“I don’t know, Arthur. I just don’t know.”
“James really was lucky,” the Director of Central Intelligence murmured. “At least he went out -”
“With a clear conscience?” Ritter looked out the window, unable to bring himself to face his boss. “Look, Arthur -” He stopped, not knowing what to say next. Ritter had been with the Agency since the fifties, had worked as a case officer, a supervisor, station chief, then head of section at Langley. He had lost case officers, had lost agents, but he’d never betrayed them. There was a first time for everything, he told himself. It had just come home to him in a very immediate way, however, that for every man there was also a first time for death, and that to meet that final accounting improperly was the ultimate cowardice, the ultimate failure of life. But what else could they do?
It was a short drive to Langley, and the car stopped before that question could be answered. They rode the elevator up. Moore walked to his office. Ritter walked to his. The secretaries hadn’t returned yet. They were in a van. Ritter paced around his office until they arrived, then walked over to see Mrs. Cummings.
“Did Ryan call in or anything?”
“No, and I didn’t see him at all. Do you know where he is?” Nancy asked.
“Sorry, I don’t.” Ritter walked back and on impulse called Ryan’s home, where all he got was an answering machine. He checked his card file for Cathy’s work number and got past the secretary to her.
“This is Bob Ritter. I need to know where Jack is.”
“I don’t know,” Dr. Caroline Ryan replied guardedly. “He told me yesterday that he had to go out of town. He didn’t say where.”
A chill went across Ritter’s face. “Cathy, I have to know. This is very important – I can’t tell you how important. Please trust me. I have to know where he is.”
“I don’t know. You mean you don’t, either?” There was alarm in her voice.
Ryan knows, Ritter realized.
“Look, Cathy, I’ll track him down. Don’t worry or anything, okay?” The effort to calm her down was wasted, but Ritter hung up as soon as he could. The DDO walked to Judge Moore’s office. The flag was centered on the DCI’s desk, still folded into its triangular section, called a cocked-hat. Judge Arthur Moore, Director of Central Intelligence, was sitting quietly, staring at it.
“Jack’s gone. His wife says she doesn’t know where. He knows, Arthur. He knows and he’s off doing something.”
“How could he have found out?”
“How the hell should I know?” Ritter thought for a moment, then waved at his boss. “Come on.”
They walked into Ryan’s office. Ritter opened the panel for Jack’s wall safe and dialed in the proper combination, and nothing happened other than the fact that the warning light went on over the dial.
“Damn,” Ritter said. “I thought that was it.”
“James’s combination?”
“Yeah. You know how he was, never did like the damned things, and he probably…” Ritter looked around. He got it on the third try, pulling out the writing panel from the desk, and there it was.
“I thought I did dial the right one.” He turned and tried again. This time the light was accompanied by the goddamned beeper. Ritter turned back and checked the number again. There was some more writing on the sheet. Ritter pulled the panel farther out.
“Oh, my God.”
Moore nodded and walked to the door. “Nancy, tell security that it’s us trying to work the safe. Looks like Jack changed the combination without telling us like he was supposed to.” The DCI closed the door and turned back.
“He knows, Arthur.”
“Maybe. How do we check it out?”
A minute later they were in Ritter’s office. He’d shredded all of his documents, but not his memory. You didn’t forget the name of someone with the Medal of Honor. Then it was just a matter of flipping open his AUTOVON phone directory and calling the 1st Special Operations Wing at Eglin AFB.
“I need to talk to Colonel Paul Johns,” Ritter told the sergeant who’d picked up the phone.
“Colonel Johns is off TDY somewhere, sir. I don’t know where.”
“Who does?”
“The wing operations officer might, sir. This is a nonsecure line, sir,” the sergeant reminded him.
“Give me his number.” The sergeant did so, and Ritter’s next call went out on, and to, a secure line.
“I need to find Colonel Johns,” Ritter said after identifying himself.
“Sir, I have orders not to give that information out to anybody. That means nobody, sir.”
“Major, if he’s down in Panama again, I need to know it. His life may depend on it. Something is happening that he needs to know about.”
“Sir, I have orders -”
“Stuff your orders, sonny. If you don’t tell me, and that flight crew dies, it will be your fault! Now you make the call, Major, yes or no?”
The officer had never seen combat, and life-death decisions were theoretical matters to him – or had been until now.
“Sir, they’re back where they were before. Same place, same crew. That’s as far as I go, sir.”
“Thank you, Major. You did the right thing. You really did. Now I suggest that you make written note of this call and its content.” Ritter hung up. The phone had been on speaker.
“Has to be Ryan,” the DCI agreed. “Now what do we do?”
“You tell me, Arthur.”
“How many more people are we going to kill, Bob?” Moore asked. His greatest fear now was of mirrors, looking into them and seeing something less than the image he wanted to be there.
“You do understand the consequences?”
“Fuck the consequences,” snorted the former chief judge of the Texas Court of Appeals.
Ritter nodded and punched a button on his phone. When he spoke, it was in his accustomed, decisive voice of command. “I need everything CAPER has developed in the last two days.” Another button. “I want chief of Station Panama to call me in thirty minutes. Tell him to clear decks for the day – he’s going to be busy.” Ritter replaced the phone receiver in its cradle. They’d have to wait for a few minutes, but it wasn’t the sort of occasion to wait in silence.
“Thank God,” Ritter said after a moment.
Moore smiled for the first time this day. “Me, too, Robert. Nice to be a man again, isn’t it?”
The security police brought him in at gunpoint, the man in the tan suit. He said his name was Luna, and the briefcase he carried had already been searched for weapons. Clark recognized him.
“What the hell are you doing here, Tony?”
“Who’s this?” Ryan asked.
“Station chief for Panama,” Clark answered. “Tony, I hope you have a very good reason.”
“I have a telex for Dr. Ryan from Judge Moore.”
“What?”
Clark took Luna’s arm and guided him into the office. He didn’t have much time. He and Larson were to take off within minutes.
“This better not be some fucking joke,” Clark announced.
“Hey, I’m delivering the mail, okay?” Luna said. “Now stop playing the macho game. I’m the spic here, remember?” He handed Jack the first sheet.
TOP SECRET-EYES ONLY DDI
IMPOSSIBLE TO REESTABLISH UPLINK TO SHOWBOAT TEAMS. TAKE WHATEVER ACTION YOU DEEM APPROPRIATE TO RETRIEVE ASSETS IN COUNTRY. TELL CLARK TO BE CAREFUL. THE ENCLOSED MIGHT BE OF HELP. C DOESN’T KNOW. GOOD LUCK. M/R.
“Nobody ever said they were stupid,” Jack breathed as he handed the sheet to Clark. The heading was meant as a separate message in and of itself, one that had nothing to do with distribution or security. “But does this mean what I think it does?”
“One less REMF to worry about. Make that two,” Clark observed. He started flipping through the faxes. “Holy shit!” He set the pile down on the desk and paced a bit, staring out of the windows at the aircraft sitting in the hangar. “Okay,” he said to himself. Clark had never been one to dally over making plans. He spoke to Ryan for several minutes. Then, to Larson: “Let’s move ass, kid. We got a job to do.”
“Spare radios?” Colonel Johns asked him as he left.
“Two spares, new batteries in all of ’em, and extra batteries,” Clark replied.
“Nice to work with somebody’s been around the block,” PJ said. “Check-six, Mr. Clark.”
“Always, Colonel Johns,” Clark said as he headed to the door. “See you in a few hours.”
The hangar doors opened. A small cart pulled the Beechcraft out into the sun, and the hangar doors closed. Ryan listened to the engines start up, and the sound diminished as the aircraft taxied away.
“What about us?” he asked Colonel Johns.
Captain Frances Montaigne came in. She looked as French as her ancestry, short, with raven-black hair. Not especially pretty, but Ryan’s first impression was that she was a handful in bed – which stopped his thought processes cold as he wondered why that had occurred to him. It seemed odder still that she was a command pilot in a special-ops outfit.