Страница 29 из 86
15
Irene Ke
Ke
The four-door sedan maneuvered its way through the barricades designed to thwart a truck bomb and stopped at the southwest gate of the White House grounds. Two uniformed Secret Service officers stepped out from the guardhouse and began checking IDs. It wasn't too long ago that they would simply have opened the gate and waved them through, but the attack had changed everything. Ke
The driver pulled up to the long cream-colored awning that led to the ground floor of the West Wing. Ke
Just before she reached the Oval Office, she stopped at a door on her right and held up the blue pouch. A towering Secret Service agent in a dark gray suit nodded and allowed admittance into the president's private dining room. Ke
A small Filipino man dressed in a white Waistcoat and black pants approached and said, «Good morning, Dr. Ke
«Good morning, Carl.»
The man took the pouch from Ke
The president glanced up and said, «Good morning, Irene.»
«Good morning, sir;' «How was your weekend?»
«Just fine, sir, and yours?»
Ke
«It wasn't too bad. Camp David is really beautiful this time of the year.» Hayes perused the headlines on the first page of the PDB and noted that they covered many of the same topics that were on the front page of the Washington Post. He knew the content would be a different matter.
Carl approached Ke
Ke
«Mr. President, the pot on the table is full. If you need me, just buzz.»
«Thank you, Carl.» President Hayes was a huge coffee drinker. Eight to ten cups a day was his standard. He liked to point out to all who criticized his coffee consumption that Dwight D. Eisenhower drank twenty-some cups a day and smoked four packs of unfiltered cigarettes while he was the Supreme Allied Commander. After that, the man went on to serve as president for two terms and lived until he was seventy-nine. Hayes was very fond of telling overly concerned types the Eisenhower bio. His wife was equally fond of telling him, «You're no Dwight D. Eisenhower.» It had now gotten to the point where Hayes told the story just so he could hear his wife utter her line. Hayes was the first to admit he was no Dwight D. Eisenhower. Very few people were. Hayes was a Democrat, but the more time he spent in the Oval Office, the more he grew to like Eisenhower, who was a Republican. Ike was Hayes's dark horse candidate for best president. Everybody always mentioned Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and FDR, but Ike was the only one of the group who came from abject poverty and rose to the most important office in the land. Add to that the fact that he whupped the Nazis, his trailblazing efforts to end segregation, the way he helped out the farmers, and the way he kept military spending at bay, and in Hayes's mind he had a real shot at being the best.
The outer door clicked shut while President Hayes was pouring another cup of coffee. Looking over the top of his reading glasses, he asked, «What in the hell happened in Germany? We have a meeting with their ambassador in forty minutes.»
Ke
«Haven't you talked to Mitch?»
Ke
Hayes leaned forward, moving his bowl of cereal and newspapers out of his way. «Say again?»
«Some of the other assets that were involved in the operation reported that Mitch had been killed. We no longer believe that to be true.»