by Tom Clancy
Okay, Movie Star thought, using in his mind an Americanism that had universal application. Giant Steps Day Care Center and Nursery School, Ritchie Highway above Joyce Lane. Only one target there, but a better one, and probably, Movie Star hoped, a more favorable tactical environment.
WINSTON HAD BEEN in the business of selling himself and his ideas for more than twenty years. Along with it had come a certain theatrical sense. Better yet, the stage fright went in both directions. Only one of the senators on the committee had previous experience, and he was in the minority party—the polarity of the Senate had changed with the 747 crash, and done so in his ideological favor. As a result, the men and women taking their seats behind the massive oak bench were every bit as nervous as he was. While he took his seat and set out his papers, a total of six people were piling up huge bound volumes on the next table over. Winston ignored them. The CSPAN cameras did not.
It soon got better. While the Secretary-designate chatted with Mark Gant, the latter's portable computer open and operating in front of him, the table to their left groaned and crashed, spilling the pile of books to the floor, to the collective gasp of everyone in the room. Winston turned, startled and pleased. His gofers had done exactly what he'd told them, piling the collected volumes of the United States Tax Code right in the middle of the table instead of distributing the load evenly.
"Oh, shit, George," Gant whispered, struggling not to laugh.
"Maybe God really is on our side." He jumped up to see that nobody had been hurt. Nobody had. The first oaken cry of protest had made the people stand back. Now security guards darted in, only to see that nothing, really, had happened. Winston leaned into the microphone.
"Mr. Chairman, sorry about that, but it doesn't really hurt anything. Can we proceed without further delay?"
The chairman gaveled the room to order, without taking his eyes off the disaster. A minute later, George Winston was sworn.
"Do you have an opening statement, Mr. Winston?"
"Sir, I did." SecTreas shook his head and stifled a laugh, though not quite all the way. "I guess I have to apologize to the members of the committee for our little accident. I'd meant that to be an illustration of one of my points, but… well…" He rearranged his papers and sat more erect in his chair.
"Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, my name is George Winston, and President Ryan has asked me to step away from my business to serve my country in the capacity of Secretary of the Treasury. Let me tell you a little bit about myself…"
"WHAT DO WE know about him?" Kealty asked.
"Plenty. He's smart. He's tough. He's pretty honest. And he's richer 'n God." Even richer than you, the aide didn't say.
"Ever investigated?"
"Never." His chief of staff shook his head. "Maybe he's skated on thin ice, but—no, Ed, I can't even say that. The book on Winston is that he plays by the rules. His investment group is highly rated for performance and integrity. He had a bad trader working for him eight years ago, and George personally testified against him in court. He also made good the guy's shenanigans out of his own pocket. His own personal pocket, that is. Forty million dollars' worth. The crook served five years. He's a good choice for Ryan. He's no politician, but he's well respected on the Street."
"Shit," Kealty observed.
"MR. CHAIRMAN, THERE are a lot of things that need to be done." Winston set his opening statement aside and continued off the cuff. Or so it seemed. He jerked his left hand to the pile of books. "That broken table over there. That's the U.S. Tax Code. It's a principle of common law that ignorance of the law is not a defense before the bar of justice. But that doesn't make sense anymore.
The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service both promulgate and enforce the tax law of our country. Excuse me, those laws are passed by the Congress, as we all know, but mainly they happen because my department submits the proposed set of rules, and the Congress modifies and approves them, and then we enforce them. In many cases, the interpretation of the code you pass is left to people who work for me, and as we all know, the interpretation can be as important as the laws themselves. We have special tax courts to make further rulings—but what we end up with is that pile of printed paper over there, and I would submit to this committee that nobody, not even an experienced member of the bar, can possibly understand it all.
"We even have the absurd situation that when a citizen brings his tax records and return forms into an IRS office for assistance from the people who enforce the law, and those IRS employees make a mistake, then the citizen who comes to his government for help is responsible for the mistakes the government makes. Now, when I was in the trading business, if I gave my client a bad piece of advice, I had to take the responsibility for it.
"The purpose of taxes is to provide revenue for the country's government so that the government can serve the people. But along the way we've created an entire industry that takes billions of dollars from the public. Why? To explain a tax code that gets more complex every year, a code that the enforcement people themselves do not understand with a sufficient degree of confidence to undertake responsibility for getting it right. You already know, or you should" — they didn't—"the amount of money we spend on enforcing that tax code, and that's not especially productive, either. We're supposed to be working for the people, not confusing them.
"And so, Mr. Chairman, there are some things I hope to be able to accomplish during my term at Treasury, if the committee sees fit to confirm my nomination. First, I want the tax code completely rewritten into something a normal person can understand. I want that tax code to make sense. I want a code with no special breaks. I want the same rules to apply equally to everybody. I am prepared to present a proposal to do exactly that. I want to work with the committee to make that into law. I want to work with you ladies and gentlemen. I will not let any corporate or any other form of lobbyist into my office to discuss this matter, and here and now, I beseech you to do the same. Mr. Chairman, when we start talking to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who has a little suggestion to take care of a special group with special needs, we end up with that!" Winston pointed to the broken table again. "We're all Americans. We're supposed to work together, and in the long run, tweaking the tax laws of our country for every lobbyist with an office and a clientele ultimately takes more money from everybody. The laws of our country are not supposed to be a jobs program for accountants and lawyers in the private sector, and bureaucrats in the public sector. The laws which you pass and which people like me enforce are supposed to serve the needs of the citizens, not the needs of the government.
"Second, I want my department to run efficiently. Efficiency is not a word that government knows how to spell, much less implement. That has to change. Well, I can't change this whole city, but I can change the department with which the President has entrusted me, and which, I hope, you will let me have. I know how to run a business. The Columbus Group serves literally millions of people, directly and indirectly, and I've borne that burden with pride. I will, in the next few months, submit a budget for a Department of the Treasury that doesn't have so much as one excess position." It was a considerable exaggeration, but nonetheless an impressive one. "This room has heard such claims before, and I will not blame you for taking my words with a ton of salt, but I am a man accustomed to backing up my words with results, and that's going to happen here, too.
"President Ryan had to yell at me to get me to move into Washington. I don't like it here, Mr. Chairman," Winston told the committee. He had them now. "I want to do my job and-leave. But the job is going to get done, if you let me. That concludes my opening statement."
The most experienced people in the room were the reporters in the second row—the first row had Winston's wife and family. They knew how things were done and how things were said. A cabinet officer was supposed to wax rhapsodic about the honor of being allowed to serve, about the joy of being entrusted with power, about the responsibility that would bear heavily upon him or
her.
I don't like it here? The reporters stopped writing their notes and looked up, first at the dais, and then at one another.
MOVIE STAR LIKED what he saw. Though the danger to him was greater, the risk was balanced. Here there was a main four-lane highway within a few meters of the objective, and that led to an infinite network of side roads. Best of all, you could see almost everything. Directly behind the objective was a clump of woods, dense enough that it could not hold a support vehicle. There had to be one, and where would it be…? Hmm, there, he thought. There was one house close enough with an attached garage that actually faced the day-care center and that one… yes. Two cars parked right in front of that house—why weren't they parked inside? So probably the Secret Service had made an arrangement with the owners. It was ideal, fifty meters from the demi-school, facing in the right direction. If something untoward happened, the alarm would be issued, and the support vehicle would instantly be manned, the garage door opened, and out it would race like a tank, except that it wasn't a tank.
The problem with security in a case such as this was that you had to set your procedures in stone, and clever as the Secret Service people undoubtedly were, their arrangements had to fit parameters both known and predictable. He checked his watch. How to confirm his suspicions? For starters, he needed a few minutes at rest. Directly across from Giant Steps was a convenience store, and that he'd check, because the enemy would have a person there, maybe more than one. He pulled in, parked the car, and went in, spending a minute or so blundering about.
"Can I help you?" a voice asked. Female, twenty-five— no older than that, but trying to look young. One did that with the cut of the hair and a little makeup, Movie Star knew. He'd used female operatives himself, and that's what he'd told them. Younger people always appear less threatening, especially the females. With a smile of confusion and embarrassment, he walked to the counter.
"I'm looking for your maps," he said.
"Right there under the counter." The clerk pointed with a smile. She was Secret Service. The eyes were too bright for the person to be in such a menial job.
"Ach," he said in disgust, selecting a large book map that would show every residential street in the district— county, they called them in America. He lifted it and flipped pages, one eye trained across the street. The children were being led outside to the playground. Four adults with them. Two would have been the normal number. So, at least two—three, he realized, spotting a man in the shadows, hardly moving at all. Large man, 180 centimeters or so, wearing casual clothes. Yes, the playground faced the dwelling with the garage. The watchers had to be there. Two more, perhaps three, would be in the dwelling, always watching. This would not exactly be easy, but he it'ow/ofknow where the opposition was. "How much for the map?"
"Printed right there on the cover."
"Ach, ja, excuse me." He reached into his pocket. "Five dollar, ninety-five," he said to himself, fishing for the change.
"Plus tax." She rang it up on the register. "Are you new to the area?"
"Yes, I am. I am teacher."
"Oh, what do you teach?"
"German," he replied, taking his change, and counting it. "I want to see what houses are like here. Thank you for the map. I have much to do." A curt European nod punctuated the encounter, and he left without a further look across the street. Movie Star had a sudden chill. The clerk had definitely been a police type. She'd be watching him right now, probably taking down his license number, but if she did, and if the Secret Service ran the number, they'd find that his name was Dieter Kolb, a German citizen from Frankfurt, a teacher of English, currently out of the country, and unless they pressed, that cover would be sufficient. He pulled north on Ritchie Highway, turning right at the first opportunity. There was a community college on a hill nearby, and in America those all had parking lots.
It was just a matter of finding a good spot. This was it. The intervening woods would soon fill out with the coming of spring, blocking visual access to Giant Steps. The rear of the house whose garage probably held the Chevy Suburban support vehicle had only a few windows facing in this direction, and those were curtained. The same was true of the preschool itself. Movie Star/Kolb lifted a pair of compact binoculars and scanned. It wasn't easy with all the tree trunks between him and the objective, but thorough as the American Secret Service was, its people weren't perfect. None were. More to the point, Giant Steps was not a favorable location for quartering so important a child, but that wasn't surprising. The Ryan family had sent all of its children here. The teachers were probably excellent, and Ryan and his physician wife probably knew them and were friendly with them, and the news stories he'd copied down from the Internet emphasized the fact that the Ryans wanted to keep their family life intact. Very human. And foolish.
He watched the children cavort on the playground. It seemed to be covered with wood chips. How natural it all was, the little ones cocooned in bulky winter clothes—the temperature was eleven or twelve, he estimated—and running about, some on the monkey bars, others on swings, still more playing in what dirt they could find. The manner of dress told him that these children were well looked-after, and they were, after all, children. Except for one. Which one he couldn't tell from this distance—they'd need' photos for that, when the time came— but that one wasn't a child at all. That one was a political statement for someone to make. Who would make the statement, and exactly why the statement would be made didn't concern Movie Star. He'd remain in his perch for several hours, not thinking at all about what might result from his activities. Or might not. He didn't care. He'd write up his memorized notes, draw his detailed maps and diagrams, and forget about it. «Kolb» was years past caring about it all. What had begun with religious fervor for the liberating Holy War of his people had, with the passage of time, become work for which he was paid. If, in the end, something happened which he found politically beneficial, so much the better, but somehow that had never taken place, despite all the hopes and dreams and fiery rhetoric, and what sustained him was the work and his skill at it. How strange, Movie Star thought, that it should have become so, but the passionate ones were mainly dead, victims of their own dedication. His face grimaced at the irony of it. The true believers done in by their own passion, and those who sustained the hope of his people were those who… didn't care anymore? Was that true?
"MANY PEOPLE WILL object to the nature of your proposed tax plan. A really fair plan is progressive," the senator went on. Predictably, he was one of the survivors, not one of the new arrivals. He had the mantra down. "Doesn't this place rather a high burden on working Americans?"
"Senator, I understand what you're saying," Winston replied after taking a sip from his water glass. "But what do you mean when you say 'working' Americans? I work. I built my business from the ground up and, believe me, that's work. The First Lady, Cathy Ryan, makes something like four hundred thousand dollars per year—much more than her husband, I might add. Does that mean she doesn't work? I think she does. She's a surgeon. I have a brother who's a physician, and I know the hours he works. True, those two people make more than the average American does, but the marketplace has long since decided that the work they do is more valuable than what some other people do. If you're going blind, a union auto worker can't help you; neither can a lawyer. A physician can. That doesn't mean that the physician doesn't work, Senator. It means that the work requires higher qualifications and much longer training, and that as a result the work is more highly compensated. What about a baseball player? That's another category of skilled work, and nobody in this room objects to the salary paid Ken Griffey, Jr., for example. Why? Because he's superb at what he does, one of the—what? — four or five best in the entire world, and he is lavishly compensated for it. Again, that's the marketplace at work.
"In a broader sense, speaking in my capacity as a mere citizen instead of a Secretary-designate, I object strongly to the artificial and mainly false dichotomy that some people in the political are
na place between blue-collar and white-collar workers. There is no way to earn an honest living in this country except by providing a product or a service to the public and, generally speaking, the harder and smarter you work, the more money you make. It's just that some people have greater abilities than others. If there is an idle-rich class in America, I think the only place you find them is in the movies. Who in this room, if you had the choice, would not instantly trade places with Ken Grif-fey or Jack Nicklaus? Don't all of us dream about being that good at something? I do," Winston admitted. "But I can't swing a bat that hard.