Clear and present danger - Tom Clancy [337]
"I don't know. You mean you don't, either?" There was alarm in her voice.
Ryan knows, Ritter realized.
"Look, Cathy, I'll track him down. Don't worry or anything, okay?" The effort to calm her down was wasted, but Ritter hung up as soon as he could. The DDO walked to Judge Moore's office. The flag was centered on the DCI's desk, still folded into its triangular section, called a cocked-hat. Judge Arthur Moore, Director of Central Intelligence, was sitting quietly, staring at it.
"Jack's gone. His wife says she doesn't know where. He knows, Arthur. He knows and he's off doing something."
"How could he have found out?"
"How the hell should I know?" Ritter thought for a moment, then waved at his boss. "Come on."
They walked into Ryan's office. Ritter opened the panel for Jack's wall safe and dialed in the proper combination, and nothing happened other than the fact that the warning light went on over the dial.
"Damn," Ritter said. "I thought that was it."
"James's combination?"
"Yeah. You know how he was, never did like the damned things, and he probably…" Ritter looked around. He got it on the third try, pulling out the writing panel from the desk, and there it was.
"I thought I did dial the right one." He turned and tried again. This time the light was accompanied by the goddamned beeper. Ritter turned back and checked the number again. There was some more writing on the sheet. Ritter pulled the panel farther out.
"Oh, my God."
Moore nodded and walked to the door. "Nancy, tell security that it's us trying to work the safe. Looks like Jack changed the combination without telling us like he was supposed to." The DCI closed the door and turned back.
"He knows, Arthur."
"Maybe. How do we check it out?"
A minute later they were in Ritter's office. He'd shredded all of his documents, but not his memory. You didn't forget the name of someone with the Medal of Honor. Then it was just a matter of flipping open his AUTOVON phone directory and calling the 1st Special Operations Wing at Eglin AFB.
"I need to talk to Colonel Paul Johns," Ritter told the sergeant who'd picked up the phone.
"Colonel Johns is off TDY somewhere, sir. I don't know where."
"Who does?"
"The wing operations officer might, sir. This is a nonsecure line, sir," the sergeant reminded him.
"Give me his number." The sergeant did so, and Ritter's next call went out on, and to, a secure line.
"I need to find Colonel Johns," Ritter said after identifying himself.
"Sir, I have orders not to give that information out to anybody. That means nobody, sir."
"Major, if he's down in Panama again, I need to know it. His life may depend on it. Something is happening that he needs to know about."
"Sir, I have orders -"
"Stuff your orders, sonny. If you don't tell me, and that flight crew dies, it will be your fault! Now you make the call, Major, yes or no?"
The officer had never seen combat, and life-death decisions were theoretical matters to him - or had been until now.
"Sir, they're back where they were before. Same place, same crew. That's as far as I go, sir."
"Thank you, Major. You did the right thing. You really did. Now I suggest that you make written note of this call and its content." Ritter hung up. The phone had been on speaker.
"Has to be Ryan," the DCI agreed. "Now what do we do?"
"You tell me, Arthur."
"How many more people are we going to kill, Bob?" Moore asked. His greatest fear now was of mirrors, looking into them and seeing something less than the image he wanted to be there.
"You do understand the consequences?"
"Fuck the consequences," snorted the former chief judge of the Texas Court of Appeals.
Ritter nodded and punched a button on his phone. When he spoke, it was in his accustomed, decisive voice of command. "I need everything CAPER has developed in the last two days." Another button. "I want chief of Station Panama to call me in thirty minutes. Tell him to clear decks for the day - he's going to be busy." Ritter replaced the phone receiver in its cradle. They'd have to wait for a few minutes, but it wasn't