Yes.
"I think you got 'em there, Tex."
O'Day turned, startled from his fantasy by a familiar voice. "Morning, Director."
"Hey, Pat." Murray yawned, a set of ear protectors dangling in his left hand. "You're pretty fast. Hostage scenario?"
"I try to train for the worst possible situation."
"Your little girl." Murray nodded. They all did that, because the hostage had to be important enough in your mind. "Well, you got him. Show me again," the Director ordered. He wanted to watch O'Day's technique. There was always something to learn. After the second iteration, there was one ragged hole in the target's notional forehead. It was actually rather intimidating for Murray, though he considered himself an expert marksman. "I need to practice more."
O'Day relaxed his routine now. If you could do it with your first shot of the day—and he'd done it with all four— you still had it figured out. Two minutes and twenty shots later, the target's head was an annulus. Murray, in the next lane, was busy in the standard Jeff Cooper technique, two rapid shots into the chest, followed by a slower aimed round into the head. When both were satisfied that their targets were dead, it was time to contemplate the day.
"Anything new?" the Director asked.
"No, sir. More follow-up interviews on the JAL case are coming in, but nothing startling."
"What about Kealty?"
O'Day shrugged. He was not allowed to interfere with the OPR investigation, but he did get daily summaries. A case of this magnitude had to be reported to somebody, and though supervision of the case was entirely under the purview of OPR, the information developed also went to the Director's office, filtered through his lead roving inspector. "Dan, enough people went in and out of Secretary Hanson's office that anybody.could have walked off with the letter, assuming there was one, which, our people think, there probably was. At least Hanson talked to enough people about it—or so those people tell us."
"I think that one will just blow over," Murray observed.
"GOOD MORNING, Mr. President."
Another day in the routine. The kids were off. Cathy was off. Ryan emerged from his quarters suited and tied— his jacket was buttoned, which was unusual for him, or had been until moving in here—and his shoes shined by one of the valet staff. Except that Jack still couldn't think of this place as a home. More like a hotel, or the VIP quarters he'd had while traveling on Agency business, albeit far more ornate and with much better service.
"You're Raman?" the President asked.
"Yes, sir," Special Agent Aref Raman replied. He was six feet and solidly built, more a weight lifter than a runner, Jack thought, though that might come from the body armor that many of the Detail members wore. Ryan judged his age at middle thirties. Good-looking in a Mediterranean sort of way, with a shy smile and eyes as blue as SURGEON'S. "SWORDSMAN is moving," he said into his microphone. "To the office."
"Raman, where's that from?" Jack asked, on the way to the elevator.
"Mother Lebanese, father Iranian, came over in 79, when the Shah had his problems. Dad was close to the regime."
"So what do you think of the Iraq situation?" the President asked.
"Sir, I hardly even speak the language anymore." The agent smiled. "Now, if you want to ask me about who's lookin' good in the NCAA finals, I'm your man."
"Kentucky," Ryan said decisively. The White House elevator was old, pre-Art Deco in the interior finishings, with worn black buttons, which the President wasn't allowed to push. Raman did that for him.
"Oregon's going all the way. I'm never wrong, sir. Ask the guys. I won the last three pools. Nobody'll bet against me anymore. The finals will be Oregon and Duke—my school—and Oregon will win by six or eight. Well, maybe less if Maceo Rawlings has a good night," Raman added.
"What did you study at Duke?"
"Pre-law, but I decided I didn't want to be a lawyer. Actually I decided that criminals shouldn't have any rights, and so I figured I'd rather be a cop, and I joined the Service."
"Married?" Ryan wanted to know the people around him. At one level, it was mere good manners. At another, these people were sworn to defend his life, and he couldn't treat them like employees.
"Never found the right girl—at least not yet."
"Muslim?"
"My parents were, but after I saw all the trouble religion caused them, well" — he grinned—"if you ask around, they'll tell you my religion is ACC basketball. I never miss a Duke game on the TV. Damned shame Oregon's so tough this year. But that's one thing you can't change."
The President chuckled at the truth of that statement. "Aref, you said, your first name?"
"Actually, they call me Jeff. Easier to pronounce," Raman explained as the door opened. The agent positioned himself in the center of the doors, blocking a direct line of sight to POTUS. A member of the Uniform Division was standing there, along with two more of the Detail, all of them known by sight to Raman. With a nod, he walked out, with Ryan in tow, and the group turned west, past the side corridor that led to the bowling alley and the carpenter shops.
"Okay, Jeff, an easy day planned," Ryan told him unnecessarily. The Secret Service knew his daily schedule before he did.
"Easy for us, maybe."
They were waiting for him in the Oval Office. The Fo-leys, Bert Vasco, Scott Adler, and one other person stood when the President walked in. They'd already been scanned for weapons and nuclear material.
"Ben!" Jack said. He paused to set his early morning papers on the desk, and joined his guests.
"Mr. President," Dr. Ben Goodley replied with a smile.
"Ben's prepared the morning brief," Ed Foley explained.
Since not all of the morning visitors were part of the inner circle, Raman would stay in the room, lest somebody leap across the coffee table and try to strangle the President. A person didn't need a firearm to be lethal. A few weeks of study and practice could turn any reasonably fit person into enough of a martial-arts expert to kill an unwary victim. For that reason, members of the Detail carried not only pistols, but also Asps, police batons made of telescoping steel segments. Raman watched as this Good-ley—a carded national intelligence officer—handed out the briefing sheets. Like many members of the Secret Service, he got to hear nearly everything. The "EYES-ONLY PRESIDENT" sticker on a particularly sensitive folder didn't really mean that. There was almost always someone else in the room, and while the Detail members professed even among themselves not to pay any attention to such things, what that really meant was that they didn't discuss them very much. Not hearing and not remembering were something else. Cops were not trained or paid to forget things, much less to ignore them.
In that sense, Raman thought, he was the perfect spy. Trained by the United States of America to be a law enforcement officer, he had performed brilliantly in the field, mainly in counterfeiting cases. He was a proficient marksman, and a very organized thinker—a trait revealed all the way back in his schooling; he'd graduated from Duke summa cum laude, with nothing less than an A grade on his transcript, plus he'd been a varsity wrestler. It was useful for an investigator to have a good memory, and he did. Photographic, in fact, a talent which had attracted the Detail leadership to him early on, because the agents protecting the President needed to be able to recognize a particular face instantly from the scores of photographs which they carried when the Boss was out pressing flesh. During the Fowler administration, as a junior agent gazetted to the Detail from the St. Louis field office to cover a fund-raising dinner, he'd ID'd and detained a suspected presidential stalker who'd turned out to have a.22 automatic