The Bear and the Dragon - Tom Clancy [524]
"How'd you guys get here so fast?" Ryan asked.
"Andrea called us, sir—did what we think happened just happen?"
"Yep, and your President needs a bottle and a soft chair, gentlemen.
"We have a car on the pier, sir. You want to come with us?"
"Okay—Captain, you get buses or something, and come to the White House right away. If it means locking the ship up and leaving her without anyone aboard, that's just fine with me. Call the Marine Barracks at Eighth and I for security if you need to."
"Aye, aye, Mr. President. We'll be along shortly."
I might be drunk before you get there, the President thought.
The car Hilton and Malone had brought down was one of the black armored Chevy Suburbans that followed the President everywhere he went. This one just drove back to the White House. The streets were suddenly filled with people simply standing and looking up—it struck Ryan as odd. The thing was no longer in the sky, and whatever pieces were on the ground were too dangerous to touch. In any case, the drive back to the White House was uneventful, and Ryan ended up in the Situation Room, strangely alone. The uniformed people from the White House Military Office—called Wham-O by the staff, which seemed particularly inappropriate at the moment—were all in a state somewhere between bemused and stunned. And the immediate consequence of the great effort to whisk senior government officials out of town—the scheme was officially called the Continuation of Government—had had the reverse effect. The government was at the moment still fragmented in twenty or so helicopters and one E-4B, and quite unable to coordinate itself. Ryan figured that the emergency was better designed to withstand a nuclear attack than to avoid one, and that, at the moment, seemed very strange.
Indeed, the big question for the moment was What the hell do we do now? And Ryan didn't have much of a clue. But then a phone rang to help him.
"This is President Ryan."
"Sir, this is General Dan Liggett at Strike Command in Omaha. Mr. President, I gather we just dodged a major bullet."
"Yeah, I think you can say that, General."
"Sir, do you have any orders for us?"
"Like what?"
"Well, sir, one option would be retaliation, and—"
"Oh, you mean because they blew a chance to nuke us, we should take the opportunity to nuke them for real?"
"Sir, it's my job to present options, not to advocate any," Liggett told his Commander-in-chief.
"General, do you know where I was during the attack?"
"Yes, sir. Gutsy call, Mr. President."
"Well, I am now trying to deal with my own restored life, and I don't have a clue what I ought to do about the big picture, whatever the hell that is. In another two hours or so, maybe we can think of something, but at the moment I have no idea at all. And you know, I'm not sure I want to have any such idea. So, for the moment, General, we do nothing at all. Are we clear on that?"
"Yes, Mr. President. Nothing at all happens with Strike Command."
"I'll get back to you."
"Jack?" a familiar voice called from the door.
"Arnie, I hate drinking alone—except when there's nobody else around. How about you and me drain a bottle of something? Tell the usher to bring down a bottle of Midleton, and, you know, have him bring a glass for himself."
"Is it true you rode it out on the ship down at the Navy Yard?"
"Yep." Ryan bobbed his head.
"Why?"
"I couldn't run away, Arnie. I couldn't run off to safety and leave a couple of million people to fry. Call it brave. Call it stupid. I just couldn't bug out that way."
Van Damm leaned into the corridor and made the drink order to someone Jack couldn't see, and then he came back in. "I was just starting dinner at my place in Georgetown when CNN ran the flash. Figured I might as well come here—didn't really believe it like I should have, I suppose."
"It was somewhat difficult to swallow. I suppose I ought to ask myself if it was our fault, sending the special-operations people in. Why is it that people second-guess everything we do here?"
"Jack, the world