Oath of Office

The Oval’s west door all but exploded off its hinges as Arnie van Damm burst in. He wore a suit, but his bald head was flushed and sweating, as if he’d just stepped off an exercise bike. It took a lot to rattle him, a savvy political operative.

He shot a hard look at Montgomery. “I assume you are here about—”

“I am,” the agent said.

* * *

Jack Ryan leaned back in his chair and steepled his hands on his chest, index fingers pointing at his chin. He was the only one in the room sitting down, and judging from the way everyone else shuffled their feet, that wasn’t about to change anytime soon.

“You all know Gary Montgomery, the agent in charge of my Secret Service detail,” Ryan said. “He was just about to brief me on some information his protective intelligence division has come up with.”

The director of national intelligence looked at Montgomery. “That crap on the Internet?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Montgomery said.

Fiercely loyal, Mary Pat Foley was one of Ryan’s closest confidantes and friends, and, as such, was prone to being a bit of a mother hen. She’d moved up next to his desk as soon as she’d come into the Oval, as if to cover him with her wing. As director of national intelligence, Foley provided an umbrella of communication over the sixteen intelligence agencies of the United States. She’d been a case officer at CIA when Ryan was still an analyst, earning a well-deserved reputation as a crack intelligence operative, unafraid of getting her hands dirty with calculated risks. She gave the Secret Service agent a long look, sighed, and then took a half-step back from the desk, literally yielding the floor.

“Sir,” Montgomery said, picking up the offered baton and running with it. “An hour ago, several quasi-news sites put up a video purported to be of you talking to a small group of supporters in a Washington hotel.”

“Purported?” Ryan mused.

“Yes, sir,” Montgomery continued. “The voice and image sound and look like you, but it’s definitely not you.”

“The Secret Service would be in a position to know,” Ryan said. “What am I purported to be saying?”

“You’re assuring those present that you are saving enough flu vaccine for those in your innermost circle, including the people you are addressing. The video is just a snippet, only twenty-four seconds long, but most of the websites quote unnamed sources that say more damning videos will be released soon.” Montgomery blinked hard, as if he had a bad tooth. “The sites go on to accuse you of turning a blind eye to the flooding in Louisiana and the cholera outbreak there that they—”

Ryan sat up straighter. “I’m going to stop you there, Gary.” He looked at Homeland Security Secretary Dehart. “Cholera outbreak?”

“That’s why I’m here, Mr. President. “Three cases as of five a.m. Central Time.”

Bob Burgess, the secretary of defense, grimaced. “Cholera? I thought we eradicated that in the U.S.?”

“Doesn’t happen often,” Dehart said. “Not since we figured out how to keep our water supply and sewage separate. That said, every major flood or hurricane poses some risk. The area where these cases hit is extremely poor, with a lot of folks still using well water and outhouses.”

Burgess turned up his nose. “Outhouses can’t still be a thing.”

“You’d be surprised,” Dehart said, turning to Ryan. “FEMA personnel out of Baton Rouge are at the hospital now. A CDC team is en route. I’ll have information for you within the hour.”

“But no one has died?” Ryan asked.

“Not yet,” Dehart said, his mouth set in a grim line. “But two of the cases are children. The prognosis isn’t good.”

Ryan closed his eyes. “A cholera outbreak…”

“Not an outbreak,” van Damm said, glaring at Montgomery. “Three cases.”

“I used the websites’ language, sir,” Montgomery said.

“Go on,” Ryan said. “What else does the website language say?”

“More accusations,” Montgomery said. “You supposedly have a team of personal assassins to carry out extrajudicial killings pursuant to the Ryan Doctrine. There’s a lot of discussion about what they are calling a ‘callous unwillingness’ to support the students in Iran against their oppressive regime. But the vaccine video is the most problematic, as far as the Secret Service is concerned.”

“You mean the one that is the most likely to make people want to kill me?”

“To put it bluntly,” Montgomery said. “Yes, Mr. President.”

Van Damm slid a tablet computer across the desk. “I’ve got it pulled up if you want to take a look.”

Ryan watched the twenty-four seconds of footage four times. He knew he’d never made such a speech, but even he would have said it was real.

“This video is a clip from an address I gave to a group of public policy students at the University of Maryland a couple of years ago. I’m sure someone’s thrown it up on YouTube.” He slid the chief of staff back his tablet. “The voice sounds like me, and my lips match the words being said, but as I recall, that particular speech was about European trade.”