Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Books 7-12 (193 page)

“Ten days?”

“You’ve got what I need sitting in a desk drawer right now, don’t you?” Planning officers always did, Bretano knew.

“Give me a couple days to polish it up, sir, but, yes, we do.”

“Jackson?”

“Yes, Mr. Secretary?”

“I kept track of our operations in the Pacific. One of my people at TRW, Skip Tyler, used to be pretty good at this stuff, and we looked over maps and things every day. The operations you put together, they were impressive. War isn’t just physical. It’s psychological, too, like all life is. You win because you have the best people. Guns and planes count, but brains count more. I’m a good manager, and one hell of a good engineer. I’m not a fighter. I’ll listen to what you say, ’cause you and your colleagues know how to fight. I’ll stand up for you wherever and whenever I have to. In return for that, I want what you really need, not what you’d like to have. We can’t afford that. We can cut bureaucracy. That’s Manpower’s job, civilian and uniform. I’ll lean this place out. At TRW I got rid of a lot of useless bodies. That’s an engineering company, and now it’s run by engineers. This is a company that does operations, and it ought to be run by operators, people with notches cut in their gun grips. Lean. Mean. Tough. Smart. You get what I’m saying?”

“I think so, sir.”

“Ten days. Less if you can. Call me when you’re ready.”

“CLARK,” JOHN SAID, picking up his direct line.

“Holtzman,” the voice said. The name made John’s eyes go a little wide.

“I suppose I could ask how you got this number, but you’d never reveal your source.”

“Good guess,” the reporter agreed. “Remember that dinner we had a while back at Esteban’s?”

“Vaguely,” Clark lied. “It’s been a long time.” It hadn’t actually been a dinner, but the tape machine that had to be on the phone didn’t know that.

“I owe you one. How about tonight?”

“I’ll get back to you.” Clark hung up and stared down at his desk. What the hell was this about?

“COME ON, THAT’S not what Jack said,” van Damm told the
New York Times.

“That’s what he meant, Arnie,” the reporter responded. “You know it. I know it.”

“I wish you’d go easy on the guy. He’s not a politician,” the chief of staff pointed out.

“Not my fault, Arnie. He’s in the job. He has to follow the rules.”

Arnold van Damm nodded agreement, concealing the anger that had risen in an instant at the correspondent’s casual remark. Inwardly he knew that the reporter was right. That’s how the game was played. But he also knew that the reporter was wrong. Maybe he’d grown too attached to President Ryan, enough so that he’d actually absorbed some of his flaky ideas. The media, exclusively composed of the employees of private businesses—most of them corporations with publicly traded stock—had grown in power to the point that they
decided
what people said. That was bad enough. What was worse, they enjoyed their jobs too much. They could make or break anyone in this town. They made the rules. He who broke them could himself be broken.

Ryan
was
a naif. There was no denying it. In his defense, he’d never sought his current job. He’d come here by accident, having sought nothing more than a final opportunity to serve, and then to leave once and for all, to return to private life. He’d not been elected to his post. But neither had the media, and at least Ryan had the Constitution to define his duties. The media was crossing the line. They were taking sides in a constitutional matter, and they were taking the wrong side.

“Who makes the rules?” Arnie asked.

“They just are,” the
Times
answered.

“Well, the President isn’t going to attack
Roe.
He never said that he would. And he’s not going to pick Justices off park benches, either. He isn’t going to pick liberal activists, and he isn’t going to pick conservative activists, and I think you know that.”

“So Ryan misspoke himself?” The reporter’s casual grin said it all. He’d report this as spin control by a senior administration official, “ ‘clarifying,’ which means correcting, what the President said,” the article would read.

“Not at all. You misunderstood him.”

“It sounded pretty clear to me, Arnie.”

“That’s because you’re used to listening to professional politicians. The President we have now says things straight. Actually I kind of like that,” van Damm went on, lying; it was driving him crazy. “And it might even make life easier for you. You don’t have to check the tea leaves anymore. All you have to do is take proper notes. Or maybe just judge him by a fair set of rules. We’ve agreed that he’s not a politician, but you’re treating him as if he were. Listen to what he’s really saying, will you?” Or maybe even look at the videotape, he didn’t add. He was skating on the edge now. Talking to the media was like petting a new cat. You never knew when they’d reach up and scratch.

“Come on, Arnie. You’re the most loyal guy in this town. Damn, you would have been a great family doctor. We all know that. But Ryan doesn’t have a clue. The speech at National Cathedral, that loony speech from the Oval Office. He’s about as presidential as the chairman of the Rotary in Bumfuck, Iowa.”

“But who decides what’s presidential and what isn’t?”

“In New York, I do.” The reporter smiled again. “For Chicago, you have to ask somebody else.”

“He
is
the President of the United States.”

“That’s not what Ed Kealty says, and at least Ed
acts
presidential.”

“Ed’s out. He resigned. Roger took the call from Secretary Hanson, and told me about it. Damn it,
you
reported that yourself.”

“But what possible motive could he have for ”

“What motive could he have for boffing every skirt that crossed his bow?” the chief of staff demanded.
Great,
he thought,
now I’m losing control of the media!

“Ed’s always been a ladies’ man. He’s gotten better since he got off the booze. It never affected his duties,” the White House correspondent made clear. Like his paper, he was a strong proponent of women’s rights. “This one will have to play out.”

“What position will the
Times
take?”

“I’ll get you a copy of the editorial,” the reporter promised.

HE COULDN’T STAND it anymore. He lifted the phone and dialed the six digits while staring out at the darkness. The sun was down now, and clouds were rolling in. It would be a cold, rainy night, leading to a dawn which might or might not take place before his eyes.

“Yes?” a voice said halfway through the first ring.

“Badrayn here. It would be more convenient if the next aircraft were larger.”

“We have a 737 standing by, but I need authorization to have it sent.”

“I will work on this end.”

It was the TV news which had gotten him moving. Even more muted than usual, there had not been a single political story. Not one, in a nation where political commentary often as not displaced the weather forecasts. Most ominously of all, there was a story about a mosque, an old Shi’a mosque, one that had fallen into disrepair. The story lamented that fact, citing the building’s long and honorable history, and ignoring the fact that it had fallen into disrepair because it had once been a meeting place for a group charged, perhaps truthfully, with plotting the demise of Iraq’s fallen, beloved, great, and evidently soon-to-be-forgotten political leader. Worst of all, the taped footage had shown five mullahs standing outside the mosque, not even looking directly at the camera, merely gesturing at the faded blue tile on the wall and probably discussing what needed to be done. The five were the same ones who’d flown in to be hostages. But not a single soldier was in sight on the TV screen, and the faces of at least two of the mullahs were well known to Iraqi audiences. Somebody had gotten to the TV station, more precisely to the people who worked there. If the reporters and others wanted to retain their jobs and their heads, it was time to face a new reality. Were the brief few moments on the screen enough for the common folk to see and recognize the visitors’ faces—and get the message? Finding out the answer to that question could be dangerous.

But the common people didn’t matter. Colonels and majors did. Generals not on the proper list did. Quite soon they’d know. Probably some already did. They’d be on the phone, first calling up the line to see what was going on. Some would hear lies. Some would hear nothing. They’d start thinking. They’d start making contacts. Over the next twelve hours they’d talk among themselves and have to make hard decisions. These were the men who were identified with the dying regime. The ones who couldn’t run, who had no place to run to and no money to run with, the ones who had to stay. Their identification with the past regime could be a death sentence—for many, certainly would be so. For others, there was a chance. To survive, they would have to do what criminals all over the world did. They would save their own lives by offering up a larger fish. So it always was. The colonels would overthrow the generals.

Finally, the generals understood.

“There is a 737 standing by. Enough room for all. It can be here in ninety minutes,” he told them.

“And they will not kill us at Mehrabad Airport?” the deputy chief of staff of the Iraqi army demanded.

“Would you prefer to die here?” Badrayn asked in reply.

“What if it’s all a trap?”

“There is that risk. In that case, the five television personalities will die.” Of course they wouldn’t. That would have to be the act of troops loyal to generals already dead. That sort of loyalty didn’t exist here. They all knew that. The mere act of taking hostages had been an instinctive gesture, and one already invalidated by someone, perhaps in the media, but maybe the colonel who’d headed the guard force over the Iranian clerics.
He
was supposed to be a trusted intelligence specialist, Badrayn remembered on reflection, a loyal Sunni officer, son of a Ba’ath Party member. That could mean that the Ba’ath Party was already being suborned. It was going too fast now. The mullahs would not have concealed the nature of their mission, would they? But none of that mattered. Killing the hostages would accomplish nothing. The generals were doomed if they stayed here, and martyrdom wasn’t exactly offensive to Iranian clerics. It was an integral part of the Shi’a tradition.

No, the decision had already been irreversibly made. These senior commanders hadn’t grasped that. They hadn’t thought it all the way through.

Well, had they been truly competent officers, they would have been killed ages ago, by their beloved leader.

“Yes,” the most senior of them said.

“Thank you.” Badrayn lifted the phone and punched the buttons again.

THE DIMENSIONS OF the constitutional crisis in which America has found itself were not apparent until yesterday. Although the issue may seem to be technical, the substance of it is not.

John Patrick Ryan is a man of ability, but whether or not he has the necessary talent to perform his presidential duties has yet to be established. The initial indications are less than promising. Government service is not a job for amateurs. Our country has often enough turned to such people, but always in the past they have been in the minority, able to grow into their duties in an orderly way.

There is nothing orderly about the crisis, facing the country. To this point Mr. Ryan has done a proper and careful job of stabilizing the government. His interim appointment to head the FBI
,
for example, Daniel Murray, is an acceptable choice. Similarly, George Winston is probably a fair interim choice for the Department of the Treasury, though he is politically unschooled. Scott Adler, a highly talented, lifelong foreign service officer, may be the best member of the current cabinet ...
Ryan skipped the next two paragraphs.

Vice President Edward Kealty
,
whatever his personal failings, knows government, and his middle-of-the-road position
on
most national issues offers a steady course until elections can select a new administration. But are his claims true?

“Do you care?” Ryan asked the lead editorial for the next day’s
Times.

“They know him. They don’t know you,” Arnie answered. Then the phone rang.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Foley for you, Mr. President. He says it’s important.”

“Okay ... Ed? Putting you on speaker.” Jack pushed the proper button and replaced the receiver. “Arnie’s listening in.”

“It’s definite. Iran’s making a move, big and fast. I have a TV feed for you if you have the time.”

“Roll it.” Jack knew how to do that. In this office and others were televisions fed off secure fiber-optic cables to the Pentagon and elsewhere. He pulled the controller from a drawer and turned the set on. The “show” lasted only fifteen seconds, was rerun again, then freeze-framed.

“Who are they?” Jack asked.

Foley read off the names. Ryan had heard two of them before. “Mid- and top-level advisers to Daryaei. They’re in Baghdad, and somebody decided to get the word out. Okay, we know senior generals are flying out. Now we have five mullahs talking about rebuilding an important mosque on national TV. Tomorrow they’ll be talking louder,” the DCI-designate promised.

“Anything from people on the ground?”

“Negative,” Ed admitted. “I was talking to station chief Riyadh about sneaking up there for a sit-down, but by the time he gets there, there won’t be anyone to sit down with.”

“THAT’S A LITTLE big,” an officer said aboard the duty AWACS. He read off the alpha-numeric display. “Colonel,” the lieutenant called over the command line, “I have what appears to be a 737 charter inbound Mehrabad to Baghdad, course two-two-zero, speed four-five-zero knots, twenty thousand feet. PALM BOWL reports encrypted voice traffic to Baghdad from that track.”