Dead or Alive (45 page)

“Heavy thoughts, Mr. President?” Clark asked with a smile.

“Hey, John! Howdy, Ding. Welcome!” Steps were taken and handshakes exchanged. “Sit down and take a load off,” Jack commanded, and his orders were followed. Old friend or not, he was a former President of the United States, and they’d both worn uniforms in the not-so-distant past.

“Glad to see you’re in one piece,” Clark said.

“What, Georgetown?” Ryan shook his head. “Not even a close call. Andrea dropped him as pretty as you please. With a tip-off from Jack, that is.”

“Come again?”

“He was there. He gave Andrea the nod. He spotted something about the janitor that didn’t sit right.”

“Such as?” asked Clark.

“He was using a screwdriver on a buffer; should have had a crescent.”

“Sharp kid,” Chavez observed. “Gotta make Dad proud.”

“Bet yer ass,” former President Ryan said, not hiding it. “Want some coffee?”

“That’s one thing they don’t do well in England, sir,” Chavez said in agreement. “They got Starbucks, but that doesn’t quite do it for me.”

“I’ll fix you up. Come on.” He rose and walked down to the kitchen, where there was a pot full of Kona and mugs close by. “So how was life in Britain?”

“Good people. Our base was out near the Welsh border—nice people out there, good pubs, and the local food was pretty good. I especially like their bread,” Clark reported. “But they think corned beef is something that comes out of a can.”

Ryan laughed. “Yeah, dog food. I worked in London nearly three years, and I never found decent corned beef. They call it ‘salt beef,’ but it isn’t quite the same. Rotated out of Rainbow, huh?”

“I guess we just wore out our welcome,” Clark said.

“Who’d you leave behind?” President Ryan asked.

“Two go-teams, all trained up, about half SAS members from the British Army. They’re pretty good,” Clark assured him. “But the other European contingents are backing off. Too bad. Some of them were ace operators. The intel backup is also pretty well up to snuff. Rainbow will still work, if they let it. But the local—by which I mean mainly European—bureaucrats, they kinda wet their pants when my boys deploy.”

“Yeah, well, we have them here, too,” Ryan replied. “Kinda makes you wonder where Wyatt Earp went to.”

That got a chuckle from his guests.

“What’s SHORTSTOP doing now?” Clark asked. It was a natural question to ask among friends who’d been apart; failing to ask would have been noted.

“Trading business, like I did. I haven’t even asked where. Having a President for a father can be disabling at his age, y’know?”

“Especially the chase cars on a date,” Chavez suggested with a grin. “Not sure I would have liked that.”

They spent ten minutes chatting and catching up on their respective families, on sports, and on the general state of the world, then Ryan said, “What are you guys going to do? I imagine CIA has suggested you both retire. If you need a letter of reference, let me know. You’ve both served your country well.”

“That’s one of the things we wanted to talk to you about,” Clark said. “We ran into Jimmy Hardesty at Langley, and he put us in touch with Tom Davis.”

“Oh?” Ryan said, setting his cup down.

Clark nodded. “They offered us a job.”

Former President Ryan considered this for a moment. “Well, it’s not like I hadn’t bounced that around in my head before. You two are suited for it, no doubt about that. What’d you think of the setup?”

“Good. Some growing pains going on, I think, but that’s to be expected.”

“Gerry Hendley’s a good guy. I wouldn’t have signed off on it otherwise. You know about the pardons?”

Chavez answered that one. “Yeah, thanks in advance. Pray we won’t need one, but nice to know they’re there.”

Ryan nodded. “How’s lunch grab you?”

And thus endeth the conversation,
Clark noted. Brainchild of Ryan’s or not, The Campus was something best kept at arm’s length.

“Thought you’d never ask,” Clark said, not missing a beat. “Can I hope for corned beef?”

“Place called Attman’s up in Baltimore. One nice thing about the Secret Service: They don’t let me do anything, and so they run a lot of errands.”

“In the old days I bet they’d fly it down from the Carnegie in New York,” Chavez speculated.

It was Ryan’s turn to smile. “Occasionally. You have to be careful with that sort of stuff. You can get spoiled, and you can start believing you deserve it. Hell, I miss not being able to wander around shopping myself, but Andrea and her troops have a conniption fit when I try to do it.” The Secret Service had insisted, for example, that his house have a sprinkler system. Ryan had submitted and footed the bill himself, though it could have been billed to the Department of the Treasury. He didn’t want to start feeling like a king. With that decided, he led his guests into the kitchen, where the corned beef was already laid out, along with kaiser rolls and deli mustard.

“Thank God for an American lunch,” Clark said aloud. “I love the Brits, and I like having a pint of John Smith’s with it, but home is home.”

 

 

 

I
n the car, Ryan said, “Now that you’re free men, tell me: How’s the new Langley?”

Clark answered, “You know me, Jack. How long have I been screaming about building up the DO?” he asked, meaning the CIA’s Clandestine Service, the real spies, the field intelligence officers. “Plan Blue got off the ground just long enough to be shot down in flames by this jack-off Kealty.”

“You speak Arabic, right?”

“Both of us,” Chavez confirmed. “John’s better than I am, but I can find the men’s room when I need to. No Pashto, though.”

“Mine’s pretty rusty,” Clark said. “Haven’t been there in twenty years or so. Interesting people, the Afghans. They’re tough but primitive. Thing is, the whole place is about the poppy.”

“How big a problem?”

“There are some no-shit billionaires over there, all from opium. They live like kings, spread the money around in the form of guns and ammo, mostly, but all the hard drugs you can buy on the street in Southeast Washington come from Afghanistan. Nobody seems to recognize that. All of it, or damned near. It generates enough money to corrupt their culture, and ours. They don’t need the help. Until the Russians came in ’79, they were killing off each other. So they got their act together and gave Ivan a major bellyache, took maybe two weeks off after the Red Army bugged out, and then they started killing each other again. They don’t know what peace is. They don’t know what prosperity is. If you build schools for their kids, they blow the schools up. I lived there for over a year, climbing the hills and shooting at Ivan, trying to get them trained up. There’s a lot to like about them, but don’t turn your back on ’em. Toss in the terrain. Some places too high to fly a helicopter. Not your basic vacation spot. But their culture is the hard part. Stone-age people with modern weapons. They seem to have genetic knowledge of anything you can kill a guy with. They’re not like anybody you’ve ever met. The only thing they won’t do is eat your body after they kill you. They’re Muslim enough for that. Anyway, as long as the poppy brings in money, that’s the engine that drives the country, and ain’t nothing gonna change it.”

“Sounds grim,” Ryan observed.

“
Grim
ain’t the word. Hell, the Russians tried everything they knew—building schools, hospitals, and roads—just trying to make it an easy campaign, to buy them off, and look how far that got ’em. Those people fight for fun. You can buy their loyalty with food and stuff, and, yeah, try building hospitals and schools and roads. It ought to work, but don’t bet the ranch on it. You have to figure a way to erase three thousand years of tribal warfare, blood feuds, and distrust of outsiders. Tough nut to crack. Hey, I served in Vietnam, and Vietnam is like fucking Disneyland compared to Afghanistan.”

“And somewhere in the Magic Kingdom the Emir is playing hide-and-seek,” Chavez observed.

“Or maybe not,” Clark countered. “Everybody’s assuming he’s still there.”

“You know something we don’t?” Ryan asked with a smile.

“No, just trying to think like the guy. In SEALs, that was rule number one in evasion and escape training: Go where the bad guys ain’t. Yeah, his options are limited, but they’ve got a decent infrastructure and plenty of cash.”

“Maybe he’s in Dubai,” Ding offered, “in one of those luxury villas.”

Former President Ryan laughed at that one. “Well, we’re looking hard. Problem is, without a DI to ask the right questions, and a DO deep enough to go get them, you’re just spinning your wheels. All the guys Kealty’s put in are big-picture thinkers, and that just isn’t gonna get the job done.”

 

 

 

T
wo hours later, Clark and Chavez were heading back to Washington, digesting lunch and contemplating what they’d learned. Though Ryan hadn’t given the subject more than a passing comment, it was clear to Clark that another run for the White House was weighing heavily on the former CINC.

“He’s going to do it,” Chavez observed.

“Yep,” Clark agreed. “He feels trapped.”

“He is trapped.”

“So are we, Domingo. New job, same shit.”

“Not exactly the same. Going to be interesting, that’s for sure. Wonder how much—”

“Not too much, I’d think. Dead bodies are generally bad for business, and dead bodies don’t tell you much. We’re in the information business now.”

“But sometimes the herd needs culling.”

“True. At Langley, the problem’s always been to get somebody to sign the order. Paper lasts forever, you know? In Vietnam, we had a real war, and orders could be verbal, but when that ended, the desk-sitters kept getting their panties in a wad, and then the lawyers raised their ugly heads, but that’s not entirely a bad thing. We can’t have government employees giving that sort of order whenever the mood strikes them. Sooner or later, person A is going to get carried away, and person B is going to have a conscience attack and rat you out for it, no matter how much the bad guy needed to meet God. It’s amazing how dangerous a conscience can be—and usually at the wrong time. We live in an imperfect world, Ding, and there ain’t no rule that says it has to make sense.”

“A blank presidential pardon,” Chavez observed, changing directions. “And it’s legal?”

“Well, that’s what the man said. I remember when
Dr. No
came out. I was in high school. The promo for the film said, ‘The double-oh means he has a license to kill who he wants, when he wants.’ That was cool back in the ’60s. Before Watergate and all that, the Kennedy administration liked the idea, too. So they initiated Operation Mongoose. It was a total fuckup, of course, but it’s never been revealed how big a fuckup it was. Politics,” Clark explained. “I guess you’ve never heard the stories.”

“Not on the syllabus down at The Farm.”

“Just as well. Who’d want to work for an agency that did dumb shit like that? Taking down a foreign chief of state is really bad juju, son. Even if one of our Presidents thought it was cool to be a sociopath. Funny how people don’t like to think things all the way through.”

“Like us?”

“Not when you take out people who don’t matter all that much.”

“What’s that shit about the Ranger?”

“Sam Driscoll,” Clark replied. Ryan had told them about Kealty’s push for the CID investigation. “Humped a few hills with Driscoll in the ’90s. Good man.”

“Anything being done to stop it?”

“Don’t know, but Jack told us about it for a reason.”

“New recruit for The Campus?”

“It sure would soften Driscoll’s fall, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah, but still, to watch your career get flushed because some dickhead wants to make a point—it just ain’t right,
mano.
”

“In so many ways,” Clark agreed.

They drove in silence for a few minutes, then Chavez said, “He looks worried. Tired.”

“Who, Jack? I would be, too. Poor bastard. He just wants to write his memoirs and maybe work on his golf game, play daddy to the kids. You know, he really is a good guy.”

“That’s his problem,” Chavez pointed out.

“Sure as hell.” It was nice to know that his son-in-law hadn’t wasted his time at George Mason University. “A sense of duty can take you into some tight places. Then you have to figure your own way out.”

 

 

 

B
ack at Peregrine Cliff, Ryan found his mind drifting, fingers poised over the keyboard.
Fucking Kealty . . .
Prosecuting a soldier for killing the enemy. It was, he thought sadly, a perfect testament to the character of the current President.

He glanced at the multiline phone. He started reaching for it twice, only to have his hand stop, seemingly of its own accord, in contradiction to Saint Augustine’s dictum on will and resistance. But then he picked it up and punched the buttons.

“Yeah, Jack,” van Damm’s voice answered. He had caller ID on his private line.

“Okay, Arnie, pull the trigger. And God help me,” he added.

“Let me make some phone calls. Talk to you tomorrow.”

“Okay. See ya.” And Ryan hung up.

What the hell are you doing?
he asked himself.

But he knew the answer all too well.