The hell it doesn't! Both men realized the sensitivity of the conversation that was about to take place, and it was Cortez who surprised his guest by graciously suggesting that they speak outside, despite the weather. Both men dropped off their suitcoats and went through the French doors to the garden. About the only good news was the impressive collection of blue bug-lights which crackled and sparkled as they attracted and electrocuted thousands of insects. The noise would make hash out of most recording attempts, and who would have expected either of them to eschew the house's air conditioning?
"Thank you for responding to my message," Cortez said pleasantly. It was not a time for bluster or posturing. It was time for business, and he'd have to appear appropriately humble before this man. It didn't bother him. Dealing with people of his rank required it, and it was something he'd have to get used to, Felix expected. They needed deference. It made surrendering all the easier.
"What do you want to talk about?" Admiral Cutter asked.
"Your operations against the Cartel, of course." Cortez waved toward a cane chair. He disappeared for a moment, then returned with the tray of drinks and glasses. For tonight, Perrier was the drink of choice. Both men left the alcohol untouched. For Felix, that was the first good sign.
"What operations are you talking about?"
"You should know that I had nothing personally to do with the death of Mr. Jacobs. It was an act of madness."
"Why should I believe that?"
"I was in America at the time. Didn't they tell you?" Cortez filled in some details. "An information source like Mrs. Wolfe," he concluded, "is worth far more than stupid, emotional revenge. It is more foolish still to challenge a powerful nation in so obvious a way. Your response was quite well done. In fact, the operations you are running are most impressive. I didn't even suspect your airport-surveillance operations until after they were terminated, and the way you simulated the car bomb--a work of art, if I may say so. Can you tell me what the strategic objective of your operation is?"
"Come now, Colonel."
"Admiral, I have the power to expose the totality of your activities to the press," Felix said almost sadly. "Either you tell me or you tell the members of your own Congress. You will find me far more accommodating. We are, after all, men of the same profession."
Cutter thought for a moment, and told him. He was greatly irritated to see his interlocutor start laughing.
"Brilliant!" Cortez said when he was able to. "One day I would wish to meet this man, the one who proposed this idea. Truly he is a professional!"
Cutter nodded as though accepting the compliment. For a moment Felix wondered if that might be true ... it was easy enough to find out.
"You must forgive me, Admiral Cutter. You think I am making light of your operation. I say to you honestly that I am not. You have, in fact, accomplished your goal."
"We know. We know that somebody tried to kill you and Escobedo."
"Yes," Felix replied. "Of course. I would also like to know how you are developing such fine intelligence on us, but I know that you will not tell me."
Cutter played the card for all he thought it was worth. "We have more assets than you think, Colonel." It wasn't worth that much.
"I am sure," Cortez allowed. "I think we have an area of agreement."
"What might that be?"
"You wish to initiate a war within the Cartel. So do I."
Cutter betrayed himself by the way he stopped breathing. "Oh? How so?"
Already Cortez knew that he had won. And this fool was advising the American President?
"Why, I will become a de facto part of your operation and restructure the Cartel. That means eliminating some of the more offensive members, of course."
Cutter wasn't a total fool, but made the further mistake of stating the obvious as a question: "With yourself as the new head?"
"Do you know what sort of people these 'drug lords' are? Vicious peasants. Barbarians without education, drunk with power, yet they complain like spoiled children that they are not respected. " Cortez smiled up at the stars. "They are not people to be taken seriously by men such as ourselves. Can we agree that the world will be better when they have left it?"
"The same thought has occurred to me, as you have already pointed out."
"Then we are in agreement."
"Agreement on what?"
"Your 'car bombs' have already eliminated five of the chieftains. I will further reduce the number. Those eliminated will include all who approved the murder of your ambassador and the others, of course. Such actions cannot go unpunished or the world is plunged into chaos. Also, to show good faith, I will unilaterally reduce cocaine shipments to your country by half. The drug trade is disordered and overly violent," the former DGI colonel said judiciously. "It needs restructuring."
"We want it stopped!" Even as he said it, Cutter knew that it was a foolish thing to say.
Cortez sipped at his Perrier and continued to speak reasonably. "It will never be stopped. So long as your citizens wish to destroy their brains, someone will make this possible. The question, then, is how do we make the process more orderly? Your education efforts will eventually reduce the demand for drugs to tolerable levels. Until then, I can regularize the trade to minimize the dislocation of your society. I will reduce exports. I can even give you some major arrests so that your police can take credit for the reductions. This is an election year, is it not?"
Cutter's breathing took another hiatus. They were playing high-stakes poker, and Cortez had just announced that the deck was marked.
"Go on," was all he managed to say.
"Was this not the objective of your operations in Colombia? To sting the Cartel and reduce drug trafficking? I offer you success, the sort of success to which your President can point. Reduction in exports, some dramatic seizures and arrests, an intramural war within the Cartel for which you will not be blamed, yet for which you will also take credit. I give you victory," Cortez said.
"In return for ... ?"
"I, too, must have a small victory to establish my position with the chieftains, yes? You will withdraw support for the Green Berets you have climbing those horrible mountains. You know--the men you are supporting with that large black helicopter in Hangar Three at Howard Air Force Base. You see, those chieftains whom I wish to displace have large groups of retainers, and the best way for me to reduce their numbers is to have your men kill them for me. At the same time, unfortunately, in order to gain standing with my superiors"--this word was delivered with Richter-scale irony--"my bloody and costly operation must ultimately be successful. It is a regrettable necessity, but from your point of view it also eliminates a potential security problem, does it not?"
My God. Cutter looked away from Cortez, out past the bug lights into the jungle.
"What do you suppose they're talking about?"
"Beats the hell out of me," Bright replied. He was on his last roll of film. Even with the high-speed setting, to get a good shot he had to bring the shutter speed way down, and that meant holding the camera as still as a hunting rifle on a distant prong-horn.
What was it the President said? Close the operation out, and I don't care how....
But I can't do that.
"Sorry," Cutter said. "Impossible."
Cortez made a helpless, shrugging gesture with both hands. "In that case we will inform the world that your government has invaded Colombia and has committed murder on a particularly epic scale. You are aware, of course, of what will probably happen to you, your President, and many senior members of your government. It took so long for you to get over all those other scandals. It must be very troubling to serve a government that has so many problems with its own laws and then uses them against its own servants."
"You can't blackmail the United States government."
"Why not, Admiral? Our mutual profession carries risks, does it not? You nearly killed me with your first 'car bomb,' and yet I have taken no personal offense. Your risk is expos
ure. Untiveros's family was there, you know, his wife and two little ones, eleven domestic servants, I believe. All dead from your bomb. I will not count those who were carrying guns, of course. A soldier must take a soldier's chance. As did I. As must you, Admiral, except that yours is not a soldier's chance. Your chance will be before your courts and television reporters, and congressional committees." What was the old soldier's code? Cortez asked himself. Death before dishonor. He knew that his guest had no stomach for either.
"I need time to--"
"Think? Excuse me, Admiral, but I must be back in four hours, which means I must leave here in fifteen minutes. My superiors do not know that I am gone. I have no time. Neither do you. I offer you the victory for which you and your President hoped. I require something in return. If we cannot agree, then the consequences will be unpleasant for both of us. It is that simple. Yes or no, Admiral?"
"What do you suppose they just shook hands about?"
"Cutter doesn't look real happy about it. Call the car! Looks like they're buggin' out."
"Who the hell was he meeting with, anyway? I don't recognize him. If he's a player, he's not a local one."
"I don't know." The car was late getting back, but the backup followed Cutter right back to his hotel. By the time Bright got back to the airfield, he learned that the subject was planning a good night's sleep for himself. The VC-20A was scheduled for a noon departure right back to Andrews. Bright planned to beat it there by taking an early commercial flight to Miami and connecting into Washington National. He'd arrive half dead from fatigue, but he'd get there.
Ryan took the call for the Director--Judge Moore was finally on his way back, but was still three hours out of Dulles. Jack's driver was ready as the executive elevator opened onto the garage, and they immediately left for Bethesda. They got there too late. Jack opened the door to see the bed covered with a sheet. The doctors had already left.
"I was there at the end. He went out easy," one of the CIA people told him. Jack didn't recognize him, though he gave the impression that he'd been waiting for Jack to appear. "You're Dr. Ryan, right?"
"Yes," Jack said quietly.
"About an hour before he faded out, he said something about--to remember what you two talked about. I don't know what he meant, sir."
"I don't know you."
"John Clark." The man came over to shake Ryan's hand. "I'm Operations, but Admiral Greer recruited me, too, long time ago." Clark let out a breath. "Like losing a father. Twice."
"Yeah," Ryan said huskily. He was too tired, too wrung out to hide his emotions.
"Come on, I'll buy you a cup of coffee and tell you a few stories about the old guy." Clark was sad, but he was a man accustomed to death. Clearly Ryan was not, which was his good luck.
The cafeteria was closed, and they got coffee from a waiting-room pot. It was reheated and full of acid, but Ryan didn't want to go home just yet, and was late remembering that he'd driven his own car in. He'd have to drive himself home tonight. He was too tired for that. He decided to call home and tell Cathy that he'd be staying over in town. CIA had an arrangement with one of the local Marriotts. Clark offered to drive him down, and Jack dismissed his driver. By this time both men decided that a drink wasn't a bad idea.
Larson was gone from the room. He'd left a note saying that Maria would be coming in later that night, and he was going to pick her up. Clark had a small bottle of bourbon, and this Marriott had real glasses. He mixed two and handed one over to Jack Ryan.
"James Greer, the last of the good guys," Clark said as he raised his glass.
Jack took a sip. Clark had mixed it a little strong, and he nearly coughed.
"If he recruited you, how come--"
"Operations?" Clark smiled. "Well, sir, I never went to college, but Greer spotted me through some of his Navy contacts. It's a long story, and parts of it I'm not supposed to tell, but our paths have crossed three times."
"Oh?"
"When the French went in to bag those Action Directe folks you found on the satellite photos, I was the liaison officer in Chad. The second time they went in, after the ULA people who took that dislike to you, I was on the chopper. And I'm the fool who went on the beach to bring Mrs. Gerasimov and her daughter out. And that, sir, was all your fault. I do the crazy stuff," Clark explained. "All the field work that the espionage boys wet their pants over. Of course, maybe they're just smarter than I am."
"I didn't know."
"You weren't supposed to know. Sorry we missed on bagging those ULA pukes. I've always wanted to apologize to you for that. The French were really good about it. They were so happy with us for fingering Action Directe that they wanted to give us the ULA heads on plaques. But there was this damned Libyan unit out on maneuvers, and the chopper just stumbled on them--that's a problem when you go zooming in low--and it turned out that the camp was probably empty anyway. Everybody was real sorry it didn't work out as planned. Might have saved you a little grief. We tried, Dr. Ryan. We surely tried."
"Jack." Ryan held out his glass for a refill.
"Fine. Call me John." Clark topped both drinks off. "The Admiral said I could tell you all that. He also said that you tumbled to what was happening down south. I was down there," Clark said. "What do you want to know?"
"You sure you can tell me that?"
"The Admiral said so. He's--excuse me, he was a deputy director, and I figure that means I can do what he told me to do. This bureaucratic stuff is a little confusing to a humble line-animal, but I figure you can never go far wrong by telling the truth. Besides, Ritter told me that everything we did was legal, that he had all the permission he needed for this hunting expedition. That permission had to come from one place. Somebody decided that this drug stuff was a 'clear and present danger'-- that's a quote--to the security of the United States. Only one man has the power to say that for-real, and if he does, he has the authority to do something about it. Maybe I never went to college, but I do read a lot. Where do you want me to start?"
"At the beginning," Jack replied. He listened for over an hour.
"You're going back?" Ryan asked when he was finished.
"I think a chance at bagging Cortez is worth it, and I might be able to help with the extraction of those kids up in the mountains. I don't really like the idea, but it is what I do for a living. I don't suppose your wife likes all the things she has to do as a doc."
"One thing I gotta ask. How did you feel about guiding those bombs in?"
"How did you feel about shooting people, back when you did it?"
Jack nodded. "Sorry--I had that coming."
"I joined up as a Navy SEAL. Lot of time in Southeast Asia. I got orders to go and kill people, and I went and killed 'em. That wasn't a declared war either, was it? You don't go around braggin' about it, but it's the job. Since I joined the Agency I haven't done very much of that--there have been times when I wished I could have done more of it, 'cause it might have saved a few lives in the long run. I had the head of Abu Nidal in my gunsights, but I never got permission to take the fucker out. Same story with two other people just as bad. It would have been deniable, clean, everything you want, but the lace-panty section at Langley couldn't make up their minds. They told me to see if it was possible, and it's just as dangerous to do that as it is to pull the trigger, but I never got the green light to complete the mission. From where I sit, it's a good mission. Those bastards are the enemies of our country, they kill our citizens--taken out a couple Agency people, too, and not real pretty how they did it--but we don't do anything about it. Tell me that makes sense. But I follow orders like I'm supposed to. Never violated one since I joined up."
"How do you feel about talking to the FBI?"
"You gotta be kidding. Even if I felt like it, which I don't, my main concern is those kids up in the hills. You hold me up on that, Jack, and some of them might get killed. Ritter called me earlier this evening and asked if I was willing to go back. I leave eight-forty tomorrow morning for Panama, and I sta
ge from there back into Colombia."
"You know how to get in touch with me?"
"That might be a good idea," Clark agreed.
The rest had done everyone good. Aches had eased, and all hoped that the remaining stiffness would be worked out by the first few hours of movement. Captain Ramirez assembled his men and explained the new situation to them. He'd called in via his satellite link and requested extraction. The announcement was met with general approval. Unfortunately, he went on, the request had to be booted upstairs--with a favorable endorsement, VARIABLE had told him--and in any case the helicopter was down for an engine change. They'd be in-country at least one more night, possibly two. Until then, their mission was to evade contact and head for a suitable extraction point. These were already identified, and Ramirez had indicated the one he was heading for. It was fifteen kilometers away to the south. So the job for tonight was to skirt past the group that had been hunting for them. That would be tricky, but once past them it should be clear sailing through an area already swept. They'd try to cover eight or nine klicks tonight and the rest the following night. In any case the mission was over and they were pulling out. The recent arrivals from Team BANNER would form a third fire-team, augmenting KNIFE'S already formidable firepower. Everyone still had at least two-thirds of his original ammo load-out. Food was running short, but they had enough for two days if nobody minded a few stomach rumbles. Ramirez ended his briefing on a confident note. It hadn't been cheap, and it hadn't been easy, but they had accomplished their mission and put a real hurtin' on the druggies. Now everybody had to keep it together for the trip out. The squad members exchanged nods and prepared to leave.
Chavez led off twenty minutes later. The idea was to keep as high on the mountain as they could. The opposition had shown a tendency to camp out lower down, and this way they stood the best chance of keeping clear. As always he was to avoid anything that looked like habitation. That meant giving a wide berth to the coffee plantations and associated villages, but that was what they had been doing anyway. They also had to move as fast as caution allowed, which meant that caution was downgraded. It was something often done in exercises, always with confidence. Ding's confidence in that sort of thing had also been downgraded by his experience in the field. The good news, as far as he was concerned, was that Ramirez was acting like an officer again. Probably he'd just been tired, too.
Clear and Present Danger (1989) Page 67
