Clear and present danger - Tom Clancy [336]
And that bastard Cutter sat right there in the front row as he said it, too, Ritter told himself. He found it especially sickening as he watched the honor guard from the 3rd Infantry Regiment fold the flag that had been draped over the casket. There was no one to hand it to. Ritter had expected it to go to -
But where was Ryan? He moved his head, trying to look around. He hadn't noticed before because Jack hadn't come from Langley with the rest of the CIA delegation. The flag went to Judge Moore by default. Hands were shaken, words exchanged. Yes, it really was a mercy that he'd gone so rapidly at the end. Yes, men like this didn't appear every day. Yes, this was the end of the Greer line, and that was too bad, wasn't it? No, I never met his son, but I heard… Ritter and Moore were in the Agency Cadillac ten minutes later, heading back up the George Washington Parkway.
"Where the hell was Ryan?" the DCI asked.
"I don't know. I figured he'd drive himself in."
Moore was not so much angered as upset by the impropriety. He still had the flag in his lap, holding it as gently as a newborn baby without knowing why - until he realized that if there really was a God, as the Baptist preachers of his youth had assured him, and if James had really had a soul, he held its best legacy in his hands. It felt warm to the touch, and though he knew that it was merely his imagination or at most the residual heat absorbed from the morning sun, the energy radiating from the flag that James had served from his teens seemed to accuse him of treachery. They had just watched a funeral this morning, but two thousand miles away there were other people whom the Agency had sent to do a job and who would not receive even the empty reward of a grave amidst others of their kind.
"Bob, what the hell have we done?" Moore asked. "How did we ever get into this?"
"I don't know, Arthur. I just don't know."
"James really was lucky," the Director of Central Intelligence murmured. "At least he went out -"
"With a clear conscience?" Ritter looked out the window, unable to bring himself to face his boss. "Look, Arthur -" He stopped, not knowing what to say next. Ritter had been with the Agency since the fifties, had worked as a case officer, a supervisor, station chief, then head of section at Langley. He had lost case officers, had lost agents, but he'd never betrayed them. There was a first time for everything, he told himself. It had just come home to him in a very immediate way, however, that for every man there was also a first time for death, and that to meet that final accounting improperly was the ultimate cowardice, the ultimate failure of life. But what else could they do?
It was a short drive to Langley, and the car stopped before that question could be answered. They rode the elevator up. Moore walked to his office. Ritter walked to his. The secretaries hadn't returned yet. They were in a van. Ritter paced around his office until they arrived, then walked over to see Mrs. Cummings.
"Did Ryan call in or anything?"
"No, and I didn't see him at all. Do you know where he is?" Nancy asked.
"Sorry, I don't." Ritter walked back and on impulse called Ryan's home, where all he got was an answering machine. He checked his card file for Cathy's work number and got past the secretary to her.
"This is Bob Ritter. I need to know where Jack is."
"I don't know," Dr. Caroline Ryan replied guardedly. "He told me yesterday that he had to go out of town. He didn't say where."
A chill went across Ritter's face. "Cathy, I have to know. This is very important - I can't tell you how important. Please trust me. I have to know