on a grill, but the kitchen is my territory." She sat down, looking at their eyes. It wasn't easy. The TV lights were already on. She made the extra effort. Plumber she liked. Donner was hiding something. The realization made her blink, and her face changed over to her doctor's look. She had the sudden desire to say something to Jack, but there wasn't—
"One minute," the producer said. Andrea Price, as always, was in the room, standing by the door to the secretaries' space, and the door behind Cathy was open to the corridor. Jeff Raman was there. He was another odd duck, Cathy thought, but the problem with the White House was that everyone treated you like you were Julius Caesar or something. It was so hard just being friendly with people. It seemed that there was always something in the way. Fundamentally, neither Jack nor Cathy was used to having servants. Employees, yes, but not servants. She was popular with her nurses and technicians at Hopkins because she treated them all like the professionals they were, and she was trying to do the same thing here, but for some reason it didn't work quite the same way, and that was bothersome in a distant way.
"Fifteen seconds."
"Are we having fun yet?" Jack whispered.
Why couldn't you just have stayed at Merrill Lynch? Cathy almost said aloud. He would have been a senior VP by now—but, no. He would never have been happy. Jack was as driven to do his work as she was to fix people's eyes. In that they were the same.
"Good evening," Donner said to the camera behind the Ryans. "We're here in the Oval Office to speak with President Jack Ryan and the First Lady. As I said on NEC Nightly News, a technical glitch damaged the taping we did earlier today. The President has graciously allowed us to come back and talk live." His head turned. "And for that, sir, we thank you."
"Glad to see you again, Tom," the President said, comfortably. He was getting better at concealing his thoughts.
"Also joining us is Mrs. Ryan—"
"Please," Cathy said, with a smile of her own. "It's Dr. Ryan. I worked pretty hard for that."
"Yes, ma'am," Donner said with a charm that made Cathy think about a bad trauma case rolling off on Monument Street at lunchtime. "You're both doctors, aren't you?"
"Yes, Mr. Donner, Jack in history, and me in ophthalmology."
"And you're a distinguished eye surgeon with the Lasker Public Service Award," he observed, applying his anchorman's charm.
"Well, I've been working in medical research for over fifteen years. At Johns Hopkins we're all clinicians and researchers, too. I work with a wonderful group of people, and, really, the Lasker Prize is more a tribute to them than it is to me. Back fifteen years ago, Professor Bernard Katz encouraged me to look into how we could use lasers to correct various eye problems. I found it interesting, and I've been working in that area ever since, in addition to my normal surgical practice."
"Do you really make more money than your husband?" Donner asked with a grin for the cameras.
"Lots," she confirmed with a chuckle.
"I always said that Cathy was the brains of the outfit," Jack went on, patting his wife's hand. "She's too modest to say that she's just about the best in the world at what she does."
"So, how do you like being First Lady?"
"Do I have to answer?" A charming smile. Then she turned serious. "The way we got here—well, it's not something anyone would wish for, but I guess it's like what I do at the hospital. Sometimes a trauma case comes in, and that person didn't choose to be injured, and we try our best to fix what's wrong. Jack's never turned away from a problem or a challenge in his life."
Then it was time for business. "Mr. President, how do you like your job?"
"Well, the hours are pretty long. As much time as I have spent in government service, I don't think I ever really understood how difficult this job is. I am blessed with a very fine staff, and our government has thousands of dedicated workers doing the public's business. That helps a lot."
"As you see it, sir, what is your job?" John Plumber asked.
"The oath says to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States," Ryan replied. "We're working to restore the government. We now have the Senate fully in place, and as the several states get on with their elections, we'll soon have a new House of Representatives. I've got most of the Cabinet posts filled—for HHS and Education, we still have the sitting Deputy Secretaries doing a fine job."
"We spoke this morning about events in the Persian Gulf. What are the problems there as you see them?" It was Plumber again. Ryan was handling himself well, much more relaxed, and Plumber noted the look in his wife's eyes. She was smart.
"The United States wants nothing more than peace and stability in that region. We have every wish to establish friendly relations with the new United Islamic Republic. There's been enough strife there and elsewhere in the world. I'd like to think that we've turned the corner on that. We've made peace—a real peace, not just the absence of war—with the Russians, after generations of turmoil. I want us to build on that. Maybe the world's never been fully at peace, but that is no reason why we can't do it. John, we've come a very long way in the past twenty years. There's a lot more for us to do, but we have a lot of good work to build on."
"We'll be back after this break," Donner told the cameras. He could see that Ryan was pretty pleased with himself. Excellent.
A staffer came in from the back door with water glasses. Everyone had a sip while they waited for the two commercials to run. "You really hate all
this, don't you?" he asked Cathy.
"As long as I can do my work, I can live with almost anything, but I do worry about the kids. After this is over, they have to go back to being normal children, and we didn't raise them for all this hoopla." Then everyone was quiet for the rest of the commercial time.
"We're back on the Oval Office with the President and First Lady. Mr. President," Donner asked, "what about the changes you are making?"
"Mainly my job isn't to 'change, Tom, it's to 'restore. Along the way we will try to do a few things. I've tried to select my new Cabinet members with an eye toward making the government function more efficiently. As you know, I've been in government service for quite a while, and along the way I've seen numerous examples of inefficiency. The citizens out there pay a lot of money in taxes, and we owe it to them to see that the money is spent wisely—and efficiently. So I've told my Cabinet officers to examine all of the executive departments with an eye to doing the same work for less cost."