"Mike?" she asked Special Agent Michael Brennan, principal agent to Little Jack.
"Well, SHORTS TOP has a first-period biology test today and baseball practice after school. Pretty good with a glove, but his batting needs help," the agent added. "Otherwise, same-o same-o."
"Wendy?" Special Agent Gwendolyn Merritt was principal agent for Sally Ryan.
"Chemistry exam for SHADOW in third period today. She's getting very interested in Kenny. Nice kid, needs a haircut and a new tie. She's thinking about going out for the girls' lacrosse team." A few faces winced at that revelation. How do you protect someone being chased by teenagers with sticks?
"What's the family background on Master Kenny again?" Price asked. Even she couldn't remember everything.
"Father and mother both lawyers, tax stuff mainly."
"SHADOW needs better taste," Brennan observed to general amusement around the counter. He was the joker on the crew. "There is a potential threat there, Wendy."
"Huh? What?"
"If POTUS gets the new tax laws passed, they're in the shitter."
Andrea Price made another check mark on her morning list. "Don?"
"Today's routine is the same as usual, Introductory Crayon. I'm still not happy with the setup, Andrea. I want some more people, one more inside, and two more for overwatch on the south side," Don Russell announced. "We're too exposed. We just don't have enough defensive depth there. The outer perimeter is essentially the only one, and I am not comfortable with that."
"SURGEON doesn't want us to overpower the place. You have yourself and two agents inside, three for immediate backup, and one surveillance agent across the road," Price reminded him.
"Andrea, I want three more. We're too exposed there," Russell repeated. His voice was reasonable and professional as ever. "The family has to listen to us on professional questions."
"How about I come over tomorrow afternoon to look things over again?" Price asked. "If I agree, then I go to the Boss."
"Fine." Special Agent Russell nodded.
"Any more problems with Mrs. Walker?"
"Sheila tried to get a petition drive started with the other Giant Steps parents—get SANDBOX out of there, that sort of thing. It turns out that Mrs. Daggett gets a lot of repeat business, and more than half the parents know the Ryans and like 'em. So, that crapped out in a hurry. You know what the only real problem is?"
"What's that, Don? '
He smiled. "At that age—sometimes I turn around and the kids move and when I turn back I can't tell which one SANDBOX is. You know there's only two kinds of haircuts for little girls, and half the mothers there think Oshkosh is the only brand of kid's clothes."
"Don, it's a woman thing," Wendy Merritt observed. "If the First Toddler wears it, it has to be fashionable."
"Probably the same thing with the hair," Andrea added. "By the way, I forgot to tell you, Pat O'Day wants a little match with you," she told the Detail's most senior member.
"The Bureau guy?" Russell's eyes lit up. "Where? When? Tell him to bring money, Andrea." It occurred to Russell that he was due to have some playtime of his own. He hadn't lost a pistol match in seven years—his last bout with the flu.
"We all set?" Price asked her senior agents.
"How's the Boss doing?" Altman asked.
"They're keeping him pretty busy. Cutting into his sleep time."
"Want me to talk to SURGEON about it? She keeps a good eye on him," Roy told her.
"Well—"
"I know how. Gee, Dr. Ryan, is the Boss doing okay? He looked a little tired this morning…," Altman suggested.
The four agents exchanged looks. Presidentmanagement was their most delicate duty. This President listened to his wife almost as though he were a normal husband. So why not make SURGEON into an ally? All four nodded at once.
"Go with it," Price told him.
"SON OF A BITCH," Colonel Hamm said inside his command track.
"Surprised you, did they?" General Diggs inquired delicately.
"They have a ringer in there?" the CO of the Blackhorse Cav wanted to know.
"No, but they sprung one on me, Al. They didn't let anybody know they had IVIS training. Well, that is, I found out last night."
"Nice guy, sir."
"Surprises work both ways, Colonel," Diggs reminded him.
"How the hell did they get the funding for that?"
"Their fairy god-senators, I suppose."
Visiting units didn't bring their own equipment to Fort Irwin, for the obvious reason that it was too expensive to transport it all back and forth. Instead they mated up with vehicle sets permanent to the base, and those were top-of-the-line. Included in all of them was IVIS, the Inter-Vehicle Information System, a battlefield data link that projected data onto a computer screen inside the tanks and Bradleys. It was something the 11th Cav had been issued for only its own vehicles (their real ones, not the simulated enemy sets) six months earlier. Seemingly a simple system for trading data—it even ordered spare parts automatically when something broke—it presented the crew with a comprehensive overview of the battlefield, and converted hard-won reconnaissance information into general knowledge in a matter of seconds. No longer was data on a developing engagement limited to a harried and distracted unit commander. Now sergeants knew everything the colonel did, and information was still the most valuable commodity known to man. The visiting tankers from the Carolina Guard were fully trained up on its use. So were the troopers of the Blackhorse, but their pseudo-Soviet OpFor vehicles didn't have it.
"Colonel, now we really know how good the system is. It beat you."
The simulated engagement had been a bloody one. Hamm and his operations officer had contrived a devilish ambush, only to have the Weekend Warriors detect it, avoid it, and enter into a battle of maneuver which had caught the OpFor leaning the wrong way. A daring counterstroke by one of his squadron commanders had almost saved the day, and killed off half of the Blue Force, but it hadn't been enough. The first night engagement had gone to the good guys, and the Guardsmen were whooping it up as if after an ACC basketball game.
"I'll know better next time," Hamm promised.
"Humility is good for the soul," Marion Diggs said, enjoying the sunrise.
"Death is bad for the body, sir," the colonel reminded him.
"Baaaaaaaaa," Diggs said, grinning on the way to his personal Hummer. Even Al Hamm needed the occasional lesson.
THEY TOOK THEIR time. Movie Star handled the car rentals. He had duplicate IDs, enough to rent four vehicles, three four-door private cars and a U-Haul van. The former had been selected to match vehicles owned by parents who had children at the nursery school. The latter was for their escape—an eventuality which he now thought likely and not merely possible. His men were smarter than he'd appreciated. Driving past the objective in their rented cars, they didn't turn their heads to stare, but allowed their peripheral vision to take in the scene. They already had exact knowledge from the model they'd built, based on data from their leader's photographs. Driving past the site gave them a better full-size, three-dimensional view, and added more substance to their mental image, and to their growing confidence. With that task done, they drove west, turned off Route 50 and proceeded to a lonely farmhouse in southern Anne Arundel County.
The house was owned by a man thought by his neighbors to be a Syrian-born Jew who'd lived in the area for eleven years, but who was a sleeper agent. Over the past few years, he'd made discreet purchases of arms and ammunition, all of them legal, and all made before restrictive laws on some of the weapons had been passed—he could have evaded them anyway. In his coat pocket were airline tickets under a different name and passport. This was the final rendezvous point. They would bring the child here. Then six of them would leave the country at once, all on separate flights, and the remaining three would enter the homeowner's personal car and drive to yet another pre-determined location to await developments. America was a vast country, with many roads. Cellular telephones were difficult to track. They'd give a devil of a time to their pursuers, Movie Star thought. He knew how he'd do things, if it got that far. The team with the child would have one phone. He would have two, one to make brief calls to the American government, and another to call his friends. They would demand much for the life of the child, enough to throw this country into chaos. Perhaps the child might even be set free alive. He wasn't sure about that, but he supposed it was possible.