Jack Ryan 6 - Clear and Present Danger (80 page)

Clark
was caught rather short by the message.  He and Larson were just planning their flight back to
Colombia
when it arrived.  Just a message form with a few code-words, it was enough to ignite
Clark
's temper, so vile a thing that he labored hard to control it in the knowledge that it was his most dangerous enemy.  He wanted to call
Langley
, but decided against it, fearing that the order might be restated in a way difficult to ignore.  As he cooled off, his brain started working again.  That was the danger of his temper,
Clark
reminded himself, it stopped him from thinking.  He sure as hell needed to think now.  In a minute he decided that it was time for a little initiative.

“Come on, Larson, we're going to take a little ride.” That was easily accomplished.  He was still “Colonel Williams” to the Air Force, and got himself a car.  Next came a map, and Clark picked his brain to remember the path to that hilltop . . .  It took an hour, and the last few hundred yards were a potholed nightmare of a twisted, half-paved road.  The van was still there, as was the single armed guard, who came forward to give them a less than eager greeting.

“Stand down, mister, I was here before.”

“Oh, it's you—but, sir, I'm under orders to—”

Clark
cut him off. “Don't argue with me.  I know about your orders.  Why the hell do you think I'm here?  Now be a good boy and safe that weapon before you hurt yourself.”
Clark
walked right past him, again amazing Larson, who was far more impressed with loaded and pointed guns.

“What gives?”
Clark
asked as soon as he was inside.  He looked around.  All the gear was turned off.  The only noise was from the air-conditioning units.

“They shut us down,” the senior communicator answered.

“Who shut you down?”

“Look, I can't say, all right, I got orders that we're shut down.  That's it.  You want answers, go see Mr. Ritter.”

Clark
walked right up to the man. “He's too far away.”

“I got my orders.”

“What orders?”

“To shut down, damn it!  We haven't transmitted or received anything since lunchtime yesterday,” the man said.

“Who gave you the orders?”

“I can't say!”

“Who's looking after the field teams?”

“I don't know.  Somebody else.  He said our security was blown and it was being handed over to somebody else.”

“Who—you can tell me this time,”
Clark
said in an eerily calm voice.

“No, I can't.”

“Can you call up the field teams?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Their satellite radios are encoded.  The algorithm is on computer disk.  We downloaded all three copies of the encryption keys and erased two of 'em.  He watched us do it and took the third disk himself.”

“How do you reestablish the link?”

“You can't.  It's a unique algorithm that's based on the time transmissions from NAVSTAR satellites.  Secure as hell, and just about impossible to duplicate.”

“In other words those kids are completely cut off?”

“Well, no, he took the third disk, and there's somebody else who's—”

“Do you really believe that?”
Clark
asked.  The man's hesitation answered the question.  When the field officer spoke again, it was in a voice that didn't brook resistance. “You just told me that the commo link was unbreakable, but you accepted a statement from somebody you never saw before that it had been compromised.  We got thirty kids down there, and it sounds like they've been abandoned.  Now, who gave the orders to do it?”

“Cutter.”

“He was here?”

“Yesterday.”

“Jesus.”
Clark
looked around.  The other officer couldn't bring himself to look up.  Both men had speculated over what was really happening, and had come to the same conclusion that he had. “Who set up the commo plan for this mission?”

“I did.”

“What about their tactical radios?”

“Basically they're commercial sets, a little customized.  They have a choice of ten SSB frequencies.”

“You have the freqs?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Give them to me right now.”

The man thought to say that he couldn't do that, but decided against it.  He'd just say that
Clark
threatened him, and it didn't seem like the right time to start a little war in the van.  That was accurate enough.  He was very much afraid of Mr. Clark at this moment.  He pulled the sheet of frequencies from a drawer.  It hadn't occurred to Cutter to destroy that, too, but he had the radio channels memorized anyway.

“If anybody asks . . .”

“You were never here, sir.”

“Very good.”
Clark
walked out into the darkness. “Back to the air base,”
Clark
told Larson. “We're looking for a helicopter.”

Cortez had made it back to Anserma without note having been taken of his seven-hour absence, and had left behind a communications link that knew how to find him, and now, rested and bathed, he waited for the phone to ring.  He congratulated himself, first, on having set up a communications net in
America
as soon as he'd taken the job with the Cartel; next on his performance with Cutter, though not as much for this.  He could scarcely have lost, though the American had made it easier through his own stupidity, not unlike Carter and the marielitos, though at least the former President had been motivated by humanitarian aims, not political advantage.  Now it was just a matter of waiting.  The amusing part was the book code that he was using.  It was backwards from the usual thing.  Normally a book code was transmitted in numbers to identify words, but this time words indicated numbers.  Cortez already had the American tactical maps—anyone could buy American military maps from their Defense Mapping Agency, and he'd been using them himself to run his operation against the Green Berets.  The bookcode system was always a secure method of passing information; now it was even more so.

Waiting was no easier for Cortez than for anyone else, but he amused himself with further planning.  He knew what his next two moves were, but what about after that?  For one thing, Cortez thought, the Cartel had neglected the European and Japanese markets.  Both regions were flush with hard currency, and while
Japan
might be hard to crack—it was hard to import things legally into that market—
Europe
would soon get much easier.  With the EEC beginning its integration of the continent into a single political entity, trade barriers would soon start to come down.  That meant opportunity for Cortez.  It was just a matter of finding ports of entry where security was either lax or negotiable, and then setting up a distribution network.  Reducing exports to
America
could not be allowed to interfere with Cartel income, after all. 
Europe
was a market barely tapped, and there he would begin to expand the Cartel horizons with his surplus product.  In
America
, reduced demand would merely increase price.  In fact, he expected that his promise to Cutter—a temporary one to be sure—would have a small but positive effect on Cartel income.  At the same time, the disorderly American distribution networks would sort themselves out rapidly after the supply was reduced.  The strong and efficient would survive, and once firmly established, would conduct business in a more orderly way.  Violent crime was more troublesome to the yanquis than the actual drug addiction that caused it.  Once the violence abated, drug addiction itself would lose some of the priority in the pantheon of American social problems.  The Cartel wouldn't suffer.  It would grow in riches and power so long as people desired its product.

While that was happening,
Colombia
itself would be further subverted, but more subtly.  That was one more area in which Cortez had been given professional training.  The current lords used a brute-force approach, offering money while at the same time threatening death.  No, that would also have to stop.  The lust in the developed countries for cocaine was a temporary thing, was it not?  Sooner or later it would become unfashionable, and demand would gradually diminish.  That was one thing that the lords didn't see.  When it began to happen, the Cartel had to have a solid political base and a diversified economic foundation if it wished to survive the diminution of its power.  That demanded a more accommodating stance with its parent country.  Cortez was prepared to establish that, too.  Eliminating some of the more obnoxious lords would be a major first step toward that goal.  History taught that you could reach a modus vivendi with almost anybody.  And Cortez had just proven it to be true.

The phone rang.  He answered it.  He wrote down the words given him and after hanging up, picked up the dictionary.  Within a minute he was making marks on his tactical map.  The American Green Berets were not fools, he saw.  Their encampments were all set on places difficult to approach.  Attacking and destroying them would be very costly.  Too bad, but all things had their price.  He summoned his staff and started getting radio messages out.  Within an hour, the hunter groups were coming down off the mountains to redeploy.  He'd hit them one at a time, he decided.  That would guarantee sufficient strength to overwhelm each detachment, and also guarantee sufficient losses that he'd have to draw further on the retainers of the lords.  He would not accompany the teams up the mountains, of course, but that was also too bad.  It might have been amusing to watch.

Ryan hadn't slept at all well.  A conspiracy was one thing when aimed at an external enemy.  His career at CIA had been nothing more than that, an effort to bring advantage to his own country, often by inflicting disadvantage, or harm, upon another.  That was his job as a servant of his country's government.  But now he was in a conspiracy that was arguably against the government itself.  The fact denied him sleep.

Jack was sitting in his library, a single reading lamp illuminating his desk.  Next to him were two phones, one secure, one not.  It was the latter which rang.

“Hello?”

“This is John,” the voice said.

“What's the problem?”

“Somebody cut off support for the field teams.”

“But why?”

“Maybe somebody wants them to disappear.”

Ryan felt a chill at the back of his neck. “Where are you?”

“
Panama
.  Communications have been shut down and the helicopter is gone.  We have thirty kids on hilltops waiting for help that ain't gonna come.”

“How can I reach you?”
Clark
gave him a number. “Okay, I'll be back to you in a few hours.”

“Let's not screw around.” The line clicked off.

“Jesus.” Jack looked into the shadows of his library.  He called his office to say that he'd drive himself into work.  Then he called Dan Murray.

Ryan was back in the FBI building underpass sixty minutes later. 
Murray
was waiting for him and took him back upstairs.  Shaw was there, too, and much-needed coffee was passed out.

“Our field guy called me at home.  V
ARIABLE
has been shut down, and the helicopter crew that was supposed to bring them out has been pulled.  He thinks they're going to be—hell, he thinks—”

“Yeah,” Shaw observed. “If so, we now have a probable violation of the law.  Conspiracy to commit murder.  Proving it might be a little tough, though.”

“Stuff your law—what about those soldiers?”

“How do we get them out?”
Murray
asked. “Get help from—no, we can't get the Colombians involved, can we?”

“How do you think they'd react to an invasion from a foreign army?” Shaw noted. “About the same way we would.”

“What about confronting Cutter?” Jack asked.  Shaw answered.

“Confront him with what?  What do we have?  Zip.  Oh, sure, we can get those communications guys and the helicopter crews and talk to them, but they'll stonewall for a while, and then what?  By the time we have a case, those soldiers are dead.”

“And if we can bring them out, then what case do we have?”
Murray
asked. “Everybody runs for cover, papers get shredded . . .”

“If I may make a suggestion, gentlemen, why don't we forget about courtrooms for the moment and try to concentrate on getting those grunts the hell out of Indian country?”

“Getting them out is fine, but—”

“You think your case will get better with thirty or forty new victims?” Ryan snapped. “What is the objective here?”

“That was a cheap shot, Jack,”
Murray
said.

“Where's your case?  What if the President authorized the operation, with Cutter as his go-between, and there's no written orders?  CIA acted in accordance with verbal orders, and the orders are arguably legal, except that I got told to mislead Congress if they ask, which they haven't done yet!  There's also that little kink in the law that says we can start a covert operation without telling them, no matter what it is—the limits on our covert ops come from a White House Executive Order, remember—as long as we do get around to telling them.  Therefore a killing authorized by the guy who puts out the Executive Order can only become a murder retroactively if something extraneous to the murder itself does not happen!  What bonehead ever set these statutes up?  Have they ever really been tested in court?”

“You left something out,”
Murray
observed.

“Yeah, the most obvious reply from Cutter is that this isn't a covert operation at all, but a paramilitary counterterrorist op.  That evades the whole issue of intelligence-oversight.  Now we come under the War Powers Resolution, which has another lead-time factor.  Have any of these laws ever been tested in court?”

“Not really,” Shaw answered. “There's been a lot of dancing around, but nothing actually on point.  War-Powers especially is a constitutional question that both sides are afraid to put in front of a judge.  Where are you coming from, Ryan?”

“I got an agency to protect, don't I?  If this adventure goes public, the CIA reverts back to what it was in the seventies.  For example, what happens to your counterterrorist programs if the info we feed you dries up?” That one scored points, Jack saw.  CIA was the silent partner in the war on terrorism, feeding most of its data to the Bureau, as Shaw had every reason to know. “On the other hand, from what we've talked about the last couple of days, what real case do you have?”