by Tom Clancy
So what was he supposed to do? He was the operations chief. He was supposed to know. It was his job to know. Except he didn’t. Turkmenistan was first. If he didn’t stop it there, he never would. On the left side of his desk was a roster of available divisions and brigades, with their supposed states of readiness. On the right side was a map. The two made a poor match.
“YOU HAVE SUCH nice hair,” Mary Abbot said.
“I didn’t do surgery today,” Cathy explained. “The cap always ruins it.”
“You’ve had the same hairstyle for how long?”
“Since we got married.”
“Never changed it?” That surprised Mrs. Abbot. Cathy just shook her head. She thought that she looked rather like the actress Susannah York—or at least she’d liked the look from a movie she’d seen while in college. And the same was true of Jack, wasn’t it? He’d never changed his haircut, except when he didn’t have the time to get a trim, something else the White House staff took care of, every two weeks. They were far better at managing Jack’s life than she’d ever been. They probably just did things and scheduled things instead of asking first, as she had always done. A much more efficient system, Cathy told herself.
She was more nervous than she let on, worse than the first day of medical school, worse than her first surgical procedure, when she’d had to close her eyes and scream inwardly at her hands to keep them from shaking. But at least they’d listened then, and they listened now, too. Okay, she thought, that was the key. This was a surgical procedure, and she was a surgeon, and a surgeon was always in control.
“I think that does it,” Mrs. Abbot said.
“Thank you. Do you like working with Jack?”
An insider’s smile. “He hates makeup. But most men do,” she allowed.
“I have a secret for you—so do I.”
“I didn’t do much,” Mary observed at once. “Your skin doesn’t need much.”
The woman-to-woman observation made Dr. Ryan smile. “Thank you.”
“Can I make a suggestion?”
“Sure.”
“Let your hair grow another inch, maybe two. It would complement the shape of your face better.”
“That’s what Elaine says—she’s my hairdresser in Baltimore. I tried it once. The surgical caps make it all scrunchy.”
“We can make bigger caps for you. We try to take care of our First Ladies.”
“Oh!” And why didn’t I think of that? Cathy asked herself. It had to be cheaper than taking the helicopter to work ... “Thank you!”
“This way.” Mrs. Abbot led FLOTUS to the Oval Office.
Surprisingly, Cathy had been in the room only twice before, and only once to see Jack there. It suddenly struck her as odd. Her bedroom wasn’t fifty yards away from her husband’s place of work, after all. The desk struck her as grossly old-fashioned, but the office itself was huge and airy compared to hers at Hopkins, even now with the TV lights and cameras set up. Over the mantel opposite the desk was what the Secret Service called the world’s most photographed plant. The furniture was too formal to be comfortable, and the rug with the President’s Seal embroidered on it was downright tacky, she thought. But it wasn’t a normal office for a normal person.
“Hi, honey.” Jack kissed her and handled introductions. “This is Tom Donner and John Plumber.”
“Hello.” Cathy smiled. “I used to listen to you while fixing dinner.”
“Not anymore?” Plumber asked with a smile.
“No TV in the dining room upstairs, and they won’t let me fix dinner.”
“Doesn’t your husband help?” Donner asked.
“Jack in the kitchen? Well, he’s okay on a grill, but the kitchen is my territory.” She sat down, looking at their eyes. It wasn’t easy. The TV lights were already on. She made the extra effort. Plumber she liked. Donner was hiding something. The realization made her blink, and her face changed over to her doctor’s look. She had the sudden desire to say something to Jack, but there wasn’t—
“One minute,” the producer said. Andrea Price, as always, was in the room, standing by the door to the secretaries’ space, and the door behind Cathy was open to the corridor. Jeff Raman was there. He was another odd duck, Cathy thought, but the problem with the White House was that everyone treated you like you were Julius Caesar or something. It was so hard just being friendly with people. It seemed that there was always something in the way. Fundamentally, neither Jack nor Cathy was used to having servants. Employees, yes, but not servants. She was popular with her nurses and technicians at Hopkins because she treated them all like the professionals they were, and she was trying to do the same thing here, but for some reason it didn’t work quite the same way, and that was bothersome in a distant way.
“Fifteen seconds.”
“Are we having fun yet?” Jack whispered.
Why couldn’t you just have stayed at Merrill Lynch? Cathy almost said aloud. He would have been a senior VP by now but, no. He would never have been happy. Jack was as driven to do his work as she was to fix people’s eyes. In that they were the same.
“Good evening,” Donner said to the camera behind the Ryans. “We’re here in the Oval Office to speak with President Jack Ryan and the First Lady. As I said on NBC Nightly News, a technical glitch damaged the taping we did earlier today. The President has graciously allowed us to come back and talk live.” His head turned. “And for that, sir, we thank you.”
“Glad to see you again, Tom,” the President said, comfortably. He was getting better at concealing his thoughts.
“Also joining us is Mrs. Ryan—”
“Please,” Cathy said, with a smile of her own. “It’s Dr. Ryan. I worked pretty hard for that.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Donner said with a charm that made Cathy think about a bad trauma case rolling off on Monument Street at lunchtime. “You’re both doctors, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Mr. Donner, Jack in history, and me in ophthalmology.”
“And you’re a distinguished eye surgeon with the Lasker Public Service Award,” he observed, applying his anchorman’s charm.
“Well, I’ve been working in medical research for over fifteen years. At Johns Hopkins we’re all clinicians and researchers, too. I work with a wonderful group of people, and, really, the Lasker Prize is more a tribute to them than it is to me. Back fifteen years ago, Professor Bernard Katz encouraged me to look into how we could use lasers to correct various eye problems. I found it interesting, and I’ve been working in that area ever since, in addition to my normal surgical practice.”
“Do you really make more money than your husband?” Donner asked with a grin for the cameras.
“Lots,” she confirmed with a chuckle.
“I always said that Cathy was the brains of the outfit,” Jack went on, patting his wife’s hand. “She’s too modest to say that she’s just about the best in the world at what she does.”
“So, how do you like being First Lady?”
“Do I have to answer?” A charming smile. Then she turned serious. “The way we got here—well, it’s not something anyone would wish for, but I guess it’s like what I do at the hospital. Sometimes a trauma case comes in, and that person didn’t choose to be injured, and we try our best to fix what’s wrong. Jack’s never turned away from a problem or a challenge in his life.”
Then it was time for business. “Mr. President, how do you like your job?”
“Well, the hours are pretty long. As much time as I have spent in government service, I don’t think I ever really understood how difficult this job is. I am blessed with a very fine staff, and our government has thousands of dedicated workers doing the public’s business. That helps a lot.”
“As you see it, sir, what is your job?” John Plumber asked.
“The oath says to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States,” Ryan replied. “We’re working to restore the government. We now have the Senate fully in place, and as the several states get on wit
h their elections, we’ll soon have a new House of Representatives. I’ve got most of the Cabinet posts filled—for HHS and Education, we still have the sitting Deputy Secretaries doing a fine job.”
“We spoke this morning about events in the Persian Gulf. What are the problems there as you see them?” It was Plumber again. Ryan was handling himself well, much more relaxed, and Plumber noted the look in his wife’s eyes. She was smart.
“The United States wants nothing more than peace and stability in that region. We have every wish to establish friendly relations with the new United Islamic Republic. There’s been enough strife there and elsewhere in the world. I’d like to think that we’ve turned the corner on that. We’ve made peace—a real peace, not just the absence of war—with the Russians, after generations of turmoil. I want us to build on that. Maybe the world’s never been fully at peace, but that is no reason why we can’t do it. John, we’ve come a very long way in the past twenty years. There’s a lot more for us to do, but we have a lot of good work to build on.”
“We’ll be back after this break,” Donner told the cameras. He could see that Ryan was pretty pleased with himself. Excellent.
A staffer came in from the back door with water glasses. Everyone had a sip while they waited for the two commercials to run. “You really hate all this, don’t you?” he asked Cathy.
“As long as I can do my work, I can live with almost anything, but I do worry about the kids. After this is over, they have to go back to being normal children, and we didn’t raise them for all this hoopla.” Then everyone was quiet for the rest of the commercial time.
“We’re back on the Oval Office with the President and First Lady. Mr. President,” Donner asked, “what about the changes you are making?”
“Mainly my job isn’t to ‘change,’ Tom, it’s to ‘restore.’ Along the way we will try to do a few things. I’ve tried to select my new Cabinet members with an eye toward making the government function more efficiently. As you know, I’ve been in government service for quite a while, and along the way I’ve seen numerous examples of inefficiency. The citizens out there pay a lot of money in taxes, and we owe it to them to see that the money is spent wisely—and efficiently. So I’ve told my Cabinet officers to examine all of the executive departments with an eye to doing the same work for less cost.”
“A lot of presidents have said that.”
“This one means it,” Ryan said seriously.
“But your first major policy act has been to attack the tax system,” Donner observed.
“Not ‘attack,’ Tom. ‘Change.’ George Winston has my full support. The tax code we have now is totally unfair—and I mean unfair in many ways. People can’t understand it, for one. That means that they have to hire people to explain the tax system to them, and it’s hard to see how it makes sense for people to pay good money for people to explain how the law takes more of their money away—especially when the government writes the laws. Why make laws that the people can’t understand? Why make laws that are so complicated?” Ryan asked.
“But along the way, your administration’s goal is to make the tax system regressive, not progressive.”
“We’ve been over that,” the President replied, and Donner knew he had him then. It was one of Ryan’s more obvious weaknesses that he didn’t like repeating himself. He really was not a politician. They loved to repeat themselves. “Charging everyone the same amount is just as fair as anything can be. Doing so in a way that everyone can understand will actually save money for people. Our proposed tax changes will be revenue-neutral. Nobody’s getting any special breaks.”
“But the tax rates for the rich will fall dramatically.”
“That’s true, but we’ll also eliminate all the breaks that their lobbyists have written into the system. They’ll actually end up paying the same, or more probably, a little more than they already do. Secretary Winston has studied that very carefully, and I concur in his judgment.”
“Sir, it’s hard to see how a thirty percent rate reduction will make them pay more. That’s fourth-grade arithmetic.”
“Ask your accountant.” Ryan smiled. “Or for that matter, look at your own tax returns, if you can figure them out. You know, Tom, I used to be an accountant—I passed the exam before I went into the Marine Corps-and I can’t even figure the darned things out. The government does not serve the public interest by doing things that the people can’t understand. There’s been too much of that. I’m going to try to dial it back a bit.”
Bingo. To Donner’s left, John Plumber grimaced. The director with his selection of camera feeds made sure that one didn’t go out. Instead he picked Donner’s winning anchorman smile.
“I’m glad you feel that way, Mr. President, because there are many things that the American people would like to know about government operations. Nearly all of your government service has been in the Central Intelligence Agency.”
“That’s true but, Tom, as I told you this morning, no President has ever spoken about intelligence operations. There’s a good reason for that.” Ryan was still cool, not knowing what door had just opened.
“But, Mr. President, you have personally been involved in numerous intelligence operations which had important effects on bringing that end to the Cold War. For example, the defection of the Soviet missile submarine Red October. You played a personal part in that, didn’t you?”
The director, cued ahead of time to the question, had selected the camera zeroed in on Ryan’s face just in time to see his eyes go as wide as doorknobs. He really wasn’t all that good at controlling his emotions. “Tom, I—”
“The viewers should know that you played a decisive role in one of the greatest intelligence coups of all time. We got our hands on an intact Soviet ballistic-missile submarine, didn’t we?”
“I won’t comment on that story.” By this time his makeup couldn’t hide the pale look. Cathy turned to look at her husband, having felt his hand in hers turn to ice.
“And then less than two years later, you personally arranged the defection of the head of the Russian KGB.”
Jack managed to control his face, finally, but his voice was wooden. “Tom, this has to stop. You’re making unfounded speculations.”
“Mr. President, that individual, Nikolay Gerasimov, formerly of the KGB, now lives with his family in Virginia. The captain of the submarine lives in Florida. It’s not a ‘story’”—he smiled—“and you know it. Sir, I don’t understand your reticence. You played a major role in bringing that peace to the world that you talked about a few minutes ago.”
“Tom, let me make this clear. I will not ever discuss intelligence operations in any public forum. Period.”
“But the American people have a right to know what sort of man sits in this office.” The same thing had been said eleven hours before by John Plumber, who winced inwardly to hear himself quoted in this way, but who could not turn on his own colleague in public.
“Tom, I have served my country to the best of my ability for a number of years, but just as you cannot reveal your news sources, so our intelligence agencies cannot reveal many of the things they do, for fear of getting real people killed.”
“But, Mr. President, you have done that. You have killed people.”
“Yes, I have, and more than one President has been a soldier or—”
“Wait a minute,” Cathy interrupted, and now her eyes were flaring. “I want to say something. Jack joined CIA after our family was attacked by terrorists. If he hadn’t done those things back then, none of us would be alive. I was pregnant with our son then, and they tried to kill me and our daughter in my car in Annapolis and—”
“Excuse me, Mrs. Ryan, but we have to take a break now.”
“This has to stop, Tom. This has to stop right now,” Ryan said forcefully. “When people talk about field operations in the open, real people can get killed. Do you understand that?” The camera lights were off, but the tapes were still rolling.
“Mr. Presi
dent, the people have a right to know, and it’s my job to report the facts. Have I lied about anything ?”
“I can’t even comment on that, and you know it,” Ryan said, having almost snarled an accurate answer. Temper, Jack, temper, he reminded himself. A President can’t have a temper, damned sure not on live TV. Damn, Marko would never cooperate with the—or would he? He was Lithuanian, and maybe he might like the idea of becoming a national hero, though Jack figured he might just talk him out of such a thing. But Gerasimov was something else. Ryan had disgraced the man, threatened him with death—at the hands of his own countrymen, but that didn’t matter to a man like him—and stripped him of all his power. Gerasimov now enjoyed a life far more comfortable than anything he might have enjoyed in the Soviet Union, which he had sought to maintain and rule, but he wasn’t the sort of man to enjoy comfort so much as power. Gerasimov had aspired to the sort of position Ryan now enjoyed himself, and would have felt very comfortable in this office or another like it. But those who aspired to power were most often those who misused it, which distinguished him from Jack in one more way. Not that it mattered at the moment. Gerasimov would talk. Sure as hell. And they knew where he was.
So what do I do now?
“We’re back in the Oval Office with President and Mrs. Ryan,” Donner intoned for anyone who might have forgotten.
“Mr. President, you are an expert in national security and foreign affairs,” Plumber said before his colleague could speak. “But our country faces more problems than that. You now have to reestablish the Supreme Court. How do you propose to do that?”
“I asked the Justice Department to send me a list of experienced judges from federal appeals courts. I’m going over that list now, and I hope to make my nominations to the Senate in the next two weeks.”
“Normally the American Bar Association assists the government in screening such judges, but evidently that’s not being done in this case. May I ask why, sir?”
“Tom, all of the judges on the list have been through that process already, and since then all have sat on the appeals bench for a minimum of ten years.”