Debt Of Honor by Clancy, Tom

The accused in this case awoke in his house on the grounds of the Naval

Observatory on Massachusetts Avenue, North West, to find his senior aides

downstairs and waiting for him.

“Oh, shit,” Ed Kealty observed. It was all he had to say. There was little

point in denying the story. His people knew him too well for that. He was a

man of an amorous nature, they all rationalized, a trait not uncommon in

public life, though he was fairly discreet about it.

“Lisa Beringer,” the Vice President breathed, reading. “Can’t they let

the poor girl rest in peace?” He remembered the shock of her death, the way

she’d died, slipping off her seat belt and driving into a bridge abutment at

ninety miles per hour, how the medical examiner had related the inefficiency

of the method. She’d taken several minutes to die, still alive and whimpering

when the paramedics had arrived. Such a sweet, nice kid. She just hadn’t

understood how things were. She’d wanted too much back from him. Maybe

she’d thought that it was different with her. Well, Kealty thought, everybody

thought they were different.

“He’s hanging you out to dry,” Realty’s senior aide observed. The im-

portant part of this, after all, was the political vulnerability of their principal.

“Sure as hell.” That son of a bitch, the Vice President thought. After all

the things I’ve done. “Okay-ideas?”

“Well, of course we deny everything, indignantly at that,” his chief of

staff began, handing over a sheet of paper. “I have a press release for start-

ers, then we will have a press conference before noon.” He’d already called

half a dozen former and current female staffers who would stand beside their

boss. In every case it was a woman whose bed he had graced with his pres-

ence, and who remembered the time with a smile. Great men had flaws, too.

In Edward Realty’s case, the flaws were more than balanced by his commit-

ment to the things that mattered.

Kealty read quickly down the page. The only defense against a completely

false accusation is the truth . . . there is no basis in fact whatever to these

accusations . . . my public record is well known, as is my support for

women’s and minority rights . . . I request (“demand” was the wrong word

to use, his personal counsel thought) an immediate airing of the allegations

and the opportunity to defend myself vigorously . . . clearly no coincidence

with the upcoming election year … regret that such a groundless accusation

will affect our great President, Roger Durling-

‘ ‘Get that son of a bitch on the phone right now!”

“Bad time for a confrontation, Mr. Vice President. You ‘fully expect his

support,’ remember?”

“Oh, yes, I do, don’t I?” That part of the release wouldn’t so much be a

warning shot across the bow as one aimed right at the bridge, Kealty

thought. Either Durling would support him or else risk political meltdown in

the primaries.

What else would happen this year? Though too late to catch the morning

papers in most of America-too late even for USA Today-the Kealty story

had been caught by the broadcast media as part of their own pre-show media

surveys. For many in the investment community, that meant National Public

Radio’s “Morning Edition” show, a good program to listen to during the

drives from New Jersey and Connecticut because of its repeating two-hour

length. “A copyrighted story in this morning’s Washington Post…” The

coverage on it began at the top of both hourly segments, with a preamble like

a warning bell to get the listener’s attention, and though political stories out

of Washington were about as common as the local weather report, “rape”

and “suicide” were words with unequivocal meaning.

“Shit,” a thousand or so voices breathed simultaneously in the same

number of expensive automobiles. What else is going to happen? The

volatility of the market had not ended yet, and something like this was sure

to exert the kind of downward pressure that never really made any economic

sense but was so real that everyone knew it would happen, and because of

that planned for it, and because of that made it even more real in what com-

puter engineers called a feedback loop. The market would drop again today.

It had trended down for eleven of the past fourteen days, and though the

Dow was replete with bargains by any technical measure, the little guys

would make their nervous sell orders, and the mutual funds, driven by calls

from more little guys, would do the same, adding institutional momentum to

a totally artificial situation. The entire system was called a true democracy,

but if it was, then a herd of nervous cattle was a democracy, loo.

“Okay, Arnie.” President Durling didn’t bother asking who hud leaked it.

He was a sufficiently sophisticated player in the game that he knew ii didn’t

matter. “What do we do?”

“I talked to Bob Holtzman,” Ryan told the Boss, prompted by a look

from the chief of staff.

“And?”

“And, I think he believed me. Hell, I was telling the truth, wasn’t I?” It

was a question rather than a rhetorical expression.

“Yes, you were, Jack. Ed’s going to have to handle this one himself,”

The relief on Ryan’s face was so obvious as to offend the Chief Executive.

“Did you think I was really going to do this?”

“Of course not,” Ryan answered at once.

“Who knows?

“On the airplane?” van Damni asked. “I’m sure Bob spread it around

some.”

“Well, let’s clobber it right now. Tish,” Durling said to his communica-

tions director, “let’s get a release put together. The Judiciary Committee’s

been briefed in, and I have not put any pressure on them at all.”

“What do we say about the delay?” Tish Brown asked.

“We decided jointly with the leadership that the matter deserved to

have-what?” The President looked up at the ceiling.’ ‘It deserved to have a

clear field…”

“Sufficiently serious-no, it is sufficiently important to deserve a Con-

gress undistracted by other considerations?” Ryan offered. Not bad, he

thought.

“I’ll make a politician out of you yet,” Durling said with a grudging

smile.

“You’re not going to say anything directly about the case,” van Damm

went on, giving the President advice in the form of an order.

“I know, I know. I can’t say anything on the facts of the matter because I

can’t allow myself to interfere with the proceedings or Realty’s defense, ex-

cept to say that any citizen is innocent until the facts demonstrate otherwise;

America is founded on… and all that stuff. Tish, write it up. I’ll deliver it on

the airplane before we land, and then maybe we can do what we’re supposed

to be doing. Anything else?” Durling asked.

“Secretary Hanson reports that everything is set up. No surprises,” Ryan

said, finally getting to his own briefing. “Secretary Fiedler has the mone-

tary-support agreement ready for initialing, too. On that end, sir, it’s going to

be a nice, smooth visit,”

“How reassuring that is,” the President observed dryly. “Okay, let me

get cleaned up.” Air Force One or not, traveling in such close proximity to

others was rarely comfortable. Presidential privacy was a tenuous commod-

ity under the best of circumstances, but at least in the White House you had

real walls between yourself and others. Not here. An Air Force sergeant

strained at his leash to lay out Durling’s clothing and shaving things. The

man had already spent two hours turning the Presidential shoes from black

leather into chrome, and it would have been ungracious to push the guy off.

People were so damned eager to show their loyalty. Except for the ones you

needed to, Durling thought as he entered the small washroom.

“We got more of ’em.”

Sanchez emerged from the head adjacent to CIC to see people gathered

around the central plotting table. There were now three groups of the dia-

mond shapes that denoted enemy surface ships. Charlotte, moreover, had

position on a “V” shape that meant an enemy submarine, andAsheville sup-

posedly had a good sniff also. Best of all, the joint patrol line of 8-3 Viking

ASW aircraft two hundred miles in advance of the battle group had identi-

fied what appeared to be a patrol line of other submarines. Two had been

caught snorting, one on SOSUS and one by sonobuoys, and, using a line

defined by those two positions, two others had been found. Now they even

had a predictable interval between boats for the aircraft to concentrate on.

“Sunset tomorrow?” the CAG asked.

“They like the rising sun, don’t they? Let’s catch ’em at dinner, then.”

“Fine with me.” Sanchez lifted the phone at his place to alert his wing

operations officer.

“Takes long enough,” Jones murmured.

‘ T seem to remember when you were able to stand watches for a real long

time,” Wally Chambers told the civilian.