martyr. Luck wasn't enough. There had to be a reason, a result. Such a successful act was only so if it led to something else. This manifestly had not. And that was too bad. It wasn't often that—
No, the man reached for his orange juice and sipped it before he allowed his mind to proceed. Wasn't often? This had never happened, had it? That was a largely philosophical question. He could say, harkening back to history, that the Assassins had been able to topple or at least decapitate governments, but back then such a task had meant the elimination of a single man, and for all the bravura shown by emissaries of that hilltop fortress, the modern world was far too complex. Kill a president or prime minister—even one of the lingering kings some nations clung to—and there was another to step into the vacant place. As had evidently happened in this case. But this one was different. There was no Cabinet to stand behind the new man, to show solidarity and determination and continuity on their angry faces. If only something else, something larger and more important had been ready when the aircraft had made its fall, then this thing of beauty would have been more beautiful still. That it hadn't could not be changed, but as with all such events, there was much to learn from both its success and failure, and its aftermath, planned or not, was very, very real.
In that sense it was tragic. An opportunity had been wasted. If only he'd known. If only the man who'd flown that airplane to its final destination had let someone know what was planned. But that wasn't the way of martyrs, was it? The fools had to think alone, act alone, and die alone; and in their personal success lay ultimate failure. Or perhaps not. The aftermath was still there….
'MR, PRESIDENT?' A Secret Service agent had picked up the phone. Ordinarily it would have been a Navy yeoman, but the Detail was still a little too shell-shocked to allow just anyone into the Sit Room. 'FBI, sir.'
Ryan pulled the phone from its holder under the desktop. 'Yes?'
'Dan Murray here.' Jack nearly smiled to hear a familiar voice, and a friendly one at that. He and Murray went back a very long way indeed. At the other end, Murray must have wanted to say Hi, Jack, but he wouldn't— couldn't be so familiar without being so bidden—and even if Jack had encouraged him, the man would have felt uncomfortable to do so, and would have run the further risk of being thought an ass-kisser within his own organization. One more obstacle to being normal, Jack reflected. Even his friends were now distancing themselves.
'What is it, Dan?'
'Sorry to bother you, but we need guidance on who's running the investigation. There's a bunch of people running around on the Hill right now, and—'
'Unity of command,' Jack observed sourly. He didn't have to ask why Murray was calling him. All those who could have decided this issue at a lower level were dead. 'What's the law say for this?'
'It doesn't, really,' Murray replied. The discomfort in his voice was clear. He didn't wish to bother the man who had once been his friend, and might still be, in less official circumstances. But this was business, and business had to be carried out.
'Multiple jurisdictions?'
'To a fare-thee-well,' Murray confirmed with an unseen nod.
'I guess we call it a terrorist incident. We have a tradition of that, you and I, don't we?' Jack asked.
'That we do, sir.'
Sir, Ryan thought. Damn it. But he had another decision to make. Jack scanned the room before replying.
'The Bureau is the lead agency on this. Everybody reports to you. Pick a good man to run things.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Dan?'
'Yes, Mr. President?'
'Who's senior over at FBI?'
'The Associate Director is Chuck Floyd. He's down at Atlanta to give a speech and—' Then there would be the Assistant Directors, all senior to Murray…
'I don't know him. I do know you. You're acting Director until I say otherwise.' That shook the other side of the connection, Ryan immediately sensed.
'Uh, Jack, I—'
'I liked Shaw, too, Dan. You've got the job.'
'Yes, Mr. President.' Ryan replaced the phone and explained what he'd just done.
Price objected first: 'Sir, any attack on the President is under the jurisdiction of—'
Ryan cut her off. 'They have more resources, and somebody has to be in command. I want this one settled as quickly as possible.'
'We need a special commission.' This was Arnie van Damm.
'Headed by whom?' President Ryan asked. 'A member of the Supreme Court? Couple of senators and congressmen? Murray's a pro from way back. Pick a good—whoever's the senior career member of the Department of Justice's Criminal Division will oversee the investigation. Andrea, find me the best investigator in the Service to be Murray's chief assistant. We don't have outsiders to use, do we? We run this from the inside. Let's pick the best people and let them run with it. Like, we act as though we trust the agencies who're supposed to do the work.' He paused. 'I want this investigation to run fast, okay?'
'Yes, Mr. President.' Agent Price bobbed her head, and Ryan caught an approving nod from Arnie van Damm. Maybe he was doing something right, Jack allowed himself to think. The satisfaction was short-lived enough. Against the wall in the far corner was a bank of television sets. All showed essentially the same picture now, and the flash of a photographer's strobe on all four sets caught the President's eyes. He turned to see four iterations of a body bag being carried down the steps of the Capitol building's west wing. It was one more cadaver to identify— large or small, male or female, important or not, one couldn't tell from the rubberized fabric of the bag. There were only the strained, cold, sad faces of the fire-fighters carrying the damned thing, and that had attracted the attention of a nameless newspaper photographer and his camera and his flash, and so brought their President back to a reality he now, again, shrank from. The TV cameras followed the trio, two living, one dead, down the steps to an ambulance whose open doors revealed a pile of such bags. The one they were carrying was passed across gently, the professionals showing mercy and solicitude to the body which the living world had forsaken. Then they headed back up the steps to get the next one. The Situation Room fell silent as all eyes took in the same picture. A few deep breaths were taken, and eyes were too steely or too shocked as yet for tears as, two by two, they turned away to stare down at the polished oak of the table. A coffee cup scraped and rattled its way from a saucer. The slight noise only made the silence worse, for no one had the words to fill the void.
'What else has to be done now?' Jack asked. It hit him so hard, the fatigue of the moment. The earlier racing of his heart in the face of death and in fear for his family and in agony at the loss was taking its toll on him now. His chest seemed empty, his arms weighed down, as though the sleeves of his coat were made of lead, and suddenly it was an effort just to hold up his head. It was 11:35, after a day that had begun at 4:10 in the morning, filled with interviews about a job he'd held for all of eight minutes before his abrupt promotion. The adrenaline rush which had sustained him was gone, its two-hour duration making him all the more exhausted for its length. He looked around with what seemed an important question:
'Where do I sleep tonight?' Not here, Ryan decided instantly. Not in a dead man's bed on dead man's sheets a few feet from a dead man's kids. He needed to be with his own family. He needed to look at his own children, probably asleep by now, because children slept through anything; then to feel his wife's arms around him, because that was the one constant in Ryan's world, the single thing that he would never allow to change despite the cyclonic events that had assailed a life he had neither courted nor expected.
The Secret Service agents shared a look of mutual puzzlement, before Andrea Price spoke, taking command as was her nature and now her job.
'Marine Barracks? Eighth and I?'
Ryan nodded. 'That'll do for now.'
Price spoke into her radio microphone, which was pinned to the collar of her suit jacket. 'SWORDSMAN is moving. Bring the cars to the West Entrance.'
The agents of the Detail rose. As one person they unbuttoned their coats, and as they passed out the door, hands reached for their pistols.
'We'll shake you loose at five,' van Damm promised, adding, 'Make sure you get the sleep you need.' His answer was a brief, empty stare, as Ryan left the room. There a White House usher put a coat on him—whose it
