Tom Clancy - Debt of Honor

There were few enough of those, as other members of "the detail" took elevators and stairs to the top of every building close to the one JUMPER would be visiting tonight. When darkness fell, light-amplification equipment came out, and the agents drank hot liquids in order to keep alert.

Sato thanked Providence for the timing of the event, and for the TCAS system. Though the transatlantic air routes were never empty, travel between Europe and America was timed to coincide with human sleep patterns, and this time of day was slack for westbound flights. The TCAS sent out interrogation signals, and would alert him to the presence of nearby aircraft. At the moment there was nothing close—his display said CLEAR OF CONFLICT, meaning that there was no traffic within eighty miles. That enabled him to slip into a west-bound routing quite easily, tracking down the coast, three hundred miles out. The pilot checked his time against his memorized flight plan. Again he'd figured the winds exactly right in both directions. His timing had to be exact, because the Americans could be very punctual. At 2030 hours, he turned west. He was tired now, having spent most of the last twenty-four hours in the air. There was rain on the American East Coast, and while that would make for a bumpy ride lower down, he was a pilot and hardly noticed such things. The only real annoyance was all the tea he'd drunk. He really needed to go to the head, but he couldn't leave the flight deck unattended, and there was less than an hour to endure the discomfort.

"Daddy, what does this mean? Do we still go to the same school?" Sally asked from the rear-facing seat in the limousine.

Cathy handled the answer. It was a mommy-question. "Yes, and you'll even have your own driver."

"Neat!" little Jack thought.

Their father was having second thoughts, as he usually did after making an important decision, even though he knew it was too late for that. Cathy looked at his face, read his mind, and smiled at him.

"Jack, it's only a few months, and then…"

"Yeah." Her husband nodded. "I can always work on my golf game."

"And you can finally teach. That's what I want you to do. That's what you need to do."

"Not back to the banking business?"

"I'm surprised you lasted as long as you did in that."

"You're an eye-cutter, not a pshrink."

"We'll talk about it," Professor Ryan said, adjusting Katie Ryan's dress.

It was the eleven-months part that appealed to her. After this post, he'd never come back to government service again. What a fine gift President Durling had given them both.

The official car stopped outside the Longworth House Office Building. There were no crowds there, though some congressional staffers were heading out of the building. Ten Secret Service agents kept an eye on them and everything else, while four more escorted the Ryans into the building. Al Trent was at the corner entrance.

"You want to come with me?"

"Why—"

"After you're confirmed, we walk you in to be sworn, and then you take your seat behind the President, next to the Speaker," Sam Fellows explained. "It was Tish Brown's idea. It'll look good."

"Election-year theatrics," Jack observed coolly.

"What about us?" Cathy asked.

"It's a nice family picture," Al thought.

"I don't know why I'm so darned excited about this," Fellows grumbled in his most good-natured way. "This is going to make November hard for us. I suppose that never occurred to you?"

"Sorry, Sam, no, it didn't," Jack replied with a sheepish grin.

"This hovel was my first office," Trent said, opening the door on the bottom floor to the suite of offices he'd used for ten terms. "I keep it for luck. Please-sit down and relax a little. One of his staffers came in with soft drinks and ice, under the watchful eyes of Ryan's protective detail. Andrea Price started playing with the Ryan kids again. It looked unprofessional but was not. The kids had to be comfortable around her, and she'd already made a good start at that.

President Durling's car arrived without incident. Escorts conveyed him to the Speaker's official office adjacent to the chamber, where he went over his speech again. JASMINE, Mrs. Durling, with her own escorts, took an elevator to the official gallery. By this time the chamber was half-filled. It wasn't accepted for people to be fashionably late, perhaps the only such occasion for members of the Congress. They assembled in little knots of friends for the most part, and walked in by party, the seats divided by a very real if invisible line. The rest of the government would come in later. All nine justices of the Supreme Court, all members of the Cabinet who happened to be in town (two were not), and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in their beribboned uniforms were led to the front row. Then the heads of independent agencies. Bill Shaw of the FBI. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Finally, under the nervous eyes of security people and the usual gaggle of advance personnel, it was ready, on time, as it always seemed to happen.

The seven networks interrupted their various programming. Anchorpersons appeared to announce that the Presidential Address was about to begin, giving the viewers enough information that they could head off to the kitchen and make their sandwiches without really missing anything.

The Doorkeeper of the House, holder of one of the choicest patronage jobs in the country—a fine salary and no real duties—walked halfway down the aisle and performed his one public function with his customary booming voice:

"Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States."

Roger Durling entered the chamber, striding down the aisle with brief stops to shake hands, his red-leather folder tucked under his arm. It held a paper copy of his speech in the event that the TelePrompTers broke. The applause was deafening and sincere. Even those in the opposition party recognized that Durling had kept his promise to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and as powerful a force as politics was, there was also still honor and patriotism in the room, especially at times like this. Durling reached the well, then climbed up to his place on the podium, and it was time for the Speaker of the House to do his ceremonial duty:

"Members of the Congress, I have the distinct privilege, and high honor, to introduce the President of the United States." And the applause began afresh. This time there was the usual contest between the parties to see who could clap and cheer the loudest and the longest.

"Okay, remember what happens—"

"Okay, Al! I go in, the Chief Justice swears me in, and I take my seat. All I have to do is repeat it all back." Ryan sipped a glass of Coke and wiped sweaty hands on his trousers. A Secret Service agent fetched him a towel.

"Washington Center, this is KLM Six-Five-Niner. We have an onboard emergency, sir." The voice was in clipped aviatorese, the sort of speech that people used when everything was going to hell.

The air-traffic controller outside Washington noted the alpha-numeric icon had just tripled in size on his scope and keyed his own microphone. The display gave course, speed, and altitude. His first impression was that the aircraft was making a rapid descent.

"Six-Five-Niner, this is Washington Center. State your intentions, sir."

"Center, Six-Five-Niner, number-one engine has exploded, engines one and two lost. Structural integrity in doubt. So is controllability. Request radar vector direct Baltimore."

The controller waved sharply to his supervisor, who came over at once. "Wait a minute. Who is this?" He interrogated the computer and found no "strip" information for KLM-659.

The controller keyed his radio. "Six-Five-Niner, please identify, over."

This reply was more urgent.

"Washington Center, this is KLM-Six-Five-Niner, we are 747 charter inbound Orlando, three hundred pax," the voice replied. "Repeating: we have two engines out and structural damage to port wing and fuselage. I am descending one-zero thousand now. Request immediate radar vector direct Baltimore, over!"