Executive orders - Tom Clancy [443]
The door reopened, and the chief returned with two bottles and a silver bucket. Another steward followed with glasses.
Chief, I just meant two glasses.
Yes, Mr. President, but we have two more guests arriving, Admiral and Mrs. Jackson. Mrs. Jackson likes a good white also, sir. He popped the cork and poured a splash for SURGEON. She nodded.
Doesn't it have a wonderful nose? He filled her glass and one other, handing that to the President. Then he withdrew.
They always told me the Navy had guys like that, but I never believed it.
Oh, Jack. Cathy turned. The kids were watching TV, all three sitting on the floor, even Sally, who was trying to become an elegant lady. They were retreating into the familiar, while their parents did what parents always did, came to terms with a new reality, in order to buffer their children from the world.
Jack saw the lights of a HMMWV go past to the left.
Robby and Sissy would have their own cabin, he imagined. They'd change before coming over. He turned back and wrapped his arms around his wife from behind. It's okay, babe.
Cathy shook her head. It'll never be okay, Jack. It'll never be okay again. Roy told me, as long as we live, we'll have bodyguards with us. Everywhere we go, we'll need protection. Forever, she said, sipping her wine, not so much angry as resigned, not so much dazed as comprehending something she'd never dreamed. The trappings of power were seductive sometimes. A helicopter to work. People to take care of your clothes, look after the kids, whatever food you wanted as close as the phone, escorts everywhere, fast track into everything.
But the price of it? No big deal. Just every so often somebody might try to murder one of your children. There was no running away from it. It was as though she'd been given a diagnosis of cancer, of the breast, the ovaries, something else. Horrible as it was, you had to do what you had to do. Crying didn't help, though she'd do a lot of that, SURGEON was sure. Screaming at Jack wouldn't help-and she wasn't a screamer anyway, and it wasn't Jack's fault, was it? She just had to roll with the punch, like patients at Hopkins did when you told them they had to go see the Oncology Department-oh, please, don't worry. They're the best, the very best, and times have changed, and they really know what they're doing now. Her colleagues in the Department of Oncology were the best. And they had a nice new building now. But who really wanted to go there?
And so she and Jack had a nice house of sorts, with a wonderful staff, some of whom were even wine experts, she thought, taking another sip from her glass. But who really wants to go there?
SO MANY AGENTS were assigned to the case that they didn't know what to do yet. They didn't have enough rough information to generate leads, but that was changing fast. Most of the dead terrorists had been photographed-two of them, shot from behind by Norm Jeffers' M-16 rifle, didn't have faces to photograph-and all of the bodies fingerprinted. Blood samples would be taken for DNA records in case that later became useful-a possibility, since identity could be confirmed by a genetic match with close relatives. For now they went with the photos. These were transmitted to the Mossad first of all. The terrorists had probably been Islamic, everyone thought, and the Israelis had the best data on them. CIA handled the initial notice, followed by the FBI. Full cooperation was promised at once, personally, by Avi ben Jakob.
All of the bodies were taken to Annapolis for postmortem examination. This was required by law, even in cases where the cause of death was as obvious as an earthquake. The pre-death condition of each body would be established, plus a full blood-toxicology check to see if any were on drugs.
The clothing of each was removed for full examination at the FBI laboratory in Washington. The brand names