Clear and present danger - Tom Clancy [365]
"Who are you?"
"Your regular briefing officer was taken ill, sir. I have the duty today," the man said. Forties, looked like one tough old field officer.
"Okay, come on." Cutter waved him into the study. The man sat down, glad to see that the Admiral had a TV and VCR in here.
"Okay, where do we start today?" Cutter asked after the door was closed.
"Gitmo, sir," the man said.
"What's happening in Cuba?"
"Actually, I have it on videotape, sir." The field officer inserted it in the unit and punched "play."
"What is this… ?" Jesus Christ! The tape played on for several minutes before the CIA officer stopped it.
"So what? That's the word of a traitor to his own country," Cutter said to answer the man's expectant smile.
"There's this, too." He held up a photograph of the two of them. "Personally, I'd love to see you in federal prison. That's what the FBI wants. They're going to arrest you later today. You can imagine the charges. Assistant Deputy Director Murray is running the case. He's probably meeting with a U.S. Magistrate right now - whatever the mechanics are. Personally I don't care about that."
"Then why -?"
"I'm a bit of a movie buff. Used to be in the Navy, too. In the movies at times like this, they always give a guy a chance to handle things himself - 'for the good of the service,' they usually say. I wouldn't try running away. There's a team of FBI agents watching you, in case you haven't noticed. Given the way things work in this town - how long things take to get done - I don't suppose you'll be meeting them until ten or eleven. If you do, Admiral, then God help you. You'll get life. I only wish they could do something worse, but you'll get life in a federal pen, with some career hood sticking it up that tight little ass of yours when the guards aren't around. I wouldn't mind seeing that either. Anyway." He retrieved the videotape, tucking it in the briefcase along with the photograph that the Bureau really shouldn't have given him - and they'd told Ryan that he'd only use it to identify Cortez. "Good day, sir."
"But you've -"
"Done what? Nobody swore me to secrecy over this. What secrets have I revealed, Admiral? You were there for all of them."
"You're Clark, aren't you?"
"Excuse me? Who?" he said on his way out. Then he was gone.
Half an hour later, Pat O'Day saw Cutter jogging down the hill toward the George Washington Parkway. One nice thing about having the President out of town, the inspector thought, was that he didn't have to shake out of the rack at 4:30 to meet the bastard. He'd been here only forty minutes, spending a lot of time with his stretching exercises, and there he was. O'Day let him pass, then moved out, keeping up easily since the man was quite a bit older. But that wasn't all…
O'Day followed him for a mile, then two, approaching the Pentagon. Cutter followed the jogging path between the road and the river. Perhaps he didn't feel well. He alternately jogged and walked. Maybe he's trying to see if he has a tail, O'Day thought, but… Then he started moving again.
Just opposite the beginning of the northern parking lot, Cutter got off the path, heading toward the road as though to cross it. The inspector had now closed to within fifty yards. Something was wrong. He didn't know what. It was…
… the way he was looking at the traffic. He wasn't looking for openings, O'Day realized too late. A bus was coming north, a B.C. transit bus, it had just come off the 14th Street Bridge and -
"Look out!" But the man wasn't listening for that sort of warning.
Brakes screeched. The bus tried to avoid the man, slamming into another car, then five more added their mass to the pileup. O'Day approached only because he was a cop, and cops are expected to do such things. Vice Admiral James A. Cutter, Jr., USN, was still in the road,