Executive orders - Tom Clancy [56]
John, you're going to help me sell it. Look how well Domingo here has turned out.
You mean I'm not affirmative action? Chavez asked.
No, Ding, that's only with his daughter, Mrs. Foley suggested. Ryan will go for it. He isn't very keen on the Director. Anyway, for now I want you two to do your debrief on SANDALWOOD.
What about our cover? Clark asked. He didn't have to explain what he meant. Mary Pat had never got her hands dirty in the field-she was espionage, not the paramilitary side of the Operations Directorate-but she understood just fine.
John, you were acting under presidential orders. That's written down and in the book. Nobody's going to second-guess anything you did, especially with saving Koga. You both have an Intelligence Star coming for that. President Durling wanted to see you and present the medals himself up at Camp David. I suppose Jack will, too.
Whoa, Chavez thought behind unblinking eyes, but nice as that thought was, he'd been thinking about something else on the three-hour drive up from Yorktown.
When's the threat-assessment start?
Tomorrow for our side of it. Why? MP asked.
Ma'am, I think we're going to be busy.
I hope you're wrong, she replied, after nodding.
I HAVE TWO procedures scheduled for today, Cathy said, surveying the breakfast buffet. Since they didn't know what the Ryans liked to have in the morning, the staff had prepared some-actually quite a lot-of everything. Sally and Little Jack thought that was just great-even better, schools were closed. Katie, a recent graduate to real foods, gnawed at a piece of bacon in her hand while contemplating some buttered toast. For children, the immediate has the greatest importance. Sally, now fifteen (going on thirty, her father sometimes lamented), took the longest view of the three, but at the moment that was limited to how her social life would be affected. For all of them, Daddy was still Daddy, whatever job he might hold at the moment. They'd learn different, Jack knew, but one thing at a time.
We haven't figured that out, her husband replied, selecting scrambled eggs and bacon for his plate. He'd need his energy today.
Jack, the deal was that I could still do my work, remember?
Mrs. Ryan? It was Andrea Price, still hovering around like a guardian angel, albeit with an automatic pistol. We're still figuring out the security issues and-
My patients need me. Jack, Bernie Katz and Hal Marsh can backstop me on a lot of things, but one of my patients today needs me. I have teaching rounds to prep for, too. She checked her watch. In four hours. Which was true, Ryan didn't have to ask. Professor Caroline Ryan, M.D., F.A.C.S., was top-gun for driving a laser around a retina. People came from all over the world to watch her work.
But schools are- Price stopped, reminding herself that she knew better.
Not medical schools. We can't send patients home. I'm sorry. I know how complicated things are for everybody, but I have people who depend on me, too, and I have to be there for them. Cathy looked at the adult faces in the kitchen for a decision that would go her way. The kitchen staff-all sailors-moved in and out like mobile statues, pretending not to hear anything. The Secret Service people adopted a different blank expression, one with more discomfort in it.
The First Lady was supposed to be an unpaid adjunct to her husband. That was a rule which needed changing