Debt of Honor jr-6

by Tom Clancy

  "Hello?"

  "Barbara Linders?" a female voice asked.

  "Yes. Who's this?"

  "Libby Holtzman from the Post. I live a few blocks away from you. I'd like to know if I might come over and talk about a few things."

  "What things?"

  "Ed Kealty, and why they've decided not to prosecute this case."

  "They what?"

  "That's what we're hearing," the voice told her.

  "Wait a minute. They warned me about this," Linders said suspiciously, already giving part of the game away.

  "They always warn you about something, usually the wrong thing. Remember, I was the one who did the story last year about Congressman Grant and that nasty little thing he had going on in his district office? And I was also the one who nailed that bastard undersecretary in Interior. I keep a close eye on cases like this, Barbara," the voice said, sister-to-sister. It was true.

  Libby Holtzman had nearly bagged a Pulitzer for her reporting on political sex-abuse cases.

  "How do I know it's really you?"

  "You've seen me on TV, right? Ask me over and you'll see. I can be there in five minutes."

  "I'm going to call Mr. Murray."

  "That's fine. Go ahead and call him, but promise me one thing?"

  "What's that?"

  "If he tells you the same thing about why they're not doing anything, then we can talk." The voice paused. "In fact, how about I come over right now anyway? If Dan tells you the right thing, we can just have a cup of coffee and do some background stuff for later. Fair enough?"

  "Okay…I guess that's okay. I have to call Mr. Murray now." Barbara Linders hung up and dialed another number from memory.

  "Hi, this is Dan—"

  "Mr. Murray!" Barbara said urgently, her faith in the world so badly shaken already.

  "—and this is Liz," another voice said, obviously now on tape. "We can't come to the phone right now…" both voices said together—

  "Where are you when I need you?" Ms. Linders demanded of the recording machine, hanging up in a despairing fury before the humorous recording delivered her to the beep. Was it possible? Could it be true?

  This is Washington, her experience told her. Anything could be true.

  Barbara Linders looked around the room. She'd been in Washington for eleven years. What did she have to show for it? A one-bedroom apartment with prints on the wall. Nice furniture that she used alone. Memories that threatened her sanity. She was so alone, so damned alone with them, and she had to let them go, get them out, strike back at the man who had wrecked her life so thoroughly. And now that would be denied her, too? Was it possible?

  The most frightening thing of all was that Lisa had felt this way. She knew that from the letter she'd kept, a photocopy of which was still in the jewelry box on her bureau. She'd kept it both as a keepsake of her best friend and to remind herself not to go as dangerously far into despair as Lisa had. Reading that letter a few months ago had persuaded her to open up to her gynecologist, who had in turn referred her to Clarice Golden, starting the process that had led her-where? The door buzzed then, and Barbara went to answer it.

  "Hi! Recognize me?" The question was delivered with a warm and sympathetic smile. Libby Holtzman was a tall woman with thick ebony hair that framed a pale face and warm brown eyes.

  "Please come in," Barbara said, backing away from the door.

  "Did you call Dan?"

  "He wasn't home…or maybe he just left the machine on," Barbara thought. "You know him?"

  "Oh, yes. Dan's an acquaintance," Libby said, heading toward the couch.

  "Can I trust him? I mean, really trust him."

  "Honestly?" Holtzman paused. "Yes. If he were running the case all by himself, yes, you could. Dan's a good man. I mean that."

  "But he's not running the case by himself, is he?"

  Libby shook her head. "It's too big, too political. The other thing about Murray is, well, he's a very loyal man. He does what he's told. Can I sit down, Barbara?"

  "Please." Both sat on the couch.

  "You know what the press does? It's our job to keep an eye on things. I like Dan. I admire him. He really is a good cop, an honest cop, and I'll bet you that everything he's done with you, well, he's acted like your big tough brother, hasn't he?"

  "Every step of the way," Barbara confirmed. "He's been my best friend in all the world."

  "That wasn't a lie. He's one of the good guys. I know his wife, Liz, too. The problem is, not everyone is like Dan, and that's where we come in," Libby told her.

  "How do you mean?"

  "When somebody tells a guy like Dan what he has to do, mostly they do it. They do it because they have to, because that's what the rules are—and you know something? He hates it, almost as much as you do. My job, Barbara, is to help people like Dan, because I can get the bastards off their backs, too."

  "I can't…I mean, I just can't—"

  Libby reached out and stopped her with a gentle touch on the hand.

  "I'm not going to ask you to give me anything on the record, Barbara. That could mess up the criminal case, and you know I want this one to be handled through the system just as much as you do. But can you talk to me off the record?"

  "Yes!…I think so."

  "Do you mind if I record this?" The reporter pulled a small recorder from her purse.

  "Who will hear it?"

  "The only other person will be my AME-assistant managing editor. We do that to make sure that we have good sources, except for that, it's like talking to your lawyer or doctor or minister. Those are the rules, and we never break them."

  Intellectually speaking, Barbara knew that, but here and now in her apartment, the ethical rules of journalism seemed a thin reed. Libby Holtzman could see it in her eyes.

  "If you want, I can just leave, or we can talk without the recorder, but"—a disarming smile—"I hate taking shorthand. You make mistakes that way. If you want to think about it a little while, that's okay, too. You've had enough pressure. I know that. I know what this can be like."

  "That's what Dan says, but he doesn't! He doesn't really."

  Libby Holtzman looked straight into her eyes. She wondered if Murray had seen the same pain and felt it as deeply as she did now. Probably so, she thought, quite honestly, probably in a slightly different way, because he was a man, but he was a good cop, and he was probably just as mad about the way the case was going as she now felt.

  "Barbara, if you just want to talk about…things, that's okay, too. Sometimes we just need a friend to talk to. I don't have to be a reporter all the time."

  "Do you know about Lisa?"

  "Her death was never really explained, was it?"

  "We were best friends, we shared everything…and then when he—"

  "Are you sure Kealty was involved with that?"

  "I'm the one who found the letter, Libby."

  "What can you tell me about that?" Holtzman asked, unable to restrain her journalistic focus now.

  "I can do better than tell you." Linders rose and disappeared for a moment. She returned with the photocopies and handed them over.

  It only took two minutes to read the letter once and then once again. Date, place, method. A message from beyond the grave, Libby thought. What was more dangerous than ink on paper?

  "For what's on here, and what you know, he could go to prison, Barbara."

  "That's what Dan says. He smiles when he says it. He wants it to happen."

  "Do you?" Holtzman asked.

  "Yes!"

  "Then let me help."

  17—Strike One

  It's called the miracle of modern communications only because nothing modern is supposed to be a curse. In fact, those on the receiving end of such information were often appalled by what they got.

  It had been a smooth flight, even by the standards of Air Force One, on which many passengers—mainly the younger and more foolish White House staffers—often refused to buckle their seat belts as a show of…someth
ing, Ryan thought. The Air Force flight crew was as good as any, he knew, but it hadn't prevented one incident on final at Andrews, where a thunderbolt had blown the nosecone off the aircraft carrying the Secretary of Defense and his wife, rather to everyone's discomfiture. And so he always kept his belt on, albeit loosely, just as the flight crew did.

  "Dr. Ryan?" The whisper was accompanied by a shake of his shoulders.

  "What is it, Sarge?" There was no sense in grumbling at an innocent NCO.

  "Mr. van Damm needs you upstairs, sir."

  Jack nodded and moved his seat to the upright position. The sergeant handed him a coffee mug on the way. A clock told him it was nine in the morning, but it didn't say where it was nine in the morning, and Ryan could not at the moment remember what zone the clock was set on. It was all theoretical anyway. How many time zones could dance inside an airliner?

  The upper deck of the VC-25B contrasted sharply with the lower deck. Instead of plush appointments, the compartment here was lined with military-style electronics gear whose individual boxes had chromed bars for easy removal and replacement. A sizable team of communications specialists was always at work, tapped into every source of information one might imagine: digital radio, TV, and fax, every single channel encrypted. Arnie van Damm stood in the middle of the area, and handed something over. It turned out to be a facsimile copy of the Washington Post's late edition, about to hit the street, four thousand miles and six hours away.

  VICE PRESIDENT IMPLICATED IN SUICIDE, the four-column headline announced. FIVE WOMEN CHARGE EDWARD KEALTY WITH SEXUAL ASSAULT.

  "You woke me up for this?" Ryan asked. It was nowhere near his area of responsibility, was it?

  "You're named in the story," Arnie told him.

  "What?" Jack scanned the piece. " 'National Security Advisor Ryan is one of those briefed in on the affair.' Okay, I guess that's true, isn't it?"

  "Keep going."

  " 'The White House told the FBI four weeks ago not to present the case to the Judiciary Committee.' That's not true."

  "This one's a beautiful combination of what is and what isn't." The Chief of Staff was in an even fouler mood than Ryan.

  "Who leaked?"

  "I don't know, but Libby Holtzman ran this piece, and her husband is sleeping aft. He likes you. Get him and talk to him."

  "Wait a minute, this is something that a little time and truth will settle out, Arnie. The President hasn't done anything wrong that I know about."

  "His political enemies can call the delay obstruction of justice."

  "Come on." Jack shook his head in disbelief. "No way that would stand up to examination."

  "It doesn't have to, damn it. We're talking politics, remember, not facts, and we have elections coming up. Talk to Bob Holtzman. Now," van Damm ordered. He didn't do it often with Ryan, but he did have the authority.

  "Tell the Boss yet?" Jack asked, folding up his copy.

  "We'll let him sleep for a while. Send Tish up on the way, will you?"

  "Okay." Ryan headed back down and shook Tish Brown awake, pointed upstairs, then headed aft to a flight attendant—crew member, he corrected himself. "Get Bob Holtzman up here, will you?" Through an open port he could see that it was light outside. Maybe it was nine o'clock where they were going? Yeah, they were scheduled to arrive in Moscow at two in the afternoon, local time. The head cook was sitting in his galley, reading a copy of Time. Ryan went in and got his own coffee refill.

  "Can't sleep, Dr. Ryan?"

  "Not anymore. Duty calls."

  "I have rolls baking, if you want."

  "Great idea."

  "What is it?" Bob Holtzman asked, sticking his head in. Like every man aboard at the moment, he needed a shave. Jack merely handed over the story.

  "What gives?'

  Holtzman was a fast reader. "Jesus, is this true?"

  "How long has Libby been on this one?"

  "It's news to me—oh, shit, sorry, Jack."

  Ryan nodded with more smile than he felt. "Yeah, I just woke up, too."

  "Is it true?"

  "This is on background?"

  "Agreed."

  "The FBI's been running the case for some time now. The dates in Libby's piece are close, and I'd have to check my office logs for the exact ones. I got briefed in right around the time the trade thing blew up because of Kealty's security clearance—what I can tell him, what I can't, you know how that goes, right?"

  "Yes, I understand. So what's the status of the case?"

  "The chairman and ranking member of Judiciary have been briefed in. So have Al Trent and Sam Fellows on Intelligence. Nobody's putting a stopper on this one, Bob. To the best of my knowledge, the President's played a straight game the whole way. Kealty's going down, and after the impeachment proceedings, if it goes that far—"

  "It has to go that far," Holtzman pointed out.

  "I doubt it." Ryan shook his head. "If he gets a good lawyer, they'll cut some sort of deal. They have to, like it was with Agnew. If he goes through impeachment and then a Senate trial, God help him in front of a jury."

  "Makes sense," Holtzman conceded. "You're telling me the meat of the story's wrong."

  "Correct. If there's any obstruction going on, I don't know about it, and I have been briefed in on this."

  "Have you spoken with Kealty?"

  "No, nothing substantive. On 'business' stuff I brief his national-security guy and he briefs his boss. I wouldn't be good at that, would I? Two daughters."

  "So you know about the facts of the case?"

  "Not the specifics, no. I don't need to know. I do know Murray pretty well. If Dan says the case is solid, well, then I figure it is." Ryan finished off the rest of his coffee and reached for a fresh roll. "The President is not obstructing this one. It's been delayed so it wouldn't conflict with other things. That's all."

  "You're not supposed to do that either, you know," Holtzman pointed out, getting one for himself.

  "Goddamn it, Bob! Prosecutors schedule cases, too, don't they? All this is, is scheduling." Holtzman read Jack's face and nodded.

  "I'll pass that one along."

  It was already too late for proper damage-control. Most of the political players in Washington are early risers. They have their coffee, read their papers in great detail, check their fax machines for additional material, and often take early phone calls, or in a recent development, log onto computer services to check electronic mail, all in an effort to leave their homes with a good feel for the shape the new day will take. In the case of many members, facsimile copies of the late-edition story by Liz Holtzman had brief cover pages indicating that this might be a matter of great personal interest. Different code phrases were used, depending on which PR firm had originated the transmission, but all were the same. The Members in question had been compelled to mute their opposition to TRA. This opportunity, on the other hand, was seen as something of a payback for the earlier transgression. In few cases would the opportunity be missed.

  The comments were mainly delivered off the record. "This looks like a very serious matter" was the phrase most often used. "It's unfortunate that the President saw fit to interfere in a criminal matter" was another favorite. Early calls to Director William Shaw of the FBI were met with "no comment" comments, usually with the additional clarification that the policy of the FBI was to decline comment on any possible criminal case, lest the subsequent legal proceedings be tainted and the rights of the accused compromised. The clarification was rarely if ever conveyed to the public; in that way "no comment" acquired its own very special spin.

  The accused in this case awoke in his house on the grounds of the Naval Observatory on Massachusetts Avenue, North West, to find his senior aides downstairs and waiting for him.

  "Oh, shit," Ed Kealty observed. It was all he had to say. There was little point in denying the story. His people knew him too well for that. He was a man of an amorous nature, they all rationalized, a trait not uncommon in public life, though he was fairly discreet ab
out it.

  "Lisa Beringer," the Vice President breathed, reading. "Can't they let the poor girl rest in peace?" He remembered the shock of her death, the way she'd died, slipping off her seat belt and driving into a bridge abutment at ninety miles per hour, how the medical examiner had related the inefficiency of the method. She'd taken several minutes to die, still alive and whimpering when the paramedics had arrived. Such a sweet, nice kid. She just hadn't understood how things were. She'd wanted too much back from him. Maybe she'd thought that it was different with her. Well, Kealty thought, everybody thought they were different.

  "He's hanging you out to dry," Kealty's senior aide observed. The important part of this, after all, was the political vulnerability of their principal.

  "Sure as hell." That son of a bitch, the Vice President thought. After all the things I've done. "Okay—ideas?"

  "Well, of course we deny everything, indignantly at that," his chief of staff began, handing over a sheet of paper. "I have a press release for starters, then we will have a press conference before noon." He'd already called half a dozen former and current female staffers who would stand beside their boss. In every case it was a woman whose bed he had graced with his presence, and who remembered the time with a smile. Great men had flaws, too. In Edward Kealty's case, the flaws were more than balanced by his commitment to the things that mattered.

  Kealty read quickly down the page. The only defense against a completely false accusation is the truth…there is no basis in fact whatever to these accusations…my public record is well known, as is my support for women's and minority rights…I request ("demand" was the wrong word to use, his personal counsel thought) an immediate airing of the allegations and the opportunity to defend myself vigorously…clearly no coincidence with the upcoming election year…regret that such a groundless accusation will affect our great President, Roger Durling—

  "Get that son of a bitch on the phone right now!"