Patriot Games by Tom Clancy

“Did you know that the PIRA — well, Sinn Fein — has a delegation coming over day after tomorrow?”

“What for?”

“The thing in London hurt them in Boston and New York. They’ve denied involvement about a hundred times, and they have a bunch coming over for a couple of weeks to tell the local Irish communities in person.”

“Aw, crap!” Ryan snarled. “Why not keep the bastards out of the friggin’ country?”

“Not that easy. The people coming over aren’t on the Watch List. They’ve been here before. They’re clean, technically. We live in a free democracy. Jack. Remember what Oliver Wendell Holmes said: the Constitution was written for people of fundamentally differing views — or something like that. The short name is Freedom of Speech.”

Ryan had to smile. The outside view of the Central Intelligence Agency people was often one of bumbling fascists, threats to American freedom, corrupt but incompetent schemers, a cross between the Mafia and the Marx brothers. In fact, Ryan had found them to be politically moderate — more so than he was. If the truth ever got out, of course, the press would think it was a sinister ruse. Even he found it very odd.

“I hope somebody will keep an eye on them,” Jack observed.

“The FBI will have people in every bar, swilling their John Jameson and singing ‘The Men Behind the Wire.’ And keeping an eye on everything. The Bureau’s pretty good at that. They’ve just about ended the gun-running. The word’s gotten out on that — must be a half-dozen people who got sent up the river for sending guns and explosives over.”

“Fine. So now the bad guys use Kalashnikovs, or Armalites made in Singapore.”

“That,” Cantor said, “is not our responsibility.”

“Well, this here’s all that I was able to come up with, Marty. Unless there’s other data around, that’s all I can give you.” Jack tossed the report in Cantor’s lap.

“I’ll read this over and get back to you. Back to teaching history?”

“Yep.” Ryan stood and got his coat from the back of the chair. He paused. “What if something about these guys turns up in a different place?”

“This is the only compartment you can see. Jack –”

“I know that. What I’m asking is, the way this place is set up, how do you connect things from different compartments?”

“That’s why we have supervisory oversight teams, and computers,” Cantor answered. Not that the system always works . . .

“If anything new turns up –”

“It’s flagged,” Cantor said. “Both here and at the FBI. If we get any sort of twitch on these fellows, you’ll be warned the day we get it.”

“Fair enough.” Ryan made sure his pass was hanging in plain view before going out into the corridor. “Thanks — and please thank the Admiral for me. You guys didn’t have to do this. I wouldn’t feel this good if somebody else had told me what I saw for myself. I owe you.”

“You’ll be hearing from us,” Cantor promised him.

Ryan nodded and went out the door. He’d be hearing from them, all right. They’d make the offer again, and he’d turn it down again — with the greatest reluctance, of course. He’d gone out of his way to be humble and polite with Cantor. In truth, he thought his sixty-page report did a pretty good job of organizing what data they did have on the ULA. That squared matters. He didn’t really think he owed anybody.

Caroline Muller Ryan, MD, FACS, lived a very controlled and structured life. She liked it that way. In surgery she always worked with the same team of doctors, nurses, and technicians. They knew how she liked to work, how she liked her instruments arranged. Most surgeons had their peculiarities, and the ophthalmic specialists were unusually fastidious. Her team tolerated it because she was one of the best technical surgeons of her age group and also one of the easiest to like. She rarely had problems with her temper, and got along well with her nurses — something that female doctors often had trouble with. Her current problem was her pregnancy, which forced her to limit her exposure to certain operating-room chemicals. Her swelling abdomen was beginning to alter her stance at the table — actually eye surgeons usually sit, but the principle was the same. Cathy Ryan had to reach a little farther now, and joked about it constantly.

These traits carried over to her personal life also. She drove her Porsche with mechanistic precision, always shifting the gears at exactly the right RPM setting, taking corners on a line as regular as a Formula One driver’s. Doing things the same way every time wasn’t a rut for Cathy Ryan; it was perfection. She played the piano that way also. Sissy Jackson, who played and taught professionally, had once remarked that her playing was too perfect, lacking in soul. Cathy took that as a compliment. Surgeons don’t autograph their work; they do it the right way, every time.

Which was why she was annoyed with life at the moment. It was a minor annoyance having to take a slightly different route to work every day — in fact it was something of a challenge, since she gave herself the goal of not allowing it to affect her schedule. Driving to and from work never took more than fifty-seven minutes, nor less than forty-nine (unless she came in on a weekend, when different traffic rules applied). She always picked up Sally at exactly quarter to five. Taking new routes, mainly inside Baltimore, threatened to change this segment of her life, but there weren’t many driving problems that a Porsche 911 couldn’t solve.

Her route this day was down state Route 3, then across a secondary road. That brought her out onto Ritchie Highway, six miles above the Giant Steps Nursery School. She caught the light just right and took the turn in second gear, working quickly up to third, then fourth. The feline growl of the six-cylinder engine reached through the sound insulation as a gentle purr. Cathy Ryan loved her Porsche. She’d never driven anything else until after she was married — a station wagon was useful for shopping and family drives, unfortunately — and wondered what she’d do when her second child arrived. That, she sighed, would be a problem. It depended on where the sitter was, she decided. Or maybe she could finally convince Jack to get a nanny. Her husband was a little too working-class in that respect. He’d resisted the idea of hiring a part-time maid to help with the housework — that was all the more crazy since Cathy knew her husband tended to be something of a slob, slow to hang up his clothing. Getting the maid had changed that a little. Now, nights before the maid was due in, Jack scurried around picking things up so that she wouldn’t think the Ryans were a family of slovens. Jack could be so funny. Yes, she thought, we’ll get a nanny. After all, Jack’s a knight now. Cathy smiled at the traffic. Pushing him in the right direction wouldn’t be all that hard. Jack was very easy to manipulate. She changed lanes and darted past a dump truck in third gear. The Porsche made it so easy to accelerate around things.

She turned right into the Giant Steps parking lot two minutes later. The sports car bumped over the uneven driveway and she brought it to a stop in the usual spot. Cathy locked the car on getting out, of course. Her Porsche was six years old, but meticulously maintained. It had been her present to herself on getting through her intern year at Hopkins. There wasn’t a single scratch on the British Racing Green finish, and only a Hopkins parking sticker marred the gleaming chrome bumper.

“Mommy!” Sally met her at the door.

Cathy bent to pick her up. It was getting harder to bend over, and harder still to stand up with Sally around her neck. She hoped that their daughter would not feel threatened by the arrival of the baby. Some kids were, she knew, but she had already explained to the little girl what was going on, and Sally seemed to like the idea of a new brother or sister.

“So what did my big girl do today?” Dr. Ryan asked. Sally liked being called a Big Girl, and this was Cathy’s subterfuge for ensuring that sibling rivalry would be minimized by the arrival of a “little” boy or girl.

Sally wriggled free to drop back to the floor, and held up a finger painting done on what looked like wide-carriage computer paper. It was a credible abstract work of purple and orange. Together, mother and daughter went to the back and got her coat and lunch box. Cathy made sure that Sally’s coat was zipped and the hood up — it was only a few degrees above freezing outside, and they didn’t want Sally to get another cold. It took a total of five minutes from the time Cathy stopped the car until she was back out the door, walking toward it again.