House Divided. Джек Марс

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СКАЧАТЬ your options. But I would also want to explore your motivations. There are easier ways to get in shape. And if you think you want to do it because it looks like fun, I can tell you right now that it isn’t. The idea of fun will go right out the window the first time a drill sergeant is screaming at you and breathing down your neck during a ten-mile run before breakfast, or the first time you’re face down in the cold mud while they’re lobbing live rounds over your head. And the first time actual bad guys are trying to kill you, using innovative and surprising methods that were never discussed during your training? That will not be fun.”

      Gunner shook his head again. On his face was the ghost of a smile. “I would just do it so you can worry about me the way I worry about you.”

      Game. Set. Match.

      Luke was temporarily without any kind of answer. The kid could do that to you.

      “Anyway, here’s some good news,” Gunner said, instantly changing the subject. He could do that, too – get you on the ropes, then suddenly let you go again. He was a little bit like a cat playing with a mouse.

      “Let me have it,” Luke said.

      “You know how Nana and Grandpa love their skiing. Well, we’re going out to their condo in Colorado for a few days. So that will be nice. I like skiing.”

      Luke nodded. He couldn’t imagine how much skiing Rebecca’s parents still managed to do at this point, but so be it. “When are you leaving?”

      “Tonight,” Gunner said. “So I’m going to miss another day of school. You know how they are. They think school is for poor kids.”

      Luke smiled. Gunner had razor-sharp insights. It was like he could cut into people’s minds and crawl around inside. Luke thought back to Boudiaf, trying desperately to get his own family out of town. Luke’s family – one person – happened to be leaving anyway. That was a very good thing. Whatever was happening, at least Gunner would be nowhere near it.

      Across the way, Susan’s face appeared on the TV screen. The camera panned backward, taking in her full body, standing at the podium. She was still wearing the blue suit from this morning. In his mind’s eye, Luke pictured her jumping out of bed nude, in the pre-dawn darkness, to face another trying day. He sighed.

      On the screen, Susan looked as beautiful as ever, perhaps less formal than in the past. Less Presidential? A person might say that. The camera pulled back even further, showing the crowded press room at the White House.

      Luke stared hard at the room. Feelings washed over him, and it was important not to look away. That was the room where Luke had taken a bullet for Susan, and where Marybeth Horning has been assassinated. For an instant, Luke saw Horning’s head come apart, and his side began to itch where the bullet had penetrated.

      Susan was about to speak.

      Gunner’s eyes darted back and forth between the TV and Luke’s face.

      “Do you love Susan?” he said.

      “That’s a difficult question to answer,” Luke said. “We’re both adults. We’ve both had a lot of ups and downs. We both have demanding jobs – she probably has the most demanding job in the entire world.”

      “Do you love her the way you loved Mom?”

      Luke looked at Gunner then. He shook his head slowly. “I will never love anyone the way I loved your mom. Except for you. I love you just as much.”

      He nodded at the truth of what he had just said. Whatever he and Susan had, and it was great, and it was important – it wasn’t the same as what he and Becca once had. He imagined that Susan could say something similar about herself and Pierre. Leave it to a thirteen-year-old boy to clarify all that for him.

      On the TV screen, Susan stepped to the microphones.

      “Good afternoon,” she said.

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      12:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

      The Press Briefing Room

      The White House, Washington, DC

      “Good afternoon,” Susan said. “I don’t have a lot of information for you, so I’m going to keep my remarks brief.”

      She stood at the podium. She looked out at about fifty reporters and about as many cameras and microphones, which she knew would bring her face and her words to nearly every corner of the globe. She had long ago stopped worrying about that.

      For a brief moment, she let her gaze wander the room. It was a bleak winter morning. People did not look like they wanted to be here. Neither did she. The news was bad, and she didn’t want to be the one to deliver it. But the situation demanded leadership, and so…

      “As you all know, about four a.m. our time, and eleven a.m. local time, a chartered plane crashed on its approach to the Sharm El Sheikh airport in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt. On board were United States Congressman Jack Butterfield of Texas, as well as other close friends of ours, including Sir Marshall Dennis of the United Kingdom, and the Egyptian Consul-General to London, Ahmet Anwar. A total of eighty-three people died on board that plane, including twenty-seven Americans, as well as people from ten other countries. There were no survivors.”

      Susan paused. Cameras whirred and clicked in the quiet.

      “Video surveillance footage from the airport, as well as our own satellite data, have now confirmed what many of us suspected all along – the plane was brought down by a surface-to-air missile fired from the surrounding mountains. We condemn in no uncertain terms this cowardly attack on innocent people, and we stand united with the international community in our resolve to defeat the agents of terror.”

      Already the reporters were gabbling and muttering, readying themselves to shout questions at her. This, even though they had been informed beforehand that she was taking no questions.

      “We offer our sincere condolences to the families of the victims. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.”

      Susan’s breath caught in her throat. For a moment, she surprised herself by fighting back tears. She thought she had gotten past this sort of thing, that she had become so hardened by tragedy, it didn’t reach her emotions anymore. But she was wrong. The crash of that plane, the loss experienced by the families of those on board, triggered something in her – the losses of so many people these past several years, her own losses, and her fears of more.

      A sudden image came to her – that of her daughter Michaela, held by gunmen, tied up and secured to a catwalk nearly fifty stories above Los Angeles. She shook that away. It was replaced by the briefest, most fleeting image of an explosion underground, a big steel door blowing outward, and flames engulfing the big Secret Service man walking just in front of her – the Mount Weather disaster.

      Everyone in the room was staring at her now.

      She stopped following the prepared speech and wandered off script. “In a very real sense, we don’t just stand with you, we are you. This isn’t to minimize anyone’s personal pain, but we’ve all been through the wringer in recent years. We’ve lost family, we’ve lost friends – I’ve lost some of my very best friends on Earth – and we’ve lost the feeling of a secure and sane world that we once had. But we’re going to get that feeling back, and we’re going to pass it on to our kids and grandkids. These terrorist atrocities are going to stop!”

      Despite СКАЧАТЬ