Senator Chadwick could feel David Huang’s eyes on her neck as she cleared the security checkpoint at the Northwest Appointment Gate. As a senator, she could have driven onto the White House campus, rather than clear security like a common citizen. Still, the Secret Service Uniformed Division did their officious best to make her feel small. Apparently, working for the President snuffed out any awe they might have otherwise felt for a ranking member of Congress. The same was true of the Marine posted at the door, though he didn’t say a word. There was no love lost between her and the military. The rosy-cheeked Marine could not have been more than twenty-five years old — but Chadwick could tell from the look in his eyes that he was well aware of her thumbs-down voting record when it came to wars and rumors of wars. These war-fighters worshiped their President, and would follow him blindly into any conflict. Poor bastards.
Arnie van Damm met her in the lobby, just inside the door, looking stodgy in his rumpled suit jacket and loose tie. He’d obviously just come off the treadmill or exercise bike and was still flushed and sweating. He gave her a wary glance as they padded down the carpeted hall past more Uniformed Division guards, toward the Oval Office and the secretaries’ suite. Betty Martin gave her a courteous nod, though it was clear she, too, didn’t trust her boss’s avowed enemy as far as she could throw her. Van Damm peered through the peephole in the door to the Oval Office and turned to give Chadwick a halfhearted shrug of apology.
“He’s on an important call,” the chief of staff said.
Chadwick eyed his wrinkled jacket, his flushed brow, and fought the urge to call him Rumpled Sweatskin.
“No worries,” she said. “I appreciate him working me in like this.” She dropped her cell phone into a basket at the corner of the secretary’s desk. Chadwick had been here before and knew the drill, though she hadn’t told Huang that when he’d fiddled with her cell and turned it into an active mic.
Van Damm gave a shake of his head, as if to clear his vision. “Don’t be nice,” he said. “It creeps me out.”
The door to the Oval opened before she could think of a snarky answer, and the man himself waved her inside.
Van Damm followed her in, as if he were afraid she might try something. That was a joke, considering the circumstances.
A steward brought in a coffee service and, to Chadwick’s surprise, Ryan poured her a cup as if they were old friends. He held up the small silver cream pitcher, brow raised.
“Black,” she said.
“Doesn’t surprise me,” Ryan said. “Me, too.” He air-toasted with his cup. “So, what can I do for you, Madame Senator?”
Chadwick took a deep breath. “An olive branch,” she said. “As it were. I’ll just get right to it.”
“That’s best,” Ryan said.
“I’m planning to sponsor a bill that I believe you could get behind.”
Ryan raised an eyebrow.
“I know how you feel about welfare,” Chadwick said. “What I’m proposing is a literacy program for Indian Country. A virtual bookmobile to benefit children and youth.”
Arnie asked, “You have a draft?”
Chadwick nodded. She didn’t, of course, not yet. But that wouldn’t take long for her staff to do. There was a Navajo girl from Window Rock who’d been champing at the bit to get something exactly like this into committee.
“Okay,” Ryan said, leaning back in his chair. “I have to be honest, though. I’m mildly stunned that you came here in person — and I’m not an easy man to stun anymore.”
“I understand completely,” Chadwick said. She tried, but couldn’t quite bring herself to say “Mr. President.” “This is odd as hell for me, too. You stand for virtually everything I am against. But for all that, this program seems like something you could support. If your side of the House finds out you’re behind it, they’ll come aboard as well. The thing is…” Her voice trailed off.
Ryan waited a beat, prodding when she didn’t continue. “What?”
“It would be cool if we could work together on the language, so the thing has both our stamps on it.”
Van Damm’s brow furrowed, the way it did when he didn’t like the smell of something. “You know that ‘working together’ means some of your people hammering out details with some of our people? The President doesn’t have time for daily sit-downs over a bill that should be hashed out by the legislative branch.”
“Fully aware,” Chadwick said, swallowing what pride she had left. She addressed Ryan instead of his lackey — who was too smart for his own good. “I would just ask for one or two of those sit-downs, mano a mano, so to speak.”
He gave a noncommittal nod. “I’m happy to take a look at your proposal.”
“To be honest,” Chadwick said. “I’m tired of fighting you, Mr. President.” There, that wasn’t so hard. “We disagree on a shitload of key matters. But in order to get anything done, we need to find something on which we can work together. It’s time you and I bury the hatchet.”
Van Damm shot a glance at the President, and then let his gaze settle on Chadwick. “Not in his back, I hope.”
“I get it, Arnie,” Chadwick said. “But you know me. I’ve been a front-stabber from the beginning—”
There was a knock at the door and Betty Martin stepped in, beckoning the chief of staff. “That call you were waiting on.”
Van Damm thanked her and then turned to Ryan. “Don’t you dare agree to anything while I’m gone.”
Ryan waved him off. “I’ll be fine, Arnie.”
The door shut, leaving Chadwick more alone than she’d ever felt in her life. She was definitely in the lion’s den now. She held her breath.
It was time to see what the all-powerful Jack Ryan was made of.
14
When he didn’t sleep, Father West paced — and he rarely slept. For the first few days — or at least, spans of time he believed to be days — he had prayed. His prayers were fervent. The heartfelt pleas of a man alone. He tried saying the rosary, counting the Hail Marys on his fingers, but he lost his place numerous times. As he prayed, he shuffled back and forth in the dim six-by-eight concrete cell. He moved methodically, like the internal workings of an old clock that was losing time and faith with every step. That was the interesting thing about God. He seemed to wait until one hit rock bottom before stepping in. Or, West thought, maybe he was just going crazy. Either way, his head hurt a little less at the moment, and that was something.
He’d been blindfolded with a paper bag when they drove him off the mountain — an odd item for a blindfold, so he suspected his arrest hadn’t been part of their plan for the day. It was impossible to know where they’d brought him, but it wasn’t far out of Bandung, if not one of the prisons in the city itself.
Wherever it was, he was underground, a bad place to be in an area famous for earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The concrete cell was bare but for a thin mattress, sodden with humidity and sweat, and two buckets, one for water, the other a toilet. He could have cursed his fate, but experience caused him to think instead, Yay, they let me have a bucket.
He chuckled at the thought, of the stupidity of clinging to any shred of the positive at a time like this. The scrape of his shuffling feet covering his own whispered laughter. He sounded crazy, even to himself — which, he thought, meant he’d not gone crazy yet. The insane were not quite so self-aware. That made him laugh again. Three steps done, he turned on his heels and began the three-step journey back to the cell door.
He swayed a little in the turn. The inability to track time made him dizzy, unmoored. That was the point, wasn’t it? They wanted to tenderize his mind so he would talk, but they’d yet to ask him any questions. He had no idea how long he’d been here, but he was absolutely certain that if they kept him alone much longer, it wouldn’t matter what they asked him.