A Clear and Present Danger Read Online Free PDF Page A

Washington, however, said the Americans were planning a reception at their embassy
     in London on Monday evening, January 25. Presumably, Mr. Bush will arrive in London that day.
    Though the inexplicable secrecy surrounding Mr. Bush’s travels is something of a minor mystery here, there is no mystery about
     the new American administration’s interest in strengthening ties with Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government, whose policies
     are much admired by the conservative Mr. Reagan… .
    Slayton stopped reading at this point, uninterested for the moment in the partisan political angle of the story. His concern
     was with the words “inexplicable secrecy.”
    He had been told nothing about any extraordinary security measures being taken for the Bush visit. He hadn’t expected, of
     course, that the visit would make news of any import. He figured that Reagan was like any other President in his desire to
     hustle the Vice President out of town as soon as possible; in fact, Reagan, being as old as he was, would be even more anxious
     to see little of Vice President Bush, a man whose only function in government was to remind the boss of his mortality.
    But Slayton’s Secret Service assignment was only temporary, what with the change in administrations and all. Maybe that’s
     why he wasn’t filled in.
    Something might be in the air about this Bush visit, something more than usual. Slayton was both excited and worried.
    LONDON, 8:12 a.m., 25 January 1981
    The young man tapped on the bullet-proof glass door, seeking the attention of a guard he could see dozing behind a small desk
     in the lobby. The guard looked up at the noise, a bit stupidly, and rubbed his eyes.
    The guard scowled and checked his wristwatch. Then he rose and walked insolently toward the door. He assessed the young man
     staring at him from the other side. Dumb punk kid in some kind of trouble far from home, and now he wants us to call his mommy
     and daddy, the guard decided.
    “We open at nine o’clock,” the guard shouted from his side.
    The young man shook his head. He couldn’t hear. The guard shouted again and this time the young man understood the muffled
     words.
    “Please!” the young man cried. And he did cry, too. Big, whelping tears poured from his eyes.
    The guard guessed he was twenty-one, maybe twenty-two. He looked like they all do: long dirty hair, skinny as a hose, dressed
     up in surplus Army fatigues, and running around Europe with nothing that couldn’t fit in a rucksack.
    Couldn’t these damn kids find jobs when they graduated from those fancy schools they all went to, the guard wondered? Why’d
     they have to go gallivanting around Europe all the time, making life miserable for everyone who worked at embassies? How many
     punk kids like this had the guard seen turn up on the doorstep? God, he was tired of seeing these young snots with their messes
     that had to be cleaned up.
    Big strapping kid like this, and he’s bawling like a puking little kid, the guard thought. He’d seen it lots of times before.
    The guard unlatched the heavy door and opened it a crack to hear this one’s story.
    “Thanks,” the young man said quickly. “Thanks a lot… .”
    Good start, the guard thought. At least he knows how to say thank-you. Most of the young punks only knew how to say “shit”
     and derivations of “fuck.” Those two words seemed to constitute half their vocabulary.
    “Listen, man, I had to sleep in the park overnight!” Still crying, the young man pointed to the statue of Franklin D. Roosevelt
     in the little park opposite the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square.
    “I was robbed. I haven’t got a cent. And I lost my passport and credit cards… .”
    The guard snorted and thought to himself: That figures; the punk kid fits himself out like some sort of refugee and he travels
     with credit cards, yet.
    “… and I don’t know anybody here in London to help me. I got to get home, man… .”
    He started crying again.