niece—and I'm the best around at what I do—but I'm probably the biggest pain in the ass on your staff. You need to know that.' It was a good explanation, but not to the point.
'Why am I different?' Jack asked.
'You say what you really think instead of saying what you think people think they want to hear. It's going to be hard writing for you. I can't dip into the usual well. I have to learn to write the way I used to like to write, not the way I'm paid to write, and I have to learn to write like you talk. It's going to be tough,' she told him, already girding herself for the challenge.
'I see.' Since Ms. Weston was not an inner-circle staff member, Andrea Price was leaning against the wall (it would have been in a corner, except the Oval Office didn't have one) and observing everything with a poker face— or trying to. Ryan was learning to read her body language. Clearly Price didn't much care for Weston. He wondered why. 'Well, what can you turn out in a couple of hours?'
'Sir, that depends on what you want to say,' the speechwriter pointed out. Ryan told her in a few brief sentences. She didn't take notes. She merely absorbed it, smiled, and spoke again.
'They're going to destroy you. You know that. Maybe Arnie hasn't told you yet, maybe nobody on the staff has, or ever will, but it's going to happen.' That remark jolted Agent Price from her spot on the wall, just enough that her body was standing instead of leaning.
'What makes you think I want to stay here?'
She blinked. 'Excuse me. I'm not really used to this.'
'This could be an interesting conversation, but I—'
'I read one of your books day before yesterday. You're not very good with words—not very elegant, that's a technical judgment—but you do say things clearly. So I have to dial back my rhetoric style to make it sound like you. Short sentences. Your grammar is good. Catholic schools, I guess. You don't bullshit people. You say it straight.' She smiled. 'How long for the speech?'
'Call it fifteen minutes.'
'I'll be back in three hours,' Weston promised, and stood.
Ryan nodded, and she walked out of the room. Then the President looked at Agent Price. 'Spit it out,' he ordered.
'She's the biggest pain in the ass over there. Last year she attacked some junior staffer over something. A guard had to pull her off him.'
'Over what?'
'The staffer said some nasty things about one of her speeches, and speculated that her family background was irregular. He left the next day. No loss,' Price concluded. 'But she's an arrogant prima donna. She shouldn't have said what she did.'
'What if she's right?'
'Sir, that's not my business, but any—'
'Is she right?'
'You are different, Mr. President.' Price didn't say whether she thought that was a good or bad thing, and Ryan didn't ask.
The President had other things to do in any case. He lifted his desk phone, and a secretary answered.
'Could you get me George Winston at the Columbus Group?'
'Yes, Mr. President, I'll get him for you.' She didn't have that number immediately to mind, and so she lifted another phone for the Signals Office. Down there a Navy petty officer had the number on a Post-It note, and read it off. A moment later he handed the Post-It to the Marine in the next chair over. The Marine fished in her purse, found four quarters, and handed them over to the smirking squid.
'Mr. President, I have Mr. Winston,' the intercom phone said.
'George?'
'Yes, sir.'
'How fast can you get down here?'
'Jack—Mr. President, I'm trying to put my business back together and—'
'How fast?' Ryan asked more pointedly. Winston had to think for a second. His Gulfstream crew wasn't standing by for anything today.
Getting to Newark Airport… 'I can catch the next train.'
'Let me know which one you're on. I'll have someone waiting for you.'
'Okay, but you need to know that I can't—'
'Yes, you can. See you in a few hours.' Ryan hung up, then looked up to Price. 'Andrea, have an agent and a car meet him at the station.'
'Yes, Mr. President.' Ryan decided that it was nice to give orders and have them carried out. A man could get used to this.
'I DON'T LIKE guns!' She said it loudly enough that a few heads turned, though the kids immediately turned back to their blocks and crayons. There was an unusual number of adults around, three of whom had spiraling cords leading to earpieces. Those heads all turned to see a «concerned» (that was the word everyone used in such a case) mother. As head of this detail, Don Russell walked over. 'Hello.' He held up his Secret Service ID. 'Can I help you?'
'Do you have to be here!'
'Yes, ma'am, we do. Could I have your name, please?'
'Why?' Sheila Walker demanded.
'Well, ma'am, it's nice to know who you're talking to, isn't it?' Russell asked reasonably. It was also nice to get background checks on such people.
'This is Mrs. Walker,' said Mrs. Marlene Daggett, owner-operator of Giant Steps Day Care Center.
'Oh, that's your little boy over there, Justin, right?' Russell smiled. The four-year-old was building a tower with hardwood blocks, which he would then tip over, to the general amusement of the room.
'I just don't like guns, and I don't like them around children.'
'Mrs. Walker, first of all, we're cops. We know how to carry our firearms safely. Second, our regulations require us to be armed at all times. Third, I wish you would look at it this way: your son is as safe here with us as he's ever going to be. You'll never have to worry about having somebody come over and steal a kid off the playground outside, for example.'
'Why does she have to be here?'
Russell smiled reasonably. 'Mrs. Walker, Katie over there didn't become President. Her father did. Isn't she entitled to a normal kid's life, just like your Justin?'
'But it's dangerous and—'
'Not while we're around, it isn't,' he assured her. She just turned away.
'Justin!' Her son turned to see his mother holding his jacket. He paused for a second, and with one finger pushed the blocks a fraction of an inch, waiting for the four-foot pile to teeter over like a falling tree.
'Budding engineer,' Russell heard through his earpiece. 'I'll check her tag number.' He nodded to the female agent in the doorway. In twenty minutes they'd have a new dossier to look over. Probably it would just say that Mrs. Walker was a New Age pain in the ass, but if she had a history of mental problems (possible), or a criminal record (unlikely), it would be something to remember. He scanned the room automatically, then shook his head. SANDBOX was a normal kid surrounded by normal kids. At the moment she was crayoning a blank sheet of paper, her face screwed into a look of intense concentration. She'd been through a normal day, a normal lunch, a normal nap, and soon would have an abnormal trip back to a decidedly abnormal home. She hadn't noticed the discussion he'd just had with Justin's mother. Well, kids were smart enough to be kids, which was more than one could say for a lot of their parents.
Mrs. Walker guided her son to the family car, a Volvo wagon to no one's surprise, where she dutifully strapped him into the safety seat in the back. The agent memorized the tag number for processing, knowing that it would turn nothing of real importance, and knowing that they'd run it anyway, because there was always the off chance that…
It all came back just then, the reason why they had to be careful. Here they were, at Giant Steps, the same day-care center the Ryans had used since SHADOW was a munchkin, just off Ritchie Highway above Annapolis. The bad guys had used the 7-Eleven just across the road to stake out the location, then followed SURGEON in her old
