Clear and Present Danger полностью

It was time to leave. First he made a notation on the Xerox count sheet. You didn't make Xerox copies anywhere in this building without signing off for them, but he'd thought ahead on that. Roughly the right number of sheets were assembled in a pile and placed in his safe, ostensibly a copy of the OSWR report that Nancy had retrieved. Making such copies was something that directorate chiefs were allowed to do fairly freely. Inside his safe, he found, was the manual for its operation. The copies he'd made went into his briefcase. The last thing Ryan did before leaving was to change his combination to something nobody would ever guess. He nodded to the security officer at the desk next to the elevator on his way out. The Agency Buick was waiting when he got to the basement garage.

"Sorry to make you stay in so late, Fred," Jack said as he got in. Fred was his evening driver.

"No problem, sir. Home?"

"Right." It required all of his discipline not to start reading on the way. Instead he leaned back and commanded himself to take a nap. It would be the only sleep he would get tonight, he was sure.

Clark got into Andrews just after eight. His first call was to Ritter's office, but it was shortstopped elsewhere and he learned that the DDO was unavailable until morning. With nothing better to do, Clark and Larson checked into a motel near the Pentagon. After picking up shaving gear and a toothbrush from the Marriott's gift shop, Clark again went to sleep, again surprising the younger officer, who was far too keyed up to do so.

"How bad is it?" the President asked.

"We've lost nine people," Cutter replied. "It was inevitable, sir. We knew going in that this was a dangerous operation. So did they. What we can do -"

"What we can do is shut this operation down, and do it at once. And keep a nice tight lid on it forever. This one never happened. I didn't bargain for any of this, not for the civilian casualties, and sure as hell not for losing nine of our own people. Damn it, Admiral, you told me that these kids were so good -"

"Mr. President, I never -"

" The hell you didn't! " the President said loudly enough to startle the Secret Service agent outside his upstairs office. "How the hell did you get me into this mess?"

Cutter's patrician face went pale as a corpse. Everything he'd worked for, the action he'd been proposing for three years... Ritter was proclaiming success. That was the maddest part of all.

"Sir, our objective was to hurt the Cartel. We have accomplished that. The CIA officer who's running RECIPROCITY, in Colombia, right now, said that he could start a gang war within the Cartel - and we have done just that! They just tried to assassinate one of their own people - Escobedo. Drug shipments coming in are down. We haven't announced it yet, but the papers are already talking about how prices are going up on the street. We're winning."

"Fine. You tell Fowler that!" The President slammed a file folder down on his desk. His own private polls showed Fowler ahead by fourteen points.

"Sir, after the convention, the opposition candidate always -"

"Now you're giving me political advice? Mister, you haven't shown me a hell of a lot of competence in your supposed area of expertise."

"Mr. President, I -"

"I want this whole thing shut down. I want it kept quiet. I want you to do it, and I want you to do it fast. This is your mess and you will clean it up."

Cutter hesitated. "Sir, how do you want me to go about it?"

"I don't want to know. I just want to know when it's done."

"Sir, that may mean that I'll have to disappear for a while."

"Then disappear! "

"People might notice."

"Then you are on a special, classified mission for the President. Admiral, I want this thing closed out. I don't care what you have to do. Just do it!"

Cutter came to attention. He still remembered how to do that. "Yes, Mr. President."

"Reverse your rudder," Wegener said. USCGC Panache pivoted with the change of rudder and engine settings, pointing herself down the channel.

"Midships."

"Rudder amidships, aye. Sir, my rudder is amidships," the young helmsman announced under the watchful eye of Master Chief Quartermaster Oreza.

"Very well. All ahead one-third, steady up on course one-nine-five." Wegener looked at the junior officer of the deck. "You have the conn. Take her out."

"Aye aye, sir, I have the conn," the ensign acknowledged in some surprise. "Take her out" generally means that you start from the dock, but the skipper was unusually cautious today. The kid on the wheel could handle it from here. Wegener lit his pipe and headed out for the bridge wing. Portagee followed him there.

"That's about as happy as I've ever been to head out to sea," Wegener said.

"I know what you mean, Cap'n."