Free Arctic Fire by Stephen W. Frey

remark. How the hell would the president know that people half his age couldn’t keep up with him? How would the president know of anyone at all who was trying to keep up with him? He shouldn’t.
    Maddux’s warning rattled around in Carlson’s brain again, but he shook it off. The president’s comment had to be just an innocent, off-the-cuff remark.
    “How about we settle on me looking sixty-three and acting fifty-three?” Carlson suggested as he sank back onto the sofa. “That work for you?”
    “All right, Roger, all right.” The president chuckled as he sat behind his big desk. “So, how are you this fine, fine autumn morning?”
    “Well, Mr. President, I woke up breathing.”
    The president raised one eyebrow. “As I recall, that’s your favorite response to the question. It’s what you say every time I ask you.”
    “You’re right, it is.” This was a first. The other seven men had never noticed that answer. At least, they’d never said anything about it. “I think it puts everything into perspective simply but elegantly, and I—”
    “You woke up breathing all right,” the president interrupted, his tone turning measurably less friendly. “You woke up without a limp too.”
    Carlson’s eyes raced to the president’s—and instantly he regretted his reaction. He hadn’t been taken off guard like that in years, and his transparent response to the remark was infuriating. He’d confirmed the truth with his shocked look like some peach-fuzz-covered adolescent would have to his father about breakinga window with a baseball. The surprised expression had lasted only a second, but if he’d done that in the field, he’d be maggot-food right now.
    “No cane when you went for your coffee at the Starbucks down the street from your house in Georgetown this morning,” the president continued, “but you were using one the other day when you went out to that place you people have in Reston.”
    Here was more bad news. President Dorn knew about the web of safe houses they operated in Reston, a northern Virginia suburb of Washington. The houses looked like the typical neighborhood homes of normal upper-middle-class suburbanites, but they weren’t typical at all. Dorn probably knew about the underground corridors that connected them too.
    “Excuse me?” Carlson said hesitantly.
    “You heard me,” the president replied as he scanned a memo. “But I’ll say it again. The other day you were limping. Today you aren’t. The other day you had a cane. Today you don’t.”
    There was no way for Carlson to deny any of this. Protesting would only make him look foolish. “So what?”
    “Well, if you’re deceiving people who’ve worked under you for decades and who idolize the ground you walk on, why wouldn’t you deceive me someday? That’s how I look at it.”
    Carlson made certain to stare back at the president with an unwavering gaze. “Is there a point to all of this?”
    “There is, Roger,” Dorn acknowledged, putting the memo down. “I want you to know that I have great respect for what you and your people do and the dangers you and they face every day. Your organization is a valuable weapon in what I’ll call my twilight intelligence arsenal. It has been for many administrations, for many presidents before me. I get all that,” he muttered as though he didn’t get it at all, and didn’t care that he didn’t. He held up a hand when he saw that Carlson was about to speak, and his expression slowly became one of irreversible resolve. “But I’mnot going to let anyone around me run free, even if they’ve had that room to run for a long time. It’s too risky in this day and age, when every reporter out there is trying to break a career story every minute of the day and will stop at nothing to do it. So there will be limits to what you can do without my direct approval. Strict limits. I won’t always be watching, but I could be. Make it easy on yourself and assume I am. That’ll make it