by Tom Clancy
“Nothing like a low profile,” Jack muttered to Adler.
“Don’t sweat it. Every time I’ve come here it’s been the same way. First time?”
“Yep. First time in Rome. I wonder how I’ve ever missed coming here—always wanted to, the history and all.”
“A lot of that,” Adler agreed. “Think we might make a little more?”
Ryan turned to look at his colleague. Making history was a new thought to him. Not to mention a dangerous one. “That’s not my job, Scott.”
“If this does work, you know what’ll happen.”
“Frankly, I never bothered thinking about that.”
“You ought to. No good deed ever goes unpunished.”
“You mean Secretary Talbot ... ?”
“No, not him. Definitely not my boss.”
Ryan looked forward to see a truck scuttle out of the way of the motorcade. The Italian police officer riding on the extreme right of the motorcycle escort hadn’t flinched a millimeter.
“I’m not in this for credit. I just had an idea, is all. Now I’m just the advance man.”
Adler shook his head slightly and kept his peace. Jesus, how did you ever last this long in government service?
The striped jump suits of the Swiss Guards had been designed by Michelangelo. Like the red tunics of the British Guardsmen, they were anachronisms from a bygone era when it had made sense for soldiers to wear brightly colored uniforms, and also, like the Guardsmen uniforms, they were kept on more for their attractiveness to tourists than for any practical reason. The men and their weapons look so quaint. The Vatican guards carried halberds, evil-looking long-handled axes made originally for infantrymen to unhorse armored knights—as often as not by crippling the horse the enemy might be riding; horses didn’t fight back very well, and war is ever a practical business. Once off his mount, an armored knight was dispatched with little more effort than that required to break up a lobster—and about as much remorse. People thought medieval weapons romantic somehow, Ryan told himself, but there was nothing romantic about what they were designed to do. A modern rifle might punch holes in some other fellow’s anatomy. These were made to dismember. Both methods would kill, of course, but at least rifles made for neater burial.
The Swiss Guards had rifles, too, Swiss rifles made by SIG. Not all of them wore Renaissance costumes, and since the attempt on John Paul II, many of the guards had received additional training, quietly and unobtrusively, of course, since such training did not exactly fit the image of the Vatican. Ryan wondered what Vatican policy was on the use of deadly force, whether the chief of the guards chafed at the rules imposed from on high by people who certainly did not appreciate the nature of the threat and the need for decisive protective action. But they’d do their best within their constraints, grumbling among themselves and voicing their opinions when the time seemed right, just like everyone else in that business.
A bishop met them, an Irishman named Shamus O‘Toole, whose thick red hair clashed horribly with his clothing. Ryan was first out of the car, and his first thought was a question: was he supposed to kiss O’Toole’s ring or not? He didn’t know. He hadn’t met a real bishop since his confirmation—and it had been a long time since sixth grade in Baltimore. O’Toole deftly solved that problem by grasping Ryan’s hand in a bearish grip.
“So many Irishmen in the world!” he said with a wide grin.
“Somebody has to keep things straight, Excellency.”
“Indeed, indeed!” O’Toole greeted Adler next. Scott was Jewish and had no intentions of kissing anyone’s ring. “Would you come with me, gentlemen?”
Bishop O‘Toole let them into a building whose history might have justified three scholarly volumes, plus a picture book for its art and architecture. Jack barely noticed the two metal detectors they passed through on the third floor. Leonardo da Vinci might have done the job, so skillfully were they concealed in door frames. Just like the White House. The Swiss Guards didn’t all wear uniforms. Some of the people prowling the halls in soft clothes were too young and too fit to be bureaucrats, but for all that the overall impression was a cross between visiting an old art museum and a cloister. The clerics wore cassocks, and the nuns—they were here in profusion also—were not wearing the semicivilian attire adopted by their American counterparts. Ryan and Adler were parked briefly in a waiting room, more to appreciate the surroundings than to inconvenience them, Jack was sure. A Titian madonna adorned the opposite wall, and Ryan admired it while Bishop O’Toole announced the visitors.
“God, I wonder if he ever did a small painting?” Ryan muttered. Adler chuckled.
“He did know how to capture a face and a look and a moment, didn’t he? Ready?”
“Yeah,” Ryan said. He felt oddly confident.
“Gentlemen!” O’Toole said from the open door. “Will you come this way, please?” They walked through yet another anteroom. This one had two secretarial desks, both unoccupied, and another set of doors that looked fourteen feet tall.
The office of Giovanni Cardinal D’Antonio would have been used in America for balls or formal occasions of state. The ceiling was frescoed, the walls covered with blue silk, and the floor’s ancient hardwood accented with rugs large enough for an average living room. The furniture was probably the most recent in manufacture, and that looked to be at least two hundred years old, brocaded fabric taut over the cushions and gold leaf on the curved wooden legs. A silver coffee service told Ryan where to sit.
The Cardinal came toward them from his desk, smiling in the way that a king might have done a few centuries earlier to greet a favored minister. D‘Antonio was a man of short stature, and clearly one who enjoyed good food. He must have been a good forty pounds overweight. The room air reported that he was a man who smoked, something he ought to have stopped, since he was rapidly approaching seventy years of age. The old, pudgy face had an earthy dignity to it. The son of a Sicilian fisherman, D’Antonio had mischievous brown eyes to suggest a roughness of character that fifty years of service to the Church had not wholly erased. Ryan knew his background and could easily see him pulling in nets at his father’s side, back a very long time ago. The earthiness was also a useful disguise for a diplomat, and that’s what D’Antonio was by profession, whatever his vocation might have been. A linguist like many Vatican officials, he was a man who had spent thirty years practicing his trade, and the lack of military power that had crippled his efforts at making the world change had merely taught him craftiness. In intelligence parlance he was an agent of influence, welcome in many settings, always ready to listen or offer advice. Of course he greeted Adler first.
“So good to see you again, Scott.”
“Eminence, a pleasure as always.” Adler took the offered hand and smiled his diplomat’s smile.
“And you are Dr. Ryan. We have heard so many things about you.”
“Thank you, Your Eminence.”
“Please, please.” D’Antonio waved both men to a sofa so beautiful that Ryan flinched at resting his weight on it. “Coffee?”
“Yes, thank you,” Adler said for both of them. Bishop O’Toole did the pouring, then sat down to take notes. “So good of you to allow us in at such short notice.”
“Nonsense.” Ryan watched in no small amazement as the Cardinal reached inside his cassock and pulled out a cigar holder. A tool that looked like silver but was probably stainless steel performed the appropriate surgery on the largish brown tube, then D’Antonio lit it with a gold lighter. There wasn’t even an apology about the sins of the flesh. It was as though the Cardinal had quietly flipped off the “dignity” switch to put his guests at ease. More likely, Ryan thought, he merely worked better with a cigar in his hand. Bismarck had felt the same way.
“You are familiar with the rough outlines of our concept,” Adler opened.
“Sì. I must say that I find it very interesting. You know of course that the Holy Father proposed something along similar lines some time ago.”
Ryan looked up at that. He hadn’t.
“When that initiative first came out, I did a paper on its merits,” Adler said. “The weak point was the inability to address security considerations, but in the aftermath of the Iraq situation, we have the opening. Also, you realize, of course, that our concept does not exactly—”
“Your concept is acceptable to us,” D’Antonio said with a regal wave of his cigar. “How could it be otherwise?”
“That, Eminence, is precisely what we wanted to hear.” Adler picked up his coffee. “You have no reservations?”
“You will find us highly flexible so long as there is genuine goodwill among the active parties. If there is total equality among the participants, we can agree unconditionally to your proposal.” The old eyes sparkled. “But can you guarantee equality of treatment?”
“I believe we can,” Adler said seriously.
“I think it should be possible, else we are all charlatans. What of the Soviets?”
“They will not interfere. In fact, we are hoping for open support. In any case, what with the distractions they already have—”
“Indeed. They will benefit from the diminution of the discord in the region, the stability on various markets, and general international goodwill.”
Amazing, Ryan thought. Amazing how matter-of-factly people have absorbed the changes in the world. As though they had been expected. They had not. Not by anyone. If anyone had suggested their possibility ten years earlier, he would have been institutionalized.
“Quite so.” The Deputy Secretary of State set down his cup. “Now, on the question of the announcement ...”
Another wave of the cigar. “Of course you will want the Holy Father to make it.”
“How very perceptive,” Adler observed.
“I am not yet completely senile,” the Cardinal replied. “And press leaks?”
“We would prefer none.”
“That is easily accomplished in this city, but in yours? Who knows of this initiative?”
“Very few,” Ryan said, opening his mouth for the first time since sitting down. “So far, so good.”
“But on your next stop ... ?” D’Antonio had not been informed of their next stop, but it was the obvious one.
“That might be a problem,” Ryan said cautiously. “We’ll see.”
“The Holy Father and I will both be praying for your success.”
“Perhaps this time your prayers will be answered,” Adler said.
Fifty minutes later the VC-20B lifted off again. It soared upward across the Italian coast, then turned southwest to re-cross Italy on the way to its next destination.
“Jesus, that was fast,” Jack observed when the seat belt light went off. He kept his buckled, of course. Adler lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the window on his side of the cabin.
“Jack, this is one of those situations where you do it fast or it doesn’t get done.” He turned and smiled. “They’re rare, but they happen.”
The cabin attendant—this one was a male—came aft and handed both men copies of a printout that had just arrived on the aircraft facsimile machine.
“What?” Ryan observed crossly. “What gives?”
In Washington people do not always have time to read the papers, at least not all the papers. To assist those in government service to see what the press is saying about things is an in-house daily press-summary sheet called The Early Bird. Early editions of all major American papers are flown to D.C. on regular airline flights, and before dawn they are vetted for stories relating to all manner of government operations. Relevant material is clipped and photocopied, then distributed by the thousands to various offices whose staff members then repeat the process by highlighting individual stories for their superiors. This process is particularly difficult in the White House, whose staff members are by definition interested in everything.
Dr. Elizabeth Elliot was Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. The immediate subordinate to Dr. Charles Alden, whose title was the same, but without the “Special,” Liz, also referred to as “E.E.,” was dressed in a fashionable linen suit. Current fashions dictated that women’s “power” clothing was not mannish but feminine, the idea being that since even the most obtuse of men would be able to tell the difference between themselves and women, there was little point in trying to conceal the truth. The truth was that Dr. Elliot was not physically unattractive and enjoyed dressing to emphasize the fact. Tall at five feet eight inches, and with a slender figure that long work hours and mediocre food sustained, she did not like playing second-fiddle to Charlie Alden. And besides, Alden was a Yalie. She’d most recently been Professor of Political Science at Bennington, and resented the fact that Yale was considered more prestigious by whatever authorities made such judgments.
Current work schedules at the White House were easier than those of only a few years earlier, at least in the national-security shop. President Fowler did not feel the need for a first-thing-in-the-morning intelligence briefing. The world situation was far more pacific than any of his predecessors had known, and Fowler’s main problems were of the domestic political variety. Commentary on that could readily be had from watching morning TV news shows, something Fowler did by watching two or more TV sets at the same time, something that had infuriated his wife and still bemused his staffers. That fact meant that Dr. Alden didn’t have to arrive until eight or so to get his morning briefing, after which he would brief the President at nine-thirty. President Fowler didn’t like dealing directly with the briefing officers from CIA. As a result, it was E.E. who had to arrive just after six so that she could screen dispatches and message traffic, confer with the CIA watch officers (she didn’t like them either), and their counterparts from State and Defense. She also got to read over The Early Bird, and to highlight items of interest for her boss, the estimable Dr. Charles Alden.
Like I’m a goddamned addle-brained simpering secretary, E.E. fumed.
Alden, she thought, was a logical contradiction. A liberal who talked tough, a skirt-chaser who supported women’s rights, a kindly, considerate man who probably enjoyed using her like a goddamned functionary. That he was also a distinguished observer and an amazingly accurate forecaster of events, with an even dozen books—each of them thoughtful and perceptive—was beside the point. He was in her job. It had been promised to her while Fowler had still been a longshot candidate. The compromise that had placed Alden in his West Wing corner office and her in the basement was merely another of those acts that political figures use as excuses to violate their word without anything more than a perfunctory apology. The Vice President had demanded and gotten the concession at the convention; he’d also gotten what should have been her office on the main level for one of his own people, relegating her to this most prestigious of dungeons. In return for that, the Veep was a team player, and his tireless campaigning was widely regarded as having made the difference. The Vice President had delivered California, and without California, J. Robert Fowler would still be governor of Ohio. And so she had a twelve-by-fifteen office in the basement, playing secretary and / or administrative assistant to a goddamned Yalie who appeared once a month on the Sunday talk shows and hobnobbed with chiefs of state with her as lady-in-goddamned-waiting.
Dr. Elizabeth Elliot was in her normal early-morning mood, which was foul, as any White House regular could testify. She walked out of her office and into the White House Mess for a refill of her coffee cup. The strong drip coffee only made her mood the fouler, a thought that stopped her in her tracks and forced a self-directed smile she never bothered displaying for any of the security personnel who checked her pass every morning at the west ground-level entrance. They were just cops, after all, and cops were nothing to get excited about. Food was served by Navy stewards, and the only good thing about them was that they were largely minorities, many Filipinos in what she deemed a disgraceful carryover from America’s colonial-exploitation period. The long-service secretaries and other support perso
nnel were not political, hence mere bureaucrats of one description or another. The important people in this building were political. What little charm E.E. had was saved for them. The Secret Service agents observed her movements with about as much interest as they might have accorded the President’s dog, if he’d had a dog, which he didn’t. Both they and the professionals who ran the White House, despite the arrivals and departures of various self-inflated egos in human form, regarded her as just another of many politically elevated individuals who would depart in due course while the pros stayed on, faithfully doing their duty in accordance with their oaths of office. The White House caste system was an old one, with each regarding all the others as less than itself.
Elliot returned to her desk and set her coffee down to get a good stretch. The swivel chair was comfortable—the physical arrangements here were first-rate, far better than those at Bennington—but the endless weeks of early mornings and late nights had taken a physical toll in addition to that on her character. She told herself that she ought to return to working out. At least to walk. Many staffers took part of lunch to pace up and down the mall. The more energetic even jogged. Some female staffers took to jogging with military officers detailed to the building, especially the single ones, doubtless drawn to the short haircuts and simplistic mentalities that attached to uniformed service. But E.E. didn’t have time for that, and so she settled for a stretch before sitting down with a muttered curse. Department head at America’s most important women’s college, and here she was playing secretary to a goddamned Yalie. But bitching didn’t ever fix things, and she went back to work.
