by Tom Clancy
When the photos went upstairs, one complete set was also set aside for a different kind of analysis. A physician would examine them closely. Some diseases left visible signs, and the Agency always kept an eye on the health of foreign leaders.
“... SECRETARY ADLER will be leaving for Beijing this morning,” Ryan told them. Arnie had told him that, as unpleasant as these news appearances were, being seen on TV doing presidential things was good for him politically—and that, Arnie always went on, meant being more effective in the job. The President also remembered hearing from his mom how important it was to go to the dentist twice a year, too, and just as the antiseptic smells of that place were certain to frighten a child, so he had come to loathe the damp of this room. The walls leaked, some of the windows were cracked, and this part of the West Wing of the White House was about as neat and well kept as a high-school locker room, something the citizens couldn’t tell from watching TV. Though the area was only a few yards from his own office, nobody really cared much about tidying things up. Reporters were such slobs, the staff claimed, that it wouldn’t have mattered much anyway. What the hell, the reporters didn’t seem to worry about it.
“Mr. President, have we learned anything more about the airliner incident?”
“It’s been announced that the body count is complete. The flight-data recorders have been recovered and—”
“Will we have access to the black-box information?”
Why did they call it the black box when it was orange? Jack had always wondered about that, but knew he’d never get a sensible answer. “We’ve asked for that access, and the Republic of China government has promised its full cooperation. They don’t have to do that. The aircraft is registered in that country, and the aircraft is made in Europe. But they are being helpful. We acknowledge that with thanks. I should add that none of the Americans who survived the crash itself are in any medical danger—some of the injuries are severe, but not life-threatening.”
“Who shot it down?” another reporter asked.
“We’re still examining the data, and—”
“Mr. President, the Navy has two Aegis-class ships in that immediate area. You must have a good idea of what happened.” This guy had done his homework.
“I really can’t comment further on that. Secretary Adler will discuss the incident with the parties concerned. We want, first of all, to make sure that no further loss of life takes place.”
“Mr. President, a follow-up: you must know more than you’re saying. Fourteen Americans were killed in this incident. The American people have a right to know why.”
The hell of it was, the man was right. The hell of it also was that Ryan had to evade: “We really do not know exactly what happened yet. I cannot make a definitive statement until we do.” Which was philosophically true, anyway. He knew who’d taken the shot. He didn’t know why. Adler had made a good point yesterday on keeping that knowledge close.
“Mr. Adler returned from somewhere yesterday. Why is that a secret?” It was Plumber again, chasing down his question from the previous day.
I’m going to kill Arnie for exposing me this way all the time. “John, the Secretary was engaged in some important consultations. That’s all I have to say on the issue.”
“He was in the Middle East, wasn’t he?”
“Next question?”
“Sir, the Pentagon has announced that the carrier Eisenhower is moving into the South China Sea. Did you order that?”
“Yes, I did. We feel that the situation warrants our close attention. We have vital interests in that region. I point out that we are not taking sides in this dispute, but we are going to look after our own interests.”
“Will moving the carrier cool things down or heat them up?”
“Obviously, we’re not trying to make things worse. We’re trying to make them better. It’s in the interests of both parties to take a step back and think about what they are doing. Lives have been lost,” the President reminded them. “Some of those were American lives. That gives us a direct interest in the matter. The reason we have a government and a military is to look after American interests and to protect the lives of our citizens. The naval forces heading for the region will observe what is happening and conduct routine training operations. That is all.”
ZHANG HAN SAN checked his watch again and remarked to himself that it was becoming a fine way to end his working day—the sight of the American President doing exactly what he wanted him to do. Now China had fulfilled her obligations to that Daryaei barbarian. The Indian Ocean was devoid of a major American naval presence for the first time in twenty years. The American foreign minister would leave Washington in another two hours or so. Another eighteen hours to fly to Beijing, and then the platitudes could be exchanged. He’d see what concessions he could wring out of America and the Taiwanese puppet state. Maybe a few good ones, he thought, with the trouble America was sure to face elsewhere....
ADLER WAS IN his office. His bags were packed and in his official car, which would take him to the White House to catch a helicopter to Andrews after a presidential handshake and a brief departure statement which would be as bland as oatmeal. The more dramatic departure would look good on TV, make his mission appear to be a matter of importance, and cause additional wrinkling to his clothes—but the Air Force crew had an ironing board on the plane.
“What do we know?” Under Secretary Rutledge asked of the Secretary’s senior staff.
“The missile was shot by a PRC aircraft. That’s pretty positive from the Navy’s radar tapes. No idea why, though Admiral Jackson is very positive in saying that it was not an accident.”
“How was it in Tehran?” another assistant secretary inquired.
“Equivocal. I’ll get that written up on the flight and fax it back here.” Adler, too, was pressed for time and hadn’t had enough to think through his meeting with Daryaei.
“We need that if we’re going to be much use on the SNIE,” Rutledge pointed out. He really wanted that document. With it, Ed Kealty could prove that Ryan was up to his old tricks, playing secret agent man, and even suborning Scott Adler into doing the same. It was out there somewhere, the key to destroying Ryan’s political legitimacy. He was dodging and counterpunching well, doubtless due to Arnie van Damm’s coaching, but his gaffe yesterday on China policy had sent rumbles throughout the building. Like many people at State, he wished that Taiwan would just go away, and enable America to get on with the business of conducting normal relations with the world’s newest superpower.
“One thing at a time, Cliff.”
The meeting returned to the China issue. By mutual consent, it was decided that the UIR problem was on the back burner for the next few days.
“Any change in China policy from the White House?” Rutledge asked.
Adler shook his head. “No, the President was just trying to talk his way through things—and, yeah, I know, he shouldn’t have called the Republic of China China, but maybe it rattled their cage just a little in Beijing, and I’m not all that displeased about it. They do need to learn about not killing Americans. We have crossed a line here, people. One of the things I have to do is let them know that we take that line seriously.”
“Accidents happen,” someone observed.
“The Navy says it wasn’t an accident.”
“Come on, Mr. Secretary,” Rutledge groaned. “Why the hell would they do that on purpose?”
“It’s our job to find out. Admiral Jackson made a good case for his position. If you’re a cop on the street and you have an armed robber in front of you, why shoot the little old lady down the block?”
“Accident, obviously,” Rutledge persisted.
“Cliff, there are accidents, and there are accidents. This one killed Americans, and in case anybody in this room forgot, we are supposed to take that seriously.”
They weren’t used to that sort of reprimand. What was with Adler, anyway? The job of the State Department was to maintain the peace, to forestall
conflict that killed people in the thousands. Accidents were accidents. They were unfortunate, but they happened, like cancer and heart attacks. State was supposed to deal with the Big Picture.
“THANK YOU, Mr. President.” Ryan left the podium, having again survived the slings and arrows of the media. He checked his watch. Damn. He’d missed seeing the kids off to school—again—and hadn’t kissed Cathy good-bye, either. Where in the Constitution, he wondered, was it written down that the President wasn’t a human being?
On reaching his office, he scanned the printed sheet of his daily schedule. Adler was due over in an hour for the send-off to China. Winston at ten o’clock to go over the details of his administrative changes across the street at Treasury. Arnie and Callie at eleven to go through his speeches for next week. Lunch with Tony Bretano. A meeting after lunch with—who? The Anaheim Mighty Ducks? Ryan shook his head. Oh. They’d won the Stanley Cup, and this would be a photo opportunity for them and for him. He had to talk to Arnie about that political crap. Hmph. Ought to have Ed Foley over for that, Jack smiled to himself. He was a hockey fanatic ...
“YOU’RE RUNNING LATE,” Don Russell said, as Pat O’Day dropped Megan off.
The FBI inspector continued past him, saw to Megan’s coat and blanky, then returned. “The power went off last night and reset my clock-radio for me,” he explained.
“Big day planned?”
Pat shook his head. “Desk day. I have to finish up a few things—you know the drill.” Both did. It was essentially editing and indexing reports, a secretarial function which on sensitive cases was often done by sworn, gun-toting agents.
“I hear you want to have a little contest,” Russell said.
“They say you’re pretty good.”
“Oh, fair, I guess,” the Secret Service agent allowed.
“Yeah, I try to keep the shots inside the lines, too.”
“Like the SigSauer?”
The FBI agent shook his head. “Smith 1076 stainless.”
“The ten-millimeter.”
“It makes a bigger hole,” O’Day pointed out.
“Nine’s always been enough for me,” Russell reported. Then both men laughed.
“You hustle pool, too?” the FBI agent asked.
“Not since high school, Pat. Shall we set the amount of the wager?”
“It has to be serious,” O’Day thought.
“Case of Samuel Adams?” Russell suggested.
“An honorable bet, sir,” the inspector agreed.
“How about at Beltsville?” That was the site of the Secret Service Academy. “The outside range. Indoors is always too artificial.”
“Standard combat match?”
“I haven’t shot bull’s-eye in years. I don’t ever expect one of my principals to be attacked by a black dot.”
“Tomorrow?” It seemed a good Saturday diversion.
“That’s probably a little quick. I can check. I’ll know this afternoon.”
“Don, you have a deal. And may the best man win.” They shook hands.
“The best man will, Pat. He always does.” Both men knew who it would be, though one of them would have to be wrong. Both also knew that the other would be a good guy to have at your back, and that the beer would taste pretty good either way when the issue was decided.
THE WEAPONS WEREN’T fully automatic. A good machinist could have changed that, but the sleeper agent wasn’t one of those. Movie Star and his people didn’t mind all that much. They were trained marksmen and knew that full-auto was only good for three rounds unless you had the arms of a gorilla—after that, the gun jumped up and you were just drilling holes in the sky instead of the target, who just might fire back at you. There was neither time nor space for another round of shooting, but they were familiar with the weapon type, the Chinese knock-off of the Soviet AK-47, itself a development of a German weapon from the 1940s. It fired a short-case 7.62mm cartridge. The magazines held thirty rounds each. The team members used duct tape to double them up, inserting and ejecting the magazines to be sure that everything fit properly. With that task completed, they resumed their examination of the objective. Each of them knew his place and his task. Each also knew the dangers involved, but they didn’t dwell on that. Nor, Movie Star saw, did they dwell on the nature of the mission. They were so dehumanized by their years of activity within the terrorist community that, though this was the first real mission, for most of them, all they really thought about was proving themselves. How they did it, exactly, was less important.
“THEY’RE GOING TO bring up a lot of things,” Adler said.
“Think so?” Jack asked.
“You bet. Most-favored nation, copyright disputes, you name it, it’ll all come up.”
The President grimaced. It seemed obscene to place the copyright protection for Barbra Streisand CDs alongside the deliberate killing of so many people, but—
“Yeah, Jack. They just don’t think about stuff the same way we do.”
“Reading my mind?”
“I’m a diplomat, remember? You think I just listen to what people say out loud? Hell, we’d never get any negotiations done that way. It’s like playing a long low-stakes card game, boring and tense all at the same time.”
“I’ve been thinking about the lives lost ...”
“I have, too,” SccState replied with a nod. “You can’t dwell on it—it’s a sign of weakness in their context—but I won’t forget it, either.” That got a rise out of his Commander-in-Chief.
“Why is it, Scott, that we always have to respect their cultural context? Why is it that they never seem to respect ours?” POTUS wanted to know.
“It’s always been that way at State.”
“That doesn’t answer the question,” Jack pointed out.
“If we lean too hard on that, Mr. President, it’s like being a hostage. Then the other side always knows that they can hang a couple of lives over us and use it to pressure us. It gives them an advantage.”
“Only if we allow it. The Chinese need us as much as we need them—more, with the trade surplus. Taking lives is playing rough. We can play rough, too. I’ve always wondered why we don’t.”
SecState adjusted his glasses. “Sir, I do not disagree with that, but it has to be thought through very carefully, and we do not have the time to do that now. You’re talking a doctrinal change in American policy. You don’t shoot from the hip on something that big.”
“When you get back, let’s get together over a weekend with a few others and see if there are any options. I don’t like what we’ve been doing on this issue in a moral sense, and I don’t like it because it makes us a little too predictable.”
“How so?”
“Playing by a given set of rules is all well and good, as long as everybody plays by the same rules, but playing by a known set of rules when the other guy doesn’t just makes us an easy mark,” Ryan speculated. “On the other hand, if somebody else breaks the rules and then we break them, too, maybe in a different way, but break them even so, it gives him something to think about. You want to be predictable to your friends, yes, but what your enemy needs to predict is that messing with you gets him hurt. How hurt he gets, that part we make unpredictable.”
“Not without merit, Mr. President. Sounds like a nice subject for a weekend up at Camp David.” Both men stopped talking when the helicopter came down on the pad. “There’s my driver. Got your statement?”
“Yeah, and about as dramatic as a weather report on a sunny day.”
“That’s how the game is played, Jack,” Adler pointed out. He reflected that Ryan was hearing a lot of that song. No wonder he was bridling at it.
“I’ve never run across a game where they never change the rules. Baseball went to a designated hitter to liven things up,” POTUS remarked casually.
Designated hitter, SecState wondered on his way out the door. Great choice of words ...
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Ryan watched the helicopter lift off. He’d done the handshake fo
r the cameras, made his brief statement for the cameras, looked serious but upbeat for the cameras. Maybe C-SPAN had covered it live, but nobody else would. Were it to be a slow news day—Friday in Washington often was—it might get a minute and a half on one or two of the evening news shows. More likely not. Friday was their day to summarize the week’s events, recognize some person or other for doing something or other, and toss in a fluff story.
“Mr. President!” Jack turned to see TRADER, his Secretary of the Treasury, walking over a few minutes early.
“Hi, George.”
“That tunnel between here and my building?”
“What about it?”
“I took a look at it this morning. It’s a real mess. You have any beefs about cleaning it up?” Winston asked.
“George, that’s a Secret Service function, and you own them, remember?”
“Yeah, I know, but it does come to your house, and so I thought I ought to ask. Okay, I’ll get it taken care of. Might be nice for when it rains.”
“How’s the tax plan coming?” Ryan asked, on his way to the door. An agent yanked it open and held it for him. Such things still made Jack uncomfortable. A man had to do some things for himself.
“We’ll have the computer models done next week. I really want the case tight on this one, revenue-neutral, easier on the little guy, fair on the big guy, and I have my people jumping through hoops on the administrative savings. Jesus, Jack, was I wrong about that!”
“What do you mean?” They turned the corner for the Oval Office.
“I thought I was the only guy pissing money away to work the tax code. Everybody does. It’s a huge industry. It’ll put a lot of people out of work—”
“I’m supposed to be happy about that?”
“They’ll all find honest work, except for the lawyers, maybe. And we’ll save the taxpayers a few billion dollars by giving them a tax form they can figure out from fourth-grade math. Mr. President, the government doesn’t insist that people buy buggy whips, does it?”
