Executive orders - Tom Clancy [40]
So, who is this Ryan guy, really? Brown asked, yawning.
Another 'crat, looks like. A bureaucrat talking bureaucrap.
Yeah, judged Brown. With nothing to back him up, Pete.
Holbrook turned and looked at his friend. It's really som'thin', isn't it? With that observation he got up and walked to the bookshelves that walled the south side of his den. His copy of the Constitution was a well-thumbed pamphlet edition which he read as often as he could, so as to improve his understanding of the intent of the drafters. You know, Pete, there's nothing in here to cover a situation like this.
Really?
Holbrook nodded. Really.
No shit. That required some thought, didn't it?
MURDERED? PRESIDENT RYAN asked, still wiping the makeup off his face with wet towelettes of the same sort he'd used to clean off baby bottoms. At least it made his face feel clean when he'd finished.
That's the preliminary indication, both from a cursory examination of the body and from a quick-and-dirty examination of the cockpit tapes. Murray flipped through the notes faxed to him only twenty minutes before.
Ryan leaned back in his chair. Like much else in the Oval Office, it was new. On the credenza behind him, all of Durling's family and personal photos had been removed. The papers on the desk had been taken away for examination by the presidential secretarial staff. What remained or what had been substituted were accoutrements from White House stores. The chair at least was a good one, expensively designed to protect the back of its occupant, and it would soon be substituted for a custom-designed chair fitted to his own back by a manufacturer who performed the service for free and-remarkably-without public fanfare. Sooner or later he'd have to work in this place, Jack had decided a few minutes earlier. The secretaries were here, and it wasn't fair to make them trek across the building, up and down stairs. Sleeping in this place was another issue entirely-for the moment; that, too, had to change, didn't it? So, he thought, staring across the desk at Murray, murder.
Shot?
Dan shook his head. Knife right in the heart, only one penetration. The wound looked to our agent to be from a thin blade, like a steak knife. From the cockpit tapes, it appears that it was done prior to takeoff. Looks like we can time-stamp that pretty exactly. From just prior to engine start-up to the moment of impact, the only voice on the tapes is the pilot. His name was Sato, a very experienced command pilot. The Japanese police have gotten a pile of data to us. It would seem that he lost a brother and a son in the war. The brother commanded a destroyer that got sunk with all hands. The son was a fighter pilot who cracked up on landing after a mission. Both on the same day or near enough. So, it was personal. Motive and opportunity, Jack, Murray allowed himself to say, for they were almost alone in the office. Andrea Price was there, too. She didn't quite approve; she had not yet been told exactly how far back the two men went.
That's pretty fast on the ID, Price observed.
It has to be firmed up, Murray agreed. We'll do that with DNA testing just to be sure. The cockpit tape is good enough for voice-print analysis, or so they told our agent. The Canadians have RADAR tapes tracking the aircraft out of their airspace, so confirming the timing of the event is simple. We have the aircraft firmly ID'd from Guam to Japan to Vancouver, and into the Capitol building.