Midnight Runner - Jack Higgins [6]
"No, that's my privilege. I'd better get used to it." He clicked his heels and saluted.
"General?" Quinn was bewildered.
"I've had a communication this morning from the President. Master Sergeant Daniel Quinn, I have the honor to inform you that you have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor." And he saluted again, gravely.
A nd so the legend was born. Quinn was sent home, endured many interviews and ceremonies until he could take no more, and finally, with no interest in a permanent military career, he left the Army. He went back to Harvard and studied philosophy for three years, as if trying to exorcise some kind of demon, and carefully kept out of bars so that he would not become involved in any physical arguments. He did not trust himself enough for that.
Finally, he agreed to go into the family business. At least it meant he'd been able to help his old friend Tom Jackson, who'd received a law degree from Columbia after Vietnam and had risen over the years to head the legal department at Quinn Industries.
He didn't marry until he was in his thirties. Her name was Monica, and she was the daughter of family friends; it was a marriage of convenience. Their daughter, Helen, was born in 1979, and it was around that time that he decided to follow his grandfather's dream, and entered politics. He put all his financial interests into a blind trust and ran for an open congressional seat, won by a narrow margin, and then by ever greater margins, until finally he challenged the incumbent Senator, and won there, too. Congress began to wear upon him after a while, though: the backstabbing and deal-making and constant petty crises, and then, when his grandfather died in a private plane accident, he began to rethink all his priorities.
He wanted out, he decided. He wanted to do something more with his life. And it was at that point that his old friend, fellow veteran and now-President, Jake Cazalet, came to him and said that if Daniel wanted to give up his seat, he understood. But he hoped Daniel was not forsaking public service. He needed someone like Daniel to be a troubleshooter, a kind of roving ambassador, someone he trusted absolutely. And Daniel said yes. From then on, wherever there was trouble, from the Far East to Israel, Bosnia, Kosovo, he was there.
Meanwhile, his daughter followed family tradition and went to Harvard, while his wife held the fort back home. When she was diagnosed with leukemia, she didn't tell him until it was too late--she hadn't wanted to interrupt his work. When she died, the guilt he felt was intolerable. They held a funeral reception at their Boston home, and after the guests had departed, he and his daughter walked in the gardens. She was small and slim, with golden hair and green eyes, the joy of his life, all he had left, he thought, of any worth.
"You're a great man, Dad," she said. "You do great things. You can't blame yourself."
"But I let her down."
"No, it was Mum's choice to play it the way she did." She hugged his arm. "I know one thing. You'll never let me down. I love you, Dad, so much."
The following year she won a Rhodes Scholarship for two years at Oxford University, at St. Hugh's College, and Quinn went to Kosovo to work for NATO on the President's behalf. That was where things stood, until one miserable March day when the President asked to see Quinn at the White House, and Quinn went...
WASHINGTON LONDON
2
W ASHINGTON, EARLY EVENING, BAD MARCH WEATHER, but the Hay-Adams Hotel, where Daniel Quinn was staying, was only a short walk from the White House.
Quinn liked the Hay-Adams, the wonderful antiques, the plush interior, the restaurant. Because of the hotel's location, they all came there, the great and the good, the politicians and the power-brokers. Daniel Quinn didn't know where he fit in on that spectrum anymore, but he didn't much care. He just liked the place.
Quinn stepped outside, and the doorman