Just then Ryan’s phone rang in the living room. He raced back in and stared at it for a moment, then he picked it up and looked at the number.
It was his mother.
His hand shook. “Is he dead?”
“He’s hurt, but Maura says he’ll be okay.”
Jack felt his knees weaken, and he gave in to it, dropping onto the couch and leaning forward. Quickly he held a thumbs-up for Clark, but the other men still had no idea what had happened.
Clark grabbed the TV remote.
“Who did it?” Jack asked.
“He doesn’t know.”
“If it was in Mexico it had to be Santiago Maldonado and those psychos under him.”
“Can you come to George Washington Hospital this afternoon? I know he’ll want to see you when he gets home.”
Ryan turned his head away from the phone when an ambulance siren raced up the street, and when the ambulance stopped in front of the small apartment building directly across from them, he walked to the window. The other Campus operators followed.
“Jack?” his mother said. “Are you there?”
“I have to call you back.”
“Are you coming to the hospital?”
“I’ll be there.” He hung up the phone as two paramedics ran up the steps to the building and were let in by one of the residents.
Clark looked to Sam, and Sam moved without being asked. He ran down the stairs and crossed the street. Already two neighbors walking their dogs had stopped by the ambulance. A woman came down from the apartment building a few seconds later, and they started chatting.
Sam stood back, but he was close enough to hear.
Five minutes later he was back in the apartment across the street.
“The super found the body of a woman in three-A. The tenant.”
Ryan was back on the couch. CNN was on TV, Arnie Van Damm had just spoken. He couldn’t take his eyes from the images on the screen, but he also couldn’t believe Veronika was dead, just one hundred feet from where he sat.
Sam Driscoll did not hesitate to place blame for Martel’s murder. “It wasn’t the North Koreans. If you go through the back door of that building you have to pass up the alley next to it, and you can see that from here. I’ve had cams running twenty-four-seven and the only person who came or left since the last time I saw Martel alive was Edward Riley.”
Chavez said, “Riley murdered his own agent? Why?”
No one knew.
Ryan sat alone with his face in his hands for a minute, suddenly tired and overwhelmed. Finally, he stood. “Sorry, guys, I’ve got to get back to D.C.”
Clark stood as well. “I’ll drive you to the airport.” He turned to the rest of the crew. “I want the rest of you guys looking for Riley. Sharps knows about us, so it’s going to be a challenge to operate back on these streets, but I don’t think Sharps was involved in this. He’s way too slick to be whacking his own people in New York. This, whatever it is, is something else.” He looked to the TV for a moment. He wished he was down in Mexico on the hunt for the perpetrators of the ambush, and he knew his crew was thinking the same thing. He needed to keep them on mission. “Stay focused. Ryan… let’s go.”
62
President Jack Ryan asked those around him in the presidential suite in the nose of the aircraft to help him up. Even though this recording would be audio only, he couldn’t give a speech lying on his back and staring at the ceiling. The import of the moment required him to, at the very least, sit upright. His doctor and the Air Force nurse first tried to talk him out of sitting, but they saw the determination in his eyes, and they quickly became his confederates in the endeavor, helping him up and into one of two chairs by a tiny desk.
Once Ryan was in the chair, his right arm cinched across his chest and his left arm wrapped with compresses, Dr. Handwerker and the Air Force nurse stepped back and sat down on the bed he had just vacated, and David Detmer, assistant to the chief of staff, entered the room. He had a small digital recorder he’d borrowed from a secretary, and he held it up to the President, kneeling in front of him.
At first Jack struggled to concentrate. Any adrenaline that had helped mute his pain had dissipated, the discomfort was increasing by the minute, and the intense dull ache in his shoulder and neck now felt like a million pins and needles, with intermittent quick jolts of sharper pain.
But he fought through. To Detmer he said, “Needless to say, I don’t have a prepared statement for this. It’s going to be off-the-cuff a little, so I hope the historical record will cut me some slack.”
“Be yourself, Mr. President. That will be fine.”
Ryan cleared his throat and said, “This is President Jack Ryan. Right now I am speaking to you from Air Force One. We are flying with fighter escort and are minutes from U.S. airspace.”
In truth, they were a lot of minutes from U.S. airspace, actually over an hour, but he assumed by the time this was disseminated to the media it would be accurate, and the entire focus of his speech now was to quell the fervor of America’s more opportunistic enemies.
“I was banged up a little bit in the attack, but much more important, some colleagues and dear friends of mine have been killed, and many others have been injured. I do not know the full scope of the loss of life yet, but if you pray, I hope you will join me in praying for those who died needlessly today, and for those who were hurt.”
He felt tired suddenly. He took a moment to force strength into his voice.
“I want to stress to the American people that although I don’t yet know who is responsible for this, I personally witnessed many Mexican citizens, members of their Federal Police and other law enforcement agencies, risk their lives to protect the presidential motorcade. I am sure the loss of life among the innocent Mexicans will be as great or greater than ours. Whoever perpetrated the attack today, and I remind everyone that that has not yet been determined, remember that good Mexican men and women fought and died to protect the… the continuity of the United States government. As soon as I can I will call President Lopez personally and thank him and his fellow countrymen. His nation has been going through some difficult times, and I want him to know I’m going to go home to get patched up, and then I’m going to come back to Mexico City and see him as planned.
“And now, to the people responsible for today’s action. Your objective was the decapitation of the U.S. government. Hearing my voice, you now realize that you have failed. I suspect you will do what your kind always does. You will run, and you will hide.” Ryan took a calming breath. “Just as you failed today, you will fail in that endeavor, because we will find you. And whatever quarrel you thought you had with America will seem like nothing, because you have made a true enemy today, and America will not rest until you have been dealt what you deserve.
“I look forward to a video press conference as soon as I get back to Washington. In the meantime… God bless the United States of America.”
Ryan nodded to Detmer, who ended the recording.
A digital camera was brought into the room, Ryan’s face was framed in the lens in front of the presidential seal on the wall of the suite, and a picture was taken. There would be no record of the fact he’d just made one of the most important speeches of his career in his underwear.
As soon as he was prostrate on the bed again, Ryan called for Detmer. When he appeared over him, Ryan said, “David, as soon as you get that recording to Arnie, you have one job, and one job only. I want you to find out the condition of Andrea Price O’Day. If she’s at a hospital in Mexico I want those doctors to know they can have anything they want or need from us. Do you understand?”