Executive orders - Tom Clancy [71]
Brown and Holbrook didn't forget. Durling may just have been another 'crat, but the Flag was the Flag, and it wasn't the Flag's fault that it was draped there. The soldiers strutted up the street, incongruously wearing battle-dress uniforms with red berets and bloused jump boots because, the radio commentator said, Roger Durling had been one of their own. Before the gun carriage walked two more soldiers, the first carrying the presidential flag, and the second with a framed plaque which contained Durling's combat decorations. The deceased President had won a medal for rescuing a soldier under fire. That former soldier was somewhere in the procession, and had already been interviewed about a dozen times, soberly recounting the day on which a President-to-be had saved his life. A shame he'd gone wrong, the Mountain Men reflected, but more likely he'd been a politician the whole time.
The new President appeared presently, his automobile identifiable by the four Secret Service agents pacing alongside it. This new one was a mystery to the two Mountain Men. They knew what they'd seen on TV and read in the papers. A shooter. He'd actually killed two people, one with a pistol and one with an Uzi. Ex-Marine, even. That excited a little admiration. Other TV coverage, repeated again and again, mainly showed him doing Sunday talk shows and briefings. In most of the former he looked competent. In the latter he often appeared uncomfortable.
Most of the car windows in the procession had the dark plastic coating that prevented people from seeing who rode inside, but not the President's car, of course. His three children sitting ahead of him and facing back from the jump seat, with his wife at his side, President John Ryan was easy to see from the sidewalk.
WHAT DO WE really know about Mr. Ryan?
Not much, the commentator admitted. His government service has been almost exclusively in CIA. He has the respect of Congress, on both sides of the aisle. He's worked with Alan Trent and Sam Fellows for years-that's one of the reasons both members are still alive. We've all heard the story of the terrorists who attacked him-
Like something out of the Wild West, the anchor interjected. What do you think about having a President who's-
Killed people? the commentator returned the favor. He was tired from days of long duty, and just a little tired of this coiffeured airhead. Let's see. George Washington was a general. So was Andy Jackson. William Henry Harrison was a soldier. Grant, and most of the post-Civil War presidents. Teddy Roosevelt, of course. Truman was a soldier. Eisenhower. Jack Kennedy was in the Navy, as were Nixon, and Jimmy Carter, and George Bush The impromptu history lesson had the visual effect of a cattle prod.
But he was selected as Vice President really in a caretaker status, wasn't he, and as payback for his handling of the conflict-nobody really called it a war-with what turned out to be Japanese business interests. There, the anchor thought, that would put this overaged foreign correspondent in his place. Who ever said that a President was entitled to any honeymoon at all, anyway?
RYAN WANTED TO look over his speech, but he found that he couldn't. It was pretty cold out there. It wasn't exactly warm in the car, but thousands of people stood out there in twenty-nine-degree air, five to ten deep on the sidewalks, and their faces tracked his car as it passed by. They were close enough that he could see their expressions. Many pointed and said things to the people standing next to them-there he is, there's the new one. Some waved, small embarrassed gestures from people who were unsure if it was okay to do so, but wanting to do something to show that they cared. More nodded respect, with the tight smile that you saw in a funeral home-hope you'll be okay. Jack wondered if it was proper to wave back, but