The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

adio.
The post-mortern examination would check for many things, of course. Poison.
Possible contamination of his food or water. But the White House environment was
monitored on a continuous basis. D'Agustino and Connor shared a look. Yes, he
had suffered from high blood pressure, and he sure as hell had had a bad day.
Just about as bad as they get.
'How is he?' Heads turned. It was HAWK, the President himself, with a literal
ring of agents around him, pressing through the door. And Dr Elliot behind him.
D'Agustino made a mental note that they'd have to make up a new code-name for
her. She wondered if HARPY might suffice. Daga didn't like the bitch. No one on
the Presidential Security Detail did. But they weren't paid to like her, or for
that matter, even to like the President.
'He's dead, Mr. President,' the doctor said. 'It appears he suffered a massive
stroke.'
The President took the news without a visible reaction. The Secret Service
agents reminded themselves that he'd seen his wife through a multi-year battle
against multiple sclerosis, finally losing her while still governor of Ohio. It
must have drained the man, they thought, wanting it to be true. It must have
stripped all of his emotions away. Certainly there were few emotions left in
him. He made a clucking sound, and grimaced, and shook his head, and then he
turned away.
Liz Elliot took his place, peering over the shoulder of an agent. Helen
D'Agustino examined her face as Elliot pressed forward to get her look. Elliot
liked to wear makeup, Daga knew, and she watched the new National Security
Advisor pale beneath it. Certainly it was a horrible scene, D'Agustino knew. It
looked as though a bucket of red paint had been spilled on the desk.
'Oh, God!' Dr Elliot whispered.
'Out of the way, please!' called a new voice. It was an agent with a stretcher.
He pushed Liz Elliot roughly out of the way. Daga noticed that she was too
shocked to be angry at that, that her face was still very white, her eyes
unfocused. She might think she's a tough bitch, Special Agent D'Agustino
thought, but she's not as tough as she thinks. The thought gave the agent
satisfaction.
Little weak at the knees, eh Liz? Helen D'Agustino, one month out of the Secret
Service Academy, had been out on a discreet surveillance when the subject – a
counterfeiter – had 'made' her and for some reason she'd never understood come
out with a large automatic pistol. He'd even fired a round in her direction. No
more than that, though. She'd earned her nickname, Daga, by drawing her S&W and
landing three right in the poor bastard's ten-ring at a range of thirty-seven
feet, just like a cardboard target at the range. Just that easy, too. She'd
never even dreamed about it. And so Daga was one of the guys, a member of the
Service pistol team when they'd out-shot the Army's elite Delta Force commandos.
Daga was tough. Clearly Liz Elliot was not, however arrogant she might be. No
guts, lady? It did not occur to Special Agent Helen D'Agustino at that moment
that Liz Elliot was HAWK'S chief advisor for national security.
***
It had been a quiet meeting, the first such meeting that Günther Bock