by Tom Clancy
The assembled members of Congress stood as one person from their crowded seats in the House chamber. Arrayed in the front row were the members of the cabinet, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Justices of the Supreme Court, who also rose. In the balconies were others, among them the Saudi and Israeli ambassadors sitting side-by-side for the first time in memory. The TV cameras panned the great room in which both history and infamy had been made. The applause echoed from wall to wall until hands grew red from it.
President Fowler rested his notes on the lectern. He turned to shake the hand of the Speaker of the House, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, and his own Vice President, Roger Durling. In the euphoria of the moment, no one would comment that Durling came last. Next he turned to smile and wave at the assembled multitude, and the noise increased yet again. Every gesture in Fowler's repertoire came into play. The one-hand wave, the two-hand wave, hands at shoulder level, and hands over the head. The response was truly bipartisan, and that was remarkable, Fowler noted. His most vociferous enemies in the House and Senate were assiduous in their enthusiasm, and he knew it to be genuine. There still was true patriotism in the Congress, much to the surprise of everyone. Finally, he waved for silence and the applause grudgingly subsided.
“My fellow Americans, I come to this house to report on recent events in Europe and the Middle East, and to lay before the United States Senate a pair of treaty documents which, I hope, will meet with your speedy and enthusiastic approval.” More applause. "With these treaties, the United States, operating in close cooperation with many other nations — some trusted old friends, and some valuable new ones — has helped to bring about peace in a region that has helped to give peace to the world, but which has known all too little peace itself.
“One can search all of human history. One can trace the evolution of the human spirit. All of human progress, all the shining lights that have lit our way up from barbarism, all the great and good men and women who have prayed and dreamed and hoped and worked for this moment — this moment, this opportunity, this culmination, is the last page in the history of human conflict. We have reached not a starting point, but a stopping point. We—” More applause interrupted the President. He was very slightly annoyed, having not planned for this interruption. Fowler smiled broadly, waving for silence.
“We have reached a stopping point. I have the honor to report to you that America has led the way on the road to justice and peace.” Applause. “It is fitting that this should be so…”
“A little thick, isn't it?” Cathy Ryan asked.
“A little.” Jack grunted in his chair and reached for his wine. “It's just how things go, babe. There are rules for this sort of thing just as there are for opera. You have to follow the formula. Besides, it is a major — hell, a colossal development. Peace is breaking out again.”
“When are you leaving?” Cathy asked.
“Soon,” Jack replied.
“Of course, there is a price we must pay for this, but history demands responsibility from those who forge it,” Fowler said on the TV. “It is our task to guarantee the peace. We must send American men and women to protect the State of Israel. We are sworn to defend that small and courageous country against all enemies.”
“What enemies are they?” Cathy asked.
“ Syria isn't happy with the treaty as yet. Neither is Iran. As far as Lebanon goes, well, there isn't any Lebanon in any real sense of the word. It's just a place on the map where people die. Libya and all those terrorist groups. There are still enemies to be concerned about.” Ryan finished off the glass and walked into the kitchen to refill it. It was a shame to waste good wine like this, Jack told himself. The way he was guzzling it, he might as well drink anything…
“There will be a monetary cost as well,” Fowler was saying, as Ryan came back.
“Taxes are going up again,” Cathy observed crossly.
“Well, what did you expect?” Fifty million of it is my fault, of course. A billion here, and a billion there…
“Will this really make a difference?” she asked.
“It should. We'll find out if all those religious leaders believe in what they say, or if they're just bullshit artists. What we've done is to hoist them on their own petards, babe… Make that 'principles,'” Jack said after a moment. “Either they work things out in accordance with their beliefs or they reveal themselves as charlatans.”
“And…?”
“I don't think they're charlatans. I think they'll be faithful to what they've always said. They have to be.”
“And soon you won't have any real work to do, will you?”
Jack caught the hopeful note in her voice. “I don't know about that.”
After the end of the President's speech came the commentary. Speaking in opposition was Rabbi Solomon Mendelev, an elderly New Yorker who was one of Israel 's most fervent — some would say rabid — supporters. Oddly, he'd never actually traveled to Israel. Jack didn't know why that was true and made a mental note to find out why tomorrow. Mendelev led a small but effective segment of the Israeli lobby. He'd been nearly alone in voicing approval — well, understanding — of the shootings on Temple Mount. The rabbi had a beard, and wore a black yarmulke over what looked like a well-rumpled suit.
“This is a betrayal of the State of Israel,” he said, after receiving the first question. Surprisingly, he spoke with calm reason. “In forcing Israel to return what was rightfully hers, the United States has betrayed the Jewish people's historic right to the land of their fathers, and also gravely compromised the physical security of the country. Israeli citizens will be forced from their homes at gunpoint, just as happened fifty years ago,” he concluded ominously.
“Now wait a minute!” another commentator responded heatedly.
“God, these people are passionate,” Jack noted.
“I lost family members in the Holocaust,” Mendelev said, his voice still reasonable. The whole point of the State of Israel is to give Jews a place where they can be safe."
“But the President is sending American troops—”
“We sent American troops to Vietnam,” Rabbi Mendelev pointed out. “And we made promises, and there was a treaty involved there also. Israel 's only possible security is within defensible borders behind her own troops. What America has done is to bully that country into accepting an agreement. Fowler cut off defense supplies to Israel as a means of 'sending a message.' Well, the message was sent and received: either give in or be cut off. That is what happened. I can prove it, and I will testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to prove it.”
“Uh-oh,” Jack observed quietly.
“Scott Adler, Deputy Secretary of State, personally delivered that message while John Ryan, the Deputy Director of the CIA, made his own pitch to Saudi Arabia. Ryan promised the Saudi king that America would bring Israel to heel. That's bad enough, but for Adler, a Jew, to do what he did…” Mendelev shook his head.
“This guy's got some good sources.”
“Is what he says true, Jack?” Cathy asked.
“Not exactly, but what we were doing over there was supposed to be secret. It wasn't supposed to be widely-known that I was out of the country.”
“I knew you were gone—”
“But not where to. It won't matter. He can make a little noise, but it won't matter.”
The demonstrations began the next day. They'd bet everything on this. It was the last desperate throw. The two leaders were Russian Jews who'd only recently been allowed to leave a country that manifestly had little love for them. On arrival in their only true home, they'd been allowed to settle on the West Bank, that part of Palestine that had been taken from Jordan by force of arms in the Six Day War of 1967. Their prefabricated apartments — tiny by American standards, but incomprehensibly luxurious by Russian ones — stood on one of the hundreds of rocky slopes that defined the region. It was new and strange to them, but it was home, and home is something people fight to defend. The son o
f Anatoliy — he'd renamed himself Nathan — was already a regular officer in the Israeli army. The same was true of David's daughter. Their arrival in Israel so short a time before had seemed to all of them like salvation itself — and now they were being told to leave their homes? Again? Their lives had borne enough recent shocks. This was one too many.
The whole block of apartments was similarly occupied by Russian immigrants, and it was easy for Anatoliy and David to form a local kollektiv and get things properly organized. They found themselves an orthodox rabbi — the only thing they didn't have in their small community — to provide religious guidance and began their march towards the Knesset behind a sea of flags and a holy Torah. Even in so small a country, this took time, but the march was of such a nature as to attract the inevitable media coverage. By the time the sweating and weary marchers arrived at their destination, all the world knew of their trek and its purpose.
The Israeli Knesset is not the most sedate of the world's parliamentary bodies. The body of men and women ranges from the ultra-right to the ultra-left, with precious little room for a moderate middle. Voices are often raised, fists are often shaken or pounded on whatever surface presents itself, all beneath the black-and-white photo of Theodor Herzl, an Austrian whose ideal of Zionism in the mid-19th century was the guiding vision for what he hoped would be a safe homeland for his abused and mistreated people. The passion of the parliamentarians is such as to make many an observer wonder how it is possible, in a country where nearly everyone is a member of the army reserves and consequently has an automatic weapon in his (or her) closet, that some Knesset members have failed to be blasted to quivering fragments at their seats in the course of a spirited debate. What Theodor Herzl would have thought of the goings-on is anyone's guess. It was Israel 's curse that the debates were too lively, the government too severely polarized both on political or religious grounds. Almost every religious sub-sect had its own special area of land, and consequently its own parliamentary representation. It was a formula calculated to make France 's often-fragmented assembly look well organized, and it had for a generation denied Israel a stable government with a coherent national policy.
The demonstrators, joined by many others, arrived an hour before debate was to begin on the question of the treaties. It was already possible — likely — that the government would fall, and the newly-arrived citizens sent representatives to every member of the Knesset they could locate. Members who agreed with them came outside and gave fiery speeches denouncing the treaties.
“I don't like this,” Liz Elliot observed, watching the TV in her office. The political furor in Israel was much stronger than she had expected, and Elliot had called Ryan in for an assessment of the situation.
“Well,” the DDCI agreed, “it is the one thing we couldn't control, isn't it?”
“You're a big help, Ryan.” On Elliot's desk was the polling data. Israel's most respected public-opinion firm had conducted a survey of five thousand people, and found the numbers were 38 percent in favor of the treaty, 41 percent opposed, and 21 percent undecided. The numbers roughly matched the political makeup of the Knesset, whose right-wing elements slightly outnumbered the left, and whose precarious center was always fragmented into small groupings, all of which waited for a good offer from one side or the other that would magnify their political importance.
“Scott Adler went over this weeks ago. We knew going in that the Israeli government was shaky. For Christ's sake, when in the last twenty years has it not been shaky?”
“But if the Prime Minister cannot deliver…”
Then it's back to Plan B. You wanted to put pressure on their government, didn't you? You'll get your wish." This was the one thing that hadn't been fully considered, Ryan thought, but the truth of the matter was that full consideration would not have helped. The Israeli government had been a model of anarchy in action for a generation. The treaty work had gone ahead on the assumption that, once transformed into a fait accompli, the treaty would have to be ratified by the Knesset. Ryan had not been asked for an opinion on that, though he still thought it a fair assessment.
The political officer at the embassy says that the balance of power may be the little party controlled by our friend Mendelev," Elliot noted, trying to be calm.
“Maybe so,” Jack allowed.
“It's absurd!” Elliot snarled. “That little old fart hasn't even been there—”
“Some sort of religious thing. I checked. He doesn't want to go back until the Messiah arrives.”
“Jesus!” the National Security Advisor exclaimed.
“Exactly. You got it.” Ryan laughed and got a nasty look. “Look, Liz, the man has his personal religious beliefs. We may think they're a little off, but the Constitution demands that we both tolerate and respect them. That's the way we do things in this country, remember?”
Elliot waved her fist at the TV set. “But this crazy rabbi is screwing things up! Isn't there anything we can do about it?”
“Like what?” Jack asked quietly. There was more to her demeanor than panic.
“I don't know — something… ” Elliot allowed her voice to trail off, leaving an opening for her visitor.
Ryan leaned forward and waited until he had her full attention. “The historical precedent you're looking for, Dr. Elliot, is, 'Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?' Now, if you're trying to tell me something, let's get it clear and in the open, shall we? Are you proposing that we interfere with the parliament of a friendly democratic country, or that we do something illegal within the borders of the United States of America?” A pause while her eyes focused a little more tightly. “Neither one of those things will happen, Dr. Elliot. We let them make up their own minds. If you even think of telling me to interfere with Israel 's democratic processes, the President gets my resignation just as fast as I can drive down here to deliver it. If you're wishing out loud for us to hurt that little old guy in New York, remember that such wishes fall under at least two conspiracy statutes. My duty as an ordinary citizen, much less an official of the government of my country, is to report suspected violations of the law to the appropriate law-enforcement agencies.” The look Ryan got after his pronouncement was venomous.
“Damn you! I never said—”
“You just fell into the most dangerous trap in government service, ma'am. You started to think that your wishes to make the world a better place supersede the principles under which our government is supposed to operate. I can't stop you from having such thoughts, but I can tell you that my agency will not be a party to it, not as long as I'm there.” It sounded too much like a lecture, but Ryan felt that she needed it. She was entertaining the most dangerous of thoughts.
“I never said that!”
Bullshit. “Fine, you never said or thought that. I was mistaken. You have my apology. Let the Israelis decide to ratify the treaties or not. They have a democratic government. It is their right to decide. We have the right to nudge them in the right direction, to tell them that our continued level of aid is contingent upon their agreeing to it, but not to interfere directly with their governmental processes. There are some lines you may not cross, even if 'you' happen to be the U.S. government.”
The National Security Advisor managed a smile. “Thank you for your views on the matter of proper government policy, Dr. Ryan. That will be all.”
“Thank you, Dr. Elliot. My assessment, by the way, is that we should let things be. The treaty will be approved, despite what you see here.”
“Why?” Elliot managed not to hiss.
“The treaties are good for Israel in any objective sense. The people will realize that as soon as they've had a chance to digest the information, and make their views known to their representatives. Israel is a democracy, and democracies generally do the smart thing. History, you see. Democracy has become popular in the world because it works. If we panic and take precipitous action, we'll only mess things up. If we let the process work as it's supposed to work, the right t
hing will probably happen.”
“Probably?”
“There are no certainties in life; there are only probabilities,” Ryan explained. Why didn't everyone understand that? he wondered to himself. “But interference has a higher probability of failure than doing nothing. Doing nothing at all is often the right thing. This is such a case. Let their system work. I think it will work. That is my opinion.”
“Thank you for your assessment,” she said, turning away.
“A pleasure, as always.”
Elliot waited until she heard the door close before turning to look. “You arrogant prick, I'll break you for that,” she promised.
Ryan climbed back into his car on West Executive Drive. You went too far, man, he told himself.
No, you didn't. She was starting to think that way, and you had to slam the door on it right there and then.
It was the most dangerous thought that a person in government could have. He'd seen it before. Some dreadful thing happened to people in Washington, D.C. They arrived in the city, usually full of ideals, and those fine thoughts evaporated so rapidly in what was in fact a muggy and humid environment. Some called it being captured by the system. Ryan thought of it as a kind of environmental pollution. The very atmosphere of Washington corroded the soul.
And what makes you immune, Jack?
Ryan considered that, unmindful of the look Clark gave him in the mirror as they drove towards the river. What had made him different to this point was the fact that he had never given in, not even once… or had he? There were things he might have done differently. There were some things that hadn't worked out quite as well as he might have wished.
You're not different at all. You just think you are.
As long as I can face the question and the answers, then I am safe.
Sure.
“So?”
“So, I can do many things,” Ghosn replied. “But not alone. I will need help.”
“And security?”
“That is an important question. I have to make a serious assessment of what the possibilities are. At that point I will know my precise requirements. I know I will need help in some areas, however.”
