Clear and Present Danger полностью

Jack pulled out his CIA pass. The guard recognized it for what it was and waved to another guard. This one punched the button to lower the steel barrier that was supposed to prevent people with car bombs from driving under the headquarters of the FBI. He pulled over it and found a place to park the car. A young FBI agent met him in the lobby and handed him a pass that would work the Bureau's electronic gate. If someone invented the right sort of computer virus, Jack thought, half of the government would be prevented from going to work. And maybe the country would be safe until the problem was fixed.

The Hoover Building has a decidedly unusual layout, a maze of diagonal corridors intersecting with squared-off corridors. It is even worse than the Pentagon for the uninitiated to find their way about. In this case, Ryan was well and truly disoriented by the time they found the right office. Dan was waiting for him and led him into his private office. Jack closed the door behind him.

"What gives?" Murray asked.

Ryan set his briefcase on Murray's desk and opened it.

"I need some guidance."

"About what?"

"About what is probably an illegal operation - several of them, as a matter of fact."

"How illegal?"

"Murder," Jack said as undramatically as he could manage.

"The car bombs in Colombia?" Murray asked from his swivel chair.

"Not bad, Dan. Except they weren't car bombs."

Oh? Dan sat down and thought for a few seconds before speaking. He remembered that whatever was being done was retribution for the murder of Emil and the rest. "Whatever they were, the law on this is fairly muddled, you know. The prohibition against killing people in intelligence operations is an Executive Order, promulgated by the President. If he writes except in this case on the bottom of the order, then it's legal - sort of. The law on this issue is really strange. More than anything else, it's a constitutional matter, and the Constitution is nice and vague where it has to be."

"Yeah, I know about that. What makes it illegal is that I've been told to give incorrect information to Congress. If the oversight people were in on it, it wouldn't be murder. It would be properly formulated government policy. In fact, as I understand the law, it would not be murder even if we did it first and then told Congress, because we have a lead time to start a covert op if the oversight folks are out of town. But if the DCI tells me to give false information to Congress, then we're committing murder, because we're not following the law. That's the good news, Dan."

"Go on."

"The bad news is that too many people know what's going on, and if the story gets out, some people we have out in the field are in a world of hurt. I'll set the political dimension aside for the moment except to say that there's more than one. Dan, I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do." Ryan's analysis, as usual, was very accurate. He'd made only a single mistake. He didn't know what the real bad news was.

Murray smiled, not because he wanted to, but because his friend needed it. "What makes you think I do?"

Ryan's tension eased a bit. "Well, I could go to a priest for guidance, but they ain't cleared SI. You are, and the FBI's the next best thing to the priesthood, isn't it?" It was an inside joke between the two. Both were Boston College graduates.

"Where's the operation being run out of?"

"Guess. It isn't Langley, not really. It's being run out of a place exactly six blocks up the street."

"That means I can't even go to the AG."

"Yeah, he just might tell his boss, mightn't he?"

"So I get in trouble with my bureaucracy," Murray observed lightly.

"Is government service really worth the hassle?" Jack asked bleakly, his depression returning. "Hell, maybe we can retire together. Who can you trust?"

That answer came easily. "Bill Shaw." Murray rose. "Let's go see him."

"Loop" is one of those computer words that has gained currency in society. It identifies things that happen and the people who make them happen, an action - or decision-cycle that exists independently of the things around it. Any government has a virtually infinite collection of such loops, each defined by its own special set of ground rules, understood by the players. Within the next few hours a new loop had been established. It included selected members of the FBI, but not the U.S. Attorney General, who had authority over the Bureau. It would also include members of the Secret Service, but not their boss, the Secretary of the Treasury. Investigations of this sort were mainly exercises in paper-chasing and analysis, and Murray - who was also tasked to head this one up - was surprised to see that one of his "subjects" was soon on the move. It didn't help him at all to learn that he was driving to Andrews Air Force Base.