The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

Gulfstreams that were used by anyone who had the right credentials. Senators and
House members on junkets got them if they were on the right committees, or if
the President sensed a need to stroke their egos.
You're being petty, Durling told himself. By being petty, you justify all the
crap you have to put up with.
His misjudgment had been at least as great as Madison's, the Vice President told
himself as the aircraft taxied out. In deciding that a political figure would
place country above his own ambition, Madison had merely been optimistic.
Durling, on the other hand, had ignored an evident political reality, that the
real difference in importance between President and Vice President was far
greater than the difference between Fowler and any of a dozen committee chairmen
in the House or Senate. The President had to deal with Congress to get any work
done. He didn't need to deal with his Vice President.
How had he allowed himself to get here? That earned an amused grunt, though the
question had occurred to Durling a thousand times. Patriotism, of course, or at
least the political version of it. He'd delivered California, and without
California he and Fowler would both still be governors. The one substantive
concession he'd gotten – the accession of Charlie Alden to the post of National
Security Advisor – had been for naught, but he had been the deciding factor in
changing the Presidency from one party to another. And his reward for that was
drawing every crap detail in the executive branch, delivering speeches that
would rarely make the news, though those of various cabinet officials did,
speeches to keep faithful the party faithful, speeches to float new ideas –
usually bad ones, and rarely his own – and wait for lightning to strike himself
instead of the President. Today he was going out to talk about the need to raise
taxes to pay for the peace in the Middle East. What a marvelous political
opportunity! he thought. Roger Durling would outline the need for new taxes in
St Louis before a convention of purchasing managers, and he was sure the
applause would be deafening.
But he had accepted the job, had given his word to perform the duties of the
office, and if he did any less, then what would he be?
The aircraft rolled unevenly past the hangars and various aircraft, including
NEACP, the 747 configured as the National Emergency Airborne Command Post, known
as 'Kneecap,' or more dramatically as 'The Doomsday Plane.' Always within two
flying hours of wherever the President might be (a real headache when the
President visited Russia or China), it was the only safe place the President
might occupy in a nuclear crisis – but that didn't really matter anymore, did
it? Durling saw people shuffling in and out of the aircraft. Funding hadn't been
reduced on that yet – well, it was part of the President's personal fleet – and
it was still kept ready for a rapid departure. He wondered how soon that might
change. Everything else had.
'We're ready for departure. All buckled, sir?' the sergeant-attendant asked.
'You bet! Let's get this show on the road,' Durling replied with a smile. On Air
Force One, he knew, people often showed their confidence in the aircraft and the
crew by not buckling. More evidence that his airplane was second-best, but he
could hardly growl at the sergeant for being a pro, and to this man Roger
Durling was important. The Vice President reflected that this made the sergeant