Jack Ryan 7 - The Sum of All Fears (82 page)

The truck made a fuel stop outside of
Lexington
,
Kentucky
. The driver paused ten minutes to load up on coffee and pancakes—he found breakfasts best for staying awake on the road—then pressed on. The thousand-dollar bonus sounded pretty good, and to be sure of it he had to cross the
Mississippi
before the rush hour in
St Louis
.

— 3
1 —

DANCERS

Ryan knew it was too late when the traffic woke him up and he saw that the windows were flooded with light. A look at his watch showed eight-fifteen. That almost set off a panic attack, but it was too late to panic, wasn't it? Jack rose from the bed and walked into the sitting room to see his wife already working on her morning coffee.

“Don't you have to work today?”

“I was supposed to assist with a procedure that started a few minutes ago, but Bernie is covering for me. I think you ought to put some clothes on, though.”

“How do I get to work?”

“John'll be here at nine.”

“Right.” Ryan walked off to shower and shave. On the way, he looked in the closet and noted that a suit, shirt, and tie were waiting for him. His wife had certainly planned this one carefully. He had to smile. Jack had never thought of his wife as a master—mistress?—of conspiracy. By eight-forty, he was washed and shaved.

“You know I have an appointment right across the street at eleven.”

“No, I didn't. Say hi to that Elliot bitch for me.” Cathy smiled.

“You don't like her, either?” he asked.

“Not much there to like. She was a crummy college teacher. She's not as smart as she thinks. Major ego problems.”

“I've noticed. She doesn't like me very much.”

“I did get that impression. We had a little fight yesterday. I think I won,” Cathy observed.

“What was it all about anyway?”

“Oh, just a girl-to-girl thing.” Cathy paused. “Jack . . . ?”

“Yeah, babe?”

“I think it's time for you to leave.”

Ryan examined his breakfast plate. “I think you may be right. I have a couple more things to do . . . but when they're done . . .”

“How long?” she asked.

“Two months at the outside. I can't just leave, babe. I'm a presidential appointee. I had to be confirmed by the Senate, remember? You can't just walk away from that—it's like desertion if you do. There are rules you have to follow.”

Cathy nodded. She'd won her point already. “I understand, Jack. Two months is good enough. What would you like to do?”

“I could get a research job almost anywhere, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Heritage, maybe the
Johns
Hopkins
Center
for Advanced International Studies. I had this talk in England with Basil. When you get to my level, you're never really gone. Hmph. I might even write another book . . .”

“We'll start off with a nice long vacation, soon as the kids are out of school.”

“I thought . . . ?”

“I won't be too pregnant then, Jack.”

“You really think it happened last night?”

Her eyes arched wickedly. The timing was just about right, and you had two chances, didn't you? What's the matter? You feel used?"

Her husband smiled. “I've been used worse.”

“See me tonight?”

“Did I ever tell you how much I like that nightie?”

“My wedding dress? It's a little formal, but it did have the desired effect. Shame we don't have more time now, isn't it?”

Jack decided he'd better get out of here while he still could. “Yeah, babe, but I have work to do, and so do you.”

“Awww,” Cathy observed playfully.

“I can't tell the President that I was late because I was boffing my wife across the street.” Jack came to his wife and kissed her. “Thanks, honey.”

“A pleasure, Jack.”

Ryan emerged from the front door to see
Clark
waiting in the drive-through. He got right in.

“Morning, doc.”

“Hi, John. You only made one mistake.”

“What's that?”

“Cathy knew your name. How?”

“You don't need to know,”
Clark
replied, handing over the dispatch box. “Hell, sometimes I like to sack in myself, y'know?”

“I'm sure you broke some kind of law.”

“Yeah, right.” Clark headed out. “When do we get the go-ahead on the
Mexico
job?”

“That's what I'm going into the White House for.”

“Eleven?”

“Right.”

It was gratifying to see that the CIA could in fact operate without his presence. Ryan arrived on the seventh floor to see that everyone was at work. Even Marcus was where he belonged.

“Ready for your trip?” Jack asked the Director.

“Yeah, heading off tonight. Station
Japan
is setting up the meet with Lyalin.”

“Marcus, please remember that he is Agent M
USHASHI
, and his information is N
IITAKA
. Using his real name, even here, is a bad habit to get into.”

“Yeah, Jack. You're heading down to see the President soon for the
Mexico
thing?”

“That's right.”

“I like the way you set that thing up.”

“Thanks, Marcus, but the credit goes to Clark and Chavez. Open to a suggestion?” Jack asked.

“Go ahead.”

“Put them back in Operations?”

“If they bring this one off, the President will go along with it. So will I.”

“Fair enough.” That was pretty easy, Jack thought. He wondered why.

Dr. Kaminiskiy went over the films and swore at himself for his error of the previous day. It hardly seemed possible, but—

But it wasn't possible. Not here. Was it? He had to run some additional tests, but first he spent an hour tracking down his Syrian colleague. The patient was moved to another hospital, one with a laminar room. Even if Kaminiskiy were wrong, this man had to be totally isolated.

Russell fired up the forklift and took several minutes to figure out the controls. He wondered what the previous owner had needed with one, but there was no point in that. There was enough remaining pressure in the propane tanks that he didn't have to worry about that either. He walked back to the house.

The people here in
Colorado
were friendly enough. Already, the local newspaper distributors had set up the delivery boxes at the end of the drive. Russell had the morning paper to read with his coffee. A moment later, he realized how good a thing that was.

“Uh-oh,” he observed quietly.

“What is the problem, Marvin?”

“I've never seen this before. The Vikings fans are planning a convoy . . . over a thousand cars and buses. Damn,” he noted. “That”ll screw the roads up . . ." He turned to see the extended weather forecast.

“What do you mean?”

“They have to come down I-76 to get to
Denver
. That might mess things up some. We want to arrive about
noon
, maybe a little later . . . about the same time the convoy is supposed to arrive . . .”

“Convoy—what do you mean? Convoy defending against what?” Qati asked.

“Not a real convoy,” Russell explained. “More like a, uh, a motorcade. The fans from
Minnesota
have a big deal laid on. Tell you what, let's get a motel room for us. One close to the airport. When's our flight?” He paused, “Jesus, I really haven't been thinking very clear, have I?”

“What do you mean?” Ghosn asked again.

“Weather,” Russell replied. “This is Colorado, and it is January. What if we get another snowstorm?” He scanned the page. Uh-oh . . .

“For driving, you mean?”

“That's right. Look, what we ought to do is get rooms reserved, one of the motels right by the airport, say. We can go down the night before . . . or I'll get the rooms for two—no, three nights, so there won't be any suspicion. Christ, I hope there's vacancies.” Russell walked to the phone and flipped open the Yellow Pages right next to it. It took him four tries to find a room with twin doubles in a little independent place a mile from the airport. This he had to guarantee with a credit card that he'd managed not to use until now. He didn't like having to do that. One more bit of paper for his trail.

“Good morning, Liz.” Ryan walked into the office and sat down. “How are you today?”

The National Security Advisor didn't like being baited any more than the next person. She'd had a little battle with this bastard's wife—in front of reporters!—and taken her lumps publicly. Whether Ryan had had anything to do with it or not, he must have had a good laugh about it last night. Worse than that, what that skinny little bitch had said also went after Bob Fowler, didn't it? The President had thought so on being told last night.

“You ready for the brief?”

“Sure am.”

“Come on.” She'd let Bob handle this.

Helen D'Agustino watched the two officials enter the Oval Office. She'd heard the story, of course. A Secret Service agent had heard the whole thing, and the vicious putdown administered to Dr. Elliot had already been the subject of a few discreet chuckles.

“Good morning, Mr. President,” she heard Ryan say, as the door closed.

“Morning, Ryan. Okay, let's hear it.”

“Sir, what we plan to do is actually fairly simple. Two CIA officers will be in
Mexico
, at the airport, covered as airline maintenance personnel. They'll do the normal stuff, emptying ashtrays, cleaning the johns. Before they leave they will place fresh flower arrangements in the upstairs lounge. Concealed in the arrangements will be microphones like this one.” Ryan pulled the plastic spike from his pocket and handed it over. These will transmit what they pick up to a second transmitter, concealed in a bottle. That device will broadcast a multi-channel EHF—that's extremely high frequency—signal out of the aircraft. A series of three other aircraft will fly parallel courses with the 747 to receive that signal. An additional receiver with a tape-recorder attached will be concealed on the 747, both as a backup to the air-to-air links and as a cover for the operation. If it's located, the bugs will seem to be something done by the news people accompanying the Prime Minister. We don't expect that, of course. We'll have people at Dulles to recover our gadgets. In either case, the electronic transmission will be processed and the transcripts presented to you a few hours after the aircraft lands."

“Very well. What are the chances for success?” Chief of Staff Arnold van Damm asked. He had to be there, of course. This was more an exercise in politics than statecraft. The downside political risk was serious, just as the reward for success would be more than noteworthy.

“Sir, there are no guarantees for operations of this kind. If something is said, it is likely that we'll know what it is, but he might not even discuss the matter at all. The equipment has all been tested. It works. The field officer running this operation is well experienced. He's done touchy ones before.”

“Like?” van Damm asked.

“Like getting Gerasimov's wife and daughter out a few years ago.” Ryan explained on for a minute or so.

“Is the operation worth the risk?” Fowler asked.

That surprised Ryan quite a bit. “Sir, that decision is yours to make.”

“But I asked you for an opinion.”

“Yes, Mr. President, it is. The take we've been getting from N
IITAKA
shows a considerable degree of arrogance on their part. Something like this might have the net effect of shocking them into playing honest ball with us.”

“You approve of our policy of dealing with
Japan
?” van Damm asked, just as surprised as Ryan had been a moment earlier.

“My approval or disapproval is beside the point, but the answer to your question is, yes.”

The Chief of Staff was openly amazed. “But the previous administration—how come you never told us?”

“You never asked, Arnie. I don't make government policy, remember? I'm a spook. I do what you tell me to do, as long as it's legal.”

“You're satisfied on the legality of the operation?” Fowler asked, with a barely suppressed smile.

“Mr. President, you're the lawyer, not me. If I do not know the legal technicalities—and I don't—I must assume that you, as an officer of the court, are not ordering me to break the law.”

“That's the best dance number I've seen since the Kirov Ballet was in the
Kennedy
Center
last summer,” van Damm observed, with a laugh.

“Ryan, you know all the moves. You have my approval,” Fowler said, after a brief pause. “If we get what we expect, then what?”

“We have to go over that with the State Department guys,” Liz Elliot announced.

“That is potentially dangerous,” Ryan observed. “The Japanese have been hiring a lot of the people from the trade-negotiation section. We have to assume that they have people inside.”

“Commercial espionage?” Fowler asked.

“Sure, why not? N
IITAKA
has never given us hard evidence of that, but if I were a bureaucrat looking to leave government service and make half a mill' a year representing them—like a lot of them do—how would I present myself to them as a potentially valuable asset? I'd do it the same way a Soviet official or spook presents bonafides to us. You deliver something juicy up-front. That's illegal, but we're not devoting any assets to looking at the problem. For that reason, wide dissemination of the information from this operation is very dangerous. Obviously you'll want the opinion of Secretary Talbot and a few others, but I'd be really careful how much farther you spread it. Also, remember that if you tell the PM that you know what he said—and if he knows he only said it in one place—you run the risk of compromising this intelligence-gathering technique.” The President accepted that without anything more than a raised eyebrow.

“Make it look like a leak in
Mexico
?” van Damm asked.

“That's the obvious ploy,” Ryan agreed.

“And if I confront him with it directly?” Fowler asked.

“Kind of hard to beat a straight flush, Mr. President. And if this were ever to leak, Congress would go ballistic. That's one of my problems. I'm required to discuss this operation with Al Trent and Sam Fellows. Sam will play ball, but Al has political reasons to dislike the Japanese.”

“I could order you not to tell him . . .”

“Sir, that's one law I may not break for any reason.”