“Want to walk over to the day-care center?”
“Sure.” O’Day stood.
It wasn’t much of a walk, and her intention was to remind O’Day what this was all about—getting a new life into the world.
“SURGEON’S on the way to the playpen,” Roy Altman told his detail. Kyle Daniel Ryan—SPRITE—was sitting up now, and playing very simply with very rudimentary toys under the watchful eyes of the lionesses, as Altman thought of them, four young female Secret Service agents who fawned over SPRITE like big sisters. But these sisters all carried guns, and they all remembered what had nearly happened to sandbox. A nuclear-weapons-storage site was hardly as well-guarded as this particular day-care center.
Outside the playroom was Trenton “Chip” Kelley, the only male agent on the detail, a former Marine captain who would have frightened the average NFL lineman with a mere look.
“Hey, Chip.”
“Hi, Roy. What’s happening?”
“Just strolling over to see the little guy.”
“Who’s the muscle?” Kelley saw that O’Day was carrying heat, but decided he looked like a cop. But his left thumb was still on the button of his “crash alarm,” and his right hand was within a third of a second of his service automatic.
“Bureau. He’s cool,” Altman assured his subordinate.
” ‘Kay.” Kelley opened the door.
“Who’d he play for?” O’Day asked Altman, once inside.
“The Bears drafted him, but he scared Ditka too much.” Altman laughed. “Ex-Marine.”
“I believe it.” Then O’Day walked up behind Dr. Ryan. She’d already scooped Kyle up, and his arms were around her neck. The little boy was babbling, still months away from talking, but he knew how to smile when he saw his mommy.
“Want to hold him?” Cathy asked.
O’Day cradled the infant somewhat like a football. The youngest Ryan examined his face dubiously, especially the Zapata mustache, but Mommy’s face was also in sight, and so he didn’t scream.
“Hey, buddy,” O’Day said gently. Some things came automatically. When holding a baby, you don’t stand still. You move a little bit, rhythmically, which the little ones seemed to like.
“It’ll ruin Andrea’s career,” Cathy said.
“Make for a lot better hours for her, and be nice to see her every night, but, yeah, Cathy, be kinda hard for her to run alongside the car with her belly sticking out two feet.” The image was good enough for a laugh. “I suppose they’ll put her on restricted duty.”
“Maybe. Makes for a great disguise, though, doesn’t it?”
O’Day nodded. This wasn’t so bad, holding a kid. He remembered the old Irish adage: True strength lies in gentleness. But what the hell, taking care of kids was also a man’s duty. There was a lot more to being a man than just having a dick.
Cathy saw the display and had to smile. Pat O’Day had saved Katie’s life, and done it like something out of a John Woo movie, except that Pat was a real tough guy, not the movie kind. His scenes weren’t scripted; he’d had to do it for real, making it up as he’d gone along. He was a lot like her husband, a servant of the law, a man who’d sworn an oath to Do the Right Thing every time, and like her husband, clearly a man who took his oaths seriously. One of those oaths concerned Pat’s relationship with Andrea, and they all came down to the same thing: preserve, protect, defend. And now, this tiger with a tie was holding a baby and smiling and swaying back and forth, because that’s what you did with a baby in your arms.
“How’s your daughter?” Cathy asked.
“She and your Katie are good friends. And she’s got a thing going with one of the boys at Giant Steps.”
“Oh?”
“Jason Hunt. I think it’s serious. He gave Megan one of his Hot Wheels cars.” O’Day laughed. That’s when his cell phone went off. “Right side coat pocket,” he told the First Lady.
Cathy fished in his pocket and pulled it out. She flipped it open. “Hello?”
“Who’s this?” a familiar voice asked.
“Andrea? It’s Cathy. Pat’s right here.” Cathy took Kyle and handed off the phone, watching the FBI agent’s face.
“Yeah, honey?” Pat said. Then he listened, and his eyes closed for two or three seconds, and that told the tale. His tense face relaxed. A long breath came out slowly, and the shoulders no longer looked like a man anticipating a heavy blow. “Yeah, baby, I came over to see Dr. Ryan, and we’re in the nursery. Oh, okay.” Pat looked over and handed over the phone. Cathy cradled it between her shoulder and ear.
“So, what did Madge say?” Cathy asked, already knowing most of it.
“Normal—and it’s going to be a boy.”
“So, Madge was right, the odds were in your favor.” And they still were. Andrea was very fit. She wouldn’t have any problems, Cathy was sure.
“Seven months from next Tuesday,” Andrea said, her voice already bubbling.
“Well, listen to what Madge says. I do,” Cathy assured her. She knew all the stuff Dr. North believed in. Don’t smoke. Don’t drink. Do your exercises. Take the classes on prepared delivery along with your husband. Come see me in five weeks for your next checkup. Read What to Expect When You’re Expecting. Cathy handed the phone back. Inspector O’Day had taken a few steps and turned away. When he turned back to take the phone, his eyes were unusually moist.
“Yeah, honey, okay. I’ll be right over.” He killed the phone and dumped it back in his pocket.
“Feel better?” she asked with a smile. One of the lionesses came over to take Kyle back. The little guy loved them all, and smiled up at her.
“Yes, ma’am. Sorry to bother you. I feel like a wuss.”
“Oh, bullcrap.” Rather a strong imprecation for Mrs. Dr. Ryan.
“Like I said, life isn’t a movie, and this isn’t the Alamo. I know you’re a tough guy, Pat, and so does Jack. What about you, Roy?”
“Pat can work with me any day. Congratulations, buddy,” Altman added, turning back from the lead.
“Thanks, pal,” O’Day told his colleague.
“Can I tell Jack, or does Andrea want to?” SURGEON asked.
“I guess you’ll have to ask her about that one, ma’am.”
Pat O’Day was transformed, enough spring in his step now to make him collide with the ceiling. He was surprised to see that Cathy was heading off to the OB-GYN building, but five minutes later it was obvious why. This was to be girl-girl bonding time. Even before he could embrace his wife, Cathy was there.
“Wonderful news, I’m so happy for you!”
“Yeah, well, I suppose the Bureau is good for something after all,” Andrea joked.
Then the bear with the Zapata mustache lifted her off the floor with a hug and a kiss. “This calls for a small celebration,” the inspector observed.
“Join us for dinner tonight at the House?” SURGEON asked.
“We can’t,” Andrea replied.
“Says who?” Cathy demanded. And Andrea had to bow to the situation.
“Well, maybe, if the President says it’s okay.”
“I say it’s okay, girl, and there are times when Jack doesn’t count,” Dr. Ryan told them.
“Well, yes, then, I guess.”
“Seven-thirty,” SURGEON told them. “Dress is casual.” It was a shame they were no longer regular people. This would have been a good chance for Jack to do steaks on the grill, something he remained very good at, and she hadn’t made her spinach salad in months. Damn the Presidency anyway! “And, Andrea, you are allowed two drinks tonight to celebrate. After that, one or two a week.”
Mrs. O’Day nodded. “Dr. North told me.”
“Madge is a real stickler on the alcohol issue.” Cathy wasn’t sure about the data on that, but then, she wasn’t an OB-GYN, and she’d followed Dr. North’s rules with Kyle and Katie. You just didn’t fool around when you were pregnant. Life was too precious to risk.
C H A P T E R – 38
Developments
It’s all handled electronically. Once a country’s treasury was in its collection of gold bricks, which were kept in a secure, well-guarded place, or else traveled in a crate with the chief of state wherever he went. In the nineteenth century, paper currency had gained wide acceptance. At first, it had to be redeemable for gold or silver— something whose weight told you its worth—but gradually this, too, was discarded, because precious metals were just too damned heavy to lug around. But soon enough even paper currency became too bulky to drag about, as well. For ordinary citizens, the next step was plastic cards with magnetic strips on the back, which moved your theoretical currency from your account to someone else’s when you made a purchase. For major corporations and nations, it meant something even more theoretical. It became an electronic expression. A nation determined the value of its currency by estimating what quantity of goods and services its citizens generated with their daily toil, and that became the volume of its monetary wealth, which was generally agreed upon by the other nations and citizens of the world. Thus it could be traded across national boundaries by fiber-optic or copper cables, or even by satellite transmissions, and so billions of dollars, pounds, yen, or the new euros moved from place to place via simple keystrokes. It was a lot easier and faster than shipping gold bricks, but, for all the convenience, the system that determined a persons or a nation’s wealth was no less rigid, and at certain central banks of the world, a country’s net collection of those monetary units was calculated down to a fraction of a percentage point. There was some leeway built into the system, to account for trades in process and so forth, hut that leeway was also closely calculated electronically. What resulted was no different in its effect from the numbering of the bricks of King Croesus of Lydia. In fact, if anything, the new system that depended on the movement of electrons or photons from one computer to another was even more exact, and even less forgiving. Once upon a time, one could paint lead bricks yellow and so fool a casual inspector, but lying to a computerized accounting system required a lot more than that.