Executive orders - Tom Clancy [430]
MR, PRESIDENT, THE team captain said, I hope you'll like this.
Ryan had a good laugh and donned the team jersey for the cameras. The team bunched around him for the shot.
My CIA Director is a big hockey fan, Jack said.
Really? Bob Albertsen asked. He was a very physical defenseman, the terror of his conference for his board checking, but as docile as a kitten in this setting.
Yeah, he has a kid who's pretty good, played in the kids' leagues in Russia.
Then maybe he learned something. Where's he go to school?
I'm not sure what colleges they're thinking about. I think they said Eddie wants to study engineering. It was so damned pleasant, Jack thought, to talk about normal things like a normal person to other normal people once in a while.
Tell them to send the kid to Rensselaer. It's a good tech school up by Albany.
Why there?
Those damned nerds win the college championship every other year. I went to Minnesota, and they cleaned our clock twice in a row. Send me his name and I'll see he gets some stuff. His dad, too, if that's okay, Mr. President.
I'll do that, the President promised. Six feet away, Agent Raman heard the exchange and nodded.
O'DAY ARRIVED JUST as the kids were trooping back in the side door for bathroom call. This, he knew, was a major undertaking. He pulled his diesel pickup in just after four. He watched the Secret Service agents switch positions.
Russell appeared at the front door, his regular post for when the children were inside.
We got us a match for tomorrow?
Russell shook his head. Too quick. Two weeks from tomorrow, two in the afternoon. It'll give you a chance to practice.
And you won't? O'Day asked, passing inside. He watched Megan enter the girls' bathroom without seeing her daddy in the room. Well, then. He squatted down outside the door to surprise her when she came out.
MOVIE STAR, TOO, was at his surveillance position in the school parking lot to the northeast. The trees were starting to fill in, he realized. He could see, but his view was somewhat obstructed. Things appeared normal even so, and from this point on, it was in Allah's hands, he told himself, surprised that he used the term for a decidedly ungodly act. As he watched, Car 1 turned right just north of the day-care center. It would proceed down the street, reverse directions, and head back.
Car 2 was a white Lincoln Town Car, the twin of one belonging to a family with a child here. That family comprised two physicians, though none of the terrorists knew that. Immediately behind it was a red Chrysler whose twin belonged to the again-pregnant wife of an accountant. As Movie Star watched, both pulled into parking spaces opposite each other, as close to the highway as the parking lot allowed.
PRICE WOULD BE here soon. Russell took note of the cars' arrival, thinking over his arguments for the Detail chief. The afternoon sun reflected off the windshields, preventing him from seeing anything more inside than the outline of the drivers. Both cars were early, but it was a Friday
the tag numbers ?
his eyes narrowed slightly as he shook his head, asking himself why he hadn't-
SOMEONE ELSE HAD. Jeffers lifted his binoculars, scanning the arriving cars as part of his surveillance duties. He didn't even know he had a photographic memory. Remembering things was as natural to him as breathing. He thought everyone could do it.
Wait, wait, something's wrong here. They're not- He lifted the radio mike. Russell, those are not our cars! It was almost in time.
IN ONE SMOOTH motion, two drivers opened their car doors and swung their legs out, lifting their weapons off the front seats as they did so. In the back of both cars, two pairs of men came up, also armed.
RUSSELL'S RIGHT HAND moved back and down, reaching for his automatic while his left lifted the collar-mounted radio microphone: Gun!
Inside the building, Inspector O'Day heard something but wasn't sure what, and he was facing the wrong way to see how Agent Marcella Hilton turned away from a child who was asking her a question and shoved her hand into