“So, the world’s in good shape today?” the President summarized.
“Except for the pothole in Moscow, it would seem so, sir.”
The National Security Adviser departed, and Ryan looked at his schedule for the day. As usual, he had very little in the way of free time. About the only moments on his plan-of-the-day without someone in the office with him were those in which he’d have to read over briefing documents for the next meeting, many of which were planned literally weeks in advance. He took off his reading glasses— he hated them— and rubbed his eyes, already anticipating the morning headache that would come in about thirty minutes. A quick rescan of the page showed no light moments today. No troop of EAGLE Scouts from Wyoming, nor current World Series champs, nor Miss Plum Tomato from California’s Imperial Valley to give him something to smile about. No. Today would be all work.
Shit, he thought.
The nature of the Presidency was a series of interlocking contradictions. The Most Powerful Man in the World was quite unable to use his power except under the most adverse circumstances, which he was supposed to avoid rather than to engage. In reality, the Presidency was about negotiations, more with the Congress than anyone else; it was a process for which Ryan had been unsuited until given a crash course by his chief of staff, Arnold van Damm. Fortunately, Arnie did a lot of the negotiations himself, then came into the Oval Office to tell the President what his (Ryan’s) decision and/or position was on an issue, so that he (van Damm) could then do a press release or a statement in the Press Room. Ryan supposed that a lawyer treated his client that way much of the time, looking after his interests as best he could while not telling him what those interests were until they were already decided. The President, Arnie told everyone, had to be protected from direct negotiations with everyone— specially Congress. And, Jack reminded himself, he had a fairly tame Congress. What had it been like for presidents dealing with contentious ones?
And what the hell, he wondered, not for the first time, was he doing here?
The election process had been the purest form of hell— despite the fact that he’d had what Arnie invariably had called a cakewalk. Never less than five speeches per day, more often as many as nine, in as many different places before as many diverse groups— but always the same speech, delivered off file cards he kept in his pocket, changed only in minor local details by a frantic staff on the Presidential aircraft, trying to keep track of the flight plan. The amazing thing was that they’d never made a mistake that he’d caught. For variety, the President would alter the order of the cards. But the utility of that had faded in about three days.
Yes, if there were a hell in creation, a political campaign was its most tangible form, listening to yourself saying the same things over and over until your brain started rebelling and you started wanting to make random, crazy changes, which might amuse yourself, but it would make you appear crazy to the audience, and you couldn’t do that, because a presidential candidate was expected to be a perfect automaton rather than a fallible man.
There had been an upside to it. Ryan had bathed in a sea of love for the ten weeks of the endurance race. The deafening cheers of the crowds, whether in a parking lot outside a Xenia, Ohio, shopping mall, or in Madison Square Garden in New York City, or Honolulu, or Fargo, or Los Angeles— it had all been the same. Huge crowds of ordinary citizens who both denied and celebrated the fact that John Patrick Ryan was one of them… kind of, sort of, something like that— but something else, too. From his first formal speech in Indianapolis, soon after his traumatic accession to the Presidency, he’d realized just how strong a narcotic that sort of adulation was, and sure enough, his continued exposure to it had given him the same sort of rush that a controlled substance might. With it came a desire to be perfect for them, to deliver his lines properly, to seem sincere— as indeed he was, but it would have been far easier doing it once or twice instead of three hundred and eleven times, as the final count had been reckoned.
The news media in every place asked the same questions, written down or taped the same answers, and printed them as new news in every local paper. In every city and town, the editorials had praised Ryan, and worried loudly that this election wasn’t really an election at all, except on the congressional level, and there Ryan had stirred the pot by giving his blessing to people of both major parties, the better to retain his independent status, and therefore to risk offending everyone.
The love hadn’t quite been universal, of course. There were those who’d protested, who got their heads on the nightly commentary shows, citing his professional background, criticizing his drastic actions to stop the terrorist-caused Ebola plague that had threatened the nation so desperately in those dark days— “Yes, it worked in this particular case, but…!” —and especially to criticize his politics, which, Jack said in his speeches, weren’t politics at all, but plain common sense.
During all of this, Arnie had been a godsend, preselecting a response to every single objection. Ryan was wealthy, some said. “My father was a police officer” had been the answer. “I’ve earned every penny I have— and besides [going on with an engaging smile], now my wife makes a lot more money than I do.”
Ryan knew nothing about politics: “Politics is one of those fields in which everybody knows what it is, but nobody can make it work. Well, maybe I don’t know what it is, but I am going to make it work!”
Ryan had packed the Supreme Court: “I’m not a lawyer, either, sorry” he’d said to the annual meeting of the American Bar Association. “But I know the difference between right and wrong, and so do the justices.”
Between the strategic advice of Arnie and the preplanned words of Callie Weston, he’d managed to parry every serious blow, and strike back with what was usually a soft and humorous reply of his own— leavened with strong words delivered with the fierce but quiet conviction of someone who had little left to prove. Mainly, with proper coaching and endless hours of preparation, he’d managed to present himself as Jack Ryan, regular guy.
Remarkably, his most politically astute move had been made entirely without outside expertise.
Morning, Jack,” the Vice President said, opening the door unannounced.
“Hey, Robby.” Ryan looked up from his desk with a smile. He still looked a little awkward in suits, Jack saw. Some people were born to wear uniforms, and Robert Jefferson Jackson was one of them, though the lapel of every suit jacket he owned sported a miniature of his Navy Wings of Gold.
“There’s some trouble in Moscow,” Ryan said, explaining on for a few seconds.
“That’s a little worrisome,” Robby observed.
“Get Ben to give you a complete brief-in on this. What’s your day look like?” the President asked.
“Sierra-square, Delta-square.” It was their personal code: SSDD— same shit, different day. “I have a meeting of the Space Council across the street in twenty minutes. Then tonight I have to fly down to Mississippi for a speech tomorrow morning at Ole Miss.”
“You taking the wheel?” Ryan asked.
“Hey, Jack, the one good thing about this damned job is that I get to fly again.” Jackson had insisted on getting rated on the VC-20B that he most often flew around the country on official trips under the code name “Air Force Two.” It looked very good in the media, and it was also the best possible therapy for a fighter pilot who missed being in control of his aircraft, though it must have annoyed the Air Force flight crew. “But it’s always to shit details you don’t want,” he added with a wink.
“It’s the only way I could get you a pay raise, Robby. And nice quarters, too,” he reminded his friend.
“You left out the flight pay,” responded Vice Admiral R. J. Jackson, USN, retired. He paused at the door and turned. “What does that attack say about the situation over there in Russia?”
Jack shrugged. “Nothing good. They just can’t seem to get ahead of things, can they?”
“I guess,” the Vice President agreed. “Problem is, how the hell do we help them?”
“I haven’t figured that one out yet,” Jack admitted. “And we have enough potential economic problems on our horizon, with Asia sliding down the tubes.”
“That’s something I have to learn, this economic shit,” Robby admitted.
“Spend some time with George Winston,” Ryan suggested. “It’s not all that hard, but you have to learn a new language to speak. Basis points, derivatives, all that stuff George knows it pretty good.”