Ahead of schedule, he allowed himself to linger a little over the papers and sip his coffee while he enjoyed some thinking time in the quiet of morning. In no time, things would speed up to their usual breakneck pace and he would have to start making decisions, “wielding his cosmic power for good,” his chief of staff would say. Ryan laughed at the thought. As a boy, growing up in the house with his policeman father, power had smelled like Hoppes No. 9 gun oil and strong coffee. Here in the White House it smelled like freshly pressed linen… and strong coffee.
Ryan glanced at his watch, then rationalized away six more minutes to limber his analytical mind on half the Wall Street Journal’s crossword before digging into the Presidential Daily Brief.
The PDB was a collection of highly classified executive summaries that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence deemed worthy of his review. It contained everything from hard intelligence to rumors that, while patently false, were likely to incite unrest or instability in parts of the world where the United States had strategic or humanitarian interests. Charged with the deconfliction and information sharing between the seventeen U.S. intelligence agencies, it was the responsibility of the ODNI to have a finger on the pulse of important world events — and to boil them down into the PDB.
Ryan preferred a BLUF report — Bottom Line Up Front. He wanted a simple executive summary of straight facts — even when those facts were about rumors — and would drill down on the specifics in face-to-face national security briefings. He’d cut his teeth in the intelligence community as an analyst, playing what-if games with world events, and could spend hours delving into the nuances of a single issue — and enjoying the hell out of it. But he wasn’t in the rank and file of the IC anymore. The problems facing the office of President came at near lightning speed from all points of the compass and at all hours of the day. Ryan was forced into the role of a generalist, relying on subject-matter experts to work through the in-depth analysis and strategy.
Theoretically, the PDB allowed him to stay a move or two ahead and decide where to put his pieces on the board. This morning’s brief was straightforward, with the same parts of the world devolving into their continued spiral toward chaos, while other parts — admittedly fewer than he wished for — continued to emerge into newer, more robust economies. According to the briefing folder in front of him, the world was just as safe — or every bit as dangerous — as it had been the day before.
At seven-forty a.m., Ryan snugged his red tie into a semiuniform single Windsor and stuffed the PDB into the same leather briefcase he’d been carrying for years. He downed the last of his delicious Navy coffee — a phrase that did not come easily to the mind of a former Marine — and walked out of the West Sitting Hall to meet an earnest young Secret Service agent who was posted there.
“Good morning, Tina,” he said.
Special Agent Tina Jordan gave him an exuberant smile, though she was coming to the end of her shift just as he was beginning his.
“Good morning, Mr. President.” Then, quietly, she raised her sleeve to her lips and whispered, “SWORDSMAN is on the elevator.”
She stepped into a small alcove and pushed the button on the elevator that would take them down to the ground floor, where they hung a right to begin on Ryan’s three-minute walking commute to the office.
Ryan entered the Oval from the Rose Garden, the door opened by the agent who knew how to overcome the security device in the handle. He found his daily calendar printed on a single sheet of paper that was centered perfectly on the middle of his desk where his lead secretary had placed it shortly after she’d arrived at seven-thirty.
Ryan pressed the intercom button on his phone. She already knew he was there, because she too had a light board indicating his location.
“Good morning, Betty.”
“Good morning, Mr. President,” his secretary said. “What can I do for you?”
“Director Foley and Secretary Adler should be here in a few minutes. Go ahead and send them in when they arrive.”
“DNI Foley is here now, sir,” Betty said.
A moment later, the director of national intelligence entered from the secretarial suite outside the Oval. Ryan had known Mary Pat and her husband, Ed, since their days at CIA together. They’d dodged innumerable crises, weathered the ones that were unavoidable, and together walked barefoot over the broken glass of some of the most tragic events in recent history. She was more than a member of his inner circle, she was a friend — and in Washington, friends were as rare as genuine statesmen.
They saw each other at least four times a week, but Ryan still stood when she entered. He winced when he put weight on his foot, tried to hide it — and failed. Mary Pat gave him a narrow look. She opened her mouth to say something, but Scott Adler, the secretary of state, came in, followed by Jay Canfield, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Arnie van Damm, Ryan’s chief of staff, entered from the adjoining door to his own office — the only person in the White House able to enter the Oval unseen and unimpeded. Arnie had served as chief of staff to three presidents. Ryan was the polar opposite of a politician, leaving Arnie to handle the annoying — and, frankly, unfathomable — part of the job that allowed him to get elected so he could make the decisions the country needed him to make. Jack picked his clubs and hit the ball, but Arnie told him the lay of the course.
Ryan made his way to his favorite chair in front of the fireplace and waved the others to sit on either of the two off-white couches in the middle of the Oval Office. His advisers had all staked out their customary spots for these meetings long ago — and he felt sorry for anyone new to the cabinet who happened to take the wrong seat. The thought of it brought a smile to his face and a question to his mind.
“Not national security — related,” he said, “but you guys have your ears to the ground out there more than I do. What do you hear about Dehart’s nomination?”
Ryan had recently put Mark Dehart, senior congressman from Pennsylvania, forward as his pick for secretary of homeland security, an office recently vacated by the resignation of Andrew Zilko.
Van Damm gave a slight shrug, the way he did when something was a nonissue. “That guy squeaks he’s so clean,” he said. “Confirmation sounds like a foregone conclusion.”
The door opened again and Bob Burgess, secretary of defense, stepped in. He scanned the seated group, checked his watch, and then shook his head. “I apologize for being only five minutes early, Mr. President.”
Ryan smiled, nodding to the Navy steward with the service cart rolling in behind Burgess. “You beat the coffee,” he said. “That’s something, I guess. We’re just getting started.”
Ryan thanked the steward — who was already his coconspirator in the less-healthy breakfast scandal — and, as was his custom, poured everyone’s coffee himself. Rather than standing, he simply held the cups out for his advisers to get up and take. No one appeared to mind.
The meeting breezed along, hitting the high points about Russia, the Ukraine, immigration, and, on the home front, the possibility that the Fed was going to raise interest rates.
“And that brings us to the latest FONOP,” van Damm said. As CoS, it was his job to keep the momentum going on the meeting, but always with an eye on his boss. FONOP was the acronym for Freedom of Navigation Operation. With China continuing to make what much of the world felt were absurd maritime claims in the South China Sea, the United States in general, and Ryan in particular, felt it important to show that not everyone agreed with those claims. To that end, several times each month, U.S. Navy vessels, typically destroyers or littoral combat ships, innocently sailed within the twelve-mile line surrounding several of the disputed islands and reefs — without asking permission. The movements themselves had become almost commonplace. Within the last month, harassment by Chinese vessels and planes had reached new and alarming proportions.