“Come on in,” he said, guiding them regally into the Oval Office. “What’s so important?”
“Mr. President, it has to do with some covert operations, especially one called SHOWBOAT.”
“What’s that?” the President asked, on guard. Ryan explained for a minute or so.
“Oh, that. Very well. SHOWBOAT was given to these two men personally by Judge Moore under his hazardous-operations rule.”
“Dr. Ryan tells us that there are some other things we need to know about also. Other operations related to SHOWBOAT,” Congressman Fellows said.
“I don’t know about any of that.”
“Yes, you do, Mr. President,” Ryan said quietly. “You authorized it. It is my duty under the law to report on these matters – to Congress. Before I do so, I felt it necessary to notify you. I asked the two congressmen here to witness my doing so.”
“Mr. Trent, Mr. Fellows, could you please excuse me for a moment? There are some things going on that I don’t know about. Will you allow me to question Dr. Ryan in private for a moment?”
Say no! Ryan wished as hard as he could, but one does not deny such requests to the President, and in a moment he and Ryan were alone.
“What are you hiding, Ryan?” the President asked. “I know you’re hiding some things.”
“Yes, sir, I am and I will. The identities of some of our people, CIA and military, who acted on what they thought was proper authority.” Ryan explained further, wondering what of it the President knew and what he didn’t. It was something he was sure he’d never fully know. Most of the really important secrets Cutter had taken to his grave. Ryan suspected what had happened there, but… but had decided to let that sleeping dog lie, too. Was it possible to be connected with something like this, he asked himself, and not be corrupted by it?
“What Cutter did, what you say he did – I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I’m especially sorry about those soldiers.”
“We got about half of them out, sir. I was there. That’s the part I cannot forgive. Cutter deliberately cut them off with the intention of giving you a political -”
“I never authorized that!” he almost screamed.
“You allowed it to happen, sir.” Ryan tried to look him straight in the eye, and on the moment of wavering, it was the President who looked away. “My God, sir, how could you do it?”
“The people want us to stop the flow of drugs.”
“Then do it, do just what you tried to do, but do it in accordance with the law.”
“It won’t work that way.”
“Why not?” Ryan asked. “Have the American people ever objected when we used force to protect our interests?”
“But what we had to do here could never be public.”
“In that case, sir, all you needed to do was make the appropriate notification of the Congress and do it covertly. You got partial approval for the operation, politics would not necessarily have come into play, but in breaking the rules, sir, you took a national-security issue and made it into a political one.”
“Ryan, you’re smart and clever and good at what you do, but you’re naive.”
Jack wasn’t that naive: “What are you asking me to do, sir?”
“How much does the Congress really need to know?”
“Are you asking me to lie for you, sir? You called me naive, Mr. President. I had a man die in my arms two days ago, a sergeant in the Air Force who left seven children behind. Tell me, sir, am I naive to let that weigh upon my thinking?”
“You can’t talk to me that way.”
“I take no pleasure in it, sir. But I will not lie for you.”
“But you are willing to conceal the identities of people who -”
“Who followed your orders in good faith. Yes, Mr. President, I am willing to do that.”
“What happens to the country, Jack?”
“I agree with you that we do not need another scandal, but that is a political question. On that, sir, you have to talk to the men outside. My function is to provide information for the government, and to perform certain tasks for the government. I am an instrument of policy. So were those people who died for their country, sir, and they had a right to expect that their lives would be given greater value by the government they served. They were people, Mr. President, young kids for the most part who went off to do a job because their country – you, sir – thought it important that they do so. What they didn’t know was that there were enemies in Washington. They never suspected that, and that’s why most of them died. Sir, the oath our people take when they put the uniform on requires them to bear ‘true faith and allegiance’ to their country. Isn’t it written down somewhere that the country owes them the same thing? It’s not the first time this has happened, but I wasn’t part of it before, and I will not lie about it, sir, not to protect you or anyone else.”
“I didn’t know that, Jack. Honestly, I didn’t know.”
“Mr. President, I choose to believe that you are an honorable man. What you just said, sir, is that really an excuse?” Jack paused, and was fully answered by silence.
“Do you wish to meet with the congressmen before I brief them, sir?”
“Yes. Why don’t you wait outside for us.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.”
Jack waited for an hour of discomfort before Trent and Fellows reappeared. They drove with him to Langley in silence, and the three walked into the office of the Director of Central Intelligence.
“Judge,” Trent said, “that may have been the greatest service you have ever done your country.”
“Under the circumstances -” Moore paused. “What else could I have done?”
“You could have left them to die, you could have warned the opposition that we were coming in,” Jack said. “In that case I wouldn’t be here. And for that, Judge, I am in your debt. You could have stuck with the lie.”
“And live with myself?” Moore smiled in a very strange way and shook his head.
“And the operations?” Ryan asked. Exactly what had been discussed in the Oval Office he didn’t know, and he told himself not to make any guesses.
“Never happened,” Fellows said. “Under the hazardous-operations rule, you have done what you needed to do – granted, a little late, but we have been notified. We don’t need another scandal like this, and with the way things are going, the situation will settle itself. Politically it’s shaky, but legally you can argue that it’s all according to Hoyle.”
“The craziest part of all is, it almost worked,” Trent observed. “Your CAPER operation was brilliant, and I assume it’ll be kept going.”
“It will. The whole operation did work,” Ritter said for the first time. “It really did. We did start a war within the Cartel, and Escobedo’s killing was just the last act – or maybe not if it goes on further. With that many chieftains gone, maybe Colombia will be able to do a little better. We need that capability. We can’t have it stripped away from us.”
“I agree,” Ryan said. “We need the capability, but you don’t make public policy this way, damn it!”
“Jack, tell me what right and wrong is?” Moore asked. “You seem to be the expert today,” he added without very much irony.
“This is supposed to be a democracy. We let the people know something, or at least we let them know.” He waved at the congressmen. “When a government decides to kill people who threaten its interests or its citizens, it doesn’t have to be murder. Not always. I’m just not sure where the line is. But I don’t have to be sure. Other people are supposed to tell us that.”
“Well, come January, it won’t be us,” Moore observed. “It’s agreed, then? It stays here. No political footballs?”
Trent and Fellows could scarcely have been further apart politically, the gay New Englander and the tough-minded Mormon from Arizona. They nodded agreement.
“No games on this,” Trent said.
“It would just hurt the country,” Fellows concurred.
“And what we’ve just done…” Ryan murmured. Whatever the hell it was…
“You didn’t do it,” Trent said. “The rest of us did.”
“Right,” Jack snorted. “Well, I’m gone soon, too.”
“Think so?” Fellows asked.
“Not so, Dr. Ryan. We don’t know who Fowler is going to appoint, probably some political lawyer he likes. I know the names on the list,” Trent said.
“It sure as hell won’t be me. He doesn’t like me,” Ryan said.
“He doesn’t have to like you, and you’re not going to be Director. But you will be here,” Trent told him. Deputy Director, maybe, the congressman thought to himself.
“We’ll see.” Fellows said. “What if things turn out differently in November? Fowler may just screw it up yet.”