The Bear and the Dragon - Tom Clancy [171]
"Hows the ambassador we have there?" POTUS asked.
"Carl Hitch? Super guy. Career pro, Jack, ready to retire soon, but hes like a good cabinetmaker. Maybe he cant design the house for you, but the kitchen will be just fine when hes done—and you know, Ill settle for that in a diplomat. Besides, designing the house is your job, Mr. President."
"Yeah," Ryan observed. He waved to an usher, who brought over some ice water. Hed pushed the booze enough for one night, and Cathy was starting to razz him about it again. Damn, being married to a doctor, Jack thought. "Yeah, Scott, but who the hell do I go to for advice when I dont know what the hell Im doing?"
"Hell, I dont know," EAGLE replied. Maybe some humor, he thought: "Try doing a séance and call up Tom Jefferson and George Washington." He turned with a chuckle and finished his Hennessey. "Jack, just take it easy on yourself and do the fuckin job. Youre doing just fine. Trust me."
"I hate this job," SWORDSMAN observed with a friendly smile at his Secretary of State.
"I know. Thats probably why youre doing it pretty well. God protect us all from somebody who wants to hold high public office. Hell, look at me. Think I ever wanted to be SecState? It was a lot more fun to eat lunch in the cafeteria with my pals and bitch about the dumb son of a bitch who was. But now—shit, theyre down there saying that about me! It aint fair, Jack. Im a working guy."
"Tell me about it."
"Well, look at it this way: When you do your memoirs, youll get a great advance from your publisher. The Accidental President?" Adler speculated for the title.
"Scott, you get funny when youre drunk. Ill settle for working on my golf game."
"Who spoke the magic word?" Vice President Jackson asked as he joined the conversation.
"This guy whips my ass so bad out there," Ryan complained to Secretary Adler, "that sometimes I wish I had a sword to fall on. Whats your handicap now?"
"Not playing much, Jack, its slipped to six, maybe seven."
"Hes going to turn pro—Senior Tour," Jack advised.
"Anyway, Jack, this is my father. His plane was late and he missed the receiving line," Robby explained.
"Reverend Jackson, we finally meet." Jack took the hand of the elderly black minister. For the inauguration hed been in the hospital with kidney stones, which probably had been even less fun than the inauguration.
"Robbys told me a lot of good things about you."
"Your son is a fighter pilot, sir, and they exaggerate a lot."
The minister had a good laugh at that. "Oh, that I know, Mr. President. That I know."
"How was the food?" Ryan asked. Hosiah Jackson was a man on the far side of seventy, short like his son, and rotund with increasing years, but he was a man possessed of the immense dignity that somehow attached to black men of the cloth.
"Much too rich for an old man, Mr. President, but I ate it anyway."
"Dont worry, Jack. Pap doesnt drink TOMCAT advised. On the lapel of his tuxedo jacket was a miniature of his Navy Wings of Gold. Robby would never stop being a fighter pilot.
"And you shouldnt either, boy! That Navy taught you lots of bad habits, like braggin on yourself too much."
Jack had to jump to his friends defense. "Sir, a fighter pilot who doesnt brag isnt allowed to fly. And besides, Dizzy Dean said it best—if you can do it, it isnt bragging. Robby can do it … or so he claims."
"They started talking over in Beijing yet?" Robby asked, checking his watch.
"Another half hour or so," Adler replied. "Its going to be interesting," he added, referring to the SORGE material.
"I believe it," Vice President Jackson agreed, catching the message. "You know, its hard to love those people."
"Robby, you are not allowed to say such things," his father retorted. "I have a friend in Beijing."
"Oh?" His son didnt know about that.