It was quiet in the back. President Ryan had his thoughts. His wife had hers. The kids looked out the windows, for helicopter flying is one of the greatest thrill rides known to man. Even little Katie twisted in her seat belt to look down, her dreadful afternoon suppressed by the wonder of the moment. Jack turned, and seeing that, he decided that the short attention span of children was as much a blessing as a curse. His own hands were shaking a little now. Fear or rage, he couldn’t tell. Cathy just looked bereft, her face slack in the golden light of sunset. Their talk tonight would not be a pleasant one.
Behind them, a Secret Service car had collected Cecilia Jackson from their Fort Myers home. Admiral Jackson and his wife boarded a backup VH-60, along with some carry-on bags, and more substantial luggage for the Ryan family. There were no cameras to record this. The President and First Family were gone, and the cameras with them, while pundits put together their thoughts for the evening news broadcasts, trying to find a deeper significance in the events of the day, coming to conclusions well in advance of the federal officers who only now were allowing the ambulance crews to remove the thirteen bodies from the crime scene. The flashing police lights looked dramatic as TV crews set up to do live broadcasts, one of them from the very spot where Movie Star had observed the burned operation.
He had prepared for this eventuality, of course. He drove north on Ritchie Highway–the traffic wasn’t bad at all, considering the police still had the road blocked at Giant Steps–and at Baltimore-Washington International he even had time to turn in his rental car and catch the
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British Airways 767 for Heathrow. Not first-class this time, he realized. The aircraft was all business class. He didn’t smile. He had hoped the kidnapping might actually succeed, though from the beginning he had planned also for its failure. For Movie Star the mission hadn’t failed at all. He was still alive, and escaping yet again. Here he was, lifting off, soon to be in another country, and there to disappear completely, even while the American police were trying to establish if there might have been another member of the criminal conspiracy. He decided to have a few glasses of wine, the better to help him sleep after a very stressful day. The thought that it was against his religion made him smile. What aspect of his life wasn’t?
SUNSET COMES QUICKLY. By the time they started circling at Camp David, the ground was an undulating shadow punctuated by the stationary lights of private homes and the moving lights of automobiles. The helicopter descended slowly, flared out fifty feet above the ground, then settled vertically for a whisper-soft landing. There were few lights beyond the square landing pad’s perimeter. When the crew chief opened the door, Raman and the other agent stepped down first. The President undid his lap belt and walked forward. He stopped just behind the flight crew, tapping the pilot on the shoulder.
“Thanks, Colonel.”
“You have a lot of friends, Mr. President. We’re here when you need us,” Goodman told his Commander-in-Chief.
Jack nodded, went down the steps, and beyond the lights he saw the spectral outlines of Marine riflemen in camouflaged utilities.
“Welcome to Camp David, sir.” It was a Marine captain.
Jack turned to help his wife down. Sally led Katie down. Little Jack came out last. It hit Ryan that his son was almost as tall as his mother now. He might have to call his son something else.
Cathy looked around nervously. The captain saw it.
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“Ma’am, there’s sixty Marines out there,” he assured her. He didn’t have to add what they were there for. He didn’t have to tell the President how alert they were.
“Where?” Little Jack asked, looking and seeing nothing.
“Try this.” The captain handed over his PVS-7 night-vision goggles. SHORTSTOP held them to his eyes.
“Cool!” His arm reached out, pointing to those he could see. Then he lowered the goggles, and the Marines turned invisible again.
“They’re great for spotting deer, and there’s a bear that wanders on and off the grounds every so often. We call him Yogi.” Captain Larry Overton, USMC, congratulated himself for calming them down, and led them toward the HMMWVs that would transport them to quarters. Yogi, he’d explain later, had a radio collar on so that he wouldn’t surprise anybody, least of all a Marine with a loaded rifle.
The quarters at Camp David appeared rustic, and truly were not anywhere near as plush as those in the White House, but could accurately be described as the sort of hideaway a millionaire might set up for himself outside Aspen–in fact, Presidential Quarters are officially known as Aspen Cottage. Maintained by Naval Surface Detachment, Thurmont (Maryland), and guarded by a short company of handpicked Marines, the compound was as remote and secure a location as anything within a hundred miles of Washington could possibly be. There were Marines at the presidential cabin to let them in, and inside were sailors to guide each to a private bedroom. Outside were twelve additional cottages, and the closer you were to Aspen, of course, the more important you were.
“What’s for dinner?” Jack Junior asked.
“Just about anything you want,” a Navy chief steward replied.
Jack turned to Cathy. She nodded. This would be a whatever-you-want night. The President took off his jacket and tie. A steward darted up to collect them. “The food is great here, Mr. President,” he promised.
“That’s a fact, sir,” the chief confirmed. “We have a
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deal with some local folks. Fresh everything, right off the farm. Can I get you something to drink?” he asked hopefully.
“That sounds like a great plan, chief. Cathy?”
“White wine?” she asked, the stress bleeding off her, finally.
“We have a pretty good selection, ma’am. For domestic, how about a Chateau Ste. Michelle reserve char-donnay? It’s a 1991 vintage, and about as good as a chardonnay gets.”
“You’re a Navy chief?” POTUS asked.
“Yes, sir. I used to take care of admirals, but I got promoted, and if I may say so, sir, I do know my wines.”
Ryan held up two fingers. The chief nodded and went out the door.
“This is insane,” Cathy said after he left.
“Don’t knock it.” While they waited for drinks, the two big kids agreed on a pizza. Katie wanted a burger and fries. They heard the buzz of another helicopter coming into the pad. Cathy was right, her husband thought. This is insane.
The door reopened, and the chief returned with two bottles and a silver bucket. Another steward followed with glasses.
“Chief, I just meant two glasses.”
“Yes, Mr. President, but we have two more guests arriving, Admiral and Mrs. Jackson. Mrs. Jackson likes a good white also, sir.” He popped the cork and poured a splash for SURGEON. She nodded.
“Doesn’t it have a wonderful nose?” He filled her glass and one other, handing that to the President. Then he withdrew.
“They always told me the Navy had guys like that, but I never believed it.”
“Oh, Jack.” Cathy turned. The kids were watching TV, all three sitting on the floor, even Sally, who was trying to become an elegant lady. They were retreating into the familiar, while their parents did what parents always did, came to terms with a new reality, in order to buffer their children from the world.
Jack saw the lights of a HMMWV go past to the left.
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Robby and Sissy would have their own cabin, he imagined. They’d change before coming over. He turned back and wrapped his arms around his wife from behind. “It’s okay, babe.”
Cathy shook her head. “It’ll never be okay, Jack. It’ll never be okay again. Roy told me, as long as we live, we’ll have bodyguards with us. Everywhere we go, we’ll need protection. Forever,” she said, sipping her wine, not so much angry as resigned, not so much dazed as comprehending something she’d never dreamed. The trappings of power were seductive sometimes. A helicopter to work. People to take care of your clothes, look after the kids, whatever food you wanted as close as the phone, escorts everywhere, fast track into everything.
But the price of it? No big deal. Just every so often somebody might try to murder one of your children. There was no running away from it. It was as though she’d been given a diagnosis of cancer, of the breast, the ovaries, something else. Horrible as it was, you had to do what you had to do. Crying didn’t help, though she’d do a lot of that, SURGEON was sure. Screaming at Jack wouldn’t help–and she wasn’t a screamer anyway, and it wasn’t Jack’s fault, was it? She just had to roll with the punch, like patients at Hopkins did when you told them they had to go see the Oncology Department–oh, please, don’t worry. They’re the best, the very best, and times have changed, and they really know what they’re doing now. Her colleagues in the Department of Oncology were the best. And they had a nice new building now. But who really wanted to go there?