RYAN HAD COME to the White House a thousand times, to visit, to deliver briefings, for meetings important and otherwise, and most recently to work in his own office as National Security Advisor. This was the first time he hadn’t had to show ID and walk through the metal detectors–more properly, he did walk straight through one from force of habit, but this time, when the buzzer went off, he just kept walking without even reaching for his keys. The difference in demeanor of the Secret Service agents was striking. Like anyone else, they were comforted by familiar surroundings, and though the entire country had just had another lesson in how illusory “safety” was, the illusion was real enough for trained professionals to feel more at ease within the substance of a lie. Guns were bolstered, coats buttoned, and long breaths taken as the entourage came in through the East Entrance.
An inner voice told Jack that this was now his house, but he had no wish to believe it. Presidents liked to call it the People’s House, to use the political voice of false modesty to describe a place for which some of them would have willingly run over the bodies of their own children, then say that it wasn’t really all that big a thing. If lies could stain the walls, Jack reflected, then this building would have a very different name. But there was greatness here, too, and that was more intimidating than the pettiness of
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politics. Here James Monroe had promulgated the Mon-roe Doctrine and propelled his country into the strategic world for the first time. Here Lincoln had held his country together through the sheer force of his own will. Here Teddy Roosevelt had made America a real global player, and sent his Great White Fleet around the world to announce America. Here Teddy’s distant cousin had saved his country from internal chaos and despair, with little more than a nasal voice and an up-angled cigarette holder. Here Eisenhower had exercised power so skillfully that hardly anyone had noticed his doing anything at all. Here Kennedy had faced down Khrushchev, and nobody had cared that doing so had covered a multitude of blunders. Here Reagan had plotted the destruction of America’s most dangerous enemy, only to be accused of sleeping most of the time. What ultimately counted more–the achievements or the dirty little secrets committed by imperfect men who only briefly stepped beyond their weaknesses? But those brief and halting steps made up the sort of history that lived, while the rest was, mainly, forgotten–except by revisionist historians who just didn’t get the fact that people weren’t supposed to be perfect.
But it still wasn’t his house.
The entrance was a tunnel of sorts, which headed under the East Wing, where the First Lady–until ninety minutes earlier Anne Durling–had her offices. By law the First Lady was a private citizen–an odd fiction for someone with a paid staff–but in reality her functions were often hugely important, however unofficial they might be. The walls here were those of a museum, not a home, as they walked past the small White House theater, where the President could watch movies with a hundred or so close personal friends. There were several sculptures, many by Frederic Remington, and the general motif was supposed to be “pure” American. The paintings were of past presidents, and Ryan’s eyes caught them–their lifeless eyes seemed to look down at him with suspicion and doubt. All the men who had gone before, good and bad, whether judged well or poorly by historians, they looked at him–
I’m an historian, Ryan told himself. I’ve written a few books. I’ve judged the actions of others from a safe distance
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of both time and space. Why didn’t he see this? Why didn’t he do that? Now, too late, he knew better. He was here now, and from the inside it looked very different. From the outside you could see in, looking around first to catch all the information and analyze it as it passed by, stopping it when you had to, even making it go backward, the better to understand it all, taking your time to get things exactly right.
But from the inside it wasn’t that way at all. Here everything came directly at you like a series of onrushing trains, from all directions at once, moving by their own time schedules, leaving you little room to maneuver or reflect. Ryan could sense that already. And the people in the paintings had mainly come to this place with the luxury of time to think about their ascension, with the luxury of trusted advisers, and of good will. Those were benefits he didn’t have. To historians, however, they wouldn’t matter for much more than a cursory paragraph, or maybe even a whole page, before the writer moved on with pitiless analysis.
Everything he said or did, Jack knew, would be subjected to the 20/20 vision of hindsight–and not just from this moment forward. People would now look into his past for information on his character, his beliefs, his actions good and bad. From the moment the aircraft had struck the Capitol building, he was President, and every breath he’d drawn since would be examined in a new and unforgiving light for generations to come. His daily life would have no privacy, and even in death he would not be safe from scrutiny by people who had no idea what it was like merely to walk into this oversized dwelling-office-museum and know that it was your prison into all eternity. The bars were invisible, perhaps, but even more real because of it.
So many men had lusted for this job, only to find how horrid and frustrating it was. Jack knew that from his own historical readings, and from seeing three men at close quarters who’d occupied the Oval Office. At least they had come here with eyes supposedly open, and perhaps they could be blamed for having minds smaller than their egos. How much the worse for someone who’d never wished for
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it? And would history judge Ryan more kindly for it? That was worth an ironic snort. No, he’d come to this House at a time when his country needed, and if he didn’t meet that need, then he’d be cursed for all future time as a failure, even though he’d come to the job only by accident– condemned by a man now dead to do the job which the other man had craved.
For the Secret Service, this was a time to relax a little. Lucky them, Ryan thought, allowing bitterness to creep into his mind, unfair or not. It was their job to protect him and his family. It was his job now to protect them and theirs, and those of millions of others.
“This way, Mr. President.” Price turned left into the ground-floor corridor. Here Ryan first saw the White House staff people, standing there to see their new charge, the man whom they would serve to the best of their abilities. Like everyone else, they just stood and looked, without knowing what to say, their eyes evaluating the man and without revealing what they thought, though they would surely exchange views in the privacy of their locker or lunchrooms at the first possible moment. Jack’s tie was still crooked in his collar, and he still wore the turnout coat. The water spray that had frozen in his hair and given him an undeserved gray look was melting now. One of the staff members raced out of sight as the entourage continued west. He reappeared a minute later, darting through the security detail and handing Ryan a towel.
“Thank you,” Jack said in surprise. He stood still for a moment and started drying his hair. There he saw a photographer running backward and aiming his camera, snapping merrily away. The Secret Service didn’t impede him in any way. That, Ryan thought, made him a member of the staff, the official White House photographer whose job it was to memorialize everything. Great, my own people spy on me! But it wasn’t time to interfere with anything, was it?
“Where are we going, Andrea?” Jack asked as they passed yet more portraits of Presidents and First Ladies, all staring at him …
“The Oval Office. I thought. . .”
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“Situation Room.” Ryan stopped dead, still toweling off. “I’m not ready for that room yet, okay?”
“Of course, Mr. President.” At the end of the wide corridor they turned left into a small foyer walled with cheap-looking wood latticework, and then right to go outside again, because there wasn’t a corridor from the White House into the West Wing. That’s why no one had taken his coat, Jack realized.
“Coffee,” Jack ordered. At least the food service would be good here. The White House Mess was run by Navy stewards, and his first presidential cup of coffee was poured into an exquisite cup from a silver pot, by a sailor whose smile was both professional and genuine, and who, like everyone else, was curious about the new Boss. It occurred to Ryan that he was like a creature in the zoo. Interesting, even fascinating–and how would he adapt to the new cage?