by Tom Clancy
“Only if we allow it. The Chinese need us as much as we need them—more, with the trade surplus. Taking lives is playing rough. We can play rough, too. I’ve always wondered why we don’t.”
SecState adjusted his glasses. “Sir, I do not disagree with that, but it has to be thought through very carefully, and we do not have the time to do that now. You’re talking a doctrinal change in American policy. You don’t shoot from the hip on something that big.”
“When you get back, let’s get together over a weekend with a few others and see if there are any options. I don’t like what we’ve been doing on this issue in a moral sense, and I don’t like it because it makes us a little too predictable.”
“How so?”
“Playing by a given set of rules is all well and good, as long as everybody plays by the same rules, but playing by a known set of rules when the other guy doesn’t just makes us an easy mark,” Ryan speculated. “On the other hand, if somebody else breaks the rules and then we break them, too, maybe in a different way, but break them even so, it gives him something to think about. You want to be predictable to your friends, yes, but what your enemy needs to predict is that messing with you gets him hurt. How hurt he gets, that part we make unpredictable.”
“Not without merit, Mr. President. Sounds like a nice subject for a weekend up at Camp David.” Both men stopped talking when the helicopter came down on the pad. “There’s my driver. Got your statement?”
“Yeah, and about as dramatic as a weather report on a sunny day.”
“That’s how the game is played, Jack,” Adler pointed out. He reflected that Ryan was hearing a lot of that song. No wonder he was bridling at it.
“I’ve never run across a game where they never change the rules. Baseball went to a designated hitter to liven things up,” POTUS remarked casually.
Designated hitter, SecState wondered on his way out the door. Great choice of words ...
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Ryan watched the helicopter lift off. He’d done the handshake for the cameras, made his brief statement for the cameras, looked serious but upbeat for the cameras. Maybe C-SPAN had covered it live, but nobody else would. Were it to be a slow news day—Friday in Washington often was—it might get a minute and a half on one or two of the evening news shows. More likely not. Friday was their day to summarize the week’s events, recognize some person or other for doing something or other, and toss in a fluff story.
“Mr. President!” Jack turned to see TRADER, his Secretary of the Treasury, walking over a few minutes early.
“Hi, George.”
“That tunnel between here and my building?”
“What about it?”
“I took a look at it this morning. It’s a real mess. You have any beefs about cleaning it up?” Winston asked.
“George, that’s a Secret Service function, and you own them, remember?”
“Yeah, I know, but it does come to your house, and so I thought I ought to ask. Okay, I’ll get it taken care of. Might be nice for when it rains.”
“How’s the tax plan coming?” Ryan asked, on his way to the door. An agent yanked it open and held it for him. Such things still made Jack uncomfortable. A man had to do some things for himself.
“We’ll have the computer models done next week. I really want the case tight on this one, revenue-neutral, easier on the little guy, fair on the big guy, and I have my people jumping through hoops on the administrative savings. Jesus, Jack, was I wrong about that!”
“What do you mean?” They turned the corner for the Oval Office.
“I thought I was the only guy pissing money away to work the tax code. Everybody does. It’s a huge industry. It’ll put a lot of people out of work—”
“I’m supposed to be happy about that?”
“They’ll all find honest work, except for the lawyers, maybe. And we’ll save the taxpayers a few billion dollars by giving them a tax form they can figure out from fourth-grade math. Mr. President, the government doesn’t insist that people buy buggy whips, does it?”
Ryan told his secretary to call Arnie in. He’d want a little political guidance on the ramifications of George’s plan.
“YES, ADMIRAL?”
“You asked for a report on the Eisenhower group,” Jackson said, walking to the large wall map and consulting a slip of paper. “They’re right here, making good speed.” Then Robby’s pager started vibrating in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked the number. His eyebrows went up. “Sir, do you mind ...?”
“Go ahead,” Secretary Bretano said. Jackson took the phone on the other side of the room, dialing five digits. “J-3 here ... oh? Where are they? Then let’s find out, shall we, Commander? Correct.” He put the phone back. “That was the NMCC. The NRO reports that the Indian navy’s missing—their two carriers, that is.”
“What does that mean, Admiral?”
Robby walked back to the map and walked his hand across the blue part west of the Indian subcontinent. “Thirty-six hours since the last time we checked. Figure three hours to clear the port and form up ... twenty knots times thirty-three is six hundred sixty nautical miles, that’s seven hundred sixty statute miles ... about halfway between their home port and the Horn of Africa.” He turned. “Mr. Secretary, they have two carriers, nine escorts, and an UNREP group missing from their piers. The fleet oilers mean they might be planning to stay out for a while. We had no intelligence information to warn us about this.” As usual, he didn’t add.
“So where exactly are they?”
“That’s the point. We don’t know. We have some P-3 Orion aircraft based at Diego Garcia. They’re going to launch a couple to go looking. We can task some satellite assets to the job also. We need to tell State about this. Maybe the embassy can find out something.”
“Fair enough. I’ll tell the President in a few minutes. Anything to worry about?”
“Could be they’re just putting out after completing repairs—we rattled their cage pretty hard a while back, as you know.”
“But now the only two aircraft carriers in the Indian Ocean are somebody else’s?”
“Yes, sir.” And our nearest one is heading the wrong way. But at least SecDef was catching on some.
ADLER WAS IN a former Air Force One, an old but solid version of the venerable 707-3208. His official party comprised eight people, with five Air Force stewards to look after them. For the moment, he looked at his watch, computed the travel time—they had to stop for fuel at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska—and decided he’d catch up on his sleep during the last leg. What a shame, he thought, that the government didn’t award frequent-flyer miles. He’d be traveling free for the rest of his life. For now, he took out his Tehran notes and started examining them again. He closed his eyes, trying to recall additional details as he relived the experience from his arrival at Mehrabad to the departure, visualizing every single episode. Every few minutes, he opened his eyes, flipped to the page in his notes, and made a few marginal comments. With luck, he’d be able to have them typed up and sent by secure fax to Washington for the SNIE team.
“DING, MAYBE YOU have another career ahead of you,” Mary Pat observed, as she examined the photo through a magnifying glass. Her voice went on in some disappointment. “He looks healthy.”
“You suppose being a son of a bitch is good for longevity?” Clark asked.
“Worked for you, Mr. C.,” Chavez joked.
“I may have to put up with this for the next thirty years.”
“But such handsome grandsons you will have, jefe. And bilingual.”
“Back to business, shall we?” Mrs. Foley suggested, Friday afternoon or not.
IT’S NEVER FUN to be ill on an airplane. He wondered what he’d eaten, or maybe he’d picked up something in San Francisco at the computer show, all those damned people around. The executive was an experienced traveler, and his personal “first-aid kit” never left his side. In with his razor and such he found some Tylenol. He washed two down with a glass
of wine and decided that he’d just try to sleep it off. With luck, he’d feel better by the time his flight made it into Newark. Sure as hell, he didn’t want to drive home feeling like this. He eased the seat all the way back, clicked off the light, and closed his eyes.
IT WAS TIME. The rental cars pulled away from the farmhouse. Each driver knew the route to and from the objective. There were no maps or other written material in their vehicles aside from photos of their prey. If any of them had uneasy feelings about kidnapping a small child, none showed it. Instead, their weapons were loaded and set on safe, and in every case sat on the floor, covered with a blanket or cloth. All wore suits and ties so that if a police car pulled alongside, a look would reveal only three well-groomed men, probably businessmen in nice private cars. The team thought that last part amusing. The Movie Star was a stickler for proper appearance, probably, they all thought, because of his vanity.
PRICE WATCHED THE arrival of the Mighty Ducks with no small amusement. She’d seen it all before. The most powerful of men walked into this place and were turned into children by it. What to her and her colleagues was just part of the scenery, the paintings and so forth, was to others the trappings of ultimate power. And in a way, she admitted to herself, they were right and she was wrong. Anything can become routine after sufficient repetition, whereas the new visitor, seeing everything for the first time, may have seen more clearly. The processing helped make it that way, as they came through the metal detectors under the watchful eyes of members of the USSS Uniformed Division. They’d get a quick walk-around while the President finished his meeting with the SecDef, which was reportedly running very late. The hockey players, bearing gifts for the President—the usual sticks, pucks, and a jersey-sweater with his name on it (actually they had them for the whole family)—shuffled through the passage from the East Entrance, their eyes sweeping left and right over the decorations on the white-painted walls of what for Andrea was a place of work and for them something else, powerful and special. An interesting dualism, she thought, walking over to Jeff Raman.
“I’m heading over to check out arrangements for SANDBOX.”
“I heard Don was getting a little antsy. Anything I need to know?”
She shook her head. “POTUS isn’t planning anything special. Callie Weston will be over later. They changed her slot. Otherwise, everything’s routine.”
“Fair enough,” Raman acknowledged.
“This is Price,” she said into her microphone. “Show me in transit to SANDBOX.”
“Roger that,” the command post replied.
The Detail chief headed out the way the Mighty Ducks had come in, and turned left for her personal vehicle, a Ford Crown Victoria. The vehicle looked ordinary, but wasn’t. Under the hood was the biggest standard engine Ford made. There were two cellular phones and a pair of secure radios. The tires had steel disks inside so that were one to be flattened, the car could still drive. Like all members of the Detail, she’d been trained in the Service’s special evasive-driving course at Beltsville—it was something they all loved. And in her purse was her SigSauer 9mm automatic, along with two spare clips, plus her lipstick and credit cards.
Price was a fairly ordinary-looking woman. Not as pretty as Helen D’Agustino ... she sighed at the memory. Andrea and Daga had been close. The latter had helped her through a divorce and gotten her some dates. Good friend, good agent, dead with all the rest that night on the Hill. Daga—nobody in the Service had called her Helen—had been blessed with Mediterranean features that stopped just short of voluptuous, and that had made for a fine disguise. She just hadn’t looked at all like a cop. Presidential aide, secretary, or mistress, maybe ... but Andrea was more ordinary, and so she donned the sunglasses that agents on the Detail adopted. She was no-nonsense, maybe a little strident? They’d said that about her once, back when it had been a novelty for women to join up and carry guns. The system was over that now. Now she was one of the boys, to the point that she laughed at the jokes and told some of her own. Her instant assumption of command on that night with SWORDSMAN, getting his family to safety—she owed Ryan, Andrea knew. He’d made the call because he liked the way she did things. She would never have made Detail chief so rapidly but for his instant decision. Yes, she had the savvy. Yes, she knew the personnel very well. Yes, she genuinely loved the work. But she was young for the responsibility—and female. POTUS didn’t seem to care, however. He hadn’t picked her because she was female and it might therefore look good to the voting public. He’d done it because she’d gotten the job done during a tough time. That made it right, and that made SWORDSMAN special. He even asked her questions about things. That was unique.
She didn’t have a husband. She didn’t have kids, probably never would. Andrea Price wasn’t one of those who sought to escape her womanhood in pursuit of a career. She wanted it all, but she hadn’t quite managed that. Her career was important—she could think of nothing more vital to her country than what she did—and the good news was that it was so all-encompassing that she rarely had the time to dwell on what was missing ... a good man to share her bed, and a small voice to call her Mommy. But on drives alone, she did think about it, like now, heading up New York Avenue.
“Not all that liberated at all, are we?” she asked the windshield. But the Service didn’t pay her to be liberated. It paid her to look after the First Family. Her personal life was supposed to run on her personal time, though the Service didn’t issue her any of that, either.
INSPECTOR O’DAY WAS already on Route 50. Friday was best of all. He’d done his duty for the week. His tie and suit jacket were on the seat next to him, and he was back in his leather bomber jacket and his lucky John Deere ballcap, without which he’d never consider playing golf or going out to hunt. This weekend he had a ton of things to do around the house. Megan would help with many of them. Somehow she knew. Pat didn’t fully understand it. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe she just responded to her father’s devotion. However it came about, the two were inseparable. At home, she left his side only to sleep, and only then after a major hug and kiss, her little arms tight around his neck. O’Day chuckled to himself.
“Tough guy.”
RUSSELL SUPPOSED IT was the grandfather in him. All these little munchkins. They were playing outside now, every one in his or her parka, about half with the hoods up, because little kids liked that for some reason. Serious playtime here. SANDBOX was in the sandbox, along with the O’Day kid who so closely resembled her, and a little boy—the Walker kid, the rather nice young son of that pain in the ass with the Volvo wagon. Agent Hilton was out, too, supervising. Strangely, they could relax more out here. The playground was on the north side of the Giant Steps building, under the direct view of the support team just across the street. The third member of the team was inside on the phone. She ordinarily worked the back room, where the TV monitors were. The kids knew her as Miss Anne.
Too thin, Russell told himself, even as he watched the toddlers having the purest sort of fun. In the extreme case, somebody could drive by on Ritchie Highway and hose the place. Trying to talk the Ryans out of sending Katie here was a wasted effort, and, sure, they wanted their youngest to be a normal kid. But ...
But it was all insane, wasn’t it? Russell’s entire professional life had revolved around the knowledge that there were people who hated the President and everyone around him. Some were truly crazy. Some were something else. He’d studied the psychology of it. He had to, since learning about them helped to predict what to look for, but that wasn’t the same as understanding it. These were kids. Even the fucking Mafia, he knew, didn’t mess with children. He sometimes envied the FBI for its statutory authority to track down kidnappers. To rescue a child and apprehend the criminal in that sort of case must be a sweet moment indeed, though part of him wondered how hard it was to bring in alive that kind of subject instead of just sending him off to have his Miranda rights read to him by God Himself. That random thought evoked a smile. Or maybe what really happen
ed was better yet. Kidnappers had a very bad time in prison. Even hardened robbers couldn’t stomach the abusers of children, and so that variety of hood learned a whole new form of recreation in the federal corrections system: survival.
“Russell, Command Post,” his earpiece said.
“Russell.”
“Price is heading out here like you requested,” Special Agent Norm Jeffers said from the house across the street. “Forty minutes, she says.”
“Right. Thanks.”
“I see the Walker lad is continuing his engineering studies,” the voice continued.
“Yeah, maybe he’ll do bridges next,” Don agreed. The youngster had the second level building on his sand castle, to the rapt admiration of Katie Ryan and Megan O’Day.
“MR. PRESIDENT,” THE team captain said, “I hope you’ll like this.”
Ryan had a good laugh and donned the team jersey for the cameras. The team bunched around him for the shot.
“My CIA Director is a big hockey fan,” Jack said.
“Really?” Bob Albertsen asked. He was a very physical defenseman, the terror of his conference for his board checking, but as docile as a kitten in this setting.
“Yeah, he has a kid who’s pretty good, played in the kids’ leagues in Russia.”
“Then maybe he learned something. Where’s he go to school?”
“I’m not sure what colleges they’re thinking about. I think they said Eddie wants to study engineering.” It was so damned pleasant, Jack thought, to talk about normal things like a normal person to other normal people once in a while.
“Tell them to send the kid to Rensselaer. It’s a good tech school up by Albany.”