by name, which fact shamed him somewhat. They were his people, after all, and he was supposed to know about them, know their names well enough to speak them when he saw the owners thereof—but there were just too many of them for him to know. Then there were the uniformed people in the White House Military Office—called Wham-o by insiders—who supplemented the Office of Signals. There was, in fact, a small army of men and women who existed only to serve John Patrick Ryan—and through him the country as a whole, or that was the theory. What the hell, he thought, looking out the window. It was light enough to see. The streetlights were clicking off as their photoelectric sensors told them the sun was coming up. Jack pulled on his old Naval Academy robe, stepped into his slippers—he’d only gotten them recently; at home he just walked around barefoot, but a President couldn’t do that in front of the troops, could he?—and moved quietly into the corridor.
There must have been some sort of bug or motion sensor close to the bedroom door, Jack thought. He never managed to surprise anyone when he came out into the upstairs corridor unexpectedly. The heads always seemed to be looking in his direction and there was the instant morning race to see who could greet him first.
The first this time was one of the senior Secret Service troops, head of the night crew. Andrea Price-O’Day was still at her home in Maryland, probably dressed and ready to head out the door—what shitty hours these people worked on his behalf, Jack reminded himself—for the hour-long drive into D.C. And with luck she’d make it home—when? Tonight? That depended on his schedule for today, and he couldn’t remember offhand what he had happening.
“Coffee, Boss?” one of the younger agents asked.
“Sounds like a winner, Charlie.” Ryan followed him, yawning. He ended up in the Secret Service guard post for this floor, a walk-in closet, really, with a TV and a coffeepot—probably stocked by the kitchen staff—and some munchies to help the people get through the night.
“When did you come on duty?” POTUS asked.
“Eleven, sir,” Charlie Malone answered.
“Boring duty?”
“Could be worse. At least I’m not working the bad-check detail in Omaha anymore.”
“Oh, yeah,” agreed Joe Hilton, another one of the young agents on the deathwatch.
“I bet you played ball,” Jack observed.
Hilton nodded. “Outside linebacker, sir. Florida State University. Not big enough for the pros, though.”
Only about two-twenty, and it’s all lean meat, Jack thought. Young Special Agent Hilton looked like a fundamental force of nature.
“Better off playing baseball. You make a good living, work fifteen years, maybe more, and you’re healthy at the end of it.”
“Well, maybe I’ll train my boy to be an outfielder,” Hilton said.
“How old?” Ryan asked, vaguely remembering that Hilton was a recent father. His wife was a lawyer at the Justice Department, wasn’t she?
“Three months. Sleeping through the night now, Mr. President. Good of you to ask.”
I wish they’d just call me Jack. I’m not God, am I? But that was about as likely as his calling his commanding general Bobby-Ray back when he’d been Second Lieutenant John P. Ryan, USMC.
“Anything interesting happen during the night?”
“Sir, CNN covered the departure of our diplomats from Beijing, but that just showed the airplane taking off.”
“I think they just send the cameras down halfway hoping the airplane’ll blow up so that they’ll have tape of it—you know, like when the chopper comes to lift me out of here.” Ryan sipped his coffee. These junior Secret Service agents were probably a little uneasy to have “The Boss,” as he was known within the Service, talking with them as if he and they were normal people. If so, Jack thought, tough shit. He wasn’t going to turn into Louis XIV just to make them happy. Besides, he wasn’t as good-looking as Leonardo DiCaprio, at least according to Sally, who thought that young actor was the cat’s ass.
Just then, a messenger arrived with the day’s copies of the morning’s Early Bird. Jack took one along with the coffee and headed back to read it over. A few editorials bemoaning the recall of the trade delegation—maybe it was the lingering liberalism in the media, the reason they were not, never had been, and probably never would be entirely comfortable with the amateur statesman in the White House. Privately, Ryan knew, they called him other things, some rather less polite, but the average Joe out there, Arnie van Damm