Executive orders - Tom Clancy [429]
Not all that liberated at all, are we? she asked the windshield. But the Service didn't pay her to be liberated. It paid her to look after the First Family. Her personal life was supposed to run on her personal time, though the Service didn't issue her any of that, either.
INSPECTOR O'DAY WAS already on Route 50. Friday was best of all. He'd done his duty for the week. His tie and suit jacket were on the seat next to him, and he was back in his leather bomber jacket and his lucky John Deere ballcap, without which he'd never consider playing golf or going out to hunt. This weekend he had a ton of things to do around the house. Megan would help with many of them. Somehow she knew. Pat didn't fully understand it. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe she just responded to her father's devotion. However it came about, the two were inseparable. At home, she left his side only to sleep, and only then after a major hug and kiss, her little arms tight around his neck. O'Day chuckled to himself. Tough guy.
RUSSELL SUPPOSED IT was the grandfather in him. All these little munchkins. They were playing outside now, every one in his or her parka, about half with the hoods up, because little kids liked that for some reason. Serious playtime here. SANDBOX was in the sandbox, along with the O'Day kid who so closely resembled her, and a little boy-the Walker kid, the rather nice young son of that pain in the ass with the Volvo wagon. Agent Hilton was out, too, supervising. Strangely, they could relax more out here. The playground was on the north side of the Giant Steps building, under the direct view of the support team just across the street. The third member of the team was inside on the phone. She ordinarily worked the back room, where the TV monitors were. The kids knew her as Miss Anne.
Too thin, Russell told himself, even as he watched the toddlers having the purest sort of fun. In the extreme case, somebody could drive by on Ritchie Highway and hose the place. Trying to talk the Ryans out of sending Katie here was a wasted effort, and, sure, they wanted their youngest to be a normal kid. But
But it was all insane, wasn't it? Russell's entire professional life had revolved around the knowledge that there were people who hated the President and everyone around him. Some were truly crazy. Some were something else. He'd studied the psychology of it. He had to, since learning about them helped to predict what to look for, but that wasn't the same as understanding it. These were kids. Even the fucking Mafia, he knew, didn't mess with children. He sometimes envied the FBI for its statutory authority to track down kidnappers. To rescue a child and apprehend the criminal in that sort of case must be a sweet moment indeed, though part of him wondered how hard it was to bring in alive that kind of subject instead of just sending him off to have his Miranda rights read to him by God Himself. That random thought evoked a smile. Or maybe what really happened was better yet. Kidnappers had a very bad time in prison. Even hardened robbers couldn't stomach the abusers of children, and so that variety of hood learned a whole new form of recreation in the federal corrections system: survival.
Russell, Command Post, his earpiece said.
Russell.
Price is heading out here like you requested, Special Agent Norm Jeffers said from the house across the street. Forty minutes, she says.
Right. Thanks.
I see the Walker lad is continuing his engineering studies, the voice continued.
Yeah, maybe he'll do bridges next, Don agreed. The youngster had the second level building on his sand castle, to the rapt admiration of Katie Ryan and