Clancy, Tom - Debt Of Honor

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DEBT OF HONOR

Tom Clancy

Prologue

Sunset, Sunrise

In retrospect, it would seem an odd way to start a war. Only one of the

participants knew what was really happening, and even that was a coinci-

dence. The property settlement had been moved up on the calendar due to a

death in the attorney's family, and so the attorney was scheduled for a red-

eye flight, two hours from now, to Hawaii.

It was Mr. Yamata's first property closing on American soil. Though he

owned many properties in the continental United States, the actual title

transfer had always been handled by other attorneys, invariably American

citizens, who had done precisely what they had been paid to do, generally

with oversight by one of Mr. Yamata's employees. But not this time.

There were several reasons for it. One was that the purchase was personal

and not corporate. Another was that it was close, only two hours by private

jet from his home. Mr. Yamata had told the settlement attorney that the

property would be used for a weekend getaway house. With the astronomi-

cal price of real estate in Tokyo, he could buy several hundred acres for

the price of a modestly large penthouse apartment in his city of residence.

The view from the house he planned to build on the promontory would be

breathtaking, a vista of the blue Pacific, other islands of the Marianas Ar-

chipelago in the distance, air as clean as any on the face of the earth. For

all those reasons Mr. Yamata had offered a princely fee, and done so with

a charming smile.

And for one reason more.

The various documents slid clockwise around the circular table, stopping

at each chair so that signatures could be affixed at the proper place, marked

I OM < I A N< V

with yellow Posl-ll notes, and then it was time lor Mr. Yamala to reach into

liis coat pocket and withdraw an envelope. He took out the check and handed

it to the attorney.

"Thank you, sir," the lawyer said in a respectful voice, as Americans

always did when money was- on the table. It was remarkable how money

made them do anything. Until three years before, the purchase of land here

by a Japanese citizen would have been illegal, but the right lawyer, and the

right case, and the right amount of money had fixed that, too. "The title

transfer will be recorded this afternoon."

Yamata looked at the seller with a polite smile and a nod, then he rose and

left the building. A car was waiting outside. Yamata got in the front passen-

ger seat and motioned peremptorily for the driver to head off. The settlement

was complete, and with it the need for charm.

Like most Pacific islands, Saipan is of volcanic origin. Immediately to the

east is the Marianas Trench, a chasm fully seven miles deep where one geo-

logical plate dives under another. The result is a collection of towering cone-

shaped mountains, of which the islands themselves are merely the tips. The

Toyota Land Cruiser followed a moderately smooth road north, winding

around Mount Achugao and the Mariana Country Club toward Marpi Point.

There it stopped.

Yamata alighted from the vehicle, his gaze resting on some farm struc-

tures that would soon be erased, but instead of walking to the building site

for his new house, he headed toward the rocky edge of the cliff. Though a

man in his early sixties, his stride was strong and purposeful as he moved

across the uneven field. If it had been a farm, then it had been a poor one, he

saw, inhospitable to life. As this place had been, more than once, and from

more than one cause.

His face was impassive as he reached the edge of what the locals called

Banzai Cliff. An onshore wind was blowing, and he could see and hear the

waves marching in their endless ranks to smash against the rocks at the base

of the cliff-the same rocks that had smashed the bodies of his parents and

siblings after they, and so many others, had jumped off to evade capture by

the advancing U.S. Marines. The sight had horrified the Marines, but Mr.

Yamata would never appreciate or acknowledge that.

The businessman clapped his hands once and bowed his head, both to call

the attention of the lingering spirits to his presence and to show proper obei-

sance to their influence over his destiny. It was fitting, he thought, that his

purchase of this parcel of land now meant that 50.016% of the real estate on

Saipan was again in Japanese hands, more than fifty years since his family's

death at American hands.

He felt a sudden chill, and ascribed it to the emotion of the moment, or

perhaps the nearness of his ancestors' spirits. Though their bodies had been

swept away in the endless surf, surely their kami had never left this place,

1)1 HI 01 HONOR is

nnd awaited his return. He shuddered, and buttoned his coat. Yes, he'd build

hc-rc, hut only alter he'd done what was necessary first.

1'irsl, he had to destroy.

ll was one of those perfect moments, half a world away. The driver came

mnooihly back, away from the ball, in a perfect arc, stopped for the briefest

of moments, then accelerated back along the same path, downward now,

gaining speed as it fell. The man holding the club shifted his weight from

one leg to the other. At the proper moment, his hands turned over as they

fthould, which caused the club head to rotate around the vertical axis, so that

when the head hit the ball it was exactly perpendicular to the intended flight

path. The sound told the tale-a perfect tink (it was a metal-headed driver).

Thai, and the tactile impulse transmitted through the graphite shaft told the

golfer everything he needed to know. He didn't even have to look. The club

finished its follow-through path before the man's head turned to track the

night of the ball.

Unfortunately, Ryan wasn't the one holding the club.

Jack shook his head with a rueful grin as he bent to tee up his ball. "Nice

hit.Robby."

Rear Admiral (lower half) Robert Jefferson Jackson, USN, held his pose,

his aviator's eyes watching the ball start its descent, then bounce on the fair-

way about two hundred fifty yards away. The bounces carried it another

Ihirty or so. He didn't speak until it stopped, dead center.' 'I meant to draw it

a little."

"Life's a bitch, ain't it?" Ryan observed, as he went through his setup

ritual. Knees bent, back fairly straight, head down but not too much, the grip,

yes, that's about right. He did everything the club pro had told him the pre-

vious week, and the week before that, and the week . . . bringing the club

back .. . and down . . .

... and it wasn't too bad, just off the fairway to the right, a hundred eighty

yards, the best first-tee drive he'd hit in ... forever. And approximately the

same distance with his driver that Robby would have gotten with a firm

seven-iron. About the only good news was that it was only 7:45 A.M., and

there was nobody around to share his embarrassment.

At least you cleared the water.

"Been playing how long, Jack?"

"Two whole months."

Jackson grinned as he headed down to where the cart was parked. "I

started in my second year at Annapolis. I have a head start, boy. Hell, enjoy

the day."

There was that. The Greenbrier is set among the mountains of West Vir-

ginia. A retreat that dates back to the late eighteenth century, on this October

morning the while mass of the main hotel building was trained with yellows

and scarlets as the hardwood trees entered their yearly cycle of autumn fire.

"Well, I don't expect to beat you," Ryan allowed as he sat down in the

cart.

A turn, a grin. "You won't. Just thank God you're not working today,

Jack. I am."

Neither man was in the vacation business, as much as each needed it, nor

was either man currently satisfied with success. For Robby it meant a flag

desk in the Pentagon. For Ryan, much to his surprise even now, it had been a

return to the business world instead of to the academic slot that he'd

wanted-or at least thought he'd wanted-standing there in Saudi Arabia,

two and a half years before. Perhaps it was the action, he thought-had he

become addicted to it? Jack asked himself, selecting a three-iron. It wouldn't

be enough club to make the green, but he hadn't learned fairway woods

yet. Yeah, it was the action he craved even more than his occasional escape

from it.

"Take your time, and don't try to kill it. The ball's already dead, okay?"

"Yes, sir, Admiral, sir," Jack replied.

"Keep your head down. I'll do the watching."

"All right, Robbie.'' The knowledge that Robbie would not laugh at him,

no matter how bad the shot, was somehow worse than the suspicion that he

might. On last reflection, he stood a little straighter before swinging. His

reward was a welcome sound:

Swat. The ball was thirty yards away before his head came up to see it,

still heading left.. . but already showing a fade back to the right.

"Jack?"

"Yeah," Ryan answered without turning his head.

"Your three-iron," Jackson said chuckling, his eyes computing the flight

path. "Don't change anything. Do it just like that, every time."

Somehow Jack managed to put his iron back in the bag without trying to

wrap the shaft around his friend's head. He started laughing when the cart

moved again, up the right-side rough toward Robby's ball, the single white

spot on the green, even carpet.

"Miss flying?" he asked gently.

Robby looked at him. "You play dirty, too," he observed. But that was

just the way things went. He'd finished his last flying job, screened for flag,

then been considered for the post of commander of the Naval Aviation Test

Center at Naval Air Station, Patuxent River, Maryland, where his real title

would have been Chief Test Pilot, U.S. Navy. But instead Jackson was

working in J-3, the operations directorate for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. War

Plans, an odd slot for a warrior in a world where war was becoming a thing

of the past. It was more career-enhancing, but far less satisfying than the

flying billet he'd really wanted. Jackson tried to shrug it off. He'd done his

flying, after all. He'd started in Phantoms and graduated to Tomcats, com-

manded his squadron, and a carrier air wing, then screened early for flag

rank tin the basis of a solid and distinguished career during which he'd never

put H foot wrong. His next job, if he got it, would be as commander of a

turner battle group, something that had once seemed to him a goal beyond

the jirusp of Fortune itself. Now that he was there, he wondered where all the

Unic hud gone, and what lay ahead. "What happens when we get old?"

"Some of us take up golf, Rob."

"Or go back to stocks and bonds," Jackson countered. An eight-iron, he

thought, a soft one. Ryan followed him to his ball.

"Merchant banking," Jack proffered. "It's worked out for you, hasn't

it?"

That made the aviator-active or not, Robby would always be a pilot to

himself and his friends-look up and grin. "Well, you turned my hundred

Ihou' into something special, Sir John." With that, he took his shot. It was

one way to get even. The ball landed, bounced, and finally stopped about

twenty feet from the pin.

"Enough to buy me lessons?"

"You sure as hell need 'em." Robby paused and allowed his face to

change. "A lot of years, Jack. We changed the world.'' And that was a good

thing, wasn't it?

"After a fashion," Jack conceded with a tight smile. Some people called

it an end to history, but Ryan's doctorate was in that field, and he had trouble

with the thought.

"You really like it, what you're doing now?"

"I'm home every night, usually before six. I get to see all the Little

League games in the summer, and most of the soccer games in the fall. And

when Sally's ready for her first date, I won't be in some goddamned VC-

20B halfway to nowhere for a meeting that doesn't mean much of anything

anyway.'' Jack smiled in a most comfortable way. ' 'And I think I prefer that

even to playing good golf."

"Well, that's a good thing, 'cuz I don't even think Arnold Palmer can fix

your swing. But I'll try," Robby added, "just because Cathy asked me to."

Jack's pitch was too strong, forcing him to chip back onto the green-

badly-where three putts carded him a seven to Robby's par four.

"A golfer who plays like you should swear more," Jackson said on the

way to the second tee. Ryan didn't have a chance for a rejoinder.

He had a beeper on his belt, of course. It was a satellite beeper, the kind

that could get you almost anywhere. Tunnels under mountains or bodies of

water offered some protection, but not much. Jack plucked it off his belt. It

was probably the Silicon Alchemy deal, he thought, even though he'd left

instructions. Maybe someone had run out of paper clips. He looked at the

number on the LCD display.

"I thought your home office was New York," Robby noted. The area

code on the display was 202, not the 212 Jack had expected to see.

"ll is. I can teleconference most of my work out of Baltimore, but at least

once a week I have to catch the Metroliner up there." Ryan frowned. 757-

5000. The White House Signals Office. He checked his watch. It was 7:55 in

the morning, and the time announced the urgency of the call more clearly

than anything else could. It wasn't exactly a surprise, though, was it? he

asked himself. Not with what he'd been reading in the papers every day. The

only thing unexpected was the timing. He'd expected the call much sooner.

He walked to the cart and the golf bag, where he kept his cellular phone. It

was the one thing in the bag, actually, that he knew how to use.

It took only three minutes, as an amused Robby waited in the cart. Yes, he

was at The Greenbrier. Yes, he knew that there was an airport not too far

from there. Four hours? Less than an hour out and back, no more than an

hour at his destination. Back in time for dinner. He'd even have time to fin-

ish his round of golf, shower, and change before he left, Jack told himself,

folding the phone back up and dropping it in the pocket of the golf bag. That

was one advantage of the world's best chauffeur service. The problem was

that once they had you, they never liked to let go. The convenience of it was

designed only to make it a more comfortable mode of confinement. Jack

shook his head as he stood at the tee, and his distraction had a strange effect.

The drive up the second fairway landed on the short grass, two hundred ten

yards downrange, and Ryan walked back to the cart without a single word,

wondering what he'd tell Cathy.

The facility was brand-new and spotless, but there was something obscene

about it, the engineer thought. His countrymen hated fire, but they positively

loathed the class of object that this room was designed to fabricate. He

couldn't shake it off. It was like the buzz of an insect in the room-unlikely,

since every molecule of the air in this clean-room had gone through the best

filtration system his country could devise. His colleagues' engineering ex-

cellence was a source of pride to this man, especially since he was among the

best of them. It would be that pride that sustained him, he knew, dismissing

the imaginary buzz as he inspected the fabrication machinery. After all, if

the Americans could do it, and the Russians, and the English, and the

French, and the Chinese, and even the Indians and Pakistanis, then why not

them? There was a symmetry to it, after all.

In another part of the building, the special material was being roughly

shaped even now. Purchasing agents had spent quite some time acquiring the

unique components. There were precious few. Most had been made else-

where, but some had been made in his country for use abroad. They had been

invented for one purpose, then adapted for others, but the possibility had

always existed-distant but real-that the original application beckoned. It

had become an institutional joke for the production people in the various

corporations, something not to take seriously.

Mill they'd take il seriously now, the engineer thought. He switched off

the lights and pulled the door shut behind him. He had a deadline to meet,

mt«l he would start today, after only a few hours of sleep.

I'lvcn us often as he'd been here, Ryan had never lost his mystical apprecia-

tion lor the place, and today's manner of arrival hadn't been contrived to

nittkc him look for the ordinary. A discreet call to his hotel had arranged for

the drive to the airport. The aircraft had been waiting, of course, a twin-prop

hmmcss bird sitting at the far end of the ramp, ordinary except for the US AF

murk ings and the fact that the flight crew had been dressed in olive-green

itonicx. Friendly smiles, again of course, deferential. A sergeant to make

Mire he knew how to use the seat belt, and the perfunctory discussion of

*«fety and emergency procedures. The look-back from the pilot who had a

M'hcdulc to meet, and off they went, with Ryan wondering where the brief-

Ing papers were, and sipping a U.S. Air Force Coca-Cola. Wishing he'd

changed into his good suit, and remembering that he had deliberately de-

cided not to do so. Stupid, beneath himself. Flight time of forty-seven min-

ute*, and a direct approach into Andrews. The only thing they left out was

the helicopter ride in from Andrews, but that would only have attracted at-

tention. Met by a deferential Air Force major who'd walked him over to a

cheap official car and a quiet driver, Ryan settled back in his seat and closed

hi* eyes while the major took the front seat. He tried to nap. He'd seen Suit-

land Parkway before, and knew the route by heart. Suitland Parkway to

1-295, immediately off that and onto 1-395, take the Maine Avenue Exit. The

time of day, just after lunch, guaranteed rapid progress, and sure enough, the

car stopped at the guard shack on West Executive Drive, where the guard,

most unusually, just waved them through. The canopied entrance to the

White House basement level beckoned, as did a familiar face.

"Hi, Arnie." Jack held his hand out to the President's chief of staff. Ar-

nold van Damm was just too good, and Roger Durling had needed him to

help with the transition. Soon enough President Durling had measured his

senior staffer against Arnie, and found his own man wanting. He hadn't

changed much, Ryan saw. The same L. L. Bean shirts, and the same rough

honesty on his face, but Arnie was older and tireder than before. Well, who

wasn't? "The last time we talked here, you were kicking me loose," Jack

Raid next, to get a quick read on the situation.

'' We all make mistakes, Jack.''

Uh-oh. Ryan went instantly on guard, but the handshake pulled him

through the door anyway. The Secret Service agents on post had a pass all

ready for him, and things went smoothly until he set off the metal detector.

Ryan handed over his hotel room key and tried again, hearing yet another

ping. The only other metal on his body except for his watch turned out to be

his divot tool.

"When did you lake up golf.'" van Damni asked with a chuckle that

matched the expression of the nearest agent.

"Nice to know you haven't been following me around. Two months, and

I haven't broken one-ten yet."

The chief of staff waved Ryan to the hidden stairs to the left. "You know

why they call it 'golf'?"

"Yeah, because 'shit' was already taken." Ryan stopped on the landing.

"What gives, Arnie?"

"I think you know," was all the answer he got.

"Hello, Dr. Ryan!" Special Agent Helen D'Agustino was as pretty as

ever, and still part of the Presidential Detail. "Please come with me."

The presidency is not a job calculated to bring youth to a man. Roger

Durling had once been a paratrooper who'd climbed hills in the Central

Highlands of Vietnam, he was still a jogger, and reportedly liked to play

squash to keep fit, but for all that he looked a weary man this afternoon.

More to the point, Jack reflected quickly, he'd come straight in to see the

President, no waiting in one of the many anterooms, and the smiles on the

faces he'd seen on the way in carried a message of their own. Durling rose

with a speed intended to show his pleasure at seeing his guest. Or maybe

something else.

' 'How's the brokerage business, Jack?" The handshake that accompanied

the question was dry and hard, but with an urgency to it.

"It keeps me busy, Mr. President."

' 'Not too busy. Golf in West Virginia?'' Durling asked, waving Ryan to a

seat by the fireplace. "That'll be all," he told the two Secret Service agents

who'd followed Ryan in. "Thank you."

"My newest vice, sir," Ryan said, hearing the door close behind him. It

was unusual to be so close to the Chief Executive without the protective

presence of Secret Service guards, especially since he had been so long out

of government service.

Durling took his seat, and leaned back into it. His body language showed

vigor, the kind that emanated from the mind rather than the body. It was time

to talk business. "I could say I'm sorry to interrupt your vacation, but I

won't," the President of the United States told him. "You've had a two-year

vacation, Dr. Ryan. It's over now."

Two years. For the first two months of it, he'd done exactly nothing, pon-

dered a few teaching posts in the sanctity of his study, watched his wife

leave early every morning for her medical practice at Johns Hopkins, fixed

the kids' school lunches and told himself how wonderful it was to relax. It

had taken those two months before he'd admitted to himself that the absence

of activity was more stressful than anything he'd ever done. OHy three inter-

views had landed him a job back in the investment business, enabled him to

race his wife out of the house each morning, and bitch about the pace-and

just maybe prevent himself from going insane. Along the way he'd made

M»mc money, hut even that, he admitted to himself, had begun to pall. He

Mill hadn't found his place, and wondered if he ever really would.

"Mr. President, the draft ended a lot of years ago," Jack offered with a

miiilc. It was a flippant observation, and one he was ashamed of even as he

MIK! it.

"You've said 'no' to your country once." The rebuke put an end to the

Mniles. Was Durling that stressed-out? Well, he had every right to be, and

with the stress had come impatience, which was surprising in a man whose

main function for the public was being pleasant and reassuring. But Ryan

was not part of the public, was he?

"Sir, I was burned out then. I don't think I would have been-"

"Fine. I've seen your file, all of it," Durling added. "I even know that I

might not be here now except for what you did down in Colombia a few

years ago. You've served your country well, Dr. Ryan, and now you've had

your time off, and you've played the money game some more-rather well,

II would seem-and now it's time to come back."

"What post, sir?" Jack asked.

"Down the hall and around the corner. The last few residents haven't dis-

tinguished themselves there," Durling noted. Cutter and Elliot had been bad

enough. Durling's own National Security Advisor had simply not been up to

the task. His name was Tom Loch, and he was on the way out, the morning

puper had told Ryan. It would seem that the press had it right for once. "I'm

not going to beat around the bush. We need you. I need you."

"Mr. President, that's a very flattering statement, but the truth of the mat-

icris-"

' 'The truth of the matter is that I have too much of a domestic agenda, and

the day only has twenty-four hours, and my administration has fumbled the

hall too many times. In the process we have not served the country as well as

we should have. I can't say that anywhere but inside this room, but I can and

must say it here. State is weak. Defense is weak."

"Fiedler in Treasury is excellent," Ryan allowed. "And if you want ad-

vice about State, move Scott Adler up. He's young, but he's very good on

process and pretty good on vision.''

"Not without good oversight from this building, and I don't have the time

for that. I will pass your approbation on to Buzz Fiedler," Durling added

with a smile.

"He's a brilliant technician, and that's what you need across the street. If

you're going to catch the inflation, for God's sake, do it now-"

"And take the political heat," Durling said. "That's exactly what his or-

ders are. Protect the dollar and hammer inflation down to zero. I think he can

do it. The initial signs are promising."

Ryan nodded. "I think you're right." Okay, get on with it.

Durling handed over the briefing book. "Read."

"Yes, sir." Jack flipped open the binder's cover, and kept flipping past

llii1 usual stiff pages that warned of all manner of legal sanctions for reveal-

ing what he was about to read. As usual, the information United States Code

protected wasn't all that different from what any citizen could get in Time,

but it wasn't as well written. His right hand reached out for a coffee cup,

annoyingly not the handleless mug he preferred. The White House china was

long on elegance but short on practicality. Coming here was always like vis-

iting a particularly rich boss. So many of the appointments were just a little

too-

"I know about some of this, but I didn't know it was this ... interesting,"

Jack murmured.

" 'Interesting'?" Durling replied with an unseen smile. "That's a nice

choice of words."

' 'Mary Pat's the Deputy Director of Operations now?" Ryan looked up to

see the curt nod.

"She was in here a month ago to plead her case for upgrading her side of

the house. She was very persuasive. Al Trent just got the authorization

through committee yesterday."

Jack chuckled. "Agriculture or Interior this time?" That part of CIA's

budget was almost never in the open. The Directorate of Operations always

got part of its funding through legerdemain.

"Health and Human Services, I think."

"But it'll still be two or three years before-"

"I know." Durling fidgeted in his seat. "Look, Jack, if it mattered to you

that much, then why-''

"Sir, if you've read through my file, you know why." Dear God, Jack

wanted to say, how much am I expected to- But he couldn't, not here, not to

this man, and so he didn't. Instead he went back into the briefing book, flip-

ping pages, and read as rapidly as comprehension permitted.

' T know, it was a mistake to downplay the human-intelligence side of the

house. Trent and Fellows said so. Mrs. Foley said so. You can get over-

loaded in this office, Jack."

Ryan looked up and almost smiled until he saw the President's face. There

was a tiredness around the eyes that Durling was unable to conceal. But then

Durling saw the expression on Jack's own face.

"When can you start?" the President of the United States asked.

The engineer was back, flipping on the lights and looking at his machine

tools. His supervisory office was almost all glass, and elevated slightly so

that he could see all the activity in the shop with no more effort than a raised

head. In a few minutes his staff would start arriving, and his presence in the

office earlier than any of the team-in a country where showing up two

hours early was the norm-would set the proper tone. The first man arrived

only Ion minutes later, hung up his coat, and headed to the far corner to start

Ihc coffee. Not lea, both men thought at the same time. Surprisingly West-

ern. The others arrived in a bunch, both resentful and envious of their col-

league, because they all noticed that the chief's office was lit and occupied.

A lew exercised at their worktables, both to loosen themselves up and to

nhow their devotion. At start-time minus two hours, the chief walked out of

his office and called for his team to gather around for the first morning's talk

uboul what they were doing. They all knew, of course, but they had to be told

liny way. It took ten minutes, and with that done, they all went to work. And

Ihis was not at all a strange way for a war to begin.

Dinner was elegant, served in the enormous high-ceilinged dining room to

Ihe sound of piano, violin, and the occasional ting of crystal. The table chat-

»er was ordinary, or so it seemed to Jack as he sipped his dinner wine and

worked his way through the main course. Sally and little Jack were doing

well at school, and Kathleen would turn two in another month, as she tod-

dled around the house at Peregrine Cliff, the dominating and assertive apple

of her father's eye, and the terror of her day-care center. Robby and Sissy,

childless despite all their efforts, were surrogate aunt and uncle to the Ryan

trio, and took as much pride in the brood as Jack and Cathy did. There was a

sadness to it, Jack thought, but those were the breaks, and he wondered if

Sissy still cried about it when alone in bed, Robby off on a job somewhere.

Jack had never had a brother. Robby was closer than a brother could ever

have been, and his friend deserved better luck. And Sissy, well, she was just

an angel.

"I wonder how the office is doing."

"Probably conjuring up a plan for the invasion of Bangladesh," Jack

said, looking up and reentering the conversation.

"That was last week," Jackson said with a grin.

"How do they manage without us?" Cathy wondered aloud, probably

worrying about a patient.

"Well, concert season doesn't start for me until next month," Sissy ob-

served.

"Mmmm," Ryan noted, looking back down at his plate, wondering how

he was going to break the news.

"Jack, I know," Cathy finally said. "You're not good at hiding it."

"Who-"

"She asked where you were," Robby said from across the table. "A

naval officer can't lie."

"Did you think I'd be mad?" Cathy asked her husband.

"Yes."

"You don't know what he's like," Cathy told the others. "Every morn-

ing, gels liis paper and grumbles. Every night, catches the news and grum-

hlcs. Every Sunday, watches the interview shows and grumhles. Jack," she

said quietly, "do you think I could ever stop doing surgery?"

"Probably not, but it's not the same-"

"No, it's not, but it's the same for you. When do you start?" Caroline

Ryan asked.

Alumni

There was a university somewhere in the Midwest, Jack had once heard on

Ihe radio, which had an instrument package designed to go inside a tornado.

Each spring, graduate students and a professor or two staked out a likely

swath of land, and on spotting a tornado, tried to set the instrument package,

called "Toto"-what else?-directly in the path of the onrushing storm. So

far they had been unsuccessful. Perhaps they'd just picked the wrong place,

Ryan thought, looking out the window to the leafless trees in Lafayette Park.

The office of the President's National Security Advisor was surely cyclonic

enough for anyone's taste, and, unfortunately, much easier for people to

enter.

"You know," Ryan said, leaning back in his chair, "it was supposed to

be a lot simpler than this." And I thought it would be, he didn't add.

"The world had rules before," Scott Adler pointed out. "Now it

doesn't."

"How's the President been doing, Scott?"

"You really want the truth?" Adler asked, meaning, We are in the White

House, remember? and wondering if there really were tape machines cover-

ing this room. "We screwed up the Korean situation, but we lucked out.

Thank God we didn't screw up Yugoslavia that badly, because there just

isn't any luck to be had in that place. We haven't been handling Russia very

well. The whole continent of Africa's a dog's breakfast. About the only

thing we've done right lately was the trade treaty-''

"And that doesn't include Japan and China," Ryan finished for him.

"Hey, you and I fixed the Middle East, remember? That's working out

fairly nicely."

TOM ( I. A N( Y

"Holiest spot right now?" Ryan didn't want praise for that. The "suc-

cess" had developed some very adverse consequences, and was the prime

reason he had left government service.

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Clancy, Tom - Debt Of Honor

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