“Indonesia appears to be subject to the rule of mob,” Ryan said, “rather than the rule of law. If the populace believes Father Pat has been preaching Christianity to Muslims, then he has been preaching Christianity to Muslims — no matter what the truth and common sense say. Gumelar had a Chinese Christian finance minister who made a comment that the masses thought was blasphemy against Islam. He is the president’s close friend — and he’s still in jail eighteen months after the fact. I have Adler and his people at State looking into some inducements that can help President Gumelar sell a release plan to his people, but I have to be careful not to give away the farm for a personal friend.”
“I suppose,” Cathy said, unconvinced. “I guess there are other wrongly accused Americans locked up around the world.”
“One or two,” Ryan said.
She studied his face, eyes narrowing. “But you’re really going?”
“Of course.”
“But no battalion of Marines.”
“Gumelar is an important ally,” Ryan said. “Sadly enough. We’ve been planning a trip for months. This just moves up the timetable.”
“People will see it as—”
“I don’t care,” Ryan said. “I’m not sitting behind the desk on this one. If I can prove to Gumelar that China is behind this, that would be a different story.”
Cathy studied the tablecloth for a moment, thinking. She looked up suddenly. “That’s why you need to let me help. You’re busy saving Father Pat. Let me help save this little girl’s eye — and talk to the general. I want to do my bit as the President’s wife.”
Ryan groaned softly, reaching across the table to take his wife’s hand. “I stepped into that one, didn’t I?”
“I’ll say,” Cathy said. “Come on, this’ll be fun. No one outside of our people and the general will ever even know I was there.”
“Hon,” Ryan said. “Make no mistake. What you are doing is good, but it is espionage, pure and simple. And that is never, ever, ever, that easy.”
She smiled broadly, raising her eyebrows up and down, squeezing his hand.
He gave her a wary look. “What?”
“You know,” she said, eyes soft now. “Speaking of Edmund Burke, a long time ago — eons, really — I heard you quote him to my father while you were downstairs waiting for me to get ready to go. I fell in love with you right then and there.”
“Was it the one about women? Burke was kind of…”
She gave him a playful punch on the arm.
“You said to my father,
“Boy.” Ryan chuckled. “Your dad must have thought I was a sophomoric idiot.”
“Thank you for letting me do this, Jack. It’s a little, but it’s something.”
Baltimore Homicide Detective Emmet Ryan taught his son Jack early in life to listen to experts. The two United States Secret Service special agents sitting across the Resolute desk certainly qualified. Together, Gary Montgomery and Maureen Richardson had almost forty years of experience in dignitary protection. A GS-15, akin to an assistant special agent in charge in other government agencies, Maureen Richardson reported directly to the special agent in charge of PPD. Mo, as she preferred to be called, served as lead agent for the satellite detail that protected the First Lady. Much smaller than the big show surrounding POTUS, the FLOTUS detail was low-key and fluid. Mo and her Secret Service agents followed Dr. Ryan wherever she went, and then blended seamlessly, amoebalike, with Montgomery’s larger detail when the Ryans traveled together. They integrated but stood ready to go their separate ways if the schedule or situation dictated it.
It was a dance, and Montgomery and Richardson were experienced and savvy enough to make the intricate steps look easy.
Jack Ryan generally steered well clear of specifics regarding his own security. Where Cathy was involved, his instincts as a husband stomped back those of the nation’s chief executive.
Hundreds of agents from Protective Operations, Protective Intelligence and Analysis, and Uniformed Division officers conducted travel advances, executed logistical plans, liaised with medical personnel and Air Force and Marine support, and formed multiple concentric rings of electronic, structural, and personal security around the President and his family. Though he didn’t get into their business, Ryan made it a point to know everything he could on the agents assigned to the inner circle. Inside the bubble, within arm’s reach of the President, they lived under the constant eye of the television camera, not to mention the active threat of people who wanted to see their boss with a bullet in the head. Threats came in daily on social media, over the telephone, or in written communication. These men and women were, by necessity, the cream of the crop.
