by Tom Clancy
“And the hell of it is, I can’t disagree with any of it. Jesus,” Ryan breathed. “Those two men died to save the life of a baby. If you gotta die, that’s not a bad reason for it.”
They both died like men, Mr. C,” Chavez was saying in Moscow. “I wish I was there with a gun.” It had hit Ding especially hard. Fatherhood had changed his perspective on a lot of things, and this was just one of them. The life of a child was sacrosanct, and a threat against a child was an invitation to immediate death in his ethical universe. And in the real universe, he was known to have a gun a lot of the time, and the training to use it efficiently.
“Different people have different ways of looking at things,” Clark told his subordinate. But if he’d been there, he would have disarmed both of the Chinese cops. On the videotape, they hadn’t looked all that formidable. And you didn’t kill people to make a fashion statement. Domingo still had the Latin temperament, John reminded himself. And that wasn’t so bad a thing, was it?
“What are you saying, John?” Ding asked in surprise.
“I’m saying two good men died yesterday, and I imagine God’ll look after both of them.”
“Ever been to China?”
He shook his head. “Taiwan once, for R and R, long time ago. That was okay, but aside from that, no closer than North Vietnam. I don’t speak the language and I can’t blend in.” Both factors were distantly frightening to Clark. The ability to disappear into the surroundings was the sine qua non of being a field-intelligence officer.
They were in a hotel bar in Moscow after their first day of lecturing their Russian students. The beer on tap was acceptable. Neither of them was in a mood for vodka. Life in Britain had spoiled them. This bar, which catered to Americans, had CNN on a large-screen TV next to the bar, and this was CNN’s lead story around the globe. The American government, the report concluded, hadn’t reacted to the incident yet.
“So, what’s Jack going to do?” Chavez wondered.
“I don’t know. We have that negotiations team in Beijing right now for trade talks,” Clark reminded him.
“The diplomatic chatter might get a little sharp,” Domingo thought.
Scott, we can’t let this one slide,” Jack said. A call from the White House had brought Adler’s official car here instead of Foggy Bottom.
“It is not, strictly speaking, pertinent to trade talks,” the Secretary of State pointed out.
“Maybe you want to do business with people like that,” Vice President Jackson responded, “but the people outside the Beltway might not.”
“We have to consider public opinion on this, Scott,” Ryan said. “And, you know, we have to damn well consider my opinion. The murder of a diplomat is not something we can ignore. Italy is a NATO member. So is Germany. And we have diplomatic relations with the Vatican and about seventy million Catholics in the country, plus millions more Baptists.”
“Okay, Jack,” EAGLE said, with raised, defensive hands. “I am not defending them, okay? I’m talking about the foreign policy of the United States of America here, and we’re not supposed to manage that on the basis of emotions. The people out there pay us to use our heads, not our dicks.”
Ryan let out a long breath. “Okay, maybe I had that coming. Go on.”
“We issue a statement deploring this sorry incident in strong language. We have Ambassador Hitch make a call on their foreign ministry and say the same thing, maybe even stronger, but in more informal language. We give them a chance to think this mess through before they become an international pariah, maybe discipline those trigger-happy cops—hell, maybe shoot them, given how the law works over there. We let common sense break out, okay?”
“And what do I say?”
Adler thought that one over for a few seconds. “Say whatever you want. We can always explain to them that we have a lot of churchgoers here and you have to assuage their sensibilities, that they have inflamed American public opinion, and in our country, public opinion counts for something. They know that on an intellectual level, but deep down in the gut they don’t get it. That’s okay,” SecState went on. “Just so they get it in the brain, because the brain talks to the gut occasionally. They have to understand that the world doesn’t like this sort of thing.”
“And if they don’t?” the Vice President asked.
“Well, then we have a trade delegation to show them the consequences of uncivilized behavior.” Adler looked around the room. “Are we okay on that?”
Ryan looked down at the coffee table. There were times when he wished he were a truck driver, able to scream out bloody murder when certain things happened, but that was just one more freedom the President of the United States didn’t have. Okay, Jack, you have to be sensible and rational about all this. He looked up. “Yes, Scott, we’re sort of okay on that.”
“Anything from our, uh, new source on this issue?”
Ryan shook his head. “No, MP hasn’t sent anything over yet.”
“If she does ...”
“You’ll get a copy real fast,” the President promised. “Get me some talking points. I’ll have to make a statement—when, Arnie?”
“Eleven-ish ought to be okay,” van Damm decided. “I’ll talk to some media guys about this.”
“Okay, if anybody has ideas later today, I want to hear them,” Ryan said, standing, and adjourning the meeting.
CHAPTER 26
Glass Houses and Rocks
Fang Gan had worked late that day because of the incident that had Washington working early. As a result, Ming hadn’t transcribed his discussion notes and her computer hadn’t gotten them out on the ’Net as early as usual, but Mary Pat got her e-mail about 9:45. This she read over, copied to her husband, Ed, and then shot via secure fax line to the White House, where Ben Goodley walked it to the Oval Office. The cover letter didn’t contain Mary Pat’s initial comment on reading the transmission: “Oh, shit...”
“Those cocksuckers!” Ryan snarled, to the surprise of Andrea Price, who happened to be in the room just then.
“Anything I need to know about, sir?” she asked, his voice had been so furious.
“No, Andrea, just that thing on CNN this morning.” Ryan paused, blushing that she’d heard his temper let go again—and in that way. “By the way, how’s your husband doing?”
“Well, he bagged those three bank robbers up in Philadelphia, and they did it without firing a shot. I was a little worried about that.”
Ryan allowed himself a smile. “That’s one guy I wouldn’t want to have a shoot-out with. Tell me, you saw CNN this morning, right?”
“Yes, sir, and we replayed it at the command post.”
“Opinion?”
“If I’d’ve been there, my weapon would have come out. That was cold-blooded murder. Looks bad on TV when you do dumb stuff like that, sir.”
“Sure as hell does,” the President agreed. He nearly asked her opinion on what he ought to do about it. Ryan respected Mrs. O’Day’s (she still went by Price on the job) judgment, but it wouldn’t have been fair to ask her to delve into foreign affairs, and, besides, he already had his mind pretty well made up. But then he speed-dialed Adler’s direct line on his phone.
“Yes, Jack?” Only one person had that direct line.
“What do you make of the SORGE stuff?”
“It’s not surprising, unfortunately. You have to expect them to circle wagons.”
“What do we do about it?” SWORDSMAN demanded.
“We say what we think, but we try not to make it worse than it already is,” SecState replied, cautious as ever.
“Right,” Ryan growled, even though it was exactly the good advice he’d expected from his SecState. Then he hung up. He reminded himself that Arnie had told him a long time ago that a president wasn’t allowed to have a temper, but that was asking a hell of a lot, and at what point was he allowed to react the way a man needed to react? When was he supposed to stop acting like a goddamned robot?
“You want Callie to work up
something for you in a hurry?” Arnie asked over the phone.
“No,” Ryan replied, with a shake of the head. “I’ll just wing it.”
“That’s a mistake,” the Chief of Staff warned.
“Arnie, just let me be me once in a while, okay?”
“Okay, Jack,” van Damm replied, and it was just as well the President didn’t see his expression.
Don’t make things worse than they already are, Ryan told himself at his desk. Yeah, sure, like that’s possible ...
Hi, Pap,” Robby Jackson was saying in his office at the northwest comer of the West Wing.
“Robert, have you seen—”
“Yes, we’ve all seen it,” the Vice President assured his father.
“And what are y’all going to do about it?”
“Pap, we haven’t figured that out yet. Remember that we have to do business with these people. The jobs of a lot of Americans depend on trade with China and—”
“Robert”—the Reverend Hosiah Jackson used Robby’s proper name mainly when he was feeling rather stern—“those people murdered a man of God—no, excuse me, they murdered two men of God, doing their duty, trying to save the life of an innocent child, and one does not do business with murderers.”
“I know that, and I don’t like it any more than you do, and, trust me, Jack Ryan doesn’t like it any more than you do, either. But when we make foreign policy for our country, we have to think things through, because if we screw it up, people can lose their lives.”
“Lives have already been lost, Robert,” Reverend Jackson pointed out.
“I know that. Look, Pap, I know more about this than you do, okay? I mean, we have ways of finding out stuff that doesn’t make it on CNN,” the Vice President told his father, with the latest SORGE report right in his hand. Part of him wished that he could show it to his father, because his father was easily smart enough to grasp the importance of the secret things that he and Ryan knew. But there was no way he could even approach discussing that sort of thing with anyone without a TS/SAR clearance, and that included his wife, just as it included Cathy Ryan. Hmm, Jackson thought—maybe that was something he should discuss with Jack. You had to be able to talk this stuff over with someone you trusted, just as a reality check on what was right and wrong. Their wives weren’t security risks, were they?
“Like what?” his father asked, only halfway expecting an answer.
“Like I can’t discuss some things with you, Pap, and you know that. I’m sorry. The rules apply to me just like they do to everybody else.”
“So, what are we going to do about this?”
“We’re going to let the Chinese know that we are pretty damned angry, and we expect them to clean their act up, and apologize, and—”
“Apologize!” Reverend Jackson shot back. “Robert, they murdered two people!”
“I know that, Pap, but we can’t send the FBI over to arrest their government for this, can we? We’re very powerful here, but we are not God, and as much as I’d like to hurl a thunderbolt at them, I can’t.”
“So, we’re going to do what?”
“We haven’t decided yet. I’ll let you know when we figure it out,” TOMCAT promised his father.
“Do that,” Hosiah said, hanging up far more abruptly than usual.
“Christ, Pap,” Robby breathed into the phone. Then he wondered how representative of the religious community his father was. The hardest thing to figure was public reaction. People reacted on a subintellectual level to what they saw on TV. If you showed some chief of state tossing a puppy dog out the window of his car, the ASPCA might demand a break in diplomatic relations, and enough people might agree to send a million telegrams or e-mails to the White House. Jackson remembered a case in California where the killing of a dog had caused more public outrage than the kidnap-murder of a little girl. But at least the bastard who’d killed the girl had been caught, tried, and sentenced to death, whereas the asshole who’d tossed the little dog into traffic had never been identified, despite the ton of reward money that had been raised. Well, it had all happened in the San Francisco area. Maybe that explained it. America wasn’t supposed to make policy on the basis of emotion, but America was a democracy, and therefore her elected officials had to pay attention to what the people thought—and it wasn’t easy, especially for rational folk, to predict the emotions of the public at large. Could the television image they’d just seen, theoretically upset international trade? Without a doubt, and that was a very big deal.
Jackson got up from his desk and walked to Arnie’s office. “Got a question,” he said, going in.
“Shoot,” the President’s Chief of Staff replied.
“How’s the public going to react to this mess in Beijing?”
“Not sure yet,” van Damm answered.
“How do we find out?”
“Usually you just wait and see. I’m not into this focus-group stuff. I prefer to gauge public opinion the regular way: newspaper editorials, letters to the editor, and the mail we get here. You’re worried about this?”
“Yep.” Robby nodded.
“Yeah, so am I. The Right-to-Lifers are going to be on this like a lion on a crippled gazelle, and so are the people who don’t like the PRC. Lots of them in Congress. If the Chinese think they’re going to get MFN this year, they’re on drugs. It’s a public relations nightmare for the PRC, but I don’t think they’re capable of understanding what they started. And I don’t see them apologizing to anybody.”
“Yeah, well, my father just tore me a new asshole over this one,” Vice President Jackson said. “If the rest of the clergy picks this one up, there’s going to be a firestorm. The Chinese have to apologize loud and fast if they want to cut their losses.”
Van Damm nodded agreement. “Yeah, but they won’t. They’re too damned proud.”
“Pride goeth before the fall,” TOMCAT observed.
“Only after you feel the pain from the broken assbone, Admiral,” van Damm corrected the Vice President.
Ryan entered the White House press room feeling tense. The usual cameras were there. CNN and Fox would probably be running this news conference live, and maybe C-SPAN as well. The other networks would just tape it, probably, for use in their news feeds to the local stations and their own flagship evening news shows. He came to the lectern and took a sip of water before staring into the faces of the assembled thirty or so reporters.
“Good morning,” Jack began, grasping the lectern tightly, as he tended to do when angry. He didn’t know that reporters knew about it, too, and could see it from where they sat.
“We all saw those horrible pictures on the television this morning, the deaths of Renato Cardinal DiMilo, the Papal Nuncio to the People’s Republic of China, and the Reverend Yu Fa An, who, we believe, was a native of the Republic of China and educated at Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma. First of all, the United States of America extends our condolences to the families of both men. Second, we call upon the government of the People’s Republic to launch an immediate and full investigation of this horrible tragedy, to determine who, if anyone, was at fault, and if someone was at fault, for such person or persons to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
“The death of a diplomat at the hands of an agent of a government is a gross violation of international treaty and convention. It is a quintessentially uncivilized act that must be set right as quickly and definitively as possible. Peaceful relations between nations cannot exist without diplomacy, and diplomacy cannot be carried out except through men and women whose personal safety is sacrosanct. That has been the case for literally thousands of years. Even in time of war, the lives of diplomats have always been protected by all sides for this very reason. We require that the government of the PRC explain this tragic event and take proper action to see to it that nothing of this sort will ever happen again. That concludes my statement. Questions?” Ryan looked up, trying not to brace too obviously for the storm that was about to break.
&n
bsp; “Mr. President,” the Associated Press said, “the two clergymen who died were there to prevent an abortion. Does that affect your reaction to this incident?”
Ryan allowed himself to show surprise at the stupid question: “My views on abortion are on the public record, but I think everyone, even the pro-choice community, would respond negatively to what happened here. The woman in question did not choose to have an abortion, but the Chinese government tried to impose its will on her by killing a full-term fetus about to be born. If anyone did that in the United States, that person would be guilty of a felony—probably more than one—yet that is government policy in the People’s Republic. As you know, I personally object to abortion on moral grounds, but what we saw attempted on TV this morning is worse even than that. It’s an act of incomprehensible barbarism. Those two courageous men tried to stop it, and they were killed for their efforts, but, thank God, the baby appears to have survived. Next question?” Ryan pointed next to a known troublemaker.
“Mr. President,” the Boston Globe said, “the government’s action grew out of the People’s Republic’s population-control policy. Is it our place to criticize a country’s internal policy?”
Christ, Ryan thought, another one? “You know, once upon a time, a fellow named Hitler tried to manage the population of his country—in fact, of a lot of Europe—by killing the mentally infirm, the socially undesirable, and those whose religions he didn’t like. Now, yes, Germany was a nation-state, and we even had diplomatic relations with Hitler until December 1941. But are you saying that America does not have the right to object to a policy we consider barbaric just because it is the official policy of a nation-state? Hermann Goring tried that defense at the Nürnberg Trials. Do you want the United States of America to recognize it?” Jack demanded.