His trained mind ran over the possibilities, and the analysis came rapidly. A single man. Perhaps two. More likely one. As always, he thought with a tight-lipped nod, one man willing to die, to sacrifice himself for the Cause—whatever Cause he might have served—could be more formidable than an army: In the case at hand, the man in question had possessed special skills and access to special means, both of which had served his purpose well.
That was luck, as was the single-actor aspect to the feat. It was easy for a single man to keep a secret. He grunted. That was the problem he’d always faced. The really hard part was finding the right people, people whom he could trust, who wouldn’t boast to or confide in others, who shared his own sense of mission, who had his own discipline, and who were truly willing to risk their lives. That last criterion was the price of entry, once easy enough to establish, but now it was becoming so much harder in a changing world. The well into which he dipped was running dry, and it did no good to deny it. He was running out of the truly devoted.
Always smarter and farther-seeing than his contemporaries, he himself had faced the necessity of participating in three real operations, and though he’d had the steel in his soul to do what had to be done, he didn’t crave to repeat it. It was too dangerous, after all. It wasn’t that he feared the consequences of his action—it was that a dead terrorist was as dead as his victims, and dead men carried out no more missions. Martyrdom was something he’d been prepared to risk, but nothing he’d ever really sought. He wanted to win, after all, to reap the benefits of his action, to be recognized as a winner, liberator, conqueror, to be in the books which future generations would read as something other than a footnote. The successful mission on the TV in his bedroom would be remembered as an awful thing by most. Not the act of a man, but something akin to a natural disaster, because, elegant as it was, it served no political purpose. And that was the problem with the mad act of one dedicated martyr. Luck wasn’t enough. There had to be a reason, a result. Such a successful act was only so if it led to something else. This manifestly had not. And that was too bad. It wasn’t often that—
No, the man reached for his orange juice and sipped it before he allowed his mind to proceed. Wasn’t often? This had never happened, had it? That was a largely philosophical question. He could say, harkening back to history, that the Assassins had been able to topple or at least decapitate governments, but back then such a task had meant the elimination of a single man, and for all the bravura shown by emissaries of that hilltop fortress, the modern world was far too complex. Kill a president or prime minister—even one of the lingering kings some nations clung to—and there was another to step into the vacant place. As had evidently happened in this case. But this one was different. There was no Cabinet to stand behind the new man, to show solidarity and determination and continuity on their angry faces. If only something else, something larger and more important had been ready when the aircraft had made its fall, then this thing of beauty would have been more beautiful still. That it hadn’t could not be changed, but as with all such events, there was much to learn from both its success and failure, and its aftermath, planned or not, was very, very real.
In that sense it was tragic. An opportunity had been wasted. If only he’d known. If only the man who’d flown that airplane to its final destination had let someone know what was planned. But that wasn’t the way of martyrs, was it? The fools had to think alone, act alone, and die alone; and in their personal success lay ultimate failure. Or perhaps not. The aftermath was still there....
“MR. PRESIDENT?” A Secret Service agent had picked up the phone. Ordinarily it would have been a Navy yeoman, but the Detail was still a little too shell-shocked to allow just anyone into the Sit Room. “FBI, sir.”
Ryan pulled the phone from its holder under the desktop. “Yes?”
“Dan Murray here.” Jack nearly smiled to hear a familiar voice, and a friendly one at that. He and Murray went back a very long way indeed. At the other end, Murray must have wanted to say Hi, Jack, but he wouldn’t—couldn’t be so familiar without being so bidden—and even if Jack had encouraged him, the man would have felt uncomfortable to do so, and would have run the further risk of being thought an ass-kisser within his own organization. One more obstacle to being normal, Jack reflected. Even his friends were now distancing themselves.
“What is it, Dan?”
“Sorry to bother you, but we need guidance on who’s running the investigation. There’s a bunch of people running around on the Hill right now, and—”
“Unity of command,” Jack observed sourly. He didn’t have to ask why Murray was calling him. All those who could have decided this issue at a lower level were dead. “What’s the law say for this?”
“It doesn’t, really,” Murray replied. The discomfort in his voice was clear. He didn’t wish to bother the man who had once been his friend, and might still be, in less official circumstances. But this was business, and business had to be carried out.
“Multiple jurisdictions?”
“To a fare-thee-well,” Murray confirmed with an unseen nod.
“I guess we call it a terrorist incident. We have a tradition of that, you and I, don’t we?” Jack asked.
“That we do, sir.”
Sir, Ryan thought. Damn it. But he had another decision to make. Jack scanned the room before replying.
“The Bureau is the lead agency on this. Everybody reports to you. Pick a good man to run things.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dan?”
“Yes, Mr. President?”
“Who’s senior over at FBI?”
“The Associate Director is Chuck Floyd. He’s down at Atlanta to give a speech and—” Then there would be the Assistant Directors, all senior to Murray ...
“I don’t know him. I do know you. You’re acting Director until I say otherwise.” That shook the other side of the connection, Ryan immediately sensed.
“Uh, Jack, I—”
“I liked Shaw, too, Dan. You’ve got the job.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
Ryan replaced the phone and explained what he’d just done.
Price objected first: “Sir, any attack on the President is under the jurisdiction of ” Ryan cut her off.
“They have more resources, and somebody has to be in command. I want this one settled as quickly as possible.”
“We need a special commission.” This was Arnie van Damm.
“Headed by whom?” President Ryan asked. “A member of the Supreme Court? Couple of senators and congressmen? Murray’s a pro from way back. Pick a good—whoever’s the senior career member of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division will oversee the investigation. Andrea, find me the best investigator in the Service to be Murray’s chief assistant. We don’t have outsiders to use, do we? We run this from the inside. Let’s pick the best people and let them run with it. Like, we act as though we trust the agencies who’re supposed to do the work.” He paused. “I want this investigation to run fast, okay?”
“Yes, Mr. President.” Agent Price bobbed her head, and Ryan caught an approving nod from Arnie van Damm. Maybe he was doing something right, Jack allowed himself to think. The satisfaction was short-lived enough. Against the wall in the far corner was a bank of television sets. All showed essentially the same picture now, and the flash of a photographer’s strobe on all four sets caught the President’s eyes. He turned to see four iterations of a body bag being carried down the steps of the Capitol building’s west wing. It was one more cadaver to identify—large or small, male or female, important or not, one couldn’t tell from the rubberized fabric of the bag. There were only the strained, cold, sad faces of the firefighters carrying the damned thing, and that had attracted the attention of a nameless newspaper photographer and his camera and his flash, and so brought their President back to a reality he now, again, shrank from. The TV cameras followed the trio, two living, one dead, down the steps to an ambulance whose open doors revealed
a pile of such bags. The one they were carrying was passed across gently, the professionals showing mercy and solicitude to the body which the living world had forsaken. Then they headed back up the steps to get the next one. The Situation Room fell silent as all eyes took in the same picture. A few deep breaths were taken, and eyes were too steely or too shocked as yet for tears as, two by two, they turned away to stare down at the polished oak of the table. A coffee cup scraped and rattled its way from a saucer. The slight noise only made the silence worse, for no one had the words to fill the void.
“What else has to be done now?” Jack asked. It hit him so hard, the fatigue of the moment. The earlier racing of his heart in the face of death and in fear for his family and in agony at the loss was taking its toll on him now. His chest seemed empty, his arms weighed down, as though the sleeves of his coat were made of lead, and suddenly it was an effort just to hold up his head. It was 11:35, after a day that had begun at 4:10 in the morning, filled with interviews about a job he’d held for all of eight minutes before his abrupt promotion. The adrenaline rush which had sustained him was gone, its two-hour duration making him all the more exhausted for its length. He looked around with what seemed an important question:
“Where do I sleep tonight?” Not here, Ryan decided instantly. Not in a dead man’s bed on dead man’s sheets a few feet from a dead man’s kids. He needed to be with his own family. He needed to look at his own children, probably asleep by now, because children slept through anything; then to feel his wife’s arms around him, because that was the one constant in Ryan’s world, the single thing that he would never allow to change despite the cyclonic events that had assailed a life he had neither courted nor expected.
The Secret Service agents shared a look of mutual puzzlement, before Andrea Price spoke, taking command as was her nature and now her job.
“Marine Barracks? Eighth and I?”
Ryan nodded. “That’ll do for now.”
Price spoke into her radio microphone, which was pinned to the collar of her suit jacket. “SWORDSMAN is moving. Bring the cars to the West Entrance.”
The agents of the Detail rose. As one person they unbuttoned their coats, and as they passed out the door, hands reached for their pistols.
“We’ll shake you loose at five,” van Damm promised, adding, “Make sure you get the sleep you need.” His answer was a brief, empty stare, as Ryan left the room. There a White House usher put a coat on him—whose it was or where it might have come from, Jack didn’t think to ask. He climbed into the Chevy Suburban backseat, and it moved off at once, with an identical vehicle in front, and three more behind. Jack could have avoided the sights, but not the sounds, for sirens were still wailing beyond the armored glass, and it would have been cowardice to look away in any case. The fire glow was gone, replaced by the sparkling of lights from scores of emergency vehicles, some moving, most not, on or around the Hill. The police were keeping downtown streets clear, and the presidential motorcade headed rapidly east, ten minutes later arriving at the Marine Barracks. Here everyone was awake now, properly uniformed, and every Marine in sight had a rifle or pistol in evidence. The salutes were crisp.
The home of the commandant of the Marine Corps dated back to the early nineteenth century, one of the few official buildings that hadn’t been burned by the British during their visit in 1814. But the commandant was dead. A widower with grown children, he’d lived here alone until this last night. Now a full colonel stood on the porch in pressed utilities with a pistol belt around his waist and a full platoon spread around the house.
“Mr. President, your family is topside and all secure,” Colonel Mark Porter reported immediately. “We have a full rifle company deployed on perimeter security, and another one is on the way.”
“Media?” Price asked.
“I didn’t have any orders about that. My orders were to protect our guests. The only people within two hundred meters are the ones who belong here.”
“Thank you, Colonel,” Ryan said, not caring about the media, and heading for the door. A sergeant held it open, saluting as a Marine ought, and without thinking, Ryan returned it. Inside, a more senior NCO pointed him up the stairs—this one also saluted, as he was under arms. It was clear to Ryan now that he couldn’t go anywhere alone. Price, another agent, and two Marines followed him up the stairs. The second-floor corridor had two Secret Service agents and five more Marines. Finally, at 11:54, he walked into a bedroom to find his wife sitting.
“Hi.”
“Jack.” Her head turned. “It’s all true?”
He nodded, then he hesitated before coming to sit next to Cathy. “The kids?”
“Asleep.” A pause. “They don’t really know what’s going on. I guess that makes four of us,” she added.
“Five.”
“The President’s dead?” Cathy turned to see her husband nod. “I hardly got to know him.”
“Good guy. Their kids are at the House. Asleep. I didn’t know if I was supposed to do anything. So I came here.” Ryan reached for his collar and pulled the tie loose. It seemed to take a considerable effort to do so. Better not to disturb the kids, he decided. It would have been hard to walk that far anyway.
“And now?”
“I have to sleep. They get me up at five.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Jack managed to get out of his clothes, hoping that the new day would contain some of the answers that the night merely concealed.
2
PRE-DAWN
IT WAS TO BE EXPECTED that they’d be as exactly punctual as their electronic watches could make them. It seemed to Ryan that he’d hardly closed his eyes when the gentlest of taps at the door startled him off the pillow. There came the brief moment of confusion normal to the moment of awakening in any place other than one’s own bed: Where am I? The first organized thought told him that he’d dreamed a lot of things, and maybe—But hard on the heels of that thought was the internal announcement that the worst of the dream was still real. He was in a strange place, and there was no other explanation for it. The tornado had swept him up into a whirling mass of terror and confusion, and then deposited him here, and here was neither Kansas nor Oz. About the best thing he could say, after five or ten seconds of orientation, was that he didn’t have the expected headache from sleep-deprivation, and that he wasn’t quite so tired. He slid out from under the covers. His feet found the floor, and he made his way to the door.
“Okay, I’m up,” he told the wooden door. Then he realized that his room didn’t have an attached bathroom, and he’d have to open the door. That he did.
“Good morning, Mr. President.” A young and rather earnest-looking agent handed him a bathrobe. Again, it was the job of an orderly, but the only Marine he saw in the corridor was wearing a pistol belt. Jack wondered if there had been another turf fight the night before between the Marine Corps and the Secret Service to see who had primacy of place in the protection of their new Commander-in-Chief. Then he realized with a start that the bathrobe was his own.
“We got some things for you last night,” the agent explained in a whisper. A second agent handed over Cathy’s rather tattered maroon housecoat. So, someone had broken into their home last night—must have, Jack realized, as he hadn’t handed over his keys to anyone; and defeated the burglar alarm he’d installed a few years earlier. He padded back to the bed and deposited the housecoat there before heading back out. Yet a third agent pointed him down the hall to an unoccupied bedroom. Four suits were hanging on a poster bed, along with four shirts, all newly pressed by the look of them, along with half a score of ties and everything else. It wasn’t so much pathos as desperation, Jack realized. The staff knew, or at least had an idea of what he was going through, and every single thing they could do to make things easier for him was being done with frantic perfection. Someone had even spit-shined his three pair of black shoes to Marine specifications. They’d never looked so good before, Ryan thought, hea
ding for the bathroom—where, of course, he found all of his things, even his usual bar of Zest soap. Next to that was the skin-friendly stuff Cathy used. Nobody thought that being President was easy, but he was now surrounded by people who were grimly determined to eliminate every small worry he might have.
A warm shower helped loosen his muscles, and clouded the mirror with mist, which made things even better when he shaved. The usual morning mechanics were finished by 5:20, and Ryan made his way down the stairs. Outside, he saw through a window, a phalanx of camouflage-clad Marines stood guard on the quad, their breathing marked by little white puffs. Those inside braced to attention as he passed. Perhaps he and his family had gotten a few hours of sleep, but no one else had. That was something he needed to remember, Jack told himself as the smells drew him to the kitchen.
“Attention on deck!” The voice of the sergeant-major of the Marine Corps was muted in deference to the sleeping children upstairs, and for the first time since dinner the previous night, Ryan managed a smile.
“Settle down, Marines.” President Ryan headed toward the coffeepot, but a corporal beat him there. The correct proportions of cream and sugar were added to the mug—again, someone had done some homework—before she handed it across.
“The staff is in the dining room, sir,” the sergeant-major told him.
“Thank you.” President Ryan headed that way.
They looked the worse for wear, making Jack feel briefly guilty for his shower-fresh face. Then he saw the pile of documents they’d prepared.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” Andrea Price said. People started to rise from their chairs. Ryan waved them back down and pointed to Murray.
“Dan,” the President began. “What do we know?”
“We found the body of the pilot about two hours ago. Good ID. His name was Sato, as expected. Very experienced airplane driver. We’re still looking for the co-pilot.” Murray paused. “The pilot’s body is being checked for drugs, but finding that would be a surprise. NTSB has the flight recorder—they got that around four, and it’s being checked out right now. We’ve recovered just over two hundred bodies—”