Ing papers were, and sipping a U.S. Air Force Coca-Cola. Wishing he’d
changed into his good suit, and remembering that he had deliberately de-
cided not to do so. Stupid, beneath himself. Flight time of forty-seven min-
ute*, and a direct approach into Andrews. The only thing they left out was
the helicopter ride in from Andrews, but that would only have attracted at-
tention. Met by a deferential Air Force major who’d walked him over to a
cheap official car and a quiet driver, Ryan settled back in his seat and closed
hi* eyes while the major took the front seat. He tried to nap. He’d seen Suit-
land Parkway before, and knew the route by heart. Suitland Parkway to
1-295, immediately off that and onto 1-395, take the Maine Avenue Exit. The
time of day, just after lunch, guaranteed rapid progress, and sure enough, the
car stopped at the guard shack on West Executive Drive, where the guard,
most unusually, just waved them through. The canopied entrance to the
White House basement level beckoned, as did a familiar face.
“Hi, Arnie.” Jack held his hand out to the President’s chief of staff. Ar-
nold van Damm was just too good, and Roger Durling had needed him to
help with the transition. Soon enough President Durling had measured his
senior staffer against Arnie, and found his own man wanting. He hadn’t
changed much, Ryan saw. The same L. L. Bean shirts, and the same rough
honesty on his face, but Arnie was older and tireder than before. Well, who
wasn’t? “The last time we talked here, you were kicking me loose,” Jack
Raid next, to get a quick read on the situation.
” We all make mistakes, Jack.”
Uh-oh. Ryan went instantly on guard, but the handshake pulled him
through the door anyway. The Secret Service agents on post had a pass all
ready for him, and things went smoothly until he set off the metal detector.
Ryan handed over his hotel room key and tried again, hearing yet another
ping. The only other metal on his body except for his watch turned out to be
his divot tool.
“When did you lake up golf.'” van Damni asked with a chuckle that
matched the expression of the nearest agent.
“Nice to know you haven’t been following me around. Two months, and
I haven’t broken one-ten yet.”
The chief of staff waved Ryan to the hidden stairs to the left. “You know
why they call it ‘golf’?”
“Yeah, because ‘shit’ was already taken.” Ryan stopped on the landing.
“What gives, Arnie?”
“I think you know,” was all the answer he got.
“Hello, Dr. Ryan!” Special Agent Helen D’Agustino was as pretty as
ever, and still part of the Presidential Detail. “Please come with me.”
The presidency is not a job calculated to bring youth to a man. Roger
Durling had once been a paratrooper who’d climbed hills in the Central
Highlands of Vietnam, he was still a jogger, and reportedly liked to play
squash to keep fit, but for all that he looked a weary man this afternoon.
More to the point, Jack reflected quickly, he’d come straight in to see the
President, no waiting in one of the many anterooms, and the smiles on the
faces he’d seen on the way in carried a message of their own. Durling rose
with a speed intended to show his pleasure at seeing his guest. Or maybe
something else.
‘ ‘How’s the brokerage business, Jack?” The handshake that accompanied
the question was dry and hard, but with an urgency to it.
“It keeps me busy, Mr. President.”
‘ ‘Not too busy. Golf in West Virginia?” Durling asked, waving Ryan to a
seat by the fireplace. “That’ll be all,” he told the two Secret Service agents
who’d followed Ryan in. “Thank you.”
“My newest vice, sir,” Ryan said, hearing the door close behind him. It
was unusual to be so close to the Chief Executive without the protective
presence of Secret Service guards, especially since he had been so long out
of government service.
Durling took his seat, and leaned back into it. His body language showed
vigor, the kind that emanated from the mind rather than the body. It was time
to talk business. “I could say I’m sorry to interrupt your vacation, but I
won’t,” the President of the United States told him. “You’ve had a two-year
vacation, Dr. Ryan. It’s over now.”
Two years. For the first two months of it, he’d done exactly nothing, pon-
dered a few teaching posts in the sanctity of his study, watched his wife
leave early every morning for her medical practice at Johns Hopkins, fixed
the kids’ school lunches and told himself how wonderful it was to relax. It
had taken those two months before he’d admitted to himself that the absence
of activity was more stressful than anything he’d ever done. OHy three inter-
views had landed him a job back in the investment business, enabled him to
race his wife out of the house each morning, and bitch about the pace-and
just maybe prevent himself from going insane. Along the way he’d made
M»mc money, hut even that, he admitted to himself, had begun to pall. He
Mill hadn’t found his place, and wondered if he ever really would.
“Mr. President, the draft ended a lot of years ago,” Jack offered with a
miiilc. It was a flippant observation, and one he was ashamed of even as he
MIK! it.
“You’ve said ‘no’ to your country once.” The rebuke put an end to the
Mniles. Was Durling that stressed-out? Well, he had every right to be, and
with the stress had come impatience, which was surprising in a man whose
main function for the public was being pleasant and reassuring. But Ryan
was not part of the public, was he?
“Sir, I was burned out then. I don’t think I would have been-”
“Fine. I’ve seen your file, all of it,” Durling added. “I even know that I
might not be here now except for what you did down in Colombia a few
years ago. You’ve served your country well, Dr. Ryan, and now you’ve had
your time off, and you’ve played the money game some more-rather well,
II would seem-and now it’s time to come back.”
“What post, sir?” Jack asked.
“Down the hall and around the corner. The last few residents haven’t dis-
tinguished themselves there,” Durling noted. Cutter and Elliot had been bad
enough. Durling’s own National Security Advisor had simply not been up to
the task. His name was Tom Loch, and he was on the way out, the morning
puper had told Ryan. It would seem that the press had it right for once. “I’m
not going to beat around the bush. We need you. I need you.”
“Mr. President, that’s a very flattering statement, but the truth of the mat-
icris-”
‘ ‘The truth of the matter is that I have too much of a domestic agenda, and
the day only has twenty-four hours, and my administration has fumbled the
hall too many times. In the process we have not served the country as well as
we should have. I can’t say that anywhere but inside this room, but I can and
must say it here. State is weak. Defense is weak.”
“Fiedler in Treasury is excellent,” Ryan allowed. “And if you want ad-
vice about State, move Scott Adler up. He’s young, but he’s very good on
process and pretty good on vision.”
“Not without good oversight from this building, and I don’t have the time
for that. I will pass your approbation on to Buzz Fiedler,” Durling added
with a smile.
“He’s a brilliant technician, and that’s what you need across the street. If
you’re going to catch the inflation, for God’s sake, do it now-”
“And take the political heat,” Durling said. “That’s exactly what his or-
ders are. Protect the dollar and hammer inflation down to zero. I think he can
do it. The initial signs are promising.”
Ryan nodded. “I think you’re right.” Okay, get on with it.
Durling handed over the briefing book. “Read.”
“Yes, sir.” Jack flipped open the binder’s cover, and kept flipping past
llii1 usual stiff pages that warned of all manner of legal sanctions for reveal-
ing what he was about to read. As usual, the information United States Code
protected wasn’t all that different from what any citizen could get in Time,
but it wasn’t as well written. His right hand reached out for a coffee cup,
annoyingly not the handleless mug he preferred. The White House china was
long on elegance but short on practicality. Coming here was always like vis-
iting a particularly rich boss. So many of the appointments were just a little
too-
“I know about some of this, but I didn’t know it was this … interesting,”
Jack murmured.
” ‘Interesting’?” Durling replied with an unseen smile. “That’s a nice