Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Books 7-12 (155 page)

“What else?”

“Things seem to be dropping into place. We’ve recovered what we think is the body of the co-pilot. He was murdered hours before the crash, leading us to believe that the pilot acted alone. We’ll be doing DNA tests on the remains to confirm identities.” The inspector flipped through his notes, not trusting to memory to get things right. “Drug and alcohol tests on both bodies proved negative. Analysis of the flight-data recorder, tapes of radio traffic, radar tapes, everything we’ve managed to pull together, it all leads to the same picture, one guy acting alone. Dan’s meeting with a senior Japanese cop right now.”

“Next step?”

“It will be a textbook investigation process. We reconstruct everything Sato—that’s the pilot’s name—did over the last month or so, and take it back from there. Phone records, where he went, whom he saw, friends and associates, diary if any, everything we can get our hands on. The idea is to rebuild the guy completely and determine if he was part of any possible conspiracy. It will take time. It’s a fairly exhaustive process.”

“Best guess for now?” Jack asked.

“One guy acting alone,” O’Day said again, rather more positively this time.

“It’s too damned early for any conclusion,” Andrea Price objected. O’Day turned.

“It’s not a conclusion. Mr. Ryan asked for a best guess. I’ve been in the investigation business for quite a while. This looks like a fairly elaborate impulse crime. The method of the co-pilot’s murder, for example. He didn’t even move the body out of the cockpit. He apologized to the guy right after he stabbed him, according to the tapes.”

“Elaborate
impulse crime?” Andrea objected.

“Airline pilots are highly organized people,” O’Day replied. “Things that would be highly complex for the layman are as natural to them as pulling up your zipper. Most assassinations are carried out by dysfunctional individuals who get lucky. In this case, unfortunately, we had a very capable subject who largely made his own luck. In any event, that’s what we have at the moment.”

“For this to have been a conspiracy, what would you look for?” Jack asked.

“Sir, successful criminal conspiracies are difficult to achieve under the best of circumstances.” Price bristled again, but Inspector O’Day went on: “The problem is human nature. The most normal of us are boastful; we like to share secrets to show how bright we are. Most criminals talk their way right into prison one way or another. Okay, in a case like this we’re not talking about your average robber, but the principle holds. To build any sort of conspiracy takes time and talk, and as a result, things leak. Then there’s the problem of selecting the... ‘shooter,’ for want of a better term. Such time did not exist. The joint session was set up too late for much in the way of discussions to have taken place. The nature of the co-pilot’s murder is very suggestive of a spur-of-the-moment method. A knife is less sure than a gun, and a steak knife isn’t a good weapon, too easily bent or broken on a rib.”

“How many murders have you handled?” Price asked.

“Enough. I’ve assisted on plenty of local police cases, especially here in D.C. The Washington Field Office has backed up the D.C. police for years. Anyway, for Sato to have been the ‘shooter’ in a conspiracy, he would have had to meet with people. We can track his free time, and we’ll do that with the Japanese. But to this point there is not a single indicator that way. Quite the contrary, all circumstances point to someone who saw a unique opportunity and made use of it on an impulse.”

“What if the pilot wasn’t—”

“Ms. Price, the cockpit tapes go back before the take-off from Vancouver. We’ve voice-printed everything in our own lab—it’s a digital tape and the sound quality is beautiful. The same guy who took off from Narita flew the airplane into the ground here. Now, if it wasn’t Sato, then why didn’t the co-pilot—they flew together as a team—notice ? Conversely, if the pilot and co-pilot were show-ups, then both were part of the conspiracy from the beginning, then why was the co-pilot murdered prior to takeoff from Vancouver? The Canadians are interviewing the rest of the crew for us, and all the service personnel say that the flight crew was just who they were supposed to be. The DNA-ID process will prove that beyond doubt.”

“Inspector, you are very persuasive,” Ryan observed.

“Sir, this investigation will be rather involved, what with all the facts that have to be checked out, but the meat of the issue is fairly simple. It’s damned hard to fake a crime scene. There’s just too many things we can do. Is it theoretically possible to set things up in such a way as to fool our people?” O’Day asked rhetorically. “Yes, sir, maybe it is, but to do that would take months of preparation, and they didn’t have months. It really comes down to one thing: the decision to call the joint session happened while that aircraft was over mid-Pacific.”

Much as she wanted to, Price couldn’t counter that argument. She’d run her own quick investigation on Patrick O’Day. Emil Jacobs had reinstituted the post of roving inspector years before, and collected people who preferred investigation to management. O’Day was an agent for whom running a field division had little appeal. He was part of a small team of experienced investigators who worked out of the Director’s office, an unofficial inspectorate which went into the field to keep an eye on things, mainly sensitive cases. He was a good cop who hated desk work, and Price had to concede that he knew how to run an investigation, better yet was someone outside the chain of command who wouldn’t ham things up in order to get a promotion. The inspector had driven to the House in a four-by-four pickup—he wore cowboy boots! she noticed—and probably wanted publicity about as much as he wanted the pox. So Assistant Director Tony Caruso, titularly in charge of the investigation, would report to the Department of Justice, but Patrick O’Day would short-circuit the chain to report directly to Murray—who would, in turn, farm O’Day to the President so as to garner personal favor. She’d figured Murray for a sharp operator. Bill Shaw, after all, had used him as personal troubleshooter. And Murray’s loyalty would be to the institution of the FBI. A man could have a worse agenda, she admitted to herself. For O’Day it was simpler still. He investigated crimes for a living, and while he appeared to jump too quickly to conclusions, this transplanted cowboy was doing it all by the book. You had to watch the good ol’ boys. They were so good at hiding their smarts. But he would never have made the Detail, she consoled herself.

“ENJOY YOUR VACATION?” Mary Pat Foley was either in very early or in very late, Clark saw. It came to him again that of all the senior people in government, President Ryan was probably getting the most sleep, little though that might be. It was a hell of a way to run a railroad. People simply didn’t perform well when denied rest for an extended period of time, something he’d learned the hard way in the field, but put a guy into high office, and he immediately forgot that—such pedestrian items as human factors faded into the mist. And then a month later, they wondered how they’d screwed up so bad. But that was usually after they got some poor line-animal killed in the field.

“MP, when the hell is the last time you slept?” Not many people could talk to her that way, but John had been her training officer, once upon a time.

A wan smile. “John, you’re not Jewish, and you’re not my mother.”

Clark looked around. “Where’s Ed?”

“On his way back from the Gulf. Conference with the Saudis,” she explained. Though Mrs. Foley technically ranked Mr. Foley, Saudi culture wasn’t quite ready to deal with a female King Spook—Queen Spook, John corrected himself with a smile—and Ed was probably better on the conferences anyway.

“Anything I need to know about?”

She shook her head. “Routine. So, Domingo, did you drop the question?”

“You are playing rough this morning,” Clark observed before his partner could speak.

Chavez just grinned. The country might be in turmoil, but some things were more important. “Could be worse, Mr. C. I’m not a lawyer, am I?”

“There goes the neighborhood,” John grumbled. Then it was time for business. “How’s Jack doing?”

“I’m scheduled to see him after lunch, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they canceled out. The poor bastard must be buried alive.”

“What I saw about how he got roped into this, is what the papers said true?”

“Yes, it is. So, we have a Kelly Girl for President,” the Deputy Director (Operations) posed as a multifaceted inside joke. “We’re going to do a comprehensive threat assessment. I want you two in on it.”

“Why us?” Chavez asked.

“Because I’m tired of having all that done by the Intelligence Directorate. I tell you one thing that’s going to happen: we have a President now who understands what we do here. We’re going to beef up Operations to the point where I can pick up a phone, ask a question, and get an answer I can understand.”

“PLAN BLUE?” Clark asked, and received a welcome nod. “Blue” had been his last function before leaving the CIA’s training facility, known as “the Farm,” down near the Navy’s nuclear-weapons locker at Yorktown, Virginia. Instead of hiring a bunch of Ivy League intellectuals—at least they didn’t smoke pipes anymore—he had proposed that the Agency recruit cops, police officers right off the street. Cops, he reasoned, knew about using informants, didn’t have to be taught street smarts, and knew about surviving in dangerous areas. All of that would save training dollars, and probably produce better field officers. The proposal had been File-13’d by two successive DDOs, but Mary Pat had known about it from the beginning, and approved the concept. “Can you sell it?”

“John, you’re going to help me sell it. Look how well Domingo here has turned out.”

“You mean I’m not affirmative action?” Chavez asked.

“No, Ding, that’s only with his daughter,” Mrs. Foley suggested. “Ryan will go for it. He isn’t very keen on the Director. Anyway, for now I want you two to do your debrief on SANDALWOOD.”

“What about our cover?” Clark asked. He didn’t have to explain what he meant. Mary Pat had never got her hands dirty in the field—she was espionage, not the paramilitary side of the Operations Directorate—but she understood just fine.

“John, you were acting under presidential orders. That’s written down and in the book. Nobody’s going to second-guess anything you did, especially with saving Koga. You both have an Intelligence Star coming for that. President Durling wanted to see you and present the medals himself up at Camp David. I suppose Jack will, too.”

Whoa,
Chavez thought behind unblinking eyes, but nice as that thought was, he’d been thinking about something else on the three-hour drive up from Yorktown. “When’s the threat-assessment start?”

“Tomorrow for our side of it. Why?” MP asked.

“Ma’am, I think we’re going to be busy.”

“I hope you’re wrong,” she replied, after nodding.

“I HAVE TWO procedures scheduled for today,” Cathy said, surveying the breakfast buffet. Since they didn’t know what the Ryans liked to have in the morning, the staff had prepared some—actually quite a lot—of everything. Sally and Little Jack thought that was just great—even better, schools were closed. Katie, a recent graduate to real foods, gnawed at a piece of bacon in her hand while contemplating some buttered toast. For children, the immediate has the greatest importance. Sally, now fifteen (going on thirty, her father sometimes lamented), took the longest view of the three, but at the moment that was limited to how her social life would be affected. For all of them, Daddy was still Daddy, whatever job he might hold at the moment. They’d learn different, Jack knew, but one thing at a time.

“We haven’t figured that out,” her husband replied, selecting scrambled eggs and bacon for his plate. He’d need his energy today.

“Jack, the deal was that I could still do my work, remember?”

“Mrs. Ryan?” It was Andrea Price, still hovering around like a guardian angel, albeit with an automatic pistol. “We’re still figuring out the security issues and—”

“My patients need me. Jack, Bernie Katz and Hal Marsh can backstop me on a lot of things, but one of my patients today needs me. I have teaching rounds to prep for, too.” She checked her watch. “In four hours.” Which was true, Ryan didn’t have to ask. Professor Caroline Ryan, M.D., F.A.C.S., was top-gun for driving a laser around a retina. People came from all over the world to watch her work.

“But schools are—” Price stopped, reminding herself that she knew better.

“Not medical schools. We can’t send patients home. I’m sorry. I know how complicated things are for everybody, but I have people who depend on me, too, and I have to be there for them.” Cathy looked at the adult faces in the kitchen for a decision that would go her way. The kitchen staff—all sailors—moved in and out like mobile statues, pretending not to hear anything. The Secret Service people adopted a different blank expression, one with more discomfort in it.

The First Lady was supposed to be an unpaid adjunct to her husband. That was a rule which needed changing at some point. Sooner or later, after all, there would be a female President, and that would really upset the apple-cart, a fact well known but studiously ignored to this point in American history. The usual political wife was a woman who appeared at her husband’s side with an adoring smile and a few carefully picked words, who endured the tedium of a campaign, and the surprisingly brutal handshakes—certainly Cathy Ryan would not subject her surgeon’s hands to that, Price thought suddenly. But this First Lady actually had a job. More than that, she was a physician with a Lasker Memorial Public Service Award shortly to sit on her mantel (the awards dinner had yet to he held), and if she had learned anything about Cathy Ryan, Price knew that she was dedicated to her profession, not merely to her husband. However admirable that might be, it would be a royal pain in the ass to the Service, Price was sure. Worse yet, the principal agent assigned to
Mrs.
Dr. Ryan was Roy Altman, a tall bruiser of a former paratrooper whom she’d not yet met. That decision had been made for Roy’s size as well as his savvy. It never hurt to have one obvious bodyguard close aboard, and since the First Lady appeared to many as a soft target, one of Roy’s functions was to make the casual troublemaker think twice on that basis alone. Other members of her Detail would be virtually invisible. One of Altman’s other functions was to use his bulk to block bullets, something the agents trained for but didn’t dwell on.