“Mmmm… eeem…” Chau coughed, blood covering his teeth and chin. A crushing weight pressed against his chest. He reached upward, his bloody hand opening and closing in the empty air. “Eeemmm… MS… S…”
The man in the coat shook his head, but did not speak.
“W-w-w-wait!” Chau blurted out in English.
Blood spilled from his wounds, mingling with the shattered glass on the floor around him. His heart raced, trying in vain to supply his brain. The room was fast closing in around him. He could tell the man was standing over him now, but his vision was too foggy to make out any facial features. “Pl… Please… wait,” he said again.
He was vaguely aware of the dark form of the pistol before his vision failed him completely, sparing him the momentary sight of the flash that killed him.
The Americans were everywhere.
President Jack Ryan was accustomed to nights with little sleep. Sometimes even less than usual when his wife was in the residence and didn’t have to perform an early surgery the next morning. He could get by on four hours. Four and a half was normal. Five hours, though — five hours of sleep was sheer bliss — a warm blanket on a chilly night, the cool side of the pillow, the soft puff of Cathy’s breathing against his neck.
Ryan opened one eye three minutes before his alarm went off, squinting enough to make out the numbers on the clock—5:27 a.m. He did the math. Slightly more than five hours.
Dinner the night before with the prime minister of New Zealand and her husband had gone late. Ryan didn’t mind. The first gentleman was an avid fisherman, a subject that always reminded Ryan of his father. Unlike at many state functions, Ryan had been genuinely sorry to see these guests leave for the airport shortly after ten o’clock.
As usual, he’d settled down for a few minutes of evening reading while Cathy got ready for bed. Being President turned out to be a hell of a lot like cramming for a series of pop quizzes that had little in common with the stuff you thought you were going to be tested on and more to do with some nugget in an
Jack Ryan’s father had been a Baltimore homicide detective, a tough man with a deeply ingrained sense of duty and a nose-to-the-grindstone work ethic that he’d passed on to his son. He’d been a man who noticed small things, then tucked them away for later to solve big problems. Small keys, he often said, opened large doors. And you never knew where you might find one of those keys you’d need later. Ryan had spent over an hour poring over a briefing book from forensic analysts at Treasury outlining money laundering schemes used by Russian oligarchs operating in South America. Convoluted money trails and online banking schemes should have been enough to put him right to sleep, but a quirk of his nature made the intricacies of global finance hold his attention almost as much as fishing. It was midnight before he tiptoed into the bedroom from his private study.
W16, the Secret Service command post located below the Oval Office, kept tabs on his whereabouts in the White House using pressure-sensitive pads installed under the carpeting. They knew exactly what time he walked across the floor and climbed into bed.
They did not know that Cathy had also been reading and was still awake. Fortunately, that meant he didn’t get to sleep for another twenty-five minutes…
He could have slept a little longer, but there was too much to do — and Gary Montgomery was meeting him early for a walk and talk around the White House grounds, before one of those inevitable pop quizzes that required Ryan’s full attention. Montgomery was the special agent in charge of PPD — the Secret Service Presidential Protection Detail. Most days, he was the innermost layer of many concentric rings that stood between Ryan and any would-be attacker. If things went bad, Montgomery was the person who shoved the President into the waiting armored Cadillac known as The Beast so he could be whisked away to safety. If things got worse than bad, Gary Montgomery’s body would be the last person they peeled off Ryan.
Both men knew it.
Montgomery was never maudlin, but he was not beyond pointing out the danger of certain endeavors Ryan was wont to drag his detail into. “I cannot protect you if you do that, sir,” really meant, “I’m with you, Boss, but your plan may well get us both killed.”
Along with being what Cathy called “linebacker large,” Montgomery was smart and capable and loyal. Ryan had come to depend on him not just for security, but for counsel from someone other than the political operatives who surrounded him.
Ryan was slated to attend a conference of polar nations in Fairbanks, Alaska, in a few days.
