on that one.
'Will you ask Cathy?'
Ryan sighed and nodded. 'Okay.'
'Right, okay, I'll tell Donner that she might be on, but we're not sure yet because of her medical obligations. It'll give him something to think about. It will also take some of the heat off you. That's the First Lady's main job, remember.'
'You want to tell her that, Arnie? Remember, she's a surgeon, good with knives.'
Van Damm laughed. 'I'll tell you what she is. She's a hell of a lady, and she's tougher than either one of us. Ask nicely,' he advised.
'Yeah.' Right before dinner, Jack thought.
'OKAY, HE'LL DO it. But we want to ask his wife to join us, too.'
'Why?'
'Why not?' Arnie asked. 'Not sure yet. She isn't back from work,' he added, and that was a line that made the reporters smile.
'Okay, Arnie, thanks, I owe you one.' Donner turned off the speakerphone.
'You realize that you just lied to the President of the United States,' John Plumber observed pensively. Plumber was an older pro than Donner. He wasn't of the Edward R. Murrow generation—quite. Pushing seventy now, he'd been a teenager in World War II, but had gone to Korea as a young reporter, and been foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Bonn, and finally Moscow. Plumber had been ejected from Moscow, and his somewhat left political stance had nonetheless never turned into sympathy with the Soviet Union. But more than that, though he was not of Murrow's generation, he had grown up listening to the immortal CBS correspondent, and he could still close his eyes and hear the gravelly voice which had somehow carried a measure of authority usually associated with the clergy. Maybe it was because Ed had started on the radio, when one's voice was the currency of the profession. He'd certainly known language better than most of his own time, and infinitely better than the semiliterate reporters and newswriters of the current generation. Plumber was something of a scholar in his own right, a devoted student of Elizabethan literature, and he tried to draft his copy and his spontaneous comments with an elegance in keeping with that of the teacher he'd only watched and heard, but never actually met. More than anything else, people had listened to Ed Murrow because of his honor, John Plumber reminded himself. He'd been as tough as any of the later generation of 'investigative journalists' that the schools turned out now, but you always knew that Ed Murrow was fair. And you knew that he didn't break the rules. Plumber was of the generation that believed that his profession was supposed to have rules, one of which was you never told a lie. You could bend, warp, and twist the truth in order to get information out of someone—that was different—but you never told someone something that was deliberately and definitely false. That troubled John Plumber. Ed would never have done that. Not a chance.
'John, he rolled us.'
'You think.'
'The information I got—well, what do you think?' It had been a frantic two hours, with the entire network research staff running down bits of such minor trivia that even two or three of the pieces, put together, didn't amount to much of anything. But they'd all checked out, and that was something else entirely.
'I'm not sure, Tom.' Plumber rubbed his eyes. 'Is Ryan a little out of his depth? Yes, he is. But is he trying pretty hard? Definitely. Is he honest? I think so. Well, as honest as any of them ever can be,' he amended himself.
'Then we'll give him the chance to prove it, won't we?'
Plumber didn't say anything. Visions of ratings, and maybe even an Emmy, were dancing in the eyes of his junior colleague like sugar plums on Christmas Eve. In any case, Donner was the anchor, and Plumber was the commentator, and Tom had the ear of the front office in New York, which had once been peopled by men of his own generation, but was now entirely populated by people of Donner's, businessmen more than journalists, who saw ratings as the Holy Grail on their quarterly earnings statements. Well, Ryan liked businessmen, didn't he? 'I suppose.'
THE HELICOPTER LANDED on the South Lawn pad. The crew chief jerked the door open and jumped out, next helping the First Lady out with a smile. Her portion of the Detail followed, walking up the gentle slope to the south entrance, then to the elevator, where Roy Altman pushed the button for her, since the First Lady wasn't allowed to do that, either.
'SURGEON is in the elevator, heading for the residence,' Agent Raman reported from the ground floor.
'Roger,' Andrea Price acknowledged upstairs. She'd already had some people from the Technical Security Unit check all the metal detectors the NBC crew had passed on the way out. The TSU chief commented that occasionally they got a little fluky, and the large-format Beta tapes the networks used could easily be damaged—but he didn't think so. Maybe a line surge, she'd asked. No chance, he'd replied, reminding her archly that even the air in the White House was checked continuously by his people. Andrea debated discussing that with the chief of staff, but it would have been no use. Damn the reporters anyway. They were the biggest pain in the ass on the campus. 'Hi, Andrea,' Cathy said, breezing past her.
'Hello, Dr. Ryan. Dinner is just coming up now.'
'Thank you,' SURGEON replied on her way into the bedroom. She stopped on entering, seeing that a dress and jewelry were on her valet. Frowning, she kicked off her shoes and got casual clothes for dinner, wondering, as always, if there were cameras hidden somewhere to record the event.
The White House cook, George Butler, was by far her superior. He'd even improved on her spinach salad, adding a pinch of rosemary to the dressing she'd perfected over the years. Cathy kibitzed with him at least once a week, and in turn he showed her how to use the institutional-class appliances. She sometimes wondered how good a cook she might have become had she not opted for medicine. The executive chef hadn't told her that she had a gift for it, being fearful of patronizing her— SURGEON was a surgeon, after all. Along the way he'd learned the family preferences, and cooking for a toddler, he'd discovered, was a treat, especially when she occasionally came down with her towering bodyguard to search for snacks. Don Russell and she had milk and cookies at least twice a week. SANDBOX had become the darling of the staff.
'Mommy!' Katie Ryan said when Cathy came through the door.
''Hi, honey.' SANDBOX got the first hug and kiss. POTUS got the second. The older kids resisted, as always. 'Jack, why are my clothes out?'
'We're going to be on TV tonight,' SWORDSMAN replied warily.
'Why?'
'The tape from this morning got all farbled up, and they want to do it live at nine, and if you're willing, I want you to be there, too.'
'To answer what?'
'About what you'd expect as far as I'm concerned.'
'So, what do I do, walk in with a tray of cookies?'
'George makes the best cookies!' SANDBOX added to the conversation. The other kids laughed. It broke the tension somewhat.
'You don't have to if you don't want, but Arnie thinks it's a good idea.'
'Great,' Cathy observed. Her head tilted as she looked at her husband. Sometimes she wondered where the puppet strings were, the ones Arnie used to jerk her husband around.
BONDARENKO WAS WORKING late—or early, depending on one's point of view. He'd been at his desk for twenty hours, and since his promotion to general officer he'd learned that life was far better as a colonel. As a colonel he'd gotten out to jog, and even managed to sleep with his wife most of the time. Now—well, he'd always aspired to higher rank. He'd always had ambition, else why would a Signal Corps officer have gone into the Afghan mountains with the Spetznaz? Recognized for his talent, his colonelcy had almost been his undoing, as he'd worked as a close aide for another colonel who'd turned out to be a spy— that fact still boggled him. Misha Filitov a spy for the West? It had shaken his faith in many things, most of all his faith in his country—but then the country had died. The Soviet Union which had raised him and uniformed him and trained him had died one cold December night, to be replaced with something smaller and more… comfortable to serve. It was easier to love Mother Russia than a huge polyglot empire. Now it was as though the adopted children had all moved away, and the true children remained, and that made for a happier family.
