Read Online Last Snow by Eric Van Lustbader - Free Book Online
Authors: Eric Van Lustbader
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in the hard shell she had erected to protect the still vulnerable core.
In life, like often cleaves to like. He and Alli had bonded because they were both Outsiders. He wondered whether he could make adent in Annika’s armor, and thought it worth a try. “With me, it was my father,” he said slowly and deliberately, putting equal weight on each word so that she would pay attention, so that she would understand the gravity of what he was saying. “He beat me because he said I was stupid, because he came home drunk every night, and I suppose because he hated himself and his life. One night, I’d had enough and left.”
“Yes, of course, you’re male.” Annika’s tone was resigned rather than bitter, as if she had contemplated this inequity so often it had become banal. “Males can move about at will, can’t they, while women, well, where can they go? Even when a situation is atrocious, intolerable, there are only home and family, even though both are toxic, because slavery and death wait out on the street.”
She shivered, as if from an intimate memory. Then she turned her head again, abruptly nervous once more. “Shouldn’t we have taken off by now?”
At that moment, an aide came down the aisle toward them.
“I’m sorry for the delay, Mr. McClure,” he said, “but there’s someone who requires a word with you.”
These aides of Carson’s were always so proper, so formal, Jack thought, or perhaps that was just the way things were with any presidential staff, where deference and protocol were a way of life.
Annika looked alarmed. “Who—?”
“Relax,” Jack said as he rose. “Whatever it is, I’ll take care of it.”
He was heading forward toward the door when Naomi Wilde, the head of Lyn Carson’s Secret Service detail, stepped smartly into the cabin.
Damnit
, Jack thought,
what the hell is she doing here? Has something happened to the First Lady?
Wilde was smiling, though in an embarrassed fashion, as if she’d screwed the pooch in some way she couldn’t mend. This was odd, because Naomi Wilde was a take-charge agent, a woman who wassuperbly trained. She had confidence enough for her entire team, but now she had the look of a fish on a riverbank, a woman who finds herself in a situation for which she has no answer or, rather, only one answer, which is not to her liking. She was breathing air when she should be breathing water.
“Sorry about holding you up, Mr. McClure,” she said, “but as you’ll see I had no choice.” She stepped fully into the cabin as if impelled, and someone brushed by her as if she didn’t exist or was of no further use.
At once, Jack understood Wilde’s state of extreme discomfort. He thought,
Oh, Christ, no
, because he was staring into the grinning face of Alli Carson, the First Daughter.
F IVE
“H I , J ACK , surprised to see me?” Alli said as soon as she stepped into the cabin.
Jack was staring at Naomi Wilde, who winced at the look, then resignedly shrugged her shoulders. It was astonishing how Alli could reduce people like Wilde—professional, superbly trained, loyal, and brave—to Silly Putty. This was her particular genius; in the interval after the inauguration and its immediate aftermath, she had learned to use her fragile mental state to get whatever she wanted. Take me out of school to go to Russia? Okay. Let me hang out with Jack instead of you and Mom? All right, honey. Jack could only imagine the conversation between Lyn and her daughter this time. Had she threatened to run away, a mental fugue state, a bout of depression so serious she might spiral down into suicide? All these possible symptoms of what she had been through had been meticulously explained to her by the doctors, psychiatrists, and therapists at Bethesda, the medical facility where presidents and their families were treated.Obviously, she had absorbed the details, so that she could wield them like weapons on the field of her family battle. Edward had
In life, like often cleaves to like. He and Alli had bonded because they were both Outsiders. He wondered whether he could make adent in Annika’s armor, and thought it worth a try. “With me, it was my father,” he said slowly and deliberately, putting equal weight on each word so that she would pay attention, so that she would understand the gravity of what he was saying. “He beat me because he said I was stupid, because he came home drunk every night, and I suppose because he hated himself and his life. One night, I’d had enough and left.”
“Yes, of course, you’re male.” Annika’s tone was resigned rather than bitter, as if she had contemplated this inequity so often it had become banal. “Males can move about at will, can’t they, while women, well, where can they go? Even when a situation is atrocious, intolerable, there are only home and family, even though both are toxic, because slavery and death wait out on the street.”
She shivered, as if from an intimate memory. Then she turned her head again, abruptly nervous once more. “Shouldn’t we have taken off by now?”
At that moment, an aide came down the aisle toward them.
“I’m sorry for the delay, Mr. McClure,” he said, “but there’s someone who requires a word with you.”
These aides of Carson’s were always so proper, so formal, Jack thought, or perhaps that was just the way things were with any presidential staff, where deference and protocol were a way of life.
Annika looked alarmed. “Who—?”
“Relax,” Jack said as he rose. “Whatever it is, I’ll take care of it.”
He was heading forward toward the door when Naomi Wilde, the head of Lyn Carson’s Secret Service detail, stepped smartly into the cabin.
Damnit
, Jack thought,
what the hell is she doing here? Has something happened to the First Lady?
Wilde was smiling, though in an embarrassed fashion, as if she’d screwed the pooch in some way she couldn’t mend. This was odd, because Naomi Wilde was a take-charge agent, a woman who wassuperbly trained. She had confidence enough for her entire team, but now she had the look of a fish on a riverbank, a woman who finds herself in a situation for which she has no answer or, rather, only one answer, which is not to her liking. She was breathing air when she should be breathing water.
“Sorry about holding you up, Mr. McClure,” she said, “but as you’ll see I had no choice.” She stepped fully into the cabin as if impelled, and someone brushed by her as if she didn’t exist or was of no further use.
At once, Jack understood Wilde’s state of extreme discomfort. He thought,
Oh, Christ, no
, because he was staring into the grinning face of Alli Carson, the First Daughter.
F IVE
“H I , J ACK , surprised to see me?” Alli said as soon as she stepped into the cabin.
Jack was staring at Naomi Wilde, who winced at the look, then resignedly shrugged her shoulders. It was astonishing how Alli could reduce people like Wilde—professional, superbly trained, loyal, and brave—to Silly Putty. This was her particular genius; in the interval after the inauguration and its immediate aftermath, she had learned to use her fragile mental state to get whatever she wanted. Take me out of school to go to Russia? Okay. Let me hang out with Jack instead of you and Mom? All right, honey. Jack could only imagine the conversation between Lyn and her daughter this time. Had she threatened to run away, a mental fugue state, a bout of depression so serious she might spiral down into suicide? All these possible symptoms of what she had been through had been meticulously explained to her by the doctors, psychiatrists, and therapists at Bethesda, the medical facility where presidents and their families were treated.Obviously, she had absorbed the details, so that she could wield them like weapons on the field of her family battle. Edward had
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