Dead or Alive - Tom Clancy [96]
The prisoner in the gilded cage, Jack thought.
“SHORTSTOP, coming in,” he told the gatepost, and a camera would make sure of his identity before the gate opened. The Secret Service disliked his choice of car. The bright yellow of his Hummer was conspicuous, that much was certain.
He parked, got out, and walked to the door, beside which he found Andrea.
“Didn’t get a chance to talk to you afterward,” she said to him. “It was a hell of a thing you did, Jack. If you hadn’t caught it …”
“Then you just would’ve had a longer shot, that’s all.”
“Maybe. Still, thanks.”
“You bet. We know anything about the guy? Heard a rumor he might be URC.”
Andrea considered this for a moment. “I can neither confirm nor deny,” she said with a smile and a distinct emphasis on confirm.
So the Emir tried to take out Dad, Jack thought. Un-fucking-believable. He quashed the impulse to return to his computer at The Campus. The Emir was out there, and sooner or later he’d run out of running room; sadly, though, Jack wouldn’t be there when it happened.
“Motive?”
“Shock value, we’re thinking. Your dad might be a ‘former,’ but he’s still damned popular. Plus, the logistics are more manageable—easier to kill a retired President than a sitting one.”
“Maybe easier, but sure as hell not easy. You proved that.”
“We proved that,” Andrea said with a smile. “You want an application?”
Jack smiled at this. “I’ll let you know how the trading business goes. Thanks, Andrea.” He pushed through the door. “Hey, I’m home!” he called.
“Hi, Jack,” Jack Junior’s mom said, emerging from the kitchen with a hug and a kiss. “You look pretty good.”
“So do you, Professor-of-surgery lady. Where’s Dad?”
She pointed to his right. “Library. He’s got company. Arnie.”
Jack headed over there, up the short steps and turning left into Dad’s workplace. Dad was sitting in his swivel chair, with Arnie van Damm sprawled in a club chair nearby. “What are you guys conspiring on or for?” he asked on his way into the room.
“Conspiracies don’t work,” his father said tiredly. There’d been a lot of that talk during his presidency, and his father detested all of it, though he’d once joked of having the presidential helicopter fleet painted black just to annoy the idiots who believed that nothing happened on planet earth without a dark conspiracy’s having brought it about. It didn’t help that John Patrick Ryan Sr. was both wealthy and a former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, of course—a combination sure to create a conspiracy buzz, real or imagined.
“Ain’t that a shame, Pop,” Jack offered, coming over for a hug. “What’s Sally doing?”
“Went to the store for the salad fixings. Took Mom’s car. What’s new?”
“Learning currency arbitrage. It’s kinda spooky.”
“Making any moves yourself?”
“Well, no, not yet, no big ones anyway, but I advise people.”
“Theoretical accounts?”
“Yeah, I made half a million virtual dollars last week,” he said.
“You can’t spend virtual dollars, Jack.”
“I know, but you have to start somewhere, right? So, Arnie, trying to get Dad to run again?” he asked.
“Why do you say that?” van Damm asked.
Maybe it was the setting, Jack thought. His eyebrow went up a little, but he didn’t press the issue. And so everyone in the room knew something the other two didn’t know. Arnie didn’t know about The Campus and his father’s part in setting it up, didn’t know about the blank pardons, didn’t know what his father had authorized. Dad didn’t know his own son worked there. And Arnie knew more political secrets than anyone since the Kennedy administration, most of which