“Okay, how does this affect America? CIA doesn’t kill people—ever. At least not since the 1950s. Eisenhower was very skillful at using CIA. He was, in fact, so brilliant at exercising power that people never knew anything was happening and thought him a dullard because he didn’t do the old war dance in front of cameras. More to the point, it was a different world back then. World War Two was recent history, and the idea of killing a lot of people—even innocent civilians—was a familiar one, mainly from the bombing campaigns,” Hendley clarified. “It was just a cost of doing business.”
“And Castro?”
“That was President John Kennedy and his brother Robert. They had a hard-on for doing Castro. Most people think it was embarrassment over the Bay of Pigs fiasco. I personally think it might have come more from reading too many James Bond novels. There was a glamour in murdering people back then. Today we call it sociopathy,” Hendley noted sourly. “Problem was, first, that it’s a lot more fun to read about than actually to do it, and, second, it’s not an easy thing to accomplish without highly trained and highly motivated personnel. Well, I guess they found out. Then, when it became public, somehow the involvement of the Kennedy family was glossed over, and CIA paid the price for doing—badly—what the sitting President had told them to do. President Ford’s Executive Order put an end to it all. And so, CIA doesn’t deliberately kill people anymore.”
“What about John Clark?” Jack asked, remembering the look in that guy’s eyes.
“He’s an aberration of sorts. Yes, he has killed people more than once, but he was always careful enough to do it only when it was tactically necessary at the moment. Langley does allow people to defend themselves in the field, and he had a gift for making it tactically necessary. I’ve met Clark a couple of times. Mainly, I know him by reputation. But he’s an aberration. Now that he’s retired, maybe he’ll write a book. But even if he does, it’ll never have the full story in it. Clark plays by the rules, like your dad. Sometimes he bends those rules, but to my knowledge he’s never once broken them well, not as a federal employee,” Hendley corrected himself. He and the elder Jack Ryan had once had a long talk about John Clark, and they were the only two people in all the world who knew the whole story.
“Once I told Dad that I wouldn’t want to be on Clark’s bad side.”
Hendley smiled. “That’s true enough, but you could also trust John Clark with the lives of your children. When we met last, you asked me a question about Clark. I can answer now: If he were younger, he’d be here,” Hendley said revealingly.
“You just told me something,” Jack said at once.
“I know. Can you live with it?”
“Killing people?”
“I didn’t say that, exactly, did I?”
Jack Jr. put his coffee cup down. “Now I know why Dad says you’re smart.”
“Can you live with the fact that your father has taken a few lives in his time?”
“I know about that. Happened the night I was born. It’s practically a family legend. The newsies made a lot of it while Dad was President. They kept bringing it up like it was leprosy or something. Except there’s a cure for leprosy.”
“I know. In a movie it’s downright cool, but in real life people get the heebie-jeebies about it. The problem with the real world is that sometimes—not often, but sometimes—it’s necessary to do that sort of thing, as your father discovered . . . on more than one occasion, Jack. He never flinched. I think he even had bad dreams about it. But when he had to do it, he did it. That’s why you’re alive. That’s why a lot of other people are alive.”
“I know about the submarine thing. That’s pretty much in the open, but—”
“More than just that. Your father never went out looking for trouble, but when it found him—as I said, he did what was necessary.”
“I sorta remember when the people who attacked Mom and Dad—the night I was born, that is—were executed. I asked Mom about it. She’s not real big on executing people, you see. In that case, she didn’t mind very much. She was uncomfortable with it, but I suppose you’d say she saw the logic of the situation. Dad—you know, he didn’t really like it either, but he didn’t cry any tears over it.”
“Your father had a gun to that guy’s—the leader, I mean—his head, but he didn’t squeeze off the round. It wasn’t necessary, and so he held back. Had I been in his position, well, I don’t know. It was a hard call, but your father made the right choice when he had ample reason not to.”
“That’s what Mr. Clark said. I asked him about it once. He said the cops were right there, so why bother? But I never really believed him. That’s one hard-case mother. I asked Mike Brennan, too. He said it was impressive for a civilian to hold off. But he would not have killed the guy. Training, I guess.”
“I’m not sure about Clark. He’s not really a murderer. He doesn’t kill people for fun or for money. Maybe he would have spared the guy’s life. But no, a trained cop is not supposed to do anything like that. What do you think you would have done?”
“You can’t know until you’re there,” Jack answered. “I thought it through once or twice. I decided Dad handled it okay.”
Hendley nodded. “You’re right. He handled the other part right, too. The guy in the boat he drilled in the head, he had to do it to survive, and when you have that choice, there’s only one way to go.”
“So, Hendley Associates does what, exactly?”
“We gather and act upon intelligence information.”
“But you’re not part of the government,” Jack objected.
“Technically, no, we’re not. We do things that have to be done, when the agencies of the government are unable to handle them.”
“How often does that happen?”
“Not very,” Hendley replied offhandedly. “But that may change—or it might not. Hard to tell right now”
“How many times—”
“You do not need to know,” Hendley replied, with raised eyebrows.
“Okay. What does Dad know about this place?”
“He’s the guy who persuaded me to set it up.”
“Oh . . .” And just that fast it was all clear. Hendley had kissed off his political career in order to serve his country in a way that would never be recognized, never be rewarded. Damn. Did his own father have the stones to try this one? “And if you get into trouble somehow . . . ?”
“In a safety-deposit box belonging to my personal attorney are a hundred presidential pardons, covering any and all illegal acts that might have been committed between the dates that my secretary will fill in when she types up the blanks, and signed by your father, a week before he left office.”
“Is that legal?”
“It’s legal enough,” Hendley replied. “Your dad’s Attorney General, Pat Martin, said it would pass muster, though it would be pure dynamite if it ever became public.”
“Dynamite, hell, it would be a nuke on Capitol Hill,” Jack thought aloud. It was, in fact, something of an understatement.
“That’s why we’re careful here. I cannot encourage my people to do things that might end them up in prison.”
“Just lose their credit rating forever.”
“You have your father’s sense of humor, I see.”
“Well, sir, he is my dad, you know? Comes along with the blue eyes and black hair.”
The academic records said that he had the brains. Hendley could see that he had the same inquisitive nature, and the ability to sort the wheat from the chaff. Did he have his father’s guts . . . ? Better never to have to find out. But even his best people couldn’t predict the future, except in currency fluctuations—and on that they cheated. That was the one illegal thing he could get prosecuted for, but, no, that would never happen, would it?
“Okay, time for you to meet Rick Bell. He and Jerry Rounds do the analysis here.”
“Have I met them before?”
“Nope. Neither has your father. That’s one of the problems with the intelligence community. It’s gotten too damned big. Too many people—the organizations are always tripping over themselves. If you have the best hundred people in pro football on the same team, the team will self-destruct from internal dissension. Every man was born with an ego, and they’re like the proverbial long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Nobody objects too much because the government isn’t supposed to function too efficiently. It would scare people if it did. That’s why we’re here. Come on. Jerry’s office is right down the hall.”