Clear and present danger - Tom Clancy [170]
"Tell Arthur to show him my old place up in Maine. He'll like the climate, and it ought to be easy to guard."
"I'll pass that along."
"How do you like being let in on all the Operations stuff?" James Greer asked.
"Well, what I've seen is interesting enough, but there's still 'need-to-know' to worry about."
"Says who?" the DDI asked in surprise.
"Says the Judge," Jack replied. "They have a couple of things poppin' that they don't want me in on."
"Oh, really?" Greer was quiet for a moment. "Jack, in case nobody ever told you, the Director, the Deputy Director - they still haven't refilled that slot, have they? - and the directorate chiefs are cleared for everything. You are now a chief of directorate. There isn't anything you aren't supposed to know. You have to know. You brief Congress."
Ryan waved it off. It wasn't important, really. "Well, maybe the Judge doesn't see things that way and -"
The DDI tried to sit up in bed. "Listen up, son. What you just said is bullshit! You have to know, and you tell Arthur I said so. That 'need-to-know' crap stops at the door to my office."
"Yes, sir. I'll take care of that." Ryan didn't want his boss to get upset. He was only an acting chief of directorate, after all, and he was accustomed to being cut out of operational matters which, for the past six years, he'd been quite content to leave to others. Jack wasn't ready to challenge the DCI on something like this. His responsibility for the Intelligence Directorate's output to Congress, of course, was something he would make noise over.
"I'm not kidding, Jack."
"Yes, sir." Ryan pointed to another folder. He'd fight that battle after he got back from Europe. "Now, this development in South Africa is especially interesting and I want your opinion…"
15. Deliverymen
CLARK WALKED OFF the United flight in San Diego and rented a car for the drive to the nearby naval base. It didn't take very long. He felt the usual pang of nostalgia when he saw the towering gray-blue hulls. He'd once been a part of this team, and though he'd been young and foolish then, he remembered it fondly as a time in which things were simpler.
USS Ranger was a busy place. Clark parked his car at the far end of the area used by the enlisted crewmen and walked toward the quay, dodging around the trucks, cranes, and other items of mobile hardware that cycled in and out from their numerous tasks. The carrier was preparing to sail in another eight hours, and her thousands of sailors were on-loading all manner of supplies. Her flight deck was empty save for a single old F-4 Phantom fighter which no longer had any engines and was used for training new members of the flight-deck crew. The carrier's air wing was scattered among three different naval air stations and would fly out after the carrier sailed. That fact spared the pilots of the wing from the tumult normal to a carrier's departure. Except for one.
Clark walked up to the officer's brow, guarded by a Marine corporal who had his name written down on his clipboard list of official visitors. The Marine checked off the line on his list and lifted the dock phone to make the call that was mandated by his instructions. Clark just kept going up the steps, entering the carrier at the hangar-deck level, then looking around for a way topside. Finding one's way around a carrier is not easy for the uninitiated, but if you kept going up you generally found the flight deck soon enough. This he did, heading for the forward starboard-side elevator. Standing there was an officer whose khaki collar bore the silver leaf of a Commander, USN. There was also a gold star over one shirt pocket that denoted command at sea. Clark was looking for the CO of a squadron of Grumman A-6E Intruder medium attack bombers.
"Your name Jensen?" he asked. He'd flown down early