Gary Montgomery stood waiting on the ground floor, quiet, unflappable, except when he was not, and God help the man who got in Montgomery’s way when that happened. He and his wife had just bought a house in rural Anne Arundel County not far from Annapolis. The commute in was a relatively quick drive down Highway 50 at this hour, leading the wave of commuter traffic. His dark hair was still damp and slightly curled from a morning shower. He wore gray sweatpants and a dark blue University of Michigan football sweatshirt that, no doubt, covered the SIG Sauer pistol he was never without when he was near the President. While Cathy compared him to a linebacker, at six-three, two-forty, he’d actually played fullback for his beloved Wolverines during his undergraduate years in Ann Arbor.
“Top of the morning to you, Mr. President,” Montgomery said.
Ryan returned the greeting, genuinely happy to see the man.
He held up the pink gift bag again. “Mind if we stop in at the press secretary’s office before we go for our walk?”
The Secret Service agent gave a slight nod. “After you, sir.”
Not friends, exactly, they were certainly more than President and protector. If anything, Montgomery had become an unofficial adviser, often sitting in on meetings as a Secret Service agent, and then offering his opinion when Ryan asked him, usually while they were in the gym.
When he was growing up, Ryan’s father often pointed out that most people never knew what to do with their hands when they stood and waited. Some shoved them in their pockets, others nervously clenched and unclenched their fists, some rubbed them together like a housefly. Gary Montgomery let his hands hang by his sides. Relaxed. Ready. Emmet Ryan would have trusted him — and as far as Jack Ryan was concerned, that was about the highest praise that could be given.
Ryan led the way west, down the colonnade past the Press Room. Instead of keeping left to enter the Oval from the outside, he continued straight, bringing him and Montgomery into the West Wing off the end of the Cabinet Room, where it was a short walk around the corner to Carter Bailey’s office.
He was surprised to see a young man wearing a wrinkled beige trench coat over a crumpled gray suit enter through the door off the Press Room. A woman followed him in. She was a bit older, shorter by a head, and, unlike him, she ironed her clothes. She wore a blue raincoat and a matching tam against the cold outside. Both nodded to the uniformed Secret Service officer posted at the desk inside the door, who noted their lanyard badges. They knew the drill, and signed in at her desk.
Ryan recognized them as CIA staff who often accompanied the director, Jay Canfield.
The woman was Gretchen something. Ryan could not for the life of him remember her last name. She’d been back from maternity leave only a few weeks — everybody seemed to be having babies these days. Drooping eyes said she’d probably not gotten much sleep the night — or weeks — before. Still, exhausted or not, her bright smile lit up an oval face between the high collar of her coat and the jaunty tam. She hung back a few steps from the young man. He was at least ten years younger and impetuous with youth, so he led the way. His sandy hair was slicked back straight from a high forehead, looking darker, and starker, than it would have looked had he let it fall naturally. The copper stubble of a new goatee was his way of trying to do something about it. Ryan gave him an A for effort, and a D-minus for the patchy goatee.
Ryan nodded as they approached. Gretchen’s cheeks flushed as they got closer. The youngster remained nonchalant.
“Getting an early start?” Ryan asked.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” the kid said, stopping cold a few feet from Ryan and Gary Montgomery. The Secret Service agent had that effect on people. “We’re here to assist with the meeting.”
Ryan looked at his watch, and then at Montgomery.
“The meeting? With me?”
“I assume so, Mr. President,” the kid said.
Ryan fished his cell phone from the pocket of his track jacket and dialed Mary Pat Foley’s number as they walked.
“You’re up,” she said.
“What’s this about a meeting?”
“I was just getting everyone together before we woke you,” Foley said.
“Okay,” Ryan said. “I’ll call you from the Oval.”
“I’m there now,” she said. “I’ll tell you in person.”
Director of National Intelligence Foley; Ryan’s chief of staff, Arnie van Damm; and Navy Commander Rob Forestall were waiting in the secretaries’ suite outside the open door of the Oval.
“Looks like our walk and talk is going to have to wait,” Ryan said to Montgomery.
“You know where to find me, Mr. President.” He smiled, then left through the main door, presumably to go to his office in W16.
