Executive orders - Tom Clancy [210]
Oof! Daddy said. You hug too hard!
Did I hurt? Megan asked in mock alarm. It was part of the morning routine.
A smile. No, not this time. With that, he walked out of the house and opened the door to his muddy pickup, carefully strapped her into her car seat, and set her lunch box and blanky between them. It was six-thirty, and they were on their way to a new day-care center. O'Day could not start his truck without looking down at Megan, the image of her mother, a daily realization that always made him bite his lip and close his eyes and shake his head, wondering again why the 737 had rolled and plunged straight into the ground with his wife of sixteen months in seat 18-F.
The new day-care center was more convenient to his route to work, and the people next door loved it for their twin boys. He turned left onto Ritchie Highway, and found the place right across from a 7-Eleven where he could get a pint of coffee for the commute in on U.S. 50. Giant Steps, nice name.
Hell of a way to make a living, Pat thought, parking his truck. Marlene Daggett was always there at six, tending to the children of the bureaucrats who trekked to D.C. every morning. She even came out to meet them for the first arrival.
Mr. O'Day! And this is Megan! the teacher announced with stunning enthusiasm for so early an hour. Megan had her doubts, and looked up at her daddy. She turned back in surprise to see something special. Her name is Megan, too. She's your bear, and she's been waiting all day for you.
Oh. The little girl seized the brown-furred creature and hugged it, name tag and all. Hello.
Mrs. Daggett looked up in a way that told the FBI agent, it works every time. You have your blanky?
Right here, ma'am, O'Day told her, also handing over the forms he'd completed the night before. Megan had no medical problems, no allergies to medicine, milk, or food; yes, in case of a real emergency you can take her to the local hospital; and the inspector's work and pager numbers, and his parents' number, and the number of Deborah's parents, who were damned good grandparents. Giant Steps was well organized. O'Day didn't know how well organized only because there was something Mrs. Daggett wasn't supposed to talk casually about. His identity was being checked out by the Secret Service.
Well, Miss Megan, I think it's time for us to play and make some new friends. She looked up. We'll take good care of her.
O'Day got back into his truck with the usual minor pain that attended leaving his daughter behind-anywhere, no matter the time or place-and jumped across the street to the 7-Eleven for his commute coffee. He had a conference scheduled at nine o'clock to go over further developments on the crash investigation-they were down to T-crossing and I-dotting now-followed by a day of administrative garbage which would at least not prevent him from picking his little girl up on time. Forty minutes later, he pulled into FBI Headquarters at Tenth and Pennsylvania. His post as roving inspector gave him a reserved parking place. From there he walked, this morning, to the indoor pistol range.
An expert marksman since Boy Scouts, Pat O'Day had also been a principal firearms instructor at several FBI field offices, which meant that he'd been selected by the SAC to supervise weapons training for the other agents-always an important part of a cop's life, even though few ever fired their side arms in anger.
The range was rarely busy this time of day-he got in at 7:25-and the inspector selected two boxes of Federal 10mm hollow-points for his big stainless Smith & Wesson 1076 automatic, along with a couple of standard Q targets and a set of ear protectors. The target was a simple