Executive orders - Tom Clancy [1]
Was he?
The Secret Service thought so. He'd sworn the oath, spoken the words, invoked the name of God to bless his effort, but it had all been too soon and too fast. Hardly for the first time in his life, John Patrick Ryan closed his eyes and willed himself to awaken from this dream that was just too improbable to be real, and yet when he opened his eyes again the orange glow was still there, and the leaping yellow flames. He knew he'd spoken the words-he'd even given a little speech, hadn't he? But he could not remember a single word of it now.
Let's get to work, he'd said a minute earlier. He did remember that. An automatic thing to say. Did it mean anything?
Jack Ryan shook his head-it seemed a major accomplishment to do even that-then turned away from the window to look directly at the agents in the room.
Okay. What's left?
Secretaries of Commerce and Interior, Special Agent Price responded, having been updated by her personal radio. Commerce is in San Francisco. Interior is in New Mexico. They've already been summoned; the Air Force will bring them in. We've lost all the other Cabinet secretaries: Director Shaw, all nine Supreme Court justices, the Joint Chiefs. We're not sure how many members of Congress were absent when it happened.
Mrs. Durling?
Price shook her head. She didn't get out, sir. The kids are at the White House.
Jack nodded bleakly at the additional tragedy, compressed his lips, and closed his eyes at the thought of one more thing he had to do personally. For the children of Roger and Anne Durling, it wasn't a public event. For them it was immediately and tragically simple: Mom and Dad had died, and they were now orphans. Jack had seen them, spoken with them-really nothing more than the smile and the Hi that one gave to another man's kids, but they were real children with faces and names-except their surnames were all that was left, and the faces would be contorted with shock and disbelief. They'd be like Jack, trying to blink away a nightmare that would not depart, but for them it'd be all the harder because of their age and vulnerability. Do they know?
Yes, Mr. President, Andrea said. They were watching TV, and the agents had to tell them. They have grandparents still alive, other family members. We're bringing them in, too. She didn't add that there was a drill for this, that at the Secret Service's operations center a few blocks west of the White House was a security file cabinet with sealed envelopes in which were contingency plans for all manner of obscene possibilities; this was merely one of them.
However, there were hundreds-no, thousands-of children without parents now, not just two. Jack had to set the Durling children aside for the moment. Hard as it was, it was also a relief to close the door on that task for the moment. He looked down at Agent Price again.
You're telling me I'm the whole government right now?
It would seem that way, Mr. President. That's why we-
That's why I have to do the things I have to do. Jack headed to the door, startling the Secret Service agents into action by his impulse. There were cameras in the corridor. Ryan walked right past them, the leading wave of two agents clearing the rows of newspeople too shocked themselves to do much more than operate their cameras. Not a single question. That, Jack thought without a smile, was a singular event. It didn't occur to him to wonder what his face looked like. An elevator was waiting, and thirty seconds later, he emerged into the capacious lobby. It had been cleared of people, except for agents, more than half of whom had submachine guns out, and pointed up at the ceiling. They must have come from elsewhere-there were more than he remembered from